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[First posted in 2013, reposted on the occasion of the commanded Leviticus 23 feast of Shavuot 2017, the anniversary of the giving of the Decalogue. Never need a reason to repost yet another reminder.
We’ve chosen “declarations” in our title in place of “commandments” which is the Jewish preference. The reason for not using “commandments” is —-there are more than 10; in fact as of a Rabbi’s count, 613, although it is explained that the 10 encapsulates all others which fall under any one of the 10.
The scriptural reference here is from Exodus/Shemoth XX, 1-14 when the decalogue is first given on the first set of stone tablets written by ‘the finger of YHWH Himself. Later in Deuteronomy/Davarim, Moshe reiterates these to the 2nd generation who would enter the Land of Promise. This 2nd generation born in the wilderness never experienced bondage but experienced the gracious provisions of their new Lord and Master, YHWH, Who regulated every detail of life during the wilderness wandering of Israel. They would have heard stories about their parents’ exodus from Egypt and might have vicariously related to everything their parents experienced thereafter.
Jewish commentators cited here expectedly speak to Jews and not gentiles; you feel like an outsider looking in, wondering “where do I fit in?” Well, we gentiles fit in the “mixed multitude” who left Egypt and stood before the Law-Giver on Sinai. The God of Israel is the God of the Nations; His declarations are for all humankind. The key phrase is “mixed multitude”.
Commentary is from our MUST READ/MUST OWN resource book, not available unfortunately as an ebook but hopefully hard copies are still being sold. We got ours at a Messianic conference almost a decade ago. The Rabbi-Editor J.H. Hertz did a great job of putting together commentaries from the best of Jewish minds, indeed what a treasure it is to have. The title: Pentateuch and Haftorahs, Soncino Press Edition. Translation is from EF/Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses.—Admin1.]
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THE TEN COMMANDMENTS [Exodus/Shemoth XX, 1-14]
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The “Ten Words” or Commandments . . . or the Decalogue (from deka, ten, and logos, word), are supreme among the precepts of the Torah, both on account of their fundamental and far-reaching importance, and on account of the awe-inspiring manner in which they were revealed to the whole nation. Amid thunder and lightning and the sounding of the shofar, amid flames of the fire that enveloped the smoking mountain, a Majestic Voice pronounced the Words which from that day to this have been the guide of conduct to mankind.
That Revelation was the most remarkable event in the history of humanity. It was the birth-hour of the Religion of the Spirit, which was destined in time to illumine the souls, and order the lives, of all the children of men.
The Decalogue is a sublime summary of human duties binding upon all mankind; a summary unequalled for simplicity, comprehensiveness and solemnity; a summary which bears divinity on its face, and cannot be antiquated as long as the world endures. It is at the same time a Divine epitome of the fundamentals of Israel’s Creed and Life; and Jewish teachers, ancient and modern, have looked upon it as the fountain-head from which all Jewish truth and Jewish teaching could be derived. ‘These Commandments are written on the walls of Synagogue and Church; they are the world’s laws for all time. Never will their empire cease. The prophetic cry is true: the word of our God shall stand forever’ (M. Joseph).
The most natural division of the Ten Commandments is into—
- man’s duties towards God, the opening five commandments engraved on the First Table;
- and man’s duties to his fellow-man, the five Commandments engraved on the Second Table.
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FIRST TABLE; DUTIES TOWARDS GOD
FIRST COMMANDMENT: RECOGNITION OF THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
2. I am the LORD thy God. Jewish Tradition considers this verse as the first of the Ten Words, and deduces from it the positive precept, To believe in the existence of God.
