Exodus - Lesson 18

Dr. Carmen Imes 
Exodus 
OT605-18 
Introduction to the Ten Commandments
Lesson Transcript

In the previous session, we encountered Yahweh at Sinai. We saw the theophany that the Israelites experienced, the thunder and lightning and the shaking of the mountain, and we heard his commission for them to be his Segillah. And I think it's worth pausing here to pay attention to what we're about to read.

We're about to come into the Ten Commandments, which are a very famous part of the Book of Exodus. In fact, right now there are debates about whether the Ten Commandments should be posted in public, in public schools here in the United States. In Texas, the latest controversy has erupted about that.

The Ten Commandments are very widely known, but often when we talk about them, we've snipped them out of their context, and we talk about them in isolation from their literary context. And so I want to pause here to consider, where are we in the story when God gives the law? What has happened in the story so far leading up to Sinai? And it's obvious because you've been journeying with me through the Book of Exodus, and we have covered a lot of ground. Yahweh has delivered the people from Egypt after a series of 12 signs and wonders.

He has demonstrated his commitment to them. He's provided for them in the wilderness. He's provided manna.

He's provided quail. He's provided water. He's provided a rhythm of rest, work and rest.

There's been so much that has happened leading up to this point. People often talk about the law in the Old Testament as the means of salvation for the Hebrews or the Israelites, that Jewish people had to earn their salvation, and these are the things they had to do. But if you read through the Book of Exodus chronologically, and you see what God has already done up to this point, it becomes very clear the law is not Israel's means of salvation.

Yahweh has already delivered them from Egypt, and Moses does not show up at the border of Egypt with two stone tablets to say, hey guys, I can get you out of here. Just sign on the dotted line that you'll do all these things. He doesn't check their homes to make sure they don't have any idols.

The only requirement is that they celebrate the Passover festival, and to do that they need to be circumcised. That's the only prerequisite. The laws we're about to read in Exodus 20 and following are not the means of salvation.

In fact, the place where they are right here is significant because we've just read chapter 19, and we've just learned that these are the people who are Yahweh's segillah. They are his treasured possession. They belong to God, and he's selected them to represent him among the nations.

So whatever follows is a feature or a mode in which they are to carry out that vocation. They're going to represent God among the nations, and the law is the means to do that. It's not how they get saved.

It's how they fulfill their mission. Christians often talk about the Old Testament law as something that's thankfully dead and gone, and we don't have to think about it anymore. But in the previous session, we looked at 1 Peter 2, 9 and 10, where the church is called Yahweh's segillah, his treasured possession, which implies that not only is the vocation, the commission of Israel at Sinai still relevant for us, but then what follows it must also be relevant.

The law must not be so easily dispensable if it's the way that they're filling out their commission. So let's consider, now that we've thought briefly about the literary context, let's consider the historical context. I think part of what gets Christians started off on the wrong foot with Old Testament law is that we think it's a drag.

Those poor Israelites, look at all these terrible things God makes them do, or what a tedious list of rules. But in fact, that is not how the Bible presents the law, and it's not how Moses reflects on the law. And the longest chapter in the Old Testament is Psalm 119, which is a lengthy celebration of how amazing it is that God gave us his decrees.

So I think we're going to need to put ourselves in Israel's sandals if we want to fully appreciate the law. And to do that, I want to read this passage from Deuteronomy chapter 4, verses 5 through 8, because I think it gives us a taste of how Moses felt about the law, and that should inform the way we talk about it and think about it. He says, See, I have taught you decrees and laws, as Yahweh my God commanded me, so that you may follow them in the land you are entering to take possession of it.

Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations, who will hear about all these decrees and say, I'm so glad I'm not an Israelite. Did you hear what they have to do? Like, aren't you glad we're living here in Moab, and we don't have this kind of thing? No, they're going to hear about all these decrees, and they're going to say, Wow, surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them, the way Yahweh our God is near to us whenever we pray to him? And what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I'm setting before you today? This is how Moses feels about it.

And in the previous session, we read that the Israelites response to God was everything Yahweh has said we will do. That's in Exodus 19, 8, and it occurs twice more in chapter 24. Everything Yahweh has said we will do.

