(Deuteronomy (9:1 -10:11)
"Listen, O Israel: today you will be crossing the River Jordan to conquer nations stronger and more populous than you, great cities with fortifications that reach to the sky, and people who are giants, descendants of Anak, whom you know and of whom you have heard it said, 'Who can stand up against the Anakites?' Rest assured that Jehovah your god will go before you like a consuming fire to destroy them. He will subdue them so that you will be able to expel and annihilate them quickly, as Jehovah has promised you would.
"After Jehovah your god has expelled these people in advance of your entering the land, don't be thinking, 'Jehovah has brought us in to take over this land because of our righteousness.' No, it is because of the wickedness of other peoples that Jehovah is driving them out before you. It is not because of your righteous actions or upright character that are you are going to take possession of their land, but because of these nations' wickedness that Jehovah will drive them out before you and fulfill the promise he made to your forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
"Therefore, keep in mind that Jehovah is not giving you this good land to occupy because you are righteous, for you are not: you're a willful people. Remember and never forget how in the desert you aroused the ire of Jehovah your god. From the time you left Egypt until this day, you have been rebellious against Jehovah. Even at Horeb you made Jehovah angry, in fact he was so incensed he would have destroyed you. This occurred when I was on the mountain receiving the stone tablets, inscribed with the terms of the pact Jehovah had made with you. I was there on the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights; I ate no food and drank no water. Jehovah presented me with two stone tablets inscribed by the hand of God. On them were written all the words that Jehovah had spoken to you from out of the fire on the day of the assembly.
"At the end of the 40 days and 40 nights Jehovah gave me the two stone tablets that were the record of the pact. But Jehovah then told me, ‘Leave here at once and go back down, for the people you brought out of Egypt are corrupting themselves. They have quickly deserted the path I commanded them to follow. They’ve made for themselves an idol cast of metal!’ And he also confided to me, 'I have seen these people and they’re surely a pigheaded lot. Leave me alone so that I can exterminate them and erase their name from the memory of man. Then I will make from your descendants a nation that will be far stronger and larger than they are.'
"While it was blazing with fire, I left and came down the mountain, holding in my own two hands the two tablets inscribed with the terms of the pact. When I looked down I could see that you had sinned against Jehovah. You had cast an metal idol in the shape of a calf. How quickly had you deserted the path that Jehovah had commanded you to follow! So I took the two tablets and hurled them down, smashing them to bits before your eyes.
"Then, once again, I prostrated myself before Jehovah for another 40 days and 40 nights, neither eating food nor drinking water, because of the sin you had committed, doing what was wrong in Jehovah's eyes and arousing his anger. I was afraid of the ire and the outrage of Jehovah against you, for he seemed irate enough to destroy you. But again Jehovah listened to me. And Jehovah was angry enough to destroy Aaron, but at the same time I prayed for him, too. I took what you had made in sin, the calf, and burned it. I crushed it and pulverized it into powder as fine as dust and dumped it into a stream that flowed down the mountain.
"And you aroused Jehovah's ire at Taberah, Massah, and Kibroth Hattaavah. At Kadesh Barnea Jehovah sent you out, telling you, 'Go up and occupy the land I have given you.’ But you defied the authority of Jehovah your god. You wouldn't trust him or heed his commands. Indeed, you've been defiant of Jehovah for as long as I've known you.
"That is why I prostrated myself before Jehovah for 40 days and 40 nights, because Jehovah had said he would destroy you. I prayed to Jehovah and pleaded with him, ‘O my god Jehovah, do not destroy your people, your own inheritance that you saved and brought out of Egypt with your might and power. Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Please excuse the defiance of these people, their wickedness and sin, lest the country from which they were freed will declare, "Because Jehovah was incapable of bringing them into the land he had promised them, and because he hates them, he led them into the desert in order to put them to death.” But remember they are your people and your inheritance that you freed with your might and power.'
