The Ten Commandments Exodus 20:1-20

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1 I. Introduction The Ten Commandments Exodus 20:1-20 A. The Mosaic Covenant 1. Creation of national Israel as people of God 2. Guiding principle: This do and you shall live - Exodus 19:5. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. B. Nature of the Commandments 1. Words, not commands - Exodus 34:28. So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread nor drank water. And He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments. 2. Paradigms, not prescriptions - The NAC says, Modern societies generally have opted for exhaustive law codes... [and thus] it is not uncommon that criminals [often] evade prosecution because of a technicality or a loophole in the law their undesirable actions are not exactly prohibited or regulated by a written law, so they cannot be convicted even though an objective observer may be convinced that what they did surely deserved punishment. Ancient laws did not work this way. They were paradigmatic, giving models of behaviors and models of prohibitions/punishments relative to those behaviors, but they made no attempt to be exhaustive. Ancient laws gave guiding principles, or samples, rather than complete descriptions of all things regulated. Ancient people were expected to be able to extrapolate

2 from what the sampling of laws did say to the general behavior the laws in their totality pointed toward Founding Legal Document of the Covenant - The Ten Words form the basis for the legal code of the Mosaic Covenant - Stuart says, If the American legal corpus is used as an analogy, it could be said that the ten words of Exod 20 are somewhat like the Constitution of the United States (legally binding in a most basic, foundational way but more than a mere set of individual laws) and the laws that follow...[are] somewhat analogous to the various sections of federal law dealing with all sorts of particular matters that have been enacted legislatively over time. The one group is absolutely constitutional or foundational ; the other is specifically regulatory, following from the principles articulated in the more basic constitution. 2 - Thus, the 601 law codes established in later texts are expansions upon the basic principles set forth in the Ten Words. 4. Two major principles - The paradigmatic nature of the covenant legal code makes possible the assertion by Jesus that all the laws can be summed up in just two statements. - Matthew 22: Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets. 5. Expressions of Natural Law - J. Budziszewski argues that the Ten Commandments are expressions of the universal Natural Law written on the conscience of every human being. He says, The biblical Decalogue... states the most important part of the universal moral code in ideal form. - He continues, If the anthropological data suggest something short of the ideal, that is not because nothing is universal, but because two universals 1 Douglas K. Stuart, vol. 2, Exodus, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2006), Ibid.,

3 II. Exposition A. Prologue are in conflict: universal moral knowledge, and the universal desire to evade it. 3 - And God spoke all these words, saying: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. (v. 1-2) 1. Preamble - The portion of a covenant that identifies the parties to the agreement. - Here Yahweh addresses Israel, thus identifying the parties of the covenant. - Stuart says, This, then, is a two-party covenant, linking Yahweh and his people in formal legal relationship. Israel is represented by singular pronouns, not only because singularity is typical in the direct address of ancient legal material but because the entire nation is viewed as an entity, a united people responding as one to God s commands Prologue - The part of a covenant that explains how the parties came to be related. 5 - God delivered Israel out of bondage and they are now obligated to Him. B. Love God 1. First Word: No other gods - I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me. (v. 2 3) a. Before Me 3 J. Budziszewski, What We Can t Not Know (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2003), Stuart, Ibid.

4 - Some confusion exists on the interpretation of before me. Is it permissible to have other gods as long as Yahweh is the priority? - Stuart says, Ancient people... believed in three categories of gods, all of which any individual was likely to differentiate by his or her own beliefs and worship: the personal god, the family god, and the national god. For most Israelites at most times, and for all other people who knew anything about Israel s God, Yahweh was merely a national god. Ancient Israelites might have, say, Dagon (Judg 16:23; 1 Sam 5; 1 Chr 10:10) as their personal god and perhaps Baal (e.g., Judg 2:13; 6:25, 28, 30 32; 1 Kgs 16:31 32) as their family god, but they would always have Yahweh as his national God. No Israelite, no matter how totally immersed in idolatry, would ever answer no to the question, Do you believe in Yahweh? But most, at most times in Israel s history, would, sadly, see him only as a national god (the one who had brought them out of Egypt or the one to whom they would appeal in times of war). Their greater day-by-day loyalty in worship would be directed toward the various idols representing their various categories of gods. 6 - This is precisely what plagued Israel and in essence represents the kind of idolatry that Christians involved themselves in, i.e. patriotic idolatry. - Why not just a straightforward statement that God is the only God and that Israel should worship Him? - Linguistic evidence supports the reading over against Me, i.e. in distinction to me. Thus, in essence the text does preclude the worship of other gods. - Furthermore, the term gods is elohim, which can refer to real angelic entities or even to human judges. Thus the commandment allows for legitimate relationships to such entities while forbidding their worship. 2. Second Word: No idolatry - You shall not make for yourself a carved image any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. (v. 4 6) 6 Ibid, 452.

