(Deuteronomy 7:1 - 7:26)
"When Jehovah your god brings you into the land you are about to enter and occupy, ahead of your arrival he will clear out many nations, the Hethites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, seven peoples that are more numerous and more powerful than you are. When Jehovah your god delivers these nations into your hands and you have defeated them, you must, as a divine sacrifice, utterly destroy them. Make no treaties with them. Show no mercy to them. You must not intermarry with them, giving your daughters in marriage to their sons, or taking their daughters for your sons’ brides, for their children would lead your children away from me to worship other gods. The anger of Jehovah then would flare up and he would immediately destroy you. This is how you should treat them: tear down their altars, smash their sacred pillars, cut down their Asherah poles, and burn their carved idols.
"For you are a people sacred to Jehovah your god. Of all the people on earth, Jehovah has chosen you to be his cherished possession. He did not chose you and single you out as the object of his favor because you were the most populous nation, for indeed you are the least. It is because he loved you and to keep the oath he swore to your forefathers that Jehovah used his might to bring you out of the land of slavery and free you from the power of the Pharaoh, the ruler of Egypt. Know, therefore, that Jehovah your god is the only god, a faithful god who keeps his pact and shows his favor to the thousandth generation of those who love him and keep his commandments. But he exacts retribution upon those who reject him by destroying them. He will not be lenient to those who oppose him, but will pay them back -- personally. Therefore, take care to follow the commandments, the laws, and decrees I am giving you here today.
"If you listen to these laws, follow and obey them, then Jehovah your god will keep the pact he made with you and show you his favor, as he swore to your forefathers. He will love you, bless you, and grant you many children. In the land he swore to your forefathers he would give you, he will bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your fields, your grain, wine, and olive oil, and increase your herds with calves and your flocks with lambs and kids. You will be blessed above all peoples. Among your people or among your livestock there will no male who is impotent or female who is infertile. And Jehovah will protect you from all sickness. He will not allow you to suffer from any of the horrible diseases you knew in Egypt, but instead he will inflict them upon those who hate you.
"You must destroy all the nations Jehovah your god delivers into your hands. Show them no mercy. Worship not their gods, for they will lead you to destruction. If, in your mind, you say to yourself, 'How can we drive out these nations, for they are more powerful than we are?' you must remember what Jehovah your god did to the Pharaoh and to all Egypt. Then you won't be afraid. For you personally witnessed the terrors Jehovah your god inflicted upon them, the miracles and the wonders, and the power and the might by which Jehovah your god brought you out of Egypt. Jehovah your god will do the same to all the people you now fear. He will even dispatch his aerial warships to harass and root out those survivors who have hidden themselves from you, and he will destroy them as well. Therefore, do not look in dread upon these nations, for Jehovah your god is here with you, and he is a mighty and a fearsome god.
"Jehovah your god will drive out those nations before you -- but gradually. You must not expel them all at once, for that would allow the wild animals to propagate too quickly for you to handle. But Jehovah your god will deliver them your hands. He will wage war upon them vigorously until they are completely destroyed. He will hand over to you their kings, whose names you will erase from the memory of man. No one will be able to oppose you; you will destroy them all. You must burn their idols. Don't desire to possess the gold and silver that adorns them. Don't take any of it for yourselves, for it will lead to your ruin. It is an abomination to Jehovah your god! Do not bring it into your homes, or else you, like it, will be marked for sacrificial destruction. You must totally abhor and reject such things, for they are devoted to utter destruction as a divine sacrifice."
Notes
1. The Hethites (definitely not the Hittites as most translations refer to them) were a tribe of Canaanites, presumably the descendants of Canaan’s son Heth. The Girgashites were also Canaanites and inhabited lands near the Sea of Galilee. The Amorites, probably not Canaanites, have been discussed, they inhabiting lands east of the Jordan. Their kingdoms, those of Og and Sihon, have already been destroyed by the Israelites. The Canaanites referred to are probably those who lived south of Phoenicia, in the northwest portion of the Promised Land. The Perizzites lived in the hill country west and north of the Dead Sea. The term was also used to describe anyone who was villager, rather than a nomad. The Hivites, probably Canaanites, lived mostly in the north. but had settlements as far south as Jerusalem. The Jebusites, who were either Canaanite or related to the Amorites, inhabited land around Jerusalem, and their original capital, Jebus, may have been Jerusalem. It cannot escape notice that the ethnic composition of pre-Israelite Holy Land was exceedingly complex. It is also very ambiguous, with nearly every people or tribe mentioned in the Bible the subject of conflicting theories as to their origin and racial derivation and to their identification with historically established nations.
2. Jehovah demands not only the destruction of Israel's enemies, but total genocide -- no half measures, no diplomatic solution permitting coexistence, no quarter, no mercy given. Those inhabiting the territory granted to the Israelites are not to be merely expelled, but wiped out. They are not allowed to have freedom of religion or the right to intermarry with the Israelites -- more than that, they are not allowed to exist or even to be remembered after their death. (Jehovah's human rights record makes Hitler and Stalin look like choir boys. Even the Nazis tried to expel the Jews before resorting to their extermination by gas chamber.)
3. Since Jehovah demands that Israel's enemies be completely wiped out, it is odd that he also insists that they not intermarry with the Israelites. How could they have the opportunity to do so, since the enemy peoples are to be all dead by the time Israel settles in their land? And why should Jehovah be worried that the Israelites would worship their enemies' gods when they will have already destroyed all their places of worship?
4. The Asherah is a Semitic mother goddess also known as Ashtaroth. She was a very important goddess, widely worshiped in the ancient Middle East. The wooden poles mentioned were phallic, fertility symbols connected with her worship. (Maypoles come to mind.)
5. Jehovah can fulfill his commitment to settle the Israelites on the land he has promised them, but how can he make good on his promise that no Israelite man will be impotent, no Israelite woman will be infertile, nor will any of their livestock and, moreover, that no one will ever become sick -- if they are faithful to him? This spawns the most dangerous and destructive fallacy of the ignorant, that illness or physical infirmity is a punishment for sins. Anything bad happening to a person is caused by his immorality or the insufficiency of his worship. Anyone who becomes ill or is incapable of having children is suspected of being a sinner or else remiss in fulfilling his religious duties. Every misfortune that befalls a person is a punishment from God. This irrational belief has been astonishingly persistent and pervasive, and the evil resulting from it can hardly be underestimated.
6. Jehovah assures Moses that he will destroy even the enemies who have gone into hiding with what is literally translated as "hornets" (the Hebrew word tsirah). Some have rendered this literally, other translators have reasoned it is meant figuratively and have used the word "terror" or “panic” or something similar. Neither makes sense. That God, after destroying enemy armies, would hunt down the stragglers with swarms of hornets is more than unlikely, it's positively silly, even granted that Middle Eastern hornets are pretty nasty. If Jehovah were God and had the power to control the minds of the insects and make them attack Israel's enemies (and stop them from attacking Israelites), why would he bother to use so crude and ineffective a weapon? Why not send down fire from the sky or open up the earth to swallow his enemies, or, for that matter, simply uncreate what he wants to destroy? As we have seen, Jehovah is more likely a humanoid from an advanced civilization, probably extraterrestrial, and his means and methods of conducting war, though puzzling to those of the 2nd Millennium BC, are perhaps not beyond the comprehension of us in the 3rd Millennium AD. What the Bible authors call "hornets" could be combat aircraft rather than insects. To the ancient or the primitive wouldn't a helicopter resemble a hornet, with a tail and a sting? It is possible that the airship that guided the Israelites and hovered over their camp day and night was large enough to contain other, smaller craft, such as those used for warfare, such as those that might resemble hornets. Modern sightings of UFOs have frequently described large, even massively large, "mother" ships that are cigar shaped. (The "cloud" hovering above the Israelites was always referred to as a "pillar.") Since Jehovah is seen as fighting alongside the Israelites, it seems likely his contribution involved providing what we would call air support.
7. Jehovah qualifies his "absolute destruction to Israel's enemies," by saying it will be done gradually and not in one fell swoop. The reason given is that the resultant, empty land will be taken over by wild animals. Surely the Middle East, even the ancient Middle East, is not a part of the world customarily overrun by wild animals. What would the animals be that would hinder humans from occupying empty territory? And what would be the delay on the part of the Israelites in taking over the land once it was vacated? This makes no sense. Jehovah makes a lot of boasts and promises he can't really fulfill, and then offers lame alibis to excuse the limitation of his powers.
8. The Israelites, in burning the idols of their enemies, are forbidden to plunder the gold and silver from them. Why wouldn't the gold and silver be melted down and used for some other purpose; surely precious metals are fungible. But perhaps Jehovah is correct in discouraging in his people the lust for gold and silver.
9. Jehovah explains how he has chosen the Israelites to be his people. This was not because they were strong or populous, but he does not tell us why it is he has chosen them -- or why he freed them from their bondage in Egypt. Jehovah constantly deplores their faithlessness and castigates their character. He has little trust in them. He conducted or ordered several purges of the disobedient. He has been tempted to wipe them out more than once and did indeed cause all the adults to die out at the end of their 40-year exodus. He continually has to threaten them so that they will do what he wants of them. So what it is about the Israelites that makes him love them? Perhaps Jehovah became the god of an obscure people such as the Israelites because all the jobs for “gods” were taken. He chose them because beggars can't be choosers. Egypt didn't need another god and every people the Israelites come in contact with have their own national gods. No positions as a national god for an important people available! And Jehovah seems to be an outcast among the gods. He hates them all and is in fierce competition with them. (There is probably some back story here.) Jehovah, the Jehovah of Moses, insinuated the role of Israel's god by claiming to be the Jehovah known to Abraham, but who had not been seen for generations. That the Jehovah of Moses is so insistent and so defensive about his position confirms the suspicion, the likelihood, that he is in fact an impostor -- but an acceptable one who fulfills his role as a god. (And he may have had an advantage over other gods that were absentee deities.)
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
Dedication to the Law
(Deuteronomy 6:1 - 6:25)
"These are the commands, the laws and decrees, that Jehovah your god told me to teach you. You must obey them in the land you about to enter and occupy, and you, as well as your children and grandchildren, must revere Jehovah your god for as long as you live. If you do obey these laws and commandments, you will enjoy a long life. So therefore listen, O Israel, and take care to observe them, so that you may prosper and greatly multiply in that land flowing with milk and honey, just as Jehovah, the god of your forefathers, promised you.
