The Ten Commandments
1 Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, “Israel, listen to the statutes and ordinances I am proclaiming as you hear them today. Learn and follow them carefully. 2 The LORD our God made a covenant r with us at Horeb. 3 He did not make this covenant with our fathers, s but with all of us who are alive here today. 4 The LORD spoke to you face to face from the fire on the mountain. 5 At that time I was standing between the LORD and you to report the word of the LORD to you, because you were afraid of the fire and did not go up the mountain. And he said:
6 I am the LORD your God, t who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery. u
7 Do not have other gods besides me.
8 Do not make an idol for yourself in the shape of anything in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth. 9 Do not bow in worship to them, and do not serve them, because I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the fathers’ iniquity to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, v 10 but showing faithful love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commands.
11 Do not misuse the name w of the LORD your God, because the LORD will not leave anyone unpunished who misuses his name.
12 Be careful to remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy as the LORD your God has commanded you. 13 You are to labor six days and do all your work, 14 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. Do not do any work—you, your son or daughter, your male or female slave, your ox or donkey, any of your livestock, or the resident alien who lives within your city gates, so that your male and female slaves may rest as you do.
15 Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out of there with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. That is why the LORD your God has commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.
16 Honor your father and your mother, x as the LORD your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and so that you may prosper in the land the LORD your God is giving you. y
17 Do not murder. z
18 Do not commit adultery. a
19 Do not steal.
20 Do not give dishonest testimony against your neighbor. b
21 Do not covet your neighbor’s wife or desire your neighbor’s house, his field, his male or female slave, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. c
The People’s Response
22 “The LORD spoke these commands in a loud voice to your entire assembly from the fire, cloud, and total darkness on the mountain; he added nothing more. He wrote them on two stone tablets and gave them to me. 23 All of you approached me with your tribal leaders and elders when you heard the voice from the darkness and while the mountain was blazing with fire. 24 You said, ‘Look, the LORD our God has shown us his glory and greatness, and we have heard his voice from the fire. Today we have seen that God speaks with a person, yet he still lives. 25 But now, why should we die? This great fire will consume us and we will die if we hear the voice of the LORD our God any longer. 26 For who out of all mankind has heard the voice of the living God speaking from the fire, as we have, and lived? 27 Go near and listen to everything the LORD our God says. Then you can tell us everything the LORD our God tells you; we will listen and obey.’ d
28 “The LORD heard your words when you spoke to me. He said to me, ‘I have heard the words that these people have spoken to you. Everything they have said is right. 29 If only they had such a heart to fear me and keep all my commands always, so that they and their children would prosper forever. 30 Go and tell them: Return to your tents. 31 But you stand here with me, and I will tell you every command—the statutes and ordinances—you are to teach them, so that they may follow them in the land I am giving them to possess.’
32 “Be careful to do as the LORD your God has commanded you; you are not to turn aside to the right or the left. 33 Follow the whole instruction the LORD your God has commanded you, so that you may live, prosper, and have a long life in the land you will possess.
5:1. Before reiterating the law, originally given at Sinai, here in the plains of Moab, Moses emphasizes the importance of the ear as the organ for listening and responding—“Israel, listen.” But Moses also gives three important principles prior to giving the Ten Commandments.
5:2–3. First, Moses declares the continuity of the covenant: “not . . . with our fathers, but with all of us” (5:3). This has the force of “not simply with them alone” but also refers to all who later will hear and obey. Therefore, even though the original proclamation of the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments, was given to the fathers of this generation, it is nonetheless given to the present generation as much as if they too were present. Since God is a living God, each succeeding generation is simultaneously addressed and called to the same degree of obedience.
5:4–5. Second, while Moses speaks metaphorically of the Lord addressing the fathers’ generation “face to face” (5:4), it is no less a direct speaking to later generations as well. This is no impersonal encounter or an abstract duty but a personal relationship with the Lawgiver himself.