5 a. The creation of idols - Hannah notes, Since God is spiritual no material representation can possibly resemble Him. 7 - Two common words for idol appear: pesel (here idol ) and tĕmûnāh (here likeness ), the use of the two synonyms suggesting any sort of idol. Similarly, any sort of thing is prohibited from being depicted. 8 - The idea is that one is not to worship the product of his own hands, it does not mean that artistic renderings cannot be produced or this would have precluded the ark of the covenant which had two angels on it. - In idolatry there is some sense of controlling the deity and eliciting favors through coercion. b. Punishment of idolatry - Stuart notes regarding God s statement of jealousy and judgment of idolatry, It does not represent an assertion that God actually punishes an innocent generation for sins of a predecessor generation, contrary to Deut 24:16 ( Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin ; cf. 2 Kgs 14:6). Rather, this oft-repeated theme speaks of God s determination to punish successive generations for committing the same sins they learned from their parents Third Word: No Blasphemy - You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain. (v. 7) 1. Meaning - Literally raise up Yahweh s name for no good 7 John F. Walvoord, Roy B. Zuck and Dallas Theological Seminary, The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), Ex 20: Stuart, Ibid, 454.

6 2. Use of the divine name - Keil and Delitzsch explain, The word prohibits all employment of the name of God for vain and unworthy objects, and includes not only false swearing, which is condemned in Lev. 19:12 as a profanation of the name of Jehovah, but trivial swearing in the ordinary intercourse of life, and every use of the name of God in the service of untruth and lying, for imprecation, witchcraft, or conjuring; whereas the true employment of the name of God is confined to invocation, prayer, praise, and thanksgiving, which proceeds from a pure, believing heart For example, false prophets who utter their lies in the name of Yahweh. - Jeremiah 29:21. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, concerning Ahab the son of Kolaiah, and Zedekiah the son of Maaseiah, who prophesy a lie to you in My name: Behold, I will deliver them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and he shall slay them before your eyes. - Primarily, however, it probably refers to swearing by the name of God as indicated by Jesus. (Matthew 5:33-37) - The moral basis for this commandment is even evident among the pagans who recognized that speaking evil of the gods was something to be feared and avoided. 4. Fourth Word: No work on the Sabbath - Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. (v. 8 11) - The NAC points out, Many ancient covenants had some sort of sign something visible that would remind people of the covenant, lest they forget it. The Sabbath functions as such a sign for the Mosaic or Sinai covenant.... It provides a regular weekly reminder for everyone: as 10 Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996), Ex 20:7.

7 people keep the Sabbath, stopping their work and devoting themselves to worship, they demonstrate openly that they are keeping the covenant Exodus 31: And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak also to the children of Israel, saying: Surely My Sabbaths you shall keep, for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you. You shall keep the Sabbath, therefore, for it is holy to you. Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death; for whoever does any work on it, that person shall be cut off from among his people. Work shall be done for six days, but the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. Therefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever; for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed. - Numbers 15: Now while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day. And those who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses and Aaron, and to all the congregation. They put him under guard, because it had not been explained what should be done to him. Then the Lord said to Moses, The man must surely be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp. So, as the Lord commanded Moses, all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him with stones, and he died. - Numbers 15: But the person who does anything presumptuously, whether he is native-born or a stranger, that one brings reproach on the Lord, and he shall be cut off from among his people. Because he has despised the word of the Lord, and has broken His commandment, that person shall be completely cut off; his guilt shall be upon him. III. Conclusion A. Yahweh Alone is God - Do modern believers struggle with idolatry? - 1 John 5:21. Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen. 11 Stuart, 457.

8 - Eastern Orthodox openly engage in it, but usually it is more subtle. - Colossians 3:5 7. Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience, in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them. B. Rejecting His Moral Law Leads to Chaos - In 1980, in the Stone v. Graham case, the Supreme Court ruled against the privately funded display of the Ten Commandments in the classroom. One of those commandments is Thou shall not murder. Look where we are today.