Lesson 12:
The TEN Commandments (Ex. 20:1-17)
Exodus Lecture January 17/19, 2007
 

Come with me to the desert. Living here in Tucson it is not such of a stretch of the imagination, since we know about the hard rocky soil, the variety of mountains, the vast distances that surround us. Similarly,
in our travel to Sinai with the nomads, we are in a vast desert with numerous mountains around us. There is one particular mountain, however, that has meaning because for 1500 years, pilgrims have come here BELIEVING it to be the Mt. Sinai--the holy mountain. Author and pilgrim Bruce Feiler who walked in all the places of the Pentateuch, also climbed Mr. Sinai. What his journey did for him was to make the history of the people of Israel alive, real, and immediate. Now these places through which he journeyed,
following the patriarchs in Mesopotamia and Palestine, Joseph in Egypt, and Moses in the wilderness, have become part of him--stories that live inside his body--he carries the Bible inside of him. (Walking the Bible, p.99)

The unique quality of the Bible is not only its authentic history, but also its contemporary impact. For each of us the history of how we know the Ten Commandments is different; yet because of it we share a common bond. Not only were these words important to fashioning a community of people focused on God, but they continue to be important in societies around the world hundreds of years later, creating a bond in society that acknowledges a great spiritual power beyond ourselves and best practices for getting
along with one another.

10 COMMANDMENTS: literally 10 WORDS. Therefore, these would be easy to remember even for a child--with the 10 fingers of our hands. Perhaps all of them were as short as the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th, with enlargments due to editors either of the Priestly or Deuteronomic editions. (New Jerusalem Bible, 103)

The first one the people of God already knew--from Moses' experience of the burning bush--"I AM".

I. "I am God, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of a life of slavery". (Peterson)

God has already proved his love for his people by rescuing them from slavery. "The Dusty Ones" as Thomas Cahill in "The Gifts of the Jews" describes the people of God, are already justified before God. God's authority and initiative has made these nomads in the desert his very own.  The people have been redeemed by a gracious God and the law was given to them precisely because they were now God's liberated people. "The law of God is the way of life he sets before those whom he has saved, and they
engage in that way of life as a response of love and gratitude to God their Redeemer." (Moyter, The Message of Exodus, 213)

The authority in this announcement of who God is implies the justification for the rest of the commandments. Because I am God, I want you to live the best life possible--a life reflecting my image. We live an excellent life when we choose to obey our Creator's words. In fact, "this gift of the Commandments allows us to live in the present, in the here and now. What I have done in the past is past mending;

what I will do in the future is a worry not worth the candle, for there is no way I can know what will happen next. But in this moment--and only in this moment--I am in control. This is the moment of choice,
the moment when I decide whether I will plunge in the knife or not, take the treasure or not, begin to spin the liar's web or not. This is the moment when the past can be transformed and the future lit with radiance. And such a realization need bring neither regret nor anxiety but, if I keep the Commandments, true peace....For in choosing what is right I am never more alive." (Cahill, "The Gifts of the Jews", 146)

II. "No other gods, only me." (Peterson)

...no one else "in my presence"; an assertion of monotheism for an Israel where God is present....intimacy between God and his people make other intercessory gods unnecessary. (New Jerusalem Bible, 103)

The people of God were not to add the worship of false gods to the one, true God. Unfortunately, that did happen later in the land of Canaan, where the cult of Baal was prevalent. This commandment acknowledges the allure of other gods, an understandable fascination, yet cautions about the inherent menace of other gods. God wants our loving loyalty and cannot bear it when our desires and loyalties
go elsewhere. (Moyter, 223) That's the meaning of the word jealousy in this context. "God cares for us, and therefore, is not indifferent to what we do and how we live." (Ogilvie, The Preacher's Commentary, v.2)

Additionally, God is Spirit and must not be worshipped under the form of any material representation. In fact, Sinai brought no vision to the eyes of who God was, only a voice to the ears. Everything in worship must be ordered according to the Word of God. (Moyter, 224)

The sins of parents influence their children towards evil and certain sins bring punishment which is inevitably shared by the offspring, e.g. diseases which are the direct result of immorality and poverty which results from extravagance. This commandment provides a healthy check on parents' conduct. Note how evil conduct affects three to four generations, often the number of generations who are living together, whereas consequences of a good life benefit posterity to an almost limitless extent: 1,000th generation! (Davidson, 120)

Lloyd Ogilvie also comments on this commandment. "Future generations will suffer the consequences of their predecessors, because there is a connection, a solidarity, a unity of the human race. War works its ravaging havoc, not only upon those who participate in it, but upon those who come after them. Drunkenness and drugs affect not only the ones who are immediately victims of it, but their families and even beyond their families. Immoral behavior has that way. It doesn't end with itself. It spreads out to invade the lives of those within its circle. Not only does it invade, it often times destroys, or if it does not destroy, it maims, brings sorrow and sadness, or causes endless pain.

