Commentary - Exodus 22:20

Bird's-eye view

Exodus 22:20 is a stark and weighty command, set within a section of the Mosaic law often called the Book of the Covenant. These are the civil and social statutes that flow directly from the Ten Commandments given on Sinai. This particular law gets right to the heart of the first and greatest commandment: "You shall have no other gods before me." It establishes the ultimate civic penalty for high treason against Yahweh, the one true King of Israel. The law is not about private thoughts or personal struggles with temptation; it concerns the public, overt act of sacrificing to a false god. This act was a public declaration of allegiance to a rival deity, a fundamental betrayal of the covenant relationship that God had established with His people. In the theocracy of ancient Israel, where God was the direct civil head of the nation, idolatry was not simply a religious error; it was sedition. Therefore, the penalty was correspondingly severe, designed to purge the evil from the midst of the people and preserve the holiness of the nation.

This verse forces us to grapple with the absolute and exclusive claims of God. He is not one god among many, to be added to a pantheon of personal preferences. He is the Creator of all things, the Redeemer of His people, and He rightly demands total and exclusive loyalty. The severity of the punishment underscores the gravity of the sin. To sacrifice to another god was to deny the very foundation of Israel's existence, their redemption from Egypt, and their covenant with Yahweh. For us today, while the civil application has changed with the coming of Christ, the principle remains. All authority in heaven and on earth belongs to Jesus, and the fundamental sin of humanity is the worship of the creature rather than the Creator. This verse, in its historical context, points us to the ultimate seriousness of idolatry and drives us to the one who alone perfectly worshipped the Father, and who became a sacrifice to deliver us from our own idolatrous hearts.

Outline

Context In Exodus

This verse is situated in the heart of the Book of the Covenant (Exodus 20:22–23:33), which immediately follows the Ten Commandments. This placement is significant. The Ten Commandments lay out the foundational principles of God's law, with the first two commandments forbidding the worship of any other gods and the making of idols. The laws that follow in chapters 21-23 are the case-law applications of these great principles to the daily life of Israel. They are not disconnected rules, but rather the outworking of what it means to love God and neighbor in a concrete, covenantal community.

Exodus 22:20 is a direct application of the first commandment. Having just laid down laws concerning property, restitution, and personal injury, the law now turns to capital offenses that strike at the very heart of the covenant community's relationship with God. The surrounding verses deal with other capital crimes like sorcery (v. 18) and bestiality (v. 19), as well as laws protecting the most vulnerable members of society (vv. 21-27). This demonstrates that for God, right worship and social justice are inextricably linked. A society that abandons the true God will inevitably begin to prey upon its weakest members. The prohibition against sacrificing to other gods is therefore not an arbitrary religious rule, but a foundational law for the peace, order, and life of the nation.

Verse by Verse Commentary

Exodus 22:20

"And he who sacrifices to any god..."

The law begins by identifying the specific action that is prohibited. It is not about a fleeting thought, a moment of doubt, or an inward struggle. The verb is "sacrifices," which refers to a public, deliberate, and formal act of worship. In the ancient world, sacrifice was the central act of religious devotion. It was how one declared allegiance, sought favor, and entered into communion with a deity. To sacrifice to a god was to publicly acknowledge its reality, power, and authority. This was not a private opinion; it was a public performance. It was an overt act of treason. The law here is dealing with what we would call a crime, not just a sin. All crimes are sins, but not all sins are crimes. The civil magistrate is not given authority to police the thoughts of the heart, but rather to punish evil deeds. This was an evil deed of the highest order.

"...other than to Yahweh alone..."

Here we have the core principle of biblical faith: the exclusive worship of the one true God. The name Yahweh is the covenant name of God, the name He revealed to Moses at the burning bush, the name that signifies His self-existence and His faithfulness to His promises. The word "alone" is crucial. It demolishes any attempt at syncretism, the blending of different religions. Yahweh does not tolerate rivals. He will not be part of a pantheon. He is not the chief god among many; He is the only God. This is not divine pettiness; it is a statement of reality. As Paul would later say, an idol is nothing in the world (1 Cor. 8:4). To sacrifice to a non-god is the height of irrationality and rebellion. It is to give the honor due to the Creator to some created thing, or worse, to a demon masquerading behind the idol. Worship is a zero-sum game. Any worship given to another is worship stolen from Yahweh, to whom it is all due.

"...shall be devoted to destruction."

The penalty for this crime is absolute. The phrase "devoted to destruction" comes from the Hebrew word herem. This is not simply the death penalty. It signifies something that is utterly and irrevocably consecrated to God for destruction. It is to be removed from the sphere of ordinary human use and life and handed over to God's judgment. When a city was placed under the herem (like Jericho), all its inhabitants and all its spoil were to be destroyed as a sacrifice to the Lord's justice. So, for an individual Israelite to commit this act of treason, he himself was to become a sacrifice of sorts, a demonstration of the consuming holiness of God. This severe penalty served two purposes. First, it demonstrated the infinite gravity of the sin of idolatry. Second, it was a radical purgative, designed to prevent the cancer of false worship from spreading and destroying the entire nation. Israel was called to be a holy nation, and this law was a necessary, albeit severe, means of preserving that holiness.

Application

Now, how do we handle a text like this today? We are not ancient Israel, a theocratic nation-state. The church is not the state, and the civil magistrate today does not wield the sword to punish idolatry. The coming of Christ has transformed the application of these laws. The ceremonial laws are fulfilled in Him, and the civil laws, given to a specific nation for a specific time, are no longer binding in their exact form. However, the principle, or what the Westminster Confession calls the "general equity," remains.

The principle is this: God alone is to be worshipped. Idolatry is not a small matter; it is cosmic treason. While the state does not execute idolaters, God's judgment against idolatry has not been revoked. The wages of sin is still death. Our culture is drowning in idolatry. We may not sacrifice to Baal or Molech, but we sacrifice our time, our money, our children, and our integrity on the altars of sex, power, comfort, and self. We worship the creature rather than the Creator. This law should drive us to our knees in repentance, recognizing our own idolatrous hearts.

And in that repentance, it drives us to the Gospel. The ultimate penalty for our idolatry, for our cosmic treason, has been paid. Jesus Christ was "devoted to destruction" on our behalf. On the cross, He bore the herem, the full weight of God's holy wrath against our sin. He was made a curse for us, so that we might be delivered from the curse of the law. Because of His sacrifice, we who were once idolaters can be made true worshippers. Empowered by His Spirit, we are now called to tear down the idols in our own hearts and in our culture, not with the sword, but with the proclamation of the gospel of the one true King who demands, and deserves, our exclusive allegiance.