(2) I the Eternal am your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, the house of bondage:
I AM THE ETERNAL THY GOD. This Divine utterance constitutes a positive commandment.260See my Hebrew commentary, p. 388. on the position of the Hilchoth Gedoloth on this point. Ramban thus sides with Rambam, who, in his Sefer Hamitzvoth, counted this as the first commandment. See my translation, “The Commandments,” I, pp. 1-2. He said, I am the Eternal, thus teaching and commanding them that they should know and believe that the Eternal exists and that He is God to them. That is to say, there exists an Eternal Being through Whom everything has come into existence by His will261The universe is thus a result of design, and not merely of necessity. See Guide of the Perplexed, II, 18. and power, and He is God to them, who are obligated to worship Him. He said, Who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, because His taking them out from there was the evidence establishing the existence and will of God, for it was with His knowledge and providence that we came out from there. The exodus is also evidence for the creation of the world, for assuming the eternity of the universe, [which precludes a Master of the universe Who is in control of it], it would follow that nothing could be changed from its nature.262“If you believe in the eternity of matter, it leads to the conclusion that if God should desire to shorten a fly’s wing or lengthen an ant’s foot, He would not be able to do it” (Ramban, in his sermon, “God’s Law Is Perfect,” Kithvei Haramban, I, p. 146). The miracles preceding the exodus, in which God’s mastery of the powers of nature was demonstrated, thus refuted the doctrine of the eternity of matter and established that of Creation. And it is also evidence for God’s infinite power, and His infinite power is an indication of the Unity, as He said, that thou [i.e., Pharaoh] mayest know that there is none like Me in all the earth.263Above, 9:14. This is the intent of the expression, Who brought thee out, since they are the ones who know and are witnesses to all these things.
אנכי ה' אלוקיך, this is the beginning of the first of the ten Commandments. By means of this declaration God commands the people never to forget that is was He Who had redeemed the people by taking them out of bondage in Egypt. As a result, He had now become their new Master. He implies that they are far better off serving Him than remaining slaves to Pharaoh.
Who brought you out. Hashem did not identify Himself as the one who created heaven and earth because there were no witnesses to that event. He also refrained from mentioning that He created human beings since it can be argued that it would have been better for them if they had not been created (see Eiruvin 13b), whereas Hashem wished to mention only the unambiguous good He had done for them.