Exodus 20:4-6

These are the words found in the study notes portion of my Bible:

"Yahweh demands exclusive covenant loyalty. As the one true God of heaven and eath, Yahweh cannot and will not tolerate the worship of any "other gods"."

God demands loyalty!

Today's focus is verses 4-6, which say:

4 You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

This passage is adding onto the first commandment, which was to have no other gods! We need to devote ourselves to God wholly. In serving Him wholly, we need not to make idols or statues. We should worship God and Him alone. Materials themselves aren't bad, but where is our focus? What do we spend our time thinking about? What do we place value upon? The things themselves are not sin, but how we use them. When we worship statues of angels, a celebrity, or something else, it is a sin. We need to worship our maker, not the created. Choose to worship God, and Him alone! Guard our hearts, and be careful what we allow ourselves to place value upon.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary wrote: "4, 5. Thou shalt not make … any graven image … thou shalt not bow down thyself to them—that is, "make in order to bow." Under the auspices of Moses himself, figures of cherubim, brazen serpents, oxen, and many other things in the earth beneath, were made and never condemned. The mere making was no sin—it was the making with the intent to give idolatrous worship."

It is about not giving into idolatrous worship. We fall into damage of worshiping the things He himself made. That is what happened with the Egpytians, and they would not hear and obey God. They had their idols, false gods, and self-imposed worship, and they missed it all! They thought they knew religion, maybe even, but they definitely did not know God. The real question is: Do we know Jesus? Are we allowing God to be where our worship is? Or, are we worshiping things?

From ESV study Bible, this commentary is added on Exodus 20:4-6:

"You shall not make for yourself a carved image. The gods of both Egypt and Canaan were often associated with some aspect of creation and worshiped as, or through, an object that represented them. The Lord has made it clear, through the plagues and the exodus, that he has power over every aspect of creation because the world earth is his (9:29; 19:5), and thus he commands Israel to refrain from crafting an image of anything in heaven or earth for worship (20:4-5a). The prohibition is grounded in the fact that the Lord is a jealous God (see 34:14; Deut. 6:15), and that the Lord has no physical form, and should not be thought to be localized in one (Deut. 4:15-20). Israel saw what happened to Egypt when Pharaoh refused to acknowledge what was being revealed about the Lord; here Israel is warned against doing the same, while also being reassured that their God is merciful and gracious (see Ex 34:6-7)."

God is worthy of honor! He is God. He is the Creator of the Heaven and Earth. He deserves all of our worship! We need to be watchful of what we are doing: who do we give away worship to? Are we worshiping God and Him only? God is a jealous God. He asks for our loyalty, and He deserves it! We entered a covenant with Him. It is an ongoing covenant. We need to check for "leaks" in our loyalty. Are we allowing other things to come between our worshiping the Lord?

His love.

His mercy.

His greatness.

He is worthy!

"But showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments." (20:6)