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The Ten Commandments

Moses convened all Israel, and said to them:

Hear, O Israel, the statutes and ordinances that I am addressing to you today; you shall learn them and observe them diligently. ²The L ord our God made a covenant with us at Horeb. ³Not with our ancestors did the L ord make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us here alive today. ⁴The L ord spoke with you face to face at the mountain, out of the fire. ⁵(At that time I was standing between the L ord and you to declare to you the words of the L ord; for you were afraid because of the fire and did not go up the mountain.) And he said:

⁶ I am the L ord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; ⁷you shall have no other gods before me.

⁸ 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. ⁹You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the L ord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me, ¹⁰but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.

¹¹ You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the L ord your God, for the L ord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.

¹² Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy, as the L ord your God commanded you. ¹³Six days you shall labor and do all your work. ¹⁴But the seventh day is a sabbath to the L ord your God; you shall not do any work—you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you. ¹⁵Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the L ord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the L ord your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day.

¹⁶ Honor your father and your mother, as the L ord your God commanded you, so that your days may be long and that it may go well with you in the land that the L ord your God is giving you.

¹⁷ You shall not murder.

¹⁸ Neither shall you commit adultery.

¹⁹ Neither shall you steal.

²⁰ Neither shall you bear false witness against your neighbor.

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.

Moses the Mediator of God’s Will

²² These words the L ord spoke with a loud voice to your whole assembly at the mountain, out of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, and he added no more. He wrote them on two stone tablets, and gave them to me. ²³When you heard the voice out of the darkness, while the mountain was burning with fire, you approached me, all the heads of your tribes and your elders; ²⁴and you said, “Look, the L ord our God has shown us his glory and greatness, and we have heard his voice out of the fire. Today we have seen that God may speak to someone and the person may still live. ²⁵So now why should we die? For this great fire will consume us; if we hear the voice of the L ord our God any longer, we shall die. ²⁶For who is there of all flesh that has heard the voice of the living God speaking out of fire, as we have, and remained alive? ²⁷Go near, you yourself, and hear all that the L ord our God will say. Then tell us everything that the L ord our God tells you, and we will listen and do it.”

²⁸ The L ord heard your words when you spoke to me, and the L ord said to me: “I have heard the words of this people, which they have spoken to you; they are right in all that they have spoken. ²⁹If only they had such a mind as this, to fear me and to keep all my commandments always, so that it might go well with them and with their children forever! ³⁰Go say to them, ‘Return to your tents.’ ³¹But you, stand here by me, and I will tell you all the commandments, the statutes and the ordinances, that you shall teach them, so that they may do them in the land that I am giving them to possess.” ³²You must therefore be careful to do as the L ord your God has commanded you; you shall not turn to the right or to the left. ³³You must follow exactly the path that the L ord your God has commanded you, so that you may live, and that it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land that you are to possess.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

4. Face to face. Again he commends the Law by mentioning their certainty about it; for, when God openly manifested Himself, there could be no doubt of the author from whom it proceeded. To speak “face to face,” is equivalent to discoursing openly and familiarly; and in point of fact God had spoken with them, as mortals and friends communicate with each other in their mutual dealings. Moreover, lest any doubt should still remain, God set before their eyes a visible manifestation of His glory, by appearing in the fire; for no other voice but that of God Himself could proceed out of fire. In the next verse a kind of explanation is added, when he says that he was the interpreter, who laid before them the commands he received from God. And thus he reconciles two things which seem at first sight to be contradictory, viz., that God spoke in person, and yet by a mediator; since they themselves having heard God’s voice petitioned in their fear that He should not continue to speak in the same way. Hence it follows that they were convinced, by a sense of the divine glory and majesty, that it was not allowable for them to doubt the authority of the law. But I only slightly glance at this, because it has been more fully treated of before.

Deuteronomy 4:20. But the Lord hath taken you. He argues that, from the period of their deliverance, they have been wholly devoted to God, since He has purchased them for His own peculiar possession. Hence it follows that they are under His jurisdiction and dominion; because it would be foul and wicked ingratitude in them to shake off the yoke of their redeemer. And, in order to strengthen the obligation, he extols the greatness of the favor, because nothing could be more wretched than they were, when God stretched forth His hand to deliver them. Their bondage is therefore called metaphorically, a “furnace,” nay, an “iron” one; and, then, their present far different condition is compared with it; for this was solid and most desirable happiness, that they should be translated into God’s peculiar inheritance.