The Ten Commandments, or Decalogue, is a list of religious and moral imperatives which, according to the Bible, was spoken by God to Moses on Mount Sinai and engraved on two stone tablets. They feature prominently in Judaism and Christianity. In Biblical Hebrew language they are termed עשרת הדברים (translit. Aseret ha-Dvarîm), and in Rabbinical Hebrew עשרת הדברות (translit. Aseret ha-Dibrot), both translatable as “the ten statements”. The name decalogue is derived from the Greek name δέκα λόγοι or dekalogoi (“ten statements”) found in the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew name.

The terms Ten Commandments and Decalogue generally refer to the passages Exodus 20:2-17 and Deuteronomy 5:6-21. Some maintain that the laws mentioned in Exodus 34 are also a decalogue, commonly called the Ritual Decalogue, which may have predated the “Ethical Decalogue” of Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 covered here.

Preparations

According to the Bible itself, the commandments represent the solemn utterances of God on Mount Sinai (sometimes called Mount Horeb), directly revealed by God to Moses and then by Moses to the people of Israel in the third month after their Exodus from Egypt. The Israelites are said to have seen manifestations of divine power marked by thunder and lightning and thick smoke (Exodus 19):

“…God said to Moses, ‘I will come to you in a thick cloud, so that all the people will hear when I speak to you. They will then believe in you forever.’…The third day arrived. There was thunder and lightning in the morning, with a heavy cloud on the mountain, and an extremely loud blast of a ram’s horn. The people in the camp trembled. Moses led the people out of the camp toward the Divine Presence. They stood transfixed at the foot of the mountain. Mount Sinai was all in smoke because of the Presence that had come down on it. God was in the fire, and its smoke went up like the smoke of a lime kiln. The entire mountain trembled violently. There was the sound of a ram’s horn, increasing in volume to a great degree. Moses spoke, and God replied with a Voice. God came down on Mount Sinai, to the peak of the mountain. He summoned Moses to the mountain peak, and Moses climbed up…Moses went down to the people and conveyed this to them.” [1]

God’s name

God had already revealed his true name to Moses in the past (Exodus 6).

Exodus 20/Deuteronomy 5

Now however, in (Exodus 20) Moses wrote God’s name with the Ten Commandments upon two tablets of stone:

“God spoke all these words, saying: I am God your Lord, who brought you out of Egypt, from the place of slavery. Do not have any other gods before Me. Do not represent [such] gods by any carved statue or picture of anything in the heaven above, on the earth below, or in the water below the land. Do not bow down to [such gods] or worship them. I am God your Lord, a God who demands exclusive worship. Where My enemies are concerned, I keep in mind the sin of the fathers for [their] descendants, to the third and fourth [generation]. But for those who love Me and keep My commandments, I show love for thousands [of generations]. Do not take the name of God your Lord in vain. God will not allow the one who takes His name in vain to go unpunished. Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy. You can work during the six weekdays and do all your tasks. But Saturday is the Sabbath to God your Lord. Do not do anything that constitutes work. [This includes] you, your son, your daughter, your slave, your maid, your animal, and the foreigner in your gates. It was during the six weekdays that God made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on Saturday. God therefore blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Honor your father and mother. You will then live long on the land that God your Lord is giving you. Do not commit murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not testify as a false witness against your neighbor. Do not be envious of your neighbor’s house. Do not be envious of your neighbor’s wife, his slave, his maid, his ox, his donkey, or anything else that is your neighbor’s.” [2]

Written in stone

According to the Bible, God inscribed the Ten Commandments into stone: “God said to Moses, ‘Come up to Me, to the mountain, and remain there. I will give you the stone tablets, the Torah and the commandment that I have written for [the people's] instruction.’” (Exodus 24:12) also referred to as “tables of testimony” (Exodus 24:12, 31:18, 32:16) or “tables of the covenant” (Deuteronomy 9verses 9, 11, 15), which he gave to Moses.

Traditional Jewish sources (Mekhilta de Rabbi Ishmael, de-ba-Hodesh 5) discuss the placement of the ten commandments on two tablets. According to Rabbi Hanina ben Gamaliel, five commandments were engraved on the first tablet and five on the other, whereas the Sages contended that ten were written on each. While most Jewish and Christian depictions follow the first understanding, modern scholarship favours the latter, comparing it to treaty rite in the Ancient Near East, in the sense of tablets of covenant. Diplomatic treaties, such as that between Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses II and the Hittite King Hattusilis III, circa 1270 B.C.E, were duplicated on stone with a copy for each party, and the subordinate party would place their copy of the pact in the main temple to his god, in oath to the king (cf. Ezekiel 17:11-19). In a pact between a nation and its God, then, the Israelites placed both copies in their temple. [3]

Exodus 32:15 records that the tablets “were written on both their sides.” The Talmud (tractate Shabbat 104a) explains that there were miracles involved with the carving on the tablets. One was that the carving went the full thickness of the tablets. There is a letter in the Hebrew alphabet called asamech that looks similar to the letter “O” in the English alphabet. The stone in the center part of the letter should have fallen out, as it was not connected to the rest of the tablet, but it did not; it miraculously remained in place. Secondly, the writing was miraculously legible from both the front and the back, even though logic would dictate that something carved through and through would show the writing in mirror image on the back.

