SS lesson 10 Commandments

Exodus 20 – The Ten Commandments -

What do we know about the 10 Commandments?

1 And God spoke all these words: (the 10 Words)

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

This is the introduction/prologue to the 10 commandments.

C the 10 commandments are a series of principles concerned with relationship with Yahweh and with humankind, by reference to what that relationship has meant, thus far, for the people of Israel.

C Yahweh has given himself to them.

C He has brought them out from Egypt.

C He has made them who were not a people into a people

C he has given freedom to those who were slaves.

C What follows is what the relationship, if it is to be continued, must have from the people of Israel.

C What we have here reflects the structure of royal treaties in the ancient near east, in which the king is identified and a historical prologue is given in which he sketched his previous gracious acts toward the subject king or people., the king then set forth the treaty/covenant stipulations to be obeyed (in this case the 10 commandments).

C Use of this ancient royal treaty pattern shows that the LORD is here formally acknowledged as Israel’s King and that Israel is his subject people.

C As his subjects, his covenant people are to render complete submission, allegiance, and obedience to him out of gratitude for his mercies, reverence for his sovereignty, and trust in his continuing care.

C The 10 Commandments are not isolated moral maxims, instructions for personal piety, commands in order for people to win God’s favor. They are given in a historical and redemptive context and should be understood in that context. They are given to a specific people who’ve already been redeemed, not so that they might be redeemed. They are also given to the people as a whole, and the actions of individuals have broader repercussions. The focus of many of these commands is to foster social cohesion, which serves not merely to make the Israelites “nice people”, but agents of world change, image-bearers of God to be a light to the nations.

C In the context of the covenant relationship of Yahweh with Israel, the Ten Commandments cease to be “law” in any legalistic sense, as commands which must be kept for their own sake or out of fear of punishment. As the offering of the covenant was an act of grace on the part of Yahweh, so was the giving of the Ten Commandments.

C The commandments were given at the outset for Israel only, and they had at the outset a limited application to the Israelite Community. Yet they contained from the beginning elements of universality and general applicability that made it inevitable for them to become a foundation stone for Judaeo-Christian ethics.

3 "You shall have no other gods before me.

C First commandment sets forth an expectation of absolute priority, a first and fundamental requirement of those who desire to enter into the covenant relationship with Yahweh. No other gods in my presence.

C Yahweh has given himself to them, and they are therefore no longer to have any other gods save them.

C The first commandment is not an assertion of monotheistic conviction, that Yahweh is the only God, and hence the sole choice.

C The OT makes very clear that such was not the case in the world of ancient Israel.

C The first commandment, in a sense, was called for by the many gods who demanded of Israel the allegiance Yahweh alone had the right to command. The commandment does not specify that no one is to have “other gods” but that Israel is to have no other gods.

C Rather than being a statement on monotheism (belief in one God), it is a statement on monolatry (there are many gods, but we must worship only one). Yahweh had just defeated the gods of Egypt. The Israelites just left a polytheistic culture and were about to enter into another one. They had to be devoted to only one God.

C Yahweh had opened himself to a special relationship with Israel, but that relationship could develop only if Israel committed themselves to Yahweh alone. Yahweh had rescued them and freed them, delivered them and guided them, then come to them. The next step, if there was to be a next step, belonged to them. If they were to remain in his Presence, they were not to have other gods.

C Discussion: What are some of the gods we are tempted to have before God today? (Money, material possessions, busy-ness, self, family, school, church, etc.)

4 "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand {generations} of those who love me and keep my commandments.

C The word translated “idol” in the NIV can also be translated “image.”

C In a way, this continues the first commandment. Don’t make idols – images of false gods.

C But it also means that in your worship of Yahweh, don’t make images that are to represent Yahweh. He created everything.

C Worship Yahweh as he truly is/in his fullness, not in your limited vision of Him that you’ve created.

C How are some of the ways that we can make and worship “images” of Yahweh rather than worshiping Yahweh himself? (Music preferences, Biblical inerrancy & literal-cy, evolution, entire sanctification)

C Notice that the Jealousy of Yahweh is here directed at Israel, not the “nations.” The expectation is that they will demonstrate undivided loyalty (the first commandment). Yahweh has every right, even every obligation, to punish any compromise.

C Yahweh’s jealousness comes only upon those who, having promised to have no God but him, have gone back on that promise.

C The word translated “punishing” can also be translated as “visiting.” When Yahweh visits and your house is in order/you’re living in proper relation to the covenant, then you have nothing to worry about. You and your children will be blessed – for countless generations. But if you’re not living in that proper relationship, God’s visit isn’t going to be so pleasant. It’s going to feel more like punishment – which will be felt by you and your children.

