Louisiana Ten Commandments Mandate

Improvement or error?

The State Legislature of Louisiana has just voted Bill HB71 into law, in a vote of 79-16. This bill requires, among other things, that the 10 commandments be displayed in public school classrooms, from kindergarten to college. With that, Louisiana is the only state, so far, with such a requirement. As could be expected, a chorus of disapproving howls started in protest.

CNN points out that “Opponents of the bill argue that a state requiring a religious text in all classrooms would violate the establishment clause of the US Constitution, which says that Congress can “make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”” CNN reports that the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Freedom from Religion Foundation said that the bill was “unconstitutional” and that “many faith-based and civil-rights organizations oppose this measure because it violates students’ and families’ fundamental right to religious freedom.”

This protest get surprising support from Baptist organizations, of all places. Shane McNary, coordinator of ministry for Great Rivers Fellowship, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship region covering Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi, explained why: “As faith leaders and as people of faith, it does not sit well with us to take Scripture and reduce it to the level of a mere historical document.” But he then added “The responsibility of teaching matters of faith should be left to parents and churches to teach, not shifted over to have big government teach religion to children.”

Other Christian groups oppose the mandate because they take issue with the language of the Ten Commandments as required in the bill. A petition to Louisiana governor Jeff Landry stated “Different faith traditions treat the scripture in which the Ten Commandments appear differently. In attempting to reconcile and cobble together these varying interpretations, the text of the display mandated by H.B. 71 manages to produce a hodgepodge of holy scripture that includes twelve, not ten, commandments and fails to respect the beliefs of many Christians. Nor does this state-dictated language honor or reflect the beliefs of our Jewish brothers and sisters. Indeed, the state-approved version of the Ten Commandments set forth in H.B. 71 does not exist in any translation of the Bible. It is simply not possible to create a version of the Ten Commandments that honors every faith tradition’s interpretation, and legislators’ attempt to do so is deeply offensive to us as Christians.”

Right off the bat, 3 different arguments against the bill. The ACLU, predictably, cries foul about breaching the separation of state and church. “The state may not require public schools to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms. Many faith-based and civil-rights organizations oppose this measure because it violates students’ and families’ fundamental right to religious freedom.”

Baptists claim this cheapens the Word of God to a mere historical document.

And other Christians are expressing being deeply offended by the poor translation of the text of the Ten Commandments.

Seems it is impossible to please anyone, nowadays!

To add a different take, look at what conservative investigative journalist and bioethics whistleblower Bioclandestine wrote:

“Conservatives and Christians…

If you are celebrating Louisiana mandating the Ten Commandments being shown in the classroom, you are falling for the trap.

This country was founded on religious freedom. That doesn’t mean YOUR religion. It means ALL religions.

If you want to practice your faith, you are more than welcome to, and the State cannot tell you otherwise. But using the State to mandate that others MUST adhere to your religion is NOT the way to go about it.

I understand the Left have gone completely off the wagon and mandated their woke religion on everyone, but that doesn’t mean we have to replace their woke religion with another religion. There should be absolutely ZERO affiliation between church and State.

Christians can yell at me in the comments all you like, but I am correct. If you all support this, you are just as bad as the Dems, just in the opposite direction.

Just because we don’t want “wokeness” in schools, doesn’t mean we need to go full-blown Puritan Christian theocracy to counteract it.

If you want your kids to learn Christian values, send them to a Christian school, and stop forcing your religion on people. The fact that this needed to be explained is pathetic.”

Now, I think most, if not all, of those arguments so far are wrong. Let me explain why.

In case of the response by BioClandestine: how on earth could mandating such a text, with the context it prescribes, be equated to installing some kind of ‘full-blown Puritan Christian theocracy’? Does ZERO affiliation between Church and State really mean that nothing remotely religious can ever be kept or displayed by state organisations? This is a ludicrous position, and what the likes of the ACLU want us to believe, so they can sever the historical ties between the understanding of the Founding Fathers and our current society. I think such is a dangerous error. (And, really, where does that ‘zero affiliation’ idea come from? This is a very interesting topic.

