Exodus 20.2 == Deuteronomy 5.6.
| 20.2=5.6 אנכי יהוה אלהיך | I am Yahweh your God, |
|---|---|
| אשר הוצאתיך מארץ מצרים | who carries you out from Egypt’s land, |
| מבית עבדים׃ | from the slaves’ house. |
Moshe ben Maimon of Spain (also known as the Rambam or Moses Maimonides) wrote the Sefer Hamitzvot, or Book of Commandments, which lists all 613 commands. I’m following his order. Jesus started with “Love the Lord your God,” but R. Moshe began his list the same way most systematic theologies do—dealing with the existence of God.
The way this command is described is “Believing in God” or “Knowing there is a God.” That’s a lousy definition. Everyone already knows there’s a God. To quote myself:
Some people don’t believe there is a God. They’re called atheists. Because of them, most theology books start with a chapter called, “How we can prove God exists.”
Why do we have to prove there is a God? Everyone already knows there is a God. Even atheists know. Because they say they don’t believe in God, Scripture calls them fools. (Ps 14.1) Fools are people who don’t want wisdom. We are not supposed to take fools seriously. (Pr 26.4-5) If we try to teach them why God exists, they won’t listen. They just want to prove that we’re wrong. (Pr 18.2) So don’t bother.
Everyone knows there’s a God because everyone knows what a God is. Everyone has an idea of God stuck in our heads. God put it there. He did it through revelation. Revelation is data about God, from God. (It’s not just the name of the last book in the Bible.) God has given revelation to everyone. No exceptions. Not even atheists.
(If it sounds a little condescending, bear in mind this is a lesson I taught eighth graders back in 2003.)
So it’s a little stupid to command someone to believe in God. It’s like commanding someone to believe in the existence of oxygen. You can’t survive without it; you can be totally ignorant of it; and most of the time you can breathe whether you believe in oxygen per se, or not. Same with God. You either believe in Him or you find lots of excuses to deny His existence, none of them good.
This isn’t a commandment to believe in God; it’s a commandment defining just exactly who is God. That would be Yahweh, the god who brought the Hebrews out of Egyptian slavery. (Attached to that is the impressive way in which He did it, and how He overthrew the gods of Egypt, including the pharaoh, in order to do it.)
We don’t always recognize this verse as a command. It appears to be more of a declaration. God appears on the top of Sinai (or, when it’s in Deuteronomy, Moses recalls when God appeared on the top of Sinai) and thundered down ten commands to the Hebrews. Christians figure He gets to the commanding when He tells them, “No gods before My face,” (Ex 20.3) but really the first line—the declarative statement, “I am Yahweh your God,” is a command, because it’s certainly not an option. Yahweh is their god. The Hebrews didn’t get to choose which god they were gonna follow. God chose them, not vice-versa.
I was originally gonna say, “The Hebrews didn’t get to choose, like we Gentiles do,” but that’s not true either. We Gentiles don’t get to choose which god we’re gonna follow either. We get the illusion of choice. But at the End, everyone will answer to Yahweh, whether we recognize Him as God or not, and suffer His judgment, whether we recognize His authority or not.
The rest of the commands all hang upon this recognition that Yahweh is God. ’Cause if we’re following some other god, we’re not gonna follow God’s commands. So R. Moshe had to mention this command first, and we’ll proceed from there.
