Polytheism
The patriarchs were drawn out of a polytheistic world, and the long arc of Israel's history is the contest between Yahweh and the many gods of the surrounding peoples. Polytheism appears in the household talismans of Laban, the Baal cycles of the Judges, the per-city gods of Judah, the imperial pantheons of Babylon, and the temples of the Greeks. Against the multitude of named deities — Baal, the Ashtaroth, Chemosh, Milcom, Molech, Dagon, Rimmon, the queen of heaven, the host of heaven — the scriptures press a single counter-claim: Yahweh is one, and there is no other.
The Ancestral Background
The patriarchs are remembered as having come out of a polytheistic family. Joshua puts it plainly: "Your⁺ fathers dwelt of old time beyond the River, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nahor: and they served other gods" (Josh 24:2). The same pull persists into the next generation. Rachel "stole the talismans that were her father's" (Gen 31:19), hides them in the camel's saddle (Gen 31:34), and Jacob must purge his household of foreign gods at Bethel: "Put away the foreign gods that are among you⁺, and purify yourselves, and change your⁺ garments" (Gen 35:2). The household complies — "they gave to Jacob all the foreign gods which were in their hand, and the rings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem" (Gen 35:4). Joshua's final charge at the same Shechem closes the loop: "Now therefore put away, [he said], the foreign gods which are among you⁺, and incline your⁺ heart to Yahweh, the God of Israel" (Josh 24:23).
Forbidden at Sinai
The Mosaic legislation cuts directly across the polytheistic world Israel is entering. The image is forbidden — "You will not make for yourself a graven image, nor any likeness [of any thing] that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth" (Ex 20:4) — as is metalwork: "You will make yourself no molten gods" (Ex 34:17). The pillar, figured stone, and Asherah pole are likewise prohibited (Lev 26:1; Deut 16:21-22). The host of heaven — sun, moon, and stars — is bracketed off: even though Yahweh "has allotted [them] to all the peoples under the whole heaven" (Deut 4:19), Israel is not to "be drawn away and worship them, and serve them" (Deut 4:19; cf. Deut 17:3). Sacrifice to Molech is named and forbidden (Lev 18:21). Behind the wood and stone, Deuteronomy identifies a darker referent: "They sacrificed to demons, [which were] not God, To gods that they did not know, To new [gods] that came up of late" (Deut 32:17), and Leviticus speaks of the "he-goats, which they go whoring after" (Lev 17:7).
The temptation is treated as an existential threat to the covenant: "Take heed to yourselves, or else your⁺ heart will be deceived, and you⁺ will turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them" (Deut 11:16). The conquest mandate is iconoclastic — "you⁺ will surely destroy all the places where the nations that you⁺ will dispossess served their gods, on the high mountains, and on the hills, and under every green tree" (Deut 12:2); "demolish all their high places" (Num 33:52); "the graven images of their gods you⁺ will burn with fire" (Deut 7:25).
The Golden Calf
The first national lapse is the calf at Horeb. Aaron "fashioned it with a graving tool, and made it [into] a molten calf: and they said, These are your gods, O Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt" (Ex 32:4). Moses recalls the same scene: "you⁺ had made yourselves a molten calf: you⁺ had turned aside quickly out of the way" (Deut 9:16). The Psalmist remembers it: "They made a calf in Horeb, And worshiped a molten image" (Ps 106:19); Nehemiah does too: "they had made themselves a molten calf, and said, This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt, and had wrought great provocations" (Neh 9:18). Jeroboam later repeats the pattern as state policy: "the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold; and he said to them, It is too much for you⁺ to go up to Jerusalem: here are your gods, O Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt" (1Ki 12:28), installing them at Beth-el and Dan with priests and a rival feast (1Ki 12:31-32; 2Ki 10:29; Hos 10:5; 2Ch 11:15; 2Ch 13:8).
