First off, Catholics do NOT worship statues. These 'images' are no different than the photographs of your wife, husband, children, parents, etc. that you carry in your wallet. They are a constant reminder of the presence of God in our lives.
But, since you raised the topic, you may have forgotten about the many passages where the Lord commands the making of statues. For example: "And you shall make two cherubim of gold [i.e., two gold statues of angels]; of hammered work shall you make them, on the two ends of the mercy seat. Make one cherub on the one end, and one cherub on the other end; of one piece of the mercy seat shall you make the cherubim on its two ends. The cherubim shall spread out their wings above, overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings, their faces one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubim be" (Ex. 25:18–20).
David gave Solomon the plan "for the altar of incense made of refined gold, and its weight; also his plan for the golden chariot of the cherubim that spread their wings and covered the ark of the covenant of the Lord. All this he made clear by the writing of the hand of the Lord concerning it all, all the work to be done according to the plan" (1 Chr. 28:18–19). David’s plan for the temple, which the biblical author tells us was "by the writing of the hand of the Lord concerning it all," included statues of angels.
Similarly Ezekiel 41:17–18 describes graven (carved) images in the idealized temple he was shown in a vision, for he writes, "On the walls round about in the inner room and [on] the nave were carved likenesses of cherubim."
In fact, during a plague of serpents sent to punish the Israelites during the exodus, God told Moses to "make [a statue of] a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and every one who is bitten, when he sees it shall live. So Moses made a bronze serpent, and set it on a pole; and if a serpent bit any man, he would look at the bronze serpent and live" (Num. 21:8–9).
One had to look at the bronze statue of the serpent to be healed, which shows that statues could be used ritually, not merely as religious decorations.
Catholics use statues, paintings, and other artistic devices to recall the person or thing depicted. Just as it helps to remember one’s mother by looking at her photograph, so it helps to recall the example of the saints by looking at pictures of them. Catholics also use statues as teaching tools. In the early Church they were especially useful for the instruction of the illiterate. Many Protestants have pictures of Jesus and other Bible pictures in Sunday school for teaching children. Catholics also use statues to commemorate certain people and events, much as Protestant churches have three-dimensional nativity scenes at Christmas.
If one measured Protestants by the same rule, then by using these "graven" images, they would be practicing the "idolatry" of which they accuse Catholics. But there’s no idolatry going on in these situations. God forbids the worship of images as gods, but he doesn’t ban the making of images. If he had, religious movies, videos, photographs, paintings, and all similar things would be banned. But, as the case of the bronze serpent shows, God does not even forbid the ritual use of religious images.
It is when people begin to adore a statue as a god that the Lord becomes angry. Thus when people did start to worship the bronze serpent as a snake-god (whom they named "Nehushtan"), the righteous king Hezekiah had it destroyed (2 Kgs. 18:4).
Thank you, NYer! This is exactly the answer I had hoped for!
Please forgive me, but I am so very tired of Catholics invoking the Jewish Ritual in order to justify the use of images in chr*stianity. According to those same Catholics the Temple was superseded by the chr*stian church (which I absolutely reject) and its rebuilding would be highly displeasing to G-d (remember the stories about the fire consuming the people in the days of Julian the Apostate when they allegedly tried to rebuild it?). Liturgical chr*stians use the Jewish rituals (prescribed in the Torah) to justify chr*stian rituals derived from paganism, while insisting that the Biblical Jewish rituals would now be sinful. They use Biblical Jewish holidays to justify pagan-derived chr*stian holidays while condemning the observance of Jewish holidays by chr*stians. They use tefillin (prescribed in the Torah) to justify rosary beads while the use of tefillin by a chr*stian now would be "denying J*sus." In short, the Torah is used to justify what is not in it, and what is in it is considered prohibited under "the new dispensation."
The truth of chr*stianity or the chr*stian interpretation of the TaNa"KH are not at all self-evident, despite what chr*stians think.
PS: The liturgical honores given Nechushtan were identical to those given to statues, icons, and other "holy objects" by chr*stians for the past two thousand years, but Judaism could not tolerate even this. And it is very insulting to hear "Jewish idolatry" condemned by a religion that justifies the exact same practices for other images. The brazen serpent was made by Moses at the explicit command of G-d. If liturgical honors (latria?) were forbidden to it then I don't see how you can justify the same acts by chr*stians other than the blanket statement "the old testament is no longer in force."