TEN COMMANDMENTS (עֲשֶׂ֖רֶת הַדְּבָרִֽים, LXX οἱ δέκα λόγοι, the ten words). The term is used in Exodus 34:28; Deuteronomy 4:13; 10:4, and the commandments are recorded in Exodus 20:1-17; Deuteronomy 5:6-21. The alternative title “decalogue” anglicizes the LXX term, which is a literal rendering of the Heb.

I. Historical context

A. The Biblical account. Exodus 19:1, 16 indicates that the Ten Commandments, found in ch. 20, were proclaimed about three days after Israel’s arrival at Mount Sinai in the third month (or on the third new moon, RSV) after their departure from Egypt. Jewish tradition conjectures that this date was that of Pentecost (q.v.). The voice of God announced these words in the hearing of the whole assembly (Deut 5:22) and the finger of God inscribed them on both sides of two stone tablets (Exod 31:18; 32:15f.) which Moses received on the mountain, forty days after the making of the covenant. Moses however shattered the tablets on discovering his people’s lapse into idolatry (32:19); but God reaffirmed the covenant, giving Moses further subsidiary laws to record (34:10-27), and inscribing again the Ten Commandments Himself on two fresh tablets prepared by Moses. See Exodus 34:1; Deuteronomy 10:4—statements which show that God is the “He” of Exodus 34:28b. (Heb. narrative tends to leave such points to the reader’s intelligence: cf., e.g., Gen 14:20 [with Heb 7:4]; Gen 32:26, 27). The tablets were placed in due course in the Ark (Exod 40:20; Deut 10:5), which took its name from the covenant (Deut 10:8) or “testimony” (perhaps another word for covenant, Exod 40:21) whose requirements they summarized.

B. The critical debate. Critical scholars chiefly look to the contents and form of the Decalogue, rather than its accompanying narrative, to establish its origin. The following are some of the main landmarks in the debate.

1. J. Wellhausen, in the late 19th cent., argued that the Decalogue could not have preceded the chief preexilic prophets, whose teachings it seemed to him to embody, and whom he reckoned to have been the pioneers in condemning idolatry. Israel’s initial unconcern on this point suggested to him the absence of any early law against it. This reasoning, together with the trend of Pentateuchal criticism, carried such weight that only a minority of critics in the generation after Wellhausen were prepared to ascribe the Decalogue substantially to Moses.

2. In 1927 S. Mowinckel gave a new direction to the argument by locating the origin of the Decalogue in Israel’s long-standing cultic practice. While he attributed the Decalogue of Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 to the disciples of Isaiah, he visualized its ancient prototype in the “entry liturgy” which challenged the would-be worshiper at a sanctuary gate (cf., according to H. Gunkel, Pss 15:1ff.; 24:3-6), and saw its more direct ancestor in an opening proclamation at the Enthronement Festival which he had postulated in his Psalmenstudien. Subsequent critical debate has mostly accepted the link between decalogue and cult, while differing over its precise nature.

3. In 1934 A. Alt classified the Pentateuchal laws by their forms of expression, distinguishing “casuistic” from “apodictic” laws. The former (mostly introduced by an “if” clause) were secular, and, in Alt’s view, drawn from Canaanite custom; the latter (often introduced by an imperative or a prohibition, exactly after the manner of the Ten Commandments) proclaimed Yahweh’s unconditional will, and were a uniquely Israelite phenomenon, stemming from the desert and the covenant. They tended to be grouped together, sometimes in tens or twelves, and their cultic use is illustrated by the ceremony at Mount Ebal (Deut 27:13ff.).

This analysis pointed to the pre-Canaanite stage which is the Biblical setting of the Decalogue; but Alt, like Mowinckel, considered our actual Decalogue a late specimen compared with other groups of commands in the Pentateuch.

4. In 1954, G. E. Mendenhall drew attention to Hitt. suzerainty treaties, whose structure and language seemed closely parallel to those of the Decalogue and other covenant passages (see Covenant (in the Old Testament)). In structure they consisted of (1) the preamble introducing the king and his titles (cf. Exod 20:1, 2a), (2) the historical prologue emphasizing benefits conferred (cf. 20:2b), (3) the stipulations (cf. 20:3-17), (4) provision for the treaty’s deposit in the Temple and its periodic public reading (cf. 25:16; Deut 31:9-13), (5) a list of gods as witnesses (the OT naturally lacks this), (6) curses and blessings (cf. Deut 27:11ff.; ch. 28). In language the Hitt. stipulations were “a mixture of case law and apodictic law very similar to the mixture and found in the so-called ‘Covenant Code’ of Exodus 21-23.”

