The Ten Commandments

Fausset's Bible Dictionary

(See Law .)

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

the common designation of the Decalogue, or that portion of the law of Moses which contains the moral law. See LAW OF Moses

I. Title. — The popular name in this, as in so many instances, is not that of Scripture. There we have the "ten words" ( עֲשֶׂרֶת הִדְּבָרַים , Asereth Haddebarim, The Decade Of The Words; Sept. Τὰ Δέκα Ῥήματα ; Vulg. Verba Decean), not the ten commandments ( Exodus 34:28;  Deuteronomy 4:13;  Deuteronomy 10:4, Hebrews). The difference is not altogether an unmeaning one. The Word of God, the "word of the Lord," tie constantly recurring term for the fullest revelation, was higher than any phrase expressing merely a command, and carried with it more the idea of a self- fulfilling power. If, on the one side, there was the special contrast to which our Lord refers between the commandments of God and the traditions of men ( Matthew 15:3), the arrogance of the rabbins showed itself, on the other, in placing the Words of the scribes on the same level as the Words of God. (See Scribe).

Nowhere in the later books of the Old Test. is any direct reference made to their number. The treatise of Philo, however, Περὶ Τῶν Δέκα Λογίων , shows that it had fixed itself on the Jewish mind, and, later still, it gave occasion to the formation of a new word (the "Decalogue," Ἡ Δεκάλογος , first in Clem. Al., Paed. 3, 12), which has perpetuated itself in modern languages. Other names are even more significant. These, and these alone, are "the words of the covenant," the unchanging ground of the ‘ union between Jehovah and his people, all else' being as a superstructure, accessory and subordinate ( Exodus 34:28). They are also the tables of testimony, sometimes simply "The testimony," the witness to men of the divine will, righteous itself, demanding righteousness, in man- ( Exodus 25:16;  Exodus 31:18, etc.). It is by virtue of their presence in it that the ark becomes, in its turn, the ark of the covenant ( Numbers 10:33, etc.), that the sacred tent became the tabernacle of witness, of testimony ( Exodus 38:21, etc.). (See Tabernacle).

They remain there, throughout the glory of the kingdom, the primeval relics of a hoar antiquity ( 1 Kings 8:9), their material, the writing on them, the sharp incisive character of the laws themselves, presenting a striking contrast to the more expanded teaching of a later time. Not less did the commandments themselves speak of the earlier age when not the silver and the gold, but the ox and the ass, were the great representatives of wealth (comp.  1 Samuel 12:3).

Ewald is disposed to think that even in the form in which we have the commandments there are some additions made at a later period, and that the second and the fourth commandment were originally as briefly imperative as the sixth or seventh (Gesch. Isr. 2, 206). The, difference between the reason given in  Exodus 20:11 for the fourth commandment and that stated to have been given in  Deuteronomy 5:15 makes, perhaps, such a conjecture possible. Scholia, which modern annotators put into the margin, are, in the existing state of the Old Test., incorporated into the text. Obviously both forms could not have appeared written on the two tables of stone, yet  Deuteronomy 5:15;  Deuteronomy 5:22 not only states a different reason, but affirms that "all these words" were thus written. Keil (Comment. on Exodus, 20) seems on this point disposed to agree with Ewald.

II. Double Record. — The Decalogue is found in two passages, first in  Exodus 20:2-17, again in Deuteronomy 5:621 and there are certain differences between the two forms, which have been taken advantage of by rationalistic interpreters, sometimes for the purpose of disparaging the historical correctness of either form, and sometimes as a conclusive argument against the doctrine of inspiration. The differences are of three kinds:

(1.) Simply verbal, consisting in the insertion or omission of the Hebrew letter וַ , which signifies And; In Exodus it is only omitted once where it is found in Deuteronomy, namely, between Graven Image and Any Likeness, in the second commandment; but in Deuteronomy it occurs altogether Six times where it is wanting in Exodus; and of these four are at the commencement of the last four commandments, which are severally introduced with an And, joining them to what precedes.

(2.) Differences in form, where still the sense remains essentially the same: under the fourth commandment, it is in Exodus "nor thy cattle," while in Deuteronomy it is "nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle" a mere amplification of the former by one or two leading particulars; and in the tenth commandment, as given in Exodus, "thy neighbor's house" comes first, while in Deuteronomy it is "thy neighbor's wife;" and here also after "thy neighbor's house," is added "his field" another slight amplification.