"At that time Jehovah told me, 'Cut two tablets of stone just like the first ones and make a chest of wood for them. Then come up to me on the mountain. I will inscribe on the tablets the same writing that were on the first set that you broke. You may then place them in the wooden chest.' And so I made a chest of acacia wood, cut two tablets just like the first set, and went up on the mountain with the tablets in my hands. Jehovah wrote on the tablets in the same words as before, the Ten Commandments that Jehovah spoke to you from out of the fire on that day when you were assembled at the foot of the mountain. And Jehovah gave them to me. Then I left, came down from the mountain, and put the tablets into the chest I had made, as Jehovah had commanded me. And there they remain."
(The Israelites journeyed from the wells of Bene Jaakan to Moserah. There Aaron died and was buried and was succeeded as high priest by his son Eleazar. From there they journeyed to Gudgodah, then to Jotbathah, a land of many streams. At that time Jehovah designated the tribe of Levi to carry the Jehovah's Chest of Sacred Records, to minister and worship before Jehovah's altar, and pronounce blessings in his name, as they do now. This is why the Levites have no share of the property or land given to the other tribes of Israel. Jehovah himself remains their particular inheritance, as Jehovah their god told them.)
"I myself remained on the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights, as I did the first time. And, as before, Jehovah listened to me and agreed not to destroy you. Then Jehovah said to me, "Get up and resume your journey and lead the people to the land I promised to give to their ancestors so they can enter and take possession of it."
Notes
1. Moses and the biblical authors are frustratingly non-specific about how Jehovah will aid the Israelites militarily. It is made to seem that, with Jehovah's help, the Israelites will able to totally conquer the Promised Land in a week or two, and yet it is also made clear that the expulsion and/or extermination of the native inhabitants will take place over a considerable period of time. The vagueness and the contradictions do not lend credibility to any claim that the invasion and occupation is historical; indeed, few historians believe that it is.
2. Moses goes up on the mountain and is without food and water for 40 days, on two occasions. Why was it necessary and how was it possible? Was he nourished in some other way? Or did, when he visited Jehovah, enter into another dimension during which a short period of time elapsed for Moses, but a long period (40 days) elapsed for the Israelites. (Such temporal discrepancies are common with those today who encounter or are abducted by supposed extraterrestrials and were also noted in the past by those who claimed to have visited fairyland.) Since no man can live for 40 days without water (twice!), the other alternative is that Moses, the Moses presented in the Bible, is an egregious liar.
3. Moses does not make too much of his prolonged fasting, although he blames the Israelites for having to do it twice. He makes no mention of the hardship it must have been for a man reportedly 80 years old to hike up and down a mountain so many times. He does not say how he wiled away his 40 days, although he seems to suggest that he spent it prostrated before Jehovah, who did not seem to tire of Moses' company.
4. Moses makes a pair of Ten Commandment stone tablets that are apparently identical to those made by Jehovah. (Considering their importance, why didn't Jehovah provide the hot-tempered Moses with an unbreakable set?) One would have thought that a god could have made superior tablets, but perhaps Moses was really good with his hands. How large, though, might the tablets have been to contain the full text of the Ten Commandments? Would they have been light enough for this old man to carry? And, the question asked many times before, how were they written, since the earliest Hebrew and the first alphabets were hundreds of years in the future? Did Jehovah write in Egyptian hieroglyphics, in the language of his enemy? The implausibilities and improbabilities, the historical inaccuracies and anachronisms must lead any reasonable person to come to the inevitable conclusion that the Ten Commandment story is not factual, but either a highly embellished yarn or a mere fairy tale.