"Hear, O Israel, Jehovah is our god, our only god. You must love Jehovah your god with all your heart and soul and with all your strength. And you must keep in mind the commandments I am giving you today. Drill them into the heads of your children: discuss them when you are sitting at home and when you are walking along the road, when you go to bed and when you rise. As a remembrance, wear them you as would an armband tied round your wrist or a headband wrapped round your forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
"When Jehovah your god brings you into the land he promised your forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that he would give you -- a vast land with large, prosperous cities you did not build, with houses filled with all sorts of fine furnishings you did not acquire, wells that you did not dig, vineyards and olive groves you did not plant -- and when you have eaten and had your fill, do not forget Jehovah who brought you out of Egypt where you were held in slavery. You must revere Jehovah your god and worship him. And when you swear an oath it must be only in his name. You must not pursue other gods, the gods of peoples around you. For Jehovah your god, who lives among you, is a jealous god: his ire will be aroused and he will wipe you off the face of the earth.
"You must not subject Jehovah your god to any test, as you did at Massah. Take care that you obey the commandments of Jehovah your god and observe the rituals and regulations he has imparted to you. Do what is right and good in the eyes of Jehovah, so that you may prosper when you enter and settle upon the fine land that he swore to give to your forefathers -- driving out all your enemies before you, as Jehovah said that he would.
"In the future your children will ask you, 'What is the meaning of these laws and decrees and statutes that Jehovah our god has commanded us to obey?' Tell them, 'We were slaves of the Pharaoh in Egypt, but Jehovah by his might brought us out of Egypt. Right before our very eyes, Jehovah worked wonders and miracles, awesome and horrific, against Egypt, the Pharaoh, and his entire court. He brought us out of there that he might bring us here, the land he swore to give to our forefathers. Jehovah commanded us to obey his laws and to revere him as our god so that he would preserve us and make us prosper, as we do today. If we are careful to obey these laws in his sight, as Jehovah our god has commanded us to do, we will be accounted as righteous.'"
Notes
1. Moses, with trying redundancy, impresses upon his people the necessity of obeying all the laws and commandments given to the Israelites by Jehovah. The obligation to obey them is based upon gratitude for Jehovah's freeing them from bondage in Egypt. The laws, it must be said, are not intended for any other people, only the Israelites. If they obey them and if they indoctrinate their children to obey them, they will be rewarded with prosperity and long life; if they do not, they will be punished, even destroyed. There is no promise of rewards in the afterlife, in fact, no mention is made at all of an afterlife. There is no assurance that the laws will make one a better person in a moral sense. The benefits of obedience are purely material, but obedience does permit one to be considered righteous.
2. The Israelites are commanded to do what is right in the eyes of Jehovah, that is, they must surrender their own ethical judgments and free moral will to Jehovah. He tells them how they must live. Instead of being slaves to the Pharaoh, they are now slaves to Jehovah, who, in his mind, has purchased them with the miracles that made their freedom possible.
3. Interesting that Moses asks Jehovah’s followers to write his commandments on their door posts and gates. It is unlikely that any of those listening to him would have known how to write, even the Egyptian hieroglyphics which, save for Mesopotamian cuneiform, were the only existent forms of writing.
4. Jehovah emphasizes that he not helping the Israelites to create themselves the material elements of a country -- cities, houses, orchards, wells, etc. An alternative to working, building and making things, is simply to steal what others have built and made. This is what Jehovah advocates. He promises to give the Israelites the fruits of other people’s labor. He robs his people of the satisfaction of achievement and pride in their own accomplishments, replacing it with an obligation of gratitude to a gift-giver. Gratitude is exactly what Jehovah wishes to nourish, for this is the only way he can maintain the faithful worship of his followers.
5. Massah is apparently one the stations, the stops the Israelites made during the Exodus. It is not mentioned, though, in the list of stations named in Numbers. Massah (which means “testing”) seems be the same place as Meribah (which means “quarreling”), even though in other references they are mentioned together as two, obviously distinct locales. It was at Meribah that the people rebelled against Moses because they had no water. Moses, at Jehovah’s behest, produced water by striking a rock with the staff of Aaron. It was here that Moses somehow angered Jehovah so much that he would be denied entry into the Promised Land. The accounts of this incidents are muddled. Deuteronomy consistently takes Moses’ side and blames others for his shortcomings. In other words, it was the conduct of the Israelites and not Moses himself that precipitated the displeasure of Jehovah at Massah (or Meribah.)
"These are the commands, the laws and decrees, that Jehovah your god told me to teach you. You must obey them in the land you about to enter and occupy, and you, as well as your children and grandchildren, must revere Jehovah your god for as long as you live. If you do obey these laws and commandments, you will enjoy a long life. So therefore listen, O Israel, and take care to observe them, so that you may prosper and greatly multiply in that land flowing with milk and honey, just as Jehovah, the god of your forefathers, promised you.
"Hear, O Israel, Jehovah is our god, our only god. You must love Jehovah your god with all your heart and soul and with all your strength. And you must keep in mind the commandments I am giving you today. Drill them into the heads of your children: discuss them when you are sitting at home and when you are walking along the road, when you go to bed and when you rise. As a remembrance, wear them you as would an armband tied round your wrist or a headband wrapped round your forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
"When Jehovah your god brings you into the land he promised your forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that he would give you -- a vast land with large, prosperous cities you did not build, with houses filled with all sorts of fine furnishings you did not acquire, wells that you did not dig, vineyards and olive groves you did not plant -- and when you have eaten and had your fill, do not forget Jehovah who brought you out of Egypt where you were held in slavery. You must revere Jehovah your god and worship him. And when you swear an oath it must be only in his name. You must not pursue other gods, the gods of peoples around you. For Jehovah your god, who lives among you, is a jealous god: his ire will be aroused and he will wipe you off the face of the earth.
"You must not subject Jehovah your god to any test, as you did at Massah. Take care that you obey the commandments of Jehovah your god and observe the rituals and regulations he has imparted to you. Do what is right and good in the eyes of Jehovah, so that you may prosper when you enter and settle upon the fine land that he swore to give to your forefathers -- driving out all your enemies before you, as Jehovah said that he would.
"In the future your children will ask you, 'What is the meaning of these laws and decrees and statutes that Jehovah our god has commanded us to obey?' Tell them, 'We were slaves of the Pharaoh in Egypt, but Jehovah by his might brought us out of Egypt. Right before our very eyes, Jehovah worked wonders and miracles, awesome and horrific, against Egypt, the Pharaoh, and his entire court. He brought us out of there that he might bring us here, the land he swore to give to our forefathers. Jehovah commanded us to obey his laws and to revere him as our god so that he would preserve us and make us prosper, as we do today. If we are careful to obey these laws in his sight, as Jehovah our god has commanded us to do, we will be accounted as righteous.'"
Notes
1. Moses, with trying redundancy, impresses upon his people the necessity of obeying all the laws and commandments given to the Israelites by Jehovah. The obligation to obey them is based upon gratitude for Jehovah's freeing them from bondage in Egypt. The laws, it must be said, are not intended for any other people, only the Israelites. If they obey them and if they indoctrinate their children to obey them, they will be rewarded with prosperity and long life; if they do not, they will be punished, even destroyed. There is no promise of rewards in the afterlife, in fact, no mention is made at all of an afterlife. There is no assurance that the laws will make one a better person in a moral sense. The benefits of obedience are purely material, but obedience does permit one to be considered righteous.
2. The Israelites are commanded to do what is right in the eyes of Jehovah, that is, they must surrender their own ethical judgments and free moral will to Jehovah. He tells them how they must live. Instead of being slaves to the Pharaoh, they are now slaves to Jehovah, who, in his mind, has purchased them with the miracles that made their freedom possible.
3. Interesting that Moses asks Jehovah’s followers to write his commandments on their door posts and gates. It is unlikely that any of those listening to him would have known how to write, even the Egyptian hieroglyphics which, save for Mesopotamian cuneiform, were the only existent forms of writing.
4. Jehovah emphasizes that he not helping the Israelites to create themselves the material elements of a country -- cities, houses, orchards, wells, etc. An alternative to working, building and making things, is simply to steal what others have built and made. This is what Jehovah advocates. He promises to give the Israelites the fruits of other people’s labor. He robs his people of the satisfaction of achievement and pride in their own accomplishments, replacing it with an obligation of gratitude to a gift-giver. Gratitude is exactly what Jehovah wishes to nourish, for this is the only way he can maintain the faithful worship of his followers.
5. Massah is apparently one the stations, the stops the Israelites made during the Exodus. It is not mentioned, though, in the list of stations named in Numbers. Massah (which means “testing”) seems be the same place as Meribah (which means “quarreling”), even though in other references they are mentioned together as two, obviously distinct locales. It was at Meribah that the people rebelled against Moses because they had no water. Moses, at Jehovah’s behest, produced water by striking a rock with the staff of Aaron. It was here that Moses somehow angered Jehovah so much that he would be denied entry into the Promised Land. The accounts of this incidents are muddled. Deuteronomy consistently takes Moses’ side and blames others for his shortcomings. In other words, it was the conduct of the Israelites and not Moses himself that precipitated the displeasure of Jehovah at Massah (or Meribah.)
Saturday, September 19, 2015
Ten Commandments 2
(Deuteronomy 4:44 - 5:33)
This is the body of law, the statutes and decrees, the rules and regulations, that Moses presented to the Israelites, after their exodus from Egypt and while they were encamped in the valley of Beth Peor, east of the River Jordan. (This land had been formerly occupied by the Amorites under King Sihon, who ruled from Heshbon. They were defeated by Moses and the Israelites when they came out of Egypt. They took possession of his land and that of King Og of Bashan, the two Amorite kings east of the Jordan. This territory extended from Aroer on the edge of the Arnon Gorge to Mount Sirion (also called Hermon), including all of the Jordan Valley east of the river and as far south as the Dead Sea below the slopes of Pisgah.)
Moses summoned the entire nation of Israel and addressed them, "Listen, O Israel, to the laws and decrees that I present to you this day, so that you may learn and faithfully observe them. Jehovah our god made a pact with us at Horeb. He did not make this pact with our forefathers, but with all of us who are alive here today. At the mountain Jehovah spoke to you face to face from out of the fire. I stood between you and Jehovah, for you were afraid of the fire and dared not ascend the mountain. He spoke to me and I passed on his words to you. This what he said:
“‘I am Jehovah, your god, who brought you out of Egypt and freed you from bondage.
“‘Exalt no foreign gods above me.
