God spoke all these words, saying, “I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
“You shall have no other gods before me.
“You shall not make for yourselves an idol, nor any image of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: you shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them, for I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and on the fourth generation of those who hate me, and showing loving kindness to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
“You shall not misuse the name of Yahweh your God, for Yahweh will not hold him guiltless who misuses his name.
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. You shall labor six days, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to Yahweh your God. You shall not do any work in it, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your livestock, nor your stranger who is within your gates; for in six days Yahweh made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day; therefore Yahweh blessed the Sabbath day, and made it holy.
“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which Yahweh your God gives you.
“You shall not murder.
“You shall not commit adultery.
“You shall not steal.
“You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.
“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.”
All the people perceived the thunderings, the lightnings, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking. When the people saw it, they trembled, and stayed at a distance. They said to Moses, “Speak with us yourself, and we will listen; but don’t let God speak with us, lest we die.”
Moses said to the people, “Don’t be afraid, for God has come to test you, and that his fear may be before you, that you won’t sin.” The people stayed at a distance, and Moses came near to the thick darkness where God was.
Yahweh said to Moses, “This is what you shall tell the children of Israel: ‘You yourselves have seen that I have talked with you from heaven. You shall most certainly not make gods of silver or gods of gold for yourselves to be alongside me. You shall make an altar of earth for me, and shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your cattle. In every place where I record my name I will come to you and I will bless you. If you make me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of cut stones; for if you lift up your tool on it, you have polluted it. You shall not go up by steps to my altar, that your nakedness may not be exposed to it.’
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 25, 26 When Moses and Aaron were gone up, or had…
When Moses and Aaron were gone up, or had passed the bounds of the people, God spake thus out of the mount Horeb, that all the people heard.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–26 Exo 20:1 And God spake all these words, saying,
Exo 20:1 And God spake all these words, saying,
Ver. 1. God spake all, &c.] All the ten are of divine authority. Papists disannulling the second, that yet they may retain the number of ten words, so loath are heretics to have their asses’ ears seen, divide the last, which yet is called "the commandment," not the commandments. {Rom 7:7} Vasques, not able to answer our argument, saith that the second commandment belonged to the Jews only. {See Trapp (for summary of Law) on "Exo 20:17"}
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 Or, Then, to wit, when Moses was returned into…
Or, Then, to wit, when Moses was returned into the mount.
God spake immediately, and not by an angel. For though an ambassador or messenger may act in the name of his master, yet it is against the use of all ages and places for such to call themselves by his name. As well might an ambassador of France say, I am the king of France, which all men would account absurd, arrogant, and ridiculous, as an angel might say,
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I am the Lord. All these words, i.e. commands, for so the word is used, Deu 17:19; Est 1:12.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 12, 18, 22 Here is, I. The preface of the law-writer, Moses:…
Here is, I. The preface of the law-writer, Moses: God spoke all these words, Exo 20:1. The law of the ten commandments is, 1. A law of God's making. They are enjoined by the infinite eternal Majesty of heaven and earth. And where the word of the King of kings is surely there is power. 2. It is a law of his own speaking. God has many ways of speaking to the children of men (Job 33:14); once, yea twice - by his Spirit, by conscience, by providences, by his voice, all which we ought carefully to attend to; but he never spoke, at any time, upon any occasion, as he spoke the ten commandments, which therefore we ought to hear with the more earnest heed. They were not only spoken audibly (so he owned the Redeemer by a voice from heaven, Mat 3:17), but with a great deal of dreadful pomp. This law God had given to man before (it was written in his heart by nature); but sin had so defaced that writing that it was necessary, in this manner, to revive the knowledge of it.
II. The preface of the Law-maker: I am the Lord thy God, Exo 20:2. Herein, 1. God asserts his own authority to enact this law in general: "I am the Lord who command thee all that follows." 2. He proposes himself as the sole object of that religious worship which is enjoined in the first four of the commandments. They are here bound to obedience by a threefold cord, which, one would think, could not easily be broken. (1.) Because God is the Lord - Jehovah, self-existent, independent, eternal, and the fountain of all being and power; therefore he has an incontestable right to command us. He that gives being may give law; and therefore he is able to bear us out in our obedience, to reward it, and to punish our disobedience. (2.) He was their God, a God in covenant with them, their God by their own consent; and, if they would not keep his commandments, who would? He had laid himself under obligations to them by promise, and therefore might justly lay his obligations on them by precept. Though that covenant of peculiarity is now no more, yet there is another, by virtue of which all that are baptized are taken into relation to him as their God, and are therefore unjust, unfaithful, and very ungrateful, if they obey him not. (3.) He had brought them out of the land of Egypt; therefore they were bound in gratitude to obey him, because he had done them so great a kindness, had brought them out of a grievous slavery into a glorious liberty. They themselves had been eye-witnesses of the great things God had done in order to their deliverance, and could not but have observed that every circumstance of it heightened their obligation. They were now enjoying the blessed fruits of their deliverance, and in expectation of a speedy settlement in Canaan; and could they think any thing too much to do for him that had done so much for them? Nay, by redeeming them, he acquired a further right to rule them; they owed their service to him to whom they owed their freedom, and whose they were by purchase. And thus Christ, having rescued us out of the bondage of sin, is entitled to the best service we can do him, Luk 1:74. Having loosed our bonds, he has bound us to obey him, Psa 116:16.
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III. The law itself. The first four of the ten commandments, which concern our duty to God (commonly called the first table), we have in these verses. It was fit that those should be put first, because man had a Maker to love before he had a neighbour to love; and justice and charity are acceptable acts of obedience to God only when they flow from the principles of piety. It cannot be expected that he should be true to his brother who is false to his God. Now our duty to God is, in one word, to worship him, that is, to give to him the glory due to his name, the inward worship of our affections, the outward worship of solemn address and attendance. This is spoken of as the sum and substance of the everlasting gospel. Rev 14:7, Worship God.
1. The first commandment concerns the object of our worship, Jehovah, and him only (Exo 20:3): Thou shalt have no other gods before me. The Egyptians, and other neighbouring nations, had many gods, the creatures of their own fancy, strange gods, new gods; this law was prefixed because of that transgression, and, Jehovah being the God of Israel, they must entirely cleave to him, and not be for any other, either of their own invention or borrowed from their neighbours. This was the sin they were most in danger of now that the world was so overspread with polytheism, which yet could not be rooted out effectually but by the gospel of Christ. The sin against this commandment which we are most in danger of is giving the glory and honour to any creature which are due to God only. Pride makes a god of self, covetousness makes a god of money, sensuality makes a god of the belly; whatever is esteemed or loved, feared or served, delighted in or depended on, more than God, that (whatever it is) we do in effect make a god of. This prohibition includes a precept which is the foundation of the whole law, that we take the Lord for our God, acknowledge that he is God, accept him for ours, adore him with admiration and humble reverence, and set our affections entirely upon him. In the last words, before me, it is intimated, (1.) That we cannot have any other God but he will certainly know it. There is none besides him but what is before him. Idolaters covet secresy; but shall not God search this out? (2.) That it is very provoking to him; it is a sin that dares him to his face, which he cannot, which he will not, overlook, nor connive at. See Psa 44:20, Psa 44:21.
2. The second commandment concerns the ordinances of worship, or the way in which God will be worshipped, which it is fit that he himself should have the appointing of. Here is,
(1.) The prohibition: we are here forbidden to worship even the true God by images, Exo 20:4, Exo 20:5. [1.] The Jews (at least after the captivity) thought themselves forbidden by this commandment to make any image or picture whatsoever. Hence the very images which the Roman armies had in their ensigns are called an abomination to them (Mat 24:15), especially when they were set up in the holy place. It is certain that it forbids making any image of God (for to whom can we liken him? Isa 40:18, Isa 40:15), or the image of any creature for a religious use. It is called the changing of the truth of God into a lie (Rom 1:25), for an image is a teacher of lies; it insinuates to us that God has a body, whereas he is an infinite spirit, Hab 2:18. It also forbids us to make images of God in our fancies, as if he were a man as we are. Our religious worship must be governed by the power of faith, not by the power of imagination. They must not make such images or pictures as the heathen worshipped, lest they also should be tempted to worship them. Those who would be kept from sin must keep themselves from the occasions of it. [2.] They must not bow down to them occasionally, that is, show any sign of respect or honour to them, much less serve them constantly, by sacrifice or incense, or any other act of religious worship. When they paid their devotion to the true God, they must not have any image before them, for the directing, exciting, or assisting of their devotion. Though the worship was designed to terminate in God, it would not please him if it came to him through an image. The best and most ancient lawgivers among the heathen forbade the setting up of images in their temples. This practice was forbidden in Rome by Numa, a pagan prince; yet commanded in Rome by the pope, a Christian bishop, but, in this, anti-christian. The use of images in the church of Rome, at this day, is so plainly contrary to the letter of this command, and so impossible to be reconciled to it, that in all their catechisms and books of devotion, which they put into the hands of the people, they leave out this commandment, joining the reason of it to the first; and so the third commandment they call the second, the fourth the third, etc.; only, to make up the number ten, they divide the tenth into two. Thus have they committed two great evils, in which they persist, and from which they hate to be reformed; they take away from God's word, and add to his worship.
(2.) The reasons to enforce this prohibition (Exo 20:5, Exo 20:6), which are, [1.] God's jealousy in the matters of his worship: "I am the Lord Jehovah, and thy God, am a jealous God, especially in things of this nature." This intimates the care he has of his own institutions, his hatred of idolatry and all false worship, his displeasure against idolaters, and that he resents every thing in his worship that looks like, or leads to, idolatry. Jealousy is quicksighted. Idolatry being spiritual adultery, as it is very often represented in scripture, the displeasure of God against it is fitly called jealousy. If God is jealous herein, we should be so, afraid of offering any worship to God otherwise than as he has appointed in his word. [2.] The punishment of idolaters. God looks upon them as haters of him, though they perhaps pretend love to him; he will visit their iniquity, that is, he will very severely punish it, not only as a breach of his law, but as an affront to his majesty, a violation of the covenant, and a blow at the root of all religion. He will visit it upon the children, that is, this being a sin for which churches shall be unchurched and a bill of divorce given them, the children shall be cast out of covenant and communion together with the parents, as with the parents the children were at first taken in. Or he will bring such judgments upon a people as shall be the total ruin of families. If idolaters live to be old, so as to see their children of the third or fourth generation, it shall be the vexation of their eyes, and the breaking of their hearts, to see them fall by the sword, carried captive, and enslaved. Nor is it an unrighteous thing with God (if the parents died in their iniquity, and the children tread in their steps, and keep up false worships, because they received them by tradition from their fathers), when the measure is full, and God comes by his judgments to reckon with them, to bring into the account the idolatries their fathers were guilty of. Though he bear long with an idolatrous people, he will not bear always, but by the fourth generation, at furthest, he will begin to visit. Children are dear to their parents; therefore, to deter men from idolatry, and to show how much God is displeased with it, not only a brand of infamy is by it entailed upon families, but the judgments of God may for it be executed upon the poor children when the parents are dead and gone. [3.] The favour God would show to his faithful worshippers: Keeping mercy for thousands of persons, thousands of generations of those that love me, and keep my commandments. This intimates that the second commandment, though, in the letter of it, it is only a prohibition of false worships, yet includes a precept of worshipping God in all those ordinances which he has instituted. As the first commandment requires the inward worship of love, desire, joy, hope, and admiration, so the second requires the outward worship of prayer and praise, and solemn attendance on God's word. Note, First, Those that truly love God will make it their constant care and endeavour to keep his commandments, particularly those that relate to his worship. Those that love God, and keep those commandments, shall receive grace to keep his other commandments. Gospel worship will have a good influence upon all manner of gospel obedience. Secondly, God has mercy in store for such. Even they need mercy, and cannot plead merit; and mercy they shall find with God, merciful protection in their obedience and a merciful recompence of it. Thirdly, This mercy shall extend to thousands, much further than the wrath threatened to those that hate him, for that reaches but to the third or fourth generation. The streams of mercy run now as full, as free, and as fresh, as ever.
3. The third commandment concerns the manner of our worship, that it be done with all possible reverence and seriousness, Exo 20:7. We have here,
(1.) A strict prohibition: Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. It is supposed that, having taken Jehovah for their God, they would make mention of his name (for thus all people will walk every one in the name of his god); this command gives a needful caution not to mention it in vain, and it is still as needful as ever. We take God's name in vain, [1.] By hypocrisy, making a profession of God's name, but not living up to that profession. Those that name the name of Christ, but do not depart from iniquity, as that name binds them to do, name it in vain; their worship is vain (Mat 15:7-9), their oblations are vain (Isa 1:11, Isa 1:13), their religion is vain, Jam 1:26. [2.] By covenant-breaking; if we make promises to God, binding our souls with those bonds to that which is good, and yet perform not to the Lord our vows, we take his name in vain (Mat 5:33), it is folly, and God has no pleasure in fools (Ecc 5:4), nor will he be mocked, Gal 6:7. [3.] By rash swearing, mentioning the name of God, or any of his attributes, in the form of an oath, without any just occasion for it, or due application of mind to it, but as a by-word, to no purpose at all, or to no good purpose. [4.] By false swearing, which, some think, is chiefly intended in the letter of the commandment; so it was expounded by those of old time. Thou shalt not forswear thyself, Mat 5:33. One part of the religious regard the Jews were taught to pay to their God was to swear by his name, Deu 10:20. But they affronted him, instead of doing him honour, if they called him to be witness to a lie. [5.] By using the name of God lightly and carelessly, and without any regard to its awful significancy. The profanation of the forms of devotion is forbidden, as well as the profanation of the forms of swearing; as also the profanation of any of those things whereby God makes himself known, his word, or any of his institutions; when they are either turned into charms and spells, or into jest and sport, the name of God is taken in vain.
(2.) A severe penalty: The Lord will not hold him guiltless; magistrates, who punish other offences, may not think themselves concerned to take notice of this, because it does not immediately offer injury either to private property or the public peace; but God, who is jealous for his honour, will not thus connive at it. The sinner may perhaps hold himself guiltless, and think there is no harm in it, and that God will never call him to an account for it. To obviate this suggestion, the threatening is thus expressed, God will not hold him guiltless, as he hopes he will; but more is implied, namely, that God will himself be the avenger of those that take his name in vain, and they will find it a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
4. The fourth commandment concerns the time of worship. God is to be served and honoured daily, but one day in seven is to be particularly dedicated to his honour and spent in his service. Here is,
(1.) The command itself (Exo 20:8): Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy; and (Exo 20:10), In it thou shalt do no manner of work. It is taken for granted that the sabbath was instituted before; we read of God's blessing and sanctifying a seventh day from the beginning (Gen 2:3), so that this was not the enacting of a new law, but the reviving of an old law. [1.] They are told what is the day they must religiously observe - a seventh, after six days' labour; whether this was the seventh by computation from the first seventh, or from the day of their coming out of Egypt, or both, is not certain: now the precise day was notified to them (Exo 16:23), and from this they were to observe the seventh. [2.] How it must be observed. First, As a day of rest; they were to do no manner of work on this day in their callings or worldly business. Secondly, As a holy day, set apart to the honour of the holy God, and to be spent in holy exercises. God, by blessing it, had made it holy; they, by solemnly blessing him, must keep it holy, and not alienate it to any other purpose than that for which the difference between it and other days was instituted. [3.] Who must observe it: Thou, and thy son, and thy daughter; the wife is not mentioned, because she is supposed to be one with the husband and present with him, and, if he sanctify the sabbath, it is taken for granted that she will join with him; but the rest of the family are specified. Children and servants must keep the sabbath, according to their age and capacity: in this, as in other instances of religion, it is expected that masters of families should take care, not only to serve the Lord themselves, but that their houses also should serve him, at least that it may not be through their neglect if they do not, Jos 24:15. Even the proselyted strangers must observe a difference between this day and other days, which, if it laid some restraint upon them then, yet proved a happy indication of God's gracious purpose, in process of time, to bring the Gentiles into the church, that they might share in the benefit of sabbaths. Compare Isa 56:6, Isa 56:7. God takes notice of what we do, particularly what we do on sabbath days, though we should be where we are strangers. [4.] A particular memorandum put upon this duty: Remember it. It is intimated that the sabbath was instituted and observed before; but in their bondage in Egypt they had lost their computation, or were restrained by their task-masters, or, through a great degeneracy and indifference in religion, they had let fall the observance of it, and therefore it was requisite they should be reminded of it. Note, Neglected duties remain duties still, notwithstanding our neglect. It also intimates that we are both apt to forget it and concerned to remember it. Some think it denotes the preparation we are to make for the sabbath; we must think of it before it comes, that, when it does come, we may keep it holy, and do the duty of it.
(2.) The reasons of this command. [1.] We have time enough for ourselves in those six days, on the seventh day let us serve God; and time enough to tire ourselves, on the seventh it will be a kindness to us to be obliged to rest. [2.] This is God's day: it is the sabbath of the Lord thy God, not only instituted by him, but consecrated to him. It is sacrilege to alienate it; the sanctification of it is a debt. [3.] It is designed for a memorial of the creation of the world, and therefore to be observed to the glory of the Creator, as an engagement upon ourselves to serve him and an encouragement to us to trust in him who made heaven and earth. By the sanctification of the sabbath, the Jews declared that they worshipped the God that made the world, and so distinguished themselves from all other nations, who worshipped gods which they themselves made. [4.] God has given us an example of rest, after six days' work: he rested the seventh day, took a complacency in himself, and rejoiced in the work of his hand, to teach us, on that day, to take a complacency in him, and to give him the glory of his works, Psa 92:4. The sabbath began in the finishing of the work of creation, so will the everlasting sabbath in the finishing of the work of providence and redemption; and we observe the weekly sabbath in expectation of that, as well as in remembrance of the former, in both conforming ourselves to him we worship. [5.] He has himself blessed the sabbath day and sanctified it. He has put an honour upon it by setting it apart for himself; it is the holy of the Lord and honourable: and he has put blessings into it, which he has encouraged us to expect from him in the religious observance of that day. It is the day which the Lord hath made, let not us do what we can to unmake it. He has blessed, honoured, and sanctified it, let not us profane it, dishonour it, and level that with common time which God's blessing has thus dignified and distinguished.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–24 And God spake all these words,.... Which follow, commonly…
And God spake all these words,.... Which follow, commonly called the decalogue, or ten commands; a system or body of laws, selected and adapted to the case and circumstances of the people of Israel; striking at such sins as they were most addicted to, and they were under the greatest temptation of falling into the commission of; to prevent which, the observation of these laws was enjoined them; not but that whatsoever of them is of a moral nature, as for the most part they are, are binding on all mankind, and to be observed both by Jew and Gentile; and are the best and shortest compendium of morality that ever was delivered out, except the abridgment of them by our Lord, Mat 22:36, the ancient Jews had a notion, and which Jarchi delivers as his own, that these words were spoken by God in one word; which is not to be understood grammatically; but that those laws are so closely compacted and united together as if they were but one word, and are not to be detached and separated from each other; hence, as the Apostle James says, whosoever offends in one point is guilty of all, Jam 2:10, and if this notion was as early as the first times of the Gospel, one would be tempted to think the Apostle Paul had reference to it, Rom 13:9 though indeed he seems to have respect only to the second table of the law; these words were spoke in an authoritative way as commands, requiring not only attention but obedience to them; and they were spoken by God himself in the hearing of all the people of Israel; and were not, as Aben Ezra observes, spoken by a mediator or middle person, for as yet they had not desired one; nor by an angel or angels, as the following words show, though the law is said to be spoken by angels, to be ordained by them, in the hands of a mediator, and given by the disposition of them, which perhaps was afterwards done, see Act 7:53. See Gill on Act 7:53. See Gill on Gal 3:19. See Gill on Heb 2:2.
saying; as follows.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 26 All things being prepared for the solemn promulgation of…
All things being prepared for the solemn promulgation of the divine law, we have in this chapter,
I. The ten commandments as God himself spake them upon Mount Sinai, ver. 1-17.
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II. The impressions made upon the people, thereby, ver. 18-21.
III. Some particular instructions which God gave to Moses, relating to his worship, ver. 22-26.
God spake all these words - The law of the ten commandments is a law of God's making; a law of his own speaking. God has many ways of speaking to the children of men by his spirit, conscience, providences; his voice in all which we ought carefully to attend to: but he never spake at any time upon any occasion so as he spake the ten commandments, which therefore we ought to hear with the more earnest heed. This law God had given to man before, it was written in his heart by nature; but sin had so defaced that writing, that it was necessary to revive the knowledge of it.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 The preface to the ten commandments, 1, 2.
CHAPTER XX
The preface to the ten commandments, 1, 2.
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The FIRST commandment, against mental or theoretic
idolatry, 3.
The SECOND, against making and worshipping images, or
practical idolatry, 4-6.
The THIRD, against false swearing, blasphemy, and irreverent
use of the name of God, 7.
The FOURTH, against profanation of the Sabbath, and
idleness on the other days of the week, 8-11.
The FIFTH, against disrespect and disobedience to
parents, 12.
The SIXTH, against murder and cruelty, 13.
The SEVENTH, against adultery and uncleanness, 14.
The EIGHTH, against stealing and dishonesty, 15.
The NINTH, against false testimony, perjury, c., 16.
The TENTH, against covetousness, 17.
The people are alarmed at the awful appearance of God on the
mount, and stand afar off, 18.
They pray that Moses may be mediator between God and them, 19.
Moses encourages them, 20.
He draws near to the thick darkness, and God communes with
him, 21, 22.
Farther directions against idolatry, 23.
Directions concerning making an altar of earth, 24
and an altar of hewn stone, 25.
None of these to be ascended by steps, and the reason given, 26.
NOTES ON CHAP. XX
Verse 1. All these words] Houbigant supposes, and with great plausibility of reason, that the clause את כל הדברים האלה eth col haddebarim haelleh, "all these words," belong to the latter part of the concluding verse of chap. xix., which he thinks should be read thus: And Moses went down unto the people, and spake unto them ALL THESE WORDS; i.e., delivered the solemn charge relative to their not attempting to come up to that part of the mountain on which God manifested himself in his glorious majesty, lest he should break forth upon them and consume them. For how could Divine justice and purity suffer a people so defiled to stand in his immediate presence? When Moses, therefore, had gone down and spoken all these words, and he and Aaron had reascended the mount, then the Divine Being, as supreme legislator, is majestically introduced thus: And God spake, saying. This gives a dignity to the commencement of this chapter of which the clause above mentioned, if not referred to the speech of Moses, deprives it. The Anglo-Saxon favours this emendation: [Anglo-Saxon], God spoke THUS, which is the whole of the first verse as it stands in that version.
Some learned men are of opinion that the TEN COMMANDMENTS were delivered on May 30, being then the day of pentecost.
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
The laws delivered on Mount Sinai have been variously named. In De 4:13, they are called עשרת הדברים asereth haddebarim, THE TEN WORDS. In the preceding chapter, Ex 19:5, God calls them את בריתי eth berithi, my COVENANT, i.e., the agreement he entered into with the people of Israel to take them for his peculiar people, if they took him for their God and portion. IF ye will obey my voice indeed, and KEEP my COVENANT, THEN shall ye be a peculiar treasure unto me. And the word covenant here evidently refers to the laws given in this chapter, as is evident from De 4:13: And he declared unto you his COVENANT, which he commanded you to perform, even TEN COMMANDMENTS. They have been also termed the moral law, because they contain and lay down rules for the regulation of the manners or conduct of men. Sometimes they have been termed the LAW, התורה hattorah, by way of eminence, as containing the grand system of spiritual instruction, direction, guidance, c. See on the word LAW, Ex 12:49. See Clarke on Ex 12:49. And frequently the DECALOGUE, Δεκαλογος, which is a literal translation into Greek of the עשרת הדברים asereth haddebarim, or TEN WORDS, of Moses.
Among divines they are generally divided into what they term the first and second tables. The FIRST table containing the first, second, third, and fourth commandments, and comprehending the whole system of theology, the true notions we should form of the Divine nature, the reverence we owe and the religious service we should render to him. The SECOND, containing the six last commandments, and comprehending a complete system of ethics, or moral duties, which man owes to his fellows, and on the due performance of which the order, peace and happiness of society depend. By this division, the FIRST table contains our duty to GOD the SECOND our duty to our NEIGHBOUR. This division, which is natural enough, refers us to the grand principle, love to God and love to man, through which both tables are observed.
1. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind, and strength.
2. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
On these two hang all the law and the prophets. See Clarke on Mt 22:37; and "Mt 22:38". See Clarke on Mt 22:39; and "Mt 22:40".
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 24, 26 Exo 20:1. God spake all these words — The…
Exo 20:1. God spake all these words — The law of the ten commandments is a law of God’s making, and a law of his own speaking. God has many ways of speaking to the children of men: he speaks by his Spirit, his providences, and our own consciences, his voice in all which we ought carefully to attend to: but he never spake at any time, or upon any occasion, as he spake the ten commandments, which therefore we ought to hear with the more earnest heed. This law God had given to man before; it was written in his heart by nature; but sin had so defaced that writing, that it was necessary to revive the knowledge of it.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1, 18, 22 The Hebrew name which is rendered in our King…
The Hebrew name which is rendered in our King James Version as the ten commandments occurs in Exo 34:28; Deu 4:13; Deu 10:4. It literally means “the Ten Words.” The Ten Commandments are also called the law, even the commandment Exo 24:12, the words of the covenant Exo 34:28, the tables of the covenant Deu 9:9, the covenant Deu 4:13, the two tables Deu 9:10, Deu 9:17, and, most frequently, the testimony (e. g. Exo 16:34; Exo 25:16), or the two tables of the testimony (e. g. Exo 31:18). In the New Testament they are called simply the commandments (e. g. Mat 19:17). The name decalogue is found first in Clement of Alexandria, and was commonly used by the Fathers who followed him.
Thus we know that the tables were two, and that the commandments were ten, in number. But the Scriptures do not, by any direct statements, enable us to determine with precision how the Ten Commandments are severally to be made out, nor how they are to be allotted to the Two tables. On each of these points various opinions have been held (see Exo 20:12).
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Of the Words of Yahweh engraven on the tables of Stone, we have two distinct statements, one in Exodus Exo. 20:1-17 and one in Deuteronomy Deu 5:7-21, apparently of equal authority, but differing principally from each other in the fourth, the fifth, and the tenth commandments.
It has been supposed that the original commandments were all in the same terse and simple form of expression as appears (both in Exodus and Deuteronomy) in the first, sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth, such as would be most suitable for recollection, and that the passages in each copy in which the most important variations are found were comments added when the books were written.
The account of the delivery of them in Exo. 19 and in Exo 20:18-21 is in accordance with their importance as the recognized basis of the covenant between Yahweh and His ancient people (Exo 34:27-28; Deu 4:13; 1Ki 8:21, etc.), and as the divine testimony against the sinful tendencies in man for all ages. While it is here said that “God spake all these words,” and in Deu 5:4, that He “talked face to face,” in the New Testament the giving of the law is spoken of as having been through the ministration of Angels Act 7:53; Gal 3:19; Heb 2:2. We can reconcile these contrasts of language by keeping in mind that God is a Spirit, and that He is essentially present in the agents who are performing His will.
Exo 20:2
Which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage - It has been asked: Why, on this occasion, was not the Lord rather proclaimed as “the Creator of Heaven and Earth”? The answer is, Because the Ten Commandments were at this time addressed by Yahweh not merely to human creatures, but to the people whom He had redeemed, to those who had been in bondage, but were now free men Exo 6:6-7; Exo 19:5. The commandments are expressed in absolute terms. They are not sanctioned by outward penalties, as if for slaves, but are addressed at once to the conscience, as for free men. The well-being of the nation called for the infliction of penalties, and therefore statutes were passed to punish offenders who blasphemed the name of Yahweh, who profaned the Sabbath, or who committed murder or adultery. (See Lev 18:24-30 note.) But these penal statutes were not to be the ground of obedience for the true Israelite according to the covenant. He was to know Yahweh as his Redeemer, and was to obey him as such (Compare Rom 13:5).
Exo 20:3
Before me - Literally, “before my face.” The meaning is that no god should be worshipped in addition to Yahweh. Compare Exo 20:23. The polytheism which was the besetting sin of the Israelites did not in later times exclude Yahweh, but associated Him with false deities. (Compare the original of 1Sa 2:25.)
Exo 20:4
Graven image - Any sort of image is here intended.
As the first commandment forbids the worship of any false god, seen or unseen, it is here forbidden to worship an image of any sort, whether the figure of a false deity Jos 23:7 or one in any way symbolic of Yahweh (see Exo 32:4). The spiritual acts of worship were symbolized in the furniture and ritual of the tabernacle and the altar, and for this end the forms of living things might be employed as in the case of the Cherubim (see Exo 25:18 note): but the presence of the invisible God was to be marked by no symbol of Himself, but by His words written on stones, preserved in the ark in the holy of holies and covered by the mercy-seat. The ancient Persians and the earliest legislators of Rome also agreed in repudiating images of the Deity.
A jealous God - Deu 6:15; Jos 24:19; Isa 42:8; Isa 48:11; Nah 1:2. This reason applies to the First, as well as to the second commandment. The truth expressed in it was declared more fully to Moses when the name of Yahweh was proclaimed to him after he had interceded for Israel on account of the golden calf (Exo 34:6-7; see the note).
Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children - (Compare Exo 34:7; Jer 32:18). Sons and remote descendants inherit the consequences of their fathers’ sins, in disease, poverty, captivity, with all the influences of bad example and evil communications. (See Lev 26:39; Lam 5:7 following) The “inherited curse” seems to fall often most heavily on the least guilty persons; but such suffering must always be free from the sting of conscience; it is not like the visitation for sin on the individual by whom the sin has been committed. The suffering, or loss of advantages, entailed on the unoffending son, is a condition under which he has to carry on the struggle of life, and, like all other inevitable conditions imposed upon men, it cannot tend to his ultimate disadvantage, if he struggles well and perseveres to the end. The principle regulating the administration of justice by earthly tribunals Deu 24:16, is carried out in spiritual matters by the Supreme Judge.
