The real Ten Commandments

The prescriptions in Exodus 34 are best seen as sample laws from the Covenant Code of Exodus 20-23 (esp. [3] But Moses still stresses that, while the Deuteronomic version is a secondary account, it is nevertheless “just as Yahweh your God commanded you” (Deut 5:12, 16). (No, seriously – if you get caught working you’ll be put to death. Once a year celebrate the Passover and don’t eat yeast for a week.4.

Two famous films with this name were directed by Cecil B. DeMille: a silent movie which was released in 1923 and starred Theodore Roberts as Moses and a colour VistaVision version which was released in 1956, and starred Charlton Heston as Moses. Never make a treaty with other nations, you must destroy their culture and not worship any other gods because even the Lord’s name is Jealous.2. Exod 24:12, 32:15-16; Deut 5:22). Copyright © 2020 The Gospel Coalition, INC. All Rights Reserved In fact, by the time the Ten Commandments of Moses had any real chance of being the foundation of anything in Western society, democracy and civil rights had all but died out, never to rise again until the ideals of our true hero, the real man to whom we owe all reverence, were rediscovered and implemented in what we now call "modern democratic principles." Deut 5:4-5, 22 with 4:12-13 and 10:4). [1] For a helpful, balanced, and scripturally faithful assessment of the role of the Decalogue in ancient Israel as witnessed to in the Old Testament, see Daniel I.

Copyright © 2020 The Gospel Coalition, INC. All Rights Reserved Never make a treaty with other nations or their wicked women will seduce your sons to commit adultery against Me by worshiping other gods. )7.

As concluded by Norbert Lohfink, this formulaic back-reference ensures that “in spite of the changes and additions that have been made [in the Deuteronomic version], at bottom nothing is commanded that is not also in the older version.”[4] When we think of the Ten Commandments, we should think of the lists in Exod 20:1-17 and Deut 5:6-21. [2] In a comparable, though less developed line of thought, the late Christopher Hitchens It is true that Exod 34:11-26 includes a series of apodictic principles (i.e., basic instructions without any specified contexts) and that directly after them in v. 28 the phrase “Ten Words” shows up for the first time in Scripture.

Never make a treaty with other nations, you must destroy their culture and not worship any other gods because even the Lord’s name is Jealous. The Real Decalogue: Exodus 20, not 34.

(Because…? The Ten Commandments of God are the foundation of the moral code and legal system of justice for Western Christian civilization. Most obvious are (1) the change of focus from God’s work in creating the world to his work in creating a people (i.e., the Exodus) as the basis for Sabbath keeping (Deut 5:12-15), (2) the shaping of the final six prohibitions into a single unit by a fronted “and” (5:17-21), and (3) the transformation of the prohibitions against coveting (5:21a-b) by using two different verbs, by including “field” before the list of household members, and by transposing “house” and “wife,” thus separating the latter from the list and placing the charge against lust (i.e., coveting a neighbor’s wife) on its own line.Nevertheless, it is evident that, even with these alterations, Deuteronomy itself treats its Decalogue as a reiteration of the very “Ten Words” spoken by God out of the midst of the fire at the mountain of God—namely, as an echo of Exod 20:1-17 (cf. Nobody may appear before the Lord [clergy] without an offering.

idem, in [4] Norbert Lohfink, “The Decalogue in Deuteronomy 5,” in What you should know about Bethel Church and their controversial pastors. 20:3-17), but what these people don't realize, is that these are not the Ten Commandments that were placed in the Ark of However, only if one begins with v. 17 are ten directives evident, and as will be shown, Exodus 34 itself calls the reader to look elsewhere for the actual Ten Words of the covenant (34:1, 28). After the 40 years in the wilderness (1:3-4; 4:45-46), the Ten Words have been updated, probably for pastoral purposes. Because… God. This has bothered me from a lay perspective as I haven’t heard many sermons or found many commentaries explaining what this difference is all about.