C It’s like taking an exam. If you prepared well, you don’t have anything to worry about. You’ll get an A. But if you didn’t prepare at all, you’d better worry...because you are going to flunk.

C Discussion? Comments?

Before moving to next commandment:

C For those of you who work in places where you frequently handle people’s credit card #s, bank account numbers, social security numbers, etc. - you’ve been entrusted with great responsibility. You can’t turn around and buy something on e-Bay. What will happen? (You’ll lose your job, possibly go to prison for fraud/identity theft, etc.) You’ve been given a responsibility, and if you misuse that responsibility, you will have to pay the consequences.

7 "You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.

C More direct translation: You will not lift up the name of the LORD your God in vain/emptiness, for the LORD will not leave unpunished those who takes his name in vain/emptiness/nothingness/insubstantial.

C In general terms, this commandment prohibits a lack of seriousness about Yahweh’s Presence in Israel, demonstrated through a pointless, misleading, or even false use of his name.

C Yahweh had not withheld his name but had freely given it to Moses and so to Israel as both a summary and an extension of the revelation of his Presence. His sovereignty is such that he was not subject to the manipulation of his worshipers, and thus he opened himself to is people with as much fullness as they could stand. Yahweh could not be controlled, or even altered in his set purpose, by men.

C (It’s like God has given Israel his credit card and said: use this responsibly for my purposes.) [I recently read a story of a girl whose dad gave her his credit card to go to the store and buy some groceries. The clerk, seeing that the girl was not the owner, called her dad, who assured him that she had his permission to guy the groceries. If she had gone to a car dealership to buy a car with it, he would have said no way!]

C This commandment is not directed toward Yahweh’s protection, but toward Israel’s. Yahweh’s name must be honored, blessed, praised, celebrated, invoked, pronounced, and so shared. To treat Yahweh’s name with disrespect is to treat his gift lightly, to underestimate his power, to scorn his Presence, and to misrepresent to the family of humankind his very nature as “the one who always is.”

C Discussion, comments, questions?

8 "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

A few notes:

C “Remember” can also be translated “observe”. “Zacar” means “remember in the sense of “observing without lapse” or “holding as a present and continuing priority”.

C (Sabbath from the SBT, meaning to stop, cease, rest; day of ceasing, stopping, for religious reasons, from the normal daily routine.

C What do you do for a friend or family member’s birthday or a wedding anniversary? (Do you just think to yourself, oh hey, look, it’s so & so’s birthday, or do you give evidence that you remember it?)

C “by keeping it holy” is better translated “in order to make it holy.” Holiness means... being set apart. By remembering the Sabbath, Israel is setting apart the day from the other six days, treating it as holy.

Notice that the 4th commandment is the longest – probably because it is so difficult for the people of Israel to keep it. [Even now, we always find more work to do.]

Three reasons given for keeping the Sabbath:

C (v. 10) The Sabbath day is to be remembered without exception, set apart from all other days as a day for holy purposes and kept free of the customary labor of the other six days, precisely because this day belongs to Yahweh. (Remember, they are in covenant with Yahweh, so this reason should be enough.) On the sabbath day, nobody is to undertake “usual work.” The list here is likely an attempt to plug obvious loopholes: not only is the Israelite not to work on the sabbath, neither is anyone else, or even any animal, that might conceivably be doing his work for him.

C Another reason – (v. 11) beyond the fact that the Sabbath belongs to the Lord. Yahweh himself respects this day by ceasing from the labor of the other six days: his work of creation was accomplished in 6 days, and then he rested. God himself set this day apart in his work of creation.

C A third reason is given in Deut 5:12-15. There the reason is not Yahweh’s rest after his work of creation, but the exodus from the slavery of Egypt.

C Why would this be given as a reason?

C 1 - Goes back to verse 2 (God brought them out of Egypt so he has the right to be their master.)

C 2 - In Egypt there was no day of interruption of the unending round of forced labor; Moses’ requests for time to worship were met by Pharaoh with scorn; but Yahweh “brought them out from there” and so commands them to celebrate the sabbath day as a “stopping day” proclaiming not only their dependence upon Yahweh but also their independence of all other peoples and powers.

C Discussion: What does it mean to us to observe & make holy the Sabbath Day?

12 "Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.

C With this commandment, we start the second basic direction of the commandments as the fundamental principles of life in covenant with Yahweh is taken. The first 4 commandments set forth the principles guiding Israel’s relationship to Yahweh; the last 6 commandments set forth the principles guiding Israel’s relationship with the covenant community, and more broadly, with the human family.

