Exo 20:2-7 | KD | STEP | The Ten Words commenced with a declaration of Jehovah concerning Himself, which served as a practical basis for the obligation on the part of the people to keep the commandments: “ I am Jehovah thy God, who brought thee,” etc. By bringing them out of Egypt, the house of bondage, Jehovah had proved to the Israelites that He was their God. This glorious act, to which Israel owed its existence as an independent nation, was peculiarly fitted, as a distinct and practical manifestation of unmerited divine love, to kindle in the hearts of the people the warmest love in return, and to incite them to keep the commandments. These words are not to be regarded, as Knobel supposes, as either a confession, or the foundation of the whole of the theocratical law, just as Saleucus , Plato , and other lawgivers placed a belief in the existence of the gods at the head of their laws. They were rather the preamble, as Calvin says, by which God prepared the minds of the people for obeying them, and in this sense they were frequently repeated to give emphasis to other laws, sometimes in full, as in ; ; ; , ; , etc., sometimes in the abridged form, “I am Jehovah your God,” as in ; , , ; , , , , ; , etc., for which the simple expression, “I am Jehovah,” is now and then substituted, as in , , , etc.

‏ Exodus 20:2-7

The Ten Words commenced with a declaration of Jehovah concerning Himself, which served as a practical basis for the obligation on the part of the people to keep the commandments: “I am Jehovah thy God, who brought thee,” etc. By bringing them out of Egypt, the house of bondage, Jehovah had proved to the Israelites that He was their God. This glorious act, to which Israel owed its existence as an independent nation, was peculiarly fitted, as a distinct and practical manifestation of unmerited divine love, to kindle in the hearts of the people the warmest love in return, and to incite them to keep the commandments. These words are not to be regarded, as Knobel supposes, as either a confession, or the foundation of the whole of the theocratical law, just as Saleucus, Plato, and other lawgivers placed a belief in the existence of the gods at the head of their laws. They were rather the preamble, as Calvin says, by which God prepared the minds of the people for obeying them, and in this sense they were frequently repeated to give emphasis to other laws, sometimes in full, as in Exo 29:46; Lev 19:36; Lev 23:43; Lev 25:38, Lev 25:55; Lev 26:13, etc., sometimes in the abridged form, “I am Jehovah your God,” as in Lev 11:44; Lev 18:2, Lev 18:4, Lev 18:30; Lev 19:4, Lev 19:10, Lev 19:25, Lev 19:31, Lev 19:34; Lev 20:7, etc., for which the simple expression, “I am Jehovah,” is now and then substituted, as in Lev 19:12-13, Lev 19:16, Lev 19:18, etc. Exo 20:3

The First Word. - “Let there not be to thee (thou shalt have no) other gods פּני על פּן,” lit., beyond Me (על as in Gen 48:22; Psa 16:2), or in addition to Me (על as in Gen 31:50; Deu 19:9), equivalent to πλὴν ἐμοῦ (lxx), “by the side of Me” (Luther). “Before Me,” coram me (Vulg., etc.), is incorrect; also against Me, in opposition to Me. (On פּני see Exo 33:14.) The singular יהיה does not require that we should regard Elohim as an abstract noun in the sense of Deity; and the plural אחרים would not suit this rendering (see Gen 1:14). The sentence is quite a general one, and not only prohibits polytheism and idolatry, the worship of idols in thought, word, and deed (cf. Deu 8:11, Deu 8:17, Deu 8:19), but also commands the fear, love, and worship of God the Lord (cf. Deu 6:5, Deu 6:13, Deu 6:17; Deu 10:12, Deu 10:20). Nearly all the commandments are couched in the negative form of prohibition, because they presuppose the existence of sin and evil desires in the human heart. Exo 20:4

