1. The 10 commandments are never called the 10 commandments in Scripture.
   In Hebrew, they are the 10 Words. They are not impersonal laws but personal commands from a personal God.

2. There are 2 versions of the 10 Words.
   The first occurs in Exodus 20 when Israel had been rescued from Egypt, and have passed through the wilderness to Mount Sinai. The second is 40 years later in Moab when Israel was on the edge of the Promised Land about to enter in. While they are fundamentally the same, there are some differences. The most significant is the rationale for the Sabbath command. In Exodus, the reason to keep the Sabbath is rooted in God’s creation of the world. In Deuteronomy, it is based on God’s liberation of the people from Egypt. Why the difference? It appears that given Israel’s disobedience between Mount Sinai and their arrival in Moab, for the people to live as faithful in the land, they need to remember that God is not only the Creator of a good world but the Redeemer of sinful people like themselves. This then becomes the motivation for them to treat slaves and immigrants fairly in the land, because ‘you were once slaves in Egypt’.

3. There are at least 3 main ways of counting the 10 Words.

Scripture is very clear that there are 10 commands. But how they are counted has differed.

• Jews have traditionally counted the first commandment as Exodus 20:2 “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” which although not a command was seen as a declaration of monotheism as the text of the commands begins at verse 2. The second combined the command to have no gods and make no images as a general prohibition on idolatry since making idols and having other gods in ancient culture was functionally the same according to this view.
• Catholics and Lutherans start at verse 3 with the “You shall not…” They also combine the first 2 commands but then make the list up to 10 by dividing the last command on coveting into 2. No.9 “You shall not covet your neighbour’s house”. No.10 “You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife.”
• Most other Protestants see verses 3 and 4 on having no other gods and making idols as separate commands, relating to who you worship and how you worship. Coveting is seen as one single command.

4. The 10 Words are part of a story.
   We must not isolate the 10 Words from their context in the Pentateuch. The story starts with God creating a flourishing, ordered, life-filled world out of chaos and darkness. Humans were made as his image-bearers to reflect his good life-giving rule to the rest of the world. Instead, we rebelled and brought death, darkness and chaos to our relationships and our world. Genesis to Deuteronomy tells the story of God choosing a people, redeeming them out of darkness in slavery in Egypt, bringing them back to himself at Mount Sinai and calling them to be a holy nation and kingdom of priests (Ex 19:4-6) – a people who would again reflect God by drawing near to him, living in his ways and showing the nations around the goodness of the God they serve. The 10 Words then are the constitution of how this people were to live out their covenant, love relationship with a gracious loving God and be the people that God had created them to be so that they could flourish just as humans were designed to do in the Garden of Eden, trusting God’s word and living in obedience to him.

5. The tablets of the 10 Words were placed in the ark of the covenant.
   The ark of the covenant was a wooden box symbolising God’s presence with his people. The fact that God’s Word was placed in the ark demonstrated that his Word and his presence were utterly linked. Disobedience to his Word would result in distancing from his presence. Obedience was how the people would experience the blessing of his presence

6. The 10 commandments are not the only commands.
   In total, Jews traditionally counted 613 laws that Moses taught the people of Israel at Mount Sinai and Moab. Some of them are duplicated (e.g. do not cook a goat in its mother’s milk is counted as 2 commands because it appears in both Ex 23:19 and Deut 14:21 and given a slightly different interpretation). While the 10 Words are like the Constitution or summary statement of the law, the further 603 commands are more like Case Law – “if X happens, do so and so.” These are not an exhaustive list but provide precedents for future judges to base their decisions on the principles these laws embody.

7. The 10 commandments are called God’s law and so is….
   In Scripture, the word law can refer to i) the first 5 books of the Bible (the Pentateuch), ii) the 613 commands iii) the whole of the OT iv) general way of living (e.g ‘law of sin and death’ Rom 8:2).

8. The word ‘law’ doesn’t mean ‘law’.
   In English, the word law has connotations of a legislative code given by a government whose infringement is a criminal offence. In Hebrew, the word ‘law’ is Its basic meaning is ‘instruction’. In Proverbs 1:8, the teacher says, “Hear, my son, your father’s torah.” He is not saying ‘listen to my law, but listen to my instruction. This means we should not use the 10 commandments as a legal code to impose on society. Instead, it is God’s constitution for his redeemed people to live wisely in obedience to him.

9. The law is referred to before the law was given
   In Gen 26:5 tells us that “in your offspring all the nations shall be blessed, because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes and my laws.” But, the law hadn’t yet been given. How could Abraham keep what he didn’t know? And wasn’t Abraham supposed to be blessed because of his faith not obedience? Abraham after all walked in the Promised Land, but Moses the lawgiver failed to enter. This is a key passage behind Paul’s insistence in Romans 4 that faith has always had precedence over strict law observance. The 10 Words are another way for us to express faith in God. They were never a way to earn our salvation, they were always based on faith in a covenant, promise keeping God.

10. The 10 commandments are not the only part of the law that applies to Christians.
    Christians have sought to understand how believers are to relate to the law. After all, bacon sandwiches, barbequed shrimp and goat a la crème all sound rather tasty. I’ve never stopped to wonder if I might be breaking God’s law as I tuck in. We also don’t all stop work on Saturday. Nor do Christian women all designate themselves unclean and quarantine themselves for 7 days after their period. Even more seriously, if I break a command, I don’t go around killing the nearest cow, pigeon or lamb to atone for my sins. Jesus has clearly changed things. But what things has He changed?

Some prominent theologians including Calvin no less have proposed that we separate the law into 3 categories of civil, moral and ceremonial laws. Jesus death dealt with sacrifices and laws to do with the priesthood, since we are no longer in Israelite society, the civil laws also no longer apply, only the moral ones like the 10 Words still apply. After all, all the 10 Words apart from the Sabbath command are repeated in the NT. So, it shows they apply. This seems like a great solution except when you think about it. Firstly, the Bible never divides the laws into these categories. But even more significantly, the laws themselves cannot be categorised like that. Is the Sabbath a civil or a moral command? What about not making idols – is that ceremonial, moral, civil? Not gleaning your fields to the edge so they poor can eat – Civil or moral? The topic is not easily solved by these categories. We will share more in our next blog…