C As the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th commandments are in many ways extensions of the first commandment, the first four commandments are the foundation for the final 6 commandments. And all of the commandments, as principles governing covenant relationships, are founded on the ultimate OT statement of relationship, v. 2. Because Yahweh is, and is Israel’s God, Israel both is and must bcome a certain and special people. What Israel is and is to be is determined by Yahweh’s gift of himself to them first, and second, by their gift of themselves to him in response. That response involves Yahweh first and all humankind second.

C “Honor” comes from the same Hebrew root as glory, weight, heaviness. Here it can mean “honor, give weight to, glorify, esteem,” in the sense of giving a place of precedence, of taking someone seriously. To give honor to father and mother means more than to be subject to them, or respectful of their wishes: they are to be given precedence by the recognition of the importance which is theirs by right, esteemed for their priority, and loved for it as well. As Yahweh is honored for his priority to all life, so father and mother must be honored for their priority, as Yahweh’s instruments, to the lives of their children.

C Adults are the ones to whom the commandment is primarily directed. Focus is upon those who are responsible and “in charge,” those who follow their parents and precede their children in shaping Israel’s responsibility in covenant.

C The promise and implied warning that follow are unique here. Disrespect for one’s parents was a serious offense in the covenant community, and rebellion against them was punishable by death, precisely because such disrespect and rebellion constituted disobedience of Yahweh.

13 "You shall not murder.

The Hebrew word here is RTZH (It’s used far less frequently in OT than HRG – kill, slay, destroy) and MUT (cause to die, kill). It is more specific that killing in general, but no so specific that it means only murder. It refers to killing that brings illegal violence into the covenant community. RTZH is an act of killing, premeditated or not, related to vengeance or not, that violates the standard of living Yahweh expects of those who have given themselves to him. It describes a killing of human beings forbidden by Yahweh to those who are in covenant with him. The use of such a specialized term in the specific context of the Decalogue leaves the way open for the killing of the Yahweh-war or capital punishment, both of which are of course permitted by the OT, and also sets apart other uses of RTZH by relating them inevitably to the obligations of the covenant with Yahweh.

Look at what Jesus said about murder in Matthew’s Gospel.

14 "You shall not commit adultery.

C This commandment is to protect the marriage bond. It should not be broken or destroyed by either partner. It needs to be guarded.

· This commandment is in prohibition of sexual relationships between 2 persons, one or both of whom are married to another party or parties. In the OT, Adultery includes a man with the wife of another man, a man with the fiancee of another man, and a wife with a man other than her husband. (A man could have relations with a concubine or a prostitute and not break this commandment; it also did not prohibit 2 unmarried people from having sex “before marriage.”)

· Adultery. It is often used in the OT with both men and women as subject, though far more frequently of men, and, by analogy, as a designation of idol worship, the violation of the bond of covenant relationship with Yahweh.

· Adultery was punishable by death. Why talk about Adultery in the 10 Commandments? Why not all sexual sins? The reason is because adultery, more than other illicit sexual behavior, has to do with unfaithfulness in a relationship of commitment. Marriage was a binding commitment of faithfulness between two persons and it was in principle similar to the covenant relationship itself. The crime of adultery was the social equivalent to the religious crime of having other gods; both offenses involved unfaithfulness and both were therefore reprehensible to the God of the covenant, whose character it was to be totally faithful.

· Faithfulness must permeate every sphere of life, both religious and secular, in order to give a distinctive character to the people of God. Adultery involved not only unfaithfulness to the other partner, but also unfaithfulness to God.

· More than the integrity of marriage and the home, and more than the integrity of personal honor were at stake in the covenant setting of Yahweh’s 10 words. The integrity of the Israelite’s relationship with Yahweh himself was at stake. Everywhere in the ANE, Israel concluded, adultery was a crime against persons; but in Israel it was first of all and even more a crime against Yahweh. Most telling of all in this connection is the use of adultery as a description of Israel’s obsession with idolatry. Adultery with the husband or the wife or the betrothed of another was, like idol worship, a turning away from commitment to Yahweh.

C Look at what Jesus said about committing adultery in Matthew’s Gospel.

(Jesus uses hyperbole to illustrate that you need to rid the temptation at the root – on the inside—rather than wait until it becomes full blown.

15 "You shall not steal.

Do not steal. Best understood as a prohibition of stealing of any kind under any circumstances. Quick. Easy. Simple. To the point, right? Or is it? It might be one of the easiest

The commandment is concerned specifically with relationships between persons within the covenant community rather than property.
(“Manstealing”/kidnapping?... Not as final as murder, this removed a person from the covenant relationship. Ne person assumed control of the life and fate f another for his own personal gain, thereby assuming a right that properly belongs to God. ….. Would include manipulating someone for personal gain.
Calvin included not only those who secretly steal the property of others, but those also who seek for gain from the loss of others, accumulate wealth by unlawful practices, and are more devoted to their private advantage than to equality. He included (in the elaboration of this commandment): pledges, bribes, correct weights and measures, moving a neighbor’s landmark, returning lost property, fraudulent use of another’s property, and negligence, as well as laws that protect the weak and poor from oppression, provide release for slaves, and ensure access of the poor to the needs of life.