Breaking the first tablets

After seeing that the Israelites had gone astray during his absence and his brother Aaron had made the Golden Calf, Moses broke the tablets (Exodus 32:19).

Second set

God subsequently commanded Moses to carve two other tablets like the first (Exodus 34:1). In Exodus 34:27-28Moses was commanded to recreate the tablets, and to rewrite the commandments himself. In Deuteronomy 4:13, 5:18, 9:10, 10:24, God himself appears as the writer. This second set, brought down from Mount Sinai by Moses (Exodus 34:29), was placed in the Ark, also known as the Ark of the Covenant (Exodus 25:16, 25:21, 40:20), hence designated as the “Ark of the Testimony” (Exodus 22:16, Numbers 4:5; compare also 1 Kings 8:9). Various theories have been advanced as to why the text in Deuteronomy differs on some points with the text in Exodus (see below).

10 Commandments or more?

While Judaism, Catholicism and Protestantism all agree that the Bible lists the ten commandments in chapter 20 of the book of Exodus, that passage contains more than ten imperative statements. Reflecting this, the Hebrew term for them translates as “the Ten Utterances” or “the Ten Statements”, as Jewish law sees each imperative as representing a separate commandment, totalling 14 or 15 in all. (See Jewish understanding below).

Texts of the commandments

Although the Ten Commandments in the Douay Rheims Bible and King James Version of the Bible are the most well-known in the English-speaking world, they do not conform to today’s usage: “Thou shalt not kill” instead of “You shall not murder.”

Different groups have divided the commandments in different ways. For instance, Catholics and Lutherans see the first six verses as part of the same command prohibiting the worship of pagan gods, while Protestants (except Lutherans) separate all six verses into two different commands (one being “no other gods” and the other being “no graven images”). The initial reference to Egyptian bondage is important enough to Jews that it forms a separate commandment. Catholics and Lutherans separate the two kinds of coveting (namely, of goods and of the flesh), while Protestants (but not Lutherans) and Jews group them together.

A very similar, but not completely identical, list of commandments is found in Deuteronomy 5:1-22. Reference to each of the commandments and the consequences for not following them as a part of Hebrew Law are found throughout this book. In the New Testament book of Matthew 19 and elsewhere, Jesus refers to the commandments, but condenses them into two general commands: love God (Shema) and love other people (Ethic of reciprocity) (Matthew 22.34-40).

Jewish understanding

Popular belief holds that these are “the commandments” of the Hebrew Bible. In fact, the Torah has 613 commandments. The Jewish tradition does, however, recognize these “ten commandments” as the ideological basis for the rest of the commandments (see below). According to the Medieval Sefer ha-Chinuch, the first five statements concern the relationship between God and human beings, while the second five statements concern the relationship between human beings. Rabbinic literature holds that the Ten Statements contain 14 or 15 distinct instructions.

The ten statements

1. “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt…” – This commandment is to believe in the existence of God.
2. “You shall have no other gods besides Me…Do not make a sculpted image or any likeness of what is in the heavens above…”
3. “You shalt not swear falsely by the name of the Lord…” – This commandment is to never take the name of God in a vain oath. In Exodus, the text reads “in a vain oath” (לא תשא את שם ה’ לשוא), while in Deuteronomy it reads “in a false oath” (לא תשא שם ה’ לשקר).
4. “Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy” (the version in Deuteronomy mentions “Keep” rather than “Remember”)
5. “Honor your father and your mother…” – This commandment is a development when compared to other laws of the Ancient East (for example, the Code of Hammurabi) that do not call for equal respect of the father and the mother.
6. “You shall not murder” – The Hebrew Bible makes a distinction between murdering and killing (see Jewish interpretation below).
7. “You shall not commit adultery”
8. “You shall not steal” (sometimes interpreted as kidnapping, since there are other injunctions against stealing property in the Bible).
9. “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor”
10. “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house…” (in Exodus, the text reads “… neighbor’s house, … neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant…” etc. while in Deuteronomy, “thy neighbor’s wife, … thy neighbor’s house, his field” etc.)

Jewish interpretation

Jewish thought generally divides the Ten Statements into two halves, the first five dealing with the relationship between God and humanity, and the second dealing with relationships between people.

Traditional Jewish belief is that the commandments contained in the Ten Statements apply solely to the Jewish people, and that the laws incumbent on the rest of humanity are outlined in the seven Noahide Laws. In the era of the Sanhedrin, transgressing any one of these theoretically carried the death penalty; though this was rarely enforced due to a large number of stringent evidentiary requirements imposed by the oral law.

