JavaScript error when an empty object is alone on left-hand side

Question

Note: It's hard to search for {} == 0 in google

I'm experiencing very exotic behaviour while using node.js:

obj == {}

works, and obviously dumps out false, but

{} == obj

and

{} === obj

Fails with an error: SyntaxError: expected expression, got '=='

Why aren't we allowed to switch rhs and lhs in this case? Why can't we place {} alone on lhs?

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const obj = {};

console.log(obj == {});

console.log({} == obj);

console.log({} === obj);