Professor Michael McConnell pointed out that “the words ‘separation of church and state’ are not in the Constitution… I think this is a shorthand version of what the establishment clause means.” He explained that in the 18^th century prominent voices were openly advocating for a union between the Church and the State, something the framers strongly opposed, for various reasons. But to jump from rejecting a union between church and state to ‘ZERO affiliation’ between church and state, is a HUGE jump, and I challenge anyone, the ACLU first, to show us where such can be learned from either the Constitution or the works of the Framers. McConnell concluded: “This did not mean that the framers believed that the American people should be any less religious than they choose to be. It didn’t mean that the culture — that there was anything wrong with having religious elements in the culture. What it meant is that we would not have a system in which the government was able to tell us what to believe, was able to control churches, decide what their doctrines, decide who their personnel would be, and so forth.”

An early SCOTUS case like Runkel v. Winemiller (1799) makes that clear. John Vile, professor of political science and dean of the Honors College at Middle Tennessee State University, explains that this case shows “a classic view of what might be called Christian non-preferentialism, in which a state could aid religion (understood to be Christianity) in general as long as it did not prefer one religious denomination over another. In actual practice, if judicial intervention were required to resolve a dispute, it might not significantly differ from the provision of other governmental and social services (like police and fire protection) to which the U.S. Supreme Court referred in Everson v. Board of Education (1947) — approving bus transportation for parochial school students — that governments regularly provide to all organizations, secular or sacred.”

People are way too sensitive when it comes to religion. A blind dogma about a separation of Church and State that is held to be absolute and complete has taken root in the minds of many, on all sides of every possible divide. Case in point, the ACLU sees this as an infringement on religious freedom, which entails not just freedom OF religion, but also freedom FROM religion, while Christians groups and pastors are worried about what happens when ‘big government’ starts to teach religion, and they lose control over the orthodoxy of the materials being taught.

Yes, Jefferson wrote about a ‘wall separating Church and State’ in his letter to the Danbury Baptist Association. Yet he also wrote about what that meant, in his mind. In a letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush Monticello, dated September 23, 1800, he wrote: “The delusion into which the X. Y. Z. plot shewed it possible to push the people; the successful experiment made under the prevalence of that delusion on the clause of the constitution, which, while it secured the freedom of the press, covered also the freedom of religion, had given to the clergy a very favorite hope of obtaining an establishment of a particular form of Christianity thro' the U. S.; and as every sect believes its own form the true one, every one perhaps hoped for his own, but especially the Episcopalians & Congregationalists. The returning good sense of our country threatens abortion to their hopes, & they believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly; for I have sworn upon the altar of god, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”

In his book “Notes on the State of Virginia”, Jefferson continues on that same theme:

“I doubt whether the people of this country would suffer an execution for heresy, or a three years imprisonment for not comprehending the the mysteries of the Trinity. But is the spirit of the people an infallible, a permanent reliance? Is it government? Is this the kind of protection we receive in return for the rights we give up? Besides, the spirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless. A single zealot may commence persecutor, and better men be his victims.”

Or, to completely put that modernist notion of a strict separation of Church and State, with ‘ZERO affiliation’ between them, once and for all to rest, consider the context of that letter to the Danbury Baptist Association. They had written him, expressing their concern that their rights to religious liberty were alienable, because granted by the state, and not by God.
“Our sentiments are uniformly on the side of religious liberty: that religion is at all times and places a matter between God and individuals, that no man ought to suffer in name, person, or effects on account of his religious opinions, [and] that the legitimate power of civil government extends no further than to punish the man who works ill to his neighbor. But sir, our constitution of government is not specific. Our ancient charter together with the law made coincident therewith, were adopted as the basis of our government, at the time of our revolution; and such had been our laws and usages, and such still are; that religion is considered as the first object of legislation; and therefore what religious privileges we enjoy (as a minor part of the state) we enjoy as favors granted, and not as inalienable rights: and these favors we receive at the expense of such degrading acknowledgements as are inconsistent with the rights of freemen.” (Letter of October 7, 1801, from Danbury (CT) Baptist Association to Thomas Jefferson)

While the Danbury Baptists spoke about the flaws in the Connecticut charter and the laws based thereon, Jefferson replied fully understanding their concern, pointing directly to the Constitution, and expressing his expectation that the sentiments as expressed in that clause of the Constitution and its amendments would progress: “[...] which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.”

