Ten Commandments, The. The popular name in this, as in so many instances, is not that of Scripture. There, we have the "Ten Words", Exo 34:28; Deu 4:13; Deu 10:4; the "Covenant", Exodus, Deuteronomy 11; 1Ki 8:21; 2Ch 6:11; etc.; or, very often as the solemn attestation of the divine will, the "Testimony". Exo 25:16; Exo 25:21; Exo 31:18; etc.
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 Mount Sinai to receive the law, without which the people would cease to be a holy nation. Exo 19:20.
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. No other words were proclaimed in like manner. And 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." Exo 31:18; Exo 32:16.
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, it taught the people that the law of Jehovah was perfect. Psa 19:7. The term "Commandments" had come into use in the time of Christ. Luk 18:20.
Their division into two tablets is not only expressly mentioned, but the stress that is placed upon the two tablets, leaves no doubt that the distinction was important, and that answered to that summary of the law, which was made both by Moses, and by Christ into two precepts; so that the first tablet contained Duties to God, and the second tablet contained Duties to our Neighbor. There are three principal divisions of the two tables:
That of the Roman Catholic Church, making the first tablet contain three commandments, and the second tablet contain the other seven.
The familiar division, referring the first four to our duty toward God and the six remaining to our duty toward man.
The division recognized by the old Jewish writers, Josephus and Philo, which places five commandments in each table.
It has been maintained that the law of filial duty, being a close consequence of God’s fatherly relation to us, maybe referred to the first tablet. But this is to place human parents, on a level with God, and, by purity of reasoning the Sixth Commandment might be added to the first tablet, as murder is the destruction of God’s image in man.
Far more reasonable is the view, which regards the authority of parents as heading the second tablet, as the earthly reflex of that authority of the Father of his people, and of all men which heads the first tablet, and as the first principle of the whole law of love to our neighbor; because we are all brethren and the family is, for good and ill the model of the state.
"The Decalogue differs from all the other legislation of Moses:
(1) It was proclaimed by God himself, in a most public and solemn manner.
(2) It was given under circumstances of most appalling majesty and sublimity.
(3) It was written by the finger of God on two tableis of stone. Deu 5:22.
(4) It differed from any, and all other, laws given to Israel in that, it was comprehensive and general, rather than specific and particular.
(5) It was complete, being one finished whole, to which nothing was to be added, from which nothing was ever taken away.
(6) The law of the Ten Commandments was honored by Jesus Christ, as embodying the substance of the law of God enjoined upon man.
(7) It can scarcely be doubted that Jesus had his eye specially, if not exclusively, on this law, Deu 5:18, as one never to be repealed; from which not one jot or tittle should ever pass away.
(8) It is marked by wonderful simplicity and brevity; such a contrast to our human legislation, our British statute book, for instance, which it would need an elephant to carry, and an OEdipus to interpret."
(See LAW.)
Called also simply THE COMMANDMENTS, COMMANDMENTS OF GOD, or THE DECALOGUE (Gr. deka, ten, and logos, a word), the Ten Words of Sayings, the latter name generally applied by the Greek Fathers.The Ten Commandments are precepts bearing on the fundamental obligations of religion and morality and embodying the revealed expression of the Creator’s will in relation to man’s whole duty to God and to his fellow-creatures. They are found twice recorded in the Pentateuch, in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5, but are given in an abridged form in the catechisms. Written by the finger of God on two tables of stone, this Divine code was received from the Almighty by Moses amid the thunders of Mount Sinai, and by him made the ground-work of the Mosaic Law. Christ resumed these Commandments in the double precept of charity--love of God and of the neighbour; He proclaimed them as binding under the New Law in Matthew 19 and in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5). He also simplified or interpreted them, e.g. by declaring unnecessary oaths equally unlawful with false, by condemning hatred and calumny as well as murder, by enjoining even love of enemies, and by condemning indulgence of evil desires as fraught with the same malice as adultery (Matthew 5). The Church, on the other hand, after changing the day of rest from the Jewish Sabbath, or seventh day of the week, to the first, made the Third Commandment refer to Sunday as the day to be kept holy as the Lord’s Day. The Council of Trent (Sess. VI, can. xix) condemns those who deny that the Ten Commandments are binding on Christians.There is no numerical division of the Commandments in the Books of Moses, but the injunctions are distinctly tenfold, and are found almost identical in both sources. The order, too, is the same except for the final prohibitions pronounced against concupiscence, that of Deuteronomy being adopted in preference to Exodus. A confusion, however, exists in the numbering, which is due to a difference of opinion concerning the initial precept on Divine worship.The system of numeration found in Catholic Bibles, based on the Hebrew text, was made by St. Augustine (fifth century) in his book of "Questions of Exodus" ("Quæstionum in Heptateuchum libri VII", Bk. II, Question lxxi), and was adopted by the Council of Trent. It is followed also by the German Lutherans, except those of the school of Bucer. This arrangement makes the First Commandment relate to false worship and to the worship of false gods as to a single subject and a single class of sins to be guarded against -- the reference to idols being regarded as mere application of the precept to adore but one God and the prohibition as directed against the particular offense of idolatry alone. According to this manner of reckoning, the injunction forbidding the use of the Lord’s Name in vain comes second in order; and the decimal number is safeguarded by making a division of the final precept on concupiscence--the Ninth pointing to sins of the flesh and the Tenth to desires for unlawful possession of goods.Another division has been adopted by the English and Helvetian Protestant churches on the authority of Philo Judæus, Josephus, Origen, and others, whereby two Commandments are made to cover the matter of worship, and thus the numbering of the rest is advanced one higher; and the Tenth embraces both the Ninth and Tenth