Who do you work for?
You are to have no other gods before me. You are not to make for yourselves a carved image or any kind of representation of anything in heaven above, on the earth beneath or on the water below the shoreline. You are not to bow down to them or serve them; for I, ADONAI, your God, am a jealous God…
Exodus 20: 3-5a Complete Jewish Bible
It appears there is some recessive gene in my family, which expresses itself as you get older and makes you very interested in Hebrew word definitions.
It is disconcerting to be turning into older relatives in ways I did not expect but I am glad for it because it lights up the Bible in a whole new way.
The word translated ‘serve’ in the Ten Commandments above is the Hebrew abad which means “to work or serve”.
It is first used in Genesis 2 when humans are told to abad the Garden of Eden. (Genesis 2:5,15)
It is what Jacob did for Laban for all those long long years to win himself the woman he loved. (Genesis 29:30)
It is what Pharoah made the Israelites to do for him (Exodus 1:14, 20:2).
And it comes up again in the fourth commandment describing what we do the six days that are not Sabbath (Exodus 20:9).
That it has a large overlap with what we would describe as ‘our work’.
This raises the interesting but somewhat confronting question: Who or what do we ultimately work for?
Is it for ourselves? Is it for our family? Is it for this or that organisation? Or the progression of our career? Is it for God?
The NIV translates the word abad in Exodus 20:5 as “worship”.
This seems a funny synonym for work but actually in some ways it is right on point.
Because what we pour our time and energy and skill and thought and effort into.
What we pour our self and our days into.
Is what our life is, in fact, about.
And so it is a pretty good indicator of what we worship.
Whether it is God.
Or whether it is not-God, that is, in bible-speak, an idol.
If you are interested in the Hebrew (or the Greek of the New Testament) the free interlinear application at Bible Hub means you can click on a word and find out what it means and where else it is used, without needing any extra language knowledge.
Try https://biblehub.com/interlinear/exodus/20.htm
