God’s Rejection of False Gods

Rabbi Moshe Ben-Chaim

Thus said God, the King of Israel, their redeemer, God of Hosts: “I am the first and I am the last, and there is no god but Me.” (Isaiah 44:6)

As this verse concludes, “there is no god but Me,” the verse’s beginning must prove this. How so?

“God is first” means that all other deities required creation—after God—thereby renouncing their claim as a god, for a deity does not need something other than itself to create it. By definition, a deity is not dependent. But all gentiles’ gods required creation. 

“God is last” means all other gods expire, again, renouncing their status as gods, as their durations are not their own will.

The gentiles’ deities’ existences and their expirations are imposed against their will by God who preceded them, and Who will survive their deaths. This is a perfect refutation of the religions’ defense of their deities, and a perfect praise of the one eternal God. For He caused all to be. And all that is, eventually expires. 

As the gentiles’ gods required creation, and will not protect themselves from expiration, they lack the essential qualities of a deity.

“There is no god but Me.”