of the Catholic division. It seems, however, as logical to separate at the end as to group at the beginning, for while one single object is aimed at under worship, two specifically different sins are forbidden under covetousness; if adultery and theft belong to two distinct species of moral wrong, the same must be said of the desire to commit these evils.The Supreme Law-Giver begins by proclaiming His Name and His Titles to the obedience of the creature man: "I am the Lord, thy God. . ." The laws which follow have regard to God and His representatives on earth (first four) and to our fellow-man (last six). Being the one true God, He alone is to be adored, and all rendering to creatures of the worship which belongs to Him falls under the ban of His displeasure; the making of "graven things" is condemned: not all pictures, images, and works of art, but such as are intended to be adored and served (First). Associated with God in the minds of men and representing Him, is His Holy Name, which by the Second Commandment is declared worthy of all veneration and respect and its profanation reprobated. And He claims one day out of the seven as a memorial to Himself, and this must be kept holy (Third). Finally, parents being the natural providence of their offspring, invested with authority for their guidance and correction, and holding the place of God before them, the child is bidden to honour and respect them as His lawful representatives (Fourth).The precepts which follow are meant to protect man in his natural rights against the injustice of his fellows.His life is the object of the Fifth; the honour of his body as well as the source of life, of the Sixth; his lawful possessions, of the Seventh; his good name, of the Eighth; And in order to make him still more secure in the enjoyment of his rights, it is declared an offense against God to desire to wrong him, in his family rights by the Ninth; and in his property rights by the Tenth. This legislation expresses not only the Maker’s positive will, but the voice of nature as well--the laws which govern our being and are written more or less clearly in every human heart. The necessity of the written law is explained by the obscuring of the unwritten in men’s souls by sin. These Divine mandates are regarded as binding on every human creature, and their violation, with sufficient reflection and consent of the will, if the matter be grave, is considered a grievous or mortal offense against God. They have always been esteemed as the most precious rules of life and are the basis of all Christian legislation.-----------------------------------JOHN H. STAPLETON Transcribed by Marcia L. Bellafiore The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IVCopyright © 1908 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat. Remy Lafort, CensorImprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York
I. THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, AN ISRAELITISH CODE
II. THE PROMULGATON OF THE DECALOGUE
III. ANALYSIS OF THE DECALOGUE WITH BRIEF EXEGETICAL 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” (Exo 34:28 margin; Deu 4:13 margin; Deu 10:4 margin), or simply as “the words” spoken by Yahweh (Exo 20:1; Exo 34:27; Deu 5:22; Deu 10:2), or as “the words of the covenant” (Exo 34:28). In the New Testament they are called “commandments” (Mat 19:17; Eph 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 (Exo 20:12); and the 4th commandment is enforced by reference to the servitude in Egypt (Deu 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 (Exo 31:18; Exo 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 (Exo 34:1-4, Exo 34:27-29; Deu 10:1-5). These precious tablets were later deposited in the ark of the covenant (Exo 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 (Exo 34:28; Deu 4:13; Deu 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, (c) 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 (Exo 20:2-6) into one commandment and following the order of Deu 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 Exo 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 Exo 20:2 is the “first word,” Exo 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 Exo 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 (Exo 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 (Mat 22:34-40).
3. Original Form:
A comparison of the text of the Decalogue in Dt 5 with that in Ex 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 Ex 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 (Exo 34:14).
(2) Thou shalt make thee no molten gods (Exo 34:17).
(3) The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep (Exo 34:18).
(4) Every firstling is mine (Exo 34:19).
(5) Thou shalt observe the feast of weeks (Exo 34:22).
(6) And the feast of ingathering at the year’s end (Exo 34:22).
(7) Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread (Exo 34:25).
(8) The fat of my feast shall not remain all night until the morning (Exo 23:18; compare Exo 34:25).
(9) The best of the first-fruits of thy ground shalt thou bring to the house of Yahweh thy God (Exo 34:26).
(10) Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother’s milk (Exo 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 Exo 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 (Exo 31:18; Exo 32:15 f; Exo 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 Exo 34:14-26. Moreover, the law of the Sabbath (Exo 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 Exo 34:23 has to be deleted. It is interesting to observe that the prohibition of molten gods (Exo 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 Exo 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’ (Exo 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 3rd commandment guards His name against irreverent use and the 4th sets apart the seventh day as peculiarly His day, reserved for a Sabbath. Exo 20:11 emphasizes the religious aspect of the Sabbath, while Deu 5:14 lays stress on its humane aspect, and Deu 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 (Mar 10:19; Mat 19:18 f; Luk 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 (Mat 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 (Mat 5:33-37). As to the Sabbath, His teaching and example tended to lighten the onerous restrictions of the rabbis (Mar 2:23-28). Duty to parents He elevated above all supposed claims of vows and offerings (Mat 15:4-6). In further extension of the 8th commandment, Jesus said, “Do not defraud” (Mar 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 (Mat 15:19; Mat 12:31, Mat 12:36 f). In His affirmation that God is spirit (Joh 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” (Mat 22:37-40; compare Deu 6:5; Lev 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 (Joh 13:34 f; Joh 15:12 f, 17; compare Eph 5:2; Gal 6:10; 1Jn 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).