Mendenhall pointed out that this form of treaty was widely known in the ancient Near E in the time of Moses (the Hitt. empire collapsed in 1200), and argued that the strong cohesion of the Israelite tribes could be due to a covenant bond of this sort between Yahweh as overlord, and the various tribes as His vassals, established through Moses on the basis of the Decalogue.

5. Covenants and cult have continued to be the main areas of subsequent discussion. D. J. McCarthy, for example, has argued at considerable length against the validity of using Hitt. treaties to date the Sinai material, reckoning that the earliest Sinai tradition told of a ritual blood-bond rather than a contractual treaty, and that the Hitt. treaty pattern prob. survived the Hitt. empire, to serve as a model for later Israelite thought on the covenant. E. Gerstenberger maintains that “treaty stipulation and commandment have little in common,” and derives the commands of the Decalogue not from covenant or cult but from the necessities of communal life: they were brought into the cult, but originated in the teaching given by fathers to sons, or by elders to the clan. A. S. Kapelrud also emphasizes their social character, but puts them into the historical context of the Exodus, arguing, first, that something like the Decalogue would be a necessary common basis if several tribes were to unite; and secondly, that their sense of deliverance and call by Yahweh made a covenant of allegiance, written in the form of a suzerainty treaty, a natural expression of their new status. It was the fruit, in his view, of reflection, and was concluded not at Sinai but in the course of a prolonged sojourn at Kadesh. H. H. Rowley puts a similar emphasis on the Exodus experience of the tribes delivered from Egypt, but argues unequivocally for the indispensable role of Moses as the mediator of such a covenant.

This sample of divided opinions suggests that the contents of the Decalogue, taken alone, are inconclusive for its provenance. Nothing in it precludes (as some early critics considered) its transmission to Israel through Moses; but all our specific information is contained not in the commandments but in the surrounding narrative. As long as the two are studied apart, the debate is likely to continue indefinitely.

II. Structure and general characteristics

The two groups of commands, nos. 1-4 and 5-10, oriented respectively Godward and manward, correspond to the two great commandments of love toward God and one’s neighbor, in which Jesus summed up the law and the prophets (Matt 22:37-40). Their inscr. on two tablets seems to answer to this division, although it is not stated to do so. (M. G. Kline regards the two as duplicates, analogous to those of human treaties; but duplicates that are stored together serve little purpose.) The unity underlying the duality is made explicit in the fourth commandment as given in Deuteronomy 5:14, 15, where it is shown that God’s due is also one’s neighbor’s blessing.

The longer commands (1-5 and 10) should prob. be analyzed as commands-plus-expositions. This is suggested not merely by the uneven pattern, but by the alternative endings to the sabbath command (Exod 20:11; Deut 5:14c, 15) which draw out different lessons from the basic injunction, and the smaller variations in the tenth commandment (see III, 10, below).

All the commands are negative, except the fourth and fifth, which are the last of the Godward and first of the manward clauses. Two are reinforced by warnings (nos. 2, 3) and one by a promise (no. 5). All are spoken to the individual.

As to their demands on the person addressed, the first, fifth and tenth concern his inner commitment and attitudes, and the remainder safeguard the practical expression of them in the spheres of worship and society. There is no tension between the cultic and the ethical, for the demands of the latter follow hard on those of the former; nor between law and love, for both are specified together in the phrase, “those who love me and keep my commandments” (Exod 20:6), as in John 14:15.

III. Content

A. Love of God (commandments 1-4)

1. No other gods (Exod 20:2, 3; Deut 5:6, 7). The command, indeed the series, rests on a statement about the Lord: who He is, whose He is, and what He has done. “I (am)” precedes and underlies “You shall”; all is for His sake (cf. “You shall be holy to me; for I...am holy,” Lev 20:26).

Literally, the prohibition runs “there shall not be to you...”; it possibly implies the reminder that these gods exist only in their worshipers’ minds. “Before me” means “in My presence,” as against “taking precedence over Me.” It means, not that this allegiance could ever be concealed, but that its very existence is an affront to the Lord. “Besides me” (mg.) conveys the substance of the command; cf. “with me” (Exod 20:23).

This is the fundamental commandment of the ten, the central issue between God and Israel in the OT. The devil tempted even the Lord at this point (Matt 4:8-10).