The Second Word. - To the prohibition of idolatrous worship there is linked on, as a second word, the prohibition of the worship of images. “After declaring in the first commandment who was the true God, He commanded that He alone should be worshipped; and now He defines what is His lawful worship” (Calvin). “Thou shalt not make to thyself a likeness and any form of that which is in heaven above,” etc. עשׂה is construed with a double accusative, so that the literal rendering would be “make, as a likeness and any form, that which is in heaven,” etc. פּסל, from פּסל to carve wood or stone, is a figure made of wood or stone, and is used in Jdg 17:3. for a figure representing Jehovah, and in other places for figures of heathen deities - of Asherah, for example, in 2Ki 21:7. תּמוּנה does not signify an image made by man, but a form which is seen by him (Num 12:8; Deu 4:12, Deu 4:15.; Job 4:16; Psa 17:15). In Deu 5:8 (cf. Exo 4:16) we find כּל־תּמוּנה פּסל “likeness of any form:” so that in this passage also וכל־תּמוּנה is to be taken as in apposition to פּסל, and the ו as vav explic.: “and indeed any form,” viz., of Jehovah, not of heathen gods. That the words should be so understood, is demanded by Deu 4:15., where Moses lays stress upon the command, not to make to themselves an image (פסל) in the form of any sculpture (סמל), and gives this as the reason: “For ye saw no form in the day when Jehovah spake to you at Horeb.” This authoritative exposition of the divine prohibition on the part of Moses himself proves undeniably, that פסל and תמונה are to be understood as referring to symbolical representations of Jehovah. And the words which follow also receive their authoritative exposition from Deu 4:17 and Deu 4:18. By “that which is in heaven” we are to understand the birds, not the angels, or at the most, according to Deu 4:19, the stars as well; by “that which is in earth,” the cattle, reptiles, and the larger or smaller animals; and by “that which is in the water,” fishes and water animals. “Under the earth” is appended to the “water,” to express in a pictorial manner the idea of its being lower than the solid ground (cf. Deu 4:18). It is not only evident from the context that the allusion is not to the making of images generally, but to the construction of figures of God as objects of religious reverence or worship, but this is expressly stated in Exo 20:5; so that even Calvin observes, that “there is no necessity to refute what some have foolishly imagined, that sculpture and painting of every kind are condemned here.” With the same aptness he has just before observed, that “although Moses only speaks of idols, there is no doubt that by implication he condemns all the forms of false worship, which men have invented for themselves.” Exo 20:5-6

“Thou shalt not pray to them and serve them.” (On the form תּעבדם with the o-sound under the guttural, see Ewald, §251d.). השׁתּחוה signifies bending before God in prayer, and invoking His name; עבד, worship by means of sacrifice and religious ceremonies. The suffixes להם and - ם (to them, and them) refer to the things in heaven, etc., which are made into pesel, symbols of Jehovah, as being the principal object of the previous clause, and not to כּל־תּמוּנה פּסל, although פּסל עבד is applied in Psa 97:7 and 2Ki 17:41 to a rude idolatrous worship, which identifies the image as the symbol of deity with the deity itself, Still less do they refer to אחרים אלהים in Exo 20:3.