(3.) Differences in respect to matter these are altogether four. The fourth commandment is introduced in Exodus with Remember, in Deuteronomy with Kelp; the reason also assigned for its observance in Exodus is derived from God's original act and procedure at creation, while in Deuteronomy this is omitted, and the deliverance of Israel from the land of Egypt is put in its stead; in Deuteronomy the fifth commandment runs, "Honor thy father and thy mother, as the Lord thy God commanded thee," the latter words having no place in Exodus; and in the tenth commandment, instead of "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife," it stands in Deuteronomy "Thou shalt not desire thy neighbor's wife" differing only, however, in this, that the one (covet) fixes attention more upon the improper desire to possess, and the other upon the improper desire itself.

It is obvious that these differences leave the main body or substance of the Decalogue, as a revelation of' law, entirely untouched; not one of them affects the import and bearing of a single precept; nor, if viewed in their historical relation, can they be regarded as involving in any doubt or uncertainty the verbal accuracy of the form presented in Exodus We have no reason to doubt that the words there recorded are precisely those which were uttered from Sinai, and written upon the tables of stone.' In Deuteronomy Moses gives a revised account of the transactions, using throughout certain freedoms, as speaking in a hortative manner, and from a more: distant point of view; and, while he repeats the commandments as those which the Lord had spoken from the midst of the fire and written on tables of stone ( Deuteronomy 5:22), he yet shows in his very mode of doing it that he did not aim at an exact reproduction of the past, but wished to preserve to some extent the form Of a free rehearsal. This especially appears in the addition to the fifth commandment, "as the Lord thy, God commanded thee," which distinctly pointed back to a prior original, and even recognized that as the permanently existing form. The introducing also of so many of the later commands with the copulative and tends to the same result; as it is precisely what would be natural in a rehearsal, though not in the original announcements, and came from combining with the legislative something of the narrative style.

Such being plainly the character of this later edition, its other and: more noticeable deviations the occasional amplifications admitted to it, the substitution of desire for covet, with respect to a neighbor's wife, in the tenth command; and of the deliverance of Israel from Egypt, for the divine order of procedure at the creation, in the fourth must be regarded as slightly varied and explanatory statements, which it was perfectly competent for the authorized mediator of the covenant to introduce, and which, in nature and design, do not materially differ from the alterations sometimes made by inspired writers of the New Test. on the passages they quote from the Old (see Fairbairn, Hermen. Manual, p. 354 sq.). They are not without use in an exegetical respect; and in the present case have also a distinct historical value, from the important evidence they yield in favor of the Mosaic authorship of Deuteronomy; since it is inconceivable that any later author, fictitiously personating Moses, would have ventured on making such alterations on what had been so expressly ascribed by Moses to God himself, and which seemed to bear on it such peculiar marks of sacredness and inviolability (Havernick, Introduction to the Pentateuch, § 25).

III. Source. — The circumstances in which the ten great Words were first given to the people surrounded them with an awe which attached to no other precept. In the midst of the cloud, and the darkness, and the flashing lightning, and the fiery smoke, and the thunder, like the voice of a trumpet, Moses was called to receive the law without which the people would cease to be a holy nation. Here, as elsewhere, Scripture unites two facts which men separate. God, and not man, was speaking to the Israelites in those terrors, and yet in the language of later inspired teachers, other instrumentality was not excluded. Buxtorf, it is true, asserts that Jewish interpreters, with hardly an exception, maintain that "Deus verba Decalogiper se immediate locutus est" (Diss. De Decal.). The language of Josephus, however ( Ant. 15: 5, 3), not less than that of the New Test., shows that at one time the traditions of the Jewish schools pointed to the opposite conclusion. The law was "ordained by angels" ( Galatians 3:9) "spoken by angels" ( Hebrews 2:2), received as the ordinance of angels ( Acts 7:53). ‘ The agency of those whom the thoughts of the Psalmist connected with the winds and the flaming fire ( Psalms 104:4;  Hebrews 1:7) was present also on Sinai. The part of Moses himself was, as the language of Paul ( Galatians 3:19) affirms, that of "a mediator." He stood "between" the people and the Lord "to show them the word of the Lord? (Deuteronomy 5), while they stood afar off to give form and distinctness to what would else have been terrible and overwhelming. — The voice of the Lord" which they heard in the thunderings and the sound of the trumpet, "full of majesty," "dividing the flames of fire" ( Psalms 29:3-9), was for him a divine Word, the testimony of an eternal will, just as in the parallel instance of  John 12:29, a like testimony led some to say "it thundered," while others received the witness. No other words were proclaimed in like manner. The people shrank even from this nearness to the awful presence, even from the very echoes of the divine voice. The record was as exceptional as the original revelation. Of no other words could it be said that they were written as these were written, engraved on the tables of stone, not as originating in man's contrivance or sagacity, but by the power of the Eternal Spirit, by the finger of God ( Exodus 31:18;  Exodus 32:16). (See Bath-Kol).

