Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Moses is repeating the ten commandments to a new generation at the edge of the promised land. He starts where God started: God names Himself first, and the commands follow.
The commandment does not stand alone. God first names Himself as the One who brought Israel out of Egypt. That order carries the whole meaning.
It was on this very ground that, long ago, God sought to be known as God by the Jews. He claimed to be worshipped by them as the one only God, because He had shown Himself their Redeemer. "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me." In this act He had made Himself known as God, full of grace and power for captive sinners. If we do not know Him in this way, we do not know Him as He truly is. Any thought about God that clashes with this is only the work of a darkened creature's mind, busy with its own idolatry.
That sequence settles what obedience is for. It is never the price of rescue.
The ways of God are very precious. God must be true to Himself. He did not command obedience so that they might be redeemed, but because they were redeemed.
The phrase is not about ranking God highest in a list. Adding a second god does not leave the first in place.
The first commandment is absolutely basic, "You shall have no other gods before Me" (v.7). The moment another god is brought in, whatever people say about it, it is not merely added as an object alongside God. It is always put before God. Some may claim it is only meant as a reminder of God. But this is Satan's deception, for such things will always give a wrong idea of God.
Most of the ten commandments tell people what not to do. That shape is not accidental. It diagnoses the people who received it.
But God presented it here mostly in a way that exposed the condition of man. It came not in positive commands but in negative ones. That is a most humbling proof of man's state. He loved sin so well that God had to forbid it. In the greater part of the ten commandments, in short, it was not "You shall," but "You shall not." That is, it was a prohibition of man's will. He was a sinner, and nothing else.
Israel broke this command soon after receiving it. Their own jewellery became the calf they called their god.
From these earrings Aaron made a metal calf, finishing it with an engraving tool (vv. 2-4). He announced to them that this was their god who brought them out of the land of Egypt! Can we imagine such brazen folly as this? There is a serious lesson here. Our idols, whatever they are, take their character from what decorates or pampers the flesh — the golden earrings. Ears are for hearing, but Israel was not hearing the first commandment God had given them, "You shall have no other gods before Me."
Jesus displayed in full what the command asked for. One writer applies the command to Him and points to His own words.
We may apply each of the first four commandments to Him... "You shall have no other gods before Me." Every act of the lowly Man showed this. God's thought in that command showed itself in Him; God filled all His thoughts... Here was One who could say with all the energy of His holy soul, "The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance."
The commandment reaches far past carved images. The test is not the shape of the object but the grip it has.
You do not need to bow down to a block of wood or a stone to be an idolater. Whatever commands the heart is an idol. Giving the heart to that thing is idolatry, and the one who gives it is an idolater... Take that one great, crying, universal sin of "covetousness." What does the inspired apostle call it? He calls it "idolatry." How many hearts are commanded by money!
- Rescue first. God calls Himself the Redeemer who brought Israel out of slavery before He asks for anything. Obedience follows rescue. It never buys it.
- Then exclusivity. A second god is never added beside the true One — it always pushes in front of Him and twists our idea of God.
- The form accuses. "You shall not" is a prohibition of man's will, and its very wording shows what the people already were.
- Israel proved it. Israel shaped the calf from the gold they wore; idols still take their shape from whatever pampers us.
- Christ fulfilled it. God was in all His thoughts, and He alone answered the command that exposes every other heart.
Thou shalt not make thyself any graven image, any form of what is in the heavens above, or what is in the earth beneath, or what is in the waters under the earth
This is the second of the ten commandments. It rules out carved images and any likeness of anything above, below, or in the water. Two questions sit under it. Why would God rule out every image of Himself? And does a command about statues reach people who own none?
The verse names three places — heaven, earth, and the water. Together they leave nothing out. The command puts every power a person might picture, seen or unseen, off limits.
Second, they were not to make any image or material representation of any unseen power. God is "in heaven above," and anything claiming to be an image of Him is forbidden. There are many other powers, both invisible and visible, and they were to make no representations of these either. All the idols of the nations are strictly forbidden.
This is also the commandment most easily lost from view. One writer challenges those who drop it from the list and split the tenth in two:
But you have left out the second and divided the tenth. That second one says, "You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath." And you have made carved images and set them up in all your churches, in your streets and roads, wherever you can.
The ban rests on what Israel experienced. They heard a voice and saw no form.
Here lies the solid ground of the appeal against idolatry. They saw nothing. God did not show Himself to them. He did not take any bodily shape from which they might form an image. He gave them His word, His holy commandments, so plain that a child could understand them... So there was no need for them to imagine what God was like. This was the very sin they were so faithfully warned against. They were called to hear God's voice, not to see His shape — to obey His commandments, not to make an image of Him. Superstition tries in vain to honour God by making and worshipping an image. Faith, on the contrary, lovingly receives and reverently obeys His holy commandments.
So why is picturing God so wrong? Look at where the picture has to come from.
Any image of Him that man invents can only come from man's imagination. So it challenges the One who can be known only by revelation, and who otherwise cannot be found out. It is impossible for man's thoughts to get beyond himself. So the image of God he devises can only be a reflection of himself in some way; but this is the debasing of God to man's own likeness.
Why does God take this so personally? And what does it cost the next generation?
