And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped
them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have
not commanded;
And it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and
inquired diligently, and, behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that
such abomination is wrought in Israel:
Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman,
which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or
that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die [Deut. 17:2–5].
This
is an absolute law against idolatry. From this and other examples that are
given to us, I judge that the penalty for breaking any one of the Ten
Commandments was death. Today we are so “loving” and so “civilized” that we
have gotten rid of the death penalty. But the interesting thing is that we
have one of the most lawless societies that the world has ever seen. Doesn’t
it make you wonder if God wasn’t right, after all? Stoning was the penalty
for idolatry.
You will notice that he mentions idolatry, which was
common in the cultures of that day. Greek mythology and the idolatry of the
Orient have many gods and goddesses who were associated with the sun, moon,
and stars. Apollo was the god of the sun and Artemis the goddess of the moon
in the Greek mythology. They worshiped the creature rather than the Creator.
Where did all this begin? I think it began at the Tower
of Babel. That Tower of Babel was actually a rallying place for all those
who were against God. Why? God had sent a Flood, and now they were going to
worship the sun because the sun, according to their reasoning, never sent a
flood. The very interesting thing is that they didn’t know that the sun is
responsible for drawing the water up. The clouds move across the sky and
rain falls. The idolatry of that day wasn’t very accurate; neither was their
science. And maybe the science of our day doesn’t have the final word
either. A great many people today feel that man’s wisdom and knowledge is
accurate. Well, we know it has been inaccurate in the past. They worshiped
the sun, the moon, and the stars because they thought the heavenly bodies
were friendly to them. They worshiped these rather than the Creator who had
made them.
McGee, J. Vernon: Thru the Bible
Commentary. electronic ed. Nashville : Thomas Nelson, 1997,
c1981, S. 1:ix-575