IV. The Number ten was, we can hardly doubt, itself significant to Moses and the Israelites. The received symbol, then and at all times, of completeness (Bahr, Symbolik, 1,175-183), it taught the people that the law, of Jehovah was perfect ( Psalms 19:7), The fact that they were written, not on one, but on two tables, probably in two groups of five each (Infra), taught men (though with some variations from the classification of later ethics) the great division of duties towards God and duties towards our neighbor, which we recognize as the groundwork of every true moral system. It taught them also, five being the symbol of imperfection (Bath, 1, 183-187), how incomplete each set of duties would be when divorced from its companion. The recurrence of these numbers in the Pentateuch is at once frequent and striking. Ewald (Gesch. Isr. 2, 212-217) has shown by a large induction how continually laws and precepts meet us in groups of five or ten. The numbers, it, will be remembered, meet us again as the basis of all the proportions of the tabernacle (q.v.) and temple. It would show an ignorance of all modes of Hebrew thought to exclude this symbolic aspect. We need not, however, shut out altogether that which some writers (e.g. Grotius, De Decal. p. 36) have substituted for it, the connection of the ten words with a decimal system of numeration through the ten fingers on which a man counts. Words which were to be the rule of life for the poor as well as the learned, the groundwork of education for all children, might well be connected with the simplest facts and processes in man's mental growth, and thus stamped more indelibly on the memory. Bahr, absorbed in symbolism, has nothing for this natural suggestion but two notes of admiration (!!). The analogy of ten great commandments in the moral law of Buddhism might have shown him how naturally men crave a number that thus helps them. A true system was as little likely to ignore the natural craving as a false. (see note in Ewald, Gesch. Isr. 2, 207). (See Ten).

V. Tables. — In what way the Ten Commandments were to be divided has, however, been a matter of much controversy. At least four distinct arrangements present themselves.

1. In the received teaching of the Latin Church resting on that of Augustine (Qu. in Ex. 71; Ep. Ad January c. 11; De Decal. etc.), the first table contained three commandments, the second the other seven. Partly on mystical grounds, because the tables thus symbolized the trinity of divine persons and the eternal Sabbath, partly as seeing in it a true ethical division, he adopted this classification. It involved, however, and in part proceeded from, an alteration in the received arrangement. What we know as the first and second were united; and consequently the Sabbath law appeared at the close of the first table as the third, not as the fourth, commandment. The completeness of the number was restored in the second table by making a separate (the ninth) command of the precept, "Thou shalt not covet; thy neighbor's wife," which with us forms part of the tenth; It is an almost fatal objection to this order that in the first table it confounds, where it ought to distinguish, the two sins of polytheism and idolatry; and that in the second it introduces ant arbitrary and meaningless distinction. The later theology of the Church of Rome apparently adopted it as seeming to prohibit image-worship only so far as it accompanied the acknowledgment of another God (Catech. Trident. 3, 2,20).

2. The familiar division-referring the first four to our duty towards God, and the six remaining to our duty towards man-is, on ethical grounds, simple and natural enough. If it is not altogether satisfying, it is because it fails to recognize the symmetry which gives to the number five so great a prominence; and perhaps, also, because it looks on the duty of the fifth commandment from the point of view of modern ethics rather than from that of the ancient Israelites and the first disciples of Christ (Infra).

3. A modification of 1 has been adopted by later Jewish writers (Jonathan ben-Uzziel, Abed-Ezra, Moses ben Nachman, in Suicer, Thesaur. s.v. Δεκάλογος ). Retaining the combination of the first and second commandments of the common order, they have made a new "word" of the opening declaration, "I am the Lord thy God which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage," and so have avoided the necessity of the subdivision of the tenth. The objection to this division is (1), that it rests on no adequate authority, and (2) that it turns into a single precept what is evidently given as the groundwork of the whole body of laws.

