Exodus 20- The Nine Commandments

Exodus 20:1-20

Today I would like to take a look at the Ten Commandments because it's such a famous part of the Exodus story. I thought that maybe what I would do is to go through these commandments and just say a little bit about each one.

Just as an overview, the Ten Commandments are a part of the larger set of laws that were given as a part of the covenant with Israel. So why look at these particular commands and make them stand out from the rest? One reason is that Jesus actually pointed to these when a wealthy man came to Jesus and asked, "Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?" And Jesus replies by listing the 10 commandments. So, if Jesus pointed to these, then they are obviously worth our attention. They seem to have been understood as a kind of summation of the law.

Another reason we might pay attention to these is because from early times the church was trying to figure out how the laws applied in the New Covenant. For Jewish Christians, most of these laws remained intact, but for Gentile Christians it was a bigger question. The nations, the Gentiles, were invited to worship the God of Israel, but this wasn't about becoming culturally Jewish. They could come to the God of Israel as their own nation with their own culture. What they found in the Ten Commandments was the moral heart of the law found within the Old Testament.

It might also be worth saying that there are really probably only nine commandments. We get ten by either clumping or splitting the first two or clumping or splitting the last two. So there are different traditions for how to number these, but it might be easier if we just call them nine.

The commandments start in Exodus 20 with the statement, 

"I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery." 

All the rest of what will be said rests on that reality: God is the one who has brought the people out of slavery. These commandments are about how to live free with the God who has rescued them.

The first commandment is: 

"You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourselves an idol in the likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth."

 Some translations say, "You shall not make for yourself a carved image," but this translation isn't entirely accurate and creates problems later on because the Hebrews are told to carve all kinds of decorations. For example, on the Ark of the Covenant, they create two cherubim (Exodus 25:18-20). In the Tabernacle and in the Temple, they create images on the walls and on the curtain (1 Kings 6 and 7). God also commands Moses to create a bronze serpent (Numbers 21:8-9).

That would make it very awkward if the command was against creating any images at all. If we took such a command seriously, then we shouldn't actually have any pictures. We shouldn't use our phones to take pictures. We shouldn't have any statues. We shouldn't actually have any decorations that look like anything, even plants. We probably shouldn't have family photos. We shouldn't have paintings, even of landscapes. But thankfully that's not a great translation of the command.

What is being referred to in this command is the creation of an idol. The Hebrew word has to do with manufacturing a physical representation of a spiritual being for religious worship. An idol is a very specific kind of object in the ancient world. Usually, the creation of an idol involved a religious ceremony, where the spiritual being was invited to indwell the image, which sort of made the image into a body for that spiritual being. If you had access to this kind of body, an idol, then you could interact with that spiritual being in particular ways. It becomes a kind of spiritual technology. You could get the spiritual being to do something for you. You could maybe bribe them for favours so you would feed it and dress it and put the idol in a beautiful temple.

This command is also against creating an idol for the God of Israel, which is what happened with the golden calf story in Exodus. This also happened later in the northern kingdom at Bethel and at Dan. If you create this image of God, it might create a situation where you are tempted to manipulate God in the ways they were used to interacting with idols back in Egypt or in surrounding pagan communities.[1] But the people of God are not to engage in this kind of worship. They're not to have relationships with these other spiritual beings and they're not to worship the God of Israel in this way.

Now we aren't probably running around making idols and worshipping pagan gods (and if you are, you should stop that) but where this might apply to us metaphorically is in not having our loyalties divided. We are all tempted to put something else on the throne of our life besides God, and this command is a teaching about keeping God on the throne of our life.

Next is 

"You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain." 

Many of us have the idea that this is about swearing. This has more to do with representing God. If you are a follower of God, if you are representing God, then you are bearing the name of God. What you do in the name of God presents a positive or a negative image of God. What you do in the name of God tells a truth about God or a falsehood about God and therefore either repels people from God or draws people to God. … If you say you're acting in the name of God and you run a plane into a building, that is not honouring the name of God. That is taking the name of God in vain. … We bear the name of Christ as Christians and so the things we do with that name will cause people to be drawn towards Christ or to be repelled.

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” 

It's interesting that in the early church they didn't prescribe Sabbath keeping for Gentile Christians. Sabbath keeping was considered to be a part of the old covenant rather than the new- it was seen as being fulfilled in Christ. … Christians did gather on Sunday, which was the Lord's Day- the day that we remember Jesus was resurrected. They encouraging the observance of the Lord's Day as a day of worship. Traditions about resting on the Lord's Day arose over time and we can see some of this taking formal shape under Emperor Constantine in the 4th century.

