Decalogue - the first commandment

The First Commandment

The Ten Commandments are recorded in both Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5, but different traditions number and divide them differently. Roman Catholics and Lutherans include the prohibition of idolatry within the first commandment while splitting the final "do not covet" into two. Eastern Orthodox and Protestant traditions separate the prohibition of idolatry as an independent second commandment. Here, we follow the numbering of most Protestant traditions.

"I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me."
(Exod. 20:2–3)

The Commandment: A Covenant Grounded in Salvation

In the Protestant tradition, the first commandment is summarized as "You shall have no other gods before me" (Exodus 20:3). However, this command must be read together with the preceding declaration: "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of slavery" (Exodus 20:2). The commandment represents a request for a new relationship grounded in divine salvific activity. This is not a coercive imposition of exclusive monotheism, but rather an invitation to participate in the divine self-disclosure as it manifests in the world—a call not to depart from the liberation trajectory by aligning oneself with the divine direction and breath. The divine name is not bound to a particular ethnic or religious identity, but discloses the divine character. The covenant between deity and people emerges when divine activity—descending in response to the people's cry from their historical condition of enslavement—becomes visible within history.

"The LORD did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the LORD loved you and kept the oath he swore to your ancestors that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt." (Deuteronomy 7:7-8)

Covenant: An Invitation to the Journey of Knowing God

Many scholars have interpreted the Decalogue through the lens of ancient Near Eastern Suzerain-Vassal Treaty formulae. They note the parallel between vassals' loyalty oaths before their overlord—"You shall not serve another king before me"—and the oath structure of the Ten Commandments. From this perspective, the commandments constitute a loyalty oath to YHWH's governing order and value system. While this interpretation illuminates how the commandments articulate divine order and values, it has limitations when the deity is understood merely as another sovereign in the manner of other ancient Near Eastern deities. To properly understand the Decalogue, we must recognize the distinctiveness of YHWH faith. While ancient Near Eastern deities were rooted in territory and bloodline, YHWH discloses divine identity through communal order and value systems—exemplified by the protection of the vulnerable in the Pentateuch—and the way of life these require.

Additionally, though the Decalogue has historically occupied a central position in Christian faith practice, it has frequently been interpreted through legalistic or doctrinal frameworks. However, the Decalogue functions as covenant. Covenant establishes itself within the relational matrix of "I and you," constituting an invitation to participate in relationship with the divine. Therefore, the Decalogue should not be read as a prescriptive catalog, but understood as articulating values, existential orientation, and vocation within the journey of knowing the divine. YHWH, who discloses the divine self through salvific activity, invites participation in the direction of the spirit/breath that this saving activity reveals in history, rather than demanding exclusive loyalty.

The Gospel tradition records: "Whoever loves me will keep my commandments" (John 14:15). Here, commandments function not as punitive regulations but as the linguistic expression of a love relationship. Affection for the divine heart, pursuits, and breath generates practice from one's irreplaceable position of participation in that breathing. Within this praxis, the divine becomes source of wisdom and aid, expanding human understanding. Faith, therefore, manifests as the process of participating in covenantal relationship, and within that relationship humans journey toward knowing the divine.

Invitation: A Liberated Community Breathing with the Divine

Biblical texts testify that humanity is constituted by divine breath. From this anthropological perspective, the first commandment functions as YHWH's invitation to restoration into unity—into one breath. The Hebrew Bible's emphasis on "one YHWH, one temple" does not signify worship of a singular deity at a single cultic location. "You are my people, YHWH is your God" articulates not an exclusive privileged relationship, but an invitation to exist in unified breath with the divine. This follows from the commandment's character as covenant connected to a people experiencing divine descending salvation.

From this interpretive framework, YHWH's self-disclosure operates not through cultic ritual or religious identity markers, but through the directionality manifested in lived praxis. Regarding the etymology of YHWH's name ("I am that I am"), several scholarly interpretations merit attention: 1) the majority of scholars argue it derives from the verb "hayah" (to be); 2) some scholars argue it derives from the verb "hawah" meaning "to move dynamically like a storm"; 3) certain interpretations suggest a connection to the sound of human respiration—inhalation and exhalation. As an imperfect verb signifying existence or activity, the divine name employs a tense encompassing past, present, and future temporality. The name itself functions verbally rather than nominally, expressing "deity in motion," "deity beyond limitation," and "deity co-evolving with the people." The divine identity manifests through divine activity. The commandment does not assert exclusive monotheism but articulates "the deity's being-as-deity" through the direction of activity.

Within this interpretive context, the commandment reflects the divine vision/design for community created in the world through divine salvific activity, as divine and human breath harmonize and connect. Korean philosophy developed i-gi theory as a mode of metaphysical reasoning. In simplified terms, li (理) signifies the principle underlying phenomena and order, while gi (氣) denotes the dynamic energy through which that principle operates. The Decalogue discloses the divine orientation and intentionality. Simultaneously, it constitutes a covenantal promise that vitality and breath are provided when humans participate in this breathing.

If you participate in this dream and pursue this design, I will be there with you, and I will move to make it so. In this way, I will make known to the world who I am, and you who participate in this way are my people.

The Character of Salvific Activity: The Descending Divine

Divine salvific activity liberates people from enslavement. When individual habits, desires, distorted perceptions, and social structures hold humans captive, humans experience that they do not exercise agency over their own existence. The first commandment invites entry into the liberation journey from all such forms of domination through participation in divine breath. Within this journey, human perspective transforms, opportunities emerge for habit reformation, and power develops to choose alternative existential orientations. Human embodiment gains opportunity to habituate itself to this breathing within freedom.

Therefore, this first commandment articulates a paradoxical promise: participation in the dominion of divine breath generates liberation from all other forms of domination. Approaching the divine through East Asian philosophical understanding, one may speak of the divine as mu (無—nothingness/emptiness) that resists linguistic limitation. In East Asian understanding, mu signifies not absence or void, but fullness prior to all definition—that the divine cannot be circumscribed or limited. From this perspective, the first commandment calls for participation and entry into this divine mu (nothingness/oneness), explaining the paradox that humans experience freedom through limitation within that divine unity. This resonates with the Hellenistic philosophical understanding of becoming those who "participate in the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4). When humans enter into oneness and connect with divine breath, simultaneously the divine expands the divine self in the world through human agency.

Divine salvific activity flows toward marginalized spaces. When humans experience weakness, brokenness, or alienation, the divine presence manifests. Therefore, existence participating in divine breath constitutes existence flowing toward marginalized others. Through practices of compassion and justice, humans learn the divine mode of salvation and actualize divine governance in the present. Simultaneously, concrete transformation is attempted so that divine values permeate all domains of existence—daily practices, health, relationship with nature, economic decisions. This connects to the path of gathering human breath into unity.

I Will Never Depart from This Journey with the Descending Divine

The first commandment decidedly does not constitute an exclusivist commandment limiting divinity to Israel's YHWH, to ethnicity, deity, or religious institution. Biblical texts portray the divine not as an exclusivist monotheistic entity, but as one who unfolds salvific action in the world and establishes covenantal relationships with those who participate in that activity. For people who experienced "divine descent" as liberation, it functions as invitation and promise—to achieve independence from other forms of domination and influence, to flow together with values and breath oriented toward divine unity. On that trajectory, humans participate in divine character and articulate the divine to the world as the divine's irreplaceable narrative.

Therefore, we will not depart from this path of unity. I will never leave this journey with the divine who descended to me—the journey of descending together toward marginalized spaces.