Demanding that Israel have no other gods before him
(Exod. 20:2 [3]) is not a statement of monotheism, but rather of commitment.
Yahweh must come first, which even could be read as a statement of priority,
not exclusivity. However, when read alongside other prohibitions, the
monolatrous implications are clear. In the immediately following verses (20:3-4
[4-5]), Yahweh forbids making any images for worship because he is a “jealous god.”
(In fact, Yahweh’s self-proclaimed jealousy bookends the Sinai legislation in
20:4 [5] and 34:14) He then qualifies his statement by forbidding images of
gods, which is the primary method of accessing them (20:19 [23]). The text later
extends the terms of a taboo on speaking the names of other gods (23:13) and making
a covenant with other deities (23:32). (Exod. 34:15-16 prohibits making a
covenant with foreign people because doing so will lead to non-Yahwistic
worship) Just as their names must not be spoken, so too much their cultic apparatuses
be destroyed (23:24). (Michael Hundley, Yahweh Among the Gods: The Divine in
Genesis, Exodus, and the Ancient Near East [Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2022], 311-12)
