And God spoke all these words, saying,
One line opens the Ten Commandments and settles everything that follows: these words are God's own, and He spoke them Himself. Who spoke them, how He spoke, and what kind of words they are shape the whole chapter.
God's law came to Israel as speech before it came in stone. One writer traces the stages and notes who these words were for:
This law covenant is now stated. It was given three times. First by word of mouth here, when God spoke all these words. Then in Exodus 31 Moses received the tables of stone, "written with the finger of God." It was the same finger that later wrote in the sand (John 8). The first tables were broken. The Lord told Moses to cut two more, and on them He again wrote the Ten Commandments (Ex. 34:1). God gave this law to Israel alone, as the opening word shows. The voice of God spoke these words so that the people heard Him speak.
God is the speaker. That one fact answers a whole class of objections:
This controls the entire subject. If God has spoken, it would be blasphemy to think He had spoken imperfectly. It would be blasphemy to think He left His words mixed with error, for the skill of man to sift out. Has He spoken so that He cannot be understood? So this great fact of divine authorship completely settles a vast mass of questions which unbelief alone could raise. "God spoke all these words."
God had carried Israel to Himself on eagles' wings. Then, at the mountain, the way He came to them changed:
This was a very marked change. The One who had just said, "I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself," now wraps Himself "in a thick cloud" and says, "set limits for the people all around." The sweet accents of grace and mercy give way to the "thunders and lightnings" of the fiery mount.
Another writer draws out what this arrangement made of the law itself:
In fact they undertook obedience far from God, in a state in which they could not approach Him in that majesty to which obedience was due. Nevertheless God gave all possible solemnity to the communication of His law... Terror, and the condition of obedience when the people are far from God — such is the character of the law.
These words grow out of what God had already done for Israel, and they fall into two halves:
The commandments are ten in number. They rest on — or rather flow out of — the relationship God had entered into with His people in redemption: "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery." Look at the commandments together and you will see that the first four relate to God, and the last six to man. That is, they define responsibility towards God and towards man. So our blessed Lord summed them up: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind... You shall love your neighbor as yourself." (Matt. 22:37-39)
Notice how the commandments are worded:
But here it came mostly in a form that betrayed the condition of man: not positive commands but negative ones. That was 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.
God spoke these words, but they do not show us all that is in Him:
The law has sometimes been called "the transcript of the mind of God." This definition is entirely defective. If we were to call it a transcript of the mind of God as to what man ought to be, we should be nearer the truth. Suppose I take the ten commandments as the transcript of the mind of God. Then I ask: is there nothing in the mind of God except "you shall" and "you shall not"? Is there no grace? No mercy? ... If I want to see what God is, I must look at Christ; for in Him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily. (Col. 2:9) "For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." (John 1:17)
The commandments proved something about man. They were never the source of life:
Man is a sinner, and the law was given to make a full demonstration of it... We should grasp clearly that this law cannot give righteousness or life... We are not under that law but under grace. But grace teaches us to live righteously, soberly and godly in this present evil age.
- Voice — God spoke these words aloud before He wrote any of them. Israel heard the Speaker, not just the message.
- Authority — the words are God's own, so they cannot be imperfect, unclear, or something for man to sift and correct.
- Distance — He spoke from a thick cloud and set limits around the mountain, so the law reached a people held far off.
- Mirror — mostly "you shall not," the words show what man ought to be and prove what he is: a sinner.
- Christ — the ten words give the measure of man. To see what God is, look at Christ, in whom grace and truth came — and grace teaches us how to live.
I am Jehovah thy God, who have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
God's first word at Sinai is not a command but a name and a rescue: He tells Israel who He is and what He has already brought them out of. That one sentence sets the terms for everything the Ten Commandments go on to say.
The verse stands as a heading over the commandments that follow — and God put it there.
More than that, God has stamped the character of redemption on the law itself in an unmistakable way. "I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery," is His preface to the ten commandments. In fact, only to a redeemed people could He give a law at all.
The order matters: rescue first, then requirement.
The ways of God are very precious; God must be true to Himself. God did not command obedience so that they might be redeemed, but because they were redeemed.
Because God names Himself as their God, the ten commands are not a set of rules dropped on strangers.
There are ten commandments. They are based on — or rather they flow out of — the relationship God had entered into with His people in redemption. Look at the commandments together and you will see that the first four relate to God and the last six to man. That is, they define responsibility towards God and towards man.
Egypt was a house of slavery to Israel, but not to the Egyptians.
The land of Egypt is described in Ex. 20:2 and Deut. 4:6 as a house of slavery. The Egyptians may not have experienced it as such, but the people in whom God was working for blessing found it to be such. The mercy of God brought them out of it. The Exodus was for them an entire change of condition. Instead of Egypt and slavery, God brought them to Himself as His redeemed people.
The next verse forbids rival gods. The reason is the rescue named here.
He claimed their worship as the one and 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 action He had made Himself known as God, full of grace and power for captive sinners. If we do not know Him as such, we do not know Him rightly. ... The true God is the One who reveals Himself in redeeming grace and power. So to know God is to know myself a sinner saved by grace.