4. Rejecting these three, there remains that recognized by the older Jewish writers-Josephus ( Ant. 3,. 6, 6) and Philo. (De Decal. 1), and supported ably and thoughtfully by Ewald (Gesch. Isr. 2, 208), which places, five commandments in each table, and thus preserves the Pentad and Decad grouping which pervades the whole code. A modern jurist would perhaps. object that this places the fifth commandment in a wrong position; that a duty to parents is a duty towards our neighbor. From the Jewish point of view, it is believed, the place thus given to that commandment was essentially the right one. Instead of duties towards God, and duties towards our neighbors, we must think of the first table as containing all that belonged to the Εὐσέβεια of the Greeks, to the Pietas of the Romans- duties, i.e., with no corresponding rights; while the second deals with duties which involve rights, and come, therefore, under the head of Justitia. The duty of honoring, i.e. supporting, parents came under the former head. As soon as the son was capable of it, and the parents required it, it was an absolute, unconditional duty. His right to any maintenance from them had ceased. He owed them reverence as he owed it to his Father in heaven ( Hebrews 12:9). He was to show piety ( Εὐσεβεῖν ) to them (1 Timothy 5, 4). What made the "Corban" casuistry of the Scribes so specially evil was that it was, in this way, a sin against the piety of the first table, not merely against the lower obligations of the second ( Mark 7:11). It at least harmonizes with this division that the second, third, fourth, and fifth commandments all stand on the same footing as having special sanctions attaching to them, while the others that follow are left in their simplicity by themselves, as if the parity of rights were in itself a sufficient ground for obedience. A further confirmation of the truth of this division is found in  Romans 13:9. Paul, summing up the duties "briefly comprehended" in the one great law, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," enumerates the last five commandments, but makes no mention of the fifth.

VI. Addition. — To these Ten Commandments we find in the Samaritan Pentateuch an eleventh added:

"But when the Lord thy God shall have brought thee into the land of Canaan, whither thou goest to possess it, thou shalt set thee up two great stones, and shalt plaster them with plaster, and shalt write upon these stones all the words of this law. Moreover, after thou shalt have passed over Jordan thou shalt set up those stones, which I command thee this day, on Mount Gerizim, and thou shalt build there an altar to the Lord thy God, an altar of stones; thou shalt not lift up any iron thereon. Of unhewn stones shalt thou build that altar to the Lord thy God, and thou shalt offer on it burnt-offerings to the Lord thy God, and thou shalt sacrifice peace- offerings, and shalt eat them there; and thou shalt rejoice, before the Lord thy God in that mountain beyond Jordan, by the way where the sun goeth down, the laud of the Canaanite that dwelleth in the plain country over against Gilgal, by the oak of Moreh, towards Sichem (Walton, Bibl. Polyglot.). In the absence of any direct evidence, we can only guess as to the history of this remarkable addition.

(1.) It will be seen that the whole passage is made up of two which are found in the Hebrew text of  Deuteronomy 27:2-7;  Deuteronomy 11:30, with the substitution, in the former, of Gerizim for Ebal.

(2.) In the absence of confirmation from any other version, Ebal must, so far as textual criticism is concerned, be looked upon as the true reading; Gerizim as a falsification, casual or deliberate, of the text.

(3.) Probably the choice of Gerizim as the site of the Samaritan temple was determined by the fact that it had been- the Mount of Blessings, Ebal that of Curses. Possibly, as Walton suggests (Proleg. c. 11), the difficulty of understanding how the latter should have been chosen instead of the former as a place for sacrifice and offering may have led them to look on the reading Ebal as erroneous. They were unwilling to expose themselves to the taunts of their Judean enemies by building a temple on the Hill of Curses. They would claim the inheritance of the blessings; they would set the authority of their text against that of the scribes of the Great Synagogue. One was as likely to be accepted as the other. The "Hebrew verity" was not then acknowledged as it has been since.

(4.) In other repetitions or transfers in the Samaritan Pentateuch we may perhaps admit the plea which Walton makes in its behalf (Loc. Cit.) that, in the first formation of the Pentateuch as a Codex, the transcribers had a large number of separate documents to copy, and that consequently much was left to the discretion of the individual scribe. Here, however, that excuse is hardly admissible. The interpolation has every mark of being a bold attempt to claim for the schismatic worship on Gerizim the solemn sanction of the voice on Sinai, to place it on the same footing as the ten great words of God. The guilt of the interpolation belonged, of course, only to the first contrivers of it. The later Samaritans might easily come to look on their text as the true one; on that of the Jews as corrupted by a fraudulent omission. It is to the credit of the Jewish scribes that they were not tempted to retaliate, and that their reverence for the sacred. records prevented them from suppressing the history which connected the rival sanctuary with the blessings of Gerizim. (See Samaritan Pentateuch).

