Exodus 20:4 prohibits making any graven image or likeness of anything, whereas Exodus 25:18 and Numbers 21:8 feature explicit divine commands to construct golden cherubim and a bronze serpent. Traditional harmonization distinguishes idolatrous cult objects from symbolic, divinely sanctioned religious art; conversely, critical scholarship views it as a structural tension between absolute iconoclastic codes and archaic Israelite cultic practices.