The God of My Life
Exodus 20:3 states, You shall have no other gods before Me. This verse is not only for unbelievers. Even for the people of God, moving away or watering down this first commandment resulted in tragedy throughout the history of Israel, that is, every time they disrespected it. Just consider how this verse in Judges 5:8 begins. It is here where we find the beautiful song of Deborah and Barak, New gods were chosen; Then war was in the gates. As soon as they chose other gods, there was war. Once they broke the first commandment, they were on their own, but each time they made Him Lord of their lives, they were very successful. This principle has not changed. Following it and giving God His proper place in our hearts and lives is the solution, the cure to so many of our problems.
However, there is another way that this commandment can be broken, an even more subtle way. It is when we don’t leave God for another, but rather when we mix other beliefs in addition to Him. Here is an example: Toward the end of Hebrew Scriptures, in Zeph. 1:5b, the Lord sums up Israel’s history of falling when He says, And those who bow down and swear to the Lord and yet swear by Milcom. See that they did believe in God. Indeed, the name of God was on their lips but their hearts were with another. Milcom could mean a king or a god of the other nations around them, but it was not the God of the bible. They mixed the two together.
This very verse can serve as a heading for its own book because just after we read no less than 20 times, the term the Day of the Lord, referring to the day of judgment. It was then when Israel lost her land and since then she is still are in Diaspora.
At the time of Jesus and even today, Milcom became part of a new woven fabric by adding traditions and legends to the Word of God. You heard the term Yeshua used; the Tradition of the Elders which eventually overshadowed the Word of God. This was another form of Milcom.
But this is not only a Jewish problem; the Church is also warned about adding other beliefs and harmful traditions to the core of the Scriptures. In His last words to the churches in Revelation 2:20, Jesus says to Thyatira that He has something against her. He tells her, You tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads My bond-servants astray so that they commit acts of immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols.
Who is Jezebel? She was married to a Jewish king, Ahab. She is known for combining the worship of God with Baal, another god and as a consequence, all Israel fell (except for 7000, such a small minority). This is when God raised up Elijah. Her name is significant; in Hebrew it is Izebul. In there we find the name of zebul which is what the devil is also called. The “I” of Izebul is formed by the two Hebrew letters, aleph and yud, so this could be read as there is; so, we read, there is Zebul. Her name itself contains a warning.
This can be taken as prophecy. Jezebel is the modern Milcom today, which happens when we add not only tradition and legends to the Word, but also new and foreign interpretations to the Scriptures. This is when we go beyond what is written. After all, we are surrounded by so many different religions in this world and under the influence of the god of this world, who blinded the minds of the unbelievers (2Cor.4:4). We too are very often under pressure to add, remove, or refashion our belief in God. And so, the first commandment is what medieval Rabbi Ibn Ezra wrote: it is like the number one of mathematics from where the nine others are contingent. (Carasik). When we get this one, the others will just naturally flow.
The second commandment complements the first one: You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. Exodus 20:4. This one has to do with our religion, our worship of God and enhances the unique way we should approach Him, that is, by faith and not by sight and certainly not through any likeness, images or statues that we make of Him.
Have you ever wondered why we have no idea what Jesus looked like? He may have had black, blond or perhaps red hair just like David. While we have many statues or engravings of Roman emperors or the likes of Alexander the Great, and while we are able to appreciate the physical features of many of the Pharoahs, we have no likeness or images of Jesus or any of the apostles.
In fact, we do not have any resemblances of Israel’s first great teacher Moses, nor do we have a physical resemblance of Israel’s first great king, David. Do you know why? So that we don’t make any representation of who they are and worship that image. The fact that we don’t know what these individuals looked like shows us how serious the Jews were in not making graven images of people. In this respect they held fast to that second law.
We are not free to entertain any other gods. The Lord says, You shall not worship them or serve them vs.5. See the word serve; it means to toil, to work hard, for it is very taxing to worship other gods, one reason being that we constantly need to convince ourselves that they are real, and they will answer our needs. We spend a lot of energy wanting so much to believe in things that we want to see happen and so we look to them for those desires. Perhaps this is what is meant when we read in the scriptures that Israel fed the idols. Yeshua’s statement in Matthew 11:30 is the solution, For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.
Life becomes so uncomplicated and easier when we follow Yeshua; everything will make so much more sense walking along with Him. Notice the word yoke in the Greek. It is zygos, which is the gear that joins two animals at the neck so they can work together. The idea is that when we get closer to Yeshua and walk with Him, it is easier as He is so willing to walk along with us.
In modern Greek the zygos are balancing scales and we can think of Jesus always making sure that He gives us enough strength to walk through our entire journey. That is a beautiful illustration to recall especially when times seem hard.
One more verse about worship. That one is from David who illustrates this inner desire to worship God: Psalm 42: 1-2, 4, As the deer pants for the water brooks, So my soul pants for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; These things I remember and I pour out my soul within me. For I used to go along with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God. David, who had everything a man could wish for, felt this deep inner need to worship God just as a deer pants; עָרַג (ʿārag) is the Hebrew word for pant. It describes a longing, a craving after, a yearning for God which David satisfied when he went to the house of God and worshipped. It is here in this chapter and in verse 8 where he calls God, the God of my life, El Haiyai אֵל חַיָּי, one of the many names for God. He is the God of my life for He is the One who can fulfill all our innermost needs. This name is closely related to Elohim Chai (אֱלֹהִים חַי), Living God, the One whose Spirit lives in us, if we know who Yeshua is and have invited Him into our lives.
Let us move to the third commandment which completes the first two: Exodus 20:7 You shall not take the Name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain. This commandment has to do with our reverence and our respect for God. It speaks of the way we walk with God, day in and day out. It goes beyond just pronouncing the name of God in vain, as when we say, OMG, or use the name of the Messiah when we are frustrated. These are things we ought not to do.
But the breaking of this commandment goes further for those who use the name of the Lord for their own benefit. Some do it to make mammon, as many on TV who constantly ask for money to sustain their lifestyle. God is watching. Others use the name of the Lord to pretend a special revelation from God to push a new interpretation of the Bible.
The word vain, as in taking the name of the Lord in vain, is שָׁוְא shav in Hebrew and speaks of deceitful purposes and falsehood. As in Exodus 23:1 here it says: You shall not bear a false/shav report. In Psalm 26:4, David says, I do not sit with deceitful men – with shav men. In history so much violence was done in the name of God which is a violation of this commandment. We can think of the Crusaders who killed in the name of Christ, when the Messiah specifically said, My kingdom is not of this world. John 18:36. One can also think of the Inquisition when with the sword, the church forced individuals to convert.