2. No idols (Exod 20:4-6; Deut 5:8-10). The concern of this command is the worship of God not as imagined but as revealed. Cf. John 4:24: “in spirit and truth”; not by the aesthetic or intellectual appeal of the manmade, but in response to the Spirit and Word of God. Deuteronomy 4 (esp. vv. 12, 15ff.) stresses the invisibility of God; Isaiah 40:18ff.; 44:9ff. expose the farcical side of idolatry.

The command against making any likenesses belongs inseparably to the command not to bow down to them; it is not a general prohibition of representational art for ornament or instruction, as e.g. Exodus 25:18ff., 31ff. makes clear.

God’s “jealousy” in this context means His burning zeal (it is the same word) for His people’s fidelity; it has the exclusiveness of marital love (cf. Num 5:29-31). The word can have a bad sense (cf. Gen 37:11), but more often a good one (e.g. Ps 69:9; Isa 9:7; Zech 8:2). Used of the Lord, it reveals Him as the God who cares. His “visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children” (Exod 20:5), means, not that He holds the children guilty (cf. Ezek 18:19, 20), but that He has bound all lives together, for good and ill (and more good than ill—cf. the numbers implied in “the third and the fourth generation” [Exod 34:7], as against the “thousands,” whether of persons or [cf. Keil, Delitzsch] generations [as in Deut 7:9] included in His blessing). The process is shown more circumstantially in e.g. Proverbs 14:34; 29:18; Isaiah 48:18; Hosea 4:1ff.

3. God’s name (Exod 20:7; Deut 5:11). To “take (up) the name...in vain” (lit., “for worthlessness,” i.e., for no good purpose) is to use it irresponsibly, whether in worship (cf. Ps 50:16; Isa 29:13), in common speech (cf. Matt 5:34) or in an attempt to wield power (cf. Acts 19:13ff.).

Jacob (at Peniel, Gen 32:30) and Manoah (Judg 13:18) had the sanctity of this name sharply impressed on them, and Moses’ vision of God was crowned with its proclamation together with a catalogue of the divine attributes (Exod 33:18f.; 34:5ff.). It is part of God’s self-giving; not to be exploited, but to enable men to call on Him in truth, and “to enter a worshipful and uplifting fellowship” with Him (R. S. Wallace, The Ten Commandments, p. 53). Hence the godly are “those who love thy name” (Ps 5:11), and who are dedicated to seeing it hallowed and glorified (Matt 6:9; John 12:27, 28).

The warning, “the Lord will not hold him guiltless” (Exod 20:7), may suggest a primary context of perjury (i.e. a false oath may gain you earthly acquittal, but not heavenly); but the ninth commandment partly covers this, and the first four are chiefly concerned with the wider issue of the relationship of God and man.

4. God’s day (Exod 20:8-11; Deut 5:12-15). “Sabbath” means “ceasing” or “rest” (cf. Gen 2:2; Exod 16:23, 30). Moses had explained it to Israel as both God’s day (16:23) and God’s gift (16:29). The Decalogue underlines both aspects. It is “holy,” and belongs “to the Lord,” who “hallowed” it (cf. Exod 31:14, where man must not profane, i.e. secularize, it with his own affairs; cf. further Isa 58:13); at the same time it refreshes man and beast, “that your manservant...may rest as well as you” (Deut 5:14). It is a day, in fact, that God “blessed” as well as “hallowed.”

Exodus and Deuteronomy diverge in their wording of this command; hardly at all elsewhere. Deuteronomy opens with “Observe,” as against “Remember” (but the two words are virtually synonymous; both assume some prior knowledge of the day: cf. Exod 16:22ff.); it adds the phrase “as the Lord your God commanded you”; and it ends on the theme of slavery (14c, 15) as against that of the Creation (Exod 20:11). See also II, above.

For the Sabbath as a sign of the covenant see Exodus 31:12-17; Ezekiel 20:12. For further details of sabbath laws see Exodus 34:21; 35:2, 3; Leviticus 23:3; 24:8; Numbers 15:32-36; 28:9, 10. For sabbath observance in the OT see Exodus 16:22-30; Nehemiah 10:31; 13:15-22; Psalm 92: A Song for the Sabbath, title; Jeremiah 17:21-27; Ezekiel 20:12-24; Amos 8:5.

On the relevance of this command to the Christian see V, below.