While early Christians weren't legalistic about this, we can see there being wisdom for us in this commandment: entering into a time of rest one day a week is a good idea, especially in a society that seems to be obsessed with busyness and productivity.

“Honour your father and your mother.” 

Sometimes we interpret this to mean, "Do what your parents tell you." I don't think that is entirely true. Some people have quite controlling parents or parents that might tell you to do things that aren't actually good. So, we might think of honouring our parents a little bit differently. One way we might do this is in the way that we live. When people meet us, they should be left with the assumption that we must be from a really good family. That is a way to honour our mother and our father: to live in a good way.

I think honouring tradition is also another way to honour our mothers and fathers. I think being faithful to the traditions that we inherit in the Church is a way of doing this. We honour those who came before us. We appreciate the world they have left us. We appreciate what they built. We appreciate the technologies that they left us. We appreciate the society they left us.

"You shall not murder." 

This one maybe seems quite obvious. … It is always tragic to end another human life. There are times where we might be forced into situations where we need to protect innocent people and end the life of someone who is causing harm. That might be the needed thing to do, but that doesn't mean that the ending of that life isn't tragic. The ending of a human life should never be considered a good thing.

Jesus commented on this, saying, 

"You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not murder,' and whoever murders will be liable to judgment. But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment." (Matthew 5:21-26). 

The time to prevent murder is not when you have a loaded gun in your hand. The time to deal with murder is when anger arises in your heart. Deal with the anger in your heart before it comes anywhere close to murder.

"You shall not commit adultery." 

While this is specifically referring to people in a married relationship, I think we can broaden this symbolically to mean that we should keep sexuality in its proper boundaries. For a married couple that means keeping their expressions of sexuality within the marriage. For those of us who are single, we should keep sexuality within the boundaries that are proper to the situation we find ourselves in.

Jesus commented on this saying, 

“you have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matthew 5: 27-30). 

The Greek here has to do with looking for the purpose of lusting. It's way beyond just finding someone attractive. … This means that the time to address adultery is not when you're on your way to the hotel room. The time to address adultery is when lust is arising within our hearts.

"You shall not steal." 

This one seems fairly obvious as well. We should not take what doesn't belong to us. The later church fathers expounded on this. For example, St. Basil the Great once said, 

“The bread which you do not use is the bread of the hungry; the garment hanging in your wardrobe is the garment of him who is naked; the shoes that you do not wear are the shoes of the one who is barefoot; the money that you keep locked away is the money of the poor." 

We should keep in mind that this was spoken to a society that had no social safety nets, but I hope we would hear these words with weight as well. So, while the Church believes in private property, the limit of private property ends with the genuine need of your neighbour.

"You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour." 

Most of us learn that this has to do with lying. In an ancient Israelite court, you needed to have witnesses to support your case. It could be tempting to manufacture witnesses so you could win your case. Which might mean finding people who are willing to lie for you, maybe for a fee. False witnesses get in the way of justice.

But I think this has to do with more than lying. This is actually lying that costs the reputation of your neighbour. This might be more related to gossip and slander. This is an issue in politics at the moment. Politicians might be quoted out of context or their statements might be exaggerated. It's easy for us to speak in slanderous ways about politicians we disagree with. But in doing so we might be presenting a false image of who that person actually is. We are misrepresenting them. Bearing false witness to their character and what their goals are. … Instead, we should try to speak as truthfully as possible about our neighbours, rather than in slanderous ways that exaggerate their negative traits.

“You shall not covet.” 

Coveting is speaking about the internal disposition. This is very much what Jesus was getting at when he's talking about anger in relation to murder and lust in relation to adultery. This is about the disposition of our heart. … If we covet someone's property, that might lead us to stealing. If we covet our neighbour's spouse, that could lead to adultery. …. So, the command against coveting invites us to look at our inner disposition towards our neighbour. Many of these other commandments will fall into place if we just take this rule about coveting more seriously.

As we hear these commandments we're reminded that these are not burdens placed on people- a new kind of slavery. Spoken to those who have been released from slavery in Egypt, these are words, directions, wisdom spoken to people who are set free. They are a part of building a relationship with the God who has rescued them. This is a way of life that pulls Egypt out of them. And these commands are wisdom that invite us to examine our own lives and dispositions as well, so that we too can learn to live as free people in the kingdom of God. AMEN

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[1] The incarnation changes this so the argument in the Seventh Ecumenical Council (Nicée 787) says, "When the invisible one becomes visible in the flesh, you may depict the likeness of him who has been seen." You cannot depict the divine nature so God the Father is not to be shown but the human nature of Christ can be shown. Because Christ's humanity is united to his divinity, the image becomes a window to the prototype, not a replacement for God.