5:6. Third, the environment of the law is God’s redemptive grace, for he has brought them up out of Egypt. These laws are not given so that persons can gain salvation by works but because God has already redeemed them; they now want to do what he has said. These Ten Commandments are the Magna Carta, a covenant of grace, anchored in God’s first step toward us: redemption.
5:7. Commandment 1. We are to have no other gods before the Lord. Therefore, we must have a God (versus atheism); we must have Yahweh as our God (versus idolatry); we must have the Lord alone (versus polytheism); and we must love, fear, and serve this Lord with all our heart and soul (versus ritualism).
5:8–10. Commandment 2. We are not to make for ourselves an idol in the form of anything anywhere (5:8). Hebrew has fourteen words for idols or images, so prevalent was this pagan practice of false worship. Forms of idolatry, however, can be material and external as well as spiritual and internal.
5:11. Commandment 3. The prohibition against using God’s name in vain includes more than just the misuse of the name by which God is known. It also refers to his nature (Ps 20:1), his teaching or doctrine (Ps 22:22; Jn 17:6, 26), or his ethical directions (Mc 4:5). It forbids not only using his name to curse but also all trite or purposeless and frivolous uses of this name.
5:12–15. Commandment 4. The call to observe the Sabbath is intended to be not a word of bondage but one of liberation and cessation of work, leading to genuine rest. The nature of this command is mixed: it is moral, mandating that God has a right to a portion of our time in worship, service, and rest. But it is also ceremonial in that it spells out the seventh day, the Jewish Sabbath, as that rest day. However, the same law that points to the seventh day also forecasts that the eighth day, on certain feast days, is to be holy to the Lord and a day in which no normal work is to be done (Lv 23:16, 21, 24, 35, 36, 39). This points to the coming work of Christ and anticipates Sunday worship in honor of the resurrection of Jesus.
5:16. Commandment 5. The sanctity of the family calls for esteeming and prizing highly parents and all those in authority over us as we defer to them with respect and honor. When this command also enjoins our obedience to parents and those over us, it is qualified as “in the Lord” (Eph 6:1). Parents, governors, magistrates, teachers, and pastors are to be shown respect, but nowhere are their wills or wishes to be substituted for the will of God. The promise of long life with this commandment is unique, though all the commandments have the promise of life standing over them (Dt 4:1; 8:1; 16:20; 30:15–16).
5:17. Commandment 6. The sanctity of life is affirmed with the use of one of seven Hebrew words that refer exclusively to taking life by malice and forethought or premeditation. This prohibition does not include accidental homicide, self-defense, just war, or the like, for which other Hebrew words are used. So sacred is life that no “ransom” can be accepted for premeditated murder (Nm 35:31), whereas other capital crimes presumably could be atoned for with substitutes.
5:18. Commandment 7. The sanctity of marriage carries out the case made for monogamous relationships in Gn 2:23–24. Adultery is not just the violation of a pledge made to another person, but it also violates the covenant made with God (Pr 2:17; Mal 2:14). It is a sin against God as well as against one’s partner (Gn 29:9).
5:19. Commandment 8. The sanctity of property calls for a recognition that God owns everything (Pss 24:1; 115:16). Therefore, stealing is an act of putting possessions ahead of God when goods and wealth are voluntarily to be shared with all.
5:20. Commandment 9. The sanctity of truth is based on the fact that flouting the truth is an act of despising God, whose very being and nature is truth. Lying is always wrong, for God commands truth telling (Pss 27:12; 35:11; Pr 6:19; 14:15).
5:21. Commandment 10. The sanctity of motive includes all thoughts, desires, and inner instincts that lead to the above nine actions. This command seeks a state of contentment for God’s men and women, for “godliness with contentment is great gain” (1 Tm 6:6).
5:22–33. God announced these commandments, Moses says, in a “loud voice” (5:22) as the mountain was ablaze (5:23). Instead of continuing to hear God’s voice directly, the people urged Moses to go up to God on their behalf and tell them what God had said (5:26). However, all that God would say, they promised, “We will listen [to it] and [we will] obey” (5:27). This pleased God: “Everything they have said is right” (5:28). The Lord just wished that this would always be true of them.