5. There are several discrepancies between the story told here by Moses and that set down in Exodus, although the accounts are not substantially different. Here Moses fails to mention Joshua, who waited for Moses when he came down from the mountain and called his attention to racket made by the Golden Calf-adoring Israelites, thinking it was the clamor of war. In Exodus Moses inscribes the second set of tablets himself, but here Jehovah does the inscribing himself. A major contradiction involves the chest made for the Ten Commandment tablets. Here Moses makes a simple wooden box for them before he even receives the second set. (A handy man is the Moses of Deuteronomy.) In Exodus they are housed in the Chest of Sacred Records (Ark of the Covenant), elaborately crafted, lined with gold, with a lid adorned with the gold statues of winged figures and rings fitted for carrying staves. (Interesting that Moses was able to carry the tablets himself, while, once they were in the chest, it took at least four men to do so.) Here Moses brags about how he repeatedly spares the Israelites from Jehovah's destructive wrath, but conveniently fails to mention the indiscriminate slaughter he ordered after the Golden Calf incident. --- It should be mentioned that most scholars believe that Deuteronomy, or a draft of it, may have been written as early as the 10th Century BC, well before Exodus, which was probably composed in the 6th Century BC, after the Babylonian Captivity. Deuteronomy, therefore, may be presumed to be the more authentic account, but of what -- historical fact or sacred legend?
6. Jehovah excuses his championing of the people of Israel by saying they are not good at all, but merely less evil than the rest of the nations. And, rubbing it in, Moses reminds them of Jehovah’s intention to wipe them out and create a better nation out of Moses’ descendants. (How long would that have taken?) In the end he convinces Jehovah to spare the Israelites with the irresistible argument, “What would the Egyptians think?” Hearing all this must have been a great morale booster for the Israelites! Jehovah's jaundiced view of the character of his Chosen People may have been justified, but his own character, bordering on demonic and sociopathic, hardly qualified him as a judge of goodness.
7. As has been pointed out before, Moses speaks to his audience as if they had all participated in the Exodus from the beginning and had experienced the events he speaks of. All the men who had left Egypt, save Moses, Joshua, and Caleb, were now dead. None remaining can bear any personal responsibility for the instances of defiance and disobedience that Moses cites. Yet, he rails against them, when he should be addressing the dead. These sermons by Moses have the tinge of senior moment reminiscences.
8. At Taberah the Israelites became restive and Jehovah responded by burning those at the outskirts of the camp. At Massah the Israelites expressed their discontent over not having any water to drink. At Kibroth Hattaavah the Israelites griped about having to eat manna and lusted after some real meat. Jehovah then sent them a gazillion quails that caused a plague that killed many. Kadesh Barnea was the place from which Moses sent out scouts into the Promised Land. Distorted accounts made by most of the scouts caused the Israelites to balk at mounting the invasion of the Promised Land Jehovah demanded.
9. In what seem to be the author’s notes, it is stated that Aaron died and was buried at Moserah. In Numbers it is recorded that Aaron died on Mount Hor. The accounts are incompatible, for there is a great deal of distance between the two locations. One would think the Bible authors would get their stories straight, or that someone in 2500 years might have succumbed to the temptation of altering the text to make the narrative consistent.
Showing posts with label Ten Commandments. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ten Commandments. Show all posts
Friday, October 16, 2015
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.
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
Moses Communes Again with Jehovah on the Mountain
(Exodus 34:4 -34:35)
Moses cut two stone tablets just like the first pair. He rose early and went up Mount Sinai, as Jehovah had commanded him, and carried with him the tablets of stone. Jehovah descended to him in a cloud and stood near to him, uttering his own name “Jehovah.” When he passed before Moses, he proclaimed, “I am Jehovah, the god Jehovah, merciful and gracious, patient, ever compassionate and true, bestowing his never-changing love upon a thousand generations, forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin, yet by no means acquitting the guilty, but punishing the crimes of the parents through their children, their grandchildren, and their descendants to the third, even the fourth generation."
Moses quickly bowed his head and prostrated himself in worship. He prayed, "If I have found favor with you, then may Jehovah, my god, be with us. I know we are an unruly people, but please forgive our sinfulness and our transgressions and accept us as your legacy.”