VII. Taryum. — The treatment of the Ten Commandments in the Targum of Jonathan ben-Uzziel is not without interest. There, as noticed above, the first and second commandments are united to make up the second, and the words "I am the Lord thy God," etc., are given as the first. More remarkable is the addition of a distinct reason for the last five commandments no less than for the first five. "Thou shalt commit no murder, for because of the sins of murderers the sword goeth forth upon the world." So, in like manner and with the same formula, "death goeth forth upon the world" as the punishment of adultery; famine as that of theft; drought as that of false witness; invasion, plunder, captivity, as those of covetousness (Walton, Bib. Polyglott.). (See Targum).

VIII. Talmud. — The absence of any distinct reference to the ten commandments as such in the Pirke Aboth (=Maxims of the Fathers)'is both strange and significant. One chapter (ch. v) is expressly given to an enumeration of all the scriptural facts which may be grouped in decades the ten words of Creation, the ten generations from Adam to Noah and from Noah to Abraham, the ten trials of Abraham, the ten plagues of Egypt, and the like; but the ten divine words find no place in the list. With all their ostentation of profound reverence for the law, the teaching of the rabbins turned on other points than the great laws of duty. In this way, as in others, they made void the commandments of God that they might keep their own traditions. Comp. Stanley, Jewish Church, lect. 7 in illustration of many of the points here noticed. (See Talmud).

IX. Economical Importance. — The giving of the Ten Commandments marks an era in the history of God's dispensations. Of the whole law this was both the first portion to be communicated, and the basis of all that followed. Various things attested this superiority. It was spoken directly by the Lord himself not communicated, like other parts of the old economy, through the ministration of Moses and spoken amid the most impressive signs of his glorious presence and majesty. Not only were the Ten Commandments thus spoken by God, but the further mark of relative importance was put upon them of being written on tables of stone-written by the very finger of God. They were thus elevated to a place above all the statutes and ordinances that were made known through the mediator of the old covenant; and the place then given them they were also destined to hold in the future; for the rocky tablets on which they were engraved undoubtedly imaged an abiding validity and importance. It was an emblem of relative perpetuity. The very number of words, or utterances; in which they were comprised, ten, bespoke the same thing; for in the significancy that in ancient times was ascribed to certain numbers, ten was universally regarded as the symbol of completeness (Spencer, De Leg. Hebrews 1, 3; Bahr, Symbolik, 1, 175). (See Decalogue).

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

I. The Ten Commandments , An Israelitish Code

II. The Promulgaton Of The Decalogue

III. Analysis Of The Decalogue With Brief Exe GETICAL Notes

1. How Numbered

2. How Grouped

3. Original Form

4. Brief Exegetical Notes

IV. Jesus And The Ten Commandments

Literature

In the Old Testament the Decalogue is uniformly referred to as "the ten words" ( Exodus 34:28 margin;   Deuteronomy 4:13 margin;   Deuteronomy 10:4 margin), or simply as "the words" spoken by Yahweh (  Exodus 20:1;  Exodus 34:27;  Deuteronomy 5:22;  Deuteronomy 10:2 ), or as "the words of the covenant" ( Exodus 34:28 ). In the New Testament they are called "commandments" ( Matthew 19:17;  Ephesians 6:2 ), as with us in most Christian lands.

I. The Ten Commandments an Israelite Code.

The "ten words" were spoken by Yahweh to the people whom He had but recently delivered from Egyptian bondage, and then led out into the wilderness, that He might teach them His laws. It was to Israel that the Decalogue was primarily addressed, and not to all mankind. Thus, the reason assigned for keeping the 5th commandment applies to the people who were on their way to the land which had been given to Abraham and his descendants ( Exodus 20:12 ); and the 4th commandment is enforced by reference to the servitude in Egypt ( Deuteronomy 5:15 ). It is possible, then, that even in the Ten Commandments there are elements peculiar to the Mosaic system and which our Lord and His apostles may not make a part of faith and duty for Christians. See Sabbath .

Of the "ten words," seven were perhaps binding on the consciences of enlightened men prior to the days of Moses: murder, adultery, theft and false witness were already treated as crimes among the Babylonians and the Egyptians; and intelligent men knew that it was wrong to dishonor God by improper use of His name, or to show lack of respect to parents, or to covet the property of another. No doubt the sharp, ringing words in which these evils are forbidden in the Ten Commandments gave to Israel a clearer apprehension of the sins referred to than they had ever had before; and the manner in which they were grouped by the divine speaker brought into bold relief the chief elements of the moral law. But the first two prohibitions were novelties in the religious life of the world; for men worshipped many gods, and bowed down to images of every conceivable kind. The 2nd commandment was too high even for Israel to grasp at that early day; a few weeks later the people were dancing about the golden calf at the foot of Sinai. The observance of the Sabbath was probably unknown to other nations, though it may have been already known in the family of Abraham.

