The Old Testament speaks of God’s "mighty outstretched arm", of his "anger", of his "pleasure", or of his taking an oath" or even "changing his mind."

The Jews had an intimate relationship with their God. Yahweh made a "covenant" with the Jews. He had no temple till Solomon built one. The Jews kept the Tabernacle in tents. They had open-air sanctuaries also in which they kept one or two sacred stones in which the local god was supposed to inhabit. Yahweh "dwelt" among them. As simple as that!

Moses Maimonides, the Jewish medieval philosopher (1134-1204) says that these human terms were used for the sake of simple people. Perhaps. But the Old Testament never once spoke of a god without form.

Milan Kundera, the Czech writer, says that the Lord was shown in the Illustrated Old Testament as an old man, with eyes, nose, mouth and a long beard, standing on a cloud. That is how the Jews pictured their God. No wonder, they said: God made man in his own image.

But to go back to the history of idols. Abraham, was a maker of idols. Ezekiel accuses Israelis of worshipping animals (an Egyptian legacy). Yahweh was worshipped as a bull. Moses himself made a brazen serpent, to which sacrifices were made till Ezekiel destroyed it. In ancient Israel, images were kissed, clothed and consulted.

Moses was the first prophet to object to idols. Perhaps his objection was to human sacrifice — the tradition of pouring blood on the idols. In the 7th century BC, idol making, even those of animals and birds, was prohibited among Jews. So, when Herod set up a golden eagle above the door of the temple sanctuary, there was an uproar. In 66 AD the Jewish insurgents destroyed the palace of Herod Antipes at Tiberias because it was decorated with sculptures of animals.

So, the objection was not to the making of idols of God only, but to the making of all idols. This is something different. The distinction has been lost on most people. The Jews became so intolerant of all idols that they called them "abominations". Perhaps it is this intolerance that Islam inherited. But the Arabs tolerated idols for 1300 years after they were banned by the Jews!

How is one to explain this obsessional hatred among the Jews to the making of idols? We have one good explanation. It is a macabre story, perhaps the most gruesome. According to Mme. Blavatsky, idol making for the purpose of sorcery was so rampant among the people of the region that idols created terror. Remember, when Rachel ran away from her father’s home, she took away the idol (terraphim) of her father Labaan with her, for she feared that it might "disclose" her whereabouts to her father. This shows the fear exercised by idols among the Jews.

On the making of a terraphim, this is what an authority had to say" "They killed a newborn baby, cut off its head and placed under its tongue a little gold lamine in which the name of an evil spirit was perforated. Thereafter, suspending that head on the wall of their chamber, they lighted lamps before it, and prostrating before it on the ground, they conversed with it."

Is there any wonder then that this practice came to be an "abomination", a terror among the people? A speaking head! Hence the hatred against all idols among Jews. But this practice is not shared by either the Arabs or the Europeans. It was unique to the Jews only. Which is why the Roman Catholic church took to idols, why the Orthodox Church took to icons, why the Greeks did not give up sculpting in which they were the masters and why, even after 1300 years, the Arabs were still making idols when the Prophet of Islam had them destroyed.

Today, the Jews express their understanding of God through verbal imagery. It is anthropomorphic. They still see God in human terms. But it is time they corrected their error. It was an error to ask men not to make idols and images. As we have seen, it is the most natural thing to do.