An idol
Reading a lexicon entry
What this page is: Each lexicon entry shows the original Hebrew or Greek word behind the English translation: its meaning, its range of use, and where it appears in Scripture.
Strong's number: The Strong's code (H- or G-) is the standard reference number for this word. It connects this entry to chapter and passage language tabs.
Where it appears: The witness passages show where this word is used in context. Click any to open the study page for that passage.
This lexicon entry is part of our ongoing editorial review. If you notice missing content, unclear wording, or a possible correction, please send us a note through theConnect page. Screenshots are helpful.
פֶּסֶל (pesel) is a carved image fashioned for cultic use or treated as an idol. Exodus 20:4 and Deuteronomy 5:8 prohibit making such an image within commands against having other gods and bowing down to or serving the object.
Reader summary
Full entry for פֶּסֶל (H6459) · Open the biblical lexicon
פֶּסֶל (pesel) is a carved image fashioned for cultic use or treated as an idol. Exodus 20:4 and Deuteronomy 5:8 prohibit making such an image within commands against having other gods and bowing down to or serving the object.
The BSB source-word alignment has 31 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include an idol (8), the graven image (3), a graven image (2), by his idols (2), idols (2).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Exodus 20:4. Its strongest book concentrations include Isaiah (9), Judges (8), Deuteronomy (5), Jeremiah (2).
פֶּסֶל (pesel) is a carved image fashioned for cultic use or treated as an idol. Exodus 20:4 and Deuteronomy 5:8 prohibit making such an image within commands against having other gods and bowing down to or serving the object. Leviticus 26:1 and Deuteronomy 27:15 likewise join the fashioned image with worship and covenant betrayal. The noun is not a general term for every picture, sculpture, or act of skilled craftsmanship.
Judges 17-18 shows a carved image embedded in compromised household and tribal worship. Micah commissions it, the Danites seize it, and it remains in their sanctuary. Second Kings 21:7 and Second Chronicles 33:7 place Manasseh's image in the temple, violating the worship ordered there. These narratives show how religious vocabulary, clergy, sacred space, and confidence can coexist with idolatry; familiar spiritual forms do not make an object or practice faithful.
Isaiah 40 and 44 expose the dependence of an idol on human materials and makers. Isaiah 45:20 contrasts carrying a wooden image with knowing the God who saves, and Habakkuk 2:18 asks what profit comes from trusting a speechless creation. The critique targets worship, trust, and false representation. Contemporary applications to money, power, nation, technology, or self-image are analogies about misplaced trust, not lexical meanings of pesel.
Pesel consistently belongs to the field of fashioned cult images. Torah prohibits their manufacture and worship, narratives show their corrupting placement in Israel, and prophets expose their manufactured dependence and inability to save or speak truth.
The covenant command prohibits a carved image in the context of rival worship, bowing down, and service.
Israel is warned not to corrupt itself by fashioning an image after a visible form.
A secret carved or cast image is cursed as an artisan-made abomination.
Silver is fashioned into a carved and cast image within Micah's unauthorized shrine.
The Danites set up the carved image alongside an unauthorized priestly line.
Manasseh places the carved Asherah image in the temple, contradicting its covenant purpose.
The prophet asks who fashions a god or casts an image that cannot profit.
Those carrying a wooden image and praying to a god that cannot save are summoned to recognize their ignorance.
Trust in a fashioned image is exposed as confidence in a mute teacher of lies.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Hebrew word. A carved image shaped by human hands, emphasizing idolatry's dependence on visible, tangible craftsmanship rather than invisible divine presence
A carved image shaped by human hands, emphasizing idolatry's dependence on visible, tangible craftsmanship rather than invisible divine presence
an idol BDB: idol Usage: carved (graven) image.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 4 selected witnesses from 30 lexical occurrence verses.
פֶּסֶל is built from this root:
The smashing of the pesel dramatizes the impotence of idols and affirms that only the Lord is worthy of worship.Isaiah 41:1-7
Contrasts lifeless craftsmanship with the living God.Isaiah 42:10-17
Represents misplaced trust that leads to shame.Isaiah 44:9-20
Represents human-made objects wrongly given divine honor.Micah 1:6-9
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Pesel exposes worship of what human beings manufacture and then treat as ultimate. The Torah locates the issue in rival allegiance and service, not in artistic skill itself. Judges warns that private spirituality, religious office, and sacred vocabulary can normalize disobedience. Isaiah asks the devastating practical questions: who made the object, what material sustains it, who carries it, and can it speak or save?
Teaching can apply that pattern to created powers that receive ultimate trust, but it should name the move as analogy. It must not weaponize the command against all art, cultural difference, or another person's possessions. A wise application asks what claims our obedience, whose image we are trying to control, which system depends on us while promising to save us, and how repentance restores worship to the living God.
Exod.20.4
H6459 names a carved image in an idolatrous or cultic setting. Its relation to carving explains the manufacture, while surrounding verbs of bowing, serving, setting up, carrying, and trusting establish the offense.
The New Testament condemns idol worship and also describes greed and other disordered allegiances as idolatrous. Those developments support careful analogy but do not make every attachment a direct occurrence of H6459.