The Exodus and Deuteronomy text that contain the Ten Commandments actually list a few more than ten. And the various faiths that honor the commandments: Jewish, Protestant, and Catholic, come up with twelve distinct commandments between them.
In Jewish tradition, there are said to be 613 commandments listed in the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. That number is more traditional than precise. Over the centuries many Jewish scholars have made lists of the Torah commandments and they’ve found various way to make it come out to 613, but the lists don’t agree and the goal seems more about arriving at the right number than being true to the text.
Of the 613, more or less, commandments, the Torah gives special importance to what it calls the ten commandments. And we know there are ten and that there has to be ten because we’re told in the book of Exodus and again in the book of Deuteronomy that God writes ten commandments on two tablets of stone.
Here are the two texts:
“He was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.” (Exodus 34:28)
“He declared to you his covenant, which he charged you to observe, that is, the ten commandments; and he wrote them on two stone tablets.” (Deuteronomy 4:13)
In both verses, the ten commandments are identified as comprising the covenant made between God and the Israelites. But Jewish tradition claims there are 613 commandments, so which of the 613 commandments are the ten that these two texts refer to?
The two places that tell us there are ten Commandments aren’t obviously connected to the two passages that religious tradition identifies as the commandments themselves: these appear in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5. The Exodus 34:28 verse comes fourteen chapters after the chapter that contains the traditional ten commandments. Without knowing differently, most readers would assume the Exodus verse refers to the immediately preceding text in which God gives Moses a list of more or less ten commandments. Here they are (Exodus 34:14-26)
Do not worship any other god. (verse 14)
Do not make any idols. (16)
Celebrate Passover. (18)
Redeem the firstborn (20)
Don’t appear before the Lord without an offering (20)
Rest on the seventh day. (21)
Celebrate Sukkoth. (22)
Three times a year all the men are to appear before God. (23)
Don’t mix a blood sacrifice with yeast
Don’t leave any leftovers from Passover until the next morning. (25)
Offer the “firstfruits of your soil” to God (26)
Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk. (verse 26)
The next two verses state plainly: “Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel. Moses was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments.” (Exodus 34:27-28). It’s not my purpose to claim that these commandments are the actual ten commandments, only that any such claim should acknowledge the ambiguity. It is certainly a defensible assumption that the Ten Commandments referred to in Exodus 34:28 are the commandments listed in Exodus 34:14-26, rather than the more traditionally identified commandments listed fourteen chapters earlier.
The problem with that assumption, though, is that the Deuteronomy 4:13 verse that refers to ten commandments is not associated with a passage anything like the commandments listed in Exodus 34. Instead, the Deuteronomy verse immediately precedes a passage (Deuteronomy 5) that essentially repeats Exodus 20 containing the first commandments given to Moses on the slopes of Mt. Sinai. The Deuteronomy passage presents Moses at the end of his life remembering and retelling what occurred forty years earlier. Rightly or wrongly, religious tradition identifies these two passages (Deuteronomy 5 and Exodus 20) as containing the Ten Commandments.
But if these two passages do contain the Ten Commandments it still isn’t immediately apparent what those commandments are. The passages at close reading contain more than ten commandments. And significantly, at least in one case, the two texts in Exodus and Deuteronomy aren’t exactly the same.
Here is the passage from Exodus 20. (I’ll get to the Deuteronomy text later.) This is the translation from the New Revised Standard Version so it doesn’t have the “Thou Shalt Nots” that you might be familiar with from the King James translation. The New Revised Standard Version is both a more readable and more accurate translation and thus is more useful for our study, but the conclusions I draw are equally valid for any translation. The numbers in parenthesis are the verse numbers from the Bible but remember that the text was originally written without chapters or verse numbers; these were added in the Middle Ages so don’t give them any authority. I’ve divided the text into an introduction followed by sixteen distinct statements.
Exodus 20:1-17, New Revised Standard Version
(1)Then God spoke all these words:
1. (2)I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery;
2. (3)you shall have no other gods before me.
3. (4)You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
4. (5)You shall not bow down to them or worship them;
5. for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, (6)but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.
6. (7)You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.
7. (8)Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy.
8. (9)Six days you shall labor and do all your work. (10)But the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns.
9. (11)For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.
10. (12) Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.
11. (13)You shall not murder.
12. (14)You shall not commit adultery.
13. (15)You shall not steal.
