Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
] This is the first command, and is opposed to the polytheism of
the Gentiles, the Egyptians, from whom Israel was just come, and
whose gods some of them might have had a favourable opinion of
and liking to, and had committed idolatry with; and the
Canaanites, into whose land they were going; and to prevent their
joining with them in the worship of other gods, this law was
given, as well as to be of standing us to them in all
generations; for there is but one only living and true God, the
former and maker of all things, who only is to be had, owned,
acknowledged, served, and worshipped as such; all others have
only the name, and are not by nature gods; they are other gods
than the true God is; they are not real, but fictitious deities;
they are other or strange gods to the worshippers of them, that
cry unto them, for they do not answer them, as Jarchi observes:
and now for Israel, who knew the true God, who had appeared unto
them, and made himself known to them by his name Jehovah, both by
his word and works, whom he had espoused to himself as a choice
virgin, to commit idolatry, which is spiritual adultery with
other gods, with strange gods, that are no gods, and this before
God, in the presence of him, who had took them by the hand when
he brought them out of Egypt, and had been a husband to them,
must be shocking impiety, monstrous ingratitude, and extremely
displeasing to God, and resented by him; and is, as many observe,
as if a woman should commit adultery in the presence of her
husband, and so the phrase may denote the audaciousness of the
action, as well as the wickedness of it; though, as Ben Melech
from others observes, if it was done in secret it would be before
the Lord, who is the omniscient God, and nothing can be hid from
him: several Jewish commentators, as Jarchi, Kimchi, and Aben
Ezra, interpret the phrase "before me", all the time I endure,
while I have a being, as long as I live, or am the living God, no
others are to be had; that is, they are never to be had; since
the true God will always exist: the Septuagint version is,
"besides me", no other were to be worshipped with him; God will
have no rivals and competitors; though he was worshipped, yet if
others were worshipped with him, if others were set before him
and worshipped along with him, or it was pretended he was
worshipped in them, and even he with a superior and they with an
inferior kind of worship; yet this was what he could by no means
admit of: the phrase may be rendered "against me" F3; other
gods opposition to him, against his will, contrary to obedience
due to him and his precepts: this law, though it supposes and
strongly inculcates the unity of the divine Being, the only
object of religious adoration, yet does not oppose the doctrine
of the trinity of persons in the Godhead; nor is that any
contradiction to it, since though the Father is God, the Son is
God, and the Holy Spirit is God, there are not three Gods, but
three Persons, and these three are one God, ( 1 John 5:7 ) .