How do we steal?

– illegally copying music, programs, or any other electronic medium. Taking something we didn’t earn or pay for. What about using work resources for personal use? (Long-distance telephone calls, print-outs, photocopies, even time.) What about mis-allocating funds? (Story of the penny in the alabaster container. Someone found it and was going to give it to someone else. “That’s stealing.” So they said, OK, we’ll put it in the church renovation fund. But that’s mis-alocation of funds – taking money from where it’s supposed to go, and putting it some place else.)

– what are some non-material things that we can steal (respect, trustworthiness, reputation)

16 "You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

C Never respond to your neighbor with a false witness. Or “You shall not testify against your neighbor as a lying witness.”

· Testimony and Witness bring up the image of a court setting. (The guilt or innocence of persons in court is determined largely by witnesses….I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

· More than “give,” it means “answer, give reply, respond.”

· Neighbor is a “Companion, neighbor, friend, fellow-citizen” refers always in the OT to a person with whom one stands in a reciprocal relationship and in legal contexts, to a fellow member of the covenant community.

· False – “Lying, deceiving, false, fraudulent”. Reference to a lying testimony in a judicial context. In Deut. 5:20, it is replaced with “nothingness, emptiness, worthlessness, something vain” [is this the same word as referring to the Name”?] The 3rd commandment has to do with truth-telling concerning God; here concerning the well-being of Israelite brothers & sisters.

· This naturally flows out of the commandment not to steal. Here we are not to steal someone’s reputation by saying false things about them.

· At Jesus’ trial, they looked for false witnesses to testify against him.

· This commandment, like all the others, describes what the life of the Israelite obedient to Yahweh’s expectation is to be like. That he is not to give a lying testimony in a legal proceeding is at the root of the 9th commandment, but the testimony the Israelite gives before the elders in the gate is not to be considered something separate from his witness under less formal circumstances. Reputations of neighbors to one another was important. More impt to Yahweh, for these people, as his people, were to be his witness to the world

· But in the NT, who does Jesus say your neighbor is? (Parable of the Good Samaritan)

17 "You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor."

C (HMD) “Covet” is simply the word “desire, yearn for, lust after” someone or something, specifically for one’s own use or gratification. More than a simple desire, it means to desire something that belongs to someone else so strongly that one is moved to take it.

C As first commandment provides the foundation for covenant relationship, so this 10th commandment “You are not to desire for yourself...” describes the foundation for severing the covenant relationship.

C The 10th commandment functions as a kind of summary commandment, the violation of which is a first step that can lead to the violation of any one or all the rest of the commandments. As such, it is necessarily all-embracing and descriptive of an attitude rather than a deed.

C Coveting for oneself the gold and silver with which idols are decorated leads to idolatry, the violation of the first commandment. Desiring the “free love” of the fertility cults leads both to the worship of other gods and to sexual irresponsiblity, the violation of the first and 7th commandments. Yearning after the possessions of others may lead to stealing, a violation of 8th commandment.

C Before Ahab’s obsessive desire for Naboth’s vineyard was satisfied, the 9th & 6th commandments had been broken. (1 Kings 21)

C Before David’s lust for Bathsheba was sated, the 7th, 8th, and 6th commandments were broken. (2 Samuel 11)

18 When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance 19 and said to Moses, "Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die." 20 Moses said to the people, "Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning." 21 The people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was.

In Chapter 19, Moses keeps going up and down Mount Sinai. At the end of Chapter 19, he has just gone DOWN the mountain. Commentators disagree as to how to interpret the order of things. 20:18 “thunder and lightning” language resembles 19:16-19. So maybe the 10 commandments were given at that time, but the narrative wasn’t to be broken up, so they saved them. Others say Moses was at the top of the mountain and received the 10 commandments and then told the people the 10 commandments, as he received them from God. Others say Moses was down the mountain with the people, and they all heard God together.

C Whatever the case, the people heard God, saw the lightning and thunder. But Moses tells them don’t be Afraid. The Fear of God will keep you from sinning.

C The Hebrew for “test” can also mean “experience” – v. 20 can be paraphrased to say “Do not be afraid. God is giving you a taste of himself so that this memory will stick with you to keep you from sinning.

Then Moses goes back up the mountain.