“‘Create for yourself no crafted images or representations of objects or beings that exist above and beyond the earth in order to revere them as idols. Do not worship and adore them! (I, Jehovah, am your god, and a jealous god I am -- and powerful. I will punish the descendants of the sinners who reject me, to the third, even to the fourth generation, but will faithfully reward a thousand generations of those who are true to me and keep my commandments.)
“‘Swear no oath by Jehovah falsely or lightly. (For I will not pardon those who abuse my name.)
“‘Remember to observe the Sabbath, setting the day aside for religious devotion. (Accomplish all your work for the week in six days, for the seventh day is the Sabbath and belongs to Jehovah. From Friday evening to Saturday evening, refrain from your labor, and do not allow your children, your slaves, your beasts of burden, even visiting strangers to take up work, so that your slaves may have their day of rest as you do. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that Jehovah freed you with all his power and might. Therefore, Jehovah your god has commanded you to keep the Sabbath.)
“‘Treat with respect your father and your mother as Jehovah has commanded you to do (so that you may live long and prosper in the land that Jehovah your god has bestowed upon you.)
“‘Do not take a human life unlawfully.
“‘Nor have sexual relations with any woman who is married or betrothed to another man.
“‘Nor abduct or enslave one of your own people.
“‘Nor testify untruthfully and maliciously against a neighbor.
“‘Nor lust after your neighbor’s wife or crave to appropriate his house, his land, his slaves, his livestock, or any of his possessions.’
"These are the commandments that Jehovah proclaimed in a loud voice to the whole assembly there on the mountain. He spoke from out of the fire and the dark clouds. He said nothing more. Then he wrote them down on two tablets of stone and gave them to me. When you heard the voice emanating from the darkness, while the mountain was aglow with fire, all your chiefs and tribal elders came to me. They told me, 'Indeed Jehovah our god has revealed to us his glory and majesty, and we have heard his voice from out of the fire. Today we have seen that a person may survive, even if God speaks to him. But why should we die now? This great fire will consume us and we will perish if we must to listen to voice of our god Jehovah any longer. For what man of flesh and blood has heard the voice of a living god speaking from out of the fire, as we have, and continued to live? You approach him and hear all that Jehovah our god has to say. Then tell us and we will listen and obey.'
"Jehovah heard your words when you spoke to me and he told me, 'I have heard the words of this people when they spoke to you. What they said is correct. Would that they might always feel this way, that they might respect me and obey all my commandments. If they did, their posterity would always prosper. Go and tell them to return to their tents. But you remain here so that I can give you all my commands, laws, and decrees. You must teach your people to follow them in the land I am giving them to possess.’”
And so Moses told the people, "Take care to obey all the commands of Jehovah your god. Do not stray either to left or to the right from the path that Jehovah your god has set for you, but walk in the way that he has commanded so that you may live and prosper and enjoy a long life in the land that you will possess."
Notes
1. In this account Jehovah proclaims his commandments to the people in a loud voice. (It would have to have been a very loud voice indeed, for the supposedly several million people taking part in the Exodus to have heard him.) In Exodus Jehovah never addresses the people directly, but talks only to Moses. There is no speaking from out of the fire, except, earlier, when Jehovah speaks to Moses from the Burning Bush. But, in Exodus, before Moses has his 40-day stay with Jehovah, the elders do ascend the Mountain, see Jehovah, worship him from a distance, and have a feast.
2. In Exodus Moses comes down from the mountain carrying in his hands the tablets inscribed by Jehovah. In this account Jehovah makes the tablets after he has spoken the commandments to the encamped Israelites -- a major conflict in chronology.
3. Differences between the Ten Commandments of Exodus and those of Deuteronomy are minor and insignificant, mostly those of wording here and there. One exception is in citing the reason for the Sabbath. In Exodus it is connected with the creation of the world, in Deuteronomy the rationale is Jehovah’s freeing the Israelites from bondage in Egypt. Another notable difference is the phrasing of the “coveting” commandment, which here seems like two different commandments, which is how Catholics and Lutherans take it.
4. Ten Commandments is a term so familiar that to refer to the ten utterances that Jehovah conveyed to Moses and the Hebrews by any other name would be unacceptably. "Commandments" is not quite the right word for this moral framework of Hebrew law, but other English words such as "precepts," or "directives," are less apt. The original Hebrew text actually only refers to ten “words,” “verses,” or “matters.”
5. The Commandments are more moral than legal in nature in that they itemize what is right and wrong, proper conduct. Criminal law proscribes certain behavior and mandates a punishment for it. Many contend that the Ten Commandments is the first historical instance of a moral code, but that is probably not true. In fact, it may have been derived from a similar, longer list of moral precepts to which the Egyptians subscribed. (A major difference: the Egyptian gods weren't jealous and they loved graven images.) Among the Greeks, religion did not encompass morality, the purview of philosophy. But the Buddhist religion (of India and later China) and Zoroastrian religion (of ancient Iran) promulgated moral codes and philosophical precepts. And the legal Code of Hammurabi from early Babylon long predates the Ten Commandments.
6. Subsequent passages refer to these commandments as being ten in number, but there is no biblical list that specifies each commandment, so that we know with certainty what was Commandment 6 or Commandment 9. Subsequently, there have been differing opinions as to exactly what comprises the Commandments. In Judaism, the statement of Jehovah that he led the Hebrews out of Egypt and freed them from bondage is considered the First Commandment, although it's simply a statement and not any kind of a law. The warning about foreign gods and prohibitions against idol making and worshiping are thus combined into a single commandment. Catholic and Lutheran teaching (from Saint Augustine) also combines those commandments, but separates the last commandment, so what is generally translated as not coveting your neighbor's wife and not coveting your neighbor's property become two commandments. (This is suggested by the reiteration of the commandments here in Deuteronomy.) On the other hand, most Protestants do not include the preamble as a commandment, and do not separate the coveting commandment. But they do separate the prohibition against other gods and that of idol worship so that these are two discrete commandments. (In truth, the idol commandment could also be divided, since it contains two prohibitions, creating idols and worshiping them -- but that would result in eleven commandments and there's supposed to be ten.) To confuse matters further, some faiths also alter the order of the commandments.
7. "Exalt no foreign gods above me," is a more accurate translation than the familiar King James rendering, "Thou shalt have no gods before me." "Above me" is less ambiguous than "Before me." The idea is that Jehovah takes precedence over all other gods. Again, there is no contention that other gods don't exist or that they are false, only that Jehovah must come first. The aforementioned translation is also incomplete. The Douay-Reims Version correctly refers to "strange gods," "strange" meaning foreign. This commandment does not actually prohibit or condemn the worship of other gods. The next commandment forbids the creation and reverence of idols, but still does not ban the non-idolatrous worship of other gods.
8. The commandment in which the King James Version famously refers to "graven images" is a prohibition against the creation and worship of idols. Jehovah was almost unique among ancient gods in that he was not worshiped through his image. Statues, statuettes, carved images, and pictures of gods were always intended to focus the thoughts and emotions of the worshiper. (Crucifixes and images of saints in modern churches function in the same way.) However, ancients also believed that the spirit of the god might visit the temple and inhabit its statue. The god, or goddess, could then hear the prayers of its devotees that had come to the temple, the earthly home of the deity. (This makes a certain amount of sense, more than the concept of an omniscient deity hearing all prayers wherever that may be said). Household gods had their images as well and there was some idea that the image, venerated for what it represented, also possessed some numinous power. Although Jehovah, like other gods, is thought to visit the places in which he is worshiped, he emphatically did not wish to be adored through images. There is no stated reason for this. That idol worship was a primitive idea best discarded to make way for more progressive concepts of religion would not, however, have been one. Perhaps Jehovah was what we would call camera shy. Eschewing idolatrous images would be explicable if Jehovah were an incorporeal spirit, as most moderns conceive God to be, but time and again biblical encounters reveal Jehovah as a flesh-and-blood man, even if he manifests himself in burning bushes and pillars of fire.
9. The images prohibited in the idol commandment are those of beings, as well as objects, things, places that are outside the terrestrial world. It must be remembered that the writers of the Bible envisioned a flat earth encased in a dome that was the sky. The heavenly bodies moved inside that dome. Rain water fell from a sea existing above the dome. Above that sea and below the earth and the waters of the terrestrial oceans was another realm, Heaven, the abode of Jehovah, his angels, and one supposes, other gods. (There was, as yet, no conception of Hell or the Devil.) It is not clear whether this realm and its denizens are not to be depicted at all, or whether it is prohibited only to depict them with the intention of idolatrous worship. Islam and Protestant Puritans came to the former conclusion and forbade all religious images in their places of worship. Indeed, Muslims regard any representation of Mohammed as well as Allah, as sacrilege. Catholics, obviously coming to the latter conclusion, favor images of the Christ, Mary, and the saints.
10. In a sort of postscript to the idol commandment, Jehovah makes it clear he will punish those who reject him while rewarding those who accept him and keep his commandments. Moreover, he will punish and reward the descendants. Collective guilt is a common theme in ancient times and in the Bible. The individual counted for little, save as a member of a family and tribe. When a member of a family or tribe committed an offense, it was common for the whole family or tribe to pay for it. With Jehovah, a son, a grandson, perhaps even a great-grandson are to suffer for the sins of the father. This seems unfair to modern sensibilities, but quite acceptable morally to most ancient peoples. Jehovah is certainly OK with it.
11. The contract, a promise to do this or that, to pay or perform a service, is a significant element in the establishment of civilization. In preliterate societies there was no such thing as a written contract. Even when written language was invented, most people would not know how to read or write and all but important contracts would remain verbal. Thus, the critical importance of oaths, a replacement for the written contract and the "Submit" button. The swearing commandment is about this, not using Jehovah's name to take an oath that will not be honored or which is frivolous or insincere. It has nothing to do with cussing. Interestingly, there is no condemnation of breaking any oath that was sworn in the name of someone other than Jehovah. (Violating the Hippocratic Oath, still taken today by physicians, would not then be a commandment breaker, for it is sworn by Apollo.)
12. The Sabbath commandment is really the only commandment that had been already laid down by Jehovah earlier. Strict observance seems to be demanded. It is important to remember that the Sabbath is from Friday evening to Saturday evening, as those practicing Judaism observe it today. The Sunday Sabbath was established by Christian theologians centuries after the crucifixion. One wonders why those who regard the commandments as derived from God would approve and abide by an alteration in those commandments made by men with self-serving interests. (The change was basically a public relations move to distinguish Christianity from Judaism.)
13. The first four commandments (by Protestant reckoning) concern only Jehovah and the demands he makes of his followers. Save for keeping oaths, there is little moral component here. They are all about Jehovah protecting his turf, preserving his interests and prerogatives, and ensuring his importance in the lives of his devotees.