"So we can't think that we can do whatever we desire because our sin will not hurt anyone else. That simply isn't so. Sin is like the pebble that is cast into the water, rippling it with concentric circles that move out to affect every other surface they touch.

"The blessing of righteous living is the same way: "Showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments". This is a Hebrew parallelism which means not a thousand people, but thousands of generations. The influence of persons committed to God continues for countless generations." (Ogilvie, The Preacher's Commentary, v.2)

III. "No using the name of God, your God, in curses or silly banter; God won't put up with the irreverant use of his name." (Peterson) This is a prohibition against false swearing and flippant oaths. The implication is that the Lord's name is intensely precious to God. It is he who notes its misuse and who matches the punishment to the crime in each and every case. "I will not hold him guiltless." (Moyter, 225)

Did you know that Dr. Laura wrote a book on the 10 Commandments? She sums up the first three commandments like this: "If the First Commandment mandates the One and Only God's authority, and the Second rejects the authority of all other gods, the Third Commandment comes to teach us about the holiness of God, the sacred nature of our relationship with God, and our responsibilities to each other in His name." (Dr. Laura Schlessinger and Rabbi Stewart Vogel, "The Ten Commandments: the Significance of God's Laws in Everyday Life", 93)

IV. "Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Work six days and do everything you need to do. Therefore, God blessed the Sabbath day; he set it apart as a holy day." (Peterson)

This is God's own pattern at creation: working and resting. Because we are made in his image, this, too, should be our rhythm. The Sabbath is "a change of pace". Note how radical this command was, particularly for these newly liberated slaves who had worked all the time, never having a day off. Consider merchants whose loss of one day's financial gain cut deeply into the commercially ambitious(Amos 8:4-6). Indeed, following this commandment imposed a duty of careful forethought. (Moyter, 226)

However, it was not an end in itself; it "clears a space" for something special--a "different day"--lived especially for God. All time belongs to God and setting aside one day out of seven serves to remind us of the sacredness of all our days. According to Rabbi Abraham Heschel, the Jewish observance of Sabbath aims at the sanctification of time....as a means of encountering the holy. "It's an opportunity to distance ourselves from our own activity and to concentrate on God's activity in us and in the world." (Marva Dawn, "Keeping the Sabbath Wholly: Ceasing, Resting, Embracing, Feasting")

"Spiritually, everyday should be a Sunday, just as every life should be a saintly life. We need a Sabbath rhythm in our lives--a rhythm that includes relaxation and reflection, in order that our souls and bodies may be renewed. Certainly, Sunday as the Sabbath day for Christians is essential because of our gathering as the people of God to celebrate God's mighty acts in history and to recommit ourselves within the body of Christ, the blessed community." (Ogilvie)

V. "Honor your father and mother so that you'll live a long time in the land that God, your God, is giving you." (Peterson)  

This is the center of the Ten Commandments: the four preceding ones dealt with our relationship with God and the next six deal with our relationship to each other. And interestingly, the first one in this section deals with family. Lloyd Ogilvie says that this puts family exactly where it belongs--in the center. "Unless people learn to live together in the family, they aren't likely to learn to get along with anybody else." (Preacher's Commentary, v.2)

We often hear about the use of this commandment to make children obey their parents. But I would like to posit another opinion about the use of this commandment. All of these commandments were spoken to adults and adults were required to follow them and teach them to their children. This command requires adults to honor the older members of their families. Note that these people had just come from slavery where you were worth nothing if you could not produce. The older people who had completed their days of working were not to be shunted aside and forgotten. They were to be honored, respected, and esteemed. (Preacher's Commentary, v.2)

Warren Wiersbe writes: "In a world that worships and imitates youth and uses "assisted suicide" to eliminate unwanted old people, this commandment sounds like an echo from a time warp. But the Jews were taught to respect age and to care for their senior citizens (21:15, 17; Lev. 19:3, 32; Dt. 27:16; Prov. 1:8; 16:31; 20:20; 23:22; 30:17), a good example for us to follow today (Eph.6:1-3; I Tim.5:1,2). Someone has said that the elderly are the only outcast group that everybody expects to join, because nobody wants the alternative. But how we treat them today will help to determine how we're treated tomorrow, because we reap what we sow." (Wiersbe, "Be Delivered", Lesson 12)

The Commandments--a guide to a well-lived life--or as my "Young Children and Worship" story says: The Ten Best Ways to Live. And I pray that as our study continues next time that the law may be indelibly written on our hearts so that the Bible will truly live in us. May the vision of Jeremiah be our hope:

I will put my law within them
And I will write it on their hearts;
I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
No longer shall they teach one another,
or say to each other, "Know the Lord,"
for they shall all know me.... (31:33,34)

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