by John Calvin
"I am Jehovah your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other god before my face." [Ex20:2-3. cf. Vg.]
"...the Lord means that they have been freed from miserable bondage that they may, on obedience and readiness to serve, worship him as the author of their freedom..."
"He claims for himself the power and right of authority in order to constrain the chosen people by the necessity of following him. He holds out the promise of grace to draw them by its sweetness to a zeal for holiness. He recounts his benefits to the Jews that he may convict them of ingratitude should they not respond to his kindness ... "Deliverance is mentioned in order that the Jews may give themselves over more eagerly to God, who by right claims them for himself. But, in order that it may not seem that this has nothing to do with us, we must regard the Egyptian bondage of Israel as a type of spiritual captivity in which all of us are held bound, until our heavenly Vindicator, having freed us by the power of his arm, leads us into the Kingdom of freedom. At a former time, God, intending to gather the scattered Israelites to worship his name, released them from the intolerable dominion of Pharaoh by which they were oppressed. So today all those to whom he professes himself their God he releases from the devils deadly power - foreshadowed by that physical bondage. For this reason there is no one whose mind ought not to be kindled to heed the law, which has come forth, he hears from the highest King. As all things take their beginning from him, it is reasonable that they should in turn determine and direct their end to him. There is no one, I say, who ought not to be captivated to embrace the Lawgiver, in the observance of whose commandments he is taught to take especial delight; from whose kindness he expects both an abundance of all good things and the glory of immortal life; by whose marvelous power and mercy he knows himself freed from the jaws of death"
From Calvin's Institutes Book II, VIII 13, 15