Exodus 20.3 == Deuteronomy 5.7.
| 20.3=5.7לא יהיה לך אלהים אחרים | You won’t have an alternate god |
|---|---|
| על פני׃ | before My face. |
R. Moshe’s second mitzvah is the first of the Ten Commandments, usually translated, “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.”
Let’s get the grammatical nitpicking out of the way:
- The Hebrew word אלהים is a plural-sounding word (like the English words “pants” or “scissors”), and can mean “God” or “Gods” or “a god” or “gods.” Is God prohibiting another god or other gods? Well, since this debate makes no bloody difference in how we’re to follow this command, let’s skip it.
- l translated אחרים as “alternate” rather than “other,” because I think it’s closer in meaning; again, it makes no difference in how we’re to follow this command.
- The word פני gets translated “Me” because the literal “My face” is not a phrase we’re used to in English. As I used to joke with my students, don’t take it too literally—don’t get the idea you can have gods behind God’s back.
The other debate, which has nothing to do with the grammar of this verse, is whether God recognizes the existence of other Gods or not. Should we be henotheists like the Mormons—we believe there are other Gods, but God is the only God we have anything to do with—or should we be monotheists like the Muslims, who say there are no other Gods at all?
Some Jews understand this to mean there are to be no gods anywhere. But I’m reminded of the scripture Jesus quoted to keep Himself from getting stoned to death: “I say, ‘You are gods, you are all Elyon’s sons.’ ” (Ps 82.6, Jn 10.34) There is a distinction between the Almighty and the mighty: God raises up beings and puts them in positions of power. He took Moses, fr’instance, and told him, “Look, I have made you a god to Pharoah.” (Ex 7.1) The title “god,” just like the title “lord,” can be applied to other beings as well as Yahweh; the difference being that there is no greater Lord and God than Yahweh. In comparison with Him, other beings are not lord and god. He alone deserves our absolute devotion.
But are there other Gods—beings as mighty as Yahweh? Nope. “Before Me, no God was formed; and there won’t be any after Me.” (Is 43.10) God frequently asks rhetorically, “What other God can do what I can?” and of course the answer is that there isn’t one—not in the heavens (where the Mormons believe the other Gods are, ruling their own individual earths) nor on earth. Our creation story doesn’t consist of God overthrowing another God, or battling competing Gods, or achieving Godhood. It begins when God created the universe, (Ge 1.1) not when God conquered it.
To sum up: Yes, there are other gods, but there is no other God. I guess that makes me a monotheist.
So, while there are other gods, they are not to be before God. Whatever gods we deal with—whether they be money, corporate power, political power, legal power, domestic power, and every first and force in the universe (Ep 6.12) —all of them are under God. If there’s ever any debate about who our one and only allegiance belongs to, we’ve violated this command.