I. Heb. anochi. The God adored by Judaism is not an impersonal Force, an ‘It’, whether spoken of as ‘Nature’ or “World-Reason’. The God of Israel is the Source not only of power and life, but of consciousness, personality, moral purpose and ethical action (M. Joel).
thy God. The emphasis is on thy. He is the God not merely of the past generations, but of every individual soul in each generation.
who brought thee out of the land of Egypt. God is not here designated, ‘Creator of heaven and earth’, Israel’s God is seen not merely in Nature but in the destinies of man. He had revealed Himself to Israel in a great historic deed, the greatest in the life of any people: the God who saved Israel from slavery had a moral claim, as their Benefactor and Redeemer, on their gratitude and obedience. ‘The foundation of Jewish life is not merely that there is only one God, but the conviction that this One, Only and True God, is my God, my sole Ruler and Guide in all that I do’ (Hirsch). The first Commandment is thus an exhortation to acknowledge the sovereignty of God, lit. ‘the taking upon ourselves the yoke of he Kingdom of Heaven’).
The reference to the redemption from Egypt is of deepest significance, not only to the Israelites, but to all mankind. The primal word of Israel’s Divine Message is the proclamation of God as the God of Freedom. The recognition of God as the God of Freedom illumines the whole of human history for us. In the light of this truth, history becomes one continuous Divine revelation of the gradual growth of freedom and justice on earth.
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SECOND COMMANDMENT: THE UNITY AND SPIRITUALITY OF GOD
Jewish Tradition (based on Talmud, Midrash and Targum) makes v. 3 the beginning of the Second Commandment.
3. thou shalt have no other gods. Because there are no other gods beside God. The fundamental dogma of Israel’s religion, as of all higher religion, is the Unity of God.
before Me. Or, ‘besides Me’; or, ‘to my face’ (Koenig). Nothing shall receive the worship due to Him. Neither angels nor saintly men or women are to receive adoration as Divine beings; and the Jew is forbidden to pray to them. This Commandment also forbids belief in evil spirits, witchcraft, and similar evil superstition. Furthermore, he who believes in God will not put his trust in Chance or ‘luck’.
4. a graven image. This verse forbids the worship of the One God in the wrong way. Judaism alone, from the very beginning, taught that God was a Spirit; and made it an unpardonable sin to worship God under any external form that human hands can fashion. No doubt this law hindered the free development of plastic arts in ancient Israel; but it was of incalculable importance for the purity of the conception of God.
nor any manner of likeness. Nor is He to be worshipped under any image, though such be not graven, which the human mind can conceive.
in heaven above. i.e. of the heavenly bodies; such as the ancestors of the Hebrews in Babylonia adored.
in the earth beneath,e.g. of animal, such as the Israelites saw the Egyptians worshipping.
in the water under the earth. The monsters of the deep.
5. a jealous God. The Heb. root for ‘jealous’, kanna, designates the just indignation of one injured; used here of the all-requiting righteousness of God. God desires to be all in all to His children, and claims an exclusive right to their love and obedience. He hates cruelty and unrighteousness, and loathes impurity and vice; and, and even as another is jealous of all evil influences that rule her children, He is jealous when, instead of purity and righteousness, it is idolatry and unholiness that command their heart-allegiance. It is, of course, evident that terms like ‘jealousy’ or ‘zeal’ are applied to God in an anthropomorphic sense. It is also evident that this jealousy of God is of the very essence of His holiness. Outside Israel, the ancients believed that the more gods the better; the richer the pantheon of a people, the greater its power. It is because the heathen deities were free from ‘jealousy’ and, therefore, tolerant of one another and all their abominations, that heathenism was spiritually so degrading and morally so devastating.
visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children. The Torah does not teach here or elsewhere that the sins of the guilty fathers shall be visited upon their innocent children. The soul that sinneth it shall die proclaims the Prophet Ezekiel. And in the administration of justice by the state, the Torah distinctly lays down, ‘The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers; every man shall be put to death for his own sin’ (Deut. XXIV,16). However, human experience all too plainly teaches the oral interdependence of parents and children. The bad example set by a father frequently corrupts those that come after him. His most dreadful bequest to his children is not a liability to punishment, but a liability to the commission of fresh offences. In every parent, therefore, the love of God, as a restraining power from evil actions, should be reinforced by love for his children; that they should not inherit the tendency to commit, and suffer the consequences of, his transgressions.