II. The Promulgation of the Decalogue.

The "ten words" were spoken by Yahweh Himself from the top of the mount under circumstances the most awe-inspiring. In the early morning there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of a trumpet exceeding loud. It is no wonder that the people trembled as they faced the smoking and quaking mount, and listened to the high demands of a holy God. Their request that all future revelations should be made through Moses as the prophet mediator was quite natural. The promulgation of the Ten Commandments stands out as the most notable event in all the wilderness sojourn of Israel. There was no greater day in history before the coming of the Son of God into the world.

After a sojourn of 40 days in the mount, Moses came down with "the two tables of the testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God." At the foot of the mount, when Moses saw the golden calf and the dancing throng about it, he cast the tables out of his hands and broke them in pieces ( Exodus 31:18;  Exodus 39:15-20 ). Through the intercession of Moses, the wrath of Yahweh was averted from Israel; and Yahweh invited Moses to ascend the mount with two new tablets, on which He would write the words that were on the first tables, which were broken. Moses was commanded to write the special precepts given by God during this interview; but the. Ten Commandments were written on the stone tablets by Yahweh Himself ( Exodus 34:1-4 ,  Exodus 34:27-29;  Deuteronomy 10:1-5 ). These precious tablets were later deposited in the ark of the covenant ( Exodus 40:20 ). Thus in every way possible the Ten Commandments are exalted as the most precious and directly divine of all the precepts of the Mosaic revelation.

III. Analysis of the Decalogue with Brief Exegetical Notes.

That there were " ten words" is expressly stated (  Exodus 34:28;  Deuteronomy 4:13;  Deuteronomy 10:4 ); but just how to delimit them one from another is a task which has not been found easy. For a full discussion of the various theories, see Dillmann, Exodus , 201-5, to whom we are indebted for much that is here set forth.

1. How Numbered:

(1) Josephus is the first witness for the division now common among Protestants (except Lutherans), namely, ( a ) foreign gods, ( b ) images, ( 100 ) name of God, ( d ) Sabbath, ( e ) parents, ( f ) murder, ( g ) adultery, ( h ) theft, ( i ) false witness, ( j ) coveting. Before him, Philo made the same arrangement, except that he followed the Septuagint in putting adultery before murder. This mode of counting was current with many of the church Fathers, and is now in use in the Greek Catholic church and with most Protestants.

(2) Augustine combined foreign gods and images ( Exodus 20:2-6 ) into one commandment and following the order of  Deuteronomy 5:21 (Hebrew 18) made the 9th commandment a prohibition of the coveting of a neighbor's wife, while the 10th prohibits the coveting of his house and other property. Roman Catholics and Lutherans accept Augustine's mode of reckoning, except that they follow the order in   Exodus 20:17 , so that the 9th commandment forbids the coveting of a neighbor's house, while the 10th includes his wife and all other property.

(3) A third mode of counting is that adopted by the Jews in the early Christian centuries, which became universal among them in the Middle Ages and so down to the present time. According to this scheme, the opening statement in  Exodus 20:2 is the "first word ,"  Exodus 20:3-6 the second (combining foreign gods with images), while the following eight commandments are as in the common Protestant arrangement.

The division of the prohibition of coveting into two commandments is fatal to the Augustinian scheme; and the reckoning of the initial statement in  Exodus 20:2 as one of the "ten words" seems equally fatal to the modern Jewish method of counting. The prohibition of images, which is introduced by the solemn formula, "Thou shalt not," is surely a different "word" from the command to worship no god other than Yahweh. Moreover, if nine of the "ten words" are commandments , it would seem reasonable to make the remaining "word" a commandment, if this can be done without violence to the subjectmatter. See Eerdmaus, The Expositor , July, 1909, 21 ff.

2. How Grouped:

(1) The Jews, from Philo to the present, divide the "ten words" into two groups of five each. As there were two tables, it would be natural to suppose that five commandments were recorded on each tablet, though the fact that the tablets had writing on both their sides ( Exodus 32:15 ) would seem to weaken the force of the argument for an equal division. Moreover, the first pentad, in the present text of Exodus and Deuteronomy, is more than four times as long as the second.

(2) Augustine supposed that there were three commandments on the first table and seven on the second. According to his method of numbering the commandments, this would put the command to honor parents at the head of the second table, as in the third method of grouping the ten words.

(3) Calvin and many moderns assign four commandments to the first table and six to the second. This has the advantage of assigning all duties to God to the first table and all duties to men to the second. It also accords with our Lord's reduction of the commandments to two ( Matthew 22:34-40 ).