14. "Honoring" one's father and mother is the usual translation for the parental commandment, but "honor" as it is used today is too strong a word. Honoring someone involves how we feel about him or her. How can you command feelings? Save for the last one, the Ten Commandments are not about attitudes, feelings, thoughts, intentions, but about actions. Honoring an unworthy, perhaps despicable and dishonorable parent does not seem fitting. However, treating that parent with respect, regardless of how you feel about them or what you think of them, is proper and that is what is demanded. In a tribalistic, traditional, clan-oriented society familial respect is always very important.
15. The commandment prohibiting killing or murdering requires a knowledge of the implied subtext to be really meaningful. It does not prohibit killing per se. Killing what, a cockroach, a yearling steer? It would have been understood that it meant the unlawful killing of a human being, what we regard as murder and also much of what we see as manslaughter. It certainly would not have prohibited killing an enemy in battle, executing a criminal, or killing in self-defense, or, for that matter, some vengeance killing. But the Hebrews took a less lenient attitude than we do to varieties of manslaughter such as accidental death, and so some types of manslaughter would be considered unlawful killing.
16. The adultery commandment is also more nuanced than one might expect. While other forms of sexual misconduct might be considered wrong, the Hebrews had a definite idea of what constituted adultery. The commandment only addresses a man having sexual relations with a woman who is married or betrothed, and, who, therefore, is the property of another man. That man has an absolute right to expect exclusivity in regard to her favors and certainty that her children are his and not another man's. Society and the family structure is contingent upon this. On the other hand, a husband calling upon a prostitute or having sex with his slave is not a threat to society. --- This is the first commandment that is directed exclusively toward men. The adulterous woman is apparently not violating the Ten Commandments, (but she would probably be stoned to death anyway). One may regard the commandments as enumerating capital offenses, serious felonies. Lesser crimes and offenses are to be itemized later in some detail.
17. The stealing commandment has been mistranslated and misunderstood. It is not "do not steal," but rather "do not steal away." It would have been understood by the ancient Hebrews that the reference is to the abduction of persons for the purpose of enslaving them or selling them into slavery. It is necessary to add this explanation in the translation to make sense of the commandment. Illustrated by the story of Joseph, whose brothers sold him into slavery, this was a common crime and detestable even to a society that approved of slavery. We regard kidnapping as a capital offense, and it would be surprising if a crime of such seriousness were not included among the Ten Commandments. It is most likely, though, that this pertained only to one's own people. One must remember that with all tribal societies, a person has different relations and moral obligations to one's own people than he has to neighbors who are not of one's own tribe, and to foreigners who are not neighbors and perhaps enemies. Stealing a sheep from a fellow Israelite would be very wrong indeed, stealing a sheep from a neighboring Canaanite would be imprudent, stealing a sheep from an enemy Amalekite would be an act of heroism. It is also unlikely that kidnapping an Amalekite and selling him as a slave to an Edomite would be considered a wrong sufficient to be a commandment violation.
18. The ancient Hebrews appreciated, as we do, the moral difference between mere lying and committing perjury, testifying falsely and maliciously. It is more serious because perjury causes great harm, perhaps the unjust conviction and execution of an innocent person, and undermines even the most primitive legal system. It is likely that this obligation would pertain to a neighbor, but not necessarily to a foreign enemy. --- There is a considerable history of Hebrew patriarchs telling lies and practicing deception; even Abraham was anything but "Honest Abe." The Greeks didn't place a great premium on truth telling either (eg. Odysseus), but the Persians and later, the Romans valued absolute honesty very highly.
19. The so-called coveting commandment is the only one that does not involve action. It is a thought crime and it is hard to see how it could prosecuted. The prohibition is most likely not just against wanting or craving in a casual way, but desiring, even plotting, to acquire illegally, to steal or appropriate.
20. Wives are including among the property that one should not desire to appropriate. It must be remembered that women were considered the possessions of their fathers and husbands. One gains the impression they were barely people, yet, ironically, the Bible is filled with strong and influential women. The myths of pre-classical Greece and the epics of Homer are similarly populated with significant and powerful women, some of them goddesses, but in classical Greece women, unless they were courtesans, had little stature or influence. In ancient Persia there is little historical or archaeological evidence that women even existed, while in Egypt the situation is radically different: some of the best remembered Egyptians were women, Pharaohs even, like Hatshepsut.
21. Not making the cut as a commandment was the off-repeated demand of Jehovah for circumcision. Also in the commandments there is also no expressed prohibition of treason, slavery, wife-beating, abortion, sodomy, fraud, reneging on a contract, pre-marital sex, sorcery and divination, or heresy. Some of these things will be gotten to later.
22. One wonders whether those living before the receipt of the Ten Commandments could be guilty of their violation. Were these laws always in force, or did they only come into effect after Moses presented them to his people? For instance, was the murderer Cain guilty of a crime, if Jehovah had not yet proscribed murder?
23. Jehovah in his past behavior hardly lived up to his own laws and he regularly encouraged his people to violate them, or at least tolerated their violation. He committed murder on a vast scale. He encouraged, if not commanded the Israelites to appropriate Egyptian property. He didn't punish most of those guilty of breaking his commandments, although he did try to kill Moses for not circumcising his son soon enough.
24. The Ten Commandments were a set of rules devised for a small, primitive tribe of nomads living in the 2nd Millennium B.C. supposedly given to them by their god, who, if he existed, was most likely a human from either an advanced earth society or an extraterrestrial civilization. While all peoples, even primitive ones, have laws, what is remarkable about the Hebrew ones is that they were written down, preserved, and cherished. (It is totally astonishing that so many in the 21st Century, even those of education and sophistication, regard them as an infallible and absolute guide to behavior!) It is most probable that the commandments and the system of laws and customs recorded in the Bible were developed over a period of time, even if it is very possible that Moses was the original law giver. In modern society laws have authority because they are written by an elected legislature or mandated by an autocrat. In ancient times the origin of laws was often ascribed to the divine. King Minos, the lawgiver of ancient Crete ascended Mount Dicta to receive laws from Zeus. The Spartan Lycurgus got his laws from Apollo, while Numa Pompilius of early Rome was schooled by a nymph. Zoroaster, very much like Moses, ascended a mountain and was presented with the Zend Avesta, the word of the single universal god Ahura-mazda. The Greek Bacchus also seemed to have experienced divine communion similar to what Moses knew and came down from a mountain with two tablets inscribed with laws. Perhaps these are retellings of the same story or variations of an archetypal myth embedded in the collective unconscious.
This is the body of law, the statutes and decrees, the rules and regulations, that Moses presented to the Israelites, after their exodus from Egypt and while they were encamped in the valley of Beth Peor, east of the River Jordan. (This land had been formerly occupied by the Amorites under King Sihon, who ruled from Heshbon. They were defeated by Moses and the Israelites when they came out of Egypt. They took possession of his land and that of King Og of Bashan, the two Amorite kings east of the Jordan. This territory extended from Aroer on the edge of the Arnon Gorge to Mount Sirion (also called Hermon), including all of the Jordan Valley east of the river and as far south as the Dead Sea below the slopes of Pisgah.)
Moses summoned the entire nation of Israel and addressed them, "Listen, O Israel, to the laws and decrees that I present to you this day, so that you may learn and faithfully observe them. Jehovah our god made a pact with us at Horeb. He did not make this pact with our forefathers, but with all of us who are alive here today. At the mountain Jehovah spoke to you face to face from out of the fire. I stood between you and Jehovah, for you were afraid of the fire and dared not ascend the mountain. He spoke to me and I passed on his words to you. This what he said:
“‘I am Jehovah, your god, who brought you out of Egypt and freed you from bondage.
“‘Exalt no foreign gods above me.
“‘Create for yourself no crafted images or representations of objects or beings that exist above and beyond the earth in order to revere them as idols. Do not worship and adore them! (I, Jehovah, am your god, and a jealous god I am -- and powerful. I will punish the descendants of the sinners who reject me, to the third, even to the fourth generation, but will faithfully reward a thousand generations of those who are true to me and keep my commandments.)
“‘Swear no oath by Jehovah falsely or lightly. (For I will not pardon those who abuse my name.)
“‘Remember to observe the Sabbath, setting the day aside for religious devotion. (Accomplish all your work for the week in six days, for the seventh day is the Sabbath and belongs to Jehovah. From Friday evening to Saturday evening, refrain from your labor, and do not allow your children, your slaves, your beasts of burden, even visiting strangers to take up work, so that your slaves may have their day of rest as you do. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that Jehovah freed you with all his power and might. Therefore, Jehovah your god has commanded you to keep the Sabbath.)
“‘Treat with respect your father and your mother as Jehovah has commanded you to do (so that you may live long and prosper in the land that Jehovah your god has bestowed upon you.)
“‘Do not take a human life unlawfully.
“‘Nor have sexual relations with any woman who is married or betrothed to another man.
“‘Nor abduct or enslave one of your own people.
“‘Nor testify untruthfully and maliciously against a neighbor.
“‘Nor lust after your neighbor’s wife or crave to appropriate his house, his land, his slaves, his livestock, or any of his possessions.’
"These are the commandments that Jehovah proclaimed in a loud voice to the whole assembly there on the mountain. He spoke from out of the fire and the dark clouds. He said nothing more. Then he wrote them down on two tablets of stone and gave them to me. When you heard the voice emanating from the darkness, while the mountain was aglow with fire, all your chiefs and tribal elders came to me. They told me, 'Indeed Jehovah our god has revealed to us his glory and majesty, and we have heard his voice from out of the fire. Today we have seen that a person may survive, even if God speaks to him. But why should we die now? This great fire will consume us and we will perish if we must to listen to voice of our god Jehovah any longer. For what man of flesh and blood has heard the voice of a living god speaking from out of the fire, as we have, and continued to live? You approach him and hear all that Jehovah our god has to say. Then tell us and we will listen and obey.'
"Jehovah heard your words when you spoke to me and he told me, 'I have heard the words of this people when they spoke to you. What they said is correct. Would that they might always feel this way, that they might respect me and obey all my commandments. If they did, their posterity would always prosper. Go and tell them to return to their tents. But you remain here so that I can give you all my commands, laws, and decrees. You must teach your people to follow them in the land I am giving them to possess.’”
And so Moses told the people, "Take care to obey all the commands of Jehovah your god. Do not stray either to left or to the right from the path that Jehovah your god has set for you, but walk in the way that he has commanded so that you may live and prosper and enjoy a long life in the land that you will possess."