Jehovah replied, "I make you a promise. I will perform for your people miracles such have not been accomplished in this world in any nation. All the peoples that you will come in contact with will witness Jehovah’s awesome power, for it will be a wondrous thing I will do with you.
“Obey the orders that I now give you and ahead of you I will expel the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hethites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. I warn you, make no treaties with the inhabitants of those lands through which you will pass, for such will only be ploys to entrap you. Smash their altars! Topple their pillars! Chop down the fertility poles dedicated to the goddess Asherah! Do not worship any other god, for Jehovah's name is jealousy and he's a jealous god. Make no treaties with the inhabitants of these countries, for when they debase themselves with their gods and make sacrifices to them, they may bid you to participate in them and partake of the sacrificial food. Moreover, do not allow your sons to marry their women, for when the wives debase themselves with their gods, they may induce their husbands to do likewise. Cast for yourselves no idols of molten metal!
"Keep the yearly Feast of Unleavened Bread as I have commanded you. Eat only unleavened bread at the appointed time, seven days during the month of Abib, for that was when I brought you out of Egypt. The first-born all belong to me, every first-born male, whether it be a calf or a lamb. The first-born of a donkey may have its place taken by a lamb, but, if not, you must kill it by snapping its neck. Your first-born male sons may be similarly exchanged. But in either case, you must not appear before me empty handed.
“Do your work in six days, but on the seventh cease from your labor, even during the season of the plowing and the season of the reaping. Keep the week-long Feast of First Fruits when you begin to pick the ripened fruit and the Harvest Feast when all is gathered in at the end of the year. Three times a year all the males should present themselves before Jehovah, the all-powerful god of Israel. And when I have expelled the peoples in your path and expanded your borders, you need not fear that anyone will occupy your land when you are absent celebrating the three yearly feasts.
“Do not mix leaven with the blood of sacrificial victims, nor should any food from the Passover feast be left uneaten by morning. The first fruits of the harvests should be brought to temple of your god Jehovah. Don't boil a kid in his mother's milk."
Jehovah instructed Moses, "Record these words for they comprise the terms of the agreement I have made with you and the people of Israel." Moses stayed with Jehovah for 40 days and 40 nights, during which time he took no food or drink. But he inscribed upon the tablets the words of the contract, the Ten Commandments.
When Moses descended from Mount Sinai carrying the two tablets of divine law inscribed in his own hand, he was unaware that, as a result of his communion with Jehovah, rays of light were emitting from his countenance. When Aaron and the rest of the Israelites saw how his face shone, they were afraid to come near Moses. Moses summoned them, Aaron and the leaders of Israel, and they returned to him so that he could converse with them. Afterwards, all the people of Israel drew near and were told that everything that Jehovah had communicated to Moses on the mountain. When Moses had finished speaking, he put a veil over his face.
(Whenever he entered the tent to speak to Jehovah Moses removed the veil and kept it off until he came out. When he did emerge and spoke to the people of Israel what he had been commanded, the Israelites would notice that Moses' face still shone, so Moses would don the veil again until such time as he would go in to speak to Jehovah.)
Notes
1. Jehovah, before Moses, praises his own mercy and forgiveness and, in the same breath, praises his punishment of not only the guilty, but the descendants of the guilty -- what modern sensibilities would regard not as merciful, but as grossly unjust and vindictive. But it must be remembered that the concept of collective and ancestral guilt was held by most ancient societies.
2. In his talk with Moses, Jehovah brags about all the wonders he will perform, including sweeping away all the native inhabitants so that the Israelites can occupy the land he has bequeathed them. In dealing with these foreign peoples does he encourage his people to be tolerant and respectful of their religious customs? Does he advise them to try to get along with their neighbors and make peace treaties with them? Does he encourage them to adapt and assimilate and intermarry? No, just the opposite. He advocates racial purity and superiority and perpetual warfare with their neighbors. And he reveals again his obsession with exclusive worship. Peoples who worship other gods can only be evil, and the Israelites must have nothing to do with them. The altars and temples of those other gods must be destroyed. This almost pathological animosity toward rival gods seems born of a vendetta. Was Jehovah personally acquainted with the foreign gods he so detests? Was he perhaps an outcast from their society? (He never claims they don't exist; he only claims primacy over them.)