For a summary of critical speculation on the origin of the sabbath (e.g. as variously derived from the Babylonians, the Kenites, the Canaanites, the moon or the market) see J. J. Stamm and M. E. Andrew, The Ten Commandments, pp. 90-95.

B. Love of one’s neighbor (commandments 5-10)

5. Respect for parents (Exod 20:12; Deut 5:16). The authority of a father and mother is seen in the OT as part of the divine order, inherent in their position rather than their personal qualities. Cf. Genesis 9:20-27, where Ham’s unfilial behavior is not excused by Noah’s lapse. To curse or defy father or mother were capital offenses (Exod 21:17; Deut 21:18-21; cf. Prov 30:11, 17). The promise attached to this command (cf. Eph 6:2) emphasizes the character of the Decalogue as the expression of God’s covenant with His pilgrim people, not an anthology of maxims for the good life. The corresponding duty of the parents was to train up their children in God’s law (Deut 6:6-9, 20-25; cf. Prov 1:8; 6:20; 22:6).

Deuteronomy 5:16 adds two corroborative phrases and the NT quotes the command in several contexts: e.g. Matthew 19:19; Ephesians 6:2f. Our Lord could override its customary expression (cf. Luke 9:59ff.), but He countenanced no pretext for evading it (Matt 15:4ff.; cf. 1 Tim 5:4, 8).

6. No murder (Exod 20:13; Deut 5:17). The Heb. verb (רָצַח, H8357) makes “murder” (ASV) a more accurate rendering than “kill”; a fact corroborated by the context of Exodus and Deuteronomy, which commands the killing of animals and at times (judicially or in war) of men. The penalty for murder as against manslaughter (Num 35:22ff.), was death; it was not reducible to any lesser sentence (Num 35:31). This penalty was already in force before the Sinaitic law, in the decrees to Noah (Gen 9:6).

Our Lord applied the commandment to those who indulge in anger, insults and quarrels (Matt 5:21-26), and pointed out the spiritual kinship of the murderer to the devil, “a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44). 1 John 3:15 brands as a murderer “any one who hates his brother.”

7. No adultery (Exod 20:14; Deut 5:18). Adultery (expressed by the verb נָאַף, H5537) is, in the OT, sexual intercourse between a man and a married woman (cf. Ezek 16:32; Hos 4:13b). The term and the penalty (death) applied to both parties (Lev 20:10; cf. Deut 22:22), and a betrothed woman was counted in this context as a wife (Deut 22:23, 24).

While adultery, with the wrong it directly inflicts on a third party, is reckoned a graver offense than fornication (for which some restitution could be made: cf. Deut 22:28, 29 with vv. 22-27), the OT strongly denounces all extramarital sexual intercourse, condemning the male offender even more strongly than the female (cf. Hos 4:14, Heb. or RSV). Nor does it allow intercourse between the betrothed: the foundation ordinance of marriage authorizes it only after the break with the parental home (Gen 2:24) which distinguishes marriage from betrothal.

Jesus showed that the commandment could be violated by thought as well as act (Matt 5:27f.), and even under cover of legality through the divorce of a faithful partner (Matt 5:31ff.; Mark 10:11f.).

8. No stealing (Exod 20:15; Deut 5:19). While enforcing the plain sense of this (requiring as much as fivefold restitution of stolen property; Exod 22:1-4) and making manstealing a capital offense (Deut 24:7), the OT also condemns various forms of indirect theft: e.g. exploitation (Exod 22:25-27; 23:6-8), fraud (Amos 8:5b), dispossession (Mic 2:2), and the withholding of dues from man and God (Prov 3:27f.; Mal 3:8ff.).

The NT endorses the command, and characteristically goes further: the former thief is urged to honesty and hard work, but also to charitable giving (Eph 4:28). It is a classic example of love filling the law to overflowing.

9. No false witness (Exod 20:16; Deut 5:20). The context is the law court. Deuteronomy 19:15-21 adds the safeguards of requiring a minimum of two witnesses for a criminal charge, and of making a false witness liable to the penalty to which he exposed the accused.

The trial of Naboth (cf. 1 Kings 21:13, 14) and that of Christ (cf. Matt 26:59-61) demonstrate how much can hang on this commandment, and how little a legal safeguard will avail where conscience fails. Ephesians 4:15f., 25 expounds truthfulness in its only effective setting: the mutual love of which all the manward commandments are partial expositions.