Restore to man ‘all his natural rights’... What are those natural rights? Our modern eyes skip easily over that little phrase, yet this is absolutely key. In the legal rhetoric of that time, this meant roughly what was defined by Richard Hooker in a collection of his works, printed in 1793 by Oxford Press, ‘The Works of that learned and judicious divine Mr. Richard Hooker, containing eight books of The laws of ecclesiastical polity, and several other treatises’ (p 74 when opening the above link):

“The Scripture is fraught even with Laws of Nature, insomuch that Gratian defining natural Right (whereby is meant the right, which exacteth those general Duties that concern Man naturally even as they are Men) termeth natural Right, that which the Books of the Law and the Gospel do contain.”

Natural law. The Law which is God-endowed, and thus inalienable (see the Declaration of Independence, establishing this as the firm basis for their act of separation from the British Crown), fully answering the concern of the Danbury Baptists. This realization should put to rest any idea that Jefferson wanted this absolute, ZERO affiliation type separation between Church and State. On the contrary, he explicitly founds the core tenets on God-given rights, out of reach of human laws and rulings.

Jefferson made that conclusion inescapable when in ‘Notes on the State of Virginia’ he wrote “And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure if we have lost the only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath?” The ‘wall’ he wrote about was NOT to limit any and all religious activity by state actors or when done on state grounds/property or with state provided money, but to limit the power of the government to prohibit or interfere with those expressions.

And if that was not enough, in SCOTUS case Reynolds vs. United States (1878), the whole Danbury letter was cited (and not just that small ‘wall of separation’ clause), and then the justices explained: "Coming as this does from an acknowledged leader of the advocates of the measure, it [Jefferson’s letter] may be accepted almost as an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect of the Amendment thus secured. Congress was deprived of all legislative power over mere [religious] opinion, but was left free to reach actions which were in violation of social duties or subversive of good order.”

Yup, that should be clear enough now. Let’s move on.

Looking at the concerns and objections leveled against the Louisiana law, why do Americans so often think in such stark black-or-white terms?

I read the text of the bill, and it states it wants to ‘provide for the display of certain historical documents; to provide for the display of the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence, the Northwest Ordinance, and the Ten Commandments’, as well as ‘historical context’. In support, it cites Supreme Court rulings, such as Van Orden v. Perry (a 2005 case). In that case, the majority agreed with the Court of Appeals that having the text of the Ten Commandments on a stone monument in front of the Texas State Capitol did not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. They ignore, however, the text of Chief Justice Rehnquist, when he explained in his majority opinion that “[t]he placement of the Ten Commandments monument on the Texas State Capitol grounds is a far more passive use of those texts than was the case in Stone, where the text confronted elementary school students every day.” This case does not seem to really support the Louisiana bill.

Another SCOTUS case they referred to, was American Legion v. American Humanists Association, about a large cross in Maryland, originally as a monument for American soldiers from Prince George’s county that were killed in WWI, but it soon came to memorialize all killed soldiers. As such, SCOTUS argued that “Even if the monument’s original purpose was infused with religion, the passage of time may obscure that sentiment and the monument may be retained for the sake of its historical significance or its place in a common cultural heritage.” Justice Alito continued: “when time’s passage imbues a religiously expressive monument, symbol, or practice with this kind of familiarity and historical significance, removing it may no longer appear neutral, especially to the local community. The passage of time thus gives rise to a strong presumption of constitutionality.”

This is a strong argument, as Louisiana pointed out, as they concluded that “Including the Ten Commandments in the education of our children is part 15 of our state and national history, culture, and tradition.”

Another rather strong argument by Louisiana is the following. They pointed out that “the Mayflower Compact of 1620 was America's first written constitution and made a Covenant with Almighty God to "form a civil body politic". This was the first purely American document of self-government and affirmed the link between civil society and God.” Continuing this line of thinking, they then pointed out that “the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 provided a method of admitting new states to the Union from the territory as the country expanded to the Pacific. The Ordinance "extended the fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty" to the territories and stated that "(r)eligion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."