They're not like, Oh man, do we have to? We don't get any whining here. So that's part of the historical context that we need to bring with us or consider as we read these laws. Don't psych yourself up for this to be boring or for this to be impossible or for this to be something we can discard.

Get yourself ready for God's good instructions that are something to celebrate. Another part of the historical context will help us think about the purpose of two tablets. This is a common misconception about the Ten Commandments, and we know that there were two tablets because in a few places it mentions them.

In Exodus 31, verse 18, it says, When he finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, he gave to Moses the two tablets of the covenant document, tablets of stone inscribed by the finger of God. And you'll see there that I have the Hebrew word adut. The document, we sometimes call it the two tablets of the testimony.

That's a translation of the word adut that I don't think works super well because it's, again, a technical term. Like segala is a technical term for a treaty context, adut is also a technical term for the treaty itself, the treaty document. So the fact that God gives Moses two tablets and calls them covenant documents tells us we're entering into a covenant with Yahweh.

And these are inscribed by the finger of God, the same finger, by the way, that worked the signs and wonders in Egypt. And then Exodus 32, 15 reiterates this. Moses turned and he went down from the mountain and the two tablets of the adut were in his hand, tablets inscribed on both sides, inscribed on front and back.

So there's two stones, the stones are inscribed on front and back. And then we're told in chapter 40, verse 20, after the tabernacle is built, we're told that he took and set the adut into the ark. So the ark is a wooden box plated with gold and inside are the covenant documents.

Why does this matter? Well, if you read the history of interpretation on the 10 commandments, you will find lots and lots of people who speculate on which commands were on one tablet and which commands were on the other tablet. And they divide them sometimes into five and five, sometimes into four and six, sometimes into three and seven, depending on where they think there's a logical break. Um, but that is actually misguided because that's not how covenant documents work.

This is an excerpt from the treaty between Shubaluluma and Shatiwaza. You can pause and say that name over and over again if you want. They're fun to say.

Um, they're, they live in the Hurri country. So this is north of Israel. And on one of the tablets that was found from their civilization, it says this, a duplicate of this tablet has been deposited before the sun goddess of Arinna, because the sun goddess of Arinna regulates kingship and queenship.

In Mitanni land, a duplicate has been deposited before Teshub, the lord of the sanctuary of Kahat. At regular intervals, shall they read it in the presence of the king of the Mitanni land and in the presence of the sons of the Hurri country. So we're getting a glimpse into ancient culture here.

When you make a covenant or treaty between two nations, you make duplicate copies of the covenant stipulations. You inscribe them on stone and then each civilization or each community deposits that tablet in the most holy place of the temple of their god. And the idea is that the god is there looking at the tablet and watching how you live to make sure that you keep up your end of the deal.

And so the gods will then bring judgment or wreak havoc on a community that breaks their covenant. They're the ones who are holding people accountable. So why does this matter for the Ten Commandments? If Moses comes down from the mountain with two stone tablets, this indicates right off the bat to everyone watching, oh, we have entered into a covenant.

But he can't put one copy in the Israelite temple and the other copy in heaven where Yahweh is. And so both copies are deposited in the most holy place of the Israelite temple in order to indicate that Yahweh is the one who will hold them accountable and Yahweh will hold himself accountable. They're making an agreement, a covenant, which is an expression of mutual loyalty.

And that mutual loyalty is something that only God himself can hold them accountable for. So I don't think it works to divide the commands into two groups and to say, well, these are the commands that are vertical and these are the commands that are horizontal or these are the ones that are on the front and these are the ones that are in the back. I don't think that's necessary.

The other thing to realize is that I usually carry around when I'm teaching this in class, I have a couple of tablets that I picked up camping one time that are about this big. And this is all you would need to put all of the text of the Ten Commandments in Hebrew on front and back. You wouldn't have had to have two tablets, one to get started and the other as the overflow.

Because Hebrew is a dense language, a tablet even the size of my hand would easily be able to fit all the text on it if you used front and back. So Moses is coming down. He's got two tablets.