Another translation is, ‘remembering the sins of the fathers unto the children’; i.e. God remembers the sins of the fathers when about to punish the children. He distinguishes between the moral responsibility which falls exclusively upon the sinful parents, and the natural consequences and predisposition to sin, inherited by the descendants. He takes into account the evil environment and influence. He therefore tempers justice with mercy; and He does so to the third and fourth generation.
of them that hate Me. The Rabbis refer these words to the children. The sins of the fathers will be visited upon them, only if they do transgress God’s commandments.
6. unto the thousandth generation. Contrast the narrow limits, three or four generations, within which the sin is visited, with the thousand generation that His mercy is shown to those who love God and keep His commandments. ‘History and experience alike teach how often, and under what varied conditions, it happens that the misdeeds of a parent result in bitter consequence for the children. In His providence, the beneficent consequences of a life of goodness extend indefinitely further than the retribution which is the penalty of persistence in sin’ (Driver).
that love Me. Note the verb ‘love’, used to designate the right attitude to God: “Thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might” (Deut. VI,5). Love of God is the essence of Judaism and from love of God springs obedience to His will.
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THIRD COMMANDMENT: AGAINST PERJURY AND PROFANE SWEARING
The Second Commandment lays down the duty of worshipping God alone, and worshipping Him in spirit and not through images. The Third Commandment forbids us to dishonour God by invoking His Name to attest what is untrue, or by joining His Name to anything frivolous or insincere.
7. take the name of the LORD. Upon the lips; i.e. to utter.
in vain. lit. ‘for vanity’, or ‘falsehood’; for anything that is unreal or groundless.
God is holy and His Name is holy. His Name, therefore, must not be used profanely to testify to anything that is untrue, insincere or empty. We are to swear by God’s Name, only when we are fully convinced of the truth of our declaration, and then only when we are required to do so in a Court of law. This verse, according to the Rabbis, forbids using the Name of God in false oaths (e.g. that wood is stone); as well as using the Name of God in vain and flippant oaths (e.g. that stone is stone). God’s Name is, moreover, not to be uttered unnecessarily in common conversation.
will not hold him guiltless. i.e. will not leave him unpunished. Perjury is an unpardonable offence, which, unless repressed by severest penalties, would destroy human society. The Rabbis ordained a special solemn warning to be administered to anyone to take an oath in a Court of law. In various ages, saintly men have avoided swearing altogether. The Essenes, a Jewish Sect in the days of the Second Temple, held that ‘he who cannot be believed without swearing is already condemned’. ‘Let thy yea be yea, and thy nay, nay,’ says the Talmud.
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FOURTH COMMANDMENT; THE SABBATH
8. remember. The use of the word ‘remember’ may indicate that the institution was well known to the Israelites, long before their manna experiences; that it was a treasured and sacred institution inherited from the days of the Patriarchs. The Rabbis however explain “Remember the Sabbath day” to mean,
- Bear it in mind and prepare for its advent;
- think of it day by day,
- and speak of its holiness and sanctifying influence.
They instituted the Kiddush prayer,
- praising God for the gift of the Sabbath,
- to celebrate its coming in;
- and theHavdalah blessing,
- praising God for the distinction between the Sabbath and the six weekdays,
- to mark its going out.
sabbath day. Heb. shabbath, from a root meaning desisting from work.
to keep it holy. To treat it as a day unprofaned by workaday purposes. In addition to being a day of rest, the Sabbath is to be ‘a holy day, set apart for the building up of the spiritual element in man’ (Philo). Religious worship and religious instruction–the renewal of man’s spiritual life in God–form an essential part of Sabbath observance. We therefore sanctify the Sabbath by as special Sabbath liturgy, by statutory Lessons from the Torah and the Prophets, and by attention to discourse and instruction by religious teachers. The Sabbath has thus proved the great educator of Israel in the highest education of all; namely the laws governing human conduct. The effect of these Sabbath prayers and Synagogue homilies upon the Jewish people has been incalculable. Leopold Zunz, the founder of the New Jewish Learning, has shown that almost the whole of Israel’s inner history since the close of bible times can be traced in following the development of these Sabbath discourses on the Torah. Sabbath worship is still the chief bond which unites Jews into a religious Brotherhood. Neglect of such worship injures the spiritual life of both the individual and the community.