10. No coveting (Exod 20:17; Deut 5:21). Other commands (the first and fifth) have concerned inner attitudes, but none as explicitly as this. Paul cites it in Romans 7:7ff. as opening his eyes to a sinfulness which he would not else have recognized.

The saying is cited in Romans 7:7 and 13:9 simply as “You shall not covet.” This seems to comprise the commandment proper, and the list of objects gives its application (see section II, above). The list varies in order and content between Exodus 20:17 and Deuteronomy 5:21, the latter opening with “your neighbor’s wife” and including later “his field.”

The verb is חָמַד, H2773, (LXX and NT ἐπιθυμέω, G2121), “desire,” “set one’s heart on.” It (with its related noun) is a more general term than πλεονεξία, G4432, the greed for material gain which is “covetousness” in e.g. Luke 12:15. It denotes any selfish longing of fallen man (cf. Gal 5:16, 17). In James 1:14, it is the precondition of sin; in 1 John 2:16 (“lust” RSV), the craving for worldly satisfactions. In Matthew 5:28 adultery is located in this attitude (see above, on the seventh commandment). Here is the chief root of manward sins, the chief negation of love. By ending on this note the Decalogue dispels the complacency of the externalist. Our Lord’s exposition of the inward aspect of the commands, far from being imposed on the material, is already here in germ.

IV. Decalogue and covenant

(See also I B 4, 5, above.) The law was given in a setting of grace, in that Israel’s very presence at Sinai was due to God’s intervention (Exod 19:4; 20:2), based on the patriarchal covenant (2:24) and directed toward making her uniquely His possession, a priestly and holy people (19:5f.). Fulfillment of such a calling presupposes conformity to His will (19:5), and this divine will was summarized in the Decalogue and expounded in the accompanying law. To Yahweh, so revealed, Israel pledged her obedience in the covenant described in Exodus 24:3-11.

This law, as Galatians 3:17 states, was not given to annul the covenant with Abraham, but to nurture its recipients in the knowledge of God, and of themselves as transgressors, escorting them toward Christ, who is the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham (3:19) and the ground of our justification (3:24).

V. Relevance to the Christian

The NT frequently draws on the Decalogue for its moral teaching, whether by quotation or as a framework, and treats it as fulfilled, not abrogated, by love. By contrast, the Mosaic ritual laws are shown to be superseded (cf. Mark 7:19b; Gal 5:2; Heb 10:18), and the administrative details of the OT are not carried over into the New Covenant.

The Ten Commandments retain their force, then, but stand clear of their supporting regulations. E.g., murder no longer calls for the next-of-kin’s intervention, nor does adultery call for stoning. The Sabbath, similarly, is set free from the rules which belonged to the ceremonial law (cf. Col 2:16, 17), to find its full stature as a Creation ordinance designed to be a blessing to man and hallowed for God (Gen 2:3). Our Lord’s use of it for worship and service set the NT pattern, and the transition from Jewish Sabbath to Lord’s Day began on the first Easter and developed in the age of the apostles, pari passu with the writing of the NT (John 20:1, 19, 26; Acts 2:1; 20:7; 1 Cor 16:2; Rev 1:10).

The position is summed up in the New Covenant promise, “I will put my law within them, and...write it upon their hearts” (Jer 31:33), together with the words of Paul in Romans 8:4 “...that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” (Cf. Romans 13:8-10.)

Bibliography J. Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel (1885), 2ff., 392-425, 439; S. Mowinckel, le Décalogue (1927); A. Alt, Die Ursprünge des Israelitischen Rechts (1934) = KS I (1959), 278-332 = Essays on OT History and Religion (1966), 81-132; H. H. Rowley, “Moses and the Decalogue,” BJRL XXXIV (1951-1952), 81-118 = Men of God (1963), 1-36; G. E. Mendenhall, BA XVII (1954), 26-46, 50-76 = Law and Covenant in Israel and the Ancient Near East (1955); C. F. H. Henry, Christian Personal Ethics (1957); J. Murray, Principles of Conduct (1957); D. J. McCarthy, Treaty and Covenant (1963); M. G. Kline, Treaty of the Great King (1963); A. S. Kapelrud, “Some Recent Points of View on the Time and Origin of the Decalogue,” ST XVIII (1964), 81-90; E. Gerstenberger, “Covenant and Commandment,” JBL LXXXIV (1965), 38-51; R. S. Wallace, The Ten Commandments (1965); J. J. Stamm and M. E. Andrew, The Ten Commandments in Recent Research (1967).