These tablets indicate that the Israelites have entered into a covenant with Yahweh. Every command on the list is a matter of loyalty between them and Yahweh. Violation of any of the Ten Commands will negatively impact the Israelite community.

So you've heard the Ten Commandments. The command about no other gods, you might assume, well that one's vertical. You shouldn't worship other gods.

The problem is if I start worshiping other gods and I'm a member of the Israelite community, I'm exposing the entire community to the possibility of God's wrath. Let me show you a quick example of that that I think illustrates how it doesn't work to talk about vertical and horizontal commands. That all of the commands are vertical and all of them are horizontal.

And this example comes from the book of Joshua 6 and 7. You remember the story of the fall of Jericho. God gives the Israelites specific instructions before they go to war against Jericho and he tells them in chapter 6 verse 17, The city and all that is in it are to be devoted to Yahweh. Only Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house shall be spared because she hid the spies we sent.

But keep away from the devoted things so that you will not bring about your own destruction by taking any of them. Otherwise you will make the camp of Israel liable to destruction and bring trouble on it. All the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron are sacred to Yahweh and must go into his treasury.

So very clear instructions. All the soldiers know we can't take what's in Jericho. So they win the battle and they get they're really excited and the next day they go to war against the city of Ai.

Sometimes people call it Ai. And they lose and they come back and they're crying before Yahweh and saying why did we lose? And Yahweh responds in verse 11, Israel has sinned They have violated my covenant which I commanded them to keep. They have taken some of the devoted things.

They have stolen, they have lied, and they've put them with their own possessions. That is why the Israelites cannot stand against their enemies. They turn their backs and run because they've been made liable to destruction.

Now how many Israelites did this? Only one. They cast lots to figure out who did this and the lot falls on one family and then one clan and then one man in that clan and his name is Achan. And in chapter 7 verse 20, Achan replied, it's true.

I have sinned against Yahweh the God of Israel. This is what I have done. When I saw in the plunder a beautiful robe from Babylonia, 200 shekels of silver and a bar of gold weighing 50 shekels, I coveted them and I took them.

They're hidden in the ground inside my tent with the silver underneath. So Joshua sent messengers and they ran to the tent and there it was, hidden in his tent with the silver underneath. They took the things from the tent, brought them to Joshua and all the Israelites and spread them out before Yahweh.

Then Joshua together with all Israel took Achan son of Zerah, the silver, the robe, the gold bar, his sons and daughters, his cattle, donkeys and sheep, his tent and all that he had to the valley of Achor. And then all Israel stoned them and they they heaped up a pile of rocks over Achan and his family. This is a serious violation of God's clear command.

It affected the entire community. People died in the battle against Ai because Achan disobeyed God's command. So he violated Yahweh's command which is vertical but it had horizontal implications.

And then his entire family dies with him. And why do they have to die? Why shouldn't he just die himself? Well, how likely is it that this man buried all of this plunder in his tent without anyone in his household noticing? If his family noticed that he was taking and hiding plunder from the battle, they should have been the first to say, absolutely not. You get rid of that.

That belongs to Yahweh. But by harboring him and his sin under their tent, they all become liable to destruction. So when we flip back to Exodus and we're thinking about the Ten Commandments, I hope this helps to illustrate just how crucial it is that every Israelite takes every command of God seriously.

Because if they violate one command, it puts the entire community at risk. It's not that the entire community is being held accountable for a mistake one person made or a violation of one person. It's that if this community tolerates a violator, then they too are guilty of sin.

This has, I think, really significant implications for issues today that are plaguing the church. Let me just bring up one example, and this will be a controversial example, but it's one that we need to talk about. A number of years ago, the Me Too movement started and women began coming forward to reveal that they had been the victims of sexual abuse.

And then shortly after that, people started using hashtag church too to say that they had undergone sexual abuse. They had experienced sexual abuse in the church. And what's been really interesting and sad about the aftermath of the church too movement is how many people have doubled down in protecting and trying to protect the status quo, to not submit to outside investigation, to not want anybody to investigate their church to find out the truth about sexual abuse.

They would rather hide it and not talk about it. They'd rather blame the victim than bring it out into the light. And a church that tolerates the abuse of the vulnerable makes itself vulnerable to the wrath of God.

