The First Commandment: You Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me

Commandment Series by Heather Scarborough

“You shall have no other gods before me.”

Exodus 20:3

Israel has arrived at Mount Sinai. They have been delivered from Egypt, brought through the Red Sea, sustained in the wilderness, and brought into covenant with the LORD. Now God speaks directly to His people.

The first commandment establishes the foundation for everything that follows:

“You shall have no other gods before me.”

The Hebrew wording gives us an important understanding of what God is commanding:

לֹא־יִהְיֶה־לְךָ אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים עַל־פָּנָי

Lo yihyeh-lekha elohim acherim al-panai.

The phrase לֹא־יִהְיֶה־לְךָ (lo yihyeh-lekha) literally carries the sense of “there shall not be for you.” Elohim means “gods,” while acherim means “other” or “another.” The final phrase, עַל־פָּנָי (al-panai), literally means “before My face” or “before My presence.”

Put together, the command carries the sense: “There shall be no other gods for you before Me.”

God was not telling Israel to choose Him as their favorite or simply to rank Him above other gods. He was commanding that no other god was to have a place among His people.

That distinction mattered greatly to Israel.

They had just come out of Egypt, a culture saturated with gods. Egyptian religion included deities associated with the sun, the Nile, fertility, animals, death, creation, and kingship. Pharaoh himself was regarded as divine. Israel had spent generations surrounded by a worldview in which multiple gods were acknowledged and worshiped.

God had just demonstrated that He was not one god among many.

Through the plagues, He displayed His authority over Egypt and over the things Egypt worshiped. He brought His people out with a mighty hand and brought them to Sinai.

So the first commandment was not introducing Israel to an unknown God. It was establishing that the God who had revealed Himself to them was the only God they were to have.

Israel was not to divide its trust between the LORD and the gods of the nations. They were not to call upon the LORD while also seeking protection, prosperity, fertility, wisdom, or power from another deity.

The commandment demanded a complete rejection of competing gods.

And this was not merely about what Israel did in public worship. It concerned whom they trusted, depended upon, and recognized as having authority over them.

Throughout Israel’s history, this would become one of their greatest struggles. They repeatedly turned toward the gods of the nations, not because the LORD had failed to reveal Himself, but because their hearts were continually tempted to look elsewhere.

That temptation is not as foreign to us as it may first appear.

Most people today are not walking into a temple to bow before an Egyptian god. But the human heart can still give something created the place that belongs to the Creator.

An idol can be anything we elevate beyond its proper place. It can be something good—a family, a career, financial security, success, comfort, or even the desire to protect the people we love. The danger begins when the gift becomes more important than the Giver, when we begin to depend upon something created for the security, identity, satisfaction, or control that belongs to God.

Sometimes the rival is even our own will.

We can acknowledge God while still insisting that our plans, desires, opinions, and understanding have the final authority. We may want God involved in our lives without actually surrendering our lives to Him.

That is where the first commandment reaches the heart.

It asks us to consider not merely whether we believe in God, but whether we have allowed something else to occupy His place.

What do we ultimately trust when we are afraid? Where do we look for security when circumstances become uncertain? What are we unwilling to surrender? What has the power to determine our choices when obedience to God becomes costly?

These questions expose the difference between acknowledging God and actually giving Him His rightful place.

The first commandment does not mean that everything we love must be rejected. Scripture does not condemn family, work, possessions, or the ordinary blessings of life simply because we value them. The issue is one of worship and authority.

A good thing becomes a disordered thing when we ask it to do what only God can do.

When our security rests in money, our identity rests in success, our worth rests in another person’s approval, or our peace depends upon having control over our circumstances, we have begun looking somewhere other than God for what our hearts most need.

The first commandment therefore goes deeper than outward religious practice. It confronts the question of who sits at the center of our lives.

Isaiah later declares:

“For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me.”

Isaiah 46:9

There is no equal beside Him.

There is no competing authority that deserves the worship, trust, and dependence that belong to Him.

That is why the first commandment comes first. Before God addresses how Israel is to worship, how they are to treat one another, or how they are to conduct themselves, He establishes the One to whom they belong.

The first commandment is not complicated in its wording:

“You shall have no other gods before Me.”

It is absolute in its claim.

The LORD alone is God.

And He will not share His place with another.