Well thank you for this considered reply. My understanding of idolatry is nothing but a work in progress, but I do seem to understand that God is contemplated in the Bible through an embodied form. “And they saw the God of Israel,” says Exodus 24:10. (cf. Exod 24:9–11; 33:17,23; 1 Kgs 22:19; Amos 9:1; Isa 6:1; Ezek 1:26–28; Dan 7:9). I’ve spent some time reading The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel, though not enough.

I did a mini-study on God having wings in six Psalms (17:8; 36:8; 57:2; 61:5; 63:8; 91:4). This might be thought to correlate to depictions of God as mother birds (cf. Exod 19:4; Deut 32:10–12; cf. Matt 23:37).

But for the most part God is assigned human qualities, and in NT theology of course Jesus is the human embodiment of God. A special focus of idolatrous worship is animal imagery, and avoiding at least some kind of “loathsome” animal worship is an important theme. It’s all rather complex.