I don't think that's something that we can take lightly at all. And the story of Aachen makes that really clear. So we have one more issue to talk about related to just framing the 10 commandments from the outset, and that is how many commands are there? The answer is there's 10.

The Bible says that there are 10 words, but it's really fascinating how difficult it is to count them. And there are various traditions in church history and in Jewish interpretive history of how to count from 1 to 10. So I'm going to pick up on our next day of filming tomorrow, so you'll see me with a different change of clothes, but I'm going to pick up here and try to show you what are the different ways of counting to 10, and why does it matter? What's the difference in how we get to 10, and what are the implications for our interpretation? So we'll pick that up.

All right, so I am back to give you a few more insights on how the 10 commandments are structured and how we should think about them. As I mentioned, we're going to talk about how many are there and how to count them. So earlier, as we were looking at the 10 plagues, I argued that the Bible never calls them the 10 plagues, and there are actually 12 signs and wonders, and that's what we should call them.

So what about the 10 commandments? Are there really 10, and how do we know? Well, the Bible actually calls these the 10 words. They're not called the commandments in Hebrew. They're called the 10 words or 10 matters.

Two passages in which this is really clear is Exodus 34, 28, where it says, Moses was there with Yahweh 40 days and 40 nights without eating bread or drinking water, and he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the 10 commandments, or in Hebrew, 10 words. And then in Deuteronomy 4, 13, Moses says, he declared to you his covenant, the 10 commandments or 10 words, which he commanded you to follow, and then wrote them on two stone tablets. We've already talked about why there's two tablets, that this is a sign, that this is a treaty, and these are duplicate copies of these covenant stipulations.

And here we see very clearly there are 10, but you might be surprised to learn that it's quite difficult to count to 10. There's been a lot of debate about which are the 10. So I have here the two primary Christian traditions on how to count the commands.

Each of them does not include verse 2, I am Yahweh your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery, or out of the house of slaves. That's considered the preamble, and you'll notice that although in the Reformed tradition, no other gods and no idols are two different commands, in the Catholic and Lutheran tradition, those are combined and taken as one command. The rest of them correspond to each other until you get to the end of the 10 commandments, and then we have in the Catholic and Lutheran tradition, we have the last command against covenanting split into two, no covenanting your neighbor's house and no covenanting your neighbor's wife.

We could add to this a third column and share just one Jewish tradition. There's actually competing Jewish traditions in terms of how to count the commands, but I think it's interesting to note that Jewish interpreters count verse 2 as its own word, its own command. Now, because we call them the 10 commandments, we wouldn't be inclined to think of verse 2 as one of the 10 because it isn't a command.

It's a statement, I am Yahweh your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of slaves. But if you call them the 10 words, as the Hebrew Bible does, then it doesn't need to be a command. It could just be a statement or declaration that God is making to his people at Sinai.

So according to Jewish interpretation, verse 2 is its own word, its own entity, and then the others follow from that. So you can see the comparison here. What is at stake in these various ways of counting? Well, I find it interesting to consider when you walk into a sanctuary of a church, you can almost tell how they count the commands just by looking around at the walls to see whether they have icons or pictures of God.

So you'll notice that in the Catholic column, no other gods and no idols is combined as one. So in other words, the making of idols is considered part of having no other gods. You're not worshiping other gods, therefore you're not having images of them.

But there's no separate prohibition against images of God. So you could make images of the one true God, icons, and you could have them on display, and they could be aids in your worship. So in the Catholic tradition, icons are acceptable.

In the Reformed tradition, they are not, and they get their own line item. I grew up in a Christian Reformed church, and my grandmother was very strict about this. She was dismayed when I went out and purchased a nativity set because she thought that that was making an image of God.

And I tried to tell her, but I'm not worshiping this, Oma. This is just a Christmas decoration. I'm not bowing down to it.

And besides, the only image of God that's here is Jesus who came in the flesh. He became incarnate, and so what's the problem with showing what he looked like? So this is one of the debates that's been dominant in church history. You can read about it more.

