Exodus 20:1-21

“God spoke all these words: “I, the Lord, am your God, who brought you from the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery. “You shall have no other gods before me. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is on the earth beneath or that is in the water below. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God, responding to the transgression of fathers by dealing with children to the third and fourth generations of those who reject me, and showing covenant faithfulness to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments. “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold guiltless anyone who takes his name in vain. “Remember the Sabbath day to set it apart as holy. For six days you may labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; on it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, or your male servant, or your female servant, or your cattle, or the resident foreigner who is in your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is in them, and he rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy. “Honor your father and your mother, that you may live a long time in the land the Lord your God is giving to you. “You shall not murder. “You shall not commit adultery. “You shall not steal. “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor. “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that belongs to your neighbor.” All the people were seeing the thundering and the lightning, and heard the sound of the horn, and saw the mountain smoking – and when the people saw it they trembled with fear and kept their distance. They said to Moses, “You speak to us and we will listen, but do not let God speak with us, lest we die.” Moses said to the people, “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you so that you do not sin.” The people kept their distance, but Moses drew near the thick darkness where God was.”

— ‭‭Exodus‬ ‭20‬:‭1‬-‭21‬‬

I know many people have come to disregard much of what Andy Stanley says nowadays. This is not the post to discern every sound bite or sermon people have heard. (No I don’t agree with everything he says, but I can filter through a lot of it to see the larger point). Not getting into his sermons and statements right now, but a long time ago, he was the first to point out to me the grace built into the Ten Commandments.

Before God gives any rules, He reminds the Israelites “I am YHWH who brought you out of the house of slavery.” As Andy put it, “I don’t expect you to follow this list of rules, or try to please me, or obey a bunch of stuff to try to enter a relationship with me—Go ahead try. You’re already in.” So there’s some debate just how “legalistic” Judaism was throughout their history. Did they really try to keep the law as a way to please God, or was it built into their fabric that they already had a relationship/covenant with God? Perhaps they grew into a more legalistic people in the strictest denotation of the word, but at their origin, there was grace. This is the  covenantal nomism discussion and New Perspective of Paul factors here too.

There was one simple act of ridiculous, almost laughable faith to show they had confidence in the power and faithfulness of their God—the blood on the doorposts. Anyway…

God says, because we have already established this relationship, now we are going to finalize that agreement here in the form of this covenant. Which brings us to a sort of odd thought.

The 10 Commandments (notice 10) are the opening of a covenant, a treaty. In Deuteronomy, they are repeated in what many use as an analogy of Israel’s “Constitution.” 

But in Ancient Near Easter terms, this is much more serious, because they are entering a covenant with God. This has all the formalities of a suzerain-vassal treaty (we have many examples from people groups of the time to compare-mostly Hittite), where a king would offer provision, protection, etc for a smaller, inferior people, and the latter would be submissive and loyal to the former. There were stipulations and requirements, of course, but a mutual agreement between the two worked in favor of both.

The two parties in this case are YHWH and the nation of Israel. And the 10 commandments cannot really be separated from the rest of the covenant. Again, notice command 4 is still part of the 10. We love the other nine, and are quick to point out that Jesus fulfilled the law, and so #4 doesn’t apply (Sabbath). Fantastic! Hurray, but we can’t talk from both sides of our mouth. What do I mean?

We often (at least in many Christian or specifically, fundamental circles) try to divide the old covenant into civil, moral, and religious laws. If you read some passages in Leviticus or Numbers, though, laws that we would divide into our neat categories are all mixed up. The author and/or editors didn’t write the law as we view it, unfortunately. Why not? Because it ALL applies to the Israelites as a society among the nations around them, so they can represent YHWH as a holy people. There’s a lot more to unpack there, but the law is for Israel. It’s a covenant between God and His people.

I don’t get to pick and choose which laws apply to me, not even the ones about stealing and murdering. I’m not a Jew.

Wait, so the law of God doesn’t apply to me? I’m free from the moral law? How am I convicted of sin? I didn’t say all of that. 

I said the “Old Covenant,” and by inclusion —the 10 Commandments. So the Old Testament law is a representation of God’s moral law, codified and contextualized for a specific time and purpose. But stealing is still wrong. God is still the only god. Parents deserve respect. And yes, we need to build rest into our schedule (shoot, the book of Hebrews even reinterprets Sabbath as salvation and ultimate glory, but that’s not for here).

It’s not enough to say, we can preach the 10 commandments because all of them are repeated in the NT, except #4. We have to go deeper, as in if Jesus fulfilled the law, then He fulfilled the whole law. And Paul is going to say, (and Jesus even said), you have a new law. The law of love. We owe no one anything, except to love one another. And of course, I agree with all those who conclude that many of the commands are given to demonstrate love others or love for God (respecting parents, not stealing, not murdering, etc.) And indeed, the Sermon on Mount shows highest intent of these laws was fulfilled by the heart of love (no lust, no anger, no oaths).

So yes, I am still bound as human to the standard of perfection/God’s moral law. Jesus came to redeem humanity and the world from its brokenness/chaos/sin. But it’s not as easy as listing 10 commands. In fact, it’s much more difficult a standard than any listing of laws. 

See John Walton, Lost World of Torah for more discussion. (I did not reach these conclusions from him, but he does discuss many of these themes. He also has a unique take on the ancient law as wisdom documents, where the king needs the law to judge how to handle various situations. Case law is essential at this point to know how to handle random events on the daily).

But in light of this discussion, here’s a brief summary of the 10.

