Images
The ban on carved images beside the commanded cherubim (and the bronze serpent of Numbers 21, destroyed in 2 Kings 18:4) — the exegesis of iconoclasm and icon veneration.
Exodus 20:4-6
4“You shall not make for yourselves an idol, nor any image of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
5you shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them, for I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and on the fourth generation of those who hate me,
6and showing loving kindness to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
Exodus 25:18-22
18You shall make two cherubim of hammered gold. You shall make them at the two ends of the mercy seat.
19Make one cherub at the one end, and one cherub at the other end. You shall make the cherubim on its two ends of one piece with the mercy seat.
20The cherubim shall spread out their wings upward, covering the mercy seat with their wings, with their faces toward one another. The faces of the cherubim shall be toward the mercy seat.
21You shall put the mercy seat on top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the covenant that I will give you.
22There I will meet with you, and I will tell you from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are on the ark of the covenant, all that I command you for the children of Israel.
What each tradition says
Rabbinic / Midrashic
Rashi says this statement prohibits the Cherubim that are to stand with God from being made of silver. If they are altered by being made of silver instead of gold, they will be regarded by God as idols.
Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki, 1040-1105), Pentateuch with Rashi's Commentary (trans. M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silbermann, 1929-1934; Sefaria text) — comment on Exodus 20:20 (Heb. versification; Exod. 20:23 in English Bibles), 'gods of silver'
Patristic
Tertullian holds that the golden Cherubim and Seraphim were purely an ornament in the figured fashion of the ark, adapted to ornamentation for reasons totally remote from any condition of idolatry. Because they are not in that form of similitude to which the prohibition refers, they are not at variance with the law prohibiting the making of a likeness.
Tertullian (c. 155-c. 220), The Five Books against Marcion, Book II (trans. Peter Holmes), in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 3 (ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson; Buffalo: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1885) — Book II, ch. 22 ('The Brazen Serpent and the Golden Cherubim Were Not Violations of the Second Commandment')
Catholic
According to The Catholic Encyclopedia, the commandment was never understood as an absolute, universal prohibition of any kind of image, except for one late period. Throughout the Old Testament there are instances of representations of living things, not worshipped but used lawfully, even ordered by the law as ornaments of the tabernacle and temple.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. 'Veneration of Images' (unsigned article), The Catholic Encyclopedia (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907-1913; New Advent text) — section 'Images in the Old Testament'
Orthodox
John of Damascus asks whether the Cherubim that overshadow the mercy seat are not the work of men's hands. He likewise asks whether the celebrated temple at Jerusalem is not hand-made and fashioned by the skill of men.
John of Damascus (c. 675-749), An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith (trans. S. D. F. Salmond), in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, ser. 2, vol. 9 (ed. Philip Schaff; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1898) — Book IV, ch. 16 ('Concerning Images')
Reformed / Protestant
Calvin argues that the cherubim belonged to the old tutelage of the law. It is therefore absurd, he says, to cite them as an example for our age, since that period of puerility, to which such rudiments were adapted, has passed away.
John Calvin (1509-1564), Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book I, ch. 11 (trans. Henry Beveridge; Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1845; CCEL text) — Book I, ch. 11, §3
Evangelical
Matthew Henry reads Exodus 20:4-5 as forbidding worship of even the true God by images. The Jews, at least after the captivity, took the commandment to forbid making any image or picture at all. Henry says it certainly forbids making any image of God or any creature for religious use.
Matthew Henry (1662-1714), An Exposition of the Old and New Testament, vol. 1 (1706; CCEL's 'Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible') — comment on Exodus 20:4-5