Considering that the OT is full of instances of graven images and statues commanded by God Himself, I think it’s rather obvious that the prohibition on graven images is related to worship and not simply a ban on pictures and statues.
And in those passages, usually the cherubum and seraphim are the primary ones referenced, no one is bowing before them or praying to them or relying upon them for salvation as seen in Roman Catholicism and their idols of Mary.
Even the bronze serpent was destroyed because the people began to worship the thing (2 Kings 18:4).