14. (16)You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
15. (17)You shall not covet your neighbor’s house;
16. you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
Following the introduction, “Then God spoke all these words,” here in summary form are the 16 statements:
1 I am the God who brought you out of Egypt (verse 2)
2 Don’t put other Gods before me (verse 3)
3 Don’t make idols (verse 4)
4 Don’t worship idols (verse 5a)
5 (a warning and a promise to the generations) (verses 5b-6)
6 Don’t use the Lord’s name for your own purposes (verse 7)
7 Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy (verse 8)
8 Don’t work on the Sabbath (verses 9-10)
9 (because God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh) (verse 11)
10 Honor your mother and father (verse 12)
11 don’t murder (verse 13)
12 don’t commit adultery (verse 14)
13 don’t steal (verse 15)
14 don’t bear false witness (verse 16)
15 don’t covet your neighbor’s house (verse 17a)
16 don’t covet your neighbor’s wife, slaves, ox, donkey or anything else (verse 17b)
Of those 16 statements the two statements, numbers five and nine, that begin with the word “for” clearly are not commandments and clearly refer back to the commandments directly above them. Statement 5 is a warning and then a promise about the consequences of worshipping idols. And statement 9 explains why God makes the commandment not to work on the Sabbath.
So if we re-attach those statements to the ones that come just before them, that leaves us with fourteen commandments.
You might think that the first statement, “I am the God who brought you out of Egypt,” isn’t a commandment either but actually for the Jews this statement is a commandment to believe in the God of their history and they use that phrase, all by itself, as their First Commandment. So the Exodus text known as the 10 Commandments actually contains fourteen clear commandments.
1. Believe in the God of the Exodus
2. Don’t believe in any other gods
3. Don’t make images of God or other gods
4. Don’t worship images of God or of other gods
5. Don’t misuse God’s name
6. Reserve one day a week for a Sabbath
7. Don’t work on the Sabbath
8. Respect your mother and father
9. Don’t murder
10. Don’t commit adultery
11. Don’t steal
12. Don’t give false testimony
13. Don’t covet your neighbor’s house
14. Don’t covet your neighbor’s wife, slaves, ox, donkey or anything else
If the Bible didn’t tell us that we had to have only ten commandments most readers would stop right there and agree that there are fourteen commandments. But the Bible does tell us there are ten Commandments and so we have to keep working. The way to make the list come out to the right number is to combine some of the commandments together.
Two early church fathers were the first to have a stab at making fourteen commandments into ten. Catholics follow a solution devised by St. Augustine. Protestants follow a solution devised by Origen, which mostly follows the same solution as the Jewish practice. All of them agree on two combinations that reduce the list from fourteen to twelve.
Start with the commandments three and four from the list of fourteen. Most people would agree that there is a difference between making images of God and worshipping images of God. Both are forbidden by the Bible. The Bible forbids making an image even if you don’t worship it, or worshipping an image even if somebody else made it. The Exodus text clearly lists the commandments separately, even giving each one its own “Thou shalt not.” But if you’re trying to narrow down the list it makes sense to put both the commandments about idols together. And all three religions, Jewish, Protestant and Catholic combine those two commandments into one.
The same goes for the two commandments about the Sabbath, numbers six and seven in this list. Commandment six has to do with remembering the Sabbath and keeping it holy. Commandment seven additionally specifies that one should do no work on the Sabbath. All three religions combine those two but they obviously aren’t the same. As is clear in Christian practice honoring the Sabbath doesn’t require refraining from all work. And merely refraining from work, as Jews will attest, does not of itself constitute proper honoring of the Sabbath.
Combining those commandments, reduces the list from fourteen to twelve. But that’s as far as the different religions agree. So here, then, are the 12 commandments actually honored, variously, by Jews, Catholics and Protestants. I’ve given them letters rather than numbers to avoid confusion. Each one of these twelve is named by at least one of these religions as one of the Ten Commandments, but there are twelve of them in total, not ten.
(a) I am the God who brought you out of slavery in Egypt
(b) You shall have no other Gods before me
(c) Don’t make or worship idols
(d) Don’t misuse God’s name
(e) Remember the Sabbath and don’t work on it
(f) Honor your mother and father
(g) Don’t murder
(h) Don’t commit adultery
(i) Don’t steal
(j) Don’t bear false witness
(k) Don’t covet your neighbor’s house (“wife” in Deuteronomy 5:21)
(l) Don’t covet your neighbor’s wife (“house and field” in Deuteronomy 5:21), slaves, ox, donkey or anything else
At this point the difference between the final verse of the text in Exodus and the text in Deuteronomy becomes important.