The second commandment is tied to the first. It forbids making images of any created thing, whether in heaven or earth or in the waters (v.8). Bowing down to such things or worshipping them is an insult to God. Israel did this in the case of the golden calf (Ex. 32:1-8), but God is rightly jealous of His own glory... It is always true that our children will suffer because of our disobedience to God. This does not touch the question of eternal salvation. Any one of the children may still call on the Lord and be saved. But their parents' wrongdoing will still mark their lives on earth.
Can someone who owns no statue still break this command? The danger is closer than it looks.
Idolatry takes various shapes. So it is not a question of the shape of the thing, but of the thing itself; not the outward form, but the root or principle of it. We read that "covetousness is idolatry," and that a covetous man is an idolater. That is, a man who wants more than God has given him is an idolater. He is guilty of the very sin Israel committed when they made the golden calf and worshipped it... Whatever commands the heart is the heart's idol, whatever it may be — money, pleasure, power or anything else.
The command shuts out every image man could make. So how can anyone know what God is like?
God is jealous over His glory and will not give it to another. That only underlines that the Son is one with the Father. All the images man might make can only provoke Him to jealousy. But here is "the image of the invisible God." He is jealous for His Son, "that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father."
- Nothing. Israel saw no form of God, only heard His voice, so there was nothing to copy — every image must be invented.
- Yourself. An invented image can only reflect its maker, so it drags God down to man's likeness.
- Everything. Heaven, earth and water cover all creation, so the ban is total. It is also the commandment most easily dropped from the list.
- Anything. Whatever rules the heart is its idol, so wanting more than God has given counts as idolatry.
- Christ. God is jealous for His Son, and in Him we see the invisible God. Hear His word instead of picturing His shape.
thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them; for I, Jehovah thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons, and upon the third and upon the fourth [generation] of them that hate me,
God has just claimed Israel's worship for Himself alone. He backs that claim with a name He gives Himself and a warning that runs down the family line. Two questions follow. What does God mean when He calls Himself jealous? And how can it be right for children to feel the weight of what their fathers did?
In people, jealousy sounds like a fault. Commentators tie God's jealousy to His love and to His worth.
He is jealous because He cannot allow any rival to have a place in the hearts of those He loves. He must have the whole heart, because He alone is worthy of it, and He alone can fill and satisfy it forever.
Another writer sets this beside the love the New Testament reveals, and beside a line from the Song of Solomon.
Do you not see, love takes the form of jealousy if there is the smallest rival to it? In Old Testament times, the nearest thing to the Christian revelation of love is this: God is a jealous God. You remember Solomon's Song says that love is as strong as death. Do you know what follows? It is that jealousy is as cruel as the grave.
These words close the command about carved images. One commentator points back to the golden calf Israel once made and worshiped.
Bowing down to such things or worshiping them is an insult to God. Israel did this with the golden calf (Ex. 32:1-8). But God is rightly jealous of His own glory. If the fathers are guilty of such iniquity, God will visit the results of this on the children to the third and fourth generation (v. 9).
Many read this verse as if it settled a child's eternal fate. Writers answer that it describes how God governs the world now.
God is here indicating how He deals with men on earth in His holy government. When it is a question of His judgment for eternity, God will deal with the dead "according to what they had done" (Rev. 20:12-13). There is no thought of a child bearing the sin of his father.
You can watch the same principle at work in ordinary life.
What we get in Exodus 34 is not sovereign grace bringing a soul to eternal life. It is governmental power, and we may see it at work every day around us. If a man wastes his fortune, or ruins his health by intemperance of any kind, his children suffer for it. This is an invariable principle.
The reach stops at this life, so the door stays open to the child. Leslie M. Grant writes on this verse that "any one of the children may still call on the Lord and be saved, but their lives on earth will be affected by their parents' wrongdoing."
The verse does not stop at "the third and fourth generation." A short clause follows: "of those who hate me." One writer calls it the guard against every misreading.
He has Himself assured us that He visits "the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation." But then comes a clause that is badly needed, guarding what would otherwise be misread: "of those who hate Me." Elsewhere the Lord rejects, in the strongest terms, the proverb Israel had taken up from just such a misreading: "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge" (Ezek. 18). He not only says it, He swears it: the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, and the father shall not bear the iniquity of the son. And the repentance of anyone will turn his doom aside.
Much of the offence people take at this verse comes from repeating it wrongly.
These words have often stirred up painful and even rebellious thoughts in people who have never been taught, mainly because almost everyone misquotes them. Books and speakers in general say that the Lord visits "the sins" of the fathers on the children. That is not what the Word of God says.
The commandment names carved objects. Writers apply it to what the heart builds inside.
And still this image of jealousy is what threatens us all. It stands, you could say, right at the entrance when we would come near to God Himself. And it need not be a visible or open image to do this. What a warning there is for us here! We are trying to have a god shaped by our own thoughts, and such a god always stands against the true God. So "covetousness," the apostle tells us, "is idolatry"; and we know this can be found in people who are correct on every other point.
- Cause — love. God is jealous because He loves. Jealousy is what love becomes the moment a rival appears. He is worthy of the whole heart.
- Claim — worship. The warning follows the command about images. Bowing to a thing we have made insults the God who has already claimed His people.
- Scope — earth. The visiting of iniquity belongs to God's government of this life. It is not His judgment for eternity, where God deals with each person according to what he has done.
- Limit — "those who hate me." The clause guards the verse. God swears the son shall not bear the father's iniquity, and repentance turns the doom aside.
- Reach — today. The image need not be visible. A god shaped by our own thoughts, or covetousness, sets up the rival the commandment forbids.