INTRODUCING THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

The number ten, like many numbers in scripture, brings with it a great deal of meaning. In ancient times, numbers acted like symbols to bestow further meaning onto something. We still use symbols to convey meaning often, even though our paradigms differ from the people of biblical times. For instance, if someone is driving a really nice luxury car, we make the inference that person has a great deal of money. If we ponder further, we may infer that person has a particular sort of career field. In this way, the car is acting as a symbol in that we import all sorts of meaning that isn’t actually present to the senses in the moment.  

For the Bible, numbers act in a similar way. When the people of biblical times saw certain numbers, for them there was imported a whole body of knowledge beyond just that one moment. God gives ten commandments to the Israelites. These commandments are given to them after they exit Egypt, where they were living as slaves under the law of Pharaoh and Egypt’s gods. Now, God is giving Israel their own law and their own way of ordering their society and their lives. The number ten is one of the big symbolic numbers of the Bible (along with 3, 7, 12, and 40).

Where else do we see the number ten in connection to God?

The most immediate response is the ten plagues of Egypt, where God put disorder into Egyptian society to free the Israelites. And before that, we can find the number ten at the very beginning, in the creation narrative. In Genesis 1:1, God creates the heavens and the earth, and does so by speaking words of existence. If you were to go through the creation narrative and circle all the times the phrase “and God said,” occurs, you’d find that God speaks ten times. In Jewish tradition, the ten commandments are often referred to as the “ten words” of God. Just as God created order which brought about life and flourishing with the ten words of the creation narrative, God offers ten words of “de-creation” and disorder via the plagues to Egypt so that Israel could be recreated by the ten words of the ten commandments. As a result, Israel was given order that was life-giving and not life-oppressing, like what they experienced in slavery.   

a small stone statue of Moses holding the tablets with the first ten numerals carved, representing the ten commandments

THE FIRST COMMANDMENT

Many biblical commenters (such as Dorsey) have related the giving of the ten commandments to an ancient treaty being made, or to marriage vows. The first two commandments are like terms in a treaty or vows of commitment, putting your partner above others. Even more so than today, the ancient world saw covenant pacts like treaties and marriages as how two separate people groups declared peace and partnership in a collaborative vision. This is what commenters declare is happening at the moment of the ten commandments being given: God is inviting Israel into a covenantal relationship, and laying out an understanding of what it practically means to be a part of that relationship.  

The first term in this covenantal relationship begins with a statement of both parties: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery.” (Exodus 20:2). God is the first party in this covenant, the One who delivers from slavery, and Israel is the second party, the ones who were delivered and are now considered God’s treasured possession (Dr. Carmen Imes does a fantastic exposition of Exodus 19 when God names Israel as His segullah in Hebrew).  Both parties in the relationship are identified, and then the commandment comes; “Do not have other gods besides me.” For us, that might seem like a “duh” moment, insignificant and sort of implied. However, recall the story of the Israelites in the previous four hundred years. For generations, they were living under the dominion of Egypt. For Egyptians, there was a plethora of deities in their pantheon 

Most of the ancient world, in fact, venerated several different gods (polytheism) as opposed to Israel who were called to worship one God (monotheism). And so in this first commandment, the God of the Israelites is declaring that Israel no longer pays allegiance to many gods, but rather just this God of oneness who is giving them a different way of looking at the world. God exchanging Israel’s past life with a newer and truer one. 

THE SECOND COMMANDMENT

The second commandment does something very similar. God commands them, “Do not make an idol for yourself whether in the shape of anything in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth. Do not bow to worship them and do not serve them…” (Exodus 20:4-5) Again, we have a very different experience today of corporate worship than in the ancient world. In the ancient world, including Egypt, it was common practice to have a figurine made out of wood or sometimes precious metals. This figurine, or idol, would live in the place of worship, usually at the front of the worship room so that people could come in and see the idol; it functioned as a representative image of the god they were worshipping. Commenters like N.T. Wright, Carmen Imes, and John Walton have offered helpful insight as to why the second commandment is so significant. In Genesis 1:27, God Himself created a representation who would bear the image of God: humanity (Wright says it well in the video below starting at about 2:50). To make an idol image not only dishonors God who cannot be represented by a carved piece of wood or metal, but also it represents a fatal misunderstanding of what God has made humanity to be (anthropological theology).  

For Israel, Genesis 1:27 changes everything: each human has been given the significance of bearing God’s image. Coming from Egypt, the Israelites were aware that people on earth represented divinity. However, for Egypt (as well as other ancient nations), it was only Pharoah who represented the gods, and no one else. Pharoah was considered the physical appointed ruler who was himself divinity, and because of that, Pharoah had a right to all of the power and wealth and to treat other people however he wanted. But now, God is making clear to Israel that He originally designed every single human being to represent God on earth, not just one person at the top of the socio-economic food chain.  

So far, we’ve been camped out a lot on how the ancient readers would have understood these things. However, it does not take too much work for us to find there is still significance for us today in these two commandments. If God alone is deserving to be treated as God, how can we be aware of other things we often put in the place of God in our hearts? If we are not to worship idols as representations of Divinity, but should see each person as a representation of the Divine, what does that tell us about how we ought to regard other people? These are exactly the kinds of questions Jesus is helping us think of when he talks about the ten commandments.

black and white image of a stone statue of Jesus, who is pictured with arms open, hands upturned, with a halo around his head

JESUS AND THE GREATEST COMMANDMENT

The ten commandments are recorded in two different places in the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible): Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5. Directly after the giving of the ten commandments in Deuteronomy, we read some very familiar-sounding words; a prayer, called the Shema (Meaning, “Hear/Listen”). Deuteronomy 6:4 read, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.” (The word strength here in Hebrew has some fascinating nuances to it. In Hebrew, the word is a superlative, essentially asking that we give God our everything.) 

Jesus famously responds to the question, “what is the greatest commandment?” in a way that recalls this powerful, concise prayer in Deuteronomy. Jesus answers, “The most important one is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:29-31) Jesus is doing here what he did all throughout his ministry, and most pointedly in the sermon on the Mount: he is inviting people to read the Spirit of the Law embedded within the Letter of the Law. Like today, many people in Jesus’ time focused so much on the laws, that they lost focus of the Law.  

Jesus interprets here the entire meaning of all ten commandments. Many commenters have suggested we can view the ten commandments in a 4+6 pattern, where the first four commandments speak to our relationship with God, and the latter six speak to our relationships with other people. “Love God. Love your neighbor,” just like Jesus said in Mark 12. In this way, Jesus shows us that every single law and ordinance God offers is ultimately pointing towards relational wellbeing, with God, and with others. Because this is God’s character, when we put God and God alone at the top of our priorities, the rest of our life will find its orientation towards such wellbeing.

A BENEDICTION

There is great cause for hope for our world today. As we journey forward beyond Advent into a new year, we know that the God who was with the Israelites as they started their new life is with us today, helping us walk into new life. The wisdom of the ten commandments continue to guide us as we enter this new year.

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