Notes
1. In this account Jehovah proclaims his commandments to the people in a loud voice. (It would have to have been a very loud voice indeed, for the supposedly several million people taking part in the Exodus to have heard him.) In Exodus Jehovah never addresses the people directly, but talks only to Moses. There is no speaking from out of the fire, except, earlier, when Jehovah speaks to Moses from the Burning Bush. But, in Exodus, before Moses has his 40-day stay with Jehovah, the elders do ascend the Mountain, see Jehovah, worship him from a distance, and have a feast.
2. In Exodus Moses comes down from the mountain carrying in his hands the tablets inscribed by Jehovah. In this account Jehovah makes the tablets after he has spoken the commandments to the encamped Israelites -- a major conflict in chronology.
3. Differences between the Ten Commandments of Exodus and those of Deuteronomy are minor and insignificant, mostly those of wording here and there. One exception is in citing the reason for the Sabbath. In Exodus it is connected with the creation of the world, in Deuteronomy the rationale is Jehovah’s freeing the Israelites from bondage in Egypt. Another notable difference is the phrasing of the “coveting” commandment, which here seems like two different commandments, which is how Catholics and Lutherans take it.
4. Ten Commandments is a term so familiar that to refer to the ten utterances that Jehovah conveyed to Moses and the Hebrews by any other name would be unacceptably. "Commandments" is not quite the right word for this moral framework of Hebrew law, but other English words such as "precepts," or "directives," are less apt. The original Hebrew text actually only refers to ten “words,” “verses,” or “matters.”
5. The Commandments are more moral than legal in nature in that they itemize what is right and wrong, proper conduct. Criminal law proscribes certain behavior and mandates a punishment for it. Many contend that the Ten Commandments is the first historical instance of a moral code, but that is probably not true. In fact, it may have been derived from a similar, longer list of moral precepts to which the Egyptians subscribed. (A major difference: the Egyptian gods weren't jealous and they loved graven images.) Among the Greeks, religion did not encompass morality, the purview of philosophy. But the Buddhist religion (of India and later China) and Zoroastrian religion (of ancient Iran) promulgated moral codes and philosophical precepts. And the legal Code of Hammurabi from early Babylon long predates the Ten Commandments.
6. Subsequent passages refer to these commandments as being ten in number, but there is no biblical list that specifies each commandment, so that we know with certainty what was Commandment 6 or Commandment 9. Subsequently, there have been differing opinions as to exactly what comprises the Commandments. In Judaism, the statement of Jehovah that he led the Hebrews out of Egypt and freed them from bondage is considered the First Commandment, although it's simply a statement and not any kind of a law. The warning about foreign gods and prohibitions against idol making and worshiping are thus combined into a single commandment. Catholic and Lutheran teaching (from Saint Augustine) also combines those commandments, but separates the last commandment, so what is generally translated as not coveting your neighbor's wife and not coveting your neighbor's property become two commandments. (This is suggested by the reiteration of the commandments here in Deuteronomy.) On the other hand, most Protestants do not include the preamble as a commandment, and do not separate the coveting commandment. But they do separate the prohibition against other gods and that of idol worship so that these are two discrete commandments. (In truth, the idol commandment could also be divided, since it contains two prohibitions, creating idols and worshiping them -- but that would result in eleven commandments and there's supposed to be ten.) To confuse matters further, some faiths also alter the order of the commandments.
7. "Exalt no foreign gods above me," is a more accurate translation than the familiar King James rendering, "Thou shalt have no gods before me." "Above me" is less ambiguous than "Before me." The idea is that Jehovah takes precedence over all other gods. Again, there is no contention that other gods don't exist or that they are false, only that Jehovah must come first. The aforementioned translation is also incomplete. The Douay-Reims Version correctly refers to "strange gods," "strange" meaning foreign. This commandment does not actually prohibit or condemn the worship of other gods. The next commandment forbids the creation and reverence of idols, but still does not ban the non-idolatrous worship of other gods.
8. The commandment in which the King James Version famously refers to "graven images" is a prohibition against the creation and worship of idols. Jehovah was almost unique among ancient gods in that he was not worshiped through his image. Statues, statuettes, carved images, and pictures of gods were always intended to focus the thoughts and emotions of the worshiper. (Crucifixes and images of saints in modern churches function in the same way.) However, ancients also believed that the spirit of the god might visit the temple and inhabit its statue. The god, or goddess, could then hear the prayers of its devotees that had come to the temple, the earthly home of the deity. (This makes a certain amount of sense, more than the concept of an omniscient deity hearing all prayers wherever that may be said). Household gods had their images as well and there was some idea that the image, venerated for what it represented, also possessed some numinous power. Although Jehovah, like other gods, is thought to visit the places in which he is worshiped, he emphatically did not wish to be adored through images. There is no stated reason for this. That idol worship was a primitive idea best discarded to make way for more progressive concepts of religion would not, however, have been one. Perhaps Jehovah was what we would call camera shy. Eschewing idolatrous images would be explicable if Jehovah were an incorporeal spirit, as most moderns conceive God to be, but time and again biblical encounters reveal Jehovah as a flesh-and-blood man, even if he manifests himself in burning bushes and pillars of fire.
9. The images prohibited in the idol commandment are those of beings, as well as objects, things, places that are outside the terrestrial world. It must be remembered that the writers of the Bible envisioned a flat earth encased in a dome that was the sky. The heavenly bodies moved inside that dome. Rain water fell from a sea existing above the dome. Above that sea and below the earth and the waters of the terrestrial oceans was another realm, Heaven, the abode of Jehovah, his angels, and one supposes, other gods. (There was, as yet, no conception of Hell or the Devil.) It is not clear whether this realm and its denizens are not to be depicted at all, or whether it is prohibited only to depict them with the intention of idolatrous worship. Islam and Protestant Puritans came to the former conclusion and forbade all religious images in their places of worship. Indeed, Muslims regard any representation of Mohammed as well as Allah, as sacrilege. Catholics, obviously coming to the latter conclusion, favor images of the Christ, Mary, and the saints.
10. In a sort of postscript to the idol commandment, Jehovah makes it clear he will punish those who reject him while rewarding those who accept him and keep his commandments. Moreover, he will punish and reward the descendants. Collective guilt is a common theme in ancient times and in the Bible. The individual counted for little, save as a member of a family and tribe. When a member of a family or tribe committed an offense, it was common for the whole family or tribe to pay for it. With Jehovah, a son, a grandson, perhaps even a great-grandson are to suffer for the sins of the father. This seems unfair to modern sensibilities, but quite acceptable morally to most ancient peoples. Jehovah is certainly OK with it.
11. The contract, a promise to do this or that, to pay or perform a service, is a significant element in the establishment of civilization. In preliterate societies there was no such thing as a written contract. Even when written language was invented, most people would not know how to read or write and all but important contracts would remain verbal. Thus, the critical importance of oaths, a replacement for the written contract and the "Submit" button. The swearing commandment is about this, not using Jehovah's name to take an oath that will not be honored or which is frivolous or insincere. It has nothing to do with cussing. Interestingly, there is no condemnation of breaking any oath that was sworn in the name of someone other than Jehovah. (Violating the Hippocratic Oath, still taken today by physicians, would not then be a commandment breaker, for it is sworn by Apollo.)
12. The Sabbath commandment is really the only commandment that had been already laid down by Jehovah earlier. Strict observance seems to be demanded. It is important to remember that the Sabbath is from Friday evening to Saturday evening, as those practicing Judaism observe it today. The Sunday Sabbath was established by Christian theologians centuries after the crucifixion. One wonders why those who regard the commandments as derived from God would approve and abide by an alteration in those commandments made by men with self-serving interests. (The change was basically a public relations move to distinguish Christianity from Judaism.)
13. The first four commandments (by Protestant reckoning) concern only Jehovah and the demands he makes of his followers. Save for keeping oaths, there is little moral component here. They are all about Jehovah protecting his turf, preserving his interests and prerogatives, and ensuring his importance in the lives of his devotees.
14. "Honoring" one's father and mother is the usual translation for the parental commandment, but "honor" as it is used today is too strong a word. Honoring someone involves how we feel about him or her. How can you command feelings? Save for the last one, the Ten Commandments are not about attitudes, feelings, thoughts, intentions, but about actions. Honoring an unworthy, perhaps despicable and dishonorable parent does not seem fitting. However, treating that parent with respect, regardless of how you feel about them or what you think of them, is proper and that is what is demanded. In a tribalistic, traditional, clan-oriented society familial respect is always very important.
15. The commandment prohibiting killing or murdering requires a knowledge of the implied subtext to be really meaningful. It does not prohibit killing per se. Killing what, a cockroach, a yearling steer? It would have been understood that it meant the unlawful killing of a human being, what we regard as murder and also much of what we see as manslaughter. It certainly would not have prohibited killing an enemy in battle, executing a criminal, or killing in self-defense, or, for that matter, some vengeance killing. But the Hebrews took a less lenient attitude than we do to varieties of manslaughter such as accidental death, and so some types of manslaughter would be considered unlawful killing.
16. The adultery commandment is also more nuanced than one might expect. While other forms of sexual misconduct might be considered wrong, the Hebrews had a definite idea of what constituted adultery. The commandment only addresses a man having sexual relations with a woman who is married or betrothed, and, who, therefore, is the property of another man. That man has an absolute right to expect exclusivity in regard to her favors and certainty that her children are his and not another man's. Society and the family structure is contingent upon this. On the other hand, a husband calling upon a prostitute or having sex with his slave is not a threat to society. --- This is the first commandment that is directed exclusively toward men. The adulterous woman is apparently not violating the Ten Commandments, (but she would probably be stoned to death anyway). One may regard the commandments as enumerating capital offenses, serious felonies. Lesser crimes and offenses are to be itemized later in some detail.
17. The stealing commandment has been mistranslated and misunderstood. It is not "do not steal," but rather "do not steal away." It would have been understood by the ancient Hebrews that the reference is to the abduction of persons for the purpose of enslaving them or selling them into slavery. It is necessary to add this explanation in the translation to make sense of the commandment. Illustrated by the story of Joseph, whose brothers sold him into slavery, this was a common crime and detestable even to a society that approved of slavery. We regard kidnapping as a capital offense, and it would be surprising if a crime of such seriousness were not included among the Ten Commandments. It is most likely, though, that this pertained only to one's own people. One must remember that with all tribal societies, a person has different relations and moral obligations to one's own people than he has to neighbors who are not of one's own tribe, and to foreigners who are not neighbors and perhaps enemies. Stealing a sheep from a fellow Israelite would be very wrong indeed, stealing a sheep from a neighboring Canaanite would be imprudent, stealing a sheep from an enemy Amalekite would be an act of heroism. It is also unlikely that kidnapping an Amalekite and selling him as a slave to an Edomite would be considered a wrong sufficient to be a commandment violation.