Exo 20:6
Unto thousands - unto the thousandth generation. Yahweh’s visitations of chastisement extend to the third and fourth generation, his visitations of mercy to the thousandth; that is, forever. That this is the true rendering seems to follow from Deu 7:9; Compare 2Sa 7:15-16.
Exo 20:7
Our translators make the Third commandment bear upon any profane and idle utterance of the name of God. Others give it the sense, “Thou shalt not swear falsely by the name of Jehovah thy God.” The Hebrew word which answers to “in vain” may be rendered either way. The two abuses of the sacred name seem to be distinguished in Lev 19:12 (see Mat 5:33). Our King James Version is probably right in giving the rendering which is more inclusive. The caution that a breach of this commandment incurs guilt in the eyes of Yahweh is especially appropriate, in consequence of the ease with which the temptation to take God’s name “in vain” besets people in their common conversation with each other.
Exo 20:8
Remember the sabbath day - There is no distinct evidence that the Sabbath, as a formal ordinance, was recognized before the time of Moses (compare Neh 9:14; Eze 20:10-12; Deu 5:15). The word “remember” may either be used in the sense of “keep in mind” what is here enjoined for the first time, or it may refer back to what is related in Exo 16:22-26.
Exo 20:10
The sabbath ... - a Sabbath to Yahweh thy God. The proper meaning of “sabbath” is, “rest after labor.” Compare Exo 16:26.
Thy stranger that is within thy gates - Not a “stranger,” as is an unknown person, but a “lodger,” or “sojourner.” In this place it denotes one who had come from another people to take up his permanent abode among the Israelites, and who might have been well known to his neighbors. That the word did not primarily refer to foreign domestic servants (though all such were included under it) is to be inferred from the term used for “gates,” signifying not the doors of a private dwelling, but the gates of a town or camp.
Exo 20:12
Honour thy father and thy mother - According to our usage, the fifth commandment is placed as the first in the second table; and this is necessarily involved in the common division of the commandments into our duty toward God and our duty toward men. But the more ancient, and probably the better, division allots five commandments to each table (compare Rom 13:9), proceeding on the distinction that the First table relates to the duties which arise from our filial relations, the second to those which arise from our fraternal relations. The connection between the first four commandments and the fifth exists in the truth that all faith in God centers in the filial feeling. Our parents stand between us and God in a way in which no other beings can. On the maintenance of parental authority, see Exo 21:15, Exo 21:17; Deu 21:18-21.
That thy days may be long upon the land - Filial respect is the ground of national permanence (compare Jer 35:18-19; Mat 15:4-6; Mar 7:10-11). The divine words were addressed emphatically to Israel, but they set forth a universal principle of national life Eph 6:2.
Exo 20:13-14
Mat 5:21-32 is the best comment on these two verses.
Exo 20:15
The right of property is sanctioned in the eighth commandment by an external rule: its deeper meaning is involved in the tenth commandment.
Exo 20:17
As the sixth, seventh, and eighth commandments forbid us to injure our neighbor in deed, the ninth forbids us to injure him in word, and the tenth, in thought. No human eye can see the coveting heart; it is witnessed only by him who possesses it and by Him to whom all things are naked and open Luk 12:15-21. But it is the root of all sins of word or deed against our neighbor Jam 1:14-15.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 The Lord now, by his angel, delivers in an…
The Lord now, by his angel, delivers in an intelligible manner the ten words, or commandments, which contain the sum of all the natural law, and may be reduced to two precepts of charity, Matthew xxii. 40; Mark xii. 31. How these commandments are to be divided into ten, the ancients are not perfectly agreed. We follow the authority of St. Augustine, (9. 71,) Clement of Alexandria, (strom. 6,) and others, in referring three of the precepts to God, and seven to our neighbour. Protestants adopt the Jewish method, of making four commandments of the first table, and six of the second; as they divide our first into two, and unite the 9th and 10th; though it surely must appear rational to admit a distinct precept, for an internal as well as for an external object; and the desires of committing adultery or theft require a distinct prohibition no less than the external actions. Whereas the forbidding to have strange gods, or to worship images, or creatures of any description, is exactly of the same tendency. For no one can worship an idol, without admitting a strange god. The latter part, therefore, of the first commandment, or the second of Protestants, is only a farther explanation of what had gone before, as Moses himself clearly insinuates, ver. 23, You shall not make gods of silver, &c.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On vv1, 22 The Threefold Law of the Covenant for the Covenant…
SECOND SECTION
The Threefold Law of the Covenant for the Covenant People on the Basis of the Prophetic, Ethico-religious Divine Law of the Ten Commandments. Historical Prophecy
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Exodus 20-31
a.—The ten words, or the ethical law; and the terrified people, or the rise of the need of sacrificial rites
Exo_20:1-21
1, 2And God spake all these words, saying, I am Jehovah thy God, which [who] have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 3Thou shalt have no other gods before me [over against me].1 4Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I Jehovah thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto [upon] 6the third and [and upon the] fourth generation of them that hate me; And showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments. 7Thou shalt not take the name of Jehovah thy God in vain; for Jehovah will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. 8Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; 10But the seventh day is the sabbath of [a sabbath unto] Jehovah thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, 11nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days Jehovah made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore Jehovah blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it. 12Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which Jehovah thy God giveth thee. 13Thou shalt not kill. 14Thou shalt not commit adultery. 15Thou shalt not steal. 16Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. 17Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor’s. 18And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they removed [reeled backward], and stood afar off. 19And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die. 20And Moses said unto the people, Fear not; for God is come to prove you, and that his fear may be before your faces [upon you], that ye sin not. 21And the people stood afar off, and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
[The exact meaning of עַל־פָּנַי here and in Deu_5:7 is disputed. The rendering “before me” was doubtless meant by our Translators to convey the notion, “in my presence” = לְפָנַי. Perhaps the ordinary reader is apt to understand it to mean, “in preference to me.” Luther, Kalisch, Geddes, Keil, Knobel, Bunsen, and Riggs (Suggested Emendations), following the LXX. (πλὴν ἐμοῦ), translate, “besides me.” De Wette, Rosenmüller, Maurer, Philippson, Fürst, Arnheim, Bush, Murphy, Cook (in Speaker’s Commentary), and Lange, following the Vulgate (“coram me”), translate “before me,” i.e., in my presence. In order to a satisfactory settlement of the question, it is necessary to investigate the use of the phrase עַל־פְּנֵי in general. An examination of all the passages in which it occurs yields the following result: The phrase, followed by a Genitive or a Pronominal Suffix, occurs 210 times. In 125 of these cases, it has its literal sense of “upon the face (or surface) of;” as, e.g., 2Sa_17:19, “The woman took and spread a covering over the well’s mouth;” Gen_50:1, “Joseph fell upon his father’s face;” or it is merely a longer form for the simpler עַל (upon); as, e.g., Job_5:10, “Who … sendeth waters upon the fields.” The remaining 85 cases are divided as follows: (1) 28 times עַל־פְּנֵי is used in describing the relation of localities to each other. E.g., Jdg_16:3, “Samson … carried them up to the top of an hill that is before Hebron.” Sometimes (and more properly) in such cases the phrase is rendered “over against” in the A. V. The other passages in which עַל־פְּגֵי is thus used are Gen_23:19; Gen_25:9; Gen_25:18; Gen_49:30; Gen_50:13; Num_21:11; Num_33:7; Deu_32:49; Deu_34:1; Jos_13:3; Jos_13:25; Jos_15:8; Jos_17:7; Jos_18:14; Jos_18:16; Jos_19:11; 1Sa_15:7; 1Sa_26:1; 1Sa_26:3; 2Sa_2:24; 1Ki_11:7; 1Ki_17:3; 1Ki_17:15; 2Ki_23:13; Eze_48:15; Eze_48:21; Zec_14:4. It is a mistake to suppose, as some do, that in these connections עַל־פְּנֵי means “to the east of,” according to the Hebrew mode of conceiving of the cardinal points. For in Jos_18:14 we read of “the hill that lieth before (עַל־פְּנֵי) Beth-horon southward;” and in Jos_15:8, of “the top of the mountain that lieth before the valley of Hinnom westward.” We are rather to suppose that the phrase indicates such a relation of two places as is expressed by “over against,” the physical conformation of the localities naturally suggesting such a description.—(2) We observe, next, that 13 times עַל־פְּנֵי is used of the position of things in relation to buildings. E.g., 1Ki_6:3, “the porch before the temple.” In the same verse עַל־פְּנֵי occurs twice more in the same sense. The other passages are 1Ki_7:6 (bis); Exo_8:8; 2Ch_3:4 (bis), 8, 17; Exo_5:9; Eze_40:15; Eze_42:8. In these cases the meaning is obvious: “on the front of,” “confronting.”—(3) Six times עַל־פְּנֵי is used in the sense of “towards” or “down upon” after verbs of looking, or (once) of going. E.g., Gen_18:16, “The men ……… looked toward (עַל־פְּנֵי, down upon) Sodom.” So Gen_19:28 (bis), Num_21:20; Num_23:28; 2Sa_15:23. Here עַל־פְּנֵי may be regarded as a fuller form of עַל as sometimes used after verbs of motion.—(4) Five times it is used after verbs signifying “pass by,” and is rendered “before.” E. g, Exo_33:19, “I will make all my goodness pass before thee.” So Exo_34:6; Gen_32:22 (21); 2Sa_15:18; Job_4:15. In these passages עַל־פְּנֵי differs from לִפְנֵי as used, e.g., in 2Ki_4:31, “Gehazi passed on before them;” where לִפְנֵי indicates that Gehazi went on in advance of the others; whereas, e.g., in 2Sa_15:18, the meaning is that the king stopped, and the others went by him.—(5) In 12 passages מֵעַלִ־פְּנֵי is used after verbs meaning to “cast out,” and is usually rendered “from the presence (or sight) of.” They are 1Ki_9:7; 2Ki_13:23; 2Ki_17:18; 2Ki_17:23; 2Ki_24:3; 2Ki_24:20; 2Ch_7:20; Jer_7:15; Jer_15:1; Jer_23:39; Jer_32:31; Jer_52:3. Possibly also Gen_23:3, “Abraham stood up from before his dead,” i.e., went away from the presence of; but we may understand it more literally, viz., “stood up from upon the face of.” There is a manifest difference between מֵעַל־פְּנֵי and מִלִּפְנֵי. The former is used of a removal from a state of juxtaposition or opposition. The latter is used in the stricter sense of “from before.” E.g., in Deu_9:4, “For the wickedness of these nations the Lord doth drive them out from before thee (מִלְּפָנֶיךָ).” Here it is not meant that the relation between the Jews and the other nations was to be broken up, but rather that it was never to be formed; whereas, e.g., in Jer_7:15, “I will cast you out of my sight,” the implication is that the people had been near Jehovah, but were now to be banished.—(6) Four times עַל־פְּנֵי is used with the meaning, “to the face of.” E.g., Isa_45:3, “A people that provoketh me to anger continually to my face.” So Job_1:11 (parallel with Exo_2:5, where אֶל־פְּנֵי is used); Exo_6:28 (as correctly rendered); Exo_21:31. Here the notion of hostility, often expressed by the simple עַל, is involved.—Similar to these are (7) the three passages, Eze_32:10, Nah_2:2 (1), and Psa_21:13 (12), where עַל־פְּנֵי is used after verbs descriptive of hostile demonstrations, and means either, literally, “against the face of,” or “over against,” in defiance.—(8) In Exo_20:20, where the A. V. renders, “that his fear may be before your faces,” the meaning clearly is the same as in such expressions as Exo_15:16, where the simple עַל is used. So Deu_2:25.—(9) In one case, Psa_18:43 (42), עַל־פְּנֵי is used of tho dust “before” the wind, just as לִפְנֵי is used in Job_21:18, “They are as stubble before the wind.”—(10) Tho passage, Job_16:14, “He breaketh me with breach upon (עַל־פְּנֵי) breach,” has no precise parallel. But here, too, it is most natural to understand עַל־פְּנֵי as a fuller, poetic form for עַל. Comp. Gen_32:12 (11), “the mother with (עַל) the children;” Amo_3:15, “I will smite the winter-house with (עַל, i.e., together with, in addition to) the summer-house.”—(11) There are three passages (possibly four), in which עַל־פְּנֵי has a peculiar meaning, as denoting the relation of two persons to each other. Haran, we are told, Gen_11:28, “died before (עַל־פְּנֵי) his father Terah.” This seems to mean, “died before his father did.” But though such a priority is implied, it is not directly expressed. לִפְנֵי is sometimes used to denote such priority in time, e.g., Gen_30:30; Exo_10:14; Jos_10:14; but עַל־פְּנֵי is nowhere clearly used in this sense, so that it is more natural to understand it (as the commentators do) here to mean either “in the presence of,” or “during the life-time of.” The next passage, Num_3:4, illustrates the meaning: “Eleazar and Ithamar ministered in the priest’s office in the sight of (עַל־פְּנֵי) Aaron their father.” It is hardly possible that pains would be taken to lay stress on the fact that Aaron saw them acting the part of priests, especially as the verb כִּהֵן hardly means anything more than “to be priest.” Not more admissible is the interpretation of Gesenius and others, who here translate עַל־פְּגֵי “under the supervision of.” There is not the faintest analogy for such a meaning of the phrase. At the same time, it is hardly supposable that it can be literally translated, “during the life-time of.” The notion of physical presence, or nearness, is so uniformly involved in עַל־פְּנֵי that we must, in strictness, here understand it to mean, “over against,” “in view of,” the point of the expression, however, not consisting in the circumstance that Aaron watched them in their ministrations, but that they performed them over against him, i.e., as coupled with him, together with him, (and so) during his life-time. Here belongs also probably Deu_21:16, “He may not make the son of the beloved first-born before (עַל־פְּנֵי) the son of the hated.” One might naturally understand “before” here to mean, “in preference to;” and this certainly would yield an appropriate sense—a sense certainly involved, yet probably not directly expressed. At least there is no clear analogy for such a meaning, unless we find it in the passages now under consideration, viz., Exo_20:3 and Deu_5:7. The best commentators understand עַל־פְּנֵי in Deu_21:16, to mean “during the life-time of.” An analogous use of לִפְנֵי is found in Psa_72:5, where it is said of the king, “They shall fear thee as long as the sun and moon endure,” literally “before (לִפְנֵי) the sun and moon.” Similarly Exo_20:17.—The other of the four passages above mentioned is Gen_25:18. There we read: “He (i.e., Ishmael) died (literally, fell) in the presence of (עַל־פּנֵי) his brethren.” There is now, however, general unanimity in translating נָפָל here “settled” rather than “died,” so that the passage is to be reckoned in the following class, in which also the relation of persons to each other is expressed, but in a somewhat different sense.—(12) Knobel explains עַל־פְּנֵי in Gen_25:18 as = “to the east of.” So Del., Lange, Keil, Maurer, De W., and others. But, as we have already seen, עַל־פְּנֵי does not have this meaning. This passage is to be explained by the parallel one, Gen_16:12, where it is also said of Ishmael, “He shall dwell in the presence of (עַל־פְּנֵי) all his brethren.” Here the context is, “His hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell עַל־פְּנֵי all his brethren.” Keil and Lange are unable to satisfy themselves with the interpretation “east of” here; and it is clear that that would not be a statement at all in place here, even if עַל־פְּנֵי ordinarily had the meaning “east of.” Evidently the angel expresses the fact that the Ishmaelites were to dwell over against their brethren as an independent, defiant, nation. If so, then Exo_25:18 is to be understood in the same way, as a statement of the fulfilment of the prophecy here made. In addition to these two passages there are three others in which the relation of persons to each other is expressed. They are Lev_10:3, Psa_9:20 (19), and Jer_6:7. In the first we read that Jehovah said, “Before (עַל־פְּנֵי) all the people I will be glorified;” this is preceded by the statement, “I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me.” The verse follows the account of the destruction of Nadah and Abihu. To render “in view of,” or “in the presence of,” would make good and appropriate sense; and certainly it is implied that by the summary punishment of the presumptuous priests Jehovah intended to glorify Himself in the sight of His people. Yet, while men are frequently represented as being or acting before (לִפְנֵי) Jehovah, it is extremely unusual to speak of Jehovah as being or doing anything before (in the sight of) men. And since, if that were here meant, לִפְנֵי would probably have been used, it is much better here to understand the meaning to be “over against,” implying separation and contrast. Likewise Psa_9:20 (19): “Let the heathen be judged in thy sight (עַל־פָּנֶיךָ).” Certainly the meaning cannot simply be: Let the heathen be judged, while God looks on as a spectator. God is Himself the judge; and the heathen are to be judged over against Him; i.e., in such a way as to exhibit the contrast between them and Him. There remains only Jer_6:7, “Before me (עָל־פָּנַי) continually is grief and wounds.” The context describes the prospective destruction of Jerusalem. Her wickedness is described in Exo_20:7 : “As a fountain casteth out her waters, so she casteth out her wickedness; violence and spoil is heard in her; before me continually is grief and wounds (sickness and blows).” Undoubtedly this implies that the manifestations of the wickedness of the people were in Jehovah’s sight; but here, too, there is implied the notion that these things are over against Him: on the one side, Jehovah in His holiness: on the other, Jerusalem in her wickedness. This conception is naturally suggested by the representation that Jehovah is about to make war upon her.
Having now given a complete exhibition of the use of עַל־פְּנֵי in all the other passages, we are prepared to consider what it means in the first commandment. Several things may be regarded as established: (i) עַל־פְּנֵי is far from being synonymous with לִפְנֵי. The latter is used hundreds of times in the simple sense of “before” in reference to persons; the former is used most frequently of places, and in all cases עַל has more or less of its ordinary meaning, “upon,” or “against” (over against), (ii) The phrase has nowhere unequivocally the meaning “besides.” The nearest approach to this is in Job_16:14, under (10), where עַל־פְּנֵי may be rendered “in addition to.” But this is not quite the same as “besides,” and the phrase has there evidently a poetic use. A solitary case like this, where too not persons, but things, are spoken of, is altogether insufficient to establish the hypothesis that עַל־פְּנֵי in the first commandment means “besides.” (iii) The most general notion conveyed by the phrase in question is that of one object confronting another. Leaving out of account, as of no special pertinency, those instances in which it verges upon the literal sense of “upon (or against) the face of,” and those in which the meaning of עַל predominates, (viz., classes (3), (6), (7), (8), (10), we find that all others are sufficiently explained by this generic notion of confronting. Thus, in all the cases where places are spoken of as עַל־פְּנֵי one another, class (1); where objects are described as in front of buildings, class (2); and where persons are spoken of as passing in front of others, class (4).—So, too, in the cases in which מֵעַל־פְּנֵי is used, class (5), in every instance it follows a verb which implies a previous state of hostility; men are to be removed from being over against Jehovah, from confronting Him with their offensive deeds.—So the instance in Psa_18:43 (42), class (9); the dust before the wind is compared with God’s enemies destroyed by Him; the dust confronting the wind illustrates the powerlessness of men confronting an angry God.—So the examples under (12). The translation “over against” satisfies all of the cases. A relation of contrast and opposition is implied.—Likewise, also, the three passages under (11). The son of the beloved wife (Deu_21:16) is not to bo invested with the rights of primogeniture over against the son of the hated one, i.e., in contrast with, distinction from, the other one, while yet by natural right the latter is entitled to the privilege. The phrase עַל־פְּנֵי may here, therefore, be understood to mean “in preference to,” or “in the life-time of,” but neither one nor the other literally and directly, yet both one and the other by implication. In Num_3:4 Aaron’s sons are represented as being priests over against their father, i.e., not succeeding him, but together with him, as two hills, instead of being distant from one another, are, as it were, companions, confronting each other. So in Gen_11:28 Haran is said to have died over against his father. In his death he confronted his father, i.e., did not, as most naturally happens, die after him, when his father would have been taken away from being with him. By thus anticipating his father in his decease he, as it were, passed in front of him, confronted him, so that this case is quite analogous to those under class (4). In this case, therefore, as in some others, tho meaning of עַל־פְּנֵי closely borders upon that of לִפְנֵי, yet is not the same.
The application of this discussion to Exo_20:3 and Deu_5:7 is obvious. Israel is to have no other gods “over against” Jehovah. The simple meaning “before,” i.e., in the presence of, would have little point and force, and besides would have been expressed by לְפָנַי. The meaning “besides” would have been expressed by זוּלָתִי ,בִּלְעָדַי, or some other of the phrases having that meaning. The meaning “over against,” the usual meaning of the phrase, is perfectly appropriate here. All false gods are opposed to tho true God. The worship of them is incompatible with the worship of Jehovah. The command therefore is, “Thou shalt have no other gods to confront me,” to be set up as rival objects of service and adoration. All that is pertinent in the other two renderings is involved hero. Gods that are set up over against Jehovah may be said to be before Him, in His sight; that they are gods besides, in addition to, Him, is a matter of course: but, more than this, they are gods opposed to Him.—Tr.].
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Analysis.—The whole Mosaic legislation is typical and Messianic. Typical, as is, evident from the existence of Deuteronomy, inasmuch as this presents the first instance of an interpretation which gives to the law a more profound and spiritual meaning. Messianic, for the ten commandments contain a description of Christ’s active obedience, whilst the sacrificial rites contain the leading features of His passive obedience. Everywhere in the three books are shadowed forth the three offices of the Messiah. The first book comprises, together with the prophetico-ethical covenant law of the ten commandments, also the outlines of the ceremonial and social (civil) law, because those two subjects of legislation flow as consequences out of the ethical law. The priesthood (or the church) and the state depend, in their unity as well as in their diversity, on the ethico-religious legislation of the life of the God-man.
The first form of elemental ethico-religious, but therefore all-embracing legislation, comprises the law, the festivals, and the house, of the covenant (chaps. 20–31). It is different from the second form of the legislation (chaps. 32–34 sqq) on account of the breaking of the covenant.
This first legislation, the law or book of the covenant in the narrower sense, is evidently the outline of the whole legislation. The presentation of the prophetico-ethical law is found in the ten commandments (Exo_20:1-17); the outline of the ceremonial law and the reasons for it follow on (Exo_20:18-26); in conclusion comes the third part, the outline of the social laws of the Israelites (21–23).
Three questions are here to be settled: (1) How are the several acts of legislation related to the history? (2) How are the several groups of laws related to each other? (3) How is there indicated in this relation a gradual development of legislation?
As to the ten commandments in particular, we are to consider: (1) the form of the promulgation; (2) the relation of the law in Exodus to the phase it presents in Deuteronomy; (3) the analysis of the ten commandments themselves.
That the laws are not artificially introduced into the history of Israel, as e.g. Bertheau assumes, is shown by their definite connection with the historical occasions of them. Thus, e.g., the law of the ten commandments is occasioned by the vow of covenant obedience made beforehand by the people. The ceremonial law as a law of atonement is occasioned by the fright and flight of the people at the thunders of Sinai (Exo_20:21). Thus the holy nation is established; and not till now is there occasion for the theocratico-social legislation, according to which every individual is to be recognised as a worthy member of this nation. The setting up of the golden calf furnished historical occasion for special precepts. The gradually progressive legislation recorded in the Book of Numbers most markedly illustrates the influence of historical events. We have before become acquainted with similar instances. This is true in a general way of the Passover and the unleavened bread. The commands concerning the sanctification of the firstborn and concerning the reckoning of time refer to the exodus from Egypt. The hallowing of the seventh day is connected with the gift of manna; the bitter water occasions the fundamental law of hygienics, Exodus 15. The attack of Amalek is the actual foundation of the ordinance concerning holy wars. So in earlier times the Noachian command (Genesis 9) was a law which looked back to the godless violence of the perished generation; it connected the command to reverence God with the precept to hold human life sacred. So the fundamental command of the covenant with Abraham, the command of circumcision, as a symbol of generation consecrated with reference to regeneration, appears after the history of the expulsion of Ishmael, who was born according to the flesh (comp. Genesis 17 with Genesis 16). But that the book of Deuteronomy—according to the memorabilia on which it is founded—grew out of the danger that Israel might be led by the giving of the law to decline into observance of the mere letter, we have already elsewhere noticed. It may be remarked by the way that the Song of Moses and Moses’ Blessing at the close of Deuteronomy seem like the heart’s blood of the whole book, a song of cursing, and a song of blessing; in the Psalter and prophetic books scarcely anything similar can be found.
How are the individual groups of laws related to one another? That they essentially and unconditionally require one another, and that accordingly they could not have appeared separately, is not hard to show. The decalogue, taken by itself, would lead into scholastic casuistry; the system of sacrifice, taken by itself, into magic rites; the political marshalling of the host, into despotism or greed of conquest. Compare Schleiermacher’s argument in his “Dogmatik,” to show that the three offices of Christ require each other.
From what has been said it follows also that the development of the legislation was gradual. We may distinguish four stages in the Mosaic period: (1) The Passover as the foundation of the whole legislation, and the several special laws up to the arrival at Sinai (primogeniture, reckoning of time, sanitary regulation, Sabbath); (2) the covenant law, or book of the covenant, before the covenant was broken by the erecting of the golden calf; (3) the expansion and modification of the law, on account of the breach of the covenant, in the direction of the hierarchy, the ritual, and the beginning of the proclamation of grace in the name of Jehovah; (4) the deeper and more inward meaning given to the law in Deuteronomy, as an introduction to the age of the Psalms and Prophets.
The Form of the Promulgation of the Decalogue
We assume that this form is indicated in Exo_19:19. The passage, Deu_5:4, “Jehovah talked with you face to face in the mount,” is defined by Exo_20:5, “I stood between Jehovah and you at that time, to show you the word of Jehovah.” In spite of this declaration and the mysterious passages, Act_7:53, Gal_3:19, Heb_2:2, the notion has arisen, not only among the Jews, but also within the sphere of Christian scholastic theology, that God spoke audibly from Mt. Sinai to the whole people. Vid. Keil, II. p. 106 sqq. Buxt.: “Hebræorum interpretes ad unum pæne omnes: deum verba decalogi per se immediate locutum esse, dei nempe potentia, non autem angelorum opera ac ministerio voces in aëre formatas fuisse.” The interpolation of spirits of nature by von Hofmann (vid. Keil, p. 108) must be as far from the reality as from the literal meaning of the language. It must not be forgotten that Moses, at the head of his people in the breadless and waterless desert, moves, as it were, on the border region of this world. A sort of symbolical element is without doubt to be found even in the Rabbinical tradition, that God spoke from Sinai in a language which divided itself into all the languages of the seventy nations, and extended audibly over all the earth;—evidently a symbol of the fact that the language of the ten commandments gave expression to the language of the conscience of all mankind.
The Relation of the Law in Exodus to the Form of it in Deuteronomy
First of all is to be noticed that in the most literal part of the Holy Scriptures, where everything seems to depend on the most exact phraseology, viz., in the statement of the law, there is yet not a perfect agreement between the two statements; just as is the case in the N.T. with the Lord’s Prayer, and in church history with the ecumenical symbols, which, moreover, have failed to agree on a seven-fold division of it. Keil rightly makes the text in Exodus the original one; whilst Kurtz, in a manner hazardous for his standpoint, inverts the relation, making the form in Deuteronomy the original one. Both of them overlook the fact that according to the spirit of the letter the one edition is as original as the other. We have already (Genesis, p. 92) attempted to explain the reason of the discrepancies which Keil in note 1, II., p. 105, has cited. In the repetition of the Sabbath law the ethical and humane bearing of it is unmistakably made prominent (Deu_5:15), as in relation to the tenth commandment the wife is put before the house. In the form of the command to honor father and mother, the blessing of prosperity is made more emphatic. The expressions עֵד שָׁוְא for תִּתְאַוֶּה ,עֵד שֶׁקֶר for the repetition of תַּחְמֹד (in the second part of the tenth commandment) savor also of a spiritualizing tendency. By the copula ו, moreover, the commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” and the following ones are, so to speak, united into one commandment.
Furthermore is to be noticed the difference between the first oral proclamation of the law through the mediation of Moses and the engraved inscription of it on two tablets. This begins after the solemn ratification of the covenant, Exo_24:15, Exo_31:18 Exo_32:19, Exo_34:1. Thus at this point also in the giving of the law the oral revelation precedes the written, although at the same point the revealed word and the written word blend intimately together, in order typically to exhibit the intimate relation between the two throughout the Holy Scriptures. A positive command of Holy Scripture has already been made, Exo_17:14 : eternal war against Amalek, in a typical sense. The fact also is of permanent significance, that Aaron the priest was making the golden calf for the people at the same time that Moses on the mount was receiving the tables of the law. That the ten commandments were written on the two tables, that therefore the ethico-religious law of the covenant is divided into ten commandments, is affirmed in Exo_34:28, and Deu_10:4. But on the question, how they are to be counted, and how divided between the two tables, opinions differ. Says Keil: “The words of the covenant, or the ten commandments, were written by God on two tables of stone (Exo_31:18), and, as being the sum and kernel of the law, are called as early as in Exo_24:12 הַתּוֹרָה וְהַמִּצְוֹהֹ [the law and the commandment]. But as to their number, and their twofold division, the Biblical text furnishes neither positive statements nor certain indications—a clear proof that these points are of less importance than dogmatic zeal has often attached to them. In the course of the centuries two leading views have been developed. Some divide the commandments into two divisions of five each, and assign to the first table the commandments respecting (1) other gods, (2) images, (3) the name of God, (4) the Sabbath, and (5) parents; to the second those concerning (1) murder, (2) adultery, (3) stealing, (4) false witness, and (5) covetousness. Others assign to the first table three commandments, and to the second, seven. They specify, as the first three, the commandments concerning (1) other gods, (2) the name of God, (3) the Sabbath; which three comprise the duties owed to God: and, as the seven of the second table, those concerning (1) parents, (2) murder, (3) adultery, (4) stealing, (5) false witness, (6) coveting one’s neighbor’s house, (7) coveting a neighbor’s wife, servants, cattle, and other possessions; as comprising the duties owed to one’s neighbor.—The first opinion, with the division into two tables of five commandments each, is found in Josephus (Ant. III., 5, 8) and Philo (Quis rer. divin. hær. § 35, De Decal. § 12 et al.). It is unanimously approved by the church fathers of the first four centuries, and has been retained by the Oriental and Reformed churches to this day. The later Jews also agree with this, so far as that they assume only one commandment respecting covetousness, but dissent from it in that they unite the prohibition of images with the prohibition of strange gods, but regard the introductory sentence, “I am Jehovah, thy God,” as the first commandment. This method of enumeration, of which the first traces are found in Julian, the Apostate, quoted by Cyril of Alexandria, adv. Julianum, Lib. V. init., and in a casual remark of Jerome on Hos_10:10, is certainly of later origin, and perhaps propounded only from opposition to the Christians; but it still prevails among the modern Jews.