3. Jehovah reiterates his insistence on the proper observance of the feasts dedicated to him. These seem to be of far more importance to him than any moral guidelines. He does not at this point exhort his people to love one another, to be honest, just, kind, or even hard-working, but only to be obedient to his commands concerning the proper observance of his festivals. Moreover, he insists upon claiming ownership rights to all the first-born males, payment for his assistance and patronage. Substitute sacrifices, though, are permitted and encouraged. The Israelites didn't have to slit the throat of their new-born baby sons: they could slaughter some poor lamb instead.
4. The first pair of tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments were written by Jehovah himself. The second set he makes Moses chisel out himself. Did Jehovah, who initially said he would make the second set himself, get writer's cramp or did he merely feel (with much justification) that if Moses was going to break the tablets he, Jehovah, had taken so much trouble inscribing, Moses could jolly well make the replacement set his own self, even if it took 40 days and 40 nights without sleep, food, or drink, to do it.
5. Moses has these additional 40 days and nights. Of what necessity was this great length of time during which it explicitly says Moses had nothing to eat or drink. Really. How did Jehovah accomplish this miracle? And why didn't he allow Moses to bring with him even a snack or a box lunch? When Moses is reported returning to his people, there is no comment on whether he was hungry or thirsty or if he had lost any weight.
6. When Moses comes down from the mountain he and his people are surprised to find that his face glows so much that beams of light are radiating from it. (Some translations mistake the description and have Moses growing horns!) Moses is so embarrassed and his people so disturbed by this phenomenon, that he veils his face in front of his people. No explanation is really given for this occurrence and no natural cause for it comes to mind. Was it due to his proximity to Jehovah or a result of the environment on the mountain or wherever else he may have been all that time. It is curious that this did not happen the first time Moses was 40 days and 40 nights on the mountain. What was so different about the second visit?
Moses cut two stone tablets just like the first pair. He rose early and went up Mount Sinai, as Jehovah had commanded him, and carried with him the tablets of stone. Jehovah descended to him in a cloud and stood near to him, uttering his own name “Jehovah.” When he passed before Moses, he proclaimed, “I am Jehovah, the god Jehovah, merciful and gracious, patient, ever compassionate and true, bestowing his never-changing love upon a thousand generations, forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin, yet by no means acquitting the guilty, but punishing the crimes of the parents through their children, their grandchildren, and their descendants to the third, even the fourth generation."
Moses quickly bowed his head and prostrated himself in worship. He prayed, "If I have found favor with you, then may Jehovah, my god, be with us. I know we are an unruly people, but please forgive our sinfulness and our transgressions and accept us as your legacy.”
Jehovah replied, "I make you a promise. I will perform for your people miracles such have not been accomplished in this world in any nation. All the peoples that you will come in contact with will witness Jehovah’s awesome power, for it will be a wondrous thing I will do with you.
“Obey the orders that I now give you and ahead of you I will expel the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hethites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. I warn you, make no treaties with the inhabitants of those lands through which you will pass, for such will only be ploys to entrap you. Smash their altars! Topple their pillars! Chop down the fertility poles dedicated to the goddess Asherah! Do not worship any other god, for Jehovah's name is jealousy and he's a jealous god. Make no treaties with the inhabitants of these countries, for when they debase themselves with their gods and make sacrifices to them, they may bid you to participate in them and partake of the sacrificial food. Moreover, do not allow your sons to marry their women, for when the wives debase themselves with their gods, they may induce their husbands to do likewise. Cast for yourselves no idols of molten metal!
