Think about it-so long as you pray to Yahweh FIRST, guess what? You cna pray to Ba'al, Zeus, Asmodeus, et al!!!!!


First and loudest to Yahweh!

So, you CAN pick the right one-all 150!

No, the meaning of the original text is literally, "there shall be unto thee no other gods in preference to me". That is, you must prefer YHWH over all other gods.

ìà éäéä ìê àìäéí àçøéí òì ôðé
lo yihye l'kha elohim aherim 'al panai
(Hebrew in Windows-Hebrew encoding)

Do not--repeat--do not prefer a god of religion, money, power or politics. Or a god of Jesus.

How many tables in the Temple have YOU tipped over today?

Actually, al pene means "before me" in the literal sense. Don't have any gods BEFORE (i.e. in front of Yhwh). It prohibits the worship of other gods while Yhwh's presence is at the temple.

If we're going into literal meanings, then the most literal meaning of "al panai" is "on my face". The phrase is always used in Hebrew (both Biblical and Modern) in the figurative meaning of "in preference".

Yes, but does the phrase admit of the existence of other gods? I think that was thrust of JC's original post.

Michael

It seems so, since the Hebrew Bible has such things as Moses saying "Who is like you among the gods, YHWH?". It is the opinion of most Biblical scholars that the OT is henotheistic, that is, it places YHWH over all other gods without denying their existence. So too the Arabs believed in "The God" (=Al-Laah, Allah) as superior to the other gods, until Islam came and denied their existence altogether.

Possibly the plural in Genesis ("we shall make Man..." etc) has its origins in a prehistoric polytheism.

LOL! I agree with devnet. The "on my face" just cracked me up, though it's true. This is a big problem with people just pulling a Greek or Hebrew Lexicon off the shelf and spitting out what it says to prove their point. Learn the language and then debate its intricacies, right devnet?

Ish

I would have accepted another possible meaning for "al panai", only that most Jewish commentators of the Bible, both religious and secular, are agreed to interpreting it as "in preference to me". The meaning simply hasn't changed over the ages, and I can easily use that very phrase in ordinary conversation.

Al penai does mean "upon my face," but as others have pointed out, it can have other idiomatic translations. "In front of" seems to be the the most common, and it makes sense concerning the Ten Commandments. But the point is well taken that this commandment does not deny the existence of other gods, it just says that there are to be no gods in Yhwh's presence.

In Semitic cultures, the spirits of gods were thought to reside in the temples (in the statue of the god). By erecting a temple to another god or having an idol of another god, a "god" would be residing in the presence of Yhwh.