Since they saw nothing of the God who liberated them and whom they now were commanded to worship, anything they contrived to represent Him would be a boldfaced lie. No one else has seen God in His glory either, so absolutely no one can even begin to catch even the essence of a true representation of Him. Nothing could even come close to a resemblance. Any representation by anyone throughout history is a lie. Do we want to worship a lie?
Even in the Holy of Holies there was no representation of God, and the altar was of simple turf or unhewn stones (Exodus 20:22-26). A meaningful lesson exists in this: From God's perspective, because man always infuses human nature into the objects of his worship, he always tends to ruin whatever he touches in his relationship with God. This is not good because the worshipper can rise no higher than the god he worships.