9. shalt thou labour. Work during the six days of the week is as essential to man’s welfare as is the rest on the seventh. No man or woman, howsoever rich, is freed from the obligation of doing some work, say the Rabbis, as idleness invariably leads to evil thoughts and evil deeds. The proportion of one day’s rest in seven has been justified by the experience of the last 3000 years. Physical health suffers without such relief. The first French Republic rejected the one day in seven, and ordained a rest of one day in ten. The experiment was a complete failure.
work. Heb., that which man produces by his thought, effort and will.
10. a sabbath unto the LORD. A day especially devoted to God.
thou shalt not do any manner of work. Scripture does not give a list of labours forbidden on Sabbath; but it incidentally mentions field-labour, buying and selling, travelling, cooking, etc., as forbidden work. The Mishna enumerates under 39 different heads all such acts as are in Jewish Law defined as ‘work’, and therefore not to be performed on the Sabbath day; such as ploughing, reaping, carrying loads, kindling a fire, writing, sewing, etc. Certain other things cannot be brought under any of these 39 Categories are also prohibited, because they lead to a breach of Sabbath laws as well as all acts that would tend to change the Sabbath into an ordinary day. Whatever we are not allowed to do ourselves, we must not have done for us by a fellow-Jew, even by one who is a Sabbath-breaker. All these Sabbath laws, however, are suspended as soon as there is the least danger to human life; say the Rabbis. The Commandments of God are to promote life and well-being, a principle based on Lev. XVIII,5, ‘and these are the precepts of the LORD by which ye shall live.‘
thou.The head of the house, responsible for all that dwell therein.
manservant . . . maidservant. Or, ‘bondman’ . . . ‘bondmaid”; Deut. V,14. Not only the children but also the servants, whether Israelite or heathen, nay even the beasts of burden, are to share in the rest of the Sabbath day. ‘The Sabbath is a boundless boon for mankind and the greatest wonder of religion. Nothing can appear more simple than this institution, to rest on the seventh day after six days of work. And yet no legislator in the world hit upon this idea! To the Greeks and the Romans it was an object of derision, a superstitious usage. But it has removed with one stroke the contrast between slaves who must labour incessantly, and their masters who may celebrate continuously’ (B. Jacob).
thy cattle. It is one of the glories of Judaism that, thousands of years before anyone else, it so fully recognized our duties to the dumb friends and helpers of man.
thy stranger. The non-Israelite, who agrees to keep the seven Noachic precepts; though the Sabbath was not included in these precepts, he too is to enjoy the Sabbath rest for his own sake as a human being.
within thy gates. Within the borders of the town.
11. rested. By keeping the Sabbath, the Rabbis tell us, we testify to our belief in God as the Creator of the Universe; in a God who is not identical with Nature, but is a free Personality, the creator and ruler of Nature. The Talmudic mystics tell that when the heavens and earth were being called into existence, matter was getting out of hand, and the Divine Voice had to resound, ‘Enough! So far and no further!’ Man, made in the image of God, has been endowed by Him with the power of creating. But in his little universe, too, matter is constantly getting out of hand, threatening to overwhelm and crush out the soul. By means of the Sabbath, called ‘a memorial to Creation,’ we are endowed with the Divine power of saying ‘Enough!’ to all rebellious claims of our environment, and are reminded of our potential victory over all material forces that would drag us down.
blessed the sabbath. Made it a day of blessing to those who observe it. The Sabbath was something quite new, which had never before existed in any nation or in any religion–a standing reminder that man can emancipate himself from the slavery of his worldly cares; that man was made for spiritual freedom, peace and joy (Ewald). ‘The Sabbath is one of the glories of our humanity. For if to labour is noble, of our own free will to pause in that labour which may lead to success, to money, to fame is nobler still. To dedicate one day a week to rest and to God, this is the prerogative and the privilege of man alone’ (C.G. Montefiore).