The wording also fixes who the law was for. Only one people had come out of Egypt.
God gave it to Israel only — the one nation He dealt with in a special way, and the nation in which He was testing man in the flesh. The heading of the ten commandments is "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery." This could apply only to the Israelites.
One writer separates what grace had already done from what the law then required:
Before God gives the ten commandments, He makes it abundantly clear that Israel's obedience to law had nothing to do with God's previous grace toward them in delivering them from the slavery of Egypt, just as today obedience to law has no part in the salvation of souls out of the slavery of sin. Yet Israel must not regard these laws as merely abstract principles, but laws of "the Lord your God," indicating another relationship to God on the basis of their obedience. Solemn consideration!
What this verse was to Israel has a counterpart for those redeemed by Christ.
We are His: if Israel was brought out of Egypt, the iron furnace, we are the subjects of a more wonderful and spiritual redemption. For Israel, this was the first argument of the law; for us, it is what above all speaks of His title to us.
- Rescue first. God stamps the character of redemption on the law itself. He names His deliverance before He gives one command.
- Gift, then claim. Obedience was not the price of redemption. It was the answer to it: God commanded it because He had already redeemed them.
- Relationship, then rules. The ten commandments flow out of the relationship God entered into with Israel: four define duty towards God, six towards other people.
- One Rescuer, no rivals. He claims worship as the only God because He has shown Himself the Redeemer of captives.
- One nation, one echo. The heading fit only those brought out of Egypt. Yet a greater redemption makes the same argument now: we are His.
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
God's first word from Sinai is not a rule about behaviour but a claim on allegiance. It follows straight after He names Himself as the One who brought Israel out of Egypt, and it asks who holds first place in a heart.
The order matters: God announces the rescue before He makes any demand.
Before God gives the ten commandments, He makes it clear that Israel's obedience to law had nothing to do with God's earlier grace toward them in delivering them from the bondage of Egypt. It is the same today: obedience to law has no part in the salvation of souls out from the bondage of sin.
This first word is God asserting what belongs to Him by two titles — He made them, and He rescued them.
In the first three commandments God demanded that His rights as Creator, and their Redeemer from bondage, should be respected. He alone is God, so they were in the first place to recognize no other "god."
One short sentence answers two questions at once.
The first commandment plainly affirms the unity of God: it also affirms His exclusive sovereignty.
People often argue that an image is only a help, a reminder of the true God. One writer refuses that defence.
The first commandment is absolutely basic, "You shall have no other gods before Me." For as soon as another god is introduced, whatever people say about it, it is not merely added as an object alongside of God, but it is always put before God. Some may claim it is only intended as a reminder of God, but this is Satan's deception, for such things will always give a wrong conception of God.
The wording itself leaves no room to negotiate.
The language of these laws is absolute and allows no argument. It is "You shall" or "you shall not." It makes no room for exceptions. First, no other god may take God's place.
Israel had just left a country crowded with gods, and the command struck at the whole system.
The first commandment struck at the root of idolatry… Egypt had many "other gods": likenesses of things in heaven above, in the earth beneath, and in the waters under the earth, the Sun and the Moon, Osiris and Isis. People also worshipped animals out of superstition — the ox, the dog, the cat, the hawk, the crocodile and others. They did not stop at animals. They even treated the vegetables in their gardens as gods.
The break came quickly, and one writer sees the same pattern repeating ever since.
The people of Israel, awe-struck by the majesty of God, had heard the solemn words, "You shall have no other gods before Me." They had answered, "All the words that the LORD has spoken we will do." Yet only a few days later they turn aside out of the way and make gods for themselves. Does this surprise us? Is it not too true a picture of those who pass as the people of God in every age?
An idol need not be carved. The test is what occupies the heart's affection.
An idol is not always an actual image worshipped in place of the true God. It is anything we let come between the soul and God as an object of the heart's affections. So even to believers the Apostle can write, "Little children, keep yourselves from idols." … It has been said that an innocent man had no object; he simply had to enjoy God's goodness. A fallen man has many objects which separate the heart from God. But the new man has one Object: "For to me to live is Christ."
One writer turns the command on his reader, and names money as the rival.
People have never chased money more widely in the Christian world than now. How is it with your own soul?… A divided heart is a disloyal one. No one can serve two masters.
Israel failed here. One writer sees the command answered in Christ's own life.
"You shall have no other gods before Me." Every act of the lowly Man showed this. He displayed God's thought in that command; God was in all His thoughts.
- Rescue first. God introduces Himself as the Deliverer before He asks anything. The command rests on grace already given, not on obedience that earns it.
- Rights first. As Creator and Redeemer He claims first place. The command affirms that God is one and that His rule is exclusive.
- Place first. A second god is never just added beside Him. Whatever comes in takes the place before Him, and calling it a "reminder" only misrepresents Him.
- Heart first. An idol may have no statue. Anything that comes between the soul and God — money most often — has already taken the place He claims.
- Christ first. Israel broke the command within days. Christ kept it, and God filled all His thoughts.