Canaanite Polytheism
In the land, Israel is repeatedly drawn into the cult of the local pantheon. At Baal-peor, "Israel joined himself to Baal-peor: and the anger of Yahweh was kindled against Israel" (Num 25:3; cf. Num 25:2; Josh 22:17; Ps 106:28; Hos 9:10). The Judges cycle replays this: "the sons of Israel did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, and served the Baalim" (Judg 2:11); "they forsook Yahweh, and served Baal and the Ashtaroth" (Judg 2:13); "forgot Yahweh their God, and served the Baalim and the Asheroth" (Judg 3:7). After Gideon, "they went whoring after the Baalim, and made Baal-berith their god" (Judg 8:33). The catalogue thickens: Israel "served the Baalim, and the Ashtaroth, and the gods of Syria, and the gods of Sidon, and the gods of Moab, and the gods of the sons of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines" (Judg 10:6). The Philistines have Dagon — "the lords of the Philistines gathered together to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god" (Judg 16:23) — and house the captured ark with him (1Sa 5:2; 1Ch 10:10). Moab has Chemosh (Num 21:29; Judg 11:24; Jer 48:7); Ammon has Milcom and Molech (Lev 18:21; 1Ki 11:7; Jer 32:35); the Sidonians have Ashtoreth (1Ki 11:5,33; 2Ki 23:13). Naaman speaks for Syrian Rimmon (2Ki 5:18). Each people has its own deity, and the boundary between them is contested politically as well as religiously (Judg 11:24).
The Baal cult reaches its apex under Ahab and Jezebel: he "took as wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal, and worshiped him," "reared up an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he had built in Samaria" (1Ki 16:31-32), and "made the Asherah; and Ahab did yet more to provoke Yahweh, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him" (1Ki 16:33). On Carmel the prophets of Baal call all morning — "O Baal, hear us. But there was no voice, nor any who answered. And they leaped about the altar which was made" (1Ki 18:26) — opposite "the prophets of Baal four hundred and fifty, and the prophets of the Asherah four hundred" (1Ki 18:19). The reformers retaliate: Jehu purges Baal from Israel (2Ki 10:18-28; 2Ki 10:21); Hezekiah "removed the high places, and broke the pillars, and cut down the Asherah" (2Ki 18:4); Asa "took away the foreign altars, and the high places, and broke down the pillars, and hewed down the Asherim" (2Ch 14:3); Jehoshaphat does the same (2Ch 17:6); Josiah cleanses Topheth and the high places east of Jerusalem (2Ki 23:5,10-13,14). The reformers' antagonist recurs — Manasseh "built again the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed; and he reared up altars for Baal, and made an Asherah, as did Ahab king of Israel, and worshiped all the host of heaven, and served them" (2Ki 21:3); his son Amon "served the idols that his father served, and worshiped them" (2Ki 21:21).
High Places
The "high place" is the standing physical fixture of polytheistic worship in the land. Before centralization the term is used neutrally for sacrifice to Yahweh — Samuel presides at one (1Sa 9:12; cf. 1Sa 10:5), Solomon offers a thousand burnt-offerings at Gibeon, "the great high place" (1Ki 3:4), and even Elijah summons Israel to mount Carmel (1Ki 18:19). But once the high places become identified with the local pantheon they fall under judgment: "I will destroy your⁺ high places, and cut down your⁺ sun-images, and cast your⁺ dead bodies on the bodies of your⁺ idols" (Lev 26:30); "demolish all their high places" (Num 33:52). Jeroboam systematizes them at Beth-el and Dan, building "houses of high places, and made priests from among all the people, who were not of the sons of Levi" (1Ki 12:31), and a prophet condemns "all the houses of the high places which are in the cities of Samaria" (1Ki 13:32). The Topheth high places in the valley of Hinnom — "to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I did not command, neither did it come into my mind" (Jer 7:31; cf. Jer 32:35) — mark the bottom of the practice.
Per-City Gods
By the late monarchy, polytheism is so embedded that Jeremiah can taunt Judah with the arithmetic of it: "But where are your gods that you have made for yourself? Let them arise, if they can save you in the time of your trouble: for according to the number of your cities are your gods, O Judah" (Jer 2:28). He repeats the count: "according to the number of your cities are your gods, O Judah; and according to the number of the streets of Jerusalem have you⁺ set up altars to the shameful thing, even altars to burn incense to Baal" (Jer 11:13). Jerusalem worships the queen of heaven on its rooftops — "to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink-offerings to her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes" (Jer 44:17) — and incenses "to all the host of heaven" on the housetops (Jer 19:13; Zep 1:5). Inside Yahweh's own temple Ezekiel sees "about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of Yahweh, and their faces toward the east; and they were worshiping the sun toward the east" (Eze 8:16). The astral cult — "the sun, and the moon, and the planets, and to all the host of heaven" — runs alongside the Baal cult through every reign (2Ki 17:16; 2Ki 23:5; Job 31:26; Am 5:26).
