Exodus 20:1 - Meaning and Application

Here is, first, the preface by Moses, the lawgiver: “God spoke all these words” (Exodus 20:1). The law of the ten commandments is a law made by God himself. It comes from the infinite, eternal Majesty of heaven and earth, and where the word of the King of kings goes out, there is certainly power.

It is also a law God spoke with his own voice. God speaks to people in many ways (Job 33:14). He speaks through his Spirit, through conscience, through events in life, and through his spoken word. We should pay careful attention to all of these, but he never spoke on any occasion as he spoke the ten commandments, so we ought to listen with special seriousness.

They were not only spoken aloud, as when he honored the Redeemer, Jesus Christ, by a voice from heaven (Matthew 3:17), but they were given with great and fearful majesty. God had already given this law to people in another way, written in the heart by nature, but sin had damaged that writing so badly that it had to be refreshed and made clear again in this way.

Second, here is the preface by the Lawgiver: “I am the Lord your God” (Exodus 20:2). In this, God first claims his authority to give this law in general: “I am the Lord who commands all that follows.” Then he presents himself as the only one to be worshiped in the first four commandments.

These commands bind them to obedience with a threefold cord, and it would seem hard to break. First, he is the Lord, Jehovah, the self-existing, independent, eternal God, the source of all being and power. Because of that, he has an unquestionable right to command us. He who gives us being may also give us law. He is able to support us in obedience, reward it, and punish disobedience.

Second, he was their God, a God in covenant with them, their God by their own consent. If they would not keep his commandments, who would? He had bound himself to them by promise, and so he could rightly lay his commands on them. That special covenant with Israel is no longer in the same form, but there is another covenant now. By baptism, all who are baptized are brought into relation to him as their God, and they are therefore unjust, unfaithful, and deeply ungrateful if they do not obey him.

Third, he had brought them out of Egypt, so gratitude also bound them to obey. He had delivered them from harsh slavery into glorious freedom. They had seen with their own eyes the great things God did for their rescue, and every part of that rescue increased their obligation. They were already enjoying the blessings of deliverance and looking ahead to a soon settlement in Canaan. Could they think any service too great for the one who had done so much for them?

More than that, by redeeming them, God gained a further right to rule over them. They owed service to the one to whom they owed freedom, and they were his by purchase. In the same way, Christ, having rescued us from the slavery of sin, is entitled to the best service we can give him (Luke 1:74). Having loosed our bonds, he has bound us to obey him (Psalm 116:16).

Third, here is the law itself. The first four of the ten commandments, which concern our duty to God, are given in these verses. They were rightly placed first, because man had a Maker to love before he had a neighbor to love. Justice and love for others are pleasing to God only when they come from a heart of true devotion. A person cannot be trusted to be faithful to his brother if he is false to his God.

Our duty to God can be summed up in one word, worship. That means giving him the glory due to his name, inward worship with our affections, and outward worship in solemn acts of prayer and attendance. This is treated as the heart of the everlasting gospel: “Worship God” (Revelation 14:7).

The first commandment concerns the object of our worship, Jehovah, and him alone: “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3). The Egyptians and other nearby nations had many gods, many of them made up by their own imagination, strange gods and new gods. This law was set before Israel because of that sin. Since Jehovah was the God of Israel, they had to cling fully to him and not turn to any other god, whether one they invented themselves or borrowed from their neighbors.

This was the sin they were most in danger of, since the world was so full of idolatry. Yet idolatry could not be fully removed except by the gospel of Christ. The sin against this commandment that still threatens us most is giving to any creature the glory and honor that belong to God alone. Pride makes a god of self. Greed makes a god of money. Sensual living makes a god of the belly. Anything that is valued, loved, feared, served, enjoyed, or trusted more than God is, in effect, made into a god.

This command forbids idolatry, but it also includes a positive duty that is the foundation of the whole law: we must take the Lord as our God, acknowledge that he is God, receive him as our own, admire him with humble reverence, and set our hearts fully on him. The words “before me” also suggest two things. First, we cannot have another god without his knowing it. There is no god besides him that is not before him. Idolaters want secrecy, but will not God search it out? Second, this sin greatly provokes him. It is a sin done openly against his face, and he will not ignore it or excuse it (Psalm 44:20, Psalm 44:21).

The second commandment concerns the rules of worship, or the way God is to be worshiped, which it is fitting that he himself should decide. Here is the prohibition: we are forbidden to worship the true God by images (Exodus 20:4, Exodus 20:5). The Jews, at least after the exile, thought this commandment forbade making any image or picture at all. That is why the images carried in Roman military banners were considered an abomination to them (Matthew 24:15), especially when placed in the holy place.

