Exodus 20:1-17

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, Exodus 20:1-17.

The preceding chapter has furnished an awe-inspiring preparation for the announcement of the fundamental law which here follows. Nothing in all the myths, legends, or histories of law-giving among other peoples is comparable with this sublime issuing of Israel’s decalogue. And the marvelous perfection of this summary of law, the inner excellency, the universal applicability of the several precepts, and their abiding, unchangeable nature, elevate this entire narrative above the element of myth and fable.

The glory of this decalogue is, that its provisions are absolutely fundamental. They have to do with individual life, social relations, and national history. We are not to imagine that they were now issued for the first time, or had no existence and recognition before the time of Moses. Compare the note on Genesis 9:6. These laws are grounded in the very nature of man as a moral being, having essential relations to God on the one hand, and to his fellow-man on the other. They rest upon the idea that there is an infinite power above man to whom allegiance is due, and a community of coordinate fellow-beings about him with whom he is bound to act on principles of equity and love. These great truths were manifest from the beginning, but had become obscured and often ignored by the perversity of men. Jehovah, the God of Israel, gave them new and sublime expression at Sinai. They were there graven upon two tables of stone. Exodus 32:15-16; Exodus 34:28. “Hard, stiff, abrupt as the cliffs from which they were taken,” writes Stanley, “they remain as the firm, unyielding basis on which all true spiritual religion has been built up and sustained . Sinai is not Palestine the law is not the Gospel; but the ten commandments, in letter and in spirit, remain to us as the relic of that time. They represent to us, both in fact and in idea, the granite foundation, the immovable mountain, on which the world is built up without which all theories of religion are but as shifting and fleeting clouds. They give us the two homely fundamental laws which all subsequent revelation has but confirmed and sanctified the law of our duty to God, and the law of our duty to our neighbour. Side by side with the prayer of our Lord, and with the creed of his Church, they appear inscribed on our churches, read from our altars, taught to our children, as the foundation of all morality.” Jewish Church, First Series, pp. 195, 198.

The NAMES applied to this special Sinaitic law are various. The Greek word decalogue, and the common title the ten commandments, have arisen from the fact that the tables contain ten distinct mandates, and are called in Exodus 34:28, and Deuteronomy 4:13, the ten commandments, or ten words . In those same texts and elsewhere they are also called the words of the covenant and the covenant, because they are the truest expression of the covenant-relations of God and his people. In Exodus 31:18; Exodus 32:15; Exodus 34:29, they are called the two tables of the testimony, as containing God’s solemn declaration of his holy will concerning man. They may, of course, be included under the more common terms laws, commandments, statutes, precepts. Being the foundation and substance of all moral and religious precepts, they are emphatically THE LAW AND THE COMMANDMENT. Exodus 24:12.

Being ten in number, their proper DIVISION and arrangement are to be determined. They are most naturally arranged in two tables, each containing five precepts. According to this oldest and simplest division we have the two tables as follows:

FIRST TABLE.

1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

2. Thou shalt not make any graven image.

3. Thou shalt not take the name of God in vain.

4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

5. Honour thy father and thy mother.

SECOND TABLE.

6. Thou shalt not kill.

7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.

8. Thou shalt not steal.

9. Thou shalt not bear false witness.

10. Thou shalt not covet.

Two other methods of dividing the decalogue have been proposed, one by uniting the first and second in the above arrangement, and dividing the tenth into two, the other by regarding the introductory words, “I am the Lord thy God,” as the first commandment, and combining, like the last-named method, the prohibition of other gods and graven images.

These two ways of arranging are exhibited in parallel columns, as follows:

1. (AUGUSTINIAN.) FIRST TABLE. 2. (JEWISH.) 1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me, nor make any graven images. 1. I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of Egypt. 2. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. 2. Thou shalt have no other gods before me, nor make any graven images. 3. Remember the Sabbath day. 3. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. SECOND TABLE. 4. Honour thy father and thy mother. 4. Remember the Sabbath day. 5. Thou shalt not kill. 5. Honour thy father and mother. 6. Thou shalt not commit adultery. 6. Thou shalt not kill. 7. Thou shalt not steal. 7. Thou shalt not commit adultery. 8. Thou shalt not bear false witness. 8. Thou shalt not steal. 9. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house. 9. Thou shalt not bear false witness. 10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife. 10. Thou shalt not covet. Much has been written for and against each of these methods of arrangement. That which makes Exodus 20:2, the first word, or commandment, is quite generally rejected, for the introductory words, “I am Jehovah, thy God,” cannot reasonably be regarded as a commandment co-ordinate with the others . But that Masoretic division, shown in Hebrew Bibles, by which Exodus 20:1-6, is included in the first commandment, and the prohibition of blasphemy (Exodus 20:7) forms the second, agrees with the Augustinian theory, numbered 1 above, and makes up the ten by dividing Exodus 20:17 into two commandments. This view is ably advocated by Kurtz, ( Hist. of the Old Covenant, Eng. trans., vol. iii, pp. 123-137.) The strong point of his argument is, that there is no radical distinction between the worship of other gods and graven images, for image-worship and idolatry are essentially the same, or, at any rate, image-worship is a species of idolatry. “Idolatry is the abstract, image-worship the concrete, sin.” His argument, however, for dividing the law against coveting into two commandments is weak, and a notable specimen of special pleading. The same is true of all attempts to establish this most unnatural division. The fact that the Hebrew text in Deuteronomy 5:21, places wife before house in the list of objects not to be coveted, is at best but a slender argument in favour of such division, whilst on the other hand the easy transposition of these words, and their use by the apostle in Romans 7:7-8, where he quotes only, “Thou shalt not covet,” and then speaks immediately of “all manner of coveting,” are a far more weighty witness against it.