Talismans, Teraphim, Local Shrines
Domestic polytheism runs alongside the public cult. Beyond Rachel's theft and Michal's deception with the talismans in the bed (1Sa 19:13), Micah of Ephraim runs a private shrine: "the man Micah had a house of gods, and he made an ephod, and talismans, and consecrated one of his sons, who became his priest" (Judg 17:5; cf. Judg 18:14). Hosea forecasts that Israel will be left "without sacrifice, and without pillar, and without ephod or talismans" as a chastening (Hos 3:4).
Imperial Pantheons
Outside Israel the polytheistic world is the default. Nebuchadnezzar "made an image of gold, whose height was threescore cubits" and assembles "all the peoples, the nations, and the languages" to bow at the music's signal (Dan 3:1,7). He carries the temple vessels "to the house of his god" in Shinar (Dan 1:2), and tells his dream to Daniel "whose name was Belteshazzar, according to the name of my god, and in whom is the spirit of the holy gods" (Dan 4:8) — speaking the polytheistic frame in his own voice. Belshazzar drinks from those same vessels and praises "the gods of gold, and of silver, of bronze, of iron, of wood, and of stone" (Dan 5:4,23). Babylon itself is "a land of graven images, and they are mad over idols" (Jer 50:38), under sentence of judgment "on the graven images of Babylon" (Jer 51:47).
In the Maccabean crisis the pressure runs the other way — a Hellenistic empire compels Israel to conform to its religion. Antiochus's letters demand "that they should follow the foreign customs of the land" (1Ma 1:44); some Jews "determined to do this, and went to the king: and he gave them license to do after the ordinances of the nations" (1Ma 1:13; cf. 1Ma 1:14,42); altars and idols are built (1Ma 1:47), incense burned at house doors and in the streets (1Ma 1:55). The compliant "sacrificed to idols, and profaned the Sabbath" (1Ma 1:43); Mattathias and his friends "threw down the altars" (1Ma 2:45) and kill the Jew who comes "to sacrifice to the idols on the altar in the city of Modin, according to the king's commandment" (1Ma 2:23; cf. 1Ma 2:15). The pagans' books are "the books of the law, in which the nations searched for the likenesses of their idols" (1Ma 3:48). When Jonathan reaches Azotus he finds and burns "the temple of Dagon" — "those who were scattered about the plain, fled into Azotus, and went into Bethdagon their idol's temple, there to save themselves" (1Ma 10:83-84; cf. 1Ma 11:4).
The Vanity of Idols
Across the prophets and the wisdom tradition, the indictment of polytheism keeps returning to one note: the gods are nothing. Idols are "silver and gold, The work of man's hands" (Ps 115:4; Ps 135:15; 1Ch 16:26); they "neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell" (Deut 4:28); they "must surely be borne, because they can't go" (Jer 10:5). The maker is exposed: "he seeks to him a skillful workman to set up a graven image, that will not be moved" (Isa 40:20); "the image, a workman has cast [it], and the goldsmith overlays it with gold, and casts [for it] silver chains" (Isa 40:19); "they hire a goldsmith, and he makes it a god; they fall down, yes, they worship" (Isa 46:6); "they have made for themselves molten images of their silver, even idols according to their own understanding, all of them the work of the craftsmen" (Hos 13:2). What does the made god profit? — "the molten image, even the teacher of lies, that he who fashions its form trusts in it, to make mute idols" (Hab 2:18); "his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them" (Jer 51:17); "they are vanity, a work of delusion: in the time of their visitation they will perish" (Jer 10:15).
