I mean, idk if we’re having some difference in understanding, but this is a bit out of my scope as far as spiritual interpretation. I’m an atheist looking at it more in thought experiment mode with some historical reference. If those are your beliefs then power to ya, but it’s not quite my bag of tea to debate spiritualism, sorry:) if I’ve misunderstood please lemme know

There’s verses in Kings, Judges, and I’ll look back over my Jewish Studies course notes from last semester for more academic sources tomorrow. Notably the worship of Baal and Asherah are present, and iirc Asherah was associated with some Israelites to be Yahwehs wife. We’re talking pre-Greek and Roman time periods where Gods were considered much more physical - as we see with Genesis with Yahweh referred to as walking in the garden.

The concepts of gods being more etherial didn’t come about for a few more centuries after, maybe by the time Christianity started popping off (again, gotta go to sleep but will check dates if ya need tomorrow). See also the Cyprus Cylinder for comparison and reference to conquering of the Israelites, orders that allowed them to continue to worship as they pleased, while still essentially talking shit and saying “Our God is stronger than yours.”

May be worth asking chatgpt. The Bible has been rewritten so many times to adjust for major cultural shifts, but there’s definitely evidence within it and other historical writings.

And the first one is to have no other gods before Yahweh. Not to have no others, period

The first commandment is literally “you shall have no other gods before me.” If you look at different historical translations and viewpoints, it is well accepted that Judaism experienced a shift from polytheism to monotheism, and there is more evidence of that in the Old Testament. Passages referring to Yahwehs wife, waging war to defeat other gods, etc.