It is certain that this commandment forbids making any image of God, for who can compare him to anything? (Isaiah 40:18, Isaiah 40:15) It also forbids making an image of any creature for religious use. Paul calls this turning the truth of God into a lie (Romans 1:25), because an image teaches a lie. It suggests that God has a body, when he is an infinite spirit (Habakkuk 2:18).

It also forbids us to form images of God in our minds, as if he were a man like us. Our worship must be guided by faith, not by imagination. They were also not to make such images or pictures as the heathen used in worship, lest they themselves be tempted to worship them. Those who want to avoid sin must also avoid the occasions that lead to it.

They were not to bow down to them even casually, that is, they were not to show them any sign of respect or honor, much less serve them continually by sacrifice, incense, or any other act of religious worship.

When they worshiped the true God, they were not to have any image before them to guide, stir up, or help their devotion. Even if their worship was meant to rise to God, he would not be pleased if it came to him through an image. The best and oldest lawgivers among the pagans also forbade images in their temples. Numa, a pagan ruler in Rome, forbade this practice, yet the pope, a Christian bishop, later commanded it in Rome, which made the practice anti-Christian.

The use of images in the church of Rome is so clearly against the plain words of this commandment, and so impossible to fit with it, that their catechisms and devotion books leave out this commandment. They attach its reason to the first commandment, then call the third commandment the second, the fourth the third, and so on. To keep the number ten, they divide the tenth commandment into two. In this way they have committed two great sins and still refuse to be corrected. They take away from God’s word and add to his worship.

The reasons for this command are given in Exodus 20:5 and Exodus 20:6. First, God is jealous in matters of worship: "I, the Lord Jehovah, your God, am a jealous God, especially in things of this kind." This shows the care he has for his own appointed ways, his hatred of idolatry and all false worship, and his anger toward idolaters. It also shows that he resents anything in worship that looks like idolatry or leads to it. Jealousy sees quickly. Since idolatry is often pictured in Scripture as spiritual adultery, God’s anger against it is rightly called jealousy.

If God is jealous about worship, we should be too. We should fear offering worship in any way other than the way he has ordered in his word. Second, God warns of the punishment of idolaters. He treats them as people who hate him, even if they claim to love him. He will punish their sin very severely, not only because it breaks his law, but because it insults his majesty, breaks the covenant, and strikes at the heart of all religion.

He says he will visit their iniquity on the children, meaning that a church may lose its standing and be cast off, and the children may be cut off from covenant and fellowship along with their parents, just as the children were first brought in with their parents. Or he may bring judgments on a people that completely ruin families. If idolaters live long enough to see their children through the third or fourth generation, it will break their hearts to watch them fall by the sword, go into captivity, or live as slaves.

This is not unfair for God to do, if the parents died in their sin and the children followed them, keeping up false worship because they received it from their fathers. When the time comes for God to judge, he may rightly count the idolatries of the fathers as part of the whole account. He may bear long with an idolatrous people, but he will not bear forever. By the fourth generation at the latest, he will begin to visit them. Since children are so dear to their parents, this warning shows how strongly God hates idolatry. It also shows that not only shame, but also judgment, may fall on children after the parents are gone.

Third, God shows favor to those who worship him faithfully: he keeps mercy for thousands, for thousands of generations of those who love him and keep his commandments. This also shows that the second commandment, while it plainly forbids false worship, also includes the duty of worshiping God in the ways he has appointed. The first commandment requires inward worship, such as love, desire, joy, hope, and wonder. The second requires outward worship, such as prayer, praise, and regular attendance on God’s word.

Those who truly love God will work hard to keep his commandments, especially those that deal with his worship. Those who love God and keep these commands will also receive grace to keep his other commands. Worship that is according to the gospel will help shape all obedience according to the gospel. God has mercy ready for such people. They still need mercy and cannot claim any merit, but they will find mercy with God, merciful protection in their obedience, and a merciful reward for it. This mercy reaches thousands, far beyond the wrath threatened against those who hate him, which reaches only to the third or fourth generation. The flow of mercy is still as full, as free, and as fresh as ever.

The third commandment concerns how we worship, that it be done with all possible reverence and seriousness, as Exodus 20:7 says. Here is the strict command: "You must not take the name of the Lord your God in vain." It is assumed that, having accepted Jehovah as their God, they would speak of his name, since every people walks in the name of its god. This command gives a needed warning not to use his name lightly, and that warning is still needed today.

We take God’s name in vain in several ways. First, by hypocrisy, when we make a profession of God’s name but do not live in line with it. Those who call themselves by Christ’s name, but do not turn away from sin as that name requires, use it in vain. Their worship is empty (Mat 15:7-9), their offerings are empty (Isa 1:11, Isa 1:13), and their religion is empty (Jam 1:26). Second, by breaking promises. If we make vows to God, binding ourselves to what is good, and then fail to keep them, we take his name in vain (Mat 5:33). That is foolish, and God takes no pleasure in fools (Ecc 5:4), nor will he be mocked (Gal 6:7).

