"I am יְהוָ֣ה your God,
who brought you out of the land of Egypt,
out of the house of bondage.
You shall have no other gods before Me."
~Exodus 20:2-3
Virtually no gods of the ancient world were exclusive. They were in fact part of a pantheon, a Mount Olympus of sorts full of gods. Deities had families, they had power struggles within those families. Very often the fathers of the gods got sidelined for their promising new children, as happened to the Mesopotamian god Anu and the Hittite god Ouranos. The primordial pre-Moses Hebrew deity El may have indeed been their version of Anu and Ouranos, or at least absorbed some part of that role. And before Moses and indeed after as recorded in the Tanakh, most Israelites consorted with lots of other gods despite the prohibitions against it in the Torah.
Many scholars believe that Judaism was not originally monotheistic but monolatristic: that it was not so much that other gods didn't exist as they were forbidden to the Israelites who owed a unique debt to יְהוָ֣ה. Regardless, pretty early on at least among the priests of יְהוָ֣ה in Jerusalem, it was not so much believed that other gods are just forbidden so much as they are unreal, only wood and stone, unliving. Not potent. Not real gods at all. The punishment in the Torah for idolatry was no slap on the wrist: banishment or death.
Nevertheless it is clear that a "culture war" waged in Jewish lands between this strict interpretation and other much looser interpretations until at least the late 6th Century b.c. and quite possibly much later than that. If you look at the books of 1st and 2nd Kings, the majority of the kings of Israel and Judah were pagan-friendly to varying degrees and sometimes far more loyal to foreign gods than their own. As early as Solomon, from the time the first Temple was built, pagan idols cohabited in it. Solomon himself, son of David, was no stranger to foreign gods.
Great reformers such as the prophet Elijah and King Josiah of Judah very often had to pave the road of their reforms with buckets of blood and gore, because the common people were clearly fond of these other gods and actually not at all loyal to the Lord and wouldn't be short of blood and fire. The belief in the Lord seems as if it could have been easily extinguished altogether. Rulers like Ahab and Jezebel certainly tried. Indeed it seems an act of divine intervention that the Torah and the worship of יְהוָ֣ה continued to be preserved at all.
All of the above is by way of explaining that the religion of the Torah and Tanakh is an extreme religion. It is not user-friendly, people didn't like it. From the instant that the Israelites entered the promised land they totally blew the G-d of Moses off and did their own thing. As I mentioned, the majority of the kings of Israel and Judah were pagan-friendly so while Moses might have put the death sentence on idolatry, it wasn't often carried out. Indeed few of the commandments in the Torah were carried out. The monotheism of Moses is severe, it is strict. G-d's way or the highway, if by the highway you mean death. It was unpopular even among the Jews. Why should such a severe religion ever catch on at all?
At the very beginning of Exodus 20, G-d places His claim to respect. He, uniquely, acted to save them. The Canaanite gods of wood and stone didn't save them. The Egyptian gods sure as hell didn't save them. So G-d's claim to be respected is mentioned up front: G-d frees. G-d saves. G-d parted the Red Sea and destroyed Pharaoh's armies. Try getting your wooden idols to do that.
What is more, He offered something revolutionary to them. He didn't merely free them from one captivity so that they could create some other decadent human kingdom of their own. He tried to free them from captivity to their fellow human beings altogether. Initially no human king was envisioned for Israel, G-d Himself would be their king. Keep the Commandments: then you would not need a king. Of course they didn't, but that was the plan. A nation governed by divine law, not men. The Lord G-d of Israel was utterly unlike any pagan deity, He was revolutionary and unexpected. He freed them and then gave them a plan to keep them free. Being human, of course they fell far short of that.
And of course, the problem with pagan deities and polytheism is, it's all so vague and indeterminate. Why should you believe in Thor rather than Brahma or Asherah or Molech or Odin or Zeus? Why would you believe any of them existed rather than something else? It's all rather wishy washy. Whether you believe or pay attention to one versus another comes down to pure superstition or the traditions of your ancestors.