3. Original Form:

A comparison of the text of the Decalogue in  Deuteronomy 5 with that in   Exodus 20 reveals a goodly number of differences, especially in the reasons assigned for the observance of the 4th and 5th commandments, and in the text of the 10th commandment. A natural explanation of these differences is the fact that Dt employs the free-and-easy style of public discourse. The Ten Commandments are substantially the same in the two passages.

From the days of Ewald to the present, some of the leading Old Testament scholars have held that originally all the commandments were brief and without the addition of any special reasons for their observance. According to this hypothesis, the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and the 10th commandments were probably as follows: "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image"; "Thou shalt not take the name of Yahweh thy God in vain"; "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy"; "Honor thy father and thy mother"; "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house." This early critical theory would account for the differences in the two recensions by supposing that the motives for keeping the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th commandments, as well as the expansion of the 10th, were additions made through the influence of the prophetic teaching. If accompanied by a full recognition of the divine origin of the ten words in the Mosaic era, this hypothesis might be acceptable to a thorough believer in revelation. Before acquiescing in the more radical theories of some recent scholars, such a believer will demand more cogent arguments than the critics have been able to bring forward. Thus when we are told that the Decalogue contains prohibitions that could not have been incorporated into a code before the days of Manasseh, we demand better proofs than the failure of Israel to live up to the high demands of the 2nd and the 10th commandments, or a certain theory of the evolution of the history that may commend itself to the mind of naturalistic critics. Yahweh was at work in the early history of Israel; and the great prophets of the 8th century, far from creating ethical monotheism, were reformers sent to demand that Israel should embody in daily life the teachings of the Torah.

Goethe advanced the view that  Exodus 34:10-28 originally contained a second decalogue.

Wellhausen ( Code of Hammurabi , 331 f) reconstructs this so-called decalogue as follows:

(1) Thou shalt worship no other god ( Exodus 34:14 ).

(2) Thou shalt make thee no molten gods ( Exodus 34:17 ).

(3) The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep ( Exodus 34:18 ).

(4) Every firstling is mine ( Exodus 34:19 ).

(5) Thou shalt observe the feast of weeks ( Exodus 34:22 ).

(6) And the feast of ingathering at the year's end ( Exodus 34:22 ).

(7) Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread ( Exodus 34:25 ).

(8) The fat of my feast shall not remain all night until the morning ( Exodus 23:18; compare  Exodus 34:25 ).

(9) The best of the first-fruits of thy ground shalt thou bring to the house of Yahweh thy God ( Exodus 34:26 ).

(10) Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk ( Exodus 34:26 ).

Addis agrees with Wellhausen that even this simpler decalogue must be put long after the time of Moses ( Eb , 1051).

Now, it is evident that the narrative in  Exodus 34:27 f, in its present form, means to affirm that Moses was commanded to write the precepts contained in the section immediately preceding. The Ten Commandments, as the foundation of the covenant, were written by Yahweh Himself on the two tablets of stone (  Exodus 31:18;  Exodus 32:15 f;   Exodus 34:28 ). It is only by free critical handling of the narrative that it can be made to appear that Moses wrote on the two tables the supposed decalogue of  Exodus 34:14-26 . Moreover, the law of the Sabbath ( Exodus 34:21 ), which is certainly appropriate amid the ritual ordinances of Ex 34, must be omitted altogether, in order to reduce the precepts to ten; also the command in  Exodus 34:23 has to be deleted. It is interesting to observe that the prohibition of molten gods (  Exodus 34:17 ), even according to radical critics, is found in the earliest body of Israelite laws. There is no sufficient reason for denying that the 2nd commandment was promulgated in the days of Moses. Yahweh's requirements have always been in advance of the practice of His people.

4. Brief Exegetical Notes:

(1) The 1st commandment prohibits the worship of any god other than Yahweh. If it be said that this precept inculcates monolatry and not monotheism, the reply is ready to hand that a consistent worship of only one God is, for a people surrounded by idolaters, the best possible approach to the conclusion that there is only one true God. The organs of revelation, whatever may have been the notions and practices of the mass of the Israelite people, always speak in words that harmonize with a strict monotheism.

(2) The 2nd commandment forbids the use of images in worship; even an image of Yahweh is not to be tolerated (compare  Exodus 32:5 ). Yahweh's mercy is greater than His wrath; while the iniquity of the fathers descends to the third and the fourth generation for those who hate Yahweh, His mercy overflows to thousands who love Him. It is doubtful whether the rendering 'showing mercy to the thousandth generation' ( Exodus 20:6 ) can be successfully defended.