It's often referred to as iconoclast controversy, and you can read more about how various denominations and churches handle this. My own approach to numbering the commands is a little bit idiosyncratic in that I also want to combine these first two commands, but I want to include the preamble with it. So I follow the column on the right, the Catholic and Lutheran tradition, but I include the preamble with that first command against other gods, and I will explain why in the next session.

Before we move on from here, I think it's worth stepping back to say what are some of the key theological themes as we're reading the Decalogue or Ten Commandments. Decalogue is a way of referring to these ten words as well. Well, the Ten Commandments clearly are addressed to male heads of households.

They say things like do not covet your neighbor's wife. It doesn't say do not covet your neighbor's husband. That implies a male audience.

The one who's being addressed by these commands clearly owns property and has servants in his household and children. The family structure that we see, especially in the Sabbath command, implies that the one who's hearing this is someone with a fair degree of social power. But rather than bolster the power of the head of household, the Ten Commandments actually restrain that power on behalf of the vulnerable.

It makes sure that the head of household is not exploiting those under his care. And throughout these commands, we see that the commands protect the rights of the neighbors. The commands protect Yahweh's right to worship, Yahweh's right to reputation, the household's right to rest, parents' right to honor, and neighbors' rights to life, right to marriage, property, and reputation.

My mentor, Dan Block, often calls this the bill of other people's rights. So kind of like the Bill of Rights in the United States, except these rights, the rights that are to be protected here are everyone else's rights. We're to organize our lives in such a way that we're looking out for the interests of other people, not just our own interests.

Of course, these commands aren't just for the heads of household, but they're the ones hearing the words of Moses and passing them on. And these words become a generative force, a source of reflection for how to live well as a member of the covenant community. You might notice that most of them are negative.

They're stated as negatives, do not do this, do not do that. And there's only two positive commands. I like to think of the Ten Commandments as creating an outer boundary within which we can find a flourishing life in community with each other.

What are the things that are out of bounds? Well, worshiping other gods is out of bounds. Committing adultery is out of bounds. Stealing, coveting, bearing God's name in vain, making false witness about your neighbor, those things are out of bounds.

There's not a lot of information about what we are supposed to do. There's just two commands that are stated positively. One is to keep the Sabbath and the other is to honor our parents.

So the Decalogue is giving these minimal restraints and only two positive commands to fill out what covenant faithfulness looks like. But it is the beginning of a portrait of a covenantally faithful Israelite and it's supposed to mark their society as different from the nation's. Who are these commands for? The Decalogue is often thought to be timeless and universal and natural law.

People treat the Ten Commandments as if it's for all people of all time everywhere, but in fact it's not universal. It's not timeless. This was driven home to me when my oldest daughter started Awana and began to memorize the Ten Commandments in her Awana program.

And she came to me laughing and said, yeah right, like I'm going to covet my neighbor's wife. And she was laughing about the ox and donkey. My neighbor doesn't have an ox or a donkey.

And so that was her first clue even at a young age that these are not stated in a way that's timeless. We have to do the work of thinking how does this apply in my context where my neighbor has a corvette not an ox. And they're also not natural law.

Although some of these commands are pretty widely accepted across the globe, some of them are not. The command not to take the Lord's name in vain is not something you're going to find in other cultures. It's very unique to Israel.

So we have already, when we come to the Ten Commandments, we've already covered a lot of ground. We've already seen Yahweh's unique self-revelation, his work to redeem the people from Egypt and to draw them into covenant with himself. We saw that he calls them his segala, his treasured possession.

And that means that we need to take these commands seriously as covenant stipulations for a nation redeemed from slavery and brought into Yahweh's service. The Israelites are not taking a megaphone and proclaiming these to everybody else and imposing these laws on their neighbors. They're the ones who are being brought into this relationship of covenant faithfulness.

In fact, we could even go so far as to say that the Ten Commandments in the United States are unconstitutional. If the United States government implemented the Ten Commandments, it would actually be a violation of constitutional freedoms. This is an image from the Freedom from Religion Foundation in which they cross out all the commands that actually are not compatible with our constitution.

Our constitution protects the freedom of religion and it protects the freedom of expression and the freedom of speech, whereas the Ten Commandments restrain these things. We don't have freedom of religion. We're supposed to worship only Yahweh.