Exodus 20:17 You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
Deuteronomy 5:21 Neither shall you covet your neighbor’s wife. Neither shall you desire your neighbor’s house, or field, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
Notice that in Exodus the neighbor’s house is named first, and then the neighbor’s wife comes after the second “thou shalt not” along with all the rest of the neighbor’s property. In the Deuteronomy version this is reversed. The neighbor’s wife is named first and then house and field comes after the second “thou shalt not” with the rest of the list.
This difference is significant because the Jewish and Protestant versions of the 10 Commandments combine all of those items into one commandment, where the Catholic version keeps them separate following the Deuteronomy version.
To get from twelve commandments down to the magic number of ten, the religions have to keep combining. Jews, Catholics and Protestants each do this differently. The following chart compares how the various religions combine the twelve (lettered) commandments into ten (numbered) commandments.
Jews combine (b) and (c) into the second commandment and the two coveting commandments (k) and (l) are combined as commandment 10.
Jewish
1 (a) I am the God who brought you ought of slavery in Egypt
2. (b) You shall have no other Gods before me
(c) Don’t make or worship idols
3. (d) Don’t misuse God’s name
4. (e) Remember the Sabbath and don’t work on it
5. (f) Honor your mother and father
6. (g) Don’t murder
7. (h) Don’t commit adultery
8. (i) Don’t steal
9. (j) Don’t bear false witness
10. (k) Don’t covet your neighbor’s house
(l) Don’t covet your neighbor’s wife, slaves, ox, donkey or anything else
The Protestant (and Eastern Orthodox) version leaves off (a) and starts with (b) as commandment one. And like the Jewish version, they combine the two coveting commandments (k) and (l), as Commandment ten.
Protestant and Eastern Orthodox
(a) I am the God who brought you ought of slavery in Egypt
1. (b) You shall have no other Gods before me
2. (c) Don’t make or worship idols
3. (d) Don’t misuse God’s name
4. (e) Remember the Sabbath and don’t work on it
5. (f) Honor your mother and father
6. (g) Don’t murder
7. (h) Don’t commit adultery
8. (i) Don’t steal
9. (j) Don’t bear false witness
10. (k) Don’t covet your neighbor’s house
(l) Don’t covet your neighbor’s wife, slaves, ox, donkey or anything else
The Roman Catholic (and Lutheran) version combines (a), (b), and (c) into the first commandment. And then down the list but leaving the two coveting commandments separate. Don’t covet your neighbor’s wife, as in Deuteronomy, is commandment 9. Don’t covet you neighbor’s “goods,” is commandment 10.
Roman Catholic and Lutheran
1. (a) I am the God who brought you ought of slavery in Egypt
(b) You shall have no other Gods before me
(c) Don’t make or worship idols
2. (d) Don’t misuse God’s name
3. (e) Remember the Sabbath and don’t work on it
4. (f) Honor your mother and father
5. (g) Don’t murder
6. (h) Don’t commit adultery
7. (i) Don’t steal
8. (j) Don’t bear false witness
9. (k) Don’t covet your neighbor’s “wife” (as in Dueteronomy)
10. (l) Don’t covet your neighbor’s “goods” meaning: “house and field” (as in Dueteronomy), slaves, ox, donkey or anything else
So, is the commandment against stealing the seventh commandment or the eighth commandment? It depends on who you ask. And if you ask a religious friend to name the second commandment they will either say, “Have no other Gods before me” (if they’re Jewish); “Don’t worship idols” (if they’re Protestant); or “Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain” (if they’re Catholic). Three different second commandments from three different religions. They’re all working from the same text just piecing it together differently.
It’s interesting to note what the three different versions reveal about the different beliefs of the three religions.
For instance, the Catholic Church teaches that there is a difference between coveting your neighbor’s wife and coveting your neighbor’s belongings. One is the sin of lust. The other is the sin of greed. But you can only make that distinction in the Deuteronomy text because the Exodus text, reflecting ancient patriarchal culture regards a wife as her husband’s property. A house is one form of property, real estate, and a wife is a form of living property the same as slaves and livestock. Jews and Protestants, following the Exodus text combine all the neighbor’s property (things, people, and animals) and see the sin described as wanton desire regardless of the object of desire.
To the Jews, a commandment of faith in the God who brought their ancestors out of Egypt, is a commandment worthy to stand by itself. That story is central to the Jewish identity. But for Christians that story is less important than the God revealed in Jesus, so the Catholics de-emphasize that commandment by combining it with two others, and the Protestants leave it out altogether.
