In Hebrew history, there are many instances that show there is only one true Godthat the Hebrews worship. The worship of only one God is called Monotheism. Judaism is regarded by most to be the founding religion of God.
A sign ofmonotheism is that Jews believed in a single, transcendent God who created theuniverse and continues to govern it. The same God who created the world revealedhimself to the Israelites at Mount Sinai. When Moses went to talk to God onMount Sinai, God had talked to the Israelites. He had told them that he was theGod that had given them freedom from Egypt. God also gave Moses the TenCommandments.
The Israelites were about to enter the Promise land but beforethey could, the Israelites had to make a covenant with God. The Covenant wasthat they would only believe in God and no other gods. The Jewish people thenwould acknowledge God, agreeing to obey his laws; God, in turn, wouldacknowledge Israel as his particular people. The people had sealed the covenantby making an ark.
This ark consisted of cherubs on top of ark with a sittingplace between all the cherubs for God. Inside the ark would consist the TenCommandments. The reason God had given the Israelites the Ten Commandmentsbecause the Canaanites had worshiped in false gods and God did not want theIsraelites to fall into that trap. This was also to show how strongly theIsraelites had believed in God. If you had broken any commandment, God punishedyou unless you had repented your sin or sins. God forgave people know matterwhat you did if you had asked for forgiveness from him.
People had assumed thatthis God was the same God of Abraham, Isaac, and Joseph. The Israelites would gointo battle carrying the Ark of the Covenant because they felt it was that Godwas with them and nothing could be done then to destroy them. One thing aboutthe covenant, no one was allowed to touch it because touching the covenant meantseeing God and no man has seen God and lived. As time went one and theIsraelites had finally settled in the Promise land, Canaanites had taught theIsraelites how the farm.
This was not good because they had started to establishtechniques from the Canaanites. As time went by, the Israelites had started toworship the Canaanite gods. This was a big mistake on the part of the Israelitesbecause it is like disowning God. God had already told the Israelites not toworship false gods, but they had gone and started to do this. In 850 BC,prophets started to preach against Canaanite gods and were insisting inexclusive worship of only one God. This was found in Deuteronomy.
The mainpurpose of Deuteronomy is to enforce exclusive worship of Yahweh. This is whatthe prophets had preached. Deuteronomy also commands the extermination of theCanaanites. This was referred to as the “ban”.
The ban stated that hadto eliminate all Canaanites and Canaanite beliefs. After some time of destroyingthe Canaanites, the Israelites were able to continue live a normal lifestylewithout any pressure to worship other gods. Israelites had gone to worship intemples after everything had settled down. One day, the book of Deuteronomy wasfound when renovating the temple. Josiah had read this book and found that oneof the laws was being broken.
The Israelites had been worshiping in oldCanaanites temples. This was considered wrong because they had the presence offalse gods. So Josiah ordered that all the temples outside of Jerusalem had tobe destroyed. So it was done and the only temple that remained was the temple inJerusalem. The reason for this was because the temple was in the main city andcould be easily overlooked and controlled, rather than having temples all overthe place and not being able to control them as easily. These two examples showthat the Hebrews did always believe in one God, even though at times they werepersuaded to worship other gods.
When it came down to it, Yahweh was the trueGod for the Hebrews.
