*do not bow down before images* means *do not bow down before images*.
There’s just not much way of getting around it.
Bowing down before an image is a direct violation of specific and clear commands of God.
If that is true then God violated his own law. You can’t wiggle that statement. Which we know did not happen. How do explain that people bowed down before the statues of the angels on the ark and they got away with it from God. Something does not make sense here with that statement.