Only the Protestant church keeps the commandment against idol worship distinct. And the lack of decoration in Protestant churches has been a major difference between Protestant Christian churches and Catholic Christian churches. The Catholic sees the idol-making commandment as part of a larger commandment to give allegiance to the one true God. So Catholics are able to teach that making an image is fine as long as it doesn’t lead to false worship and Catholic churches are filled with images.
In 2005, the US Supreme Court issued two significant rulings having to do with displays of the Ten Commandments on government property. In a Kentucky case (McCreary County v. ACLU, 03-1693) they decided that a display in a courthouse was unconstitutional. In a Texas case (Van Orden v. Perry, 03-1500) they decided that a display on a lawn outside the capital building was permissible.
The justification argued for the constitutionality of the displays is that the Ten Commandments form the historical basis for our laws. In a general sense this argument has some merit. The Supreme Court itself has a frieze behind their bench that shows Moses holding two stone tablets. But Moses is one of seventeen other law-giving figures including Hammurabi (the Hittite King who predates Moses), Confucius, Napoleon and Chief Justice John Marshall. And the tablets Moses is holding are blank.
But when the Ten Commandment text is included, this argument falls apart completely. The court itself wrote that the Ten Commandment text is a “sacred text” with an “unmistakably religious” message. Even if the point is a display of legal history, which I doubt is almost ever the true intent, the religious content overwhelms.
The choice of which text of the commandments to display poses an immediate constitutional problem. Because Jews, Protestants, and Catholics name the Ten Commandments differently, the government would have to choose one list above the other two, simultaneously choosing one religion over the others, which the U.S. constitution’s first amendment clearly forbids. And arguing that the commandments form the basis for our secular laws is contradicted by the fact that most of the commandments are not actually required by law. It is not illegal in the United States to:
Be an atheist
If you do believe in a god, to believe in a god other than the God of the Exodus;
to make an image of the divine however you conceive it,
to worship an image of the divine if you care to;
to use the name of God for any purpose you like, as often as you like (God damn it);
to not set aside any special day for spiritual rest, weekly or ever; or to work as hard as you like on that day.
It’s not a crime to curse your parents or write a book about how terribly they treated you;
Adultery is a crime in only about half the United States and is almost never enforced.
It’s not illegal to look at another man’s wife with lust, or look with greed at your neighbor’s riding lawn mower.
On the other hand, the commandments list in a neutral, non-condemning way, two practices that are blatantly illegal in our contemporary culture: the keeping of slaves, and a husband treating his wife like a piece of property. It seems intolerably insensitive to force a black man when entering a government building (or school, or place of worship for that matter) to conduct his business under the shadow of a casual reference to the legitimacy of slaveholding permanently enshrined as the basis for our law. Any woman trying to accuse a man of rape would be made even more uncomfortable knowing that the jury will hear her charge while staring up at a statement posted behind the judge, or having passed by a statement on their way into the court room, that lists women as the legal property of men the same as oxen and donkeys.
Of the fourteen commandments only three are actually illegal in every state: murder, stealing, and perjury. It only weakens society’s continued condemnation of those acts to put them alongside eleven others we no longer care about, most of which were also at one time punishable by death. That we continue to punish murder but not idol-making shows clearly that it’s not the Ten Commandments but some other moral authority that forms the basis for our laws.
From 613 Torah commandments we rather arbitrarily identify two slightly different passages, one from Exodus and one from Deuteronomy that we recognize as the Ten Commandments. From sixteen statements, comprising fourteen commandments, the Judeo-Christian religions collectively name twelve commandments, giving us three different lists of ten commandments, of which only three commandments are really legal requirements in U.S. law.
And if a person doesn’t already know that murder, stealing and perjury are wrong, I’m not going to tell them to read Exodus 20 to prove it to them, because that text will also tell them that keeping slaves and a man treating his wife like a piece of property is perfectly OK. In order to get a moral authority out of your reading of the Bible you’ve got to put a moral authority into your reading of the Bible.
The true moral authority dwells within us, individually, the direct gift of God, perhaps, or the result of reasonable analysis of successful societies, or the training we received from our parents and the larger community we grew up in. Those sources form the actual basis of our laws, and the basis of our religions as well. But even so, I don’t want “God, Reason, and Community” enshrined on the courthouse wall. I’ll leave them enshrined in my mind and heart, where they belong.