18. The ancient Hebrews appreciated, as we do, the moral difference between mere lying and committing perjury, testifying falsely and maliciously. It is more serious because perjury causes great harm, perhaps the unjust conviction and execution of an innocent person, and undermines even the most primitive legal system. It is likely that this obligation would pertain to a neighbor, but not necessarily to a foreign enemy. --- There is a considerable history of Hebrew patriarchs telling lies and practicing deception; even Abraham was anything but "Honest Abe." The Greeks didn't place a great premium on truth telling either (eg. Odysseus), but the Persians and later, the Romans valued absolute honesty very highly.
19. The so-called coveting commandment is the only one that does not involve action. It is a thought crime and it is hard to see how it could prosecuted. The prohibition is most likely not just against wanting or craving in a casual way, but desiring, even plotting, to acquire illegally, to steal or appropriate.
20. Wives are including among the property that one should not desire to appropriate. It must be remembered that women were considered the possessions of their fathers and husbands. One gains the impression they were barely people, yet, ironically, the Bible is filled with strong and influential women. The myths of pre-classical Greece and the epics of Homer are similarly populated with significant and powerful women, some of them goddesses, but in classical Greece women, unless they were courtesans, had little stature or influence. In ancient Persia there is little historical or archaeological evidence that women even existed, while in Egypt the situation is radically different: some of the best remembered Egyptians were women, Pharaohs even, like Hatshepsut.
21. Not making the cut as a commandment was the off-repeated demand of Jehovah for circumcision. Also in the commandments there is also no expressed prohibition of treason, slavery, wife-beating, abortion, sodomy, fraud, reneging on a contract, pre-marital sex, sorcery and divination, or heresy. Some of these things will be gotten to later.
22. One wonders whether those living before the receipt of the Ten Commandments could be guilty of their violation. Were these laws always in force, or did they only come into effect after Moses presented them to his people? For instance, was the murderer Cain guilty of a crime, if Jehovah had not yet proscribed murder?
23. Jehovah in his past behavior hardly lived up to his own laws and he regularly encouraged his people to violate them, or at least tolerated their violation. He committed murder on a vast scale. He encouraged, if not commanded the Israelites to appropriate Egyptian property. He didn't punish most of those guilty of breaking his commandments, although he did try to kill Moses for not circumcising his son soon enough.
24. The Ten Commandments were a set of rules devised for a small, primitive tribe of nomads living in the 2nd Millennium B.C. supposedly given to them by their god, who, if he existed, was most likely a human from either an advanced earth society or an extraterrestrial civilization. While all peoples, even primitive ones, have laws, what is remarkable about the Hebrew ones is that they were written down, preserved, and cherished. (It is totally astonishing that so many in the 21st Century, even those of education and sophistication, regard them as an infallible and absolute guide to behavior!) It is most probable that the commandments and the system of laws and customs recorded in the Bible were developed over a period of time, even if it is very possible that Moses was the original law giver. In modern society laws have authority because they are written by an elected legislature or mandated by an autocrat. In ancient times the origin of laws was often ascribed to the divine. King Minos, the lawgiver of ancient Crete ascended Mount Dicta to receive laws from Zeus. The Spartan Lycurgus got his laws from Apollo, while Numa Pompilius of early Rome was schooled by a nymph. Zoroaster, very much like Moses, ascended a mountain and was presented with the Zend Avesta, the word of the single universal god Ahura-mazda. The Greek Bacchus also seemed to have experienced divine communion similar to what Moses knew and came down from a mountain with two tablets inscribed with laws. Perhaps these are retellings of the same story or variations of an archetypal myth embedded in the collective unconscious.
Saturday, September 12, 2015
Cities of Refuge
(Deuteronomy 4:41 - 4:43)
Moses then designated three cities of refuge east of the River Jordan. Anyone guilty of killing someone unintentionally (without there being any past enmity against the victim) might flee there and live safely. These are: for the tribe of Reuben, Bezer on the desert plateau, for the tribe of Gad, Ramoth in Gilead, and for the tribe of Manasseh, Golan in Bashan.
Notes
1. Why the author chooses to interrupt Moses' address at this point with what is a relatively unimportant matter, designation of the cities of refuge, is baffling. In Numbers it was established that three cities of refuge would be established east of the Jordan (and three west of the Jordan). Here they are specifically named.
2. Bezer, the Reubenite city, was probably situated 12 miles north of Heshbon, in the northeast part of Reubenite territory, although its location has not been positively determined. Ramoth, the Gadite city, is also far to the east on about the same parallel as the southern shore of the Sea of Galilee. Golan in Gilead, the refuge in Mannasseh's territory, about even with the northern coast of the Sea of Galilee, is not far to the northwest of Ramoth. All of these sites seem a bit off the beaten path and pretty far from the River Jordan.
3. The reason for these cities of refuge is this: according to Jehovan law killing someone accidentally, unintentionally, is not a capital offense, but, according to traditional law, it is. Apparently, enforcement of Jehovah's law was insufficient to thwart the longstanding custom of blood vengeance, family members avenging deaths irrespective of whether the killer was morally and legally culpable. If someone caused a death, no matter how, a member of the victim's family was charged with avenging that death by taking the life of the perpetrator. There was dishonor in not doing so. The practice is commonly found in traditional societies around the world, and despite inevitable conflict with institutionalized legal systems, it has persisted into modern times. Such ingrained, atavistic attitudes have always been difficult to uproot. Imposing upon a people a new set of laws, or a new religion, will rarely displace them totally. Even Jehovah and Moses recognized this.
Moses then designated three cities of refuge east of the River Jordan. Anyone guilty of killing someone unintentionally (without there being any past enmity against the victim) might flee there and live safely. These are: for the tribe of Reuben, Bezer on the desert plateau, for the tribe of Gad, Ramoth in Gilead, and for the tribe of Manasseh, Golan in Bashan.
Notes
1. Why the author chooses to interrupt Moses' address at this point with what is a relatively unimportant matter, designation of the cities of refuge, is baffling. In Numbers it was established that three cities of refuge would be established east of the Jordan (and three west of the Jordan). Here they are specifically named.
2. Bezer, the Reubenite city, was probably situated 12 miles north of Heshbon, in the northeast part of Reubenite territory, although its location has not been positively determined. Ramoth, the Gadite city, is also far to the east on about the same parallel as the southern shore of the Sea of Galilee. Golan in Gilead, the refuge in Mannasseh's territory, about even with the northern coast of the Sea of Galilee, is not far to the northwest of Ramoth. All of these sites seem a bit off the beaten path and pretty far from the River Jordan.
3. The reason for these cities of refuge is this: according to Jehovan law killing someone accidentally, unintentionally, is not a capital offense, but, according to traditional law, it is. Apparently, enforcement of Jehovah's law was insufficient to thwart the longstanding custom of blood vengeance, family members avenging deaths irrespective of whether the killer was morally and legally culpable. If someone caused a death, no matter how, a member of the victim's family was charged with avenging that death by taking the life of the perpetrator. There was dishonor in not doing so. The practice is commonly found in traditional societies around the world, and despite inevitable conflict with institutionalized legal systems, it has persisted into modern times. Such ingrained, atavistic attitudes have always been difficult to uproot. Imposing upon a people a new set of laws, or a new religion, will rarely displace them totally. Even Jehovah and Moses recognized this.
Condemnation of Idolatry
(Deuteronomy 4:15 - 4:40)
On the day at Horeb when Jehovah spoke to you from out of the fire you glimpsed not his form. Therefore, take great care to ensure that you craft for yourselves no idol in the likeness of any figure, either male or female, any animal on earth, any bird that flies through the air, any creature that creeps along the ground, or any fish that swims in the seas below. And when you look up into the sky and gaze at the sun, the moon, the stars, all the heavenly bodies, don't be tempted to worship and serve them, for Jehovah your god created them to benefit all the peoples under the heavens. Remember that Jehovah rescued you and brought you out of the iron-smelting furnace, out of Egypt, to be the people that are his inheritors, as indeed you are now.
"Jehovah was angry with me because of you and vowed that I would not cross the Jordan and enter the land he is giving you as an inheritance. I must die here in this land and not cross the Jordan. But you are about to make the crossing and take possession of that fine land. Be careful not to forget the pact that Jehovah your god made with you and craft an idol in the form of anything Jehovah your god has forbidden to you. For Jehovah your god is a consuming fire, a jealous god.
"When you have fathered children and grandchildren and have grown old in the land, if you then become corrupt and make any kind of idol, doing evil in the eyes of Jehovah and arousing his ire, I call upon the earth and sky this day to be witnesses against you -- you will quickly disappear from the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live on it, but will be utterly destroyed. Jehovah will then scatter you among other countries, where only a few of you will survive. There you will worship gods made by men out of wood and stone, gods that cannot see or hear, eat or smell. But from there you will still seek Jehovah your god, and if you search for him with all your heart and soul, you will find him. When in times of trouble, after you have endured all these things, you will, in future times, come back to Jehovah your god and hearken to his voice. Jehovah your god is a forgiving god; he will not abandon you or destroy you or forget the solemn pact made with your ancestors that he swore to honor.
"Search back in history, to the days before you were born, to the time that God created man on earth, search from one end of the heavens to another to see if an event as great as this has ever happened or if anything like it has ever been heard of. Did any people ever hear the voice of their god speaking from the midst of a fire and remain alive? Has any god dare to wrest one nation from the heart of another, by trials and tribulations, by miracles and wonders, by war and power and might and awesome acts of terror, all of which Jehovah your god did for you in Egypt -- right before your very eyes!
"You were shown these things so that you might know that Jehovah is God and that there is no other god save him. He let you hear his voice from Heaven so that he might enlighten you. On earth he showed you his great fire, and you heard his words from the midst of the fire. Because he loved your ancestors and made their descendants his Chosen People, he brought you out of Egypt personally with a manifestation of his divine power. He expelled nations stronger and more powerful than you so that he could give you their land as a possession, as it is today.
“Know this today and keep it firmly in mind: Jehovah is god of Heaven above and earth below. There is no other. Therefore, observe his statutes and decrees that I am giving you today, so it will go well with you and, after you, your children and that you may always find long life in the land that Jehovah your god has given you."