The second leading view was brought into favor by Augustine; and before him no one is known to have advocated it. In Quæst. 71 in Exod., Augustine expresses himself on the question how the ten commandments are to be divided: (“Utrum quatuor sint usque ad præceptum de Sabbatho, quæ ad ipsum Deum pertinent, sex autem reliqua quorum primum: Honor a patrem et matrem, quæ ad hominem pertinent: an potius illa tria sint et ista septem”) after a further presentation of the two views, as follows: “Mihi tamen videntur congruentius accipi illa tria et ista septem, quoniam Trinitatem videntur illa quæ ad Deum pertinent, insinuare diligentius intuentibus;” and he then aims to show, further, that by the prohibition of images the prohibition of other gods is only explained “perfectius,” while the prohibition of covetousness, although “concupiscentia uxoris alienæ et concupiscentia domus alienæ tantum in peccando differant,” is divided by the repetition of the “non concupisces” into two commandments. In this division Augustine, following the text of Deuteronomy, generally reckoned the command not to covet one’s neighbor’s wife as the ninth, though in individual passages, following the text of Exodus, he puts the one concerning the neighbor’s house first (vid. Geffken, Ueber die verschiedene Eintheilung des Dekalogs, Hamburg, 1838, p. 174). Through Augustine’s great influence this division of the commandments became the prevalent one in the Western church, and was also adopted by Luther and the Lutheran church, with the difference, however, that the Catholic and Lutheran churches, following Exodus, made the ninth commandment refer to the house, while only a few, with Augustine, gave the preference to the order as found in Deuteronomy 2
We have the more readily borrowed the language of a decided Lutheran on this question, inasmuch as he, in distinction from some others who seem to regard adherence to the mediæval division as essential to Lutheran orthodoxy, displays a commendable impartiality. The leading reasons for the ancient, theocratic division are the following: (1) The transposition of the first object of covetousness in Exodus and Deuteronomy, “thy neighbor’s house,” “thy neighbor’s wife.” The advocates of the ecclesiastical view would here rather assume a corruption of the text, even in the tables of the law, than see in this transposition a weaving of the two precepts into one commandment. (2) The difference, amply established by sacred history, as well as by the history of religion in general, between the worship of symbolic images, and the worship of mythological deities: in accordance with which distinction the two prohibitions are not to be blended into one commandment. (3) Of very special importance is the brief explanation of the law given by Paul in Rom_7:7 with the words, “Thou shalt not covet.” According to this explanation, the emphasis rests on the prohibition of covetousness, and the expansion “thy neighbor’s house,” etc., serves merely to exemplify it. But when the commandment is divided into two, the chief force of the prohibition rests on the several objects of desire, so that these two last commandments would lead one to make the law consist in the vague prohibition of external things, and need to be supplemented by a great “etc.;” whereas the emphasizing of covetousness as an important point leads one to refer the law to the inward life, and, so understood, looks back to the spiritual foundation of the whole law in the first commandment, whilst a kindred element of spirituality is found in the middle of the law, connected with the precept to honor father and mother.—As to the distribution of the law into two ideal tables, the division into two groups of five commandments each is favored especially by the fact that all the commandments of the second table from the sixth commandment on are connected by the conjunction ו [“and;” in the A. V. rendered, together with the negative, “neither”] in Deuteronomy (Exo_20:17, etc.). Moreover, in favor of the same division is the consideration that parents in the fifth commandment stand as representatives of the Deity and of the divine rule. As the first commandment expresses the law of true religion, and the second, the requirement to make one’s religious conceptions spiritual and to keep them pure; so the three following commandments evidently designate ramifications of religious conduct: the duty of maintaining the sanctity of religious knowledge and doctrine; of religious humanity (or of worship), and of the most original nursery of religion, the household, and of its most original form, piety. Nevertheless, when one would divide the ten commandments between the two actual tables of Moses, he fails to find distinct indications; hardly, however, can the assumption be established that only the precepts themselves stood on the tables, but not the reasons that are given for some of them.
As to the whole system of the Mosaic legislation, we are to consider the arrangement which Bertheau has made in his work “Die sieben Gruppen mosaischer Gesetze in den drei mittleren Büchern des Pentateuchs” (Göttingen, 1840). According to him, the number 7, multiplied by 10, taken seven times, lies at the foundation of the arrangement. We have already observed that we do not regard as well grounded the dissolution of the Mosaic code of laws from history as its basis. Moreover, a clear carrying out of the system would show that we could regard the origin of it only as instinctive, not as the conscious work of Rabbinic design. The ten commandments, Exo_20:1-17, form the introduction of this arrangement. But the ritual law follows immediately, beginning with a group, not of ten, but of four laws, Exo_20:28 sqq.
1. The Lawgiver. That Jehovah is the lawgiver does not exclude the mediation mentioned Gal_3:19 and elsewhere. Comp. Comm. on Gen_6:1-8. Quite as little, however, does this mediation obscure the name of the lawgiver, Jehovah. Keil (II. p. 114) inconclusively opposes the view of Knobel, who takes the first words, “I am Jehovah,” as a confession, or as the foundation of the whole theocratic law. Just because the words have this force, are they also the foundation of the obligation of the people to keep the theocratic commandments. For the lawgiver puts the people under the highest obligation by their recognising him as benefactor and liberator. An absolute despot as such is no lawgiver. Israel’s law is based on his typical liberation, and his obedience to the law on faith in that liberation. The law itself is the objective form in which for educational purposes the obligations are expressed, which are involved in its foundation.
2. The first Commandment. The absolute negation לֹא stands significantly at the beginning. So further on. Antithetic to it is the absolute אָנֹכִי [“I”] of Jehovah at the opening of His commandments.—יִהְיֶה אֱלֹהִים, the gods become, spring up gradually in the conceptions of the sinful people, hence אֲחֵרִים ּלְךָ in connection with אֱלֹהים is to be explained as = ἕτεροι (according to Gal_1:6) with the LXX. and the Vulgate (alieni, foreign), not = alii, other. עַל־כָּנָי may mean before my face, over against my face, against my face, besides my face, beyond it. The central feature of the thought may be: beyond my personal, revealed form, and in opposition to it—recognizing, together with the error a remnant of religiosity in the worship of the gods.—The “coram me” of the Vulgate expresses one factor of the notion, as Luther’s “neben mir” [“by my side”] does another. [vid. under “Textual and Grammatical”].
3. The Prohibition of Image Worship, Exo_20:4-6. Image, פֶּסֶל, from פָּסַל, to hew wood or stone. It therefore denotes primarily a plastic image. תְּמוּנָה does not signify an image made by man, but only a form which appears to him, Num_12:8, Deu_4:12; Deu_4:15 sqq., Job_4:16, Psa_17:15. In Deu_5:8 (comp. Exo_4:16) we find פֶּסֶל כָּל־תְּמוּנָה, “image of any form.” Accordingly וְכָל־תְּמוּנָה is here to be taken as explanatory of פֶּסֶל, and ו as explicative, “even any form” (Keil). “Image” is therefore used absolutely in the sense of religious representation of the Deity, and the various forms are conceived as the forms of the image. Comp. Deu_4:15, “for ye saw no manner of similitude [no form] on the day that Jehovah spake unto you in Horeb.” The medium of legislation therefore continued to be a miracle of hearing; it became a miracle of sight only in the accompanying phenomena given for the purpose of perpetually preventing every kind of image-worship.—In heaven. Keil says: “on the heaven,” explaining it as referring to the birds, and not the angels, at the most, according to Deu_4:19, as perhaps including the stars. The angels proper could not possibly have been meant as copies of Jehovah, since they themselves appear only in visions; and even if the constellations were specially meant, yet they too were for the most part pictorially represented [and in this sense only is the worship of them here prohibited]. The worship of stars as such is covered by the first commandment. Comp. Romans 1.—Under the earth. Beneath, under the level of the solid land, lower than it. Marine creatures are therefore meant. This commandment deals throughout only with religious conduct. The bowing down designates the act of adoration; the serving denotes the system of worship. Keil quotes from Calvin: “quod stulte quidam putarunt, hic damnari sculpturas et picturas quaslibet, refutatione non indiget.” Still it is clear from Romans 1 that the gradual transition from the over-estimate of the symbolical image to the superstitious reverence for it is included.
According to Keil the threat and promise following the second commandment refer to the two first as being embraced in a higher unity. But this higher unity is resolvable in this way, that the sin against the second commandment is to be regarded as the source of the sin against the first. With image worship, or the deification of symbols, idolatry begins. Hence image worship is condemned as being the germ of the whole succeeding development of sin. That which in the classical writings of the Greeks and Romans is signified by ὕβρις, the fatal beginning of a connected series of crimes which come to a conclusion only in one or more tragic catastrophes, is signified in the theocratic sphere by עָוֹן, perversion, perverseness. The evil-doing of the fathers has a genealogical succession which cannot be broken till the third or fourth generations (grandchildren and great-grandchildren) are visited. This is shown also by the Greek tragedy, and the third and fourth generation is still to be traced in the five acts of the modern tragedy. Now the image-worshipper is worse than the idolater in that he makes this fatal beginning. But as the ὕβρις proceeds from an insolence towards the gods which may be called hatred, so also image-worship arises out of an insolent apostasy from the active control of the pure conception of God, from the control of the Spirit. In the Old Testament, it is the golden calves of Jeroboam at Dan and Beersheba which are followed by such catastrophes in Israel. It may also be asked: What has the mediæval image-worship cost certain European nations in particular? That the hereditary guilt thus contracted forms no absolute fatality, is shown by the addition, “of them that hate me.” This is a condition, or limitation, which is echoed in the ἐφ’ ᾦ πάντες ἥμαρτον of Rom_5:12. But the condition cannot be made the foundation, as is done by Keil, who says that by the words לְשׂנְאַי and לְאֹהֲבַי [“of them that hate me” and “of them that love me”] the punishment and the grace are traced back to their ultimate ground. This would vitiate the force of what he afterwards says of the organic relations of humanity. The organic hereditary conditions of guilt, of which even the heathen know how to speak (vid. Keil, p. 117), are limited by morally guilty actions. Because reference is here made to organic consequences, the fathers themselves are not mentioned. Because the transmission of the curse is hindered by the counter influence of ethical forces and natures, checks grow up as early as between the third and fourth generations. The sovereignty of grace is concerned in this, as also in the opposite parallel, “unto the thousands,” i.e., unto a thousand generations. This wonderfully subtle and profound doctrine of original sin is not Augustinian, inasmuch as it assumes special cases of sin and individual and generic counteracting influences within the sphere of the general condition of sin. It is, however, still less Pelagian; yet, as compared with the notion of guilt embodied in the Greek tragedians, it is exceedingly mild. The hereditary descendants of such a guilty parentage fill up the measure of the guilt of their fathers, Mat_23:32. In this passage also the notion of guilt, as distinguished from that of sin, is brought out. Guilt is the organic side of sin; sin is the ethical side of guilt. The whole judicial economy, moreover, is founded on the jealousy of God; i.e., as being the absolute personality, He insists that persons shall not dissolve the bond of personal communion with Him, that they shall not descend from the sphere of love into that of sensuous conceptions.
4. The third commandment. The sin against the first commandment banishes the name of Jehovah by means of idol names; the sin against the second obscures and disfigures it; the sin against this third one abuses it. Here then the name, the right apprehension, or at least knowledge and confession, of the name, are presupposed; but the correctness of the apprehension is hypocritically employed by the transgressor of this commandment in the interest of selfishness and vice. According to Keil נָשָׂא שֵׁם does not mean “to utter the name,” and שָׁוְא does not mean “lie.” But to lift up a name must surely mean to lift it up by uttering it, though doubtless in a solemn way; and though שָׁוְא signifies wasteness and emptiness, yet it is here to be understood of wasteness and emptiness in speech. The moral culmination of this sin is perjury, Lev_19:12 : hypocrisy in the application of sacred things to criminal uses, especially also sorcery in all forms.—Here the punitive retribution is put immediately upon the person who sins, as an unavoidable one which surely finds its object, and whose law rests on the nature of Jehovah Himself.
5. Exo_20:9-11. Here is to be considered: (1) The significance of the law of the Sabbath; (2) the institution of the Sabbath; (3) the ordinance of the Sabbath; (4) the reason for the Sabbath. The idea of the Sabbath will never be rightly apprehended, unless it is seen to be a union of two laws. The first is the ethical law of humanity, which here predominates; the second is the strictly religious law, which is made prominent in Leviticus 23. The law of the Sabbath would not stand in the decalogue, if it did not have a moral principle to establish as much as the commandments not to kill, commit adultery, or steal. The physical nature shall not be worn out, dishonored, and slowly murdered by restless occupation. Hence the specification: “No kind of work or business;” and that, not only in reference to son and daughter, man-servant and maid-servant, but also in reference to the beasts themselves and the stranger within the gates of Israel (i.e., in their cities and villages, not in the houses of the stranger), as the foreigner might imagine that he could publicly emancipate himself from this sacred humane ordinance. This point is brought out in Deu_5:14-15; Exo_23:12. It is seen further on, in the sabbatical year and in the great year of jubilee, Reference is made to it in Deu_16:11.—That there existed already a tradition of the Sabbath rest, may be inferred from the tradition of the days of creation; so also circumcision as a custom prevailed before the institution of it as a sacrament. But that circumcision, as a patriarchal law, symbolically comprehending all the ten commandments, continued to outrank the Mosaic law of the Sabbath, which was not till now raised to the rank of one of the chief ethical commandments, is shown by the Jewish custom as indicated in Christ’s declaration, Joh_7:22-23.—The ordinance of the Sabbath first specifies the subjects of the command: “Those who are to rest are divided into two classes by the omission of the conjunction ו before עַבְדְּךָ” (Keil). Next, the degree of rest: “מְלָאכָה, business (comp. Gen_2:2), in distinction from עֲבֹדָה, labor, means not so much the lighter work (Schultz) as rather, in general, the accomplishment of any task, whether hard or easy; עֲבֹדָה is the execution of a particular work, whether agricultural (Psa_104:23), or mechanical (Exo_39:32), or sacerdotal, including both the priestly service and the labor necessary for the performance of the ritual (Exo_12:25 sq., Num_4:47). On the Sabbath, as also on the day of atonement (Lev_23:28; Lev_23:31) every employment was to cease; on the other feast-days, only laborious occupations, מְלֶאכֶת עֲבֹדָה (Lev_23:7 sqq.), i.e., occupations which come under the head of toilsome labor, civil business, and the prosecution of one’s trade” (Keil).—The reason: “for in six days,” etc. “This implies that God blessed and hallowed the seventh day because He rested on it” (Keil). According to Schultz man should, in a degree, make the pulsations of the divine life his own. So much is certainly true, that the rhythmical antithesis between labor and rest in the divine creation should be not only the prototype, but also the rule for human activity. All the more, inasmuch as not only human nature, but nature in general, needs intervals of rest to keep it from being consumed with disquietude. Hence the commandment contains an ethical principle, a law designed to secure vigor of life, as the sixth commandment protects life itself, Exo_23:12, Deu_5:14 sq. Furthermore is to be considered that the seventh day of God has a beginning, but no end; accordingly man’s day of rest should have its issue, not in time, but in eternity (vid. Heb_4:10, Rev_14:13). Keil would here make a distinction between the labor of Paradise and labor after the fall; but the typical days of creation preceded the fall. The positive side of the day of rest, the solemn celebration, first appears in the form of the ritual law of the Sabbath. The ritual makes the day of rest a festival. And, inasmuch as the festival is the soul of the day of rest, a day in which man should rest, and keep holy day in God, as on that day God rests and keeps holy day in man, it could also be transformed from the Jewish Sabbath into the Christian Sunday.
6. Exo_20:12. The fifth commandment. This concludes the first table, and forms at the same time a transition to the second. “In the requisition of honor to parents it lays the foundation for the sanctification of all social life, in that it teaches us to recognise a divine authority in it” (Oehler, in Herzog’s Real-Encyclopädie, under “Dekalog”). In the parental house the distinction between the dynamical majority that is to train and govern, and the numerical majority which is to be subject to the other, becomes conspicuous: one pair of parents, and perhaps two, three, or four times as many children. Here the government of an absolute majority would be an absolute absurdity. On the fifth commandment vid. Keil, p. 122.
7. The sixth commandment. The protection of life in its existence. It is at the same time the basis of all the following commandments. Lev_19:18, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Hence killing, when permitted or even commanded, is to be regarded as in principle a consequence of the duty of the preservation of life in the higher sense. So the seventh commandment serves to protect marriage as the source of life and the means of keeping it pure; the eighth commandment, to protect property and equity, as the condition of the dignity of life; the ninth commandment, to protect truth and the judiciary against falsehood and slander, as being the spiritual vitiation of life; the tenth commandment, to guard the issues of life from within outwards. The progress from violence to seduction, and thence on to fraud, prepares the way for the transition to the chief sin of the tongue and the chief sin of the thought, primarily as related to one’s neighbor. On this “mirum et aptum ordinem,” as Luther calls it, see Keil II., p. 123. Thus the circle is formed; the law returns to the beginning: only by the sanctification of the heart according to the tenth commandment can the worship of God according to the first commandment be secured.—Not kill. Every thing belonging here is taught in the catechism; vid. also Keil, p. 123 (comp. Gen_9:6). In the exposition, suicide, the killing of beasts, etc., are to be considered. By the omission of the object the emphasis lying on the notion of killing is strengthened. In so far as the beast has no complete life, it cannot be killed in the same sense as a man can be. But every form of cruelty to beasts is an offence against the image of human life.
8. Not commit adultery. This commandment holds the same relation to the sixth as the second to the first. Idolatry proper corresponds with the murder of one’s neighbor, the latter being an offence against the divine in man. Image-worship, however, corresponds with adultery, as this too rests on a subtle deification of the image of man; it is spiritual idolatry, as image-worship is spiritual adultery, Lev_20:10. Here observe also the expansion of the thought in the catechism, according to which simple whoredom too in all its forms, as well as unchastity, is included.
9. Not steal.Vid. the expansion, Exo_21:33; Exo_22:13; Exo_23:4-5, Deu_22:1-4. The correspondence between this commandment and the misuse of the name of God, which robs God of His honor, is also not to be overlooked. In the case of false oaths in business the two offences coalesce.
10. Bear false witness against thy neighbor. עֵד שֶׁקֶר, Deut. עֵד שָׁוְא, an intensification of the expression. “Not only every lying, but in general every untrue and unfounded, testimony is forbidden; also not only testimony before the judge, but in general every untrue testimony” (Keil). Aside from the fact that the judicial oaths in court form a sort of religious ceremony, which reminds one of the law of the Sabbath, it is also the office of the Sabbath to suppress the false excitements of the week of labor, out of which sins of the tongue, especially also false testimony, proceed.
11. Thou shalt not covet. The emphasis lies on coveting, not on the several objects of coveting. This emphasis of the inward state is made secure by reckoning the commandment as one. “The repetition of לֹא תחֲמֹד [‘thou shalt not covet’] no more proves that the words form two distinct commandments than the substitution of תִּתְאַוּה [‘desire’] for תַּחֲמֹד [‘covet’] in Deu_5:18 (21)” (Keil). The repetition in Exodus gives prominence to the thought that the house, the sum total of domestic life, as a unit, is superior to the individual; in Deut., that the wife, ideally considered, is superior to the house (Pro_12:4; Pro_31:10). Vid. Keil’s note in reply to Kurtz, who regards the text in Exodus as corrupt.3 The relation between the fifth and the tenth commandment is less marked, yet it may be said: a genuine pupil of a pious house will not covet his neighbor’s house. The house of God in the pious family keeps peace with the house of the neighbor. Every house is to the pious man a house consecrated by justice, like a house of God.
The Effect
Exo_20:18-21; Deu_5:23-33. According to Keil, the frightful phenomena under which the Lord manifested His majesty made the designed impression on the people. It was indeed designed that the people should be penetrated with the fear of God, in order that they might not sin; but not that in their fear they should stand off and beg Moses as their mediator to talk with God. Hence it is said, “God is come to try you.” A trial is always a test, which, through the influence of false notions, may occasion a twofold view of it. That the Jews as sinners should be startled by the phenomena of the majesty of God, was the intent of this revelation; but that they should retire trembling and desire a mediator, was a misunderstanding occasioned by their carnal fear and spiritual sluggishness. Here, therefore, is the key to the understanding of the hierarchy. The lay feeling of the people desired a mediating priesthood, which the person of Moses first had to represent. For the priest is the man who can dare to approach God without being overwhelmed with the fear of death (Jer_30:21). The people now, although they have found out by experience that men can hear God speak without dying, yet yield to the fear that they will be destroyed by fire when in immediate intercourse with God (Deu_5:24-25). And because this is now their attitude of soul, Jehovah complies with it (Deu_5:28), just as He afterwards gave to the people a king. This origin of the Old Testament hierarchy explains why immediately afterwards mention is made of altars. In consequence of that arrangement, therefore, the people now stood henceforth afar off: Moses had for the present assumed the whole mediatorship.
Footnotes:
[1] [The exact meaning of עַל־פָּנַי here and in Deu_5:7 is disputed. The rendering “before me” was doubtless meant by our Translators to convey the notion, “in my presence” = לְפָנַי. Perhaps the ordinary reader is apt to understand it to mean, “in preference to me.” Luther, Kalisch, Geddes, Keil, Knobel, Bunsen, and Riggs (Suggested Emendations), following the LXX. (πλὴν ἐμοῦ), translate, “besides me.” De Wette, Rosenmüller, Maurer, Philippson, Fürst, Arnheim, Bush, Murphy, Cook (in Speaker’s Commentary), and Lange, following the Vulgate (“coram me”), translate “before me,” i.e., in my presence. In order to a satisfactory settlement of the question, it is necessary to investigate the use of the phrase עַל־פְּנֵי in general. An examination of all the passages in which it occurs yields the following result: The phrase, followed by a Genitive or a Pronominal Suffix, occurs 210 times. In 125 of these cases, it has its literal sense of “upon the face (or surface) of;” as, e.g., 2Sa_17:19, “The woman took and spread a covering over the well’s mouth;” Gen_50:1, “Joseph fell upon his father’s face;” or it is merely a longer form for the simpler עַל (upon); as, e.g., Job_5:10, “Who … sendeth waters upon the fields.” The remaining 85 cases are divided as follows: (1) 28 times עַל־פְּנֵי is used in describing the relation of localities to each other. E.g., Jdg_16:3, “Samson … carried them up to the top of an hill that is before Hebron.” Sometimes (and more properly) in such cases the phrase is rendered “over against” in the A. V. The other passages in which עַל־פְּגֵי is thus used are Gen_23:19; Gen_25:9; Gen_25:18; Gen_49:30; Gen_50:13; Num_21:11; Num_33:7; Deu_32:49; Deu_34:1; Jos_13:3; Jos_13:25; Jos_15:8; Jos_17:7; Jos_18:14; Jos_18:16; Jos_19:11; 1Sa_15:7; 1Sa_26:1; 1Sa_26:3; 2Sa_2:24; 1Ki_11:7; 1Ki_17:3; 1Ki_17:15; 2Ki_23:13; Eze_48:15; Eze_48:21; Zec_14:4. It is a mistake to suppose, as some do, that in these connections עַל־פְּנֵי means “to the east of,” according to the Hebrew mode of conceiving of the cardinal points. For in Jos_18:14 we read of “the hill that lieth before (עַל־פְּנֵי) Beth-horon southward;” and in Jos_15:8, of “the top of the mountain that lieth before the valley of Hinnom westward.” We are rather to suppose that the phrase indicates such a relation of two places as is expressed by “over against,” the physical conformation of the localities naturally suggesting such a description.—(2) We observe, next, that 13 times עַל־פְּנֵי is used of the position of things in relation to buildings. E.g., 1Ki_6:3, “the porch before the temple.” In the same verse עַל־פְּנֵי occurs twice more in the same sense. The other passages are 1Ki_7:6 (bis); Exo_8:8; 2Ch_3:4 (bis), 8, 17; Exo_5:9; Eze_40:15; Eze_42:8. In these cases the meaning is obvious: “on the front of,” “confronting.”—(3) Six times עַל־פְּנֵי is used in the sense of “towards” or “down upon” after verbs of looking, or (once) of going. E.g., Gen_18:16, “The men ……… looked toward (עַל־פְּנֵי, down upon) Sodom.” So Gen_19:28 (bis), Num_21:20; Num_23:28; 2Sa_15:23. Here עַל־פְּנֵי may be regarded as a fuller form of עַל as sometimes used after verbs of motion.—(4) Five times it is used after verbs signifying “pass by,” and is rendered “before.” E. g, Exo_33:19, “I will make all my goodness pass before thee.” So Exo_34:6; Gen_32:22 (21); 2Sa_15:18; Job_4:15. In these passages עַל־פְּנֵי differs from לִפְנֵי as used, e.g., in 2Ki_4:31, “Gehazi passed on before them;” where לִפְנֵי indicates that Gehazi went on in advance of the others; whereas, e.g., in 2Sa_15:18, the meaning is that the king stopped, and the others went by him.—(5) In 12 passages מֵעַלִ־פְּנֵי is used after verbs meaning to “cast out,” and is usually rendered “from the presence (or sight) of.” They are 1Ki_9:7; 2Ki_13:23; 2Ki_17:18; 2Ki_17:23; 2Ki_24:3; 2Ki_24:20; 2Ch_7:20; Jer_7:15; Jer_15:1; Jer_23:39; Jer_32:31; Jer_52:3. Possibly also Gen_23:3, “Abraham stood up from before his dead,” i.e., went away from the presence of; but we may understand it more literally, viz., “stood up from upon the face of.” There is a manifest difference between מֵעַל־פְּנֵי and מִלִּפְנֵי. The former is used of a removal from a state of juxtaposition or opposition. The latter is used in the stricter sense of “from before.” E.g., in Deu_9:4, “For the wickedness of these nations the Lord doth drive them out from before thee (מִלְּפָנֶיךָ).” Here it is not meant that the relation between the Jews and the other nations was to be broken up, but rather that it was never to be formed; whereas, e.g., in Jer_7:15, “I will cast you out of my sight,” the implication is that the people had been near Jehovah, but were now to be banished.—(6) Four times עַל־פְּנֵי is used with the meaning, “to the face of.” E.g., Isa_45:3, “A people that provoketh me to anger continually to my face.” So Job_1:11 (parallel with Exo_2:5, where אֶל־פְּנֵי is used); Exo_6:28 (as correctly rendered); Exo_21:31. Here the notion of hostility, often expressed by the simple עַל, is involved.—Similar to these are (7) the three passages, Eze_32:10, Nah_2:2 (1), and Psa_21:13 (12), where עַל־פְּנֵי is used after verbs descriptive of hostile demonstrations, and means either, literally, “against the face of,” or “over against,” in defiance.—(8) In Exo_20:20, where the A. V. renders, “that his fear may be before your faces,” the meaning clearly is the same as in such expressions as Exo_15:16, where the simple עַל is used. So Deu_2:25.—(9) In one case, Psa_18:43 (42), עַל־פְּנֵי is used of tho dust “before” the wind, just as לִפְנֵי is used in Job_21:18, “They are as stubble before the wind.”—(10) Tho passage, Job_16:14, “He breaketh me with breach upon (עַל־פְּנֵי) breach,” has no precise parallel. But here, too, it is most natural to understand עַל־פְּנֵי as a fuller, poetic form for עַל. Comp. Gen_32:12 (11), “the mother with (עַל) the children;” Amo_3:15, “I will smite the winter-house with (עַל, i.e., together with, in addition to) the summer-house.”—(11) There are three passages (possibly four), in which עַל־פְּנֵי has a peculiar meaning, as denoting the relation of two persons to each other. Haran, we are told, Gen_11:28, “died before (עַל־פְּנֵי) his father Terah.” This seems to mean, “died before his father did.” But though such a priority is implied, it is not directly expressed. לִפְנֵי is sometimes used to denote such priority in time, e.g., Gen_30:30; Exo_10:14; Jos_10:14; but עַל־פְּנֵי is nowhere clearly used in this sense, so that it is more natural to understand it (as the commentators do) here to mean either “in the presence of,” or “during the life-time of.” The next passage, Num_3:4, illustrates the meaning: “Eleazar and Ithamar ministered in the priest’s office in the sight of (עַל־פְּנֵי) Aaron their father.” It is hardly possible that pains would be taken to lay stress on the fact that Aaron saw them acting the part of priests, especially as the verb כִּהֵן hardly means anything more than “to be priest.” Not more admissible is the interpretation of Gesenius and others, who here translate עַל־פְּגֵי “under the supervision of.” There is not the faintest analogy for such a meaning of the phrase. At the same time, it is hardly supposable that it can be literally translated, “during the life-time of.” The notion of physical presence, or nearness, is so uniformly involved in עַל־פְּנֵי that we must, in strictness, here understand it to mean, “over against,” “in view of,” the point of the expression, however, not consisting in the circumstance that Aaron watched them in their ministrations, but that they performed them over against him, i.e., as coupled with him, together with him, (and so) during his life-time. Here belongs also probably Deu_21:16, “He may not make the son of the beloved first-born before (עַל־פְּנֵי) the son of the hated.” One might naturally understand “before” here to mean, “in preference to;” and this certainly would yield an appropriate sense—a sense certainly involved, yet probably not directly expressed. At least there is no clear analogy for such a meaning, unless we find it in the passages now under consideration, viz., Exo_20:3 and Deu_5:7. The best commentators understand עַל־פְּנֵי in Deu_21:16, to mean “during the life-time of.” An analogous use of לִפְנֵי is found in Psa_72:5, where it is said of the king, “They shall fear thee as long as the sun and moon endure,” literally “before (לִפְנֵי) the sun and moon.” Similarly Exo_20:17.—The other of the four passages above mentioned is Gen_25:18. There we read: “He (i.e., Ishmael) died (literally, fell) in the presence of (עַל־פּנֵי) his brethren.” There is now, however, general unanimity in translating נָפָל here “settled” rather than “died,” so that the passage is to be reckoned in the following class, in which also the relation of persons to each other is expressed, but in a somewhat different sense.—(12) Knobel explains עַל־פְּנֵי in Gen_25:18 as = “to the east of.” So Del., Lange, Keil, Maurer, De W., and others. But, as we have already seen, עַל־פְּנֵי does not have this meaning. This passage is to be explained by the parallel one, Gen_16:12, where it is also said of Ishmael, “He shall dwell in the presence of (עַל־פְּנֵי) all his brethren.” Here the context is, “His hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell עַל־פְּנֵי all his brethren.” Keil and Lange are unable to satisfy themselves with the interpretation “east of” here; and it is clear that that would not be a statement at all in place here, even if עַל־פְּנֵי ordinarily had the meaning “east of.” Evidently the angel expresses the fact that the Ishmaelites were to dwell over against their brethren as an independent, defiant, nation. If so, then Exo_25:18 is to be understood in the same way, as a statement of the fulfilment of the prophecy here made. In addition to these two passages there are three others in which the relation of persons to each other is expressed. They are Lev_10:3, Psa_9:20 (19), and Jer_6:7. In the first we read that Jehovah said, “Before (עַל־פְּנֵי) all the people I will be glorified;” this is preceded by the statement, “I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me.” The verse follows the account of the destruction of Nadah and Abihu. To render “in view of,” or “in the presence of,” would make good and appropriate sense; and certainly it is implied that by the summary punishment of the presumptuous priests Jehovah intended to glorify Himself in the sight of His people. Yet, while men are frequently represented as being or acting before (לִפְנֵי) Jehovah, it is extremely unusual to speak of Jehovah as being or doing anything before (in the sight of) men. And since, if that were here meant, לִפְנֵי would probably have been used, it is much better here to understand the meaning to be “over against,” implying separation and contrast. Likewise Psa_9:20 (19): “Let the heathen be judged in thy sight (עַל־פָּנֶיךָ).” Certainly the meaning cannot simply be: Let the heathen be judged, while God looks on as a spectator. God is Himself the judge; and the heathen are to be judged over against Him; i.e., in such a way as to exhibit the contrast between them and Him. There remains only Jer_6:7, “Before me (עָל־פָּנַי) continually is grief and wounds.” The context describes the prospective destruction of Jerusalem. Her wickedness is described in Exo_20:7 : “As a fountain casteth out her waters, so she casteth out her wickedness; violence and spoil is heard in her; before me continually is grief and wounds (sickness and blows).” Undoubtedly this implies that the manifestations of the wickedness of the people were in Jehovah’s sight; but here, too, there is implied the notion that these things are over against Him: on the one side, Jehovah in His holiness: on the other, Jerusalem in her wickedness. This conception is naturally suggested by the representation that Jehovah is about to make war upon her.
