Idolatry - Exodus 22:20

22:20 – Here we have another verse on apostasy, or at least shifting the focus of worship from Yehoveh to anything else. The concept of idol worship is really interesting because it can be so literal and also so figurative at the same time. Just from what I’ve read previously, the physical figurine representing the idol was very prominent and served multiple purposes, not just religious but also legal like we saw in the instance of Rachel stealing Laban’s idol. I personally never understood the belief in idols, it never made sense to me that an inanimate object has abilities to do anything other than just sit there. I don’t know if that’s just because I live now instead of 4,000 years ago. It’s an interesting thought experiment to think “if I lived anciently in a time when people literally believed that idols had power, would I believe that as well?” Because honestly, many people see our belief in God as just as unrealistic and delusional, so I guess it’s not that far out there.

Idol worship is another example of a capital offense, meaning that those who engage in it are to be executed. Interestingly, the word “sacrificeth” is cross-referenced with multiple times in the Old Testament when this sentence was carried out on those who tried to practice idolatry. Again, this begs the question, why the severity of the death penalty for offenders? And I guess the answer to that is that God’s centrality in the lives and beliefs in the Hebrew God specifically was so significant that the people had to be so focused on God that anything else had to be extinguished immediately and brutally. It might also be that the people were so stubborn that it took the absolute more extreme form of punishment to keep them out of falling head first into idolatry and then, of course, apostasy.

TB discusses this last reason as being significant, noting that there is explicit language saying not to even recognize other gods and then it says “don’t sacrifice to other gods either.” TB notes that the only reason why both of those statements would need to be made at different, seemingly unrelated, times would be useless “unless you’re looking for a reason to do what you want. The reason the issue is discussed in this way is quite simple: the Israelites were always looing for loopholes and exceptions to the rule against idolatry… The liked their idolatry; they wanted to keep their idolatry and operate like the rest of the world. The Bible is LOADED with examples of Israel constantly falling back into idol worship and practically every time one of God’s prophets called them on the carpet for doing it, they denied that what they were doing was actually idolatry until AFTER His wrath fell upon them. These Hebrews thought that what they were doing may have been CLOSE to idolatry… maybe even right up to the line… but their hearts were in the right place (according to their way of thinking). Well, God labeled it as idolatry and He eventually killed thousands of Israelites for it and exiled the rest from the Holy Lands.”

That was a really long quote but I thought that it was pertinent because this is exactly right in term of being able to see how so many of the ancient Israelites were working so hard to actively get out of worshipping God in a way that kept them alive and thriving within their Hebrew social circle. And there are two things that I think are important here, first is that I don’t for one second think that the people to were worshipping idols were doing so because they held a deep seated belief that this idol was the one true god that could work in their behalf and held the keys to their eternal salvation. No, I absolutely think that they fell victim to what the rest of the human population has fallen victim to through all of human history, they chose the path that they thought would be the most fun or the most exciting or where they could do whatever they wanted to do with as little accountability as possible. This isn’t an Israel problem, this is a human nature problem, we all do it and we all try to get away with it, maybe some are a little bit more self-aware than others, but 100% this is what we are all doing. We just want to do what we want to do all the time. We want all the perks of every program and none of the rules.

I guess you have people who are doing human stuff and trying to slip out of being obedient and this people has been set up throughout generations of time to do good work and to be the environment for the Savior of all mankind to be born into. If this was the whole purpose of having a people (Israel), and they had to be prepared for several thousands of years to be ready for the Messiah to come, then a strict adherence to the rules would be vital to this system surviving long enough for Jesus to be born into. Then yes, I can see why death to any to disobeyed would be necessary. Was the whole purpose of Israel to simply be where the Savior was born? Did the people serve no other purpose than that that was unique to them and not able to be achieved by any other people? Could Jesus have been born into any other random culture of society and been just as successful? Clearly, He could have performed the atonement at any place and time, and he would have been perfect in any society that he would have been born into. So why was it so necessary that Israel remain as a society faithful to God but that wasn’t as necessary at any other time?

There have been attempts at restoring the gospel all throughout human history, and they have all failed, except for the current iteration that we are in right now, but given enough time, I’m confident that we as people would corrupt it just like we always do. Anyway, as far as I know, besides Israel, the other attempts of restoring the gospel were never ruled by death threats for disobedience. So why Israel? The only reason I can think, the only thing that I feel is unique to them is that Christ was born to that society. Is that the reason? Is that the only reason? Was there no other society that Christ’s birth could have been successful in? It’s really interesting to think about.

Last thing, the penalty for idolatry was death, and the IM notes, “Worship of a false god is to the spiritual man what murder is to the physical man, direct and devastating death. Alma the Younger understood this principle when he said of his period of apostasy, ‘Yes, and I had murdered many of his children, or rather led them away unto destruction.” Spiritual death is the result of turning away from God, so maybe in that way, physical death might be the result as well. In our society today, what do we equate to idolatry. So many people say things like cars or jobs or houses or just stuff in general, but I contest that it’s anything that takes our focus off of God, and that’s a tough definition because what does that even mean to us living a physical life in a physical body where 99% of our focus is going to be on the physical just for survival. And maybe that’s the point, idolatry in our society today isn’t a specific object that we focus on, but the quest of a lifetime to constantly readjust our focus to turn back onto God when we get carried off in a physical direction. Something to think about.