Notes
1. We gain the impression that the ancients found the temptation to create and worship idols irresistible and that to worship an invisible god without a tangible form necessitated rigorous self-sacrifice and discipline. For the modern this is hard to understand, although it does seems much more fun to have statues and likenesses of the deity one worships. The Orthodox Christians with their icons, the Catholics with their Christs on the cross and pictures of the Virgin Mary, obviously think so. Even the Protestants cherish their idealized portraits of a Jesus looking like a long-haired Renaissance prince.
2. Worshiping heavenly bodies was common among primitive and ancient peoples. They had no idea of how far away they were, what they consisted of, or how they moved across the sky. The authors of the Bible knew only a flat earth covered by a dome (firmament) with all the heavenly bodies moving upon or below it.
3. Among the numerous anachronisms in the Books of Moses is this reference to "iron-smelting furnace." (Some translations say “iron furnace,” but it seems more likely that the furnace was not one made of iron, but one that would create iron; that is, a very hot one.) Iron would have been unknown to Moses. No matter where we put him chronologically, we have to put him in the Bronze Age. An iron-smelting furnace would not exist for many centuries. The authors of Deuteronomy, writing many hundreds of years after Moses, probably had very little knowledge of such history and assumed that people in the past lived in the same manner as people in the present -- a common error. A sense of history is a relatively recent acquisition. For example, the stories of King Arthur convert a post-Roman warlord of the Dark Ages into a chivalrous monarch of the high Medieval Ages.
4. Moses condemns idolatry because the images are only wood and stone and aren't real. My, how literal (and obtusely modern) we are! It is remarkable how he and/or the authors can miss the point of idolatry. The idol, the statue, the carving, whatever, is never the god itself. It is a representation of the god that furnishes the means by which to focus one's prayers, to communicate or perhaps achieve communion with the god. Or it can be, like the statues in pagan temples, a receptacle to house the spirit of the god when it descends to earth (like the judgment seat in the Inner Sanctum of the Tabernacle or, later, the Temple.)
5. Moses pleads the superiority of Jehovah because he is so near to his people and personally fights for them. The Greek gods seem to have been at call as well, at least in early times. According to Homer's Iliad several of them participated in the Trojan War, fighting on both sides. The Egyptian gods, though, seemed to have let their people down. There were scarcely in evidence during the Exodus -- but then, might they have helped with all that pyramid building?
6. Jehovah is described as speaking from the middle of a fire. This fire doesn't seem to consume anything or even to be hot. Perhaps some other physical phenomenon unknown to the witnesses and the authors is being referred to. Jehovah's fire is probable something other than an ordinary flame.
7. Moses asks his people to find an event more miraculous than the appearance of Jehovah and their liberation from Egypt. The people he is speaking to were either children at the time they left Egypt, or else they were born during the 40 years of wandering. How could these people have any knowledge of history or, what we would term, current events? It is unlikely that any of the living Israelites save Moses would have been able to read Egyptian hieroglyphics, and Moses probably hadn't taken a library of scrolls with him on the Exodus. During the 40 years of wandering, the Israelites had minimal contact with other peoples and none of it of an intellectual nature. Such an isolated, illiterate, generally ignorant people could only be acquainted with a little oral folk history, mostly concerning their own people; they would, therefore, be poor judges of the uniqueness of Jehovah's miracles nor would they have had any means by which they could compare them to events in other nations' histories. (Maybe Moses was speaking rhetorically.)
8. In praising the reality of Jehovah, Moses claims that the god sees, hears, smells, and eats. While spirit beings see and hear and perhaps smell, they certainly don't eat. Moses is describing a human being, not the spirit we understand to be God. While the Israelites did not see his form, there is no suggestion that he did not have one. On one occasion, described in Exodus, Moses was permitted to glimpse Jehovah's back. Jehovah was obviously humanoid, but since Jehovah seemed anxious to hide his visage, one could speculate that his face might not have been entirely human, or was deformed -- or merely ugly.
9. There is a continual confusion about who Jehovah is. At times he is God, Elohim, the creator of earth and man, while, more often, he is simply a national god among many other national gods. This contradiction remains, but the worshipers of Jehovah seemed content to leave it unresolved. It is proclaimed here that Jehovah is the one and only god, and yet there are continual references to other gods, to their inferiority and inadequacy -- but not their non-existence.
On the day at Horeb when Jehovah spoke to you from out of the fire you glimpsed not his form. Therefore, take great care to ensure that you craft for yourselves no idol in the likeness of any figure, either male or female, any animal on earth, any bird that flies through the air, any creature that creeps along the ground, or any fish that swims in the seas below. And when you look up into the sky and gaze at the sun, the moon, the stars, all the heavenly bodies, don't be tempted to worship and serve them, for Jehovah your god created them to benefit all the peoples under the heavens. Remember that Jehovah rescued you and brought you out of the iron-smelting furnace, out of Egypt, to be the people that are his inheritors, as indeed you are now.
"Jehovah was angry with me because of you and vowed that I would not cross the Jordan and enter the land he is giving you as an inheritance. I must die here in this land and not cross the Jordan. But you are about to make the crossing and take possession of that fine land. Be careful not to forget the pact that Jehovah your god made with you and craft an idol in the form of anything Jehovah your god has forbidden to you. For Jehovah your god is a consuming fire, a jealous god.
"When you have fathered children and grandchildren and have grown old in the land, if you then become corrupt and make any kind of idol, doing evil in the eyes of Jehovah and arousing his ire, I call upon the earth and sky this day to be witnesses against you -- you will quickly disappear from the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live on it, but will be utterly destroyed. Jehovah will then scatter you among other countries, where only a few of you will survive. There you will worship gods made by men out of wood and stone, gods that cannot see or hear, eat or smell. But from there you will still seek Jehovah your god, and if you search for him with all your heart and soul, you will find him. When in times of trouble, after you have endured all these things, you will, in future times, come back to Jehovah your god and hearken to his voice. Jehovah your god is a forgiving god; he will not abandon you or destroy you or forget the solemn pact made with your ancestors that he swore to honor.
"Search back in history, to the days before you were born, to the time that God created man on earth, search from one end of the heavens to another to see if an event as great as this has ever happened or if anything like it has ever been heard of. Did any people ever hear the voice of their god speaking from the midst of a fire and remain alive? Has any god dare to wrest one nation from the heart of another, by trials and tribulations, by miracles and wonders, by war and power and might and awesome acts of terror, all of which Jehovah your god did for you in Egypt -- right before your very eyes!
"You were shown these things so that you might know that Jehovah is God and that there is no other god save him. He let you hear his voice from Heaven so that he might enlighten you. On earth he showed you his great fire, and you heard his words from the midst of the fire. Because he loved your ancestors and made their descendants his Chosen People, he brought you out of Egypt personally with a manifestation of his divine power. He expelled nations stronger and more powerful than you so that he could give you their land as a possession, as it is today.
“Know this today and keep it firmly in mind: Jehovah is god of Heaven above and earth below. There is no other. Therefore, observe his statutes and decrees that I am giving you today, so it will go well with you and, after you, your children and that you may always find long life in the land that Jehovah your god has given you."
Notes
1. We gain the impression that the ancients found the temptation to create and worship idols irresistible and that to worship an invisible god without a tangible form necessitated rigorous self-sacrifice and discipline. For the modern this is hard to understand, although it does seems much more fun to have statues and likenesses of the deity one worships. The Orthodox Christians with their icons, the Catholics with their Christs on the cross and pictures of the Virgin Mary, obviously think so. Even the Protestants cherish their idealized portraits of a Jesus looking like a long-haired Renaissance prince.
2. Worshiping heavenly bodies was common among primitive and ancient peoples. They had no idea of how far away they were, what they consisted of, or how they moved across the sky. The authors of the Bible knew only a flat earth covered by a dome (firmament) with all the heavenly bodies moving upon or below it.
3. Among the numerous anachronisms in the Books of Moses is this reference to "iron-smelting furnace." (Some translations say “iron furnace,” but it seems more likely that the furnace was not one made of iron, but one that would create iron; that is, a very hot one.) Iron would have been unknown to Moses. No matter where we put him chronologically, we have to put him in the Bronze Age. An iron-smelting furnace would not exist for many centuries. The authors of Deuteronomy, writing many hundreds of years after Moses, probably had very little knowledge of such history and assumed that people in the past lived in the same manner as people in the present -- a common error. A sense of history is a relatively recent acquisition. For example, the stories of King Arthur convert a post-Roman warlord of the Dark Ages into a chivalrous monarch of the high Medieval Ages.
4. Moses condemns idolatry because the images are only wood and stone and aren't real. My, how literal (and obtusely modern) we are! It is remarkable how he and/or the authors can miss the point of idolatry. The idol, the statue, the carving, whatever, is never the god itself. It is a representation of the god that furnishes the means by which to focus one's prayers, to communicate or perhaps achieve communion with the god. Or it can be, like the statues in pagan temples, a receptacle to house the spirit of the god when it descends to earth (like the judgment seat in the Inner Sanctum of the Tabernacle or, later, the Temple.)
5. Moses pleads the superiority of Jehovah because he is so near to his people and personally fights for them. The Greek gods seem to have been at call as well, at least in early times. According to Homer's Iliad several of them participated in the Trojan War, fighting on both sides. The Egyptian gods, though, seemed to have let their people down. There were scarcely in evidence during the Exodus -- but then, might they have helped with all that pyramid building?
6. Jehovah is described as speaking from the middle of a fire. This fire doesn't seem to consume anything or even to be hot. Perhaps some other physical phenomenon unknown to the witnesses and the authors is being referred to. Jehovah's fire is probable something other than an ordinary flame.
7. Moses asks his people to find an event more miraculous than the appearance of Jehovah and their liberation from Egypt. The people he is speaking to were either children at the time they left Egypt, or else they were born during the 40 years of wandering. How could these people have any knowledge of history or, what we would term, current events? It is unlikely that any of the living Israelites save Moses would have been able to read Egyptian hieroglyphics, and Moses probably hadn't taken a library of scrolls with him on the Exodus. During the 40 years of wandering, the Israelites had minimal contact with other peoples and none of it of an intellectual nature. Such an isolated, illiterate, generally ignorant people could only be acquainted with a little oral folk history, mostly concerning their own people; they would, therefore, be poor judges of the uniqueness of Jehovah's miracles nor would they have had any means by which they could compare them to events in other nations' histories. (Maybe Moses was speaking rhetorically.)