And thus, they concluded, “it is the Legislature’s intent to apply the decision set forth by the Supreme Court of the United States in Van Orden v. Perry, id, to continue the rich tradition and ensure that the students in our public schools may understand and appreciate the foundational documents of our state and national government.”

The Code of Hammurabi, a Babylonian legal text composed during 1755–1750 BC.

This is what escapes many people. Not everything with a religious origin is also promoting said religion. We would be fools and blind to deny that Western society as a whole, and the US in particular, was founded at least in part upon a religious foundation. That is simply a fact. And just as any history or law teacher, whether in a public or a private school, can hang up a poster with the Code of Hammurabi without ever being accused of promoting the old pagan religion of the Akkadians or Babylonians, such teacher ALSO can hang a poster of the Ten Commandments without promoting either Judaism or Christianity. The Baptists got it right with their complaint, keenly recognizing that such a move by the Louisiana legislature was NOT a religious one, but a merely historical one, “reducing [Scripture] to the level of a mere historical document.”

However, their complaint went deeper, as they rejected the validity of doing that. I think they err, as it IS possible to look at Scripture in the light of history alone, as you can take Scripture as pure literature, as well, for example. Of course, for believers, it is much, much more, but can believers really say that the Bible, as a whole or in part, is NOT also a historical document, that can be read and used as such? Or that it is NOT also a literary masterpiece, that can be read and researched and appreciated as such, without furhter reference to the religiosity of it?

Now, I realize that my take here might upset a lot of people, even though I am applying the same set of criticism, knowledge of language and history, and reason to look at a problem that arises in our society, as I always have done. This sensitivity is nothing new, as Justice Gorsuch pointed out in Van Orden v. Perry: “Courts applying Lemon’s test have upheld Ten Commandment displays and demanded their removal; they have allowed memorial crosses and insisted that they be razed; they have permitted Christmas displays and pulled the plug on them; and they have pondered seemingly endlessly the inclusion of “In God We Trust” on currency or similar language in our Pledge of Allegiance. No one can predict the rulings—but one thing is certain: Between the challenged practices and the judicial decisions, just about everyone will wind up offended.”

And he concluded: “In a large and diverse country, offense can be easily found. Really, most every governmental action probably offends somebody. No doubt, too, that offense can be sincere, sometimes well taken, even wise. But recourse for disagreement and offense does not lie in federal litigation. Instead, in a society that holds among its most cherished ambitions mutual respect, tolerance, self-rule, and democratic responsibility, an “offended viewer” may “avert his eyes,” Erznoznik v. Jacksonville, 422 U. S. 205, 212 (1975), or pursue a political solution.”

Can we stop being so sensitive about religion? Both the haters as well as the lovers? Not every cross MUST be feared and avoided as a religious symbol before all somehow must be made to bow down. Not every Bible text should be held so sacred that it ONLY can be read through a religious lens and not other, and only by approved religious gatekeepers (of the correct orthodoxy, of course. Which, however, is the million dollar question...).

We need to accept the Christian heritage of our country, and how that heritage has evolved in secular ways. The Ten Commandments, and the Christian understanding of jurisprudence and laws, the concept of Just War, for example, or of inherent dignity of humans made in the image of God (yeah, I do challenge anyone to defend human rights without such inherent, God-given dignity), etc. are prime examples of such influence. With those foundations, we erected a set of laws, an understanding of human dignity, that goes beyond religiosity, while I don’t think it can be fully separated from it, either.

In short:

* Is it unconstitutional to have the 10 Commandments displayed in public schools? Absolutely not. Just as showing the Code of Hammurabi, or a statue of Zeus, would not be in such violation.

* Does such ‘reduce’ the Biblical text to a ‘merely historical document’? No, but it does indeed highlight the historical impact of such text, which it most certainly had.

* Is the text of the Commandments as given in the bill questionable and offensive? Yes and no.

