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Ten commandments alone?

wavy

Member
I haven't studied this yet on any advanced level or anything, but from taking a few glances and looking at a few scriptures, I find that the idea of the ten commandments being the "law of God" and the rest being the "law of Moses" does not hold up (Moses received everything from Yahweh in the first place).

Firstly, in every reference to the "ten commandments" the word for commandment (mitzvah) does not even appear. In all references to the ten commandments the word in place for "commandments" is devarim, which is the plural form of "dabar/davar", meaning "word" or "statement".

Although they are commandments, classifying them as the ten commandments, I think, mistakenly puts them into a different category from all other commandments.

But why were they put on stone and set apart to go inside the ark? Why only ten?

Well, as described in Exodus 19 and 20, there were great thunderings, lightnings, shofar blasts and fire and smoke etc...

This frightened the people. So they went to Moses and told him that he should go up and talk with Yahweh because they feared the glory of Yahweh killing them off!

So it is evident that they did not hear the rest of what Yahweh had to say out of his own mouth. The rest was given to them by Moses.

Why did Yahweh add "no more" as per Deuteronomy 5:22 when the ten devarim were repeated (by Moses)? Again, the people became afraid and asked Moses to be their intercessor.

So because they did hear the voice of Yahweh, even if they did not let him (and I mean because he listened to them and granted them their request) continue speaking for fear, he had these words written on two stone tablets as a witness (which is why it is called the "testimony") that they should obey the rest of what Yahweh had to say which they didn't hear because Yahweh spoke it to Moses to give to them for their fear.

The ten devarim are only fractions of the whole Torah. They are not distinguished from the rest as some separate, "law of God" and they do not alone encompass love (the little clever way to divide it into love for Yahweh commandments and love for one's neighbor).

The two great commandments are the rest from which all Torah and Neviim/Prophets hang, not the ten words alone.

They don't cover, for instance, something like this:

Leviticus 18:7 The nakedness of thy father, or the nakedness of thy mother, shalt thou not uncover: she is thy mother; thou shalt not uncover her nakedness.

Or this:

Leviticus 19:15 Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honour the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour.

The NT does not make a distinction between the ten devarim and the rest, as divided into "law of Moses" and "law of God".
 
I thought this would be interesting to discuss and it kind of goes along with a course I am presently taking.

First, The ten Commandments serve as memory helps almost all moral questions are covered in the commandments. Such as relationship of citizen and government would be found under the 4th. The 4th states "Honor thy Father and Mother." This should serve to bring to mind all dealings with authority and hierarchy in our lives. Any abuse would be found under treated under "Thou shalt not kill."

Secondly the ten commandments are just natural moral Law set forth in writing. They treat moral situations as they apply to humans in all our parts, powers and relations.
The ten Commandments was not some "New and Improved ideology" it was just God reinforcing the nesecity of Israel to live in accordance of this law.
 
notapseudonym said:
I thought this would be interesting to discuss and it kind of goes along with a course I am presently taking.

First, The ten Commandments serve as memory helps almost all moral questions are covered in the commandments. Such as relationship of citizen and government would be found under the 4th. The 4th states "Honor thy Father and Mother."

Um ...isn't the 4th commandment "Remember the Sabbath" ...?
 
There are differences of opinion on how to number the 10 commandments. :-?
 
Here is something I found interesting.....

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view. ... search=ham


The word of God was pronounced on Mount Sinai in seventy languages (Shab. 88a; Ex. R. v.; comp. Acts ii. 5). The Torah was written in seventy languages in order that the nations should not be able to plead ignorance as their excuse for rejecting it (Tosef., Soṭah, viii.). Among the seventy languages the most noble is Hebrew, for in it was pronounced the creative word of God (Gen. R. xviii., xxxi.; Yalḳ., Gen. 52). The Jewish law required that every member of the Sanhedrin should have sufficient knowledge of the seventy languages to be able to do without an interpreter (Sanh. 17a; comp. Meg. 73b; Men. 65a).

and from Louis Ginsberg's "The Legends of the Jews"

....These words as well as the others, made know by God on Mount Sinai, were not heard by Israel alone, but by the inhabitants of all the earth. The Divine voice divided itself into the seventy tongues of men, so that all might understand it; but whereas Israel could listen to the voice without suffering harm, the souls of the heathens almost fled from them when they heard it. When the Divine voice sounded, all the dead in Sheol were revived, and betook themselves to Sinai; for the revelation took place in the presence of the living as well as of the dead, yea, even the souls of those who were not yet born were present. Every prophet, every sage, received at Sinai his share of the revelation, which in the course of history was announced by them to mankind. All heard indeed the same words, but the same voice, corresponding to the individuality of each, was God's way of speaking with them. And as the same voice sounded differently to each one, so did the Divine vision appear differently to each, wherefore God warned them not to ascribe the various forms to various beings, saying: "Do not believe that because you have seen Me in various forms, there are various gods, I am the same that appeared to you at the Red Sea as a God of war, and at Sinai as a teacher."


Pretty cool that at the First Pentecost (at Sinai), God spoke in the 70 known tongues at the time......Fast forward to Pentecost (Acts 2) the same occurs....except more languages....
 
Yes, indeed, Georges. I was taught that by a Rabbi. Many people cannot see that Acts 2 was not the building of a "gentile church" but a reenactment of the marriage at Sinai.
 
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