8. In praising the reality of Jehovah, Moses claims that the god sees, hears, smells, and eats. While spirit beings see and hear and perhaps smell, they certainly don't eat. Moses is describing a human being, not the spirit we understand to be God. While the Israelites did not see his form, there is no suggestion that he did not have one. On one occasion, described in Exodus, Moses was permitted to glimpse Jehovah's back. Jehovah was obviously humanoid, but since Jehovah seemed anxious to hide his visage, one could speculate that his face might not have been entirely human, or was deformed -- or merely ugly.
9. There is a continual confusion about who Jehovah is. At times he is God, Elohim, the creator of earth and man, while, more often, he is simply a national god among many other national gods. This contradiction remains, but the worshipers of Jehovah seemed content to leave it unresolved. It is proclaimed here that Jehovah is the one and only god, and yet there are continual references to other gods, to their inferiority and inadequacy -- but not their non-existence.
Obedience to the Law
(Deuteronomy 4:1 - 4:14)
"Now, Israel, listen to the statutes and decrees I will teach you," declared Moses. “Obey them so that you may prosper when you enter and occupy the land that Jehovah, the god of your ancestors, is giving you. Neither add to my commands nor subtract from them, but keep the commandments of your god Jehovah that I am giving you. You witnessed what Jehovah did at Baal Peor, for Jehovah your god destroyed every man among you who worshiped the local god of Peor. But those who remained faithful to Jehovah your god are still alive today -- every one of you.
"I have taught you these statutes and decrees just as Jehovah your god commanded me, so that you may obey them in the land you are about to enter and occupy. If you observe them faithfully, it will display your wisdom and intelligence to other countries who, when they hear of all these laws, will say, 'This a great nation, to be sure, a wise and intelligent people!' For what other country is so great that it has a god near to it, as Jehovah our god is near to us whenever we call upon him? And what country is so great that it has statutes and decrees as just and fair as the body of law I am presenting to you today?
"But be on your guard! You must be conscientious so as not to forget what you have experienced. As long as you live, let not these memories fade from your mind. Be sure to pass them on to your children and, after them, your grandchildren. Never forget the day when you stood before Jehovah your god at the mountain in Horeb where he told me, 'Assemble the people before me so that they may hear my words and revere me all the days of their lives -- and teach their children to do so as well.' You drew near and stood at the foot of the mountain, blazing with a fire that reached to the heights of heaven and engulfed it in clouds of darkness and gloom. Jehovah spoke to you from out of the fire. You heard the sound of his words, but you couldn't see his form; there was only the voice. He announced the pact requiring you to obey ten commandments that he had inscribed on two tablets of stone. And at that time Jehovah instructed me to teach you the statutes and decrees so that you may observe them in the land you will enter and occupy."
Notes
1. While demanding the people obey the laws, Moses also uses his address to give his people a pep talk, something that he hitherto has done little of. He tells them what a great god they have, one that takes a personal interest in them and is always near at hand, and that the laws they live by mark them as a superior people, wiser and more intelligent than their neighbors. While it's a moot point whether the laws of the Israelites were superior to those of Babylon and Egypt, it seems a stretch that the Israelites can claim credit for wisdom because of them. They were supposedly given these laws. They did not work to acquire them. Their chiefs and wise men did not devise them with careful thought nor did their society formulate them with the sense and judgment that results from experience. They are, though, compelled to observe them by their god or else suffer severe punishment. They cannot question the laws, amend them, reject what is useless and outdated, or legislate new laws by common consent. They have no say in what laws bind them, but must simply obey the laws imposed upon them. These are not laws for the wise and intelligent, these are laws for the complaisant and sheeplike. (In fairness to the Israelites, though, it seems much more likely that their code of religious law, most of it at any rate, was of their own creation, rather than being a gift from Jehovah. If such is the case, they must at least earn our admiration. And if Moses were really a law-maker, rather than a law-giver, then he justly deserves the prominent place in legal history he is often accorded.)
2. Moses describes the encounter with Jehovah on the mountain in Sinai (Horeb). The fire and dark cloud (or smoke) referred to has often been attributed to a volcano, but it should be noted that there has been no volcanic activity in the Sinai during historical times, (and it seems unlikely that the nation of Israel would remain encamped at the foot of an erupting volcano). The description is much more evocative of a rocket-powered vehicle landing or taking off. Jehovah's disembodied voice might have emanated from a loud speaker while Jehovah remained within the vehicle, not showing himself. This would be consistent with the theory that Jehovah was a human from an extraterrestrial or advanced earth civilization.
3. Moses also refers to the pact between Jehovah and the Israelites that demands the latter obey the Ten Commandments. These have been written on two stone tablets. Moses does not specify in what language, for it would be centuries before the Hebrew language would appear, nor whether they were written in Egyptian hieroglyphics or Sumerian cuneiform, the only forms of writing used at that time.
4. Moses asks his people to remember when they were at the foot of the mountain in Sinai and received the Ten Commandments. Moses has apparently forgotten that only three of the adult men who were there are still alive. He is thus appealing to childhood memories of the older citizens. He cites Baal Peor when some Israelites corrupted themselves by worshiping the local god. They were killed outright, but all of the male Israelite adults died out at the end of the 40 years of wandering. After Baal Peor Jehovah only spared them temporarily, for he caused them all to perish by the time the Promised Land was eventually entered. (All, of course, save Joshua and Caleb.) Moses mentions this extermination earlier in his speech in Deuteronomy and it was emphasized in Numbers. Moses thus directly contradicts himself and the established "historical" account by saying that those who remained faithful to Jehovah are still alive, unless he means by "every one of you" just Joshua and Caleb. Why the authors did not detect and correct this blatant inconsistency in their narrative is a mystery. But believers can rest assured that Bible commentaries possess an infinite and infallible ability to deftly explain away the most egregious textual contradictions.
"Now, Israel, listen to the statutes and decrees I will teach you," declared Moses. “Obey them so that you may prosper when you enter and occupy the land that Jehovah, the god of your ancestors, is giving you. Neither add to my commands nor subtract from them, but keep the commandments of your god Jehovah that I am giving you. You witnessed what Jehovah did at Baal Peor, for Jehovah your god destroyed every man among you who worshiped the local god of Peor. But those who remained faithful to Jehovah your god are still alive today -- every one of you.
"I have taught you these statutes and decrees just as Jehovah your god commanded me, so that you may obey them in the land you are about to enter and occupy. If you observe them faithfully, it will display your wisdom and intelligence to other countries who, when they hear of all these laws, will say, 'This a great nation, to be sure, a wise and intelligent people!' For what other country is so great that it has a god near to it, as Jehovah our god is near to us whenever we call upon him? And what country is so great that it has statutes and decrees as just and fair as the body of law I am presenting to you today?
"But be on your guard! You must be conscientious so as not to forget what you have experienced. As long as you live, let not these memories fade from your mind. Be sure to pass them on to your children and, after them, your grandchildren. Never forget the day when you stood before Jehovah your god at the mountain in Horeb where he told me, 'Assemble the people before me so that they may hear my words and revere me all the days of their lives -- and teach their children to do so as well.' You drew near and stood at the foot of the mountain, blazing with a fire that reached to the heights of heaven and engulfed it in clouds of darkness and gloom. Jehovah spoke to you from out of the fire. You heard the sound of his words, but you couldn't see his form; there was only the voice. He announced the pact requiring you to obey ten commandments that he had inscribed on two tablets of stone. And at that time Jehovah instructed me to teach you the statutes and decrees so that you may observe them in the land you will enter and occupy."
Notes
1. While demanding the people obey the laws, Moses also uses his address to give his people a pep talk, something that he hitherto has done little of. He tells them what a great god they have, one that takes a personal interest in them and is always near at hand, and that the laws they live by mark them as a superior people, wiser and more intelligent than their neighbors. While it's a moot point whether the laws of the Israelites were superior to those of Babylon and Egypt, it seems a stretch that the Israelites can claim credit for wisdom because of them. They were supposedly given these laws. They did not work to acquire them. Their chiefs and wise men did not devise them with careful thought nor did their society formulate them with the sense and judgment that results from experience. They are, though, compelled to observe them by their god or else suffer severe punishment. They cannot question the laws, amend them, reject what is useless and outdated, or legislate new laws by common consent. They have no say in what laws bind them, but must simply obey the laws imposed upon them. These are not laws for the wise and intelligent, these are laws for the complaisant and sheeplike. (In fairness to the Israelites, though, it seems much more likely that their code of religious law, most of it at any rate, was of their own creation, rather than being a gift from Jehovah. If such is the case, they must at least earn our admiration. And if Moses were really a law-maker, rather than a law-giver, then he justly deserves the prominent place in legal history he is often accorded.)
2. Moses describes the encounter with Jehovah on the mountain in Sinai (Horeb). The fire and dark cloud (or smoke) referred to has often been attributed to a volcano, but it should be noted that there has been no volcanic activity in the Sinai during historical times, (and it seems unlikely that the nation of Israel would remain encamped at the foot of an erupting volcano). The description is much more evocative of a rocket-powered vehicle landing or taking off. Jehovah's disembodied voice might have emanated from a loud speaker while Jehovah remained within the vehicle, not showing himself. This would be consistent with the theory that Jehovah was a human from an extraterrestrial or advanced earth civilization.
3. Moses also refers to the pact between Jehovah and the Israelites that demands the latter obey the Ten Commandments. These have been written on two stone tablets. Moses does not specify in what language, for it would be centuries before the Hebrew language would appear, nor whether they were written in Egyptian hieroglyphics or Sumerian cuneiform, the only forms of writing used at that time.
4. Moses asks his people to remember when they were at the foot of the mountain in Sinai and received the Ten Commandments. Moses has apparently forgotten that only three of the adult men who were there are still alive. He is thus appealing to childhood memories of the older citizens. He cites Baal Peor when some Israelites corrupted themselves by worshiping the local god. They were killed outright, but all of the male Israelite adults died out at the end of the 40 years of wandering. After Baal Peor Jehovah only spared them temporarily, for he caused them all to perish by the time the Promised Land was eventually entered. (All, of course, save Joshua and Caleb.) Moses mentions this extermination earlier in his speech in Deuteronomy and it was emphasized in Numbers. Moses thus directly contradicts himself and the established "historical" account by saying that those who remained faithful to Jehovah are still alive, unless he means by "every one of you" just Joshua and Caleb. Why the authors did not detect and correct this blatant inconsistency in their narrative is a mystery. But believers can rest assured that Bible commentaries possess an infinite and infallible ability to deftly explain away the most egregious textual contradictions.
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