Exodus 20:3-5

20:3 “You shall have no ¹  other gods before me. ² 

20:4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image ³  or any likeness ⁴  of anything ⁵  that is in heaven above or that is on the earth beneath or that is in the water below. ⁶  20:5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, ⁷  for I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous ⁸  God, responding to ⁹  the transgression of fathers by dealing with children to the third and fourth generations ¹⁰  of those who reject me, ¹¹ 

Exodus 34:14

34:14 For you must not worship ¹²  any other god, ¹³  for the Lord, whose name ¹⁴  is Jealous, is a jealous God.

Leviticus 26:1

Exhortation to Obedience

26:1 “‘You must not make for yourselves idols, ¹⁵  so you must not set up for yourselves a carved image or a pillar, and you must not place a sculpted stone in your land to bow down before ¹⁶  it, for I am the Lord your God.

Deuteronomy 4:19

4:19 When you look up ¹⁷  to the sky ¹⁸  and see the sun, moon, and stars – the whole heavenly creation ¹⁹  – you must not be seduced to worship and serve them, ²⁰  for the Lord your God has assigned ²¹  them to all the people ²²  of the world. ²³ 

Deuteronomy 5:7-9

5:7 You must not have any other gods ²⁴  besides me. ²⁵  5:8 You must not make for yourself an image ²⁶  of anything in heaven above, on earth below, or in the waters beneath. ²⁷  5:9 You must not worship or serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God. I punish ²⁸  the sons, grandsons, and great-grandsons for the sin of the fathers who reject ²⁹  me, ³⁰ 

[20:3]  ¹ tn The possession is expressed here by the use of the lamed (ל) preposition and the verb “to be”: לֹא־יִהְיֶה לְךָ (lo’ yihyeh lÿkha, “there will not be to you”). The negative with the imperfect expresses the emphatic prohibition; it is best reflected with “you will not” and has the strongest expectation of obedience (see GKC 317 §107.o). As an additional way of looking at this line, U. Cassuto suggests that the verb is in the singular in order to say that they could not have even one other god, and the word “gods” is plural to include any gods (Exodus, 241).

[20:3]  ² tn The expression עַל־פָּנָי (’al-panay) has several possible interpretations. S. R. Driver suggests “in front of me,” meaning obliging me to behold them, and also giving a prominence above me (Exodus, 193-94). W. F. Albright rendered it “You shall not prefer other gods to me” (From the Stone Age to Christianity, 297, n. 29). B. Jacob (Exodus, 546) illustrates it with marriage: the wife could belong to only one man while every other man was “another man.” They continued to exist but were not available to her. The point is clear from the Law, regardless of the specific way the prepositional phrase is rendered. God demands absolute allegiance, to the exclusion of all other deities. The preposition may imply some antagonism, for false gods would be opposed to Yahweh. U. Cassuto adds that God was in effect saying that anytime Israel turned to a false god they had to know that the Lord was there – it is always in his presence, or before him (Exodus, 241).

[20:4]  ³ tn A פֶּסֶל (pesel) is an image that was carved out of wood or stone. The Law was concerned with a statue that would be made for the purpose of worship, an idol to be venerated, and not any ordinary statue.

[20:4]  ⁴ tn The word תְּמוּנָה (tÿmunah) refers to the mental pattern from which the פֶּסֶל (pesel) is constructed; it is a real or imagined resemblance. If this is to stand as a second object to the verb, then the verb itself takes a slightly different nuance here. It would convey “you shall not make an image, neither shall you conceive a form” for worship (B. Jacob, Exodus, 547). Some simply make the second word qualify the first: “you shall not make an idol in the form of…” (NIV).

[20:4]  ⁵ tn Here the phrase “of anything” has been supplied.

[20:4]  ⁶ tn Heb “under the earth” (so KJV, ASV, NASB, NRSV).

[20:5]  ⁷ tn The combination of these two verbs customarily refers to the worship of pagan deities (e.g., Deut 17:3: 30:17; Jer 8:2; see J. J. Stamm and M. E. Andrew, The Ten Commandments in Recent Research [SBT], 86). The first verb is לאֹ־תִשְׁתַּחֲוֶה (lo’ tishtakhaveh), now to be classified as a hishtaphel imperfect from חָוָה (khavah; BDB 1005 s.v. שׁחה), “to cause oneself to be low to the ground.” It is used of the true worship of God as well. The second verb is וְלֹא תָעָבְדֵם (vÿlo’ to’ovdem). The two could be taken as a hendiadys: “you will not prostrate yourself to serve them.” In an interesting side comment U. Cassuto (Exodus, 242) offers an explanation of the spelling of the second verb: he suggests that it was spelled with the qamets khatuf vowel to show contempt for pagan worship, as if their conduct does not even warrant a correct spelling of the word “serve.” Gesenius says that the forms like this are anomalous, but he wonders if they were pointed as if the verb was a Hophal with the meaning “you shall not allow yourself to be brought to worship them” (GKC 161 §60.b). But this is unlikely.

[20:5]  ⁸ sn The word “jealous” is the same word often translated “zeal” or “zealous.” The word describes a passionate intensity to protect or defend something that is jeopardized. The word can also have the sense of “envy,” but in that case the object is out of bounds. God’s zeal or jealousy is to protect his people or his institutions or his honor. Yahweh’s honor is bound up with the life of his people.

