at least among those that have survived to the present day.”8 Indeed, the taunting question of the nations in Psalm 115, “Where is your God?” may well reflect the surprise of visitors to the temple in Jerusalem when they found no image of Yahweh there. The Israelites had their answer: “Our God is in heaven. Where’s yours?” (Ps 115:2–8). What, then, is the motivation or theological explanation behind this insistence that Israel’s worship was to be without images of their deity—something that radically