1. “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt…”
   The belief in the existence of God, that God exists for all time, that God is the sole creator of all that exists, that God determines the course of events in this world. This is the foundation of Judaism. To turn from these beliefs is to deny God and the essence of Judaism. (1)
2. “You shall have no other gods besides Me…Do not make a sculpted image or any likeness of what is in the heavens above…”
   One is required to believe in God and God alone. This prohibits belief in or worship of any additional deities, gods, spirits or incarnations. To deny the uniqueness of God, is to deny all that is written in the Torah. (2)
   It is also a prohibition against making or possessing objects that one or other may bow down to or serve such as crucifixes, and any forms of paintings or artistic representations of God. (3)
   One must not bow down to or serve any being or object but God. (4)
   One is prohibited from making sculpture of human beings even for the fine arts. (5)
3. “You shalt not swear falsely by the name of the Lord…”
   This commandment is to never take the name of God in a vain oath. This includes four types of prohibited oaths: an oath affirming as true a matter one knows to be false, an oath that affirms the patently obvious, an oath denying the truth of a matter one knows to be true, and an oath to perform an act that is beyond one’s capabilities. (6)
4. “Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy”
   One is to declare of the greatness and the holiness of the Sabbath, each Sabbath day, on the Sabbath day that God defined for the Jews during the Exodus. Each day of the Exodus, God provided food to the Jews to collect except on the Sabbath. Instead a double portion was provided the day before the Sabbath. (7)
   One is enjoined from performing work on the Sabbath. One may not change the day of the Sabbath. (8)
5. “Honor your father and your mother…”
   The obligation to honor one’s parents is an obligation that one owes to God and fulfills this obligation through one’s actions towards one’s parents. This commandment is an interesting development when compared to other laws of the Ancient East (for instance, the Code of Hammurabi) that do not call for equal respect of the father and the mother. (9)
   Jewish sages note that the 5th commandment, on the border between commandments on relationship with God and those between humankind, is to “Honor your father and your mother…”, and draw lessons from this that a person should respect parents (and by implication, elders) only somewhat less than one would God himself, and that parents should be moral guidance to a person as God is to society.
6. “You shall not murder”
   The Hebrew word is unambiguously murder; kill is a mistranslation. The Hebrew Bible makes a distinction between murdering and killing, and explicitly notes that murder is always a heinous sin, while killing is sometimes necessary, and in these cases just in the eyes of God. Thus, Jews take offense at translations which state “Thou shall not kill”, which Jews hold to be a flawed interpretation, for there are circumstances in which one is required to kill, such as if killing is the only way to prevent one person from murdering another. Another case is killing in self-defense. (10)
   Many Protestant and most Catholic Christians hold that this verse forbids abortion; Judaism does not dogmatically regard abortion as murder (c.f Ex. 21:22-23, and Rashi thereon), although Orthodox Judaism prohibits abortion in most circumstances based on several other prohibitions.
7. “You shall not have sexual relations with another man’s wife.” (11)
8. “You shall not kidnap”
   Theft of property is forbidden elsewhere. Theft of property is not a capital offense. (12)
9. “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor”
   in a court of law or other proceeding. Lying is forbidden elsewhere. Lying is not a capital offence. (13)
10. “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house…”
    One is forbidden to desire and plan how one may obtain that which God has given to another. (14)
    Maimonides makes a distinction in codifying the laws between the instruction given here in Exodus (You shall not covet) and that given in Deuteronomy (You shall not desire), according to which one does not violate the Exodus commandment unless there is a physical action associated with the desire, even if this is legally purchasing an envied object.

Special status

The special status of the Ten Commandments in Judaism has sometimes been contentious. Indeed, when undue emphasis was being placed on them, daily communal recitation of them was discontinued (Talmud, tractate Berachot 12a). Still, the Ten Commandments are generally considered to be subject headings to larger groups or subdivisions of the 613 commandments of the Torah; a number of works (starting with Rabbi Saadia Gaon) has made groupings of the commandments according to their links with the Ten Commandments.

Samaritan understanding

The Samaritans have a slightly different version of the Torah than the Jews, that is written in the original Hebrew script and harmonizes many of its contradictions. One example of such recension is found in the Ten Commandments: Here the Exodus and Deuteronomy versions have been combined in Exodus, thus removing any difficulties, such as whether to “remember” or “keep” the Sabbath. The commandments are also numbered differently than the Jewish version, making room for a new tenth commandment on the sanctity of Mount Gerizim, which for the Samaritans is equivalent to Jerusalem for the Jews. Thus

the selection of Mount Garizim as the chosen spot where the memorial stones were to be placed, upon which the words of these Commandments were to be written, and where an altar was to be built and the sanctuary established, was thus no longer a mere stray Commandment found in various verses in Deuteronomy.