"Keep the yearly Feast of Unleavened Bread as I have commanded you. Eat only unleavened bread at the appointed time, seven days during the month of Abib, for that was when I brought you out of Egypt. The first-born all belong to me, every first-born male, whether it be a calf or a lamb. The first-born of a donkey may have its place taken by a lamb, but, if not, you must kill it by snapping its neck. Your first-born male sons may be similarly exchanged. But in either case, you must not appear before me empty handed.
“Do your work in six days, but on the seventh cease from your labor, even during the season of the plowing and the season of the reaping. Keep the week-long Feast of First Fruits when you begin to pick the ripened fruit and the Harvest Feast when all is gathered in at the end of the year. Three times a year all the males should present themselves before Jehovah, the all-powerful god of Israel. And when I have expelled the peoples in your path and expanded your borders, you need not fear that anyone will occupy your land when you are absent celebrating the three yearly feasts.
“Do not mix leaven with the blood of sacrificial victims, nor should any food from the Passover feast be left uneaten by morning. The first fruits of the harvests should be brought to temple of your god Jehovah. Don't boil a kid in his mother's milk."
Jehovah instructed Moses, "Record these words for they comprise the terms of the agreement I have made with you and the people of Israel." Moses stayed with Jehovah for 40 days and 40 nights, during which time he took no food or drink. But he inscribed upon the tablets the words of the contract, the Ten Commandments.
When Moses descended from Mount Sinai carrying the two tablets of divine law inscribed in his own hand, he was unaware that, as a result of his communion with Jehovah, rays of light were emitting from his countenance. When Aaron and the rest of the Israelites saw how his face shone, they were afraid to come near Moses. Moses summoned them, Aaron and the leaders of Israel, and they returned to him so that he could converse with them. Afterwards, all the people of Israel drew near and were told that everything that Jehovah had communicated to Moses on the mountain. When Moses had finished speaking, he put a veil over his face.
(Whenever he entered the tent to speak to Jehovah Moses removed the veil and kept it off until he came out. When he did emerge and spoke to the people of Israel what he had been commanded, the Israelites would notice that Moses' face still shone, so Moses would don the veil again until such time as he would go in to speak to Jehovah.)
Notes
1. Jehovah, before Moses, praises his own mercy and forgiveness and, in the same breath, praises his punishment of not only the guilty, but the descendants of the guilty -- what modern sensibilities would regard not as merciful, but as grossly unjust and vindictive. But it must be remembered that the concept of collective and ancestral guilt was held by most ancient societies.
2. In his talk with Moses, Jehovah brags about all the wonders he will perform, including sweeping away all the native inhabitants so that the Israelites can occupy the land he has bequeathed them. In dealing with these foreign peoples does he encourage his people to be tolerant and respectful of their religious customs? Does he advise them to try to get along with their neighbors and make peace treaties with them? Does he encourage them to adapt and assimilate and intermarry? No, just the opposite. He advocates racial purity and superiority and perpetual warfare with their neighbors. And he reveals again his obsession with exclusive worship. Peoples who worship other gods can only be evil, and the Israelites must have nothing to do with them. The altars and temples of those other gods must be destroyed. This almost pathological animosity toward rival gods seems born of a vendetta. Was Jehovah personally acquainted with the foreign gods he so detests? Was he perhaps an outcast from their society? (He never claims they don't exist; he only claims primacy over them.)
3. Jehovah reiterates his insistence on the proper observance of the feasts dedicated to him. These seem to be of far more importance to him than any moral guidelines. He does not at this point exhort his people to love one another, to be honest, just, kind, or even hard-working, but only to be obedient to his commands concerning the proper observance of his festivals. Moreover, he insists upon claiming ownership rights to all the first-born males, payment for his assistance and patronage. Substitute sacrifices, though, are permitted and encouraged. The Israelites didn't have to slit the throat of their new-born baby sons: they could slaughter some poor lamb instead.
