Top Ten Commandments: There’s was a movie released in Feb “God’s of Egypt” – $140 million action-adventure-fantasy starring Gerard Butler. It reportedly had something to do with the survival of mankind as an unexpected mortal hero gets to save the world against the merciless god of darkness.
People in the ancient world, particularly Egypt, were primarily polytheistic – they worshiped more than one god.
The Egyptians imagined the earth as being in the shape of a dish with their fertile region (Egypt) in the centre. The Nile River flowed from under the earth, bringing fertility to the land.
Each aspect of the earth had its own god. Geb, earth, was portrayed as a god lying down. Nut, heaven, was a goddess who arched her body across from mountain to mountain. Shu, the air, stood erect, holding up the sky. (Youngblood).
2 Samuel 7:23 (ESV) 23 And who is like your people Israel, the one nation on earth whom God went to redeem to be his people, making himself a name and doing for them great and awesome things by driving out before your people, whom you redeemed for yourself from Egypt, a nation and its gods?
And so with the plagues that God brought against Egypt that would eventually lead to the deliverance of Israel, they clearly demonstrated that their gods were powerless before the true and living God of Israel. (Youngblood)
But Israel had lived under the influence of Egyptian life, customs, worship practices, culture and lifestyle for in excess of 400 years. God brings them to the foot of Mt Sinai and introduces the beginning of their detox program – their spiritual and communal realignment.
Exodus 20:1-2 1 And God spoke all these words, saying, 2 “I am the Lord (Yahweh) your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 3 You shall have no other gods before me.
This is how you will live, do relationships, live in community, worship, be my people, be a witness to the nations…