9221. 'You shall not revile God' means that God's truths are not to be blasphemed. This is clear from the meaning of 'reviling' as blaspheming; for blasphemers are those who revile. The reason why 'God's truths are not to be blasphemed' is meant is that in the internal sense 'God' means Divine Truth emanating from the Lord, and consequently when the subject in the Word is truth the Lord is called 'God', but when good is the subject He is called 'Jehovah', 2769, 2807, 2822, 3921 (end), 4287, 4402, 7010, 7268, 8988, 9160. And truths are therefore meant by 'angels', since they are recipients of God's truth from the Lord, 4295, 4402, 7268, 7873, 8192, 8301, 8867, and also by 'judges', 9160.

8867. 'You shall not have other gods before My face' means that there must be no thought about truths from any source other than the Lord. This is clear from the meaning of 'gods' as truths, and in the contrary sense as falsities, dealt with in 4402, 4544, 7268, 7873, 8301; and from the meaning of 'face', in a reference to God's face, as love, mercy, peace, and goodness, dealt with in 222, 223, 4311, 5585, thus the Lord Himself, since the Lord is the Source from which these spring. The reason why 'there must be no other gods before My face' means that there must be no thought about truths from any source other than the Lord is also that the Lord's Divine Human, meant by 'I am Jehovah your God', is mentioned first, which is therefore first in line and must reign universally in each individual truth that follows, 8864, 8865. Consequently the commandment now declares such things as are to be avoided because they are thoroughly destructive and prevent the Lord from reigning universally in each and every truth contained in the commandments and statutes that were dictated and commanded from Mount Sinai. The first thing that would be destructive is thought about truths from a source other than the Lord, which is meant in the words that prohibit the presence of other gods before the Lord's face. All other things which would destroy that truth reigning universally are contained in the prohibitions that follow in sequence - that they were not to make a graven image for themselves; that they were not to make any likeness of the things that were in the heavens, on the earth, and in the waters and that they were not to bow down to them, and not to serve them. And after these therefore comes the reiteration 'for I am Jehovah your God', meaning that the Lord must be in every single one.