This last argument, albeit rather weak, is the strongest counter I’ve seen today. Yes, it is questionable, and no, it is not offensive, would be my answer. With mandating a single reading of the text for the Ten Commandments, the bill wades into a whole dispute that might have been averted. On the other hand, the mainstream Christianity within the United States was indeed the Reformed branch of Protestantism, while Lutherans and Catholics were also sizeable minorities, and as such their version could reasonably be used as the historical basic law that was laid at the foundations (together with other important influences) into the current US jurisprudence. I added the below addendum to illustrate some of the problems one could encounter once you want to look at what the actual 10 commandments should be. Unless you print the full text, using an abbreviated ‘short version’ that shows a neatly numbered 10 commands will always lead to discussion on how exactly to divide and summarize each of the commandments.

So, in short, I disagree with the sentiments of the ACLU et al., as well as with the sentiments of the esteemed Baptist pastors and groups, as well as with the otherwise astute commentators such as BioClandestine. Instead, I argue for a more sensible understanding, where we recognize the religious roots of our society, without fearing it, and without idolizing it.

This is overblown.

This is rooted in a misreading and misunderstanding of what the Framers had intended when they wrote about the relationship between religion and the state.

What are your thoughts on this?

Quick addendum, based on some initial responses:

Some say that this law is going too far, and that it should not mandate, but ‘make optional’, at best.

That is part of the misunderstanding. As a history teacher, some elements should be required material, at least if your goal is to have your students come away with a proper grasp of both the past developments as the current situation, flowing from those past events.

This is not about "promoting religion", but about educating about where our nation came from and on what it was founded. How can we have any hope to keep our republic, if we make understanding its foundations "optional"?

Next, think about this: What is mandated, exactly?

To show the 10 commandments, as a foundational, historical document.

Which "religion" does it force upon students? Judaism? The Catholics? Lutherans? Baptists? Non-denominationals? Reformed? Anglicans? Sunni Muslims? Shia? Mormons?

This document has absolute value, apart from any religiosity. This is what many don't understand...

But what about the state imposing it on all the local school boards?

It is the highest authority in the state, as provided for in the constitution. "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

It is the people, then, who assign the power towards people voted in the various seats of state power. The only thing the state cannot do, is infringe of the pre-existing rights of the people.

This mandate does not infringe on those rights. And there is a very clear reason to make sure people understand where our legal and constitutional system comes from.

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Addendum:

For those who want a Bible study on the Ten Commandments, allow me to offer the following:

If you realize that the OT originally did not have verse numbering (nor chapters), very little punctuation, and NO numbering for the 10 commandments themselves, and then go look at the actual text in Ex 20:2-17 and Deut 5:6-21, you will find more than 10 command verbs. Question now is: how to group those into 10 ‘words’ (the commandments are said to be “ten” in Exodus 34:28)? There are several different versions, each based on a different interpretation.

Note first of all that the Lutherans have the exact same interpretation as the RCC. And that the Jews from old interpreted the protestant 1st and 2nd commandment to be a single unit as well, as they separated the first ‘Hear, oh Israel...’ as the first commandment, the famous ‘Shema’. The difference is that non-Lutheran protestants divided the 1st commandment into the 1st and 2nd command, and joined the 9th and 10th into a single one, namely the 10^th (as did the Jews).

Why do Catholics (and Lutherans) follow that interpretation? First, because worshipping someone besides God is idolatry, and idolatry is worshipping someone besides God. So Deut. 5:7-8, the command not to worship a false god and the command not to make a graven image in order to worship it, are dealing with the same sin. Second, because Deuteronomy 5:21 deals with both coveting your neighbor’s wife (lust) and coveting your neighbor’s property (greed). These are different kinds of sins: women aren’t property, and lust and greed aren’t the same thing either. So Catholics (and Lutherans) traditionally treat them as two separate commandments: the 9th Commandment, against lust; and the 10th Commandment, against greed.

Let us delve deeper now. In Leviticus 26:1-2 several of the commandments are repeated by God himself, and explained in more detail:

“‘Do not make idols or set up an image or a sacred stone for yourselves, and do not place a carved stone in your land to bow down before it. I am the Lord your God. Observe my Sabbaths and have reverence for my sanctuary. I am the Lord.”

