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[Have you ever wondered if the tablets on which YHWH wrote His Ten Declarations REALLY looked like the arch-top/flat bottom tablets used in most depictions? The Rabbis present all kinds of possibilities, from the plausible to the fantastic.
What is your imagination of the first as well as the second set of tablets? The 1st set is difficult to imagine, since it came from the God on Sinai Himself. Would He have chosen to etch his Laws on diamond or gold, standards according to man’s valuation system, or . . . to teach a lesson in humility, material of no value such as stone? What does scripture say? It is easier to imagine the 2nd set that Moses had to prepare from materials available in the wilderness; hewn from rock, shaped by human hands, most likely nothing compared to the first or, on second thought, an exact replica of the first since he had not only seen it, touched it, carried it down the mountain, but also broken it at the sight of the golden calf, oy vey!
But then, why are we even diverting attention from what is really most important: the WORDS of YHWH, whatever perfect or imperfect earthly material they have been written on?
Is it not more to the point that they should be written on the only earthly ‘matter’ where they should ‘matter’ — in man’s MIND, and HEART, and WILL . . . for the purpose of obedience? The LAWMAKER and the LAWGIVER had to give laws to humankind, the only creatures endowed with mind, conscience and free will. The rest of His creation have obeyed His laws—just look at the predictability of the laws of nature, physics, chemistry, the natural sciences. The two-legged creature endowed with brains and freedom to choose is the only one who continues to violate the CREATOR’s Will. But that’s the risk GOD must have known and yet was willing to take a chance on. What an awesome and all-wise GOD!
Continued from the previous post: Duties Toward God; the commentary is from our MUST READ/MUST OWN list: Pentateuch and Haftorahs, ed. Dr. J.H. Hertz; reformatted for this post.–Admin1.]
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SECOND TABLE: DUTIES TOWARDS FELLOW-MEN
The first five Commandments have each an explanatory addition; the last five are brief and emphatic Thou shalt not’s. Our relation to our neighbours require no elucidation; since we feel the wrongs which others do to us, we have a clear guide how we ought to act towards others. These duties have their root in the principle ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself’, applied to life, house, property and honour.
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THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT: THE SANCTITY OF HUMAN LIFE
13. thou shalt not murder. The infinite worth of human life is based on the fact that man is created ‘in the image of God’. God alone gives life and He alone may take it away. The intentional killing of any human being apart from capital punishment legally imposed by a judicial tribunal, or in war for the defence of national and human rights, is absolutely forbiddn. Child life is as sacred as that of an adult. In Greece, weak children were exposed; that is, abandoned on a lonely mountain to perish. Jewish horror of child-murder was long looked upon as a contemptible prejudice. ‘It is a crime among the Jews to kill any child,’ sneered the Roman historian Tacitus.
Hebrew law carefully distinguishes homicide from willful murder. It saves the involuntary slayer from his fellow-man from vendetta; and does not permit composition, or money-fine, for the life of the murderer. Jewish ethics enlarges the notion of murder so as to include both the doing of anything by which the health and well-being of a fellow-man is undermined, and the omission of any act by which a fellow-man could be saved in peril, distress or despair.
For the prohibition of suicide, see Gen. IX,5-6:
And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it’ and at the hand of man, even at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man. 6. Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God made He man.
your blood of your lives. lit. ‘your blood, according to your own souls.’ The Rabbis understood these words literally, i.e. life-blod, and based on them the prohibition ofsuicide.
will I require. i.e. will I exact punishment for it.
beast. If an animal killed a man, it must be put to death; see Exod. XXI,28-32 for the law concerning an ox which gored a man.
‘at the hand of every man’s brother. Better, at the hand of his brother-man (M. Friedlander). This clause emphasizes the preceding phrase ‘and at the hand of man.’ If God seeks the blood of a man at the hand of a beast which kills him, how much more will He exact vengeance from a human being who murders his brother-man!