We don't have freedom of expression. We're not supposed to take his name in vain and we're not supposed to make graven images. So there are restraints put on the covenant people that are actually not the kind of thing that we could legislate in the United States.

So this will perhaps ruffle some feathers, but I think it's worth considering. The Decalogue is unconstitutional. We can choose to live by it, but to impose it on others impinges upon their freedoms of speech, religion, and expression.

So lots of Christians are eager to post the Ten Commandments in the public square because they want everybody to be part of this relationship with God. But posting the Ten Commandments in the public square may actually give people the wrong message, since what we usually put up in public is snipped out of its context. We just have 10 things you're supposed to do and not do without the context of Yahweh's self-revelation and deliverance.

Why is God imposing these laws on people? Well, we usually cut off verse 2, I am Yahweh your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of slaves. If the people hearing these commands are not people who God has redeemed, then they're going to have the impression that God is a task master who's imposing restrictions on them arbitrarily from the outside. But set in the context of this glorious deliverance and self-revelation, we see Yahweh has the right to impose restrictions on these people.

He has brought them out of slavery, he's given them their own nation, and now he's showing them how to live. And that context is so important so that we don't misunderstand God and his purposes for the world. All right, do you have any questions before we get down into the details of the Ten Commandments? Certainly the covenantal context regulates or controls the first four of the commandments, but I'm assuming you wouldn't say that's true of the other commandments.

Those are kind of timeless, aren't they? So there is overlap between the other commandments and what other cultures have regulated in terms of people's behavior, but I would argue that all ten are covenantal in this context, that God is taking commands such as, you shall not murder, which another culture probably has that same command, and he's incorporating it by incorporating it into these stipulations. It's making a particular claim on the people. So we've already talked about how the Ten Commandments are covenant stipulations, and this is a covenant context, but if you compare this covenant with other covenants or treaties from the ancient Near East, there's a real difference because other treaties tend to regulate international relations, whereas this one tends to regulate interpersonal relations.

And so we might ask why the big difference? And I think it's really significant that in an international treaty, you have a great king who's making treaties with lesser kingdoms or lesser kings, and it's regulating the way they relate to each other. You can't take his land, or you can't make a treaty, or you can't intermarry with this other kingdom because that would violate or cause problems with the overall loyalty of each one to the great king. But in Israel, we have Yahweh as the great king making this covenant with every Israelite member, the heads of households that he's talking to.

Now, the reason why we have interpersonal commands is because these heads of households are relating to their neighbors just the way neighboring kingdoms would relate to each other in another treaty situation. So if I commit adultery with my neighbor, it's the equivalent of this king making a marriage alliance with another kingdom that might violate what they already have promised to the great king. So I think, although yes, there's similarity between these commands and what you find in civil law in other places, the covenant context helps us to think about it in a deeper way.

If I murder my neighbor, I'm actually eliminating one of those that Yahweh has pledged to protect, someone who's in covenant with him. And because it's a covenant or treaty context, Yahweh has pledged to protect them, and so he's going to come after me if I do that. And it's not just for the sake of peace in our society, it's because there's a special relationship with Yahweh.

So I think there's a lot for us to think about here in terms of covenant. Does the repetition of all but one of the Ten Commandments in the New Testament have any effect on that, or do you view the New Testament repetition as covenant as well? Oh, that's a great question. I would view the New Testament repetition as covenant as well for reasons that we talked about in a previous session when I shared Peter's words in First Peter 2, 9, and 10, that he's applying covenant titles to the church from Sinai.

So I believe we've been grafted into that same covenant, and therefore the covenant stipulations are still relevant for us. I would not say that we only have to obey the ones that are repeated in the New Testament. Sometimes people take that approach to Old Testament law.

They say the only parts that still have ongoing relevance are the ones that are repeated. Well, then why do we need the Old Testament if we're only going to pay attention to the parts that are repeated? We could just read the New Testament. And I see a greater variety of creativity in the way that New Testament authors and the way that the apostles and early church leaders are treating Old Testament law and the way it generates ethical reflection for them.

And I think that's a model for us that we can engage in as well.