In contrast, the G-d of Abraham inserts some clarity in the situation:
1. He is One (there is only one real G-d, all others are figments or demons or other things that should not properly be called gods.)
2. He is indefinable and transcendent (there is no arguing over whether your god has one eye or two or a pointed hat rather than a round one.)
3. His instructions are pretty clear and precise and not open to a lot of human invention (although of course humans have interpreted and reinterpreted and misinterpreted everything since it was written, but that's because that is what humans do.)
4. No other gods are G-d.
5. He is active and supporting (you will have much more well-being in your life because of His involvement in it.)
6. He strongly dislikes human innovation in religion. It's what He says, and He has been saying the exact same thing for 3000+ years.
So just on a super basic level, polytheism doesn't make a lot of sense. Monotheism does.
**************************************************
Still, I don't think I am capturing with my words the importance of that second part: no gods but G-d. No gods before Him. In order to understand it, we have to bring in that unpopular concept from the second Commandment: G-d is jealous. G-d is impassioned. G-d cares. Why?
The worship of other gods is inherently idolatry, because you are either worshiping a created being (in the sense that gods were often considered celestial objects or heavenly entities) or a thing that is not a thing at all. Or you are cutting out the middlemen of pagan idols and worshiping carnal things directly. And what does that idolatry bring? The celebration of our basest nature. Food becomes our god, sex becomes our god, money becomes our god, fame becomes our god, drugs become our god. These are the gods that humans will choose, more often than not. Indeed the Calvinists believe that on our own we cannot choose otherwise, that every act of turning towards G-d is an act of divine intervention.
This was not the purpose for which we were created. Idolatry is the subversion of the spiritual man in favor of the carnal man. G-d's intention was for the harmony of Man's spiritual and earthly nature. We were intended, in fact, to be the intersection where heaven and Earth join harmoniously. Earthly overseers and divine children both. G-d cares because he has definite intentions towards us. He has a plan. He intends it to be carried out. None of your wishy washy modern religion here,
He is a jealous G-d.
Why did that plan fail? Because it some sense it clearly did. Does G-d plan things that fail? Well for starters, in the long run it won't fail. But G-d wished for us to be free to choose, He is treating us like free beings not serfs, and so all paths good and evil are open to us. Evil brings curses and death, goodness and love of יְהוָ֣ה leads to health and life, but it is yours to choose. You are free. In the end, G-d will sift the wheat from the tares and those who are approved by Him will live in the Kingdom.
*************************************
Ultimately, I cannot tell you what is in my heart and mind when I read Exodus 20:2-3 so I cannot explain this commandment to you. My desire to explain this commandment to you must fail. I can tell you of the history of religion and the history of the Jewish people. You can read the Torah any time you like, but I don't know if that will open anything to you. While I don't admire the Muslim prophet Muhammad and don't believe he even was a prophet, I do admire the Muslim purity on one topic: there is no G-d but G-d. There was always ever only one G-d and he opened His ways unto Moses on Mt. Sinai and He alone is G-d and there is no other.
The Eternal our LORD was never a man and could never die, on a cross or otherwise. To suggest otherwise is blasphemy. I understand, there's a lot of it around, but it still is.
If you want to meet Him, crack open a Bible (or better yet a Tanakh) and dig in, and pray that He opens your eyes. There is reading enough and wisdom enough to last you a lifetime.
When I first started studying the Old Testament in earnest, honestly it offended me. It will offend you too. It will offend the sin in you. Like most of us, I was so immersed in modernity and our relativistic ways that I could not see it truly, I only saw atrocities and religious hard-asses stoning people. It will require a revolution in your sensibilities and your understanding of the world. It did for me.
שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל 'הוה אֱלֹהֵינוּ 'הוה אֶחָֽד׃
Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad
Hear, O Israel: the Lord your G-d, the Lord is One.
~Deuteronomy 6:4
No comments:
Post a Comment