(3) Yahweh's name is sacred, as standing for His person; therefore it must be employed in no vain or false way. The commandment, no doubt, includes more than false swearing. Cursing, blasphemy and every profane use of Yahweh's name are forbidden.

(4) As the 1st commandment inculcates the unity of God and the 2nd His spirituality, so also the 3commandment guards His name against irreverent use and the 4th sets apart the seventh day as peculiarly His day, reserved for a Sabbath.  Exodus 20:11 emphasizes the religious aspect of the Sabbath, while   Deuteronomy 5:14 lays stress on its humane aspect, and   Deuteronomy 5:15 links it with the deliverance from bondage in Egypt.

(5) The transition from duties to God to duties to men is made naturally in the 5th commandment, which inculcates reverence for parents, to whom their children should look up with gratitude, as all men should toward the Divine Father.

(6) Human life is so precious and sacred that no man should dare to take it away by violence.

(7) The family life is safeguarded by the 7th commandment.

(8) The 8th commandment forbids theft in all its forms. It recognizes the right of personal ownership of property.

(9) The 9th commandment safeguards honor and good name among men. Slander, defamation, false testimony in court and kindred sins are included.

(10) The 10th commandment is the most searching of them all, for it forbids the inward longing, the covetous desire for what belongs to another. The presence of such a deeply spiritual command among the "ten words" shows that we have before us no mere code of laws defining crimes, but a body of ethical and spiritual precepts for the moral education of the people of Yahweh.

IV. Jesus and the Ten Commandments.

Our Lord, in the interview with the rich young ruler, gave a recapitulation of the commandments treating of duties to men ( Mark 10:19;  Matthew 19:18 f;   Luke 18:20 ). He quotes the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th commandments. The minor variations in the reports in the three Synoptic Gospels remind the student of the similar variations in Ex 20 and Dt 5. Already in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus had quoted the 6th and 7th commandments, and then had gone on to show that anger is incipient murder, and that lust is adultery in the heart ( Matthew 5:27-32 ). He takes the words of the Decalogue and extends them into the realm of thought and feeling. He may have had in mind the 3rd commandment in His sharp prohibition of the Jewish habit of swearing by various things ( Matthew 5:33-37 ). As to the Sabbath, His teaching and example tended to lighten the onerous restrictions of the rabbis ( Mark 2:23-28 ). Duty to parents He elevated above all supposed claims of vows and offerings ( Matthew 15:4-6 ). In further extension of the 8th commandment, Jesus said, "Do not defraud" ( Mark 10:19 ); and in treating of the ethics of speech, Jesus not only condemns false witness, but also includes railing, blasphemy, and even an idle word ( Matthew 15:19;  Matthew 12:31 ,  Matthew 12:36 f). In His affirmation that God is spirit (  John 4:24 ), Jesus made the manufacture of images nothing but folly. All his ethical teaching might be said to be founded on the 10th commandment, which tracks sin to its lair in the mind and soul of man.

Our Lord embraced the whole range of human obligation in two, or at most three, commands: (1) "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind"; (2) "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" ( Matthew 22:37-40; compare  Deuteronomy 6:5;  Leviticus 19:18 ). With love such as is here described in the heart, man cannot trespass against God or his fellow-men. At the close of His ministry, on the night of the betrayal, Jesus gave to His followers a third commandment, not different from the two on which the whole Law hangs, but an extension of the second great commandment upward into a higher realm of self-sacrifice ( John 13:34 f;   John 15:12 f, 17; compare   Ephesians 5:2;  Galatians 6:10;  1 John 3:14-18 ). "Thou shalt love" is the first word and the last in the teaching of our Lord. His teaching is positive rather than negative, and so simple that a child can understand it. For the Christian, the Decalogue is no longer the highest summary of human duty. He must ever read it with sincere respect as one of the great monuments of the love of God in the moral and religious education of mankind; but it has given place to the higher teaching of the Son of God, all that was permanently valuable in the Ten Commandments having been taken up into the teaching of our Lord and His apostles.

Literature.

Oehler, Old Testament Theology , I, 267 ff; Dillmann, Exodus-Leviticus , 200-219; Kuenen, Origin and Composition of the Hexateuch , 244; Wellhausen, Code of Hammurabi , 331 f; Rothstein, Das Bundesbuch  ; Baenstch, Das Bundesbuch  ; Meissaner, Der Dekalog  ; Driver, "Deuteronomy," Icc  ; Addis, Documents of the Hexateuch , I, 136 ff; R. W. Dale, The Ten Commandments  ; G. D. Boardman, University Lectures on the Ten Commandments (Philadelphia, 1889).