Third, we take his name in vain by careless swearing, using the name of God, or one of his traits, in an oath without good reason or proper thought. It becomes a casual saying, used for no purpose or for no good purpose. Fourth, we do it by false swearing, which some think is the main sense of the command. That was how people in earlier times explained it: "You must not swear falsely." (Mat 5:33) The Jews were taught to honor God by swearing by his name (Deu 10:20), but they dishonored him instead of honoring him when they called him as a witness to a lie.

Fifth, we take God’s name in vain by using it carelessly and without respect for its holy meaning. This includes abusing the forms of devotion, as well as abusing the forms of swearing. It also includes abusing anything by which God makes himself known, his word, or any of his appointed practices. When these are turned into charms or spells, or made into jokes and sport, God’s name is taken in vain.

The Lord will not consider the one who takes his name in vain as innocent. Civil judges may not think this offense is their concern, since it does not directly harm private property or public order. But God is jealous for his honor, and he will not overlook it. The sinner may excuse himself and think there is no harm in it, and that God will never call him to account. To answer that false comfort, the warning is stated plainly: God will not hold him guiltless, as he hopes. More is meant too, namely, that God himself will punish those who misuse his name, and they will find it a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

The fourth commandment concerns the time of worship. God is to be served and honored every day, but one day in seven is to be set apart for his special honor and spent in his service. The command is, "Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy" (Exodus 20:8), and "On it you shall do no work" (Exodus 20:10). This assumes that the sabbath was already known, since God blessed and made holy a seventh day from the beginning (Genesis 2:3). So this was not a new law, but the renewing of an older one.

They are first told what day must be kept, a seventh day after six days of labor. It is not certain whether this was the seventh day counted from the first sabbath, from the time they left Egypt, or from both. The exact day had already been shown to them (Exodus 16:23), and from that point they were to keep the seventh day. They also learn how it must be kept, first as a day of rest, with no work in their trades or daily business, and then as a holy day, set apart for the holy God and filled with holy duties. God had made it holy by blessing it, and they were to keep it holy by honoring him, not by using it for any other purpose.

The command was for the whole household: "you, your son, and your daughter." The wife is not named, because she is assumed to be one with her husband and present with him. If he sets apart the sabbath, she is expected to join him. But the rest of the family is named clearly. Children and servants must keep the sabbath according to their age and ability. In this, as in other parts of religion, heads of households are expected not only to serve the Lord themselves, but to see that their houses serve him too, or at least not fail through their neglect (Joshua 24:15). Even the foreigner living among them had to keep a difference between this day and the others. That command did restrain them for the time being, but it also pointed forward to God's gracious purpose to bring the Gentiles into the church and let them share in sabbath blessing. Compare (Isaiah 56:6-7). God notices what we do, especially what we do on sabbath days, even when we are in a place where we are strangers.

The word "remember" is a special reminder. It suggests the sabbath had been known before, but that in Egypt they had lost track of it, been hindered by their slave masters, or become careless and dull in religion. For that reason they needed to be reminded. Neglected duties are still duties, even when we have ignored them. It also reminds us that we are very likely to forget this duty, and therefore must make a point of remembering it. Some take it to mean we should prepare for the sabbath ahead of time, thinking about it before it comes so we may keep it holy when it arrives.

Several reasons are given for this command. We have six days for our own work, and on the seventh we should serve God. We also have six days to wear ourselves out, so the seventh is a kindness, because it requires us to rest. This is the Lord's day, the sabbath of the Lord your God, not only appointed by him, but set apart for him. To treat it as common is a kind of theft, because keeping it holy is something owed to him.

The sabbath also serves as a memorial of creation, so it is to be kept for the glory of the Creator. It calls us to serve him and encourages us to trust him, since he made heaven and earth. By keeping the sabbath, the Jews showed that they worshiped the God who made the world. That set them apart from all other nations, who worshiped gods they had made themselves. God has also given us an example of rest after six days of work. He rested on the seventh day, delighted in himself, and rejoiced in the work of his hands, to teach us to delight in him on that day and give him glory for his works (Psalm 92:4). The sabbath began when creation was finished, and the everlasting sabbath will begin when providence and redemption are finished. We keep the weekly sabbath in hope of that future rest, and in memory of the first, shaping ourselves to the God we worship.

Finally, God has blessed and sanctified the sabbath day himself. He has honored it by setting it apart for his own use, so it is holy and honorable before him. He has also placed blessings in it, and he encourages us to expect those blessings when we faithfully keep the day. It is the day the Lord has made, and we should not do what we can to undo it. Since he has blessed, honored, and sanctified it, we must not profane it, dishonor it, or reduce it to ordinary time.