The exchange itself is the absurdity. "Has a nation exchanged [its] gods, which yet are no gods? But my people have exchanged my glory for that which does not profit" (Jer 2:11); "Will man make to himself gods, which yet are no gods?" (Jer 16:20). When the day comes, the worshipers will themselves discard them: "In that day man will cast away their idols of silver, and their idols of gold, which have been made for them to worship, to the moles and to the bats" (Isa 2:20; cf. Isa 17:8; Mic 5:13; Zec 13:2). Yahweh will not concede the exchange: "I am Yahweh, that is my name; and my glory I will not give to another, neither my praise to graven images" (Isa 42:8).
Yahweh Alone
The counter-confession is recited as a single sentence — "Hear, O Israel: Yahweh our God, Yahweh is one" (Deut 6:4), which Jesus repeats verbatim as the first commandment ("Hear, O Israel; Yahweh our God, Yahweh is one," Mr 12:29) and which the scribe answers back: "of a truth, Teacher, you have well said that he is one; and there is no other but he" (Mr 12:32). The same claim is pressed across the canon. "To you it was shown, that you might know that Yahweh he is God; there is no other besides him" (Deut 4:35); "I, even I, am [the Speech], And there is no god with me" (Deut 32:39); "you are great, O Yahweh God: for there is none like you, neither is there any God besides you" (2Sa 7:22; 1Ch 17:20); "you alone, whose name is Yahweh, Are the Most High over all the earth" (Ps 83:18); "you are great, and do wondrous things: You alone are God" (Ps 86:10). Isaiah's oracles compress it: "before me there was no God formed, neither will there be after me" (Isa 43:10); "I am the first, and I am the last; and besides me there is no God" (Isa 44:6); "I am Yahweh; and there is no other" (Isa 45:18). The incomparability claim runs in parallel — "Who is like you, O Yahweh, among the gods? Who is like you, glorious in holiness" (Ex 15:11); "There is none like God, O Jeshurun, Who rides on the heavens for your help" (Deut 33:26); "there is no God like you, in heaven above, or on earth beneath" (1Ki 8:23); "who in the skies can be compared to Yahweh?" (Ps 89:6); "To whom then will you⁺ liken God? Or what likeness will you⁺ compare to him?" (Isa 40:18).
Personal Choice of Yahweh
Against the multiplicity of gods, individuals across the canon make Yahweh their own. Jacob at Bethel: "[the Speech of] Yahweh will be my God" (Gen 28:21). Israel as a people: "You have declared Yahweh this day to be your God" (Deut 26:17). Ruth, leaving Moab: "your people will be my people, and your God my God" (Ru 1:16). Israel on Carmel after the fire falls: "Yahweh, he is God; Yahweh, he is God" (1Ki 18:39). Naaman, even within the Rimmon-temple culture of his master: "your slave will from now on offer neither burnt-offering nor sacrifice to other gods, but to Yahweh" (2Ki 5:17). David in the Psalms: "I have said to Yahweh, You are my Lord: I have no good beyond you" (Ps 16:2; cf. Ps 31:14; Ps 63:1; Ps 118:28; Ps 140:6); "Whom have I in heaven [but you] And there is none on earth whom I desire besides you" (Ps 73:25). Samuel's call to Israel: "put away the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among you⁺, and direct your⁺ hearts to Yahweh, and serve him only" (1Sa 7:3). After Carmel, "I will leave [me] seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which haven't bowed to Baal, and every mouth which has not kissed him" (1Ki 19:18).
The Apostolic Witness
The same opposition continues into the apostolic writings. Paul reads Gentile religion through the same lens: "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things" (Ro 1:22-23). To the Galatians, "at that time, not knowing God, you⁺ served as slaves to those that by nature are no gods" (Ga 4:8). To the Corinthians, who live in the polytheistic city, the qualifier and the confession are held together: "we know that no idol is [anything] in the world, and that there is no God but one. For though there are those that are called gods, whether in heaven or on earth; as there are many gods, and many lords" (1Co 8:4-5); the food sacrificed is offered "to demons, and not to God: and I don't want you⁺ to be partners with demons" (1Co 10:20; cf. 1Co 10:19). They themselves "were Gentiles [you⁺ were] led away to those mute idols" (1Co 12:2). Ephesians compresses the claim — "one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all" (Ep 4:6) — and 1 Timothy: "there is [only] one God, and [only] one mediator between God and men, [the] man Christ Jesus" (1Ti 2:5). The closing word of 1 John is concise: "[My] little children, guard yourselves from idols" (1Jn 5:21). The Apocalypse projects the polytheistic instinct into the eschaton — even after the plagues, men "did not repent of the works of their hands, that they should not worship demons, and the idols of gold, and of silver, and of bronze, and of stone, and of wood; which can neither see, nor hear, nor walk" (Re 9:20), and the dragon-cult repeats the question that Yahweh's incomparability had answered: "Who is like the beast?" (Re 13:4).