Having now given a complete exhibition of the use of עַל־פְּנֵי in all the other passages, we are prepared to consider what it means in the first commandment. Several things may be regarded as established: (i) עַל־פְּנֵי is far from being synonymous with לִפְנֵי. The latter is used hundreds of times in the simple sense of “before” in reference to persons; the former is used most frequently of places, and in all cases עַל has more or less of its ordinary meaning, “upon,” or “against” (over against), (ii) The phrase has nowhere unequivocally the meaning “besides.” The nearest approach to this is in Job_16:14, under (10), where עַל־פְּנֵי may be rendered “in addition to.” But this is not quite the same as “besides,” and the phrase has there evidently a poetic use. A solitary case like this, where too not persons, but things, are spoken of, is altogether insufficient to establish the hypothesis that עַל־פְּנֵי in the first commandment means “besides.” (iii) The most general notion conveyed by the phrase in question is that of one object confronting another. Leaving out of account, as of no special pertinency, those instances in which it verges upon the literal sense of “upon (or against) the face of,” and those in which the meaning of עַל predominates, (viz., classes (3), (6), (7), (8), (10), we find that all others are sufficiently explained by this generic notion of confronting. Thus, in all the cases where places are spoken of as עַל־פְּנֵי one another, class (1); where objects are described as in front of buildings, class (2); and where persons are spoken of as passing in front of others, class (4).—So, too, in the cases in which מֵעַל־פְּנֵי is used, class (5), in every instance it follows a verb which implies a previous state of hostility; men are to be removed from being over against Jehovah, from confronting Him with their offensive deeds.—So the instance in Psa_18:43 (42), class (9); the dust before the wind is compared with God’s enemies destroyed by Him; the dust confronting the wind illustrates the powerlessness of men confronting an angry God.—So the examples under (12). The translation “over against” satisfies all of the cases. A relation of contrast and opposition is implied.—Likewise, also, the three passages under (11). The son of the beloved wife (Deu_21:16) is not to bo invested with the rights of primogeniture over against the son of the hated one, i.e., in contrast with, distinction from, the other one, while yet by natural right the latter is entitled to the privilege. The phrase עַל־פְּנֵי may here, therefore, be understood to mean “in preference to,” or “in the life-time of,” but neither one nor the other literally and directly, yet both one and the other by implication. In Num_3:4 Aaron’s sons are represented as being priests over against their father, i.e., not succeeding him, but together with him, as two hills, instead of being distant from one another, are, as it were, companions, confronting each other. So in Gen_11:28 Haran is said to have died over against his father. In his death he confronted his father, i.e., did not, as most naturally happens, die after him, when his father would have been taken away from being with him. By thus anticipating his father in his decease he, as it were, passed in front of him, confronted him, so that this case is quite analogous to those under class (4). In this case, therefore, as in some others, tho meaning of עַל־פְּנֵי closely borders upon that of לִפְנֵי, yet is not the same.
The application of this discussion to Exo_20:3 and Deu_5:7 is obvious. Israel is to have no other gods “over against” Jehovah. The simple meaning “before,” i.e., in the presence of, would have little point and force, and besides would have been expressed by לְפָנַי. The meaning “besides” would have been expressed by זוּלָתִי ,בִּלְעָדַי, or some other of the phrases having that meaning. The meaning “over against,” the usual meaning of the phrase, is perfectly appropriate here. All false gods are opposed to tho true God. The worship of them is incompatible with the worship of Jehovah. The command therefore is, “Thou shalt have no other gods to confront me,” to be set up as rival objects of service and adoration. All that is pertinent in the other two renderings is involved hero. Gods that are set up over against Jehovah may be said to be before Him, in His sight; that they are gods besides, in addition to, Him, is a matter of course: but, more than this, they are gods opposed to Him.—Tr.].
[2]In modern discussions of this subject, the Augustinian division is defended by Sonntag, in the Theol. Studien und Kritiken, 1836, p. 61 sqq. and 1837, p. 243 sqq., and by Kurtz in his History of the Old Covenant, III., p. 123 sqq., and in the Kirchl. Zeitschrift of Kliefoth and Meier, 1835, parts 4–6. The Lutheran view, by C. W. Otto, Dekalog. Untersuchungen, Halle, 1857. The Reformed view, as the original one, and the one borne out by the text, by Züllig, in the Theol. Studien und Kritiken, 1837, p. 47 sqq.; J. Geffken, in the above-mentioned treatise, which fully treats the historical testimony; Berthean, Die 7 Gruppen mosaischer Gesetze, Göttingen, 1840, p. 10 sqq.; Oehler, in Herzog’s Realencyklopädie, Art. Dekalog; by anonymous writers in the Evang. Kirchenzeitung, 1857, No. 62 sq., and in the Erlanger Zeitschrift für Protestantismus, Vol. 33, parts 1 and 2; finally, by F. W. Schultz, in a full, thorough, and candid treatment, of the question in Rudelbach and Guericke’s Zeitschrift, 1858, part 1, and in his Comm. on Deu_5:6 sqq.—E. in the Erlanger Zeitschrift, Vol. 36, part 4, p. 298 sqq.; and Knobel on Exodus 20., enter the lists for the Rabbinical view. Finally, E. Meier, Die ursprüngliche Form des Dekalogs (Mannheim, 1836) launches out into arbitrary conjectures” (Keil). See more on Rabbini al and Catholic divisions in Keil II., p. 111, and Bertheau, p. 13. [Comp. also Stanley, Jewish Church, Lect. VII., and the Article Ten Commandments in Smith’s Bible Dictionary, and Decalogue in Kitto’s Cyclopedia.—Tr.]
[3][The note is not given in the English edition. Kurtz argues that lusting after one’s neighbor’s wife, and coveting his possessions, are two quite distinct sins; hence he regards the use of two distinct verbs for the two sins in Deuteronomy as the most accurate form of the commandments, and therefore conjectures that through some copyist the text of Exodus has been changed. He confesses, however, that there is no external evidence of any weight in favor of the conjecture.—Tr.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 8, 18, 19, 22, 24, 25, 26 I am the Lord thy God--This is a preface…
I am the Lord thy God--This is a preface to the ten commandments--the latter clause being specially applicable to the case of the Israelites, while the former brings it home to all mankind; showing that the reasonableness of the law is founded in their eternal relation as creatures to their Creator, and their mutual relations to each other.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1–26 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, Exo_20:1-17.
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, Exo_20:1-17.
The preceding chapter has furnished an awe-inspiring preparation for the announcement of the fundamental law which here follows. Nothing in all the myths, legends, or histories of law-giving among other peoples is comparable with this sublime issuing of Israel’s decalogue. And the marvelous perfection of this summary of law, the inner excellency, the universal applicability of the several precepts, and their abiding, unchangeable nature, elevate this entire narrative above the element of myth and fable.
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The glory of this decalogue is, that its provisions are absolutely fundamental. They have to do with individual life, social relations, and national history. We are not to imagine that they were now issued for the first time, or had no existence and recognition before the time of Moses. Compare the note on Gen_9:6. These laws are grounded in the very nature of man as a moral being, having essential relations to God on the one hand, and to his fellow-man on the other. They rest upon the idea that there is an infinite power above man to whom allegiance is due, and a community of coordinate fellow-beings about him with whom he is bound to act on principles of equity and love. These great truths were manifest from the beginning, but had become obscured and often ignored by the perversity of men. Jehovah, the God of Israel, gave them new and sublime expression at Sinai. They were there graven upon two tables of stone. Exo_32:15-16; Exo_34:28. “Hard, stiff, abrupt as the cliffs from which they were taken,” writes Stanley, “they remain as the firm, unyielding basis on which all true spiritual religion has been built up and sustained. Sinai is not Palestine — the law is not the Gospel; but the ten commandments, in letter and in spirit, remain to us as the relic of that time. They represent to us, both in fact and in idea, the granite foundation, the immovable mountain, on which the world is built up — without which all theories of religion are but as shifting and fleeting clouds. They give us the two homely fundamental laws which all subsequent revelation has but confirmed and sanctified — the law of our duty to God, and the law of our duty to our neighbour. Side by side with the prayer of our Lord, and with the creed of his Church, they appear inscribed on our churches, read from our altars, taught to our children, as the foundation of all morality.” — Jewish Church, First Series, pp. 195, 198.
The NAMES applied to this special Sinaitic law are various. The Greek word decalogue, and the common title the ten commandments, have arisen from the fact that the tables contain ten distinct mandates, and are called in Exo_34:28, and Deu_4:13, the ten commandments, or ten words. In those same texts and elsewhere they are also called the words of the covenant and the covenant, because they are the truest expression of the covenant-relations of God and his people. In Exo_31:18; Exo_32:15; Exo_34:29, they are called the two tables of the testimony, as containing God’s solemn declaration of his holy will concerning man. They may, of course, be included under the more common terms laws, commandments, statutes, precepts. Being the foundation and substance of all moral and religious precepts, they are emphatically THE LAW AND THE COMMANDMENT. Exo_24:12.
Being ten in number, their proper DIVISION and arrangement are to be determined. They are most naturally arranged in two tables, each containing five precepts. According to this oldest and simplest division we have the two tables as follows: —
FIRST TABLE.
1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
2. Thou shalt not make any graven image.
3. Thou shalt not take the name of God in vain.
4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
5. Honour thy father and thy mother.
SECOND TABLE.
6. Thou shalt not kill.
7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
8. Thou shalt not steal.
9. Thou shalt not bear false witness.
10. Thou shalt not covet.
Two other methods of dividing the decalogue have been proposed, one by uniting the first and second in the above arrangement, and dividing the tenth into two, the other by regarding the introductory words, “I am the Lord thy God,” as the first commandment, and combining, like the last-named method, the prohibition of other gods and graven images.
These two ways of arranging are exhibited in parallel columns, as follows: —
1. (AUGUSTINIAN.) FIRST TABLE.2. (JEWISH.)1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me, nor make any graven images.1. I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of Egypt.2. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.2. Thou shalt have no other gods before me, nor make any graven images.3. Remember the Sabbath day. 3. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.SECOND TABLE.4. Honour thy father and thy mother.4. Remember the Sabbath day.5. Thou shalt not kill.5. Honour thy father and mother.6. Thou shalt not commit adultery.6. Thou shalt not kill.7. Thou shalt not steal.7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.8. Thou shalt not bear false witness.8. Thou shalt not steal.9. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house.9. Thou shalt not bear false witness.10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife.10. Thou shalt not covet.Much has been written for and against each of these methods of arrangement. That which makes Exo_20:2, the first word, or commandment, is quite generally rejected, for the introductory words, “I am Jehovah, thy God,” cannot reasonably be regarded as a commandment co-ordinate with the others. But that Masoretic division, shown in Hebrew Bibles, by which Exo_20:1-6, is included in the first commandment, and the prohibition of blasphemy (Exo_20:7) forms the second, agrees with the Augustinian theory, numbered 1 above, and makes up the ten by dividing Exo_20:17 into two commandments. This view is ably advocated by Kurtz, (Hist. of the Old Covenant, Eng. trans., vol. iii, pp. 123-137.) The strong point of his argument is, that there is no radical distinction between the worship of other gods and graven images, for image-worship and idolatry are essentially the same, or, at any rate, image-worship is a species of idolatry. “Idolatry is the abstract, image-worship the concrete, sin.” His argument, however, for dividing the law against coveting into two commandments is weak, and a notable specimen of special pleading. The same is true of all attempts to establish this most unnatural division. The fact that the Hebrew text in Deu_5:21, places wife before house in the list of objects not to be coveted, is at best but a slender argument in favour of such division, whilst on the other hand the easy transposition of these words, and their use by the apostle in Rom_7:7-8, where he quotes only, “Thou shalt not covet,” and then speaks immediately of “all manner of coveting,” are a far more weighty witness against it.
Whilst, therefore, it is conceded that the distinction between the worship of false gods and of images is not so marked as one might expect in objects prohibited by separate commandments, the distinction is nevertheless more easily made and more noticeable than that between a neighbour’s wife and his other possessions. “No essential difference,” says Keil, “can be pointed out in the two clauses which prohibit coveting; but there was a very essential difference between the commandment against other gods and that against making an image of God, so far as the Israelites were concerned, as we may see not only from the account of the golden calf at Sinai, but also from the image-worship of Gideon, (Jdg_8:27,) Micah, (Judges 17,) and Jeroboam, (1Ki_12:28.”) See further in textual notes on Exo_20:4.
A further question concerns the arrangement in two tables. The first table is believed to set forth man’s duties toward God, the second, those toward his neighbours, or fellow-men; and hence the whole are summed up in the two positive commandments, (1) “Thou shalt love thy God with all thy heart,” and (2) “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” Comp. Deu_6:5; Lev_19:34; Mat_22:37; Mat_22:39; Mar_12:30-31; Luk_10:27. But where are we to make the division? Augustine’s arrangement, as shown in the column above, made the first table comprise three, and the second table seven, commandments. He thought that this arrangement favoured the doctrine of the Trinity. Others commence the second table with the commandment to honour parents, and thus divide the ten into two groups of four and six. But the oldest and simplest division is that which recognizes five in each table, like the fingers on the two hands. The first five then belong to the sphere of Piety, and the second five to that of Morality.
The decalogue appears also in Deu_5:6-21. The variations between the two texts are the following: Deuteronomy omits nothing contained in Exodus except the waw (ו, and) before כל תמונה, any likeness, (comp. Exodus Exo_20:4, and Deuteronomy Exo_20:8,) and the words of Exo_20:11, “therefore Jehovah blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it,” but substitutes שׁמור, observe, for זכור, remember, (Exodus 8, Deuteronomy 12;) שׁוא, emptiness, for שׁקר, a lie, (Exodus 16, Deuteronomy 17;) and תתאוה, long after, instead of the second תחמר, covet, (Exodus 17, and Deuteronomy 18,) and adds in Exo_20:12; Exo_20:16 the words, “as the Lord thy God commanded thee;” in Exo_20:14, “nor thy ox, nor thy ass, nor any,” “that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou;” in Exo_20:15, “and remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched-out arm; therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day.” Deuteronomy also connects with ו, and, all the commands after that pertaining to murder, and places wife before house in the last commandment, and also inserts שׂדהו, his field, among the objects not to be coveted. Deuteronomy Exo_20:10, reads, his commandments, where Exodus Exo_20:6, has my commandments. It is well for the reader to compare the New Testament citations of the decalogue in order to observe how freely they were quoted, and without reference to any particular order of precepts. See Mat_5:21; Mat_5:27; Mat_19:18; Mar_10:19; Luk_18:20; Rom_13:9; Jas_2:11. The Vatican Codex of the Septuagint places the sixth commandment after the eighth, and transposes house and wife in Exo_20:17, like the Hebrew text of Deuteronomy. No great stress should be placed on the mere order of the precepts, as if any thing of importance depended upon their division and arrangement in the tables. The text in Deuteronomy is itself witness that no great importance was attached to verbal accuracy in citing the decalogue, but it is noticeable that explicit reference is there made to what Jehovah had commanded at Sinai. It is not improbable that the original form of the several mandates as given at Sinai was without the reasons which are attached to the first five, both in Exodus and Deuteronomy.
1. God spake — The Creator of man and the world, who has all authority in heaven and earth, is the fountain of law. Many Jewish and Christian expositors affirm that the Sinaitic proclamation of the decalogue was, literally, by the voice of God; that is, “that words were formed in the air by the power of God, and not by the intervention and ministry of angels.” (Keil.) This is thought to be the necessary meaning of Deu_5:4 : “Jehovah talked with you face to face out of the midst of the fire.” On the other hand, in Deu_33:2, Moses speaks of Jehovah’s coming from Sinai, “with ten thousands of saints,” or out of myriads of his holiness. Comp. Psa_68:17. In Acts 7, Stephen speaks of the law as received “by the disposition of angels,” and in Gal_3:19, Paul employs nearly the same expression. In Heb_2:2, the law is called “the word spoken by angels.” Hence, while it is matter of record that Jehovah spake and Israel heard “the voice out of the midst of the darkness,” (Deu_5:22-23,) it does not necessarily follow that “the voice of words” (Heb_12:19) was produced without the ministry of angels. The Israelites “saw no manner of similitude on the day that the Lord spake in Horeb out of the midst of the fire,” but the whole record shows that the Sinaitic proclamation of the decalogue was accompanied by miraculous and supernatural displays of the divine majesty. The ministry of angels is affirmed — the word was “spoken by angels;” but the manner of producing the voice is an unrevealed secret.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–26 1. The Ten Words: Deu_4:13; Deu_10:4; and probably (see…
1. The Ten Words: Deu_4:13; Deu_10:4; and probably (see the note Exo_34:28.
The Greek equivalent, ‘Decalogue’ (ἡ δεκάλογος), is used first be Clem. Al. [Paedag. iii. 89 al.).
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1. And God spake, &c.] the sequel in E to Exo_19:19.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 (1) God spake.—It is distinctly stated in Deuteronomy that…
XX.
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.
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(1) God spake.—It is distinctly stated in Deuteronomy that the Ten Commandments were spoken to “all the assembly of Israel,” by God, “out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice” (Deu_5:22). It was not till after their delivery that the people entreated to be spared further communications of so awful a character. How the sounds were produced is a mystery unrevealed, and on which it is idle to speculate. Jehovah alone appears as the speaker in the Old Testament; in the New, we hear of the instrumentality of angels (Act_7:53; Gal_3:19; Heb_2:2).
All these words.—In Scripture the phrase used to designate the Ten Commandments is “the Ten Words” (Exo_34:28; Deu_4:13; Deu_10:4). It has been universally recognised, both by the Jewish and Christian Churches, that they occupy an unique position among the utterances which constitute God’s revelation to man. Alone uttered publicly by God in the ears of the people, alone inscribed on stone by the finger of God Himself, alone, of all commands, deposited in the penetrale of worship—the Ark—they formed the germ and basis, the very pith and kernel of the covenant which God, through Moses, made with man, and which was to continue for above thirteen hundred years the exposition of His will to the human race. They enunciate a morality infinitely above that of all the then existing nations of the earth—nay, above that of the wisest of mankind to whom revelation was unknown. There is no compendium of morality in Confucianism, in Buddhism, in the religion of Zoroaster, or of Egypt, or of Greece or Rome, which can be put in competition with the Decalogue. Broad exceedingly (Psa_119:96), yet searching and minute in its requirements; embracing the whole range of human duty, yet never vague or indeterminate; systematic, yet free from the hardness and narrowness commonly attaching to systems: the Decalogue has maintained and will always maintain itself, if not as an absolutely complete summary of human duty, yet as a summary which has never been superseded. When our Lord was asked what a man must do to inherit eternal life, He replied by a reference to the Decalogue: “Thou knowest the commandments” (Mar_10:19). When the Church would impress on her children their complete duty both to God and man, she requires them to be taught the “Ten Words.” When adult Christians are to be reminded, before coming to Holy Communion, of the necessity of self-examination and repentance, the same summary is read to them. It is an extraordinary testimony to the excellence of the compendium that, originating in Judaism, it has been maintained unchanged in a religious system so different from Judaism as Christianity.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. H. Mackintosh 1880 · Public Domain On v1 Exodus 20
Exodus 20
It is of the utmost importance to understand the true character and object of the moral law, as set forth in this chapter. There is a tendency in the mind to confound the principles of law and grace, so that neither the one nor the other can be rightly understood. Law is shorn of its stern and unbending majesty; and grace is robbed of all its divine attractions. God’s holy claims remain unanswered, and the sinner’s deep and manifold necessities remain unreached by the anomalous system framed by those who attempt to mingle law and grace. In point of fact, they can never be made to coalesce, for they are as distinct as any two things can be. Law sets forth what man ought to be; grace exhibits what God is. How can these ever be wrought up into one system ? How can the sinner ever be saved by a system made up of half law, half grace? Impossible. It must be either the one or the other.
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The law has sometimes been termed "the transcript of the mind of God." This definition is entirely defective. Were we to term it a transcript of the mind of God as to what man ought to be, we should be nearer the truth. If I am to regard the ten commandments as the transcript of the mind of God, then, I ask, is there nothing in the mind of God save "thou shalt" and "thou shalt not?" Is there no grace? No mercy? No loving kindness? Is God not to manifest what He is? Is He not to tell out the deep secrets of that love which dwells in His bosom? Is there nought in the divine character but stern requirement and prohibition? Were this so, we should have to say, "God is law " instead of "God is love." But, blessed be His name, there is more in His heart than could ever be wrapped up in the " ten words" uttered on the fiery mount. If I want to see what God is, I must look at Christ; "for in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the godhead bodily." (Col. 2: 9) "The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." (John 1: 17) Assuredly there was a measure of truth in the law. It contained the truth as to what man ought to be. Like everything else emanating from God, it was perfect so far as it went - perfect for the object for which it was administered; but that object was not, by any means, to unfold, in the view of guilty sinners, the nature and character of God. There was no grace - no mercy. "He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy." (Heb. 10.28.) "The man that doeth these things shall live by them." (Lev. 18: 5; Rom. 10: 5) "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them." (Deut. 27: 26; Gal 3: 10) This was not grace. Indeed, mount Sinai was not the place to look for any such thing. There Jehovah revealed Himself in awful majesty, amid blackness, darkness, tempest, thunderings, and lightnings. These were not the attendant circumstances of an economy of grace and mercy; but they were well suited to one of truth and righteousness; and the law was that and nothing else.
In the law God sets forth what a man ought to be, and pronounces a curse upon him if he is not that. But then a man finds, when he looks at himself in the light of the law, that he actually is the very thing which the law condemns. How then is he to get life by it? It proposes life and righteousness as the ends to be attained, by keeping it ; but it proves, at the very outset, that we are in a state of death and unrighteousness. We want the very things at the beginning which the law proposes to be gained at the end. How, therefore, are we to gain them? In order to do what the law requires, I must have life; and in order to be what the law requires, I must have righteousness; and if I have not both the one and the other, I am "cursed." But the fact is, I have neither. What am I to do? This is the question. Let those who "desire to be teachers of the law" furnish an answer. Let them furnish a satisfactory reply to an upright conscience, bowed down under the double sense of the spirituality and inflexibility of the law and its own hopeless carnality.
The truth is, as the apostle teaches us, "the law entered that the offence might abound." (Rom. 5: 20) This shows us, very distinctly, the real object of the law. It came in by the way in order to set forth the exceeding sinfulness of sin. (1 Cor. 7: 13) It was, in a certain sense, like a perfect mirror let down from heaven to reveal to man his moral derangement. If I present myself, with deranged hair, before a mirror, it shows me the derangement, but does not set it right. If I measure a crooked wall, with a perfect plumb-line, it reveals the crookedness, but does not remove it. If I take out a lamp on a dark night, it reveals to me all the hindrances and disagreeables in the way, but it does not remove them. Moreover, the mirror, the plumb-line, and the lamp, do not create the evils which they severally point out; they neither create nor remove, but simply reveal. Thus is it with the law; it does not create the evil in man’s heart, neither does it remove it; but, with unerring accuracy, it reveals it.
"What shall we say then? Is the law sin ? God forbid. Yea, I had not known sin but by the law; for I had not known lust except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet." (Rom. 7: 7) He does not say that he would not have had "lust." No; but merely that "he had not known it." The "lust" was there; but he was in the dark about it until the law, as "the candle of the Almighty," shone in upon the dark chambers of his heart and revealed the evil that was there. Like a man in a dark room, who may be surrounded with dust and confusion, but he cannot see ought thereof by reason of the darkness. Let the beams of the sun dart in upon him, and he quickly perceives all. Do the sunbeams create the dust? Surely not. The dust is there, and they only detect and reveal it. This is a simple illustration of the effect of the law. It judges man’s character and condition. It proves him to be a sinner and shuts him up under the curse. It comes to judge what he is, and curses him if he is not what it tells him he ought to be.
It is, therefore, a manifest impossibility that any one can get life and righteousness by that which can only curse him; and unless the condition of the sinner, and the character of the law are totally changed, it can do nought else but curse him. It makes no allowance for infirmities, and knows nothing of sincere, though imperfect, obedience. Were it to do so, it would not be what it is, "holy, just, and good." It is just because the law is what it is, that the sinner cannot get life by it. If he could get life by it, it would not be perfect, or else he would not be a sinner. It is impossible that a sinner can get life by a perfect law, for inasmuch as it is perfect, it must needs condemn him. Its absolute perfectness makes manifest and seals man’s absolute ruin and condemnation. " Therefore by deeds of law shall no flesh living be justified in his sight; for by the law is the knowledge of sin." (Rom. 3: 20) He does not say, "by the law is sin," but only "the knowledge of sin. "For until the law, sin was in the world; but sin is not imputed when there is no law." (Rom. 5: 13) Sin was there, and it only needed law to develop it in the form of "transgression." It is as if I say to my child, "you must not touch that knife." My very prohibition reveals the tendency in his heart to do his own will. It does not create the tendency, but only reveals it.
The apostle John says that "sin is lawlessness." (1 John 3: 4) The word "transgression" does not. develop the true idea of the Spirit in this passage. In order to have "transgression" I must have a definite rule or line laid down. Transgression means a passing across a prohibited line; such a line I have in the law. I take any one of its prohibitions, such as, "thou shalt not kill," "thou shalt not commit adultery," "thou shalt not steal." Here, I have a rule or line set before me; but I find I have within me the very principles against which these prohibitions are expressly directed. Yea, the very fact of my being told not to commit murder, shows that I have murder in my nature. There would be no necessity to tell me not to do a thing which I had no tendency to do; but the exhibition of God’s will, as to what I ought to be, makes manifest the tendency of my will to be what I ought not. This is plain enough, and is in full keeping with the whole of the apostolic reasoning on the point.
