The Command That Comes Before the Commandments

Exodus twenty, verses two and three, opens the Ten Commandments with a claim about identity before any command is given. I am Jehovah thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, the text says, grounding everything that follows in a historical act rather than in an abstract claim about divinity. Only then comes the first instruction, thou shalt have no other gods before me. Jewish enumeration traditionally counts the opening self identification itself as the first of the ten words, a positive statement of who is speaking, while most Christian schemes treat that sentence as a preface and count the prohibition on other gods as the first commandment proper, so the two traditions divide the same six Hebrew words differently before either one reaches a second commandment. The Hebrew behind before me, al panai, means literally before my face, closer to in my presence than to the comparative sense an English reader might expect, in preference to me. The verse does not flatly deny that other gods exist, only forbids setting any other god in Israel's own worship before this one, a distinction later readers of the passage have taken seriously rather than smoothing over.