Greeks and Jews on the Same Question
The Epistle to Diognetus carries the indictment forward into the second-century Greco-Roman world, addressed to a man weighing the Jewish and Christian critiques of the gods. It begins with the same demonstration: "Behold, not merely with the eyes but with prudence, what is the substance or form of those which you⁺ call and think gods" (Gr 2:1). The catalogue of materials follows — stone "like what we tread on," bronze "no better than the vessels forged for our use," wood "already decayed," silver that needs guarding, corroded iron, earthenware fit for "the most shameful service" (Gr 2:2). All are "of corruptible matter" made by "iron and fire" — sculptor, coppersmith, silversmith, potter — and the same matter under the same craftsmen could be made into the same vessels (Gr 2:3). "These [objects] which are now worshiped by you⁺, could they not be made by men into vessels like the rest? Are they not all deaf? All blind? All without life? All without touch? All motionless? All rotting? All decaying?" (Gr 2:4); "These [objects] you⁺ call gods, these you⁺ serve as slaves, these you⁺ worship; and you⁺ become altogether like them" (Gr 2:5). The argument turns on a sharp irony: the worshipers themselves "despise them even more" — guarding the gold and silver ones at night while leaving the stone and earth ones unguarded (Gr 2:7); when sacrifices of "blood and fat" are offered, either the god feels them and is being punished, or it is without touch and unable even to respond (Gr 2:8-9).
The same critique is then turned on Jewish sacrificial practice. To "offer to those without touch and the deaf [objects]" is folly; but to offer the same "to God as though he were in need, should rather count it foolishness, not godliness" (Gr 3:3). Whoever thinks "to offer him sacrifices of blood and fat and whole burnt-offerings" is "no different from those who show the same devotion to the deaf [objects]. The [Greeks] offer to things unable to partake of the honor; the [Jews] think they give to the one who needs nothing" (Gr 3:5). The positive claim is the now-familiar one: the Jews "rightly choose to worship the one God over all and esteem him Master" (Gr 3:2), since "he who made the heaven and the earth and all things in them, and supplies us all with whatever we need, himself needs none of those things" (Gr 3:4). Even the philosophers' speculations — God is fire, water, an element — fall under the same indictment: "if any one of these words were acceptable, each one of the other creatures might likewise announce itself as God" (Gr 8:2-3). Against all of these stands the one God who "was, and is, and ever will be kind and good, and not given to anger, and true, and the only good" (Gr 8:8).
The Nations and the One God
The polytheistic world is, in scripture's frame, the "nations" — "the disgusting behaviors of the nations, whom Yahweh cast out from before the sons of Israel" (2Ki 16:3; cf. 2Ki 17:8); the captivity returnees "separated themselves to them from the filthiness of the nations of the land, to seek Yahweh" (Ezr 6:21); "the idols of the nations are silver and gold, The work of man's hands" (Ps 135:15); "all the gods of the peoples are idols: But Yahweh made the heavens" (1Ch 16:26). The polytheistic option remains a live political pressure throughout the Maccabean period — "the nations have come together against us to destroy us" (1Ma 3:52); "let's also get ourselves a name, and let's go fight against the nations that are round about us" (1Ma 5:57). Yet the same scriptures hold open the prospect that the nations will see what Israel sees: "I will set my glory among the nations; and all the nations will see my judgment" (Eze 39:21); "His wisdom will the Gentiles declare, And his praise will the congregation tell forth" (Sir 39:10); Israel's deliverance becomes something "they said among the nations, Yahweh has done great things for them" (Ps 126:2). The polytheistic many is, in the end, made to confront the one.