This raises an important related question:

To what degree did the Israelites embrace the concept of strict monotheism, as we now understand this?

The short answer is that right up to the period of the Exile into Babylonia in 587 BCE, the great majority of Israelites were not monotheists in the way that modern Christians, Jews or Muslims understand this. In fact it was Israel’s overall failure to properly grasp both this concept and its implications on life and worship that was behind their repeated sin of running after other gods. This failure was the major cause of their exile.

The revelation that God was the ‘only God’ understandably took a very long time to fully be accepted. Changing several thousand of years of deeply ingrained polytheistic beliefs does not happen in just a few years. And indeed it is clear that God is fully aware of this very point. He does not seem to be particularly interested in moving the Hebrews faster than they can handle into this totally radical idea that only one God exists.

A clear illustration of God’s patience with the process of change is seen in the very careful wording of the first commandment in Exodus 20.3, “You shall have no other gods before me.” Note, God does not say, “I am the only God who exists”.

To the ears of the people who heard this command, the message was that the great high God, Elohim, was the greatest of the gods and they were to worship only him. Shocking though it will sound to our centuries old Christian monotheistic mind-set, this first commandment is not a claim of monotheism as such.

This is further reinforced by the use of ‘Elohim’, the most common name used for God by the writers of the first five books of the Bible. Elohim is firstly a plural word and can rightly be translated as ‘the Elohim’, as seen in the well known statement by God in Genesis 1.26, “God [Elohim] said ‘let us make man in our image.” What is particularly pertinent to this issue is that the name ‘El’, on which Elohim is based, was the name most widely used by the peoples of the Middle East for the great ‘High God’, as in the top God among lesser gods. It did not at this stage imply the only God in the entire earth.

It would take many centuries for this great truth to finally fully engraft itself into the Jews’ psyche.