ABSTRACT
If the idea of covenant was of great significance to the consolidation of national identity, the key condition of that covenant was that the Israelites were to worship only one god. No rivals were permitted: the Lord is a ‘jealous God’ (Exodus 34.14). The very first commandment of the Decalogue was the prohibition against other gods: ‘You shall have no other gods before/ besides me’ (Exodus 20.3). Time after time in the stories of the wilderness wanderings, the people were warned against involvement with other gods, the gods worshipped by those who already lived in the land that God promised to the Israelites:
When my angel goes before you, and brings you in to the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, and I blot them out, you shall not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do according to their works, but you shall utterly overthrow them and break their pillars into pieces.