Command 1: No Other Gods

This is a key verse for the recognition of Israel as monolatrous people not necessarily monotheists. They knew of other gods that existed or were worshipped (10 plagues against Egypt were directly opposed to all of Egypt gods). Israel failed horribly at this command because they knew of other gods (or at least thought other gods were worthy of worship. They were supposed to stick with YHWH.

YHWH’s first command even seems to suggest there are other gods. God demands absolute allegiance, to the exclusion of any other deity or law code of other civilization. These would certainly be in opposition to the one true God. Deciding Whom to worship would be foundational for how Israel conducted society

Point: Choosing whom you will worship is foundational to the rest of the list. 

Command 2: No Idols

Not a repeat of Command 1.

Images were carved from wood or stone. Used for worship, not decoration. An idol obviously represents the power, ability, presence of the god.

This could also refer to YHWH worship. No images of YHWH. 1) God knew that humans could never make something that represents Him fully. “Don’t even try.” (2) God forbids the Hebrews from narrowing Him into a figurine that they could “manage,”—something that they can be in the presence of and then out of the presence of.

Cf. Duet 7:10; 24:16; Ezekiel 19:10-20. God promises not to kill future generations elsewhere, so Exod 20:5 sounds a bit odd at first. It doesn’t appear that God would punish sons for the sins of fathers, but we can’t fully understand the mind of God when handling sin or the cause/effect relationship. The consequences of sin certainly affect future generations. Perhaps patterns of the same sin occur for several generations until God punishes harshly. All we can stand on is God’s justice and righteousness. 

The main contrast is the 3-4 generations of cursing and the thousands of generations of blessing (cf. Exod 34:7; Deut 5:10; Ps 18:50; Jer 32:18). 

Command 3: Respect God’s Name

“Taking in vain” can apply to a number of ideas: misuse or abuse, or even using it for insincere purposes. 

O my goodness—How many times have we seen organizations, countries, individuals do atrocious acts under the name of God/Jesus? It’s absolutely awful.

Command 4: Sabbath

We have evidence that pagan nations also set a day aside, but it usually for magic or special sacrifices (see NET note). Israel was supposed to do something special in v. 8, distinguishing between holy and profane days. There was something higher than daily life.

This was the 1 command that became a covenant marker for the Jewish people (along with circumcision and their food laws). 

I’m sure this will be a different post later, but see Rom 12:1-2, Col 2:16-17; Heb 4:1-11 for NT context for this command and how our holiness is related to it. For starters, Israel was required to share in the rest of their Creator. We do, too, but not by calendar observations. Our entire life is holy, resting because of Christ’s sacrifice.

(Just in case anyone is wondering, Exodus 20:12 is an ok argument for literal 6 day creationism, but it’s not a slam dunk. This explanation was probably not on the original tablets—Moses probably just had the bare commands, not the purpose clauses, explanations etc. So it takes a lot of work—much more and much smarter than I am able to do—to try to trace the history of documents to how Torah reached final form….and of course there’s endless debate. But generally speaking, these tablets were probably one of the first things ever written. By the time the explanations and purposes clauses get added/Exodus gets written as whole, Genesis 1 or the poem behind it has been written, so the author or editor can use what’s been established to build an argument. The fact that it’s dependent on Genesis 1 is fine, but it still leaves us to debate what’s going on in Genesis 1. This is more evident that the explanation for the Sabbath in Deuteronomy is different…slavery in Egypt).

Command 5: Honor Parents

It’s so easy to repeat this ad nauseam to our kids, but I don’t remember reading an age limit in v. 12. Remember, Israelites are a Semitic/Eastern culture, so honor/shame plays huge role in caring for older generations. 

God offers a national promise only to command. Ezekiel 22:7, 15 directly links Judah’s exile to lack of respect for parents (and to repeat previous point, I don’t think it was three year olds’ tantrums or ten year olds sneaking out at night). Malachi also says the future Elijah (ie. Messiah) would turn children and parents back to each other. This was key foundation of society, especially God’s holy society.

Command 6: Murder

This command refers to both premeditated and accidental killings. Later case laws would add stipulations for some basic situations, but this command gives the general principle that God values life.

God programmed us for love and unity. Anger, hatred, murder have no place among His people. 

Things like war/just war not really mentioned in case laws. 

Command 7: Adultery

Later laws would distinguish fornication and adultery, with the latter carrying death penalty (Lev 20:10). The abundant theme of Scripture, from Genesis 1 to the Law to Jesus in Matthew 5 to Paul in Eph 5 is that God loves marriage, values the loyalty and integrity of both individuals bound together. We can look at Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 19 later.

Command 8: Stealing

The Law not only protects lives and marriages but also personal property. In some ways, Command 10 (coveting) functions for Command 8 as Jesus’ words in Matthew 5 function for other portions of the law. What’s most important is the heart of the person. 

Command 9: False Witness

The immediate application is perjury in court, but the Israelite understanding most likely expanded to include lying in general (cf. Hosea 4:2). 

If an honest word is meaningless or impossible to find in a society, then I’m pretty sure destruction is coming quickly. 

Command 10: Coveting

Coveting/earnestly desiring can be a positive action (Ps 19:10; 68:16), but not when the object is forbidden. This is the only command that cannot be proven that the individual is breaking it. Must be hard to punish someone for coveting. The antidote has to be gratitude and contentment here. We see this throughout Scripture.

VV 18-21. People were afraid of the smoke and fire. They don’t want to speak with God. They’re terrified of Him. These cosmic signs demonstrate God’s power, His presence, and perhaps provoke fear but also motivate obedience. They do accept the stipulations of the covenant. (At least until ch. 32 with the golden calf).