Tafsiran Ulangan 7:25: Tze'enah Ure'enah, Chizkuni, Ramban & Ibn Ezra

“You shall consign the images of the gods to the fire” [7:25]. Our sages said in tractate Avodah Zarah. When there still are foreign gods, they must be burned, and one should have no benefit from them. However, when the gentile has decommissioned them as foreign gods, then they are permitted to an Israelite. Therefore, one sometimes buys silver crosses, since the gentile has decommissioned them.⁵B. Avodah Zarah, 52a.

תשרפון באש, “you are to burn them by fire.” When the Israelites, after seeing the golden calf, addressed it with the words: “these are your deities (pl) Israel!” all types of idolatries were included in that declaration, and there is a rule that the only way an idolatry practiced by a Jew can be nullified is by destroying the idol by burning it. (Compare Talmud tractate Menachot folio 53) The only other way is to reduce it to dust and throw the dust to the winds.

THOU SHALT NOT COVET THE SILVER OR THE GOLD ON THEM. The verse omits the word asher (which), [and the meaning is]: thou shalt not covet the silver or the gold which is on them, these being the ornaments of the idols. Thus he first commanded to burn the idol itself, this [being expressed in the statement] The graven images of their gods shall ye burn,⁵⁴In Verse 25 before us. and then he also prohibited the ornaments that are upon them. He further warned, And thou shalt not bring an abomination into thy house, lest thou be a doomed thing like it⁵⁵Verse 26. in order to prohibit benefit derived from any aspect of idol-worship — the idol itself, its appurtenances, its offerings, and its ornaments.