Many, however, will admit that we cannot get life by the law; but they maintain, at the same time, that the law is our rule of life. Now, the apostle declares that "as many as are of works of law are under the curse." (Gal 3: 10) It matters not who they are, if they occupy the ground of law, they are, of necessity, under the curse. A man may say, "I am regenerate, and, therefore, not exposed to the curse." This will not do. If regeneration does not take one off the ground of law, it cannot take him beyond the range of the curse of the law. If the Christian be under the former, he is, of necessity, exposed to the latter. But what has the law to do with regeneration? Where do we find anything about it in Exodus 20: 8 The law has but one question to put to a man - a brief, solemn, pointed question, namely, "Are you what you ought to be?" If he answer in the negative, it can but hurl its terrible anathema at him and slay him. And who will so readily and emphatically admit that, in himself, he is anything but what he ought to be, as the really regenerate man? Wherefore, if he is under the law, he must, inevitably, be under the curse. The law cannot possibly lower its standard: nor yet amalgamate with grace. Men do constantly seek to lower its standard; they feel that they cannot get up to it, and they, therefore, seek to bring it down to them; but the effort is in vain: it stands forth in all its purity, majesty, and stern inflexibility, and will not accept a single hair’s breadth short of perfect obedience; and where is the man, regenerate or unregenerate, that can undertake to produce that? It will be said, "We have perfection in Christ." True; but that is not by the law, but by grace; and we cannot possibly confound the two economies. Scripture largely and distinctly teaches that we are not justified by the law; nor is the law our rule of life. That which can only curse can never justify ; and that which can only kill can never be a rule of life. As well might a man attempt to make a fortune by a deed of bankruptcy filed against him.
If my reader will turn to Acts 15, he will see how the attempt to put Gentile believers under the law, as a rule of life, was met by the Holy Ghost. "There rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed, saying, that it was needful to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses." This was nothing else than the hiss of the old serpent, making itself heard in the dark and depressing suggestion of those early legalists. But let us see how it was met by the mighty energy of the Holy Ghost, and the unanimous voice of the twelve apostles and the whole Church. "And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up, and said unto them, Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago, God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear," - what? Was it the requirements and the curses of the law of Moses? No: blessed be God, these are not what He would have falling on the ears of helpless sinners. Hear what then? "SHOULD HEAR THE WORD OF THE GOSPEL, AND BELIEVE." This was what suited the nature and character of God. He never would have troubled men with the dismal accents of requirement and prohibition. These Pharisees were not His messengers; far from it. They were not the bearers of glad tidings, nor the publishers of peace, and therefore, their "feet" were ought but "beautiful" in the eyes of One who only delights in mercy.
"Now, therefore," continues the apostle, "why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?" This was strong, earnest language. God did not want "to put a yoke upon the neck" of those whose hearts had been set free by the gospel of peace. He would rather exhort them to stand fast in the liberty of Christ, and not be "entangled again with the yoke of bondage." He would not send those whom He had received to His bosom of love, to be terrified by the "blackness, and darkness, and tempest," of "the mount that might be touched." How could we ever admit the thought that those whom God had received in grace He would rule by law? Impossible. "We believe," says Peter, "that through the GRACE OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST we shall be saved even as they." Both the Jews, who had received the law, and the Gentiles, who never had, were now to be "saved through grace." And not only were they to be "saved" by grace, but they were to "stand" in grace, (Rom 5: 2) and to "grow in grace." (2 Peter 3: 18.) To teach anything else was to "tempt God." Those Pharisees were subverting the very foundations of the Christian faith; and so are all those who seek to put believers under the law. There is no evil or error more abominable in the sight of the Lord than legalism. Hearken to the strong language - the accents of righteous indignation - which fell from the Holy Ghost, in reference to those teachers of the law: "I would they were even cut off which trouble you." (Gal, 5: 12)
And, let me ask, are the thoughts of the Holy Ghost changed, in reference to this question? Has it ceased to be a tempting of God to place the yoke of legality upon a sinner’s neck? Is it now in accordance with His gracious will that the law should be read out in the ears of sinners? Let my reader reply to these enquiries in the light of the fifteenth of Acts and the Epistle to the Galatians. These scriptures, were there no other, are amply sufficient to prove that God never intended that the "Gentiles should hear the word" of the law. Had He so intended, He would, assuredly, have "made choice" of some one to proclaim it in their ears. But no; when He sent forth His "fiery law," He spoke only in one tongue; but when He proclaimed the glad tidings of salvation, through the blood of the Lamb, He spoke in the language "of every nation under heaven." He spoke in such a way as that "every man in his own tongue wherein he was Born," might hear the sweet story of grace. (Acts 2: 1-11)
Further, when He was giving forth, from mount Sinai, the stern requirements of the covenant of works, He addressed Himself exclusively to one people. His voice was only heard within the narrow enclosures of the Jewish nation; but when, on the plains of Bethlehem, "the angel of the Lord" declared "good tidings of great joy," he added those characteristic words, "which shall be to all people." And, again, when the risen Christ was sending forth His heralds of salvation, His commission ran thus, "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." (Mark 16: 15; Luke 2: 10) The mighty tide of grace which had its source in the bosom of God, and its channel in the blood of the Lamb, was designed to rise, in the resistless energy of the Holy Ghost, far above the narrow enclosures of Israel, and roll through the length and breadth of a sin-stained world. "Every creature" must hear, "in his own tongue," the message of peace, the word of the gospel, the record of salvation, through the blood of the cross.
Finally, that nothing might be lacking to prove to our poor legal hearts that mount Sinai was not, by any means, the spot where the deep secrets of the bosom of God were told out, the Holy Ghost has said, both by the mouth of a prophet and an apostle, "How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things!" (Isa. 3: 7; Rom. 10: 15) But of those who sought to be teachers of the law the same Holy Ghost has said, "I would they were even cut off that trouble you."
Thus, then, it is obvious that the law is neither the ground of life to the sinner nor the rule of life to the Christian. Christ is both the one and the other. He is our life and He is our rule of life. The law can only curse and slay. Christ is our life and righteousness. He became a curse for us by hanging on a tree. He went down into the place where the sinner lay - into the place of death and judgement - and having, by His death, entirely discharged all that was or could be against us, He became, in resurrection, the source of life and the ground of righteousness to all who believe in His name. Having thus life and righteousness in Him, we are called to walk, not merely as the law directs, but to "walk even as he walked." It will hardly be deemed needful to assert that it is directly contrary to Christian ethics to kill, commit adultery, or steal. But were a Christian to shape his way according to these commands, or according to the entire decalogue, would he yield the rare and delicate fruits which the Epistle to the Ephesians sets forth? Would the ten commandment ever cause a thief to give up, stealing, and go to work that he might have to give? Would they ever transform a thief into a laborious and liberal man? Assuredly not. The law says, "thou shalt not steal;" but does it say, "go and give to him that needeth" - go feed, clothe, and bless your enemy" - "go gladden by your benevolent feelings and your beneficent acts the heart of him who only and always seeks your hurt?" By no means; and yet, were I under the law, as a rule, it could only curse me and slay me. How is this, when the standard in the New Testament is so much higher? Because am weak, and the law gives me no strength and shows me no mercy. The law demands strength from one that has none, and curses him if he cannot display it. The gospel gives strength to one that has none, and blesses him in the exhibition of it. The law proposes life as the end of obedience. The gospel gives life as the only proper ground of obedience.
But that I may not weary the reader with arguments, let me ask if the law be, indeed, the rule of a believer’s life, where are we to find it so presented in the New Testament? The inspired apostle evidently had no thought of its being the rule when he penned the following words: "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. And as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God." (Gal. 6: 15, 16) What "rule?" The law? No, but the "new creation." Where shall we find this in Exodus 20? It speaks not a word about "new creation." On the contrary, it addresses itself to man as he is, in his natural or old-creation state, and puts him to the test as to what he is really able to do. Now if the law were the rule by which believers are to walk, why does the apostle pronounce his benediction on those who walk by another rule altogether? Why does he not say, "as many as walk according to the rule of the ten commandments?" Is it not evident, from this one passage, that the Church of God has a higher rule by which to walk? Unquestionably. The ten commandments, though forming, as all true Christians admit, a part of the canon of inspiration, could never be the rule of life to one who has, through infinite grace, been introduced into the new creation - one who has received new life, in Christ.
But some may ask, "Is not the law perfect? And, if perfect, what more would you have?" The law is divinely perfect. Yea, it is the very perfection of the law which causes it to curse and slay those who are not perfect -if they attempt to stand before it. "The law is spiritual, but I am carnal.’ It is utterly impossible to form an adequate idea of the infinite perfectness and spirituality of the law. But then this perfect law coming in contact with fallen humanity - this spiritual law coming In contact with "the carnal mind," could only "work wrath" and " enmity." (Rom. 4: 15; Rom. 8: 7) Why? Is it because the law is not perfect? No, but because it is, and man is a sinner. If man were perfect, he would carry out the law in all its spiritual perfectness; and even in the case of true believers, though they still carry about with them an evil nature, the apostle teaches us "that the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." (Rom. 8: 4) "He that loveth another hath fulfilled the law" - "love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law." (Rom, 13: 8-10) If I love a man, I shall not steal his property - nay, I shall seek to do him all the good I can. All this is plain and easily understood by the spiritual mind; but is leaves entirely untouched the question of the law, whether as the ground of life to a sinner or the rule of life to the believer.
If we look at the law, in its two grand divisions, it tells a man to love God with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his mind; and to love his neighbour as himself. This is the sum of the law. This, and not a tittle less, is what the law demands. But where has this demand ever been responded to by any member of Adam’s fallen posterity? Where is the man who could say he loves God after such a fashion? "The carnal mind (i.e., the mind which we have by nature) is enmity against God." Man hates God and His ways. God came, in the Person of Christ, and showed Himself to man - showed Himself, not in the overwhelming brightness of His majesty, but in all the charm and sweetness of perfect grace and condescension. What was the result? Man hated God. "Now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father." (John 15: 24.) But, it must be said, " Man ought to love God." No doubt, and he deserves death and eternal perdition if he does not. But can the law produce this love in man’s heart? Was that its design? By no means, "for the law worketh wrath." The law finds man in a state of enmity against God; and without ever altering that state - for that was not its province - it commands him to love God with all his heart, and curses him if he does not. It was not the province of the law to alter or improve man’s nature; nor yet could is impart any power to carry out its righteous demands. It said "This do, and thou shalt live." It commanded man to love God. It did not reveal what God was to man, even in his guilt and ruin; but it told man what he ought to be toward God. This was dismal work. It was not the unfolding of the powerful attractions of the divine character, producing in man true repentance toward God, melting his icy heart, and elevating his soul in genuine affection and worship. No: it was an inflexible command to love God; and, instead of producing love, it "worked wrath;" not because God ought not to be loved, but because man was a sinner.
Again, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." Can "the natural man" do this? Does he love his neighbour as himself? Is this the principle which obtains in the chambers of commerce, the exchanges, the banks, the marts, the fairs, and the markets of this world? Alas! no. Man does not love his neighbour as he loves himself. No doubt he ought: and if he were right, he would. But, then, he is all wrong - totally wrong - and unless he is "born again" of the word and the Spirit of God, he cannot "see nor enter the kingdom of God." The law cannot produce this new birth. It kills "the old man," but does not, and cannot, create "the new." As an actual fact we know that the Lord Jesus Christ embodied, in His glorious Person, both God and our neighbour, inasmuch as He was, according to the foundation-truth of the Christian religion, "God manifest in the flesh." How did man treat Him? Did he love Him with all his heart, or as himself? The very reverse. He crucified Him between two thieves, having previously preferred a murderer and a robber to that blessed One who had gone about doing good - who had come forth from the eternal dwelling-place of light and love - Himself the very living personification of that light and love - whose bosom had ever heaved with purest sympathy with human need - whose hand had ever been ready to dry the sinner’s tears and alleviate his sorrows. Thus we stand and gaze upon the cross of Christ, and behold in it an unanswerable demonstration of the fact that it is not within the range of man’s nature or capacity to keep the law.*
{*For further exposition of the law, and also of the doctrine of the Sabbath, the reader is referred to a tract, entitled "A Scriptural Inquiry into the True Nature of the Sabbath, the Law, and the Christian Ministry.}
It is peculiarly interesting to the spiritual mind, after all that has passed before us, to observe the relative position of God and the sinner at the close of this memorable chapter. "And the Lord said unto Moses, Thus thou shalt say unto the children of Israel . . . an altar of earth thou shalt make unto me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt-offerings, and thy peace offerings, thy sheep and thine oxen: in all places where I record my name, I WILL COME UNTO THEE, and I WILL BLESS THEE. And if thou wilt make an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it. Neither shalt thou go up by steps unto mine altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon. " (Ver. 22, 26)
Here we find man not in the position of a doer, but of a worshipper; and this, too, at the close of Exodus 20. How plainly this teaches us that the atmosphere of Mount Sinai is not that which God would have the sinner breathing; that it is not the proper meeting place between God and man. "In all places where I record my name, I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee." How unlike the terrors of the fiery mount is that spot where Jehovah records His name, whither He "comes" to "bless" His worshipping people!
But, further, God will meet the sinner at an altar without a hewn stone or a step - a place of worship which requires no human workmanship to erect, or human effort to approach. The former could only pollute, and the latter could only display human "nakedness." Admirable type of the meeting-place where God meets the sinner now, even the Person and work of His Son, Jesus Christ, where all the claims of law, of justice, and of conscience, are perfectly answered! Man has, in every age, and in every clime, been prone, in one way or another, to "lift up his tool in the erection of his altar, or to approach thereto by steps of his own making. But the issue of all such attempts has been "pollution" and "nakedness." "We all do fade as a leaf, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags?" Who will presume to approach God clad in a garment of "filthy rags?" or who will stand to worship with a revealed "nakedness?" What can be more preposterous than to think of approaching God in a way which necessarily involves either pollution or nakedness? And yet thus it is in every case in which human effort is put forth to open the sinner’s way to God. Not only is there no need of such effort, but defilement and nakedness are stamped upon it. God has come down so very near to the sinner, even in the very depths of his ruin, that there is no need for his lifting up the tool of legality, or ascending the steps of self-righteousness yea, to do so, is but to expose his uncleanness and his nakedness.
Such are the principles with which the Holy Ghost closes this most remarkable section of inspiration. May they be indelibly written upon our hearts, that so we may more clearly and fully understand the essential difference between LAW and GRACE.
C. H. Mackintosh, Notes on the Pentateuch — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–26 Vers. 1-17. THE DELIVERY OF THE MORAL LAW. Every…
Vers. 1-17. THE DELIVERY OF THE MORAL LAW. Every necessary preparation had now been made. The priests, as well as the people, had "sanctified themselves." A wholesome dread of "breaking" through the fence, and "touching" the mount, had spread itself among the people Moses had returned from the camp to the summit of the mount; and both he and the people were attent to hear the words of the "covenant," which had been announced to them. (Exo_19:5) Then, amid the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the smoke, and the earthquake throbs which shook the ground, a voice like that of a man, distinctly articulate, pronounced the words of that "moral law," which has been from that day to this the guide of life to thousands upon thousands, the only guide to some, a very valuable and helpful guide to all who have known of it. It is well said by Kalisch, that the delivery of the Decalogue on Sinai "formed a decisive epoch in the history of the human race," and was even perhaps "the greatest and most important event in haman history," up to the time of its occurrence. Considering the weakness, imperfection, and moral obliquity of man, it was to the last degree important that an authoritative code should be put forth, laying down with unmistakable clearness the chief heads of duty, and denouncing the chief classes of sins. It may be true that the educated moral sense of mankind in civilised communities is sufficient to teach them all, or nearly all, of what the Decalogue forbids and enjoins; but this is the effect produced upon the internal constitution of our nature by long centuries of moral training; and nothing like it existed in primitive times. Then the moral sense was much duller; men"s perceptions of right and wrong were confused, uncertain, and not unfrequently perverted and depraved. Even in Egypt, where a priest class, established as the spiritual guides of the nation for a thousand years or more, had elaborated a moral system of considerable merit, such a code as that of the Decalogue would have been a marked improvement upon anything that they had worked out for themselves. And the authoritative sanction by the "voice" and the "finger of God" was an enormous advantage, being imperatively needed to satisfy doubt, and silence that perverse casuistry which is always ready to question the off-hand decisions of the moral consciousness, and to invent a more refined system, wherein "bitter is put for sweet, and sweet for bitter." Altogether the Decalogue stands on a moral eminence, elevated above and beyond all other moral systems Egyptian, Indian, Chinese, or Greek, unequalled for simplicity, for comprehensiveness, for solemnity. Its precepts were, according to the Jewish tradition, "the pillars of the law and its roots." They formed to the nation to which they were given "tons omnis, publici privatique juris." They constitute for all time a condensed summary of human duty which bears divinity upon its face, which is suited for every form of human society, and which, so long as the world endures, cannot become antiquated. The retention of the Decalogue as the best summary of the moral law by Christian communities is justified on these grounds, and itself furnishes emphatic testimony to the excellency of the compendium.
God spake all these words. It has been suggested that Moses derived the Decalogue from Egypt, by summarising the chief points of the Egyptian teaching as to the duty of man. But neither the second, nor the fourth, nor the tenth commandment came within the Egyptian ideas of moral duty; nor was any such compendious form as the Decalogue known in Egypt. Moreover, Egyptian morality was minute and complex, rather than grand and simple. Forty-two kinds of sin were denied by the departed soul before Osiris and his assessors. The noble utterances of Sinai are wholly unlike anything to be found in the entire range of Egyptian literature.
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HOMILETICS.
Vers. 1-17. The ten commandments collectivety.
The ten commandments form a summary of our main duties towards God, and towards man. They stand out from the rest of the Old Testament in a remarkable way.
1. They were uttered audibly by a voice which thousands heard a voicewhich is called that of God himself (Deu_5:26) and which filled those who heard it with a terrible fear (verse 19).
2. They were the only direct utterance ever made by God to man under theOld Covenant.
3. They were not merely uttered by God but written by him, inscribed insome marvellous way by the finger of God on the two tables of testimony. (Exo_31:18; Deu_4:13)
4. They have the additional testimony to their primary importance, that ourLord himself appealed to them as laying down that which men must do to inherit eternal life. (Mat_19:18, Mat_19:19) We may observe of them collectively
I THAT THEY ARE ALL-EMBRACING. They include our obligations to both God and man; they are both prohibitive and directive; they reach to the heart as well as to the outward life; they comprise both moral and positive precepts. According to the division adopted by the English Church, and by the reformed churches generally, the first four lay down our duty to our Maker, the last six our duty to our fellow men. Mostly they are prohibitive; but this is not the case with the fourth and fifth. The generality are concerned with acts, but words form the subject matter of the third; and both the tenth and the fifth deal with thoughts. As the moral is much more important than the positive, they are naturally in the main moral; but, to show that the Positive is an essential element in religion, they are also partly Positive-no moral ground being assignable for the consecration of one day in seven, rather than one in eight or six, much less for the definite selection of the seventh day" as the one to be kept holy.
II THAT THEY ARE SYSTEMATIC, BOTH IN MATTER AND ARRANGEMENT. The Decalogue takes as its basis the fact that all our duties are owed either to God or man. It regards our duties to God as the more important, and therefore places them first. The duties consist:
1. In acknowledging his existence and unity, and in "having him" for ourGod and none other (first commandment);
2. In conceiving aright of his incorporeity and spirituality, and worshipping him as a Spirit, in spirit and in truth (second commandment);
3. In reverencing his holy Name, and avoiding the profane use of it (thirdcommandment); and,
4. In setting apart for his worship some stated portion ofour time, since otherwise we shall be sure to neglect it (fourth commandment). Our duties towards our fellow men are more complicated. First, there is a special relation in which we stand towards those who bring us into the world and support us during our early years, involving peculiar duties to them, analogous in part to those which we owe to God, and so rightly following upon the summary of our Divine duties (fifth commandment). Next, with respect to men in general, we owe it them to abstain from injuring them in deed, word, or thought. In deed we may injure their person, their honour, and their property, which we are consequently forbidden to do in the sixth, the seventh, and the eighth commandments. In word, we injure our neighbour especially by false witness, public or private, both of which are forbidden in the ninth commandment. We injure him in thought, finally, when we covet what is his; hence the tenth commandment.
III THAT THEY ARE THE FIRST GERMS OUT OF WHICH THE WHOLE OF THE MORAL LAW MAY BE ENVOLVED. The Decalogue is a collection of elementary moral truths. Its predominantly negative form is indicative of this, since abstaining from evil is the first step on the road to virtue. Each command asserts a principle; and the principle is in every case capable of being worked out to a thousand remote consequences. The letter may be narrow; but the spirit of the commandment is in every case "exceeding broach" This will appear, more clearly, in the ensuing section, in which the ten commandments will be considered severally.
Vers. 1-17. The ten commandments severally.
THE FIRST COMMANDMENT. To the Christian the First Commandment takes the form which our Lord gave it shalt love the Lord thy God with all-thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment". (Mat_22:37, Mat_22:38) Not merely abstract belief, not merely humble acknowledgment of one God is necessary, but heartfelt devotion to the One Object worthy of our devotion, the One Being in all the universe on whom we may rest and stay ourselves without fear of his failing us. He is the Lord our God not an Epicurean deity, infinitely remote from man, who has created the world and left it to its own devices not a Pantheistic essence spread through all nature, omnipresent, but intangible, impersonal, deaf to our cries, and indifferent to our "to us making for righteousness" in actions not an inscrutable "something external to us making for righteousness," in the words of the religious Agnostic but a Being very near us, "in whom we live., and move, and have our being," who is "about our path and about our bed, and spieth out all our ways," a Being whom we may know, and love, and trust, and feel to be with us, warning us, and cheering us, and consoling us, and pleading with us, and ready to receive us, and most willing to pardon us a Being who is never absent from us, who continually sustains our life, upholds our faculties, gives us all we enjoy and our power to enjoy it, and who is therefore the natural object of our warmest, tenderest, truest, and most constant love. The first commandment should not be difficult to keep. We have only to open our eyes to the facts, and let them make their natural impression upon our minds, in order to love One who has done and still does so much for us.
THE SECOND COMMANDMENT. On its prohibitive side, this Commandment forbids us to have unworthy thoughts of God, to liken him to all idol, or regard him as "even such a one as ourselves." Considered as directive, it requires us to form in our minds a just and true idea of the Divine nature, and especially of its spirituality, its lofty majesty, and its transcendent holiness. All materialistic ideas, and consequently all Pantheistic notions, are degrading to the dignity of God, who "is a Spirit, without body, parts, or passions, not mixed with matter, but wholly separate from it, yet everywhere present after a supersensuous manner. Again, anthropomorphic notions of God are degrading to him; though it is scarcely possible to speak of him without anthropomorphic expressions.
When we use such terms as when we call God just, or merciful, or long-suffering we should remember that those qualities in him are not identical with the human ones, but only analogous to them; and altogether we should be conscious of a deep mysteriousness lying behind all that we know of God, and rendering him a Being awful, inscrutable whom we must not suppose that we can fathom or comprehend.
THE THIRD COMMANDMENT. Primarily, the Third Commandment forbids perjury or false swearing; secondarily, it forbids all unnecessary oaths, all needless mention of the holy name of God, and all irreverence towards anything which is God"s his name, house, day, book, laws, ministers. Whatever in any sense belongs to God is sacred, and, if it has to be mentioned, should be mentioned reverently. The true main object of the Third Commandment is to inculcate reverence, to point out to us that the only proper frame of mind in which we can approach God is one of self-abasement and deeply reverential fear. "Keep thy foot, when thou goest to the house of God," says the Preacher, "and be more ready to hear than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they consider not that they do evil. Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth; therefore let thy words be few". (Ecc_5:1, Ecc_5:2)
THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT. In the Fourth Commandment we have the basis for all that is external in religion. The dedication of one entire day out of seven to God, and the command to abstain on that day from the ordinary labours of life, led on naturally to the institution of sacred services, holy convocations, meetings for united worship and prayer. Man is an active being, and a social being. If the ordinary business of life is stopped, some other occupation must be found for him: he will not sit still from morning to night with folded hands wrapped in pious contemplation. The institution of the Sabbath stands in close relation to the appointment of a priesthood, the construction of a holy place, and the establishment of a ceremonial. On the Christian the Fourth Commandment is not binding in respect of the letter he is not to remember the Seventh day to keep it holy, but the First; he is not tied to hallow it by an abstinence from all labour, but encouraged to devote it to the performance of good works; but in the spirit of it, the commandment is as binding as any. Men need, under Christianity as much as under Judaism, positive religious institutions, places of worship, hours of prayer, a liturgy, a ritual, ceremonies. The value of the Lord"s Day as a Christian institution is incalculable; it witnesses for religion to the world; it constitutes a distinct call on men to take into consideration the aim and intent of the day; and its rightful use is of inestimable benefit to all truly religious persons, deepening in them, as it does, the sense of religion, and giving them time and opportunity for the training of their spiritual nature, and the contemplation of heavenly things, which would otherwise to most men have been unattainable. It has been well called "a bridge thrown across life"s troubled waters, over which we may pass to reach the opposite shore a link between earth and heaven a type of the eternal day, when the freed spirit, if true to itself and to God, shall,put on for ever the robe of immortal holiness and joy.
THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT. The honour which this commandment exacts from us is irrespective of our parents" personal merits or demerits. We are to honour them as being our parents. Difficulties may be raised easily enough in theory; but they are readily solvable in practice. Let us defer to our parents" commands in all things lawful let us do everything for them that we can let us anticipate their wishes in things indifferent let us take trouble on their behalf let us be ever on the watch tospare them vexatious annoyance let us study their comfort, ease, peace and without any sacrifice of principle, even if they are bad parents, wemay sufficiently show that we feel the obligation of the relationship, and are anxious to discharge the duties which it involves. Comparatively few men are, however, severely tried. We are not often much better than our parents; and it is seldom difficult to honour them.
1. For their age and experience.
2. For the benefits which they have conferred on us.
3. For the disinterested affection which they bear to us, and which theyevince in their conduct. As a rule, parents have very much more love for their children than these have for them, and make sacrifices on their children"s behalf, which their children neither appreciate nor reciprocate. The honour which, according to this commandment, has to be shown to parents, must of course be extended, with certain modifications, to those who stand to us in loco parentis to guardians, tutors, schoolmasters, and the like. It is not perhaps quite clear that the commandment extends also to those who are set over us in Church and State, though it is usual so to interpret it. There are certain relations of parents to their offspring which are altogether peculiar; and these are absolutely incommunicable. There are others, which are common to parents with rulers; but these, unless in very primitive communities, can scarcely be said to rest upon the domestic relation as their basis. The ordinary relation of the governed to their governors is rather one parallel to that of children to their parents, than one which grows out of it; and though either may be used to illustrate the other, we must view the two as separate and independent of each other.
THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT. How wide is the scope of this commandment to Christians, our Lord has shown. Not only are murder and violence prohibited by it, but even provoking words, and angry thoughts. (Mat_5:21-26) The "root of bitterness" whence murder springs, is either some fierce passion, or some inordinate desire. To be secure from murderous impulses, we must be free from such emotions as these, we must have tender and Joying feelings towards all our fellow-men. "Love is the fulfilling of the law;" and unless a man really "love the brethren," he has no security against being surprised into violence towards them, which may issue in death. Nor is there one species of murder only. The sixth commandment prohibits, not only violence to the body, but what is of far greater consequence injury to the soul. Men break it most flagrantly when they lead another into deadly sin, thereby so far as in them lies destroying his soul. The corrupter of innocence, the seducer, the persuader to evil, are "murderers" in a far worse sense than the cut-threat, the bandit, or the bravo. Death on the scaffold may expiate the crimes of these latter; eternal punishment alone would seem to be an adequate penalty for the guilt of the former. He that has eternally ruined a soul should surely be himself eternally unhappy.
THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT. Here again we have the inestimable advantage of our Lord"s comment on the commandment, to help us to understand what it ought to mean to us. Not only adultery, but fornication not only fornication, but impurity of any and every kind in act, inword, in thought is forbidden to the Christian. He that looketh on a woman with the object of lusting after her, has already committed adultery with her in his heart. (Mat_5:28) He that dallies with temptation, he that knowingly goes into the company of the impure, he that in his solitary chamber defiles himself, he that hears without rebuking them obscene words, transgresses against this law, and, unless he repents, cuts himself off from God. And observe the law is one both for men and women. We are ready enough to speak with scorn of "fallen women, to regard them as ruined for ever, and treat their sin as the one unpardonable offence; but what of" fallen men"? Is not their sin as irreversible? Is it not the same sin? Is it not spoken of in Scripture in the same way? "Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge". (Heb_13:4) "Murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone; which is the second death". (Rev_21:8) And is it not as debasing, as deadening to the soul, as destructive of all true manliness, of all true chivalry, of all self-respect? Principiis obsta. Let the young keep that precious gift of purity which is theirs, and not be induced by the ridicule of unclean men to part with it. Once gone it can never return. Let them be pure, as Christ was pure. Blessed are the pure in heart!
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT. Simple direct stealing, being severely punished by the law in most countries, is seldom practised, unless it be by children and slaves. But indirect stealing of various kinds is common. It should be clearly understood that the Christian precept forbids any act by which we fraudulently obtain the property of another. Adulteration, concealment of defects, misrepresentation of quality, employment of false weights or measures, are the acts of a thief, as much as pocket-picking or shop-lifting. Servants steal when they take "commission" from tradesmen unknown to their masters, or appropriate as "perquisites" what their masters have not expressly agreed to allow, or neglect to do the work which they undertook, or do it in a slovenly manner, or damage their master"s property by carelessness or diminish it by waste. Masters steal when they do not permit their servants the indulgences they promised, or allow their wages to fall into arrear, or force them to work overtime without proper remuneration, or deprive them of such "rest" as they had a reasonable right to expect upon the Sunday. Those steal who cheat the revenue by smuggling, or false returns to tax-collectors; or who cheat tradesmen by incurring debts which they can never pay, or who in view of coming bankruptcy pass over their property to a friend, with the understanding that it is to be restored to them, or who have recourse of any of the "tricks of trade," as they are called. All men are sure to steal in one way or another, who are not possessed by the spirit of honesty, who do not love justice and equity and fair, dealing, who do not make it the law of their life to be ever doing to others as they would that others should do unto them.