Whilst, therefore, it is conceded that the distinction between the worship of false gods and of images is not so marked as one might expect in objects prohibited by separate commandments, the distinction is nevertheless more easily made and more noticeable than that between a neighbour’s wife and his other possessions. “No essential difference,” says Keil, “can be pointed out in the two clauses which prohibit coveting; but there was a very essential difference between the commandment against other gods and that against making an image of God, so far as the Israelites were concerned, as we may see not only from the account of the golden calf at Sinai, but also from the image-worship of Gideon, (Judges 8:27,) Micah, (Judges 17:0,) and Jeroboam, (1 Kings 12:28.”) See further in textual notes on Exodus 20:4.

A further question concerns the arrangement in two tables. The first table is believed to set forth man’s duties toward God, the second, those toward his neighbours, or fellow-men; and hence the whole are summed up in the two positive commandments, (1) “Thou shalt love thy God with all thy heart,” and (2) “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” Comp. Deuteronomy 6:5; Leviticus 19:34; Matthew 22:37; Matthew 22:39; Mark 12:30-31; Luke 10:27. But where are we to make the division? Augustine’s arrangement, as shown in the column above, made the first table comprise three, and the second table seven, commandments . He thought that this arrangement favoured the doctrine of the Trinity . Others commence the second table with the commandment to honour parents, and thus divide the ten into two groups of four and six . But the oldest and simplest division is that which recognizes five in each table, like the fingers on the two hands . The first five then belong to the sphere of Piety, and the second five to that of Morality .

The decalogue appears also in Deuteronomy 5:6-21. The variations between the two texts are the following: Deuteronomy omits nothing contained in Exodus except the waw ( ו , and) before כל תמונה , any likeness, (comp . Exodus Exodus 20:4, and Deuteronomy Exodus 20:8,) and the words of Exodus 20:11, “therefore Jehovah blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it,” but substitutes שׁמור , observe, for זכור , remember, (Exodus 8:0, Deuteronomy 12:0;) שׁוא , emptiness, for שׁקר , a lie, (Exodus 16:0, Deuteronomy 17:0;) and תתאוה , long after, instead of the second תחמר , covet, (Exodus 17:0, and Deuteronomy 18:0,) and adds in Exodus 20:12; Exodus 20:16 the words, “as the Lord thy God commanded thee;” in Exodus 20:14, “nor thy ox, nor thy ass, nor any,” “that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou;” in Exodus 20:15, “and remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched-out arm; therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day.” Deuteronomy also connects with ו , and, all the commands after that pertaining to murder, and places wife before house in the last commandment, and also inserts שׂדהו , his field, among the objects not to be coveted . Deuteronomy Exodus 20:10, reads, his commandments, where Exodus Exodus 20:6, has my commandments. It is well for the reader to compare the New Testament citations of the decalogue in order to observe how freely they were quoted, and without reference to any particular order of precepts. See Matthew 5:21; Matthew 5:27; Matthew 19:18; Mark 10:19; Luke 18:20; Romans 13:9; James 2:11. The Vatican Codex of the Septuagint places the sixth commandment after the eighth, and transposes house and wife in Exodus 20:17, like the Hebrew text of Deuteronomy. No great stress should be placed on the mere order of the precepts, as if any thing of importance depended upon their division and arrangement in the tables. The text in Deuteronomy is itself witness that no great importance was attached to verbal accuracy in citing the decalogue, but it is noticeable that explicit reference is there made to what Jehovah had commanded at Sinai. It is not improbable that the original form of the several mandates as given at Sinai was without the reasons which are attached to the first five, both in Exodus and Deuteronomy.