‘Sacred stone’ is the word ‘matstsebah’, pillar. But God himself tells that such pillar will be erected in his name, as a sign and witness of God (Isaiah 19:19), in Exodus 24:4 we read that Moses himself, IMMEDIATELY after receiving the commandments, erected his own matstseba/pillars! “Moses wrote down all the words of the LORD. Then he arose early in the morning, and built an altar at the foot of the mountain with twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel.”

So the problem is not the pillars themselves, but erecting them in honor of OTHER GODS, or to worship the pillars instead of God! It shows that the command about the graven images is not about the images themselves, either, but about making those and to bow down before them or serve! The first part of Deut 5:9 and of Ex 20:5 is therefore part of the previous verse, explaining the condition why the elements from the previous verse were forbidden to make. So Exodus 20, for example, tells us in a single command: “Don’t have other gods before me, so don’t make graven images or anything else [like the pillars that God explicitly adds to this command in Lev. 26] to bow down to or serve [instead of me], for I am a jealous God!”. A single idea, a single command. Not 2.

This is not unique, and God orders Israel to make more ‘graven images’! Notice that the word used is ‘pesel’, literally indeed ‘graven image’, but it is ALWAYS translated in the Bible in reference to idols: the command is therefore not against the general ‘graven image’, but against the use of such as idols! For if you want to be ‘literal’, painting of idols would be ok, as they are painted, and not graven. And metal statues that used a poured metal technique would likewise be ok, since not ‘graven’. This is the absurdity such unwarranted literalness leads to!

* "Make [a statue of] a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and every one who is bitten, when he sees it shall live. So Moses made a bronze serpent, and set it on a pole; and if a serpent bit any man, he would look at the bronze serpent and live" (Num 21: 4-9)

* "In the sanctuary were two cherubim, each ten cubits high, [15 feet high!] made of olive wood..." (1 Kgs 6:23-28, 7:23-26)

* "Make two cherubim of beaten gold at the two ends of mercy seat, fastening them so that one cherub springs direct from each end" (Ex 25:18)

* "The Dwelling itself you shall make out of sheets woven of fine linen twined and of violet, purple and scarlet yarn with cherubim embroidered on them" (Ex 26:1)

This proves that my interpretation based on Lev. 26:1-2 that I provided above is correct: for graven images of things in heaven above (the cherubim) or in the earth beneath (the serpent) were ordered to be made by God himself! If EVERY AND ALL graven image was to be forbidden, God just broke his own command.

And if you try to dodge all that by pointing at the bronze serpent later being destroyed, CatholicBridge  https://www.catholicbridge.com/orthodox/statues-in-church.php wrote about this as follows: “It said that Judah later destroyed the bronze snake. (2 Kgs 17:4) This actually speaks very loud to the distinction of worshipping Jesus through art and worshipping the art object as a God itself. When Moses created the Snake at God's command he was doing it for the glory of God (Num 21:8). People were healed and brought back to the faith. But later the Israelites started to worship the statue and "made offerings to it." They named it "Nehushtan." (2 Kgs 17:4) Human beings are geniuses at taking something holy and profaning it. Modern contemporary secular music was born out of the Gospel music of the deep south. We don't think that we should outlaw Christian Gospel music just because modern secular artists profaned it by creating sexually explicit R & B out of it.”

Some might object that any image that is bowed down before is in violation with the text of the Bible, regardless how you divide or interpret it. But that misunderstands the language specifically used. Look at 1 Chron. 29:20, where God and King David are bowed down to and 'worshiped'/venerated, with the same words.

Or contrast this: Isaac blessed Jacob, saying "May nations serve you and peoples bow down to you" (Gen 27:29), using the EXACT same words as Exodus 20:5! So it was acceptable to bow down to and serve Jacob, a mortal man. This shows beyond dispute that those acts themselves are not what is wrong or forbidden, but to bow down to and serve others (images or people or angels) IN PLACE OF GOD. That is the key to understand and unlock the first commandment: the problem is not 'bowing down' to a person or image in veneration or honor, but the serving and worshiping them in place of God. Which explains why the whole part about images and not bowing/serving them is started with 'have no other gods before me" and is ended with "for I am a jealous God". This way, the whole text becomes a single unit, bookended with those two statements.