“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.  You shall have no other gods before me.” Exodus 20:2-3 (NIV)

The Israelites, when the came out of Egypt, were not the monotheistic people that the patriarchs were.  It had been 400 years since the Lord had last talked to Jacob, and for those 400 years, the Israelites had been steeped in Egyptian culture and theology.  It is very likely that their theology was a combination of Jacob’s understanding of God Almighty (El Shaddai) and the understanding about how gods in general worked that was prevalent all throughout that area at the time.  In those days, people tended to believe in “local” gods; that each god had a specific location where they were able to exercise their power, and so you kind of had to figure out which god ruled over the are in which you were living so you would know how to worship him or her.  (For remnants of this belief, check out 1 Kings 20:23-25.)

So when God brought the Israelites out of Egypt, one of the first things that He had to do was to teach the Israelites who He was – what kind of a God He was, and what He required of His people.  And the first thing that He did was to give them a few “general theology” lessons:

There are NOT many gods.  There is only one God, and He is Him!
The Israelites are not to just insert God into their pantheon, or group of gods that they believe in.  Instead, they are to worship Him, and Him alone.
The true God does not have a form that can be seen by people, so He cannot be depicted by any kind of an idol or statue like the nations around them used to depict their gods.  Threfore, the Israelites are not to use any kind of visual depiction of Him in their worship.

The Israelites didn’t pull this off right off the bat.  First there was that whole episode with the golden calf (Cf., Exodus 32:1-6 and following).  Then, after the conquest of the Promised Land, they started worshiping the fertility gods, Baal and Asherah.  And finally, after Solomon’s death, Jeroboam, the king of the northern tribes, made two golden calfs and installed them in temples in the north of the country so the people wouldn’t go to the Temple in Jerusalem.  It wasn’t until after the Babylonian Captivity that the people started to take God’s requirements seriously that they not worship any god but Him.

So by Jesus’ day, you wouldn’t be able to find any graven image or idol in any house of a devout Jew.  But was that the end of idolatry in Israel?  Unfortunately, no.  The tendency of our depraved hearts is to continually put something other than God at the center of our lives.  And it can be anything.  For the Jewish leaders of Jesus’ day, it was the Law of Moses; they actually put it higher than God Himself, to the point that they actually misidentified Him and put Him to death when He showed up in the flesh in fulfillment of His prophecies.

Throughout history, people all over the world have put so many things in the number one spot in their lives.  Sometimes it has been literal idols or false gods, like the Greeks and Romans and Hindus.  Sometimes it has been fame or money that gets elevated to the top spot.  These days it tends to be the “stuff” in our lives; things like new cars, new houses, computers and big screen TVs.  For some it is online games, or gambling, or movies, or drugs.  Any and all of these things can actually become something that we spend our time, energy, and best efforts for, elevating them to the place where God is supposed to be.  But the same rule applies today as it did that day at the base of Mount Sinai:  “You shall have no other gods before me.”