Is that how it is treated though? Even today? How many people bow down to a cross?
What about moses and the copper snake? Which was later torn down when they were once again purging pagan worship?
And maybe they weren't bowing down to the ark, but was it not an item of worship???
8 Then Jehovah said to Moses: “Make a replica of a poisonous* snake and put it on a pole. Then when anyone has been bitten, he will have to look at it in order to keep alive.”9 Moses at once made a serpent of copper and put it on the pole, and whenever a serpent had bitten a man and he looked at the copper serpent, he survived
later on
4 He was the one who removed the high places,+ smashed the sacred pillars, and cut down the sacred pole. He also crushed the copper serpent that Moses had made;+ for down to that time the people of Israel had been making sacrificial smoke to it and it used to be called the copper serpent-idol.
Its an interesting thing when we talk about context or even interpretation. Our minds adapt to make the reality that exists in our mind (ie; blue dress, white dress). Reality is pieced together in our mind. Colors don't exist except how our brains interpret light reflecting off our world around us and the colors are plugged in, in our mind to make what we see as reality. There are many more examples with speech, hearing, site, and so on that our mind bridges gaps and adapts to give us our reality.
When I read Duet 5:8, 9... I see it saying don't make a carved image *period*. also don't bow down to one. Another person will see them run together. Don't make a carved image to bow down too.
A super intelligent God, would never give us the dribble of the bible that needs to be interpreted and so easily misunderstood because he would know how our minds constantly fill in gaps to give us a reality our mind is already looking for. He would have to know how we work and understand that if you give the world a bible you are going to have millions (hyperbole) different denominations.
