What Does Exodus 20:3 Mean in the King James?

Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

Exodus 20:3 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

THE KEY

“Before me” is face-language: the command concerns what stands in the presence of the One you face.

THE MEANING

This verse names a life with one ultimate source of allegiance. Its Hebrew face-language makes that claim immediate: a rival god stands within the reader’s relation to God, not merely on a list of ideas.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that allegiance can be divided between God and a rival power without changing the relationship.

THE ROOT

עַל־פָּנָי

ʿal-panai

GROWS FROM

פנה

to turn, face toward

The phrase translated “before me” uses the Hebrew word for face, so it carries the sense of being in someone’s presence as well as standing before them. English preserves the idea of priority, while the Hebrew also brings the relationship into view: the rival stands where the face is turned.

ALSO GROWS

panim: face; presence

פָּנִים

This is the face-word inside “before me,” making presence part of the command’s language.

lifnei: before; in front of

לִפְנֵי

This related form joins “before” to the face-language, showing how position in front of someone can mean standing in their presence.

THE PATTERN

A life cannot be divided between rival objects of ultimate allegiance.

Ye shall not go after other gods, of the gods of the people which are round about you;

Deuteronomy 6:14 · KJVThe verse names the pull toward other gods as going after them.

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

Matthew 6:24 · KJVThe verse states that service to two ultimate masters divides allegiance.

Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s table, and of the table of devils.

1 Corinthians 10:21 · KJVThe verse depicts allegiance as participation that cannot be shared between opposing tables.

THE THREAD

And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.

Genesis 4:16 · KJV

Genesis uses the same face-word family in “from the presence of the LORD” that Exodus uses in “before my face.” That shared root makes presence more than a setting: it is the relation from which one can remain or go out.

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