and hallowed it. Endowed it with sanctifying powers. The sanctity of the Sabbath is seen in its traces upon the Jewish soul. Isaiah speaks of the Sabbath as ‘a delight’; and the Liturgy describes Sabbath rest as ‘voluntary and congenial, happy and cheerful.’ ‘The Sabbath planted a heaven in every Jewish home, filling it with long-expected and blissfully-greeted peace; making each home a sanctuary, the father a priest, and the mother who lights the Sabbath candles an angel of light’ (B. Jacob). The Sabbath banishes care and toil, grief and sorrow. All fasting (except on the Day of Atonement, which as the Sabbath of Sabbaths transcends this rule of the ordinary Sabbath) is forbidden; and all mourning is suspended on the Sabbath day. Each of the three Sabbath meals is an obligatory religious act and is in the olden Jewish home accompanied by Table Songs. The spiritual effect of the Sabbath is termed by the Rabbis the ‘extra soul’, which the Israelite enjoys on that day.
Ignorant and unsympathetic critics condemn the Rabbinic Sabbath-laws with their numberless minutiae as an intolerable ‘burden’. These restrictions justify themselves in that the Jew who actually and strictly obeys these injunctions and only such a Jew, has a Sabbath. And in regard to the alleged formalism of all these Sabbath laws, a German Protestant theologian of anti-Semitic tendencies has recently confessed: ‘Anyone who has had the opportunity of knowing in our own day the inner life of Jewish families that observe the Law of the fathers with sincere piety and in all strictness, will have been astonished at the wealth of joyfulness, gratitude and sunshine, undreamt of by the outsider, which the Law animates in the Jewish home. The whole household rejoices on the Sabbath, which they celebrate with rare satisfaction not only as the day of rest, but rather as the day of rejoicing. Jewish prayers term the Sabbath a “joy of the soul” to him who hallows it; he “enjoys the abundance of Thy goodness”. Such expressions are not mere words; they are the outcome of pure and genuine happiness and enthusiasm (Kittel).
Without the observance of the Sabbath, of the olden Sabbath, of the Sabbath as perfected by the Rabbis, the whole of Jewish life would in time disappear.
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FIFTH COMMANDMENT: HONOUR OF PARENTS
This Commandment follows the Sabbath command because the Sabbath is the source and the guarrantor of the family life; and it is among the Commandments engraved on the First tablet, the laws of piety towards God, because parents stand in the place of God, so far as their children are concerned. Elsewhere in Scripture, the duty to one’s parents stands likewise next to the duties towards God (Lev. XIX,3.)
12. honour thy father and thy mother. By showing them respect, obedience and love. Each parent alike is entitled to these. For although ‘father’ is here mentioned first, in Lev. XIX,3 we read, ‘each one shall fear (i.e. reverence) his mother and his father.’ And this obligation extends beyond the grave. The child must revere the memory of the departed parent in act and feeling. Respect to parents is among the primary human duties; and no excellence can atone for the lack of such respect. Only in cases of extreme rarity (e.g. where godless parents would guide children towards crime) can disobedience be justified. Proper respect to parents may at times involve immeasurable hardship; yet the duty remains. Shem and Japhet throw the mantle of charity over their father’s shame: only an unnatural child gloats over a parent’s disgrace or dishonour. The greatest achievement open to parents is to be ever fully worthy of their children’s reverence and trust and love.
that thy days may be long. i.e. the honouring of one’s parents will be rewarded by happiness and blessing. This is not always seen in the life of the individual; but the Commandment is addressed to the individual as a member of society, as the child of a people. The home is infinitely more important to a people than the schools, the professions or its political life; and filial respect is the ground of national permanence and prosperity. If a nation thinks of its past with contempt, it may well contemplate its future with despair; it perishes through moral suicide.
No religious document has exercised a greater influence on the moral and social life of man than the Divine Proclamation of Human Duty, known as the Decalogue. These few brief commands–only 120 Hebrew words in all–cover the whole sphere of conduct, not only of outer actions, but also of the secret thoughts of the heart. In simple, unforgettable form, this unique code of codes lays down the fundamental rules of Worship and of Right for all time and for all men.