I’m not entirely sure why it is, but mankind has had a long history with polytheism.
Think back to all those history classes we had in school about Greek, Roman, Norse, Mayan, Chinese, and especially Egyptian cultures. All of them had multiple gods that performed very specific functions.
The Romans had a god of doorways.
The Chinese had a god of kitchens.
The Greeks had a god of mockery (which has found new life in the age of keyboard warriors and online satire).
Why so many gods? Simple: those gods were a reflection of human ideals.
Want a god that serves your sexual appetite? Done. Want a god that encourages you to wage constant warfare? No problem.
But a god that challenges you and corrects you and makes you angry as well as happy? That’s a little harder to come by.
In fact, the only way it can be found is by worshipping something higher than yourself. Idolatry is exactly the opposite; instead of attaining to higher standards, you worship a version of yourself that simply lives in the clouds.
Moses demands the Israelites to ask themselves these questions as they examine their own relationships with native idols in the land. Did any of them, for instance, deliver an entire nation through powerful signs and wonders (Deuteronomy 4:34)? Did any of them speak to their people from a fire (Deuteronomy 4:33)?
The answer is no, which means Jehovah is different. He’s higher, stronger, and more authoritative than all the rest.
That’s one of the necessary subplots to the entire Exodus narrative. Egypt was arguably one of the most powerful nations on earth at the time, and yet God wiped the floor with them. He not only beat them, He did so in their own land. In a world that still recognized regional deities (gods who only had power in their geographic area), that’s something.
What was Israel to do with all this information? “Know therefore today, and take it to your heart, that the Lord, He is God in heaven above and on the earth below; there is no other” (Deuteronomy 4:39).
If either Israel or myself ever look at the things on this earth and think of them as higher than ourselves, we need to think again. Our money can’t own us any more than the god of money could own the Greeks. It’s physical, limited, and powerless. My money does what I tell it to do, not the other way around.
Jehovah, on the other hand, tells me what to do. We can see His power and understand that It’s greater than our own.
If we keep that in our heart, we’ll never worship another idol ever again.