THE NINTH COMMANDMENT. False witness in a court is but rarely given. We most of us pass our lives without having once to appear in a court, either as prosecutor, witness, or accused. The false witness against which the generality have especially to be on their guard, is that evil speaking which is continually taking place in society, whereby men"s characters are blackened, their motives misrepresented, their reputations eaten away. It is dull and tame to praise a man. We get a character for wit and shrewdness if we point out flaws in his conduct, show that he may have acted from a selfish motive, "just hint a fault and hesitate dislike." It is not even necessary in all cases to establish our character for shrewd insight that we should say anything. Silence when we hear a friend maligned, a shrug of the shoulders, a movement of the eyebrows, will do. Again, false witness may be given in writing as well as in speech. The reviewer who says of a book worse than he thinks of it, bears false witness. The writer for the Press who abuses in a leading article a public man whom he inwardly respects, bears false witness. The person who vents his spite against a servant by giving him a worse character than he deserves, bears false witness. We can only be secure against daily breaches of this commandment by joining the spirit of love with a deep-seated regard for truth, and aiming always at saying of others, when we have occasion to speak of them, the best that we can conscientiously say.
THE TENTH COMMANDMENT. The tenth commandment is supplementary to the eighth. Rightly understood, the eighth implies it, covetousness being the root from which theft springs. The command seems added to the Decalogue in order to lay down the principle that the thoughts of the heart come under God"s law, and that we are as responsible for them as for our actions. Otherwise, it would not be needed, being implied in the eighth and in the seventh. Since, however, it was of the greatest importance for men to know and understand that God regards the heart, and "requires truth in the inward parts;" and since covetousness was the cause of the greater portion of the evil that is in the world, the precept, although already implied, was given expressly. Men were forbidden to covet the house, wife, slaves, cattle, property of their neighbour in fact, "anything that is his." They were not forbidden to desire houses, or wives, or cattle, or property generally which are all, within limits, objects of desire and things which men may rightfully wish for but they were forbidden to desire for themselves such as were already appropriated by their fellows, and of which, therefore, they could not become possessed without their fellows suffering loss. A moderate desire for earthly goods is not forbidden to the Christian (Mat_19:29; 1Ti_4:8) though his special covetousness should be for "the best gifts the virtues and graces which make up the perfect Christian character. (1Co_12:31 1Co_14:1)
HOMILIES BY J. ORR
The moral law Preliminary.
The law given from Sinai is the moral law by pre-eminence. The principles which it embodies are of permanent obligation. It is a brief summary of the whole compass of our duty to God and man. It is a law of supreme excellence just, and good". (Rom_7:12) God"s own character is expressed in it; it bears witness to his unity, spirituality, holiness, sovereignty, mercy, and equity; truth and righteousness are visible in its every precept. Listening to its "thou shalts" and "thou shalt nots," we cannot but recognise the same stern voice which speaks to us in our own breasts, addressing to us calls to duty, approving us in what is right, condemning us for what is wrong. These ten precepts, accordingly, are distinguished from the judicial and ceremonial statutes subsequently given
(1) As the moral is distinguished from the merely positive;
(2) As the universally obligatory is distinguished from what is local and temporary;
(3) As the fundamental is distinguished from the derivative and secondary. The judicial law, e.g. , not only draws its spirit, and derives its highest authority, from the law of the ten commandments, but is in its own nature, simply an application of the maxims of this law to the problems of actual government. Its binding force was confined to Israel.
The ceremonial law, again, with its meats and drinks, its sacrifices, etc. bore throughout the character of a positive institution, and had no independent moral worth. It stood to the moral law in a triple relation of subordination
(1) As inferior to it in its own nature.
(2) As designed to aid the mind in rising to the apprehension of the holiness which the law enjoined.
(3) As providing (typically) for the removal of guilt contracted by the breaking of the law. This distinctness of the "ten words" from the other parts of the law is evinced
I IN THE MANNER OF THEIR PROMULGATION.
1. They alone were spoken by the voice of God from Sinai.
2. They were uttered amidst circumstances of the greatest magnificenceand terror.
3. They alone were written on tables of stone.
4. They were written by God"s own finger. (Exo_31:18) The rest of the law was communicated privately to Moses, and through him delivered to the people.
II IN THE NAMES GIVEN TO THEM, AND THE USE MADE OF THEM.
1. They are "the words of the Lord," as distinguished from the "judgments"or "rights" derived from them, and embraced with them in "the book of the covenant," as forming the statutory law of Israel. (Exo_24:3)
2. The tables on which they were written are to the exclusion of theother parts of the law called "the testimony", (Exo_25:16) "the covenant", (Deu_4:13) "the words of the covenant", (Exo_34:28) "the tables of testimony", (Exo_31:18 Exo_32:15) "the tables of the covenant". (Deu_9:9-11)
3. The tables of stone, and they only, were placed in the ark of thecovenant. (Exo_25:21) They were thus regarded as in a special sense the bond of the covenant. The deposition of the tables in the ark, underneath the mercy seat, throws light on the nature of the covenant with Israel. The law written on the tables is the substratum of the covenant its obligatory document the bond; yet over the law is the mercy-seat, sprinkled with blood of propitiation a testimony that there is forgiveness with God, that he may be feared, (Psa_130:4) that God will deal mercifully with Israel under this covenant. It is obvious, from these considerations, how fallacious is the statement that the Old Testament makes no distinction between the moral, juristic, and ceremonial parts of the law, but regards all as of equal dignity. J.O.
Vers. 1-18. The moral law General survey.
View this law of the ten commandments as
I AUTHORITATIVELY DELIVERED. "God spake all these words, saying," etc. (ver. 1). An authoritative revelation of moral law was necessary
1. That man might be made distinctly aware of the compass of his obligations. The moral knowledge originally possessed by man had gradually been parted with. What remained was distorted and confused. He had little right knowledge of his duty to God, and very inadequate conceptions even of his duties to his fellow-men. This lost knowledge was recovered to him by positive revelation. Consider, in proof of the need of such a revelation, the ignorance of God which prevails still, men"s imperfect apprehensions of his holiness, their defective views of duty, etc. And this though the revelation has so long been given.
2. That a basis of certainty might be obtained for the inculcation of moral truth. This also was necessary. Man has ever shown himself ingenious in explaining away the obligations which the law imposes on him. He may deny that they exist. He may make light of holiness. He may take up utilitarian ground, and ride off on disputes as to the nature of conscience, the origin of moral ideas, the diversities of human opinion, etc. The law stops all such cavilling by interposing with its authoritative "Thus saith the Lord." See on this point a valuable paper on "Secularism," by R. H. Hutton, in "Expositor," January, 1881.
3. That the authority of conscience may be strengthened. Conscience testifies, in however dim and broken a way, to the existence of a law above us. It speaks with authority. "Had it might as it has right, it would rule the world." In order, however, that we may be made to feel that it is a living will, and no mere impersonal law, which thus imposes its commands upon us, there is a clear need for the voice within being reinforced by the voice without for historical revelation. Sinai teaches us to recognise the authority which binds us in our consciences as God"s authority.
4. For economic purposes. See previous chapter.
II GRACIOUSLY PREFACED. "I am the Lord, thy God," etc. (ver. 2). This preface to the law is of great importance.
1. It testified to the fact that Gods relation to Israel was fundamentally a gracious one. "The law was introduced with the words, "I am the Lord thy God," and speaks with the majestic authority of the Eternal, dispensing blessings and cursings on the fulfilment and transgression of the law. But although this is given amidst the thunder and lightning of Sinai, whose roll seems to be heard constantly in its mighty imperatives shalt not!" or "Thou shalt!" yet still it points back to grace; for the God who speaks in the law is he who led the people out of Egypt, freed them from the yoke of bondage the God who gave the promise to Abraham, and who has prepared a highest good, the Messianic kingdom, for his people" (Martensen).
2. It furnished a motive for obedience to the law. Mark the order the same as in the Gospel; God first saves Israel, then gives them his law to keep. Because God had redeemed them from Egypt, and had given them, of his free mercy, this glorious privilege of being his people, therefore were they to keep his commandments. This was the return they were to make to him for the so great love wherewith he had loved them. Their relation to the law was not to be a servile one. Obedience was not to be a price paid for favour, but a return of grateful hearts for favours already received. From this motive of gratitude, and that they might retain the privileges he had given them, and inherit farther blessing, they were to walk in the prescribed way. If, notwithstanding, a pronouncedly legal element entered into that economy, a curse even being pronounced against those who failed to keep the whole law, while the good promised to obedience appears more as legal award than as a gift of grace we know now the reason for the covenant being cast into this legal form, and can rejoice that in Christ our justification is placed on so much better a footing. Obedience, however, is still required of us as a condition of continuance in God"s favour, and of ultimate inheritance of blessing.
3. It furnished to the pious Israelite a pledge of merciful treatment when he transgressed or fell short of the requirements of his law. What, e.g. , had David to fall back upon in the hour of his remorse for his great transgression, (Ps 51) but just such a word as this, confirmed as it was by acts of God, which showed that it was a word always to be depended on. This one saying, prefacing the law, altered the whole complexion of Israel"s standing under law. It gave to the Israelite the assurance that he most needed, namely that, notwithstanding the strictness of the commandment, God would yet accept him in his sincere endeavours after obedience, though these fell manifoldly short of the full requirement, i.e. , virtually on the ground of faith in connection, however, with propitiation.
III MORAL IN ITS SUBSTANCE. This has been adverted to above. Though imposed on man by Divine authority, moral law is no arbitrary creation of the Divine will. It is an emanation from the Divine nature. (Cf. Hooker law there can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is the bosom of God; her voice the harmony of the world.") Herbert Spencer was never guilty of a greater misrepresentation than when he affirmed creeds, established and dissenting, all embody the belief that right and wrong are right and wrong simply in virtue of Divine enactment" ("Data of Ethics," p. 50). We may reply with Stahl primary idea of goodness is the essential, not the creative, will of God. The Divine will, in its essence, is infinite love, mercy, patience, truth, faithfulness, rectitude, spirituality, and all that is included in the idea of holiness, which constitutes the inmost nature of God. The holiness of God, therefore, neither precedes his will (sanctitas antceedens voluntatem"of the schoolmen) nor follows it, but is his will itself. The good is not a law for the Divine will (so that God wills it because it is good); neither is it a creation of his will (so that it becomes good because he wills it); but it is the nature of God from everlasting to everlasting." (See also Martensen"s "Christian Ethics," on "God the only Good," and on "The Law"s Content.") The law, in a word, expresses immutable demands of holiness. What these are is determined in any given case by the abstract nature of holiness and by the constitution and circumstances of the being to whom the law is given. Man, e.g. , is a free, immortal spirit; but he is at the same time an inhabitant of the earth, bound by natural conditions, and standing to his fellow-men in relations, some of which at least belong only to his present state of existence. Hence we find in the Decalogue precepts relating to the weekly Sabbath, to marriage, to the institution of private property, etc. These precepts are founded on our nature, and are universally obligatory. They show what duty immutably requires of us as possessing such a nature; but obviously their application will cease under different conditions of existence. (Mat_22:30) Only in its fundamental principles of love to God and to our fellow-beings, and in its spiritual demands for truth, purity, uprightness, reverence, and fidelity, is the law absolutely unchangeable.
IV COMPLETE IN ITS PARTS. Observe
1. Its two divisions, turning, the one on the principle of love to God, the other, on the principle of love to man.
2. The relative position of the two divisions duty to God standing first, and laying the needful foundation for the right discharge of our duties to mankind. True love to man has its fountain head in love to God. Neglect of the duties of piety will speedily be followed by the neglect of duty to our neighbour. The Scripture does not ignore the distinction between religion (duties done directly to God) and morality (duties arising from earthly relations), but it unites the two in the deeper idea that all duty is to be done to God, whose authority is supreme in the one sphere as in the other.
3. The scope of its precepts. These cover the entire range of human obligation. The precepts of the first table (including here the Fifth Commandment) require that God be honoured in his being, his worship, his name, his day, his human representatives. The precepts of the second table require that our neighbour be not injured in deed, in word, in thought; and in respect neither of his person, his wife, his property, nor his reputation. So complete and concise a summary of duty religious and ethical based on true ideas of the character of God, and taking holiness, not bare morality, as its standard, is without parallel in ancient legislation.
V SPIRITUAL IS ITS PURPORT. "The law is spiritual". (Rom_7:14)
1. The law to be studied in its principles. Taken in its bare letter, it might appear narrow. Here, however, as everywhere in Scripture, the letter is only the vehicle of the spirit. The whole law of Moses being founded on this part of it being viewed simply as an expansion or amplification in different relations of the principles embodied in the ten words it is plain, and common sense supports us in the view, that the principles are the main things, the true roots of obligation. Thus, the Third Commandment, in the letter of it, forbids false swearing, or generally, any vain use of the name of God. But underlying this, and obviously forming the ground of the command, is the principle that God"s name, i.e. , everything whereby he manifests himself, is to be treated with deepest reverence. This principle, in its various applications, carries us far beyond the letter of the precept. Read in the same way, the Sixth Commandment forbids killing, but not less the murderous motive than the murderous act; while the principle involved, viz., reverence for, and care of, human life, (cf. Gen_9:6) branches out into a multiplicity of duties, of which the other parts of the law of Moses furnish numerous illustrations. The true key to the spiritual interpretation of the law is that given by Christ in the sermon on the Mount. (Mt 5-7)
2. Summed up in love. "Love is the fulfilling of the law". (Rom_13:8-10)
(1) It is the central requirement. "Them that love me" (ver. 6). Implied in the first and all later precepts. Whatever in the way of outward service we render to God, or man, if love is withheld, the law is not fulfilled.
(2) It is needed to fill up the meaning of the special precepts. These receive their fulness of interpretation only through love. And, in the spiritual reading of them, they cannot be kept without love. It is impossible, e.g. , to keep the heart free from all envy, malice, hate, covetousness, save as it is possessed by the opposite principle of love. Love is the root of fidelity to God, of spirituality in his worship, of reverence for his name, of delight in his day, etc. The more deeply we penetrate into the meaning of the law, the more clearly do we perceive that love to God and love to man are indispensable for the fulfilling of it.
(3) Love secures the fulfilling of the law. For "love worketh no ill to his neighbour". (Rom_13:10) It will not voluntarily injure another. It will not kill, rob, defraud, slander a fellowman, or covet his possessions. On the contrary, it will seek in every way it can to do him good. It is the great impelling motive to obedience. "The love of Christ constraineth us". (2Co_5:14) "Faith, which worketh by love". (Gal_5:6)
VI POWERFULLY ENFORCED,
1. By Divine threatenings (vers. 5-7).
2. By Divine example (ver. 11).
3. By Divine promises (vers. 6-12).
See below. Behold, then, the beauty and perfection of the law. "Thy commandment is exceeding broad". (Psa_119:96) We are not to be misled,
1. By the studied brevity of the law, which is part of its excellency; or,
2. By its prevailing negative form a testimony, not to the unspirituality of the law, but to the existence of strong evil tendencies in the heart, needing to be repressed. (Rom_7:7, Rom_7:8; 1Ti_1:9 1Ti_1:10) Yet perfect as it is of its kind, it is not to be compared, as a mirror of holiness, with the perfect human life of Jesus Christ. No accumulation of separate precepts can exhaust all that is contained in holiness. Precepts convey also a defective idea of the good by breaking up that which is in its own nature one an ideal into a number of separate parts. What, however, the law could not do for us, is done in the perfect example of our Lord. In him, law is translated into life. The ideal is no longer presented to us, as even in the Decalogue, in detached precepts, "broken lights," "words," which just because holiness is so vast a thing are left to hint more than they express, but in its true unbroken unity, in the sphered whole of a perfect human character. Our law is Christ. J.O.
HOMILIES BY D. YOUNG Vers. 1, 2. The Ten Commandments an introductory reminder.
Before the speaker of these commandments proceeded to the utterance of them, it was necessary that he should call special and reverent attention to himself. Not one of the words he was about to say could either be understood or obeyed without a constant reference in thought to him who had delivered and arranged them. He did not bring them before Israel as a far seeing legislator might bring such rules as were best adapted to the limitations and infirmities of those whom he sought to guide. They were the laws of that kingdom where the King himself is a real and immutable lawgiver, he whose reign never comes to an end. Some of the commandments had a direct reference to himself; and all had to do with his service. Should it not, then, be ever a helpful and sobering truth to us that the great laws for human life thus come as expressions through a Divine will? We cannot overrate the importance of requirements which God himself solemnly declares. And just as we Christians in repeating the Lord"s prayer must think constantly of the invocation to our Father in heaven, in order to enforce and enrich the plea of each petition, so in carrying out these ten commandments, each Israelite was bound to think of each commandment in connection with that Jehovah who had spoken it. The thought that he had brought them out of the land of Egypt and out of the house of bondage was meant to give special force to everything he required from the hands of his people.
I JEHOVAH SPEAKS OF HIMSELF IN THE LIGHT OF WHAT HE HAS DONE FOR THEM TO WHOM HE SPEAKS. He solemnly charges them to look back on their own experience, to consider their past suffering and helplessness, and how they had come to the present hour entirely because of what he had done for them. Note that he does not, as on former occasions, speak of himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; that was a necessary mode of description when he made his first approach to them, but now they have their own rich and crowded experiences to constitute a claim for their attention and obedience. God bases his expectations on services rendered to the present generation; and the claim he makes is founded on the greatest boon that could be conferred, liberty. When from this very mountain he sent Moses to them, they were in bitter servitude; now Moses finds himself at this mountain again, with a nation of freemen around him. Jehovah is not afraid of referring to the land of Egypt, even though the people had allowed the agreeable associations of the name to override the disagreeable ones. They delighted in thinking of it as a land where they sat by the fleshpots and ate bread to the full. (Exo_16:3; Num_11:4, Num_11:5) But now in this reference to himself which would henceforth be so conspicuous, Jehovah fixes together in a permanent association the land of Egypt and the house of bondage. When the people disparaged the wilderness and glorified Egypt, he made them hear again the sound of the clanking chain: and if that sound, heard only in memory, was not dreadful as in the old reality, yet God, who is not influenced by the lapses of time, knew how dreadful that reality was. It is a good thing that he remembers what men forget. Even though we be Christians, and should have better aims and better joys, we too often catch our thoughts turned longingly towards a forsaken world. And so God comes in to speak plainly and burst the bubble of this world"s attractions by the emphasised truth that spiritual Egypt is the house of bondage. He that committeth sin is the slave of sin. While the people were in Egypt they had not talked of these things as pleasant; the life there, in the actual experience of it, was intolerable. And so with perfect confidence God could appeal to their past consciousness.
II There was also an indication that GOD HAD TAKEN AWAY ALL EXTERNAL HINDRANCES TO OBEDIENCE. He had taken them clean out of the house of bondage. They were now free to carry out all the observances which Jehovah was about to appoint. They had no Pharaoh to struggle with, grudging them time to serve their God; (Exo_5:4) they had no danger to fear from sacrificing the abominations of Egypt within its borders. If God asks us for service, we may be sure that in the very first place, he will provide all the conditions of rendering it effectually and comfortably. As we read our New Testament, we are made to feel that God expects very large things from us. He is most exacting in his claims for self-denial and completeness of devotion to his cause, but what of that? Has he not given us his own Spirit, which is a spirit of liberty, working for the express purpose of lifting us above the crippling restraints of natural life? The very largeness of God"s demands helps us to measure the largeness of God"s spiritual gifts; and the very largeness of the gifts should prepare us for large demands. God"s expectations are from the free. He asked nothing from Israel, save silent and submissive waiting, until the verge of the last plague, which was also the verge of liberty; and from the free because he has freed them, he entertains large expectations. It was to those who believed in Jesus, risen from the dead, and making his people to live in newness of life, that he gave a spirit of such power in producing obedience and conformity as never had been known before. Y.
HOMILIES BY G. A. GOODHART Vers. 1-2. Utility of a course of teaching on the commandments, that Divine law which can never be destroyed. Let those who object to the preaching of morality remember John Wesley"s words: "I find more profit in sermons on either good tempers or good works than in what are vulgarly called "gospel sermons. Consider
I THE DIVISION AND GROUPING OF THE COMMANDMENTS.
1. Division. We know that there are ten the ten words but how are the ten words made up? The modern Jewish method makes the introductory announcement, a "first word," and combines our first and second as the "second word." By others the first and second are combined as the first, and then the tenth divided to complete the number. Our own ordinary division is most likely to be correct; but various usage shows that the importance attaches not to the number but the sense.
2. Grouping. Two tables, but how many on each? Augustine held that the first table contained three, the second seven, whence he drew some mystical conclusions with regard to the Trinity. The popular view includes four in the first table, and six in the second. Most likely, however, there should be five in each table perhaps connected with the hand as the symbol of action. On this view we shall see that in each table the four first commandments are rooted in the fifth.
II THE SPEAKER AND THE MOTIVE.
1. The speaker. (cf. God, Deu_5:22) Jehovah, a personal Deity, and one whose nature is changeless. (Mal_3:6; Jam_1:17) Moses did not evolve the law out of his own head; he heard it, he received it, he enunciated it, but "God spake all these words.
2. The motive. The motive appealed to for obedience is too often fear; the motive too which Israel was most inclined to act upon. God, however, makes his appeal not to fear, but to the sense of gratitude: what I have done for you, then hear what I expect you to do for me." The deliverer has a right to lay down rules of conduct for those whom he has delivered; whilst at the same time gratitude to him inspires them with a motive for obedience. Apply to ourselves: God has redeemed us; we should obey him not from fear, but from love not that we may get something out of him, but because we have got so much already.
III GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS.
1. There is an order in the arrangement. "Order is heaven"s first law," and it shows itself in the code from heaven. First God, our filial relations; then man, our fraternal relations; the upward-looking and the outward-looking aspects of life. Under each, too, the order is maintained; first we are shown the blossom, then the stem, then the root. The flower of worship is rooted in the home, and the flower of love is rooted in the heart.
2. The commandments are indications of the Divine will from which theyspring. Our duty is to study what God has said in order that we may discover what he wishes. The old covenant was on stone-tables, easily intelligible and very definite; the new covenant is on hearts of flesh, it contains promptings to duty, rather than directions. We need both; we must use the old that we may give effect to the new, and the new that we may fulfil the old. Illustration. For engine to fulfil its works steam needed inside to propel, lines outside to direct. The new covenant cannot render the old nugatory; it is well to have motive power, but we still need the lines laid down by which to guide ourselves when we have it. G.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 22, 24, 25 God spake all these words.
Exo_20:1-2
God spake all these words.
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The Ten Words of God
I. Those Ten Commandments were to the Jews the very utterance of the Eternal, and they hold in their grand imagination that the souls of all Jews even yet unborn were summoned to Sinai in their numbers numberless to hear that code; so that, in the East, to this day, if a Jew would indignantly deny the imputation of a wrong, he exclaims, My soul too has been on Sinai. And not to Jews only but to all mankind there is this proof that the Ten Words were indeed the oracles of God, that, if they be written upon the heart, they are an It is written sufficient for our moral guidance--they are a great non licet strong enough to quell the fiercest passions. For the laws of the natural universe may mislead us. One tells us that they are just and beneficent; another that they are deadly and remorseless: but of these moral Laws we know that they are the will of God. No man has seen His face at any time. He seems far away in His infinite heaven; clouds and darkness are round about Him. Yes; but righteousness and judgment are the habitation of His seat. And this was the very idea which the Jews wished to symbolize in the building of their Tabernacle. They hung it with purple curtains; they overlaid it with solid gold; they filled its outer court with sacrifices, its inner chambers with incense;--but when the High Priest passed from the Holy into the Holy of Holies--when on the great Day of Atonement he stood with the censer in his hands, and the ardent Urim on his breast, before what did he stand? Not before Visible Epiphany; not before sculptured image. There was total darkness in the shrine; no sunlight streamed, no lamp shed its silver radiance; through the awful silence no whisper thrilled; but, through the dim gleam of the glowing thurible and the smoke of the wreathing incense, he saw only a golden Ark over which bent the golden figures of adoring Cherubim--and within that Ark, as its only treasure, lay two rough hewn tables of venerable stone, on which were carved the Ten Commandments of the fiery Law. Those stony Tables, that Ark, that Mercy-seat, those adoring Cherubim seen dimly through the darkness, were to him a visible symbol of all creation, up to its most celestial hierarchies, contemplating, with awful reverence, and on the basis of mans spiritual existence, the moral Law of God.
II. And is that Law abrogated now, or shorn of its significance? Nay, it remains for the Gentile no less than for the Jew--for the nineteenth century after Christ no less than for the fifteenth before Him--the immutable expression of Gods will. God, as the Italian proverb says, does not pay on Saturdays. He is very patient, and men may long deny His existence or blaspheme His name, but more than in the mighty strong wind which rent the mountains, and more than in fire, and more than in earthquake, is God in that still small voice which is sounding yet. Oh, it is not in Exodus alone, or in Deuteronomy alone, but in all nature that we hear His voice. In scene after scene of history, in discovery after discovery of science, in experience after experience of life, have we heard these words rolling in thunder across the centuries the eternal distinction of right and wrong. Confidently I appeal to you, and ask, Have you not, at some time in your lives, heard the voice of God utter to you distinctly these Commandments of the moral Law? Is there one here who has ever disobeyed that voice and prospered? If there be one here who feels, at this moment, in the depths of his soul, a peace which the world can neither give nor take away, is it not solely because by the aid of Gods Holy Spirit he has striven to obey it? Yes, its infinite importance is that it is as old not as Sinai, but as humanity, and represents the will of God to all His children in the great family of man; so that if in this life we be passing from mystery to mystery, it is our surest proof that we are passing also from God to God. What matters it that we know not either whence we came or what we are, if He hath shown thee, oh, man! what is good, and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?
III. And thus it is, lastly, that if we be faithful the Law may lead us to the Gospel. For his must indeed be a shallow soul who thinks it an easy thing to keep the Commandments. When we observe that the summary of the first Table is that life is worship, and of the second that life is service; when we notice that the first Table forbids sin against God, first in thought, then in word, then in deed; while the second, proceeding in a reverse order, forbids sins against our neighbour first in deed, then in word, and then in thought; so that, unlike every other code that the world has ever known, the Commandments begin and end with the utter prohibition of evil thoughts, which of us is not conscious that we have utterly broken Gods Law in this, that out of the heart proceed evil thoughts? And when we go from Moses to Jesus, from Sinai to Galilee, will Christ abolish the Law? will He teach us that we may keep both our sin and our Saviour, and that there is no distinction between a state of sin and a state of grace? There are no dim presences, no thundering clouds, no scorching wilderness, no rolling darkness around the trembling hill, but the sweet human voice of one seated in the dawn on the lilied grass that slopes down to the silver lake--but does that voice abrogate the Law? Nay, more stringently than to them of old time come the ten commandments now. Murder is extended to a furious thought; adultery to a lascivious look; and at first it might seem as if our last hope were extinguished, as if now our alienation from God be permanent, since admitted into a holier sanctuary we are but guilty of a deadlier sin. And when this has been indeed brought home to us, and we see the unfathomable gulf which yawns before a God of infinite holiness and a heart of desperate corruption, then indeed--and above all in the meeting of calamity with crime--then cometh the midnight. But after that midnight to the faithful soul there shall be light. With the personal conviction that the Law worketh wrath, come also the personal experience that Christ hath delivered us from its curse. In Him comes the sole antidote to guilt, the sole solution to the enigma of despair. True, He deepened the obligation of the Law, but for our sake He also fulfilled it. And thus by love, and hope, and gratitude, and help, He gives us a new impulse, a new inspiration, and this is Christianity; and this Christianity has redeemed, has ennobled, has regenerated the world. The thou must of Sinai becomes the I ought, I will, I can. I can do all things through Him that strengtheneth me. And then for us the Law has done its work. It has revealed to us the will of God, it has revealed to us the apostacy of man, it has driven us to know and to embrace the deliverance of Christ. (Archdeacon Farrar.)
The Ten Commandments
The Ten Commandments bold a conspicuous position in that prolonged revelation of Himself--His character, His will, and His revelations to mankind--which God made to the Jews. They can, therefore, never become obsolete.
I. The Ten Commandments rest on the principle that God claims authority over the moral life of man.
II. There can be no doubt that God intended that these commandments should be kept. They are not merely to bring us to a sense of our guilt, as some seem to imagine.
III. These commandments deal chiefly with actions, not with mere thought or emotion.
IV. Before God gave these commandments to the Jewish people, He wrought a magnificent series of miracles to effect their emancipation from miserable slavery and to punish their oppressors. He first made them free, and then gave them the law. (R. W. Dale, D. D.)
Comprehensive summary of the Ten Commandments
1. Its uniqueness: Compare this law with other so-called legislations--e.g., Lycurgus, Draco, Solon, the Twelve Tables. There is found no counterpart; there is a gulf betwixt them and it.
2. Its origin: What is it that makes this separation but its divinity? Said a lawyer of eminence, who was led to renounce his infidelity by the study of the Decalogue: I have been looking into the nature of that law: I have been trying to see whether I can add anything to it, or take anything from it, so as to make it better. Sir, I cannot; it is perfect. And then, having shown this to be so, he concluded: I have been thinking where did Moses get that law? I have read history. The Egyptians and the adjacent nations were idolaters: so were the Greeks and Romans: and the wisest and best Greeks and Romans never gave a code of morals like this. Where did he get it? He could not have soared so far above his age as to have devised it himself. It came down from heaven. I am convinced of the truth of the religion of the Bible.