4. The first pair of tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments were written by Jehovah himself. The second set he makes Moses chisel out himself. Did Jehovah, who initially said he would make the second set himself, get writer's cramp or did he merely feel (with much justification) that if Moses was going to break the tablets he, Jehovah, had taken so much trouble inscribing, Moses could jolly well make the replacement set his own self, even if it took 40 days and 40 nights without sleep, food, or drink, to do it.
5. Moses has these additional 40 days and nights. Of what necessity was this great length of time during which it explicitly says Moses had nothing to eat or drink. Really. How did Jehovah accomplish this miracle? And why didn't he allow Moses to bring with him even a snack or a box lunch? When Moses is reported returning to his people, there is no comment on whether he was hungry or thirsty or if he had lost any weight.
6. When Moses comes down from the mountain he and his people are surprised to find that his face glows so much that beams of light are radiating from it. (Some translations mistake the description and have Moses growing horns!) Moses is so embarrassed and his people so disturbed by this phenomenon, that he veils his face in front of his people. No explanation is really given for this occurrence and no natural cause for it comes to mind. Was it due to his proximity to Jehovah or a result of the environment on the mountain or wherever else he may have been all that time. It is curious that this did not happen the first time Moses was 40 days and 40 nights on the mountain. What was so different about the second visit?
Friday, October 25, 2013
The Ten Commandments
(Exodus 20:1-20:17)
All of these words were spoken by Jehovah:
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. Jehovah created the earth and sea and sky and all they contain in six days, but he rested on the seventh day, which he therefore blessed and made sacred.)
Treat with respect your father and your mother (so that you may enjoy a long life in the land that Jehovah will bestow upon you.)
Do not take a human life unlawfully.
Do not have sexual relations with any woman who is married or betrothed to another man.
Do not abduct or enslave one of your own people.
Do not testify untruthfully and maliciously against a neighbor.
Do not desire to wrongfully acquire the property of a neighbor -- not his house, his wife, his slaves, his livestock, or any of his possessions.
Notes
1. The situation in which the Ten Commandments were presented to Moses is not here made clear. They seem to be abruptly inserted into the narrative.
2. 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 incongruous. "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."
3. 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.
4. 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 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 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.
5. "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.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. 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.)
10. 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.)
11. 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.
12. "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? 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 think of them, is proper and that is what is demanded. In a tribalistic, traditional, clan-oriented society familial respect is always very important.
13. 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.
14. 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.
15. 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.
16. 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.
17. 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.
18. Wives are including among the property that 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 ancient 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. 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.
19. 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.
20. 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?
21. 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.
22. 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.
All of these words were spoken by Jehovah:
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. Jehovah created the earth and sea and sky and all they contain in six days, but he rested on the seventh day, which he therefore blessed and made sacred.)
Treat with respect your father and your mother (so that you may enjoy a long life in the land that Jehovah will bestow upon you.)
Do not take a human life unlawfully.
Do not have sexual relations with any woman who is married or betrothed to another man.
Do not abduct or enslave one of your own people.
Do not testify untruthfully and maliciously against a neighbor.
Do not desire to wrongfully acquire the property of a neighbor -- not his house, his wife, his slaves, his livestock, or any of his possessions.
Notes
1. The situation in which the Ten Commandments were presented to Moses is not here made clear. They seem to be abruptly inserted into the narrative.
2. 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 incongruous. "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."
3. 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.
4. 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 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 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.
5. "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.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. 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.)
10. 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.)
11. 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.
12. "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? 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 think of them, is proper and that is what is demanded. In a tribalistic, traditional, clan-oriented society familial respect is always very important.
13. 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.
14. 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.
15. 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.
16. 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.
17. 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.
18. Wives are including among the property that 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 ancient 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. 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.
19. 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.
20. 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?
21. 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.
22. 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.
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