The threat and promise, which follow in Exo 20:5 and Exo 20:6, relate to the first two commandments, and not to the second alone; because both of them, although forbidding two forms of idolatry, viz., idolo-latry and ikono-latry, are combined in a higher unity, by the fact, that whenever Jehovah, the God who cannot be copied because He reveals His spiritual nature in no visible form, is worshipped under some visible image, the glory of the invisible God is changed, or Jehovah changed into a different God from what He really is. Through either form of idolatry, therefore, Israel would break its covenant with Jehovah. For this reason God enforces the two commandments with the solemn declaration: “I, Jehovah thy God, am קנּא אל a jealous God;” i.e., not only ζηλωτής, a zealous avenger of sinners, but ζηλοτύπος, a jealous God, who will not transfer to another the honour that is due to Himself (Isa 42:8; Isa 48:11), nor tolerate the worship of any other god (Exo 34:14), but who directs the warmth of His anger against those who hate Him (Deu 6:15), with the same energy with which the warmth of His love (Sol 8:6) embraces those who love Him, except that love in the form of grace reaches much further than wrath. The sin of the fathers He visits (punishes) on the children to the third and fourth generation. שׁלּשׁים third (sc., children) are not grandchildren, but great-grandchildren, and רבּעים the fourth generation. On the other hand He shows mercy to the thousandths, i.e., to the thousandth generation (cf. Deu 7:9, where דּור לאלף stands for לאלפים). The cardinal number is used here for the ordinal, for which there was no special form in the case of אלף. The words לשׂנאי and לאהבי, in which the punishment and grace are traced to their ultimate foundation, are of great importance to a correct understanding of this utterance of God. The ל before שׂנאי does not take up the genitive with עון again, as Knobel supposes, for no such use of ל can be established from Gen 7:11; Gen 16:3; Gen 14:18; Gen 41:12, or in fact in any way whatever. In this instance ל signifies “at” or “in relation to;” and לשׂנאי, from its very position, cannot refer to the fathers alone, but to the fathers and children to the third and fourth generation. If it referred to the fathers alone, it would necessarily stand after אבת. וגו לאהבי is to be taken in the same way. God punishes the sin of the fathers in the children to the third and fourth generation in relation to those who hate Him, and shows mercy to the thousandth generation in relation to those who love Him. The human race is a living organism, in which not only sin and wickedness are transmitted, but evil as the curse of the sin and the punishment of the wickedness. As children receive their nature from their parents, or those who beget them, so they have also to bear and atone for their fathers’ guilt. This truth forced itself upon the minds even of thoughtful heathen from their own varied experience (cf. Aeschyl. Sept. 744; Eurip. according to Plutarch de sera num. vind. 12, 21; Cicero de nat. deorum 3, 38; and Baumgarten-Crusius, bibl. Theol. p. 208). Yet there is no fate in the divine government of the world, no irresistible necessity in the continuous results of good and evil; but there reigns in the world a righteous and gracious God, who not only restrains the course of His penal judgments, as soon as the sinner is brought to reflection by the punishment and hearkens to the voice of God, but who also forgives the sin and iniquity of those who love Him, keeping mercy to the thousandth generation (Exo 34:7). The words neither affirm that sinning fathers remain unpunished, nor that the sins of fathers are punished in the children and grandchildren without any fault of their own: they simply say nothing about whether and how the fathers themselves are punished; and, in order to show the dreadful severity of the penal righteousness of God, give prominence to the fact, that punishment is not omitted-that even when, in the long-suffering of God, it is deferred, it is not therefore neglected, but that the children have to bear the sins of their fathers, whenever, for example (as naturally follows from the connection of children with their fathers, and, as Onkelos has added in his paraphrase of the words), “the children fill up the sins of their fathers,” so that the descendants suffer punishment for both their own and their forefathers’ misdeeds (Lev 26:39; Isa 65:7; Amo 7:17; Jer 16:11.; Dan 9:16). But when, on the other hand, the hating ceases, when the children forsake their fathers’ evil ways, the warmth of the divine wrath is turned into the warmth of love, and God becomes חסד עשׂה (“showing mercy”) to them; and this mercy endures not only to the third and fourth generation, but to the thousandth generation, though only in relation to those who love God, and manifest this love by keeping His commandments. “If God continues for a long time His visitation of sin, He continues to all eternity His manifestation of mercy, and we cannot have a better proof of this than in the history of Israel itself” (Schultz). ^{▼▼On the visitation of the sins of the fathers upon the children, see also Hengstenberg, Dissertations, vol. ii. p. 446ff.} Exo 20:7

The Third Word, “Thou shalt not take the name of Jehovah thy God in vain,” is closely connected with the former two. Although there is no God beside Jehovah, the absolute One, and His divine essence cannot be seen or conceived of under any form, He had made known the glory of His nature in His name (Exo 3:14., Exo 6:2), and this was not to be abused by His people. שׁם נשׁא does not mean to utter the name (נשׁא never has this meaning), but in all the passages in which it has been so rendered it retains its proper meaning, “to take up, life up, raise;” e.g., to take up or raise (begin) a proverb (Num 23:7; Job 27:1), to lift up a song (Psa 81:3), or a prayer (Isa 37:4). And it is evident from the parallel in Psa 24:4, “to lift up his soul to vanity,” that it does not mean “to utter” here. שׁוא does not signify a lie (שׁקר), but according to its etymon שׁאה, to be waste, it denotes that which is waste and disorder, hence that which is empty, vain, and nugatory, for which there is no occasion. The word prohibits all employment of the name of God for vain and unworthy objects, and includes not only false swearing, which is condemned in Lev 19:12 as a profanation of the name of Jehovah, but trivial swearing in the ordinary intercourse of life, and every use of the name of God in the service of untruth and lying, for imprecation, witchcraft, or conjuring; whereas the true employment of the name of God is confined to “invocation, prayer, praise, and thanksgiving,” which proceeds from a pure, believing heart. The natural heart is very liable to transgress this command, and therefore it is solemnly enforced by the threat, “for Jehovah will not hold him guiltless” (leave him unpunished), etc.