[20:5]  ⁹ tn Verses 5 and 6 are very concise, and the word פָּקַד (paqad) is difficult to translate. Often rendered “visiting,” it might here be rendered “dealing with” in a negative sense or “punishing,” but it describes positive attention in 13:19. When used of God, it essentially means that God intervenes in the lives of people for blessing or for cursing. Some would simply translate the participle here as “punishing” the children for the sins of the fathers (cf. Lev 18:25; Isa 26:21; Jer 29:32; 36:31; Hos 1:4; Amos 3:2). That is workable, but may not say enough. The verse may indicate that those who hate Yahweh and do not keep his commandments will repeat the sins their fathers committed and suffer for them. Deut 24:16 says that individuals will die for their own sins and not their father’s sins (see also Deut 7:10 and Ezek 18). It may have more to do with patterns of sin being repeated from generation to generation; if the sin and the guilt were not fully developed in the one generation, then left unchecked they would develop and continue in the next. But it may also indicate that the effects of the sins of the fathers will be experienced in the following generations, especially in the case of Israel as a national entity (U. Cassuto, Exodus, 243). God is showing here that his ethical character is displayed in how he deals with sin and righteousness, all of which he describes as giving strong motivation for loyalty to him and for avoiding idolatry. There is a justice at work in the dealings of God that is not present in the pagan world.

[20:5]  ¹⁰ tn The Hebrew word for “generations” is not found in v. 5 or 6. The numbers are short for a longer expression, which is understood as part of the description of the children already mentioned (see Deut 7:9, where “generation” [דּוֹר, dor] is present and more necessary, since “children” have not been mentioned).

[20:5]  ¹¹ tn This is an important qualification to the principle. The word rendered “reject” is often translated “hate” and carries with it the idea of defiantly rejecting and opposing God and his word. Such people are doomed to carry on the sins of their ancestors and bear guilt with them.

[34:14]  ¹² tn Heb “bow down.”

[34:14]  ¹³ sn In Exod 20:3 it was “gods.”

[34:14]  ¹⁴ sn Here, too, the emphasis on God’s being a jealous God is repeated (see Exod 20:5). The use of “name” here is to stress that this is his nature, his character.

[26:1]  ¹⁵ sn For the literature regarding the difficult etymology and meaning of the term for “idols” (אֱלִילִם, ’elilim), see the literature cited in the note on Lev 19:4. It appears to be a diminutive play on words with אֵל (’el, “god, God”) and, perhaps at the same time, recalls a common Semitic word for “worthless, weak, powerless, nothingness.” Snaith suggests a rendering of “worthless godlings.”

[26:1]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “on.” The “sculpted stone” appears to be some sort of stone with images carved into (see B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 181, and J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 449).

[4:19]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “lest you lift up your eyes.” In the Hebrew text vv. 16-19 are subordinated to “Be careful” in v. 15, but this makes for an unduly long sentence in English.

[4:19]  ¹⁸ tn Or “heavens.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heaven(s)” or “sky” depending on the context.

[4:19]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “all the host of heaven.”

[4:19]  ²⁰ tn In the Hebrew text the verbal sequence in v. 19 is “lest you look up…and see…and be seduced…and worship them…and serve them.” However, the first two actions are not prohibited in and of themselves. The prohibition pertains to the final three actions. The first two verbs describe actions that are logically subordinate to the following actions and can be treated as temporal or circumstantial: “lest, looking up…and seeing…, you are seduced.” See Joüon 2:635 §168.h.

[4:19]  ²¹ tn Or “allotted.”

[4:19]  ²² tn Or “nations.”

[4:19]  ²³ tn Heb “under all the heaven.”

[5:7]  ²⁴ tn Heb “there must not be for you other gods.” The expression “for you” indicates possession.

[5:7]  ²⁵ tn Heb “upon my face,” or “before me” (עַל־פָּנָיַ, ’al-panaya). Some understand this in a locative sense: “in my sight.” The translation assumes that the phrase indicates exclusion. The idea is that of placing any other god before the Lord in the sense of taking his place. Contrary to the view of some, this does not leave the door open for a henotheistic system where the Lord is the primary god among others. In its literary context the statement must be taken in a monotheistic sense. See, e.g., 4:39; 6:13-15.

[5:8]  ²⁶ tn Heb “an image, any likeness.”

[5:8]  ²⁷ tn Heb “under the earth” (so ASV, NASB, NRSV); NCV “below the land.”

[5:9]  ²⁸ tn In the Hebrew text the form is a participle, which is subordinated to what precedes. For the sake of English style, the translation divides this lengthy verse into two sentences.

[5:9]  ²⁹ tn Heb “who hate” (so NAB, NIV, NLT). Just as “to love” (אָהַב, ’ahav) means in a covenant context “to choose, obey,” so “to hate” (שָׂנֵא, sane’) means “to reject, disobey” (cf. the note on the word “loved” in Deut 4:37; see also 5:10).

[5:9]  ³⁰ tn Heb “visiting the sin of fathers upon sons and upon a third (generation) and upon a fourth (generation) of those who hate me.” God sometimes punishes children for the sins of a father (cf. Num 16:27, 32; Josh 7:24-25; 2 Sam 21:1-9). On the principle of corporate solidarity and responsibility in OT thought see J. Kaminsky, Corporate Responsibility in the Hebrew Bible (JSOTSup). In the idiom of the text, the father is the first generation and the “sons” the second generation, making grandsons the third and great-grandsons the fourth. The reference to a third and fourth generation is a way of emphasizing that the sinner’s punishment would last throughout his lifetime. In this culture, where men married and fathered children at a relatively young age, it would not be unusual for one to see his great-grandsons. In an Aramaic tomb inscription from Nerab dating to the seventh century b.c., Agbar observes that he was surrounded by “children of the fourth generation” as he lay on his death bed (see ANET 661). The language of the text differs from Exod 34:7, the sons are the first generation, the grandsons (literally, “sons of the sons”) the second, great-grandsons the third, and great-great-grandsons the fourth. One could argue that formulation in Deut 5:9 (see also Exod 20:50) is elliptical/abbreviated or that it suffers from textual corruption (the repetition of the words “sons” would invite accidental omission).