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SEVENTH COMMANDMENT: THE SANCTITY OF MARRIAGE
adultery. ‘Is an execrable and God-detestsed wrong-doing’ (Philo). This Commandment against infidelity warns husband and wife alike against profaning the sacred Covenant of Marriage It involves the prohibition of immoral speech, immodest conduct, or association with people who scoff at the sacredness of purity. Among no people has there been a purer homelife than among the Jewish people. No woman enjoyed greater respect than the Jewish woman; and she fully merited that respect.
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EIGHTH COMMANDMENT: THE SANCTITY OF PROPERTY
thou shalt not steal. Property represents the fruit of industry and intelligence. Any aggression on the property of our neighbour is, therefore, an assault on his human personality. This Commandment also has a wider application than theft and robbery; and it forbids every illegal acquisition of property by cheating, by embezzlement or forgery. ‘There are transactions which are legal and do not invovle any breach of law, which are yet base and disgraceful. Such are all transactions in which a person takes advantage of the ignorance or embarrassment of his neighbour for the purpose of increasing his own property’ (M. Friendlander).
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NINTH COMMANDMENT: AGAINST BEARING FALSE WITNESS
The three preceding Commandments are concerned with wrongs inflicted upon our neighbour by actual deed; this Commandment is concerned with wrong inflicted by word of mouth.
thou shalt not bear false witness. The prohibition embraces all forms of slander, defamation and misrepresentation, whether of an individual, a group, a people, a race, or a Faith. None have suffered so much from slander, defamation and misrepresentation as the Jew and Judaism. Thus, modernist theologians still repeat that, according to this Commandment, the Israelite is prohibited only from slandering a fellow-Israelite; because they allege, the Heb. word for ‘neighbour’ here, and in ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself’ (Lev. XIX,18), does not mean fellow-man, but only fellow-Israelite. This is a glaring instance of bearing false witness against Judaism; and is proved to be so by XI,2 (‘Let every man ask of his neighbour, jewels of silver, etc.’), where the word neighbour cannot possibly mean an Israelite, but distinctly refers to the Egyptian. In this Commandment, as in all moral precepts in the Torah, the Heb. word neighbour is equivalent to fellowman.
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TENTH COMMANDMENT: AGAINST COVETOUS DESIRES
14. covet. i.e. to long for the possession of anything that we cannot get in an honest and legal manner. This Commandment goes to the root of all evil actions—the unholy instincts and impulses of predatory desire, which are the spring of nearly every sin against a neighbour. The man who does not covet his neighbor’s goods will not bear false witness against him; he will neither rob nor murder, nor will he commit adultery. It commands self-control; for every man has it in his power to determine whether his desires are to master him or he is to master his desires. Without such self-control, there can be no worthy human life; it alone is the measure of true manhood or womanhood. ‘Who is strong?’ ask the Rabbis. ‘He who controls his passions,’ is their reply.
thy neighbour’s house. i.e. his household. The examples enumerated are the objects most likely to be coveted.
This Commandment is somewhat differently worded in the Decalogue which is repeated by Moses in his Farewell Addresses to Israel. that difference, together with the other slight variations in that Decalogue from the original in this chapter of Exodus, is dealt with in the Commentary on Deuteronomy.
[Commentary on the repetition of the ‘Ten Declarations’ are included in Deuteronomy/Davarim IV,44-XI.—Admin1]
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.
I. THE DECALOGUE IN JUDAISM
From early times the basic importance of the Ten Commandments was duly recognized in Israel. The Teachers of the Talmud emphasized their eternal and universal significance by means of parable, metaphor, and all the rare poetic imagery of Rabbinic legend. The Tables on which the Ten Commandments were written, they said, were prepared at the eve of Creation—thus ante-dating humanity, and therefore independent of time or place or racial culture; and they were hewn from the sapphire Throne of Glory—and therefore of infinite worth and preciousness. The Revelation at Sinai, they taught was given in desert territory, which belongs to no one nation exclusively; and it was heard not by Israel alone, but by the inhabitants of all the earth. The Divine Voice divided itself into the 70 tongues