3. Its scope: Were we to keep this law, we should need no other codes and edicts:--no courts and prisons. It would fill the sky with sunshine and the earth with righteousness.
4. Its simplicity: It is so easily interpreted.
5. But the attempt to keep the law in its spirit will lead to the revelation of self, and disclose both a disinclination and an inability; and, when this is the case, the law becomes a schoolmaster to lead to Christ. (L. O. Thompson.)
Negative Commandments
The emphatic and repeated Thou shalt not from God teaches--
I. Mans capacity for evil.
II. Mans tendency to evil.
III. Gods knowledge of this capacity and tendency of man.
IV. God, knowing this, nevertheless prohibits sin. This indicates--
1. The guilt of sin.
2. The care of God. (U. R. Thomas.)
The Commandments
I. The origin of these commandments.
1. The Bible thus commits itself unequivocally to the highest origin for these laws.
(1) Their Divine origin bespeaks their holy and righteous nature, and their absolute authority.
(2) Their Divine origin bespeaks the deep interest we should take in their study, as well as in obeying them.
2. Divine as they are in their origin, they were transmitted first by the ministry of angels to Moses, and by Moses to us. (Psa_78:17; Act_7:53; Gal_3:19; Heb_2:2; Deu_5:5; Deu_10:1-4.)
II. The nature of these commandments. Lessons:
1. The awe-inspiring circumstances of the giving of the law suggest the solemnity of our relations to God.
2. Positive institutions of religion are a necessity.
3. They must be of God, or they are worse than worthless.
4. Those which bear the evidence of their Divine origin are alone worthy of obedience.
5. The only worthy obedience is that which is hearty and complete. (D. C. Hughes, M. A.)
The character of the Decalogue
I. The Decalogue is in form prohibitive. A solemn witness to the Fall. A bell to awaken conscience.
II. Although the Decalogue is in form prohibitive, yet in spirit it is affirmative. A negative pole implies a positive. The Ten Words are divinely covenantal, rather than divinely statutory. Law is never as imperial as love.
III. The Ten Words or Commandments are in their character germinal and suggestive, rather than unfolded and exhaustive. They are the rudimental principles of morality, the germs of ethics, the seminary, or seedplot, of religion.
IV. But although the Ten Commandments are rudimental in their form, they are also elemental in their meaning, and therefore universal and immortal in their application. Just because they are germs, they are capable of all growth, or unfolding along the lines suggested in the embryo. In brief, the Ten Commandments are the axioms of morals, the summary of ethics, the itinerary of mankind, the framework of society, the vertebral column of humanity. (G. D. Boardman.)
Characteristics of the Decalogue
The Law of the Ten Words constitutes the very heart or kernel of the entire Mosaic system. It was the Law which lent to Mosaism its peculiar character as a temporary interlude in the history of revelation.
I. In the first place, every circumstance attending its promulgation was adjusted so as to lend to it a solemn and awful emphasis.
II. The sanction of the Decalogue was fear. In the infancy of the individual, when as yet the immature, conscience lacks the power to enforce its convictions of duty upon the untutored passions, the first step in moral training consists in impressing upon the childs mind a wholesome dread for the constituted authorities of the home. Love is a preferable impulse to law-keeping, no doubt; but love cannot be wholly depended on till the habit of obedience has been formed and principle has come to the aid of affection.
III. It belongs to the same juvenile or primary character of this code, as designed for an infant people, that its requirements are concrete, and expressed in a negative or prohibitory form. When you have to deal with children, you do not enunciate principles but precepts. You do not bid a child revere all that is venerable in the social order; but you say: Honour thy father and mother. You do not tell a rude populace that hatred drives God out of the soul, but you say simply: Do not kill! Everything must be, at such a stage of moral education, concrete, portable, and unmistakable. For the same reason, it will usually take the shape of a prohibition rather than of a command: a Do not rather than a Do.
IV. While these remarks must be borne in mind if we would understand the archaic mould in which this code is cast, there is at the same time an admirable breadth and massiveness about its contents. In Ten Words it succeeds in sweeping the whole field of duty.
V. I have assumed above--what is indeed apparent to every careful reader--that the Decalogue was designed primarily to be the code of a commonwealth. In the ancient world, and perhaps in the infancy of all societies, the idea of the community takes precedence over the idea of the individual. The family, the clan, the tribe, the nation: these are the ruling conceptions to which the interests of the private individual are subordinated. Then, each man exists as one of a larger body--heir of its past and parent of its future.
VI. It is when one views the Decalogue under this aspect, that one can best see how it came to include two parts, a sacred and a civil. In a theocracy there can be no such sharp distinction as we make between Church and State. Indeed, such a distinction would have been unintelligible to any ancient people. So far from comprehending the modern ideal of a free Church in a free State, every people of antiquity took for granted that the Church and the State were one. Every public function was discharged, every expedition undertaken, every victory gained, under the immediate counsel and patronage of the Deity. All this was just as strongly felt by the devotees of Bel or Nebo, of Osiris, Chemosh or Baal, of Athene or Jove, as by the Hebrew worshippers of Jehovah. So that, again, when it pleased God to throw into the form of a theocracy His peculiar relationship to Israel as a vehicle for teaching to the world a world-wide revelation of grace, He was simply accommodating His gracious ways to the thoughts of men and the fashions of the age that then was. (J. O. Dykes, D. D.)
The Law given from Mount Sinai suited to the circumstances of man, and of universal adoption
I. Some preliminary remarks.
1. Man is a being possessed of a religious capacity.
2. Man is a moral agent.
3. It is possible for the reason the understanding, and the moral sense of man to be brought to such a state, that he can have a right to have an opinion both upon morals and religion.
II. The law itself (verses 3-17). There are two parts of this law--that relating to--
1. Religion. Here are four things--
(1) The object of worship.
(2) A mode of worship.
(3) The inculcation of habitual reverence with respect to sacred things.
(4) An appointed season for the cultivation and perfection of the religious capacity.
2. Morals. Here is--
(1) Filial honour.
(2) Respect for life.
(3) Reverence for purity.
(4) Respect for property.
(5) Respect for reputation.
(6) Respect and regard to the source of all virtue--thine own heart.
III. A few observations tending to show that this Law, as we have it here, is suited to the circumstances of man, and of universal adaptation. It is suited to humanity--
1. In that it meets the essential capacities and elements of human nature.
2. In its accidents; that is, not only in its principles, but also in the mode in which these principles are to be carried out.
3. In spite of some of the accidental and peculiar topics which are here and there introduced into it.
4. If we consider what the world would be were this law universally obeyed; and what if it were universally disobeyed.
IV. The preceding point being made out, then I think the presumptions are in favour of this Law having been given by God.
1. The history of man and the tendencies of human nature show that, if the original state of man had been barbarism, he never would have risen out of it by his own efforts, and never would have discovered such principles as are here put forth.
2. In the most refined ages of ancient times, no moral system equal or even approaching in rationality, purity, and simplicity to this was ever taught either by philosopher, statesman, or priest.
3. Even in our own times our philosophers, they who have rejected revelation and have given us moral systems, have taught principles subversive of these--Bolingbroke, Blount, Hume.
4. This law unquestionably was given about the time it was said to be. We find that it must have been given by Moses. From whom did he obtain it?
5. We now have the fact--God spake all these words.
V. Practical remarks.
1. Reflect on the internal evidence of the superhuman character of the Bible.
2. Notice that infidelity is always associated with impurity and blasphemy.
3. Meditate deeply how you stand in relation to the Law.
4. Accept, in addition to the law of judgment, the gospel of mercy. (T. Binney.)
The composition of the Law of God
There is a bell in the cathedral of Cologne, made by the melting together of French cannon. It would have been a very difficult task, indeed, to analyze the bell and determine whence the cannon came. Something like this, however, is the task before those who adopt the extreme theories of the rationalistic critics of the Pentateuch. You must be supposed to show in the minute literary traits of this series of documents the dates of their origin, the dates of their combination, and the dates of subsequent editorial supervisions. Even if it were to be granted that documents drawn from many polytheistic nations and ages were the original constituents of the Pentateuch, we have not touched the doctrine of the inspiration of the combined mass at all. The mass is strangely purified from all false doctrine. A Divine fire has burned all adulterate elements wholly out of it, and fused the constituents in a combination wholly new. These cannon are one set of objects; melted together into a bell, hung in a cathedral tower, they are another object altogether. Mere white dust is one thing; compacted into marble, in a vase, it has a ring, and is quite another. These cannon, melted and hung aloft in the form of a bell, are no longer cannon. They are an inspired work. It is our business, indeed, to know all we can as to the composition of this bronze; but our highest business is to ring the bell in the cathedral tower. The moral law, and the ethical monotheism of the Pentateuch, have proved their resonance as often as they have been put in practice, age after age. The Pentateuch hung in the cathedral tower of the world has uttered Gods voice, and it is our business to ask how we can ring the bell in the heights of history, rather than how it originated by the melting together, of many fragments. (Joseph Cook.)
The inexhaustibility of the Law of God
I have many times essayed thoroughly to investigate the Ten Commandments, but at the very outset, I am the Lord thy God, I stuck fast; that very one word, I, put me to a non-plus. He that has but one word of God before him, and out of that word cannot make a sermon, can never be a preacher. (Luthers Table Talk.)
Usefulness of Gods Commandments
Reconciliation to God is like entering the gate of a beautiful avenue, which conducts to a splendid mansion. But that avenue is long, and in some places it skirts the edge of dangerous cliffs, and, therefore, to save the traveller from falling over where he would be dashed to pieces, it is fenced all the way by a quick-set edge. That edge is the Commandments. They are planted there that we may do ourselves no harm. But, like a fence of the fragrant briar, they regale the pilgrim who keeps the path, and they only hurt him when he tries to breakthrough. Temperance, justice, truthfulness; purity of speech and behaviour; obedience to parents; mutual affection; sanctification of the Sabbath; the reverent worship of God; all these are righteous requirements, and in keeping them there is a great reward. Happy he who only knows the precept in the perfume which it sheds, and who, never having kicked against the pricks, has never proved the sharpness of its thorns. (J. Hamilton, D. D.)
The Lawgiver
1. Let us recognize that this Law has its source in God. It comes to us from His will whose authority is beyond question, and our obligation to obey is complete. Since God spake all these words, we find in them the law of our being. The conscience hears His voice, acknowledges His rightful authority, and bows before Him.
2. There is great need of the I ought power being developed in our nature so that it controls our lives; a need at least as great in this age and in this country as it was in that early age and in the wilderness of Sinai. To be swayed not by impulse, nor by intense desire, nor by aroused wilfulness, but by a sense of obligation to God, insures a manhood which is a success in itself. What better start in life can the young have than a firm determination to obey God? Can there be a better guide in life, in the perplexities of society, of business or of politics, than this same principle of obedience to God?
3. While this law coming from God binds the conscience, it at the same time secures true liberty of conscience. Nothing can bind the conscience beyond or contrary to this law. It is the comprehensive and only law of the conscience.
4. This law coming from God repels many of the assaults of infidelity upon the Bible. Infidelity finds it impossible to account for the existence of this law in the Bible. Besides, infidelity is forced to honour the moral law in making it its standard of criticism. Much of its fault-finding of lives and measures is an unintended tribute to the law of God.
5. The fact that this law comes from God, carries with it another lesson and one of the utmost importance to us. His authority runs through all the divisions of the law.
(1) Both tables must be fully observed, or the whole law is broken. We cannot be devoted to God, correct in matters of faith and zealous in His worship, while we neglect charity of feeling, word and act toward our brother. Neither can we truly love our neighbour while we neglect God, for we cannot keep any part of the law without supreme reverence for Him who commands. Neither can we truly love our neighbour with recognizing that we are both and equally creatures of God.
(2) There is a tendency also to separate the commandments, and to claim virtue for keeping some while we make light of breaking others. Now, the violation of one precept is not an actual violation of another, but it is the breaking of the whole law in that it sets aside the authority of God. If he keeps other commandments, it must be from other considerations. By breaking one commandment he shows he has the spirit of breaking them all, for he does not submit to the authority of God. (F. S. Schenck.)
For whom is the Law intended
In the preface to the Law, God describes Himself not only as the self-existing Creator, but as having entered into close personal relation with the Israelites through promises made to their fathers, some of which had just been faithfully fulfilled in conferring great blessings upon them. So He appeals not only to their respect for His authority, but to the relation to Him which they had inherited and accepted, and to the gratitude they should have for such benefits received. This preface does not limit the following law to the Israelites, but makes a special appeal to them. The law is general, for all mankind, the original law of their being, since it appeals to and arouses the universal conscience; but a special revelation of God and rich favours bestowed form a strong appeal for the most hearty obedience. God describes Himself to the full extent in which He had at that time revealed Himself. Whatever increase of revelation we have received strengthens the appeal. This shows the kind of obedience we should give: not reluctant, but eager; not forced, but spontaneous; not irksome, but with delight; not heartless, but with the enthusiasm of love. Created things obey the laws of their being joyously. Stars shine, flowers bloom, birds sing. Surely intelligent beings, recognizing the law of their being, should joyously obey it, especially when God reveals Himself fully and confers richest blessings upon them. (F. S. Schenck.)
Of the Commandments
I. Questions.
1. What is the difference between the moral law and the gospel?
(1) The law requires that we worship God as our Creator; the gospel requires that we worship God in and through Christ. God in Christ is propitious; out of Christ we may see Gods power, justice, holiness, in Christ we see His mercy displayed.
(2) The moral law requires obedience, but gives no strength, as Pharaoh required brick, but gave no straw, but the gospel gives strength.
2. Of what use, then, is the moral law to us? A glass to show us our sins, and drive us to Christ.
3. Is the moral law still in force to believers? In some sense it is abolished to believers.
(1) In respect of justification; they are not justified by their obedience to the moral law. Believers are to make great use of the moral law, but they must trust only to Christs righteousness for justification; as Noahs dove made use of her wings to fly, but trusted to the ark for safety.
(2) The moral law is abolished to believers, in respect of the malediction of it; they are freed from the curse and damnatory power of it (Gal_3:13).
4. How was Christ made a curse for us? As our pledge and surety. Though the moral law be not their saviour, yet it is their guide; though it be not a covenant of life, yet it is a rule of living; every Christian is bound to conform to the moral law, and write, as exactly as he can, after this copy: Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid. Though a Christian is not under the condemning power of the law, yet he is under the commanding power.
II. Rules for the right understanding of the Decalogue.
1. The commands and prohibitions of the moral law reach the heart.
2. In the commandments there is a synecdoche, more is intended than is spoken. Where any duty is commanded, there the contrary sin is forbidden, etc.
3. Where any sin is forbidden in the commandment, there the occasion of it is also forbidden.
4. There one relation is named in the commandment, there another relation is included.
5. Where greater sins are forbidden, there lesser sins are also forbidden.
6. The law of God is copulative. The first and second tables are knit together,--piety to God, and equity to our neighbour; these two tables which God hath joined together must not be put asunder.
7. Gods law forbids not only the acting of sin in our own persons, but being accessory to, or having any hand in the sins of others.
8. The last rule about the commandments is this, that though we cannot, by our own strength, fulfil all these commandments, yet doing what we are able, the Lord hath provided encouragement for us. There is a threefold encouragement.
(1) That though we have not ability to obey any one command, yet God hath, in the new covenant, promised to work that in us which He requires: I will cause you to walk in My statutes. The iron hath no power to move, but when the loadstone draws it, it can move; Thou also hast wrought all our works in us.
(2) Though we cannot exactly fulfil all the moral law, yet God will, for Christs sake, mitigate the rigour of the law, and accept of something less than He requires.
(3) Wherein our personal obedience comes short, God will be pleased to accept us in our surety: He hath made us accepted in the beloved. (T. Watson.)
I am the Lord thy God.
The preface of the Law
In this style or authority are three parts, according to three titles.
1. The first title, of His name--Jehovah.
2. Secondly, the title of His jurisdiction--thy God.
3. Thirdly, the title of that notable act He did last--which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, etc. (Bishop Andrewes.)
The preface
I. The speaker and giver of these commandments.
1. It is the Lord, particularly Jesus Christ, who gave this Law in the name of the Trinity. This is plain from the Scripture (Act_7:38; Heb_12:24-26).
2. The speech itself, wherein we have a description of the true God, bearing three reasons for the keeping His commands.
(1) From His sovereignty; He is the Lord.
(2) From His covenant-relation to His people--thy God.
(3) From the great benefit of redemption, and deliverance wrought for them.
The preface
I. I begin with the first, the preface to the preface: God spake all these words, saying, etc. This is like the sounding of a trumpet before a solemn proclamation, God spake; other parts of the Bible are said to be uttered by the mouth of the holy prophets, but here God spake in His own Person.
1. The Lawgiver: God spake. There are two things requisite in a lawgiver.
(1) Wisdom. Laws are founded upon reason; and he must be wise that makes laws. God, in this respect, is most fit to be a lawgiver: He is wise in heart; He hath a monopoly of wisdom: the only wise God.
(2) Authority. God hath the supreme power in His hand; and He who gives men their lives hath most right to give them their laws.
2. The Law itself: all these words; that is, all the words of the moral Law, which is usually styled the Decalogue, or Ten Commandments. It is called the moral Law, because it is the rule of life and manners. St. Chrysostom compares the Scripture to a garden, the moral Law is a chief flower in it; the Scripture is a banquet, the moral Law the chief dish in it.
(1) The moral Law is perfect: The Law of the Lord is perfect. It is an exact model and platform of religion; it is the standard of truth, the judge of controversies, the polestar to direct us to heaven.
(2) The moral Law is unalterable; it remains still in force.
(3) The moral Law is very illustrious and full of glory. See Exo_19:10; Exo_19:12; Exo_31:18; Deu_32:1-52.
Use 1. Here we may take notice of Gods goodness who hath not left us without a Law: therefore the Lord doth often set it down as a demonstration of His love in giving His Commandments. See Psa_147:20; Neh_9:13; Rom_7:14. The Law of God is a hedge to keep us within the bounds of sobriety and piety.
Use 2. If God spake all these words, viz., of the moral Law, then this presseth upon us several duties:
(1) If God spake all these words, then we must hear all these words. The words which God speaks are too precious to be lost.
(2) If God spake all these words, then we must attend to them with reverence.
(3) If God spake all these words of the moral Law, then we must remember them. Those words are weighty which concern salvation.
(4) If God spake all these words, then we must believe them. Shall we not give credit to the God of heaven?
(5) If God spake all these words, then love the Commandments: Oh, how love I Thy Law! it is my meditation all the day.
(6) If God spake all these words, then teach your children the Law of God: These words which I command thee this day shall be in thy heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently to thy children. He who is godly, is both a diamond and a loadstone; a diamond for the sparkling of his grace, and a loadstone for his attractive virtue in drawing others to the love of Gods precepts; a good man doth more good to his neighbours than to himself.
(7) If God spake all these words, then the moral Law must be obeyed.
II. The preface itself.
1. I am the Lord thy God. Here we have a description of God--
(1) By His essential greatness: I am the Lord--Jehovah. Let us fear Him (Deu_28:58).
(2) By His relative goodness: Thy God. How? Through Jesus Christ--Emmanuel.
(3) How may we come to know this covenant union, that God is our God?
(a) By having His grace planted in us. Kings children are known by their costly jewels: it is not having common gifts which shows we belong to God, many have the gifts of God without God, but it is grace gives us a true genuine title to God. In particular, faith is the grace of union; by this we may spell out our interest in God.
(b) We may know God is our God, by having the earnest of His Spirit in our hearts. God often gives the purse to the wicked, but the Spirit only to such as He intends to make His heirs. Have we had the consecration of the Spirit?
(c) We may know God is our God, if He hath given us the hearts of children. Have we obediential hearts? do we subscribe to Gods commands, when His commands cross our will? A true saint is like the flower of the sun: it opens and shuts with the sun, he opens to God and shuts to sin. If we have the hearts of children, then God is our Father.
(d) We may know God is ours, and we have an interest in Him, by our standing up for His interest.
(e) We may know God is ours, and we have an interest in Him, by His having an interest in us: My beloved is Mine, and I am His.
Use 1. Above all things, let us get this great charter Confirmed, that God is our God. Deity is not comfortable without propriety. Use
Use 2. To all such as can make out this covenant union, it exhorts to several things.
(1) If God be our God, let us improve our interest in Him, cast all our burdens upon Him, the burden of our fears, wants, sins.
(2) If God be our God, let us learn to be contented, though we have the less of other things. Contentment is a rare jewel; it is the cure of care. If we have God to be our God, well may we be contented.
(a) God is a sufficient good. Not only full as a vessel, but as a spring. The heart is a triangle, which only the Trinity can fill.
(b) God is a sanctifying good. He sanctifies all our comforts, and turns them into blessings. He sanctifies all our crosses; they shall polish and refine our grace. The more the diamond is cut it sparkles the more. Gods stretching the strings of His viol, is to make the music the better.
(c) God is a choice good. All things under the sun are but the blessings of the footstool; but to have God Himself to be ours is the blessing of the throne.
(d) God is the chief good. In the chief good there must be, first, delectability. At Gods righthand are pleasures. Secondly, in the chief good there must be transcendency, it must have a surpassing excellency. Thus God is infinitely better than all other things; it is below the Deity to compare other things with It. Who would go to weigh a feather with a mountain of gold? Thirdly, in the chief good there must be not only fulness, but variety; where variety is wanting we are apt to nauseate; to feed only on honey would breed loathing; but in God is all variety of fulness.
(3) If we can clear up this covenant union that God is our God, let this cheer and revive us in all conditions. To be content with God is not enough, but to be cheerful. What greater cordial can you have than union with Deity?
(4) If God be our God, then let us break forth into doxology and praise (Psa_118:28).
(5) Let us carry ourselves as those who have God to be their God. Live holily.
2. The second part of the preface: which have brought, etc. God mentions this deliverance, because of
(1) Its strangeness.
(2) Greatness.
3. The third part of the preface: out of the house of bondage.
(1) Gods children may sometimes be under sore afflictions.
(a) For probation, or trial. Affliction is the touchstone of sincerity.
(b) For purgation; to purge our corruption. Gods fire is in Zion. This is not to consume, but to refine; what if we have more affliction, if by this means we have less sin.
(c) For augmentation; to increase the graces of the Spirit. Grace thrives most in the iron furnace; sharp frosts nourish the corn, so do sharp afflictions grace: grace in the saints is often as fire hid in the embers, affliction is the bellows to blow it up into a flame.
(d) For preparation: to fit and prepare us for glory.
(2) God will in His due time bring His people out of their afflicted state. The tree which in the winter seems dead, in the spring revives: after darkness cometh sunshine. Affliction may leap on us as the viper did on Paul, but at last this viper shall be shaken off. (T. Watson.)
The revelation of the Divine Name
I. God in covenant with man is the condition of the existence and development of mans spiritual life. The despair of the sinner, but for Gods mercy, would crush him. And what know we of Gods mercy? For ages our forefathers have been living consciously in a covenant, and all our ideas of God have been formed by it. But ask that agonized father, plunging the bare knife into the throat of his daughter, or flinging his tender infant into that seething cauldron of fire, what man, ignorant of the covenant, knows of the mercy and forgiveness of God. Man lives on the covenant; he builds his life on the promises; it is the condition of his living at all in the sense in which a man may live.
II. God was seeking the covenant, not man. It is God who acts, man who accepts; God who gives, man who receives; and thus the hope of man has its strong resting-place, not on the strivings of his own weak will, not on the searchings of his own too easily bewildered and blinded intellect, but on the eternal purpose and love of God. God cannot dispense with mans heart, will, and intellect; He led that people there that He might engage them in His service. Refuse Him that service, and the covenant is worthless to you, nay, is a witness against you to condemnation; yield them to Him, and rest in the assurance that your salvation depends not on your own weak work but on the strong arm of God.
III. You will find two grand features in that which was transacted there on the Mount of God: God revealing Himself--God declaring His Law. This was Gods covenant; the people had but to say in heart and with voice Amen.
1. Nature, circumstance, the currents of life, master us, till we know the Divine Name. We know ourselves in knowing Him, and find in ourselves the broken features of His likeness. The first step towards the establishment of the covenant was the revelation of the Divine name.
2. It was a merciful name which the Lord made known: I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. I am the God of thy fathers. How tender, how blessed the assurance!
3. The Lords name is holy. The Lord thy God is a holy Lord. A sensual-hearted man will fashion gods like unto himself. A wise and earnest-hearted man will give thanks at the remembrance of Gods holiness. (J. B. Brown, B. A.)
The Jewish knowledge of God
To the Jews, Jehovah was not a mere idea or a system of attributes. They did not think of Him as the Necessary Cause of the universe, or as a Being inaccessible to human knowledge, but whom it was their duty to invest with whatever perfections could exalt and glorify Him:--infinite wisdom, infinite power, awful righteousness, inflexible truth, and tenderest love. It never occurred to them to suppose that they had to think out a God for themselves any more than it occurred to them that they had to think out a king of Egypt. They knew Jehovah as the God who had held back the waves like a wall while they fled across the sea to escape the vengeance of their enemies; they knew Him as the God who had sent thunder, and lightning, and hail, plagues on cattle, and plagues on men, to punish the Egyptians and to compel them to let the children of Israel go; they knew Him as the God whose angel had slain the firstborn of their oppressors, and filled the land from end to end with death, and agony, and terror. He was the same God, so Moses and Aaron told them, who by visions and voices, in promises and precepts, had revealed Himself long before to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We learn what men are from what they say and what they do. A biography of Luther gives us a more vivid and trustworthy knowledge of the man than the most philosophical essay on his character and creed. The story of his imprisonment and of his journey to Worms, his Letters, his Sermons, and his Table Talk, are worth more than the most elaborate speculations about him. The Jews learnt what God is, not from theological dissertations on the Divine attributes, but from the facts of a Divine history. They knew Him for themselves in His own acts and in His own words. (R. W. Dale, D. D.)
Mans religious craving satisfied
Mans nature is religious. He instinctively worships some being, whom he regards as God. It is the nature of religious worship to assimilate the character of the worshipper to that of the being worshipped. The objects of worship, everywhere throughout the ancient world, were corrupt and corrupting. In order to mans moral improvement, he must have a holy object of worship. It is obviously impossible for an imperfect and sinful man to originate the idea of a perfect and sinless God. The gods whom men invented and set up were as imperfect and wicked as themselves; and from the nature of the case, they could not be otherwise. Moses, on the contrary, revealed a holy and a perfect God. How pure, how amiable, how sublime, how transcendently glorious the character with which this God is invested by the Hebrew lawgiver! How striking the contrast which his sublime delineation of Jehovah as the Maker, Proprietor, and Sovereign of the universe, invested with every conceivable excellence, presents to the grovelling mythology of the most enlightened portions of the ancient world, in which the objects of religious worship were pictured with the passions and vices of the fierce and licentious chieftains of the primitive ages! The publication of such a theology in such an age, when polytheism bad covered the earth with the temples and altars of its monster gods, cannot be satisfactorily accounted for without allowing, and is satisfactorily accounted for by allowing, the truth of the Mosaic history, and the establishment of the Mosaic constitution by Divine authority. (E. C. Wines, D. D.)
I am the Lord thy God-a word to rest on in death
When Ebenezer Erskine lay on his deathbed, one of his elders said to him, Sir, you have given us many good advices; may I ask what you are now doing with your own soul? I am just doing with it, he replied, what I did forty years ago: I am resting on that word--I am the Lord thy God.
Out of the land of Egypt.--
Gods deliverance of His people
Bearing in mind the universality of the Decalogue, this land of Egypt and house of bondage must have a far deeper and wider signification than the valley of the Nile. Egypt is a synonym for an ungodly world, which captivates the heart of man, and from which the grace of God releases the renewed soul. The Law of God is, therefore, in its holiness, justice, and goodness, held up to those who have been delivered from the bondage of sin. It is not so held up to the ungodly--they cannot love it, they cannot see its beauty. By the Lords telling us that He has already brought us out of Egypt and bondage, He does not say when He gives us the Law: Do this and live, but Since ye live, do this; Since My grace has redeemed you, and you rejoice in the liberty of the children of God, use My Law, the reflection of My perfections, as your beloved guide. There is one other expression in this preface which should be noted. It is the use of the second person singular, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt. There are two thoughts connected with this use.
1. The first is that God deals with all Israel as one man. He expects them to be one, of one mind and one heart, before Him. There must be no antagonisms among Gods people. He has taken us out of the contentious world, not that we should be only another contentious world, but that we should show our distracted earth the harmony of heaven. He wishes to reconcile all things unto Himself. Sin divides men, grace unites them.
2. The other thought regarding the use of the second person singular here is this: God treats man individually. Man enters heaven or hell, not in companies or battalions, but in naked individuality. It was thyself personally that wert delivered from that dark Egypt of condemnation, was it not? And so you can say: Who loved me and gave Himself for me. (H. Crosby, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1
CHAPTER XX.
THE LAW.
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Exo_20:1-17.
We have now reached that great event, one of the most momentous in all history, the giving of the Ten Commandments. And it is necessary to consider what was the meaning of this event, what part were they designed to play in the religious development of mankind.
1. St. Paul tells us plainly what they did not effect. By the works of the law could no flesh be justified: to the father of the Hebrew race faith was reckoned instead of righteousness; the first of their royal line coveted the blessedness not of the obedient but of the pardoned; and Habakkuk declared that the just should live by his faith, while the law is not of faith, and offers life only to the man that doeth these things (Rom_4:3, Rom_4:6; Gal_3:12). In the doctrinal scheme of St. Paul there was no room for a compromise between salvation by faith and reliance upon our own performance of any works, even those simple and obvious duties which are of world-wide obligation.
2. But he never meant to teach that a Christian is free from the obligation of the moral law. If it is not true that we can keep it and so earn heaven, it is equally false that we may break it without penalty or remorse. What he insisted upon was this: that obligation is one thing, and energy is another; the law is good, but it has not the gift of pardon or of inspiration; by itself it will only reveal the feebleness of him who endeavours to perform it, only force into direst contrast the spiritual beauty of the pure ideal and the wretchedness of the sinner, carnal, sold under sin. In this respect, indeed, the law was its own witness. For if, among all the millions of its children, one had lived by obedience, how could he have shared in its elaborate sacrificial apparatus, in the hallowing of the altar from pollution by the national uncleanness, in the sprinkling of the blood of the offering for sin? Take the case of the highest official. A sinless high priest under the law would have been paralysed by his virtue, for his duty on the greatest day of all the year was to make atonement first for his own sins.
3. The law being an authorised statement of what innocence means, and therefore of the only terms upon which a man might hope to live by works, is an organic whole, and we either keep it as a whole or break it. Such is the meaning of the words, he that offendeth in one point is guilty of all; because He who gave the seventh commandment gave also the sixth--so that if one commit no adultery, yet kill, he has become a transgressor of the law in its integrity (Jam_2:11). The challenge of God to human self-righteousness is not one which can be half met. If we have not thoroughly kept it, we have thoroughly failed.
4. But this failure of man does not involve any failure, in the law, to accomplish its intended work. It is, as has been said, a challenge. The sense of our inability to meet it is the best introduction to Him Who came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance, and thus the law became a tutor to bring men to Christ. It awoke the conscience, brought home the sense of guilt, and entered, that sin might abound in us, whose ignorance had not known sin without it. It was strictly that which Moses most frequently calls it--the Testimony.
5. Finally, however, the teaching of Scripture is not that Christians are condemned to live always in a condition of baffled striving, hopeless longing, conscious transgression of a code which testifies against them. The old and carnal nature gravitates downward, to selfishness and sin, as surely as by a law of the physical universe. But the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus emancipates us from that law of sin and death--the higher nature doing, by the very quality of its life, what the lower nature cannot be driven to do, by dread of hell or by desire of heaven. The creature of earth becomes a creature of air, and is at home in a new sphere, poised on its wings upon the breeze. Love is the fulfilling of the law. And the Christian is free from its dictation, as affectionate men are free from any control of the laws which command the maintenance of wife and child, not because they may defy the statutes, but because their volition and the statutes coincide. Liberty is not lawlessness--it is the reciprocal harmony of law and the will.
And thus the grand paradox of Luther is entirely true: "Unless faith be without any, even the smallest works, it does not justify, nay, it is not faith. And yet it is impossible for faith to be without works--earnest, many and great." We are justified by faith without the works of the law, and yet we do not make void the law by faith--nay, we establish the law.
All this agrees exactly with the contrast, so often urged, between the giving of the Law and the utterance of the Sermon on the Mount. The former echoes across wild heights, and through savage ravines; the latter is heard on the grassy slopes of the hillside which overlooks the smiling Lake of Galilee. The one is spoken in thunder and graven upon stone: the other comes from the lips, into which grace is poured, of Him Who was fairer than the children of men. The former repeats again and again the stern warning, "Thou shalt not!" The latter crowns a sevenfold description of a blessedness, which is deeper than joy, though pensive and even weeping, by adding to these abstract descriptions an eighth, which applies them, and assumes them to be realised in His hearers--"Blessed are ye." If so much as a beast touched the mountain it should be stoned. But Simeon took the Divine Infant in his arms.
And this is not because God has become gentler, or man worthier: it is because God the Lawgiver upon His throne has come down to be God the Helper. But the beatitudes could never have been spoken, if the law had not been imposed: the blessedness of a hunger and thirst for righteousness was created by the majestic and spiritual beauty of the unattained commandment.
Yes, it had a spiritual beauty. For, however formal, external, and even shallow, the commandments may appear to flippant modern babblers, St. Paul bewailed the contrast between the law, which was spiritual, and his own carnal heart. And he, who had kept all the letter from his youth, was only the more vexed and haunted by the fleeting consciousness of a higher "good thing" unattained. Did not one table say "Thou shalt not covet," and the other promise mercy to thousands of those that love?
This leads us to consider the structure and arrangement of the Decalogue. Scripture itself tells us that there were "ten words" or precepts, written upon both sides of two tables. But various answers have been given at different times, to the question, How shall we divide the ten?
The Jews of a later period made a first commandment of the words, "I am the Lord thy God," which is not a commandment at all. And they restored the proper number, thus exceeded, by uniting in one the prohibition of other gods and of idolatry; although the worship of the golden calf, almost immediately after the law was given, suffices to establish the distinction. For then, as well as under Gideon, Micah and Jeroboam, the sin of idolatry fell short of apostasy to a wholly different god (Jdg_8:23, Jdg_8:27, Jdg_17:3, Jdg_17:5; 1Ki_12:28). The worship of images dishonours God, even if it be His semblance that they claim. In this arrangement, the tables were allotted five commandments each.
Another curious arrangement was devised, apparently by St. Augustine; and the weight of his authority imposed it upon Western Christianity until the Reformation, and upon the Latin and Lutheran churches unto this day. Like the former, it adds the second commandment to the first, but it divides the tenth. And it gives to the first table three commandments, "since the number of commandments which concern God seem to hint at the Trinity to careful students," while the seven commandments of the second table suggest the Sabbath. Such mystical references are no longer weighty arguments. And the proposed division of the tenth commandment seems quite precluded by the fact that in Exodus we read, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house nor his wife," while in Deuteronomy the order is reversed; so that its advocates are divided among themselves as to whether the coveting of a house or a wife is to attain the dignity of separate mention.
The ordinary English arrangement assigns to the tables four commandments and six respectively. And the noble catechism of the Church of England appears to sanction this arrangement by including among "my duties to my neighbour" that of loving, honouring and succouring my father and mother. There are several objections to this arrangement. It is unsymmetrical. There seems to be something more sacred and divine about my relationship with my father and mother than those which connect me with my neighbour. The first table begins with the gravest offence, and steadily declines to the lowest; sin against the unique personality of God being followed by sin against His spirituality of nature, His name, and His holy day. If now the sin against His earthly representative, the very fountain and sanction of all law to childhood, be added to the first table, the same order will pervade those of the second--namely, sin against my neighbour's life, his family, his property, his reputation, and lastly, his interest in my inner self, in the wishes that are unspoken, the thoughts and feelings which
"I wad nae tell to nae man."
We thus obtain both the simplest division and the clearest arrangement. In Rom_13:9 the fifth commandment is not enumerated when rehearsing the actions which transgress the second table. In the Hebrew text of Deuteronomy all the later commandments are joined with the sixth by the copulative (represented along with the negative fairly enough in our English by "Neither"), which seems to indicate that these five were united together in the author's mind. But the fifth stands alone, like all those of the first table. Now, it is clear that such an arrangement gives great sanction and weight to the sacred institution of the family.
Finally, the comprehensiveness and spirituality of the law may be observed in this; that the first table forbids sin against God in thought, word and deed; and the second table forbids sin against man in deed, word and thought.
THE PROLOGUE.
Exo_20:2.
The Decalogue is introduced by the words "I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage."
Here, and in the previous chapter, is already a great advance upon the time when it was said to them "The God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, hath appeared." Now they are expected to remember what He has done for themselves. For, although religion must begin with testimony, it ought always to grow up into an experience. Thus it was that many of the Samaritans believed on Jesus because of the word of the woman; but presently they said, "Now we believe, not because of thy speaking, for we have heard Him ourselves, and know." And thus the disciples who heard John the Baptist speak, and so followed Jesus, having come and seen where He abode, could say, "We have found the Messiah."
This prologue is vitally connected with both tables of the law. In relation to the first, it recognises the instinct of worship in the human heart. In vain shall we say Do not worship idols, until the true object of adoration is supplied, for the heart must and will prostrate itself at some shrine. A leader of modern science confesses "the immovable basis of the religious sentiment in the nature of man," adding that "to yield this sentiment reasonable satisfaction is the problem of problems at the present hour."[35] It is indeed a problem for the unbelief which, because it professes to be scientific, cannot shut its eyes to the fact that men whose faith in Christ has suffered shipwreck are everywhere seen to be clinging to strange planks--spiritualism, esoteric Buddhism, and other superstitions,--which prove that man must and will reverence something more than streams of tendencies, or beneficial results to the greatest numbers. The Law of Moses abolishes superstition by no mere negation, but by the proclamation of a true God.
Moreover, it declares that this God is knowable, which flatly contradicts the brave assertion of modern agnostics that the notion of a God is not even "thinkable." That assertion is a bald and barren platitude in the only sense in which it is not contrary to the experience of all mankind. As we cannot form a complete and perfect, nor even an adequate notion of God, so no man ever yet conceived a complete and adequate notion of his neighbour, nor indeed of himself. But as we can form a notion of one another, dim and fragmentary indeed, yet more or less accurate and fit to guide our actions, so has every nation and every man formed some notion of deity. Nor could even the agnostic declare that God is unthinkable, unless the word God, of which he makes this assertion, conveyed to him some idea, some thought, more or less worthy of the thinking. The ancient Jew never dreamed that he could search out the Almighty to perfection, yet God was known to him by His actions (the only means by which we know our fellow-men); and the combined terror and loving-kindness of these at once warned him against revolt, and appealed to his loyalty for obedience.
In relation to the second table, the prologue was both an argument and an appeal. Why should a man hope to prosper by estranging his best Friend, his Emancipator and Guide? And even if disobedience could obtain some paltry advantage, how base would he be who snatched at it, when forbidden by the God Who broke his chains, and brought him out of the house of bondage--a Benefactor not ungenial and remote, but One Who enters into closest relations with him, calling Himself "Thy God"!
Now, a greater emancipation and a closer personal relationship belong to the Church of Christ. When a Christian hears that God is unthinkable, he ought to be able to answer, 'God is my God, and He has brought my soul out of its house of bondage.'
Moreover, his emancipation by Christ from many sins and inner slaveries ought to be a fact plain enough to constitute the sorest of problems to the observing world.
It must be observed, besides, that the Law, which was the centre of Judaism, does not appeal chiefly to the meaner side of human nature. Hell is not yet known, for the depths of eternity could not be uncovered before the clouds had rolled away from its heights of love and condescension; or else the sanity and balance of human nature would have been overthrown. But even temporal judgments are not set in the foremost place. As St. Paul, who knew the terrors of the Lord, more commonly and urgently besought men by the mercies of God, so were the ancient Jews, under the burning mountain, reminded rather of what God had bestowed upon them, than of what He might inflict if they provoked Him. And our gratitude, like theirs, should be excited by His temporal as well as His spiritual gifts to us.
THE FIRST COMMANDMENT.
"Thou shalt have none other gods before Me."-- Exo_20:3.
When these words fell upon the ears of Israel, they conveyed, as their primary thought, a prohibition of the formal worship of rival deities, Egyptian or Sidonian gods. Following immediately upon the proclamation of Jehovah, their own God, they declared His intolerance of rivalry, and enjoined a strict and jealous monotheism. For God was a reality. Races who worshipped idealisations or personifications might easily make room for other poetic embodiments of human thought and feeling; but Jehovah would vindicate His rights. He had proved himself very real in Egypt. Other gods would not displace Him: He would observe them: they would be "before Me."[36] God does not quit the scene when man forgets Him.
Now, it is hard for us to realise the charm which the worship of false gods possessed for ancient Israel. To comprehend it we must reflect upon the universal ignorance which made every phenomenon of nature a portentous manifestation of mysterious and varied power, which they could by no means trace back to a common origin, while the crash and discord of the results appeared to indicate opposing wills behind. We must reflect how closely akin is awe to worship, and how blind and unintelligent was the awe which storm and earthquake and pestilence then excited. We must remember the pressure upon them of surrounding superstitions armed with all the civilisation and art of their world. Above all, we must consider that the gods which seduced them were not of necessity supreme: homage to them was very fairly consistent with a reservation of the highest place for another; so that false worship in its early stages need not have been much more startling than belief in witchcraft, or in the paltry and unimaginative "spirits" which, in our own day, are reputed to play the banjo in a dark room, and to untie knots in a cabinet. Is it for us to deride them?
To oppose all such tendencies, the Lord appealed not to philosophy and sound reason. These are not the parents of monotheism: they are the fruit of it. And so is our modern science. Its fundamental principle is faith in the unity of nature, and in the extent to which the same laws which govern our little world reach through the vast universe. And that faith is directly traceable to the conviction that all the universe is the work of the same Hand.
"One God, one law, one element;"--the preaching of the first was sure to suggest the other two. Nor could any race which believed in a multitude of gods labour earnestly to reduce various phenomena to one cause. Monotheism is therefore the parent of correct thinking, and could not draw its sanctions thence. No: the law appeals to the historical experience of Israel; it is content to stand and fall by that; if they acknowledged the claim of God upon their loyalty, all the rest followed. Their own story made good this claim. And so does the whole story of the Church, and the whole inner life of every man who knows anything of himself, bear witness to the religion of Jesus.
Never let us weary of repeating that while we have ample controversial resource, while no missile can pierce the chain-armour of the Christian evidences, connected and interwoven into a great whole, and while the infidelity which is called scientific is really infidel only so far as it begs its case (which is an unscientific thing to do), nevertheless the strength of our position is experimental. If the experience which testifies to Jesus were historical alone, I might refuse to give it credit: if it were only personal, I might ascribe it to enthusiasm. But as long as a great cloud of living witnesses, and all the history of the Church, declare the reality of His salvation, while I myself feel the sufficiency of what He offers (or else the bitter need of it), so long the question is not between conflicting theories, but between theories and facts. To have another god is to place him beside One Whom we already have, and Who has wrought for us the great emancipation. It is not an error in theological science: it is ingratitude and treason.
But it very soon became evident that men could apostatise from God otherwise than in formal worship, chant and sacrifice and prostration: "This people honoureth me with their mouths, but their hearts are far from Me." God asks for love and trust, and our litanies should express and cultivate these. Whatever steals away these from the Lord is really His rival, and another god. "What is it to have a God? or what is God?" Luther asks. And he answers, "He is God, and is so called, from Whose goodness and power thou dost confidently promise all good things to thyself, and to Whom thou dost fly from all adverse affairs and pressing perils. So that to have a God is nothing else than to trust Him and believe in Him with all the heart, even as I have often alleged that the reliance of the heart constitutes alike one's God and one's idol.... In what thing soever thou hast thy mind's reliance and thine heart fixed, that is beyond doubt thy God" (Larger Catechism).
And again: "What sort of religion is this, to bow not the knees to riches and honour, but to offer them the noblest part of you, the heart and mind? It is to worship the true God outwardly and in the flesh, but the creature inwardly and in spirit" (X. Pr¾cepta Witt. Pr¾dicata).
It was on this ground that he included charms and spells among the sins against this commandment, because, though "they seem foolish rather than wicked, yet do they lead to this too grave result, that men learn to rely upon the creature in trifles, and so fail in great things to rely upon God" (Ibid.)
This view of false worship is frequent in Scripture itself. The Chaldeans were idolaters of an elaborate and imposing ritual, but their true deities were not to be found in temples. They adored what they really trusted upon, and that was their military prowess--the god of the modern commander, who said that Providence sided with the big battalions. The Chaldean is "he whose might is his god," whereas the sacred warrior has the Lord for his strength and shield and very present help in battle. Nay, regarding men "as the fishes of the sea," and his own vast armaments as the fisher's apparatus to sweep them away, the Chaldean, it is said, "sacrificeth unto his net, and burneth incense unto his drag; because by them his portion is fat and his meat plenteous" (Hab_1:11, Hab_1:14-16). Multitudes of humbler people practise a similar idolatry. They say to God "Give us this day our daily bread"; but they really ascribe their maintenance to their profession or their trade; and so this is the true object of their homage. They, too, burn incense to their drag.
Others had no thought of a higher blessedness than animal enjoyment. Their god was their belly. They set the excitement of wine in the place of the fulness of the Spirit, or preferred some depraved union upon earth to the honour of being one spirit with the Lord (Php_3:19; Eph_5:18; 1Co_6:16-17). And some tried to combine the world and righteousness; not to lose heaven while grasping wealth, and receiving here not only good things, but the only good things they acknowledged--their good things (Luk_16:25). As the Samaritans feared the Lord and served graven images, so these were fain to serve God and mammon (2Ki_17:41; Mat_6:24).
Now, these departures from the true Centre of all love and Source of all light were really a homage to His great rival, "the god of this world." Whenever men seek to obtain any prize by departing from God, they do reverence to him who falsely said of all the kingdoms of the earth, and their glory, "These things are delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I will I give them." They deny Him to Whom indeed all power is committed in heaven and earth.
What is the remedy, then, for all such formal or virtual apostasies? It is to "have" the true God--which means, not only to know and confess, but to be in real relationship with Him.
Despite His so-called self-sufficiency, man is not very self-sufficing, after all. The vast endowments of Julius C¾sar did not prevent him from chafing because, at the age when he was still obscure, Alexander had conquered the world. To be Julius C¾sar was not enough for him. Nor is any man able to stand alone. In the Old Testament Joshua said, "If it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve,"--implying that they must obey some one and will do better to choose a service than to drift into one (Jos_24:15). And in the New Testament Jesus declared that no man can serve two masters; but added that he would not break with both and go free, he was sure to love and cleave to one of them. Now, he only is proof against apostasy, who has realised the wants of the soul within him, and the powerlessness of all creatures to satisfy or save, and then, turning to the cross of Christ, has found his sufficiency in Him. "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of everlasting life." Marvellous it is to think that underneath the stern words "Thou shalt have none other," lies all the condescension of the privilege "Thou shalt have ... Me."
THE SECOND COMMANDMENT.
"Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, ... thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them."-- Exo_20:4-6.
How far does the second of these clauses modify the first? Men there are who maintain the severe independence of the former, so that it forbids the presence of any image or likeness in the house of God, even for innocent purposes of adornment. But the Decalogue is not a liturgical directory: what it forbids in church it forbids anywhere; and on this theory the statues in Parliament Square would be idolatrous, as well as those in Westminster Abbey. And such Christians are more Judaical than the Jews, who were taught to place in the very Holy of Holies golden cherubim overshadowing the mercy-seat, and to represent them again upon its curtains.
It is therefore plain that the precept never forbade imagery, but idolatry, which is the making of images to satisfy the craving of men's hearts for a sensuous worship--the making of them "unto thee." The second clause qualifies and elucidates the first. And what the commandment prohibits is any attempt to help our worship by representing the object of adoration to the senses.
The higher and more subtle idolatries do not conceive that wood or gold is actually transformed into their deities; but only that the deities are locally present in the images, which express their attributes--power in a hundred hands, beneficence in a hundred breasts. But in thus expressing, they degrade and cramp the conception.
They may perhaps evade the reproach of Isaiah that they warm themselves with a portion of timber, and roast meat with another portion, and make the remainder a god (Isa_44:15-17), by urging that the timber is not the god, but an abode which he chooses because it expresses his specific qualities. But they cannot evade the reproach of St. Paul, that being ourselves the offspring of God, we ought not to compare Him to the workmanship of our hands, graven with art and man's device (Act_17:29).
A truly spiritual worship is intellectually as well as morally the most elevating exercise of the soul, which it leads onward and upward, making of all that it knows and thinks a vestibule, beyond which lie higher knowledge and deeper feeling as yet unattained.
Why is Gothic architecture better adapted for religious buildings than any Grecian or Oriental style? Because its long aisles, vaulted roofs and pointed arches, leading the vision up to the unseen, tell of mystery, and draw the mind away beyond the visible and concrete to something greater which it hints; while rounded arches and definite proportions shut in at once the vision and the mind. The difference is the same as between poetry and logic.
And so it is with worship. We fetter and cramp our thoughts of deity when we bind them to even the loftiest conceptions which have ever been shut up in marble or upon canvas. The best image that ever took shape is inferior to the poorest spiritual conception of God, in this respect if in no other--that it has no expansiveness, it cannot grow. And in connecting our prayers with it, we virtually say, 'This satisfies my conception of God.'
It is not to be condemned merely as inadequate, for so are all our highest thoughts of deity; nor only because average humanity (which is supposed to stand most in need of the help and suggestion of art) will never learn the fine distinctions by which subtle intellects withhold from the image itself the worship which it evokes, and which goes out in its direction. It is still more mischievous because, even for the trained theologian, it is the petrifaction of what is meant to develop and expand, the solidification of the inadequate, the accepting of what is human as our idea of the divine.
Nor will it long continue to be merely inadequate. Experience proves that ideas, like air and water, cannot be confined without stagnating. Idolatries not only fail to develop, they degenerate; and systems, however orthodox they may appear at starting, which connect worship with palpable imagery, are doomed to sink into superstition.
To this precept there is added a startling and painful caution--"For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God." That a man should be jealous is no passport to our friendship: we think of unreasonable estrangements, exaggerated demands, implacable and cruel resentments. It would not enter the average mind to doubt that one is highly praised when another says of him, 'I never traced in his words or actions the slightest stain of jealousy.' And yet we are to think of God Himself as the jealous God.
Upon reflection, however, we must admit that a man is not condemned as jealous-minded because he is capable of jealousy, but because he has an unjust and unreasonable tendency towards it. It is a narrowing and suspicious quality when it operates without due cause, a vindictive and cruel one when it operates in excessive measure. But what should we think of a parent who felt no jealousy if the heart of his child were stolen from him by intriguing servants or by frivolous comrades? Now, God has called Israel His son, even His firstborn. The truth is that with us jealousy is dangerous and frequently perverted, because we are bad judges of the measure of our own rights, especially when our affections are involved. But some measure of jealousy is the necessary pain of love neglected, love wronged or slighted by those upon whom it has a claim. Jealousy is the shadow thrown where the sunshine of love is intercepted, and it is strong in proportion to the strength of the light. It operates in the heart exactly like the sense of justice in the reason. Justice expects a recompense where it has given service, and jealousy asks for love where it has given affection.
And therefore, when God tells us that He is jealous, He implies that He condescends to love us, to look for a return, to desire more from us than outward service. We cannot be jealous concerning things which are indifferent to us. Even the jealousy of rival competitors for business or for place may be measured by the desire of each for that which the other would engross. The politician is not jealous of the millionaire, nor the capitalist of the prime minister.
Now, if God is jealous when the enemies of our soul would steal away our loyalty, it surely follows that we shall not be left to contend with those enemies alone: He values us; He is upon our side; He will help us to overcome them.
And now we begin to see why this attribute is connected with the second commandment and not the first. The apostate who betakes himself to another god is almost beyond the reach of this tender and intimate emotion: he is still loved, for God loves all men; but yet perhaps the chord is unstrung which trembles responsive to this plaintive note.
When a man who confesses God begins to weary of spiritual intercourse with the Lord of spirits, when he can no longer worship One whose actual presence is realised because His voice is heard within, when the likeness of man or brute, or brightness of morning, or marvel of life or its reproductiveness, contents him as a representation of God the invisible, then his heart is beginning to go after the creature, to content itself with artistic loveliness or majesty, to let go the grasp as upon a living hand, by which alone the soul may be sustained when it stumbles, or guided when it would err.
To those who are within His covenant--to us, therefore, as to His ancient Israel--He says, "I the Lord thy God am a jealous God." Because I am "thy God."
The assertion of a Divine jealousy is but one difficulty of this remarkable verse. The Lord goes on to describe Himself as "visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me, and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love Me and keep My commandments." And is this reasonable? To punish the child, to be avenged upon the children's children, for sins which are not their own? We know how often the sceptic has made gain out of this representation--which is but his own unauthorised gloss, since in reality God has said nothing about punishing the righteous with the wicked. It is not true that all sad and disastrous consequences are penal; many are disciplinary, and even to the people of God some are surgical, cutting away what would lead to disease and death. Are no evil consequences probable, if men brought up amid scenes dishonouring to God were treated exactly like those who have since childhood felt as it were the hand of a Father upon their head? For themselves it is best and kindest that so deep a loss could come home to their consciousness in pain.
At all events, the assertion so early made in Scripture is confirmed in all the experience of the race. Insanity, idiocy, scrofula, consumption, are too often, though not always, the hereditary results of guilt. Sins of the flesh are visited upon the bodily system. Sins of the temper, such as pride, cynicism and frivolity, are felt in the mental structure of the race. And the sins which offend directly against God, do they bring no results with them? Ask of the investigators of the new science of heredity and transmitted peculiarities, whether it stops short of the highest and holiest parts of human nature. Or consider the ravages which victory and consequent wealth have made, again and again, in the character of whole nations.
There is no doctrine impugned in Scripture, which men have less prospect of shaking off, even if they close their Bibles for ever, than this. If it were not there, we should be perplexed at a want of conformity between the ways of God in nature and what is asserted of Him in His Book.
But it is either slander or blindness to represent this law, viewed in its entirety, as other than benevolent. The transmission of the result of evil is only a part of the vast law which has bound men together in nations and families, as partners and members with each other. It is clear that distinctive advantages cannot be bestowed upon the children of the good, as such, unless the same advantages be withheld from the evil race beside them. If the prizes of a university are won by knowledge, the result is that ignorance is "visited," in the withholding of them. And if, in the vaster university of life, health, affluence, good repute and a clear intellect are the transmitted results of virtue, then disease, poverty, neglect and incompetence become the dire bequest of the unrighteous.
There is no choice, therefore, except either to carry out this law, or else to bid every man in the world begin life, not as "the heir of all the ages," but absolutely destitute of all that has been acquired by his fellow-men.
Sometimes a hint is given us of what this would be. There is brought occasionally into civilised communities, from the depths of forests, a creature without language or decency or intellect, with low forehead and brutal appetites, who in his early childhood had wandered away and been lost,--brought up, men say, by the strange compassion of some lower creature, and now sunken well-nigh to its level. To this degradation we should all come, if it were not for the transmitted inheritance of our fathers. And so vast is the upward force of this grand law, that it is steadily though slowly upheaving the whole mass; and the lowest of today, visited for ancestral failings by sinking to the bottom, is higher than if he had been left absolutely alone.
This over-weight of good is clearly seen by comparing the clauses, for the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children to the third and fourth generation, but mercy is shown in them that love God upon a wholly different scale. Even "unto thousands" would enormously counterbalance three generations. But the Revised Version rightly suggests "a thousand generations" in the margin, and supports it by one of its very rare references. It is plainly stated in Deu_7:9, that He "keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love Him and keep His commandments unto a thousand generations."
Lastly, it is to be observed that in all this passage the gospel is shining through the law. It is not a question of just dealing, but of emotion. God is not a master exacting taskwork, but a Father, jealous if we refuse our hearts. He visits sin upon the posterity "of them that hate," not only of them that disobey Him. And when our hearts sink, we who are responsible for generations yet to be, as we reflect upon our frailty, our ignorance and our sins, upon the awful consequences which may result from one heedless act--nay, from a gesture or a look--He reminds us that He does not requite those who serve Him only with a measured wage, but shows "mercy" upon those who love Him unto a thousand generations.
THE THIRD COMMANDMENT.
"Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain."-- Exo_20:7.
What is the precise force of this prohibition? The word used is ambiguous: sometimes it must be rendered as here, as in the verses "Vain is the help of man," and "Except the Lord build the house, their labour is but vain that build it" (Psa_108:12, Psa_127:1). But sometimes it clearly means false, as in the texts "Thou shalt not raise a false report," and "swearing falsely in making a covenant" (Exo_23:1; Hos_10:4). Yet again, it hangs midway between the two ideas, as when we read of "lying vanities," and again, "trusting in vanity and speaking lies" (Psa_31:6; Isa_59:4).
In favour of the rendering "falsely" it is urged that our Lord quotes it as "said to them of old time 'Thou shalt not forswear thyself'" (Mat_5:33). But it is by no means clear that He quotes this text: the citation is closer to the phraseology of Lev_19:12, and it is found in a section of the Sermon which does not confine its citations to the Decalogue (cf. Mat_5:38).
The Authorised rendering seems the more natural when we remember that civic duty had not yet come upon the stage. When we have learned to honour only one God, and not to degrade nor materialise our conception of Him, the next step is to inculcate, not yet veracity toward men when God has been invoked, but reverence, in treating the sacred name.
We have already seen the miserable superstitions by which the Jews endeavoured to satisfy the letter while outraging the spirit of this precept. In modern times some have conceived that all invocation of the Divine Name is unlawful, although St. Paul called God for a witness upon his soul, and the strong angel shall yet swear "by Him Who liveth for ever and ever" (2Co_1:23; Rev_10:6).
As it is not a temple but a desert which no foot ever treads, so the sacred name is not honoured by being unspoken, but by being spoken aright.
Swearing is indeed forbidden, where it has actually disappeared, namely, in the mutual intercourse of Christian people, whose affirmation should suffice their brethren, while the need of stronger sanctions "cometh of evil," even of the consciousness of a tendency to untruthfulness, which requires the stronger barrier of an oath. But our Lord Himself, when adjured by the living God, responded to the solemn authority of that adjuration, although His death was the result.
The name of God is not taken in vain when men who are conscious of His nearness, and act with habitual reference to His will, mention Him more frequently and familiarly than formalists approve. It is abused when the insincere and hollow professor joins in the most solemn act of worship, honours Him with the lips while the heart is far from Him--nay, when one strives to curb Satan, and reclaim his fellow-sinner, by the use of good and holy phrases, in which his own belief is merely theoretical; and fares like the sons of Sceva, who repeated an orthodox adjuration, but fled away overpowered and wounded. Or if the truth unworthily spoken assert its inherent power, that will not justify the hollowness of his profession, and in vain will he plead at last, "Lord, Lord, have we not in Thy name cast out devils, and in Thy name done many marvellous acts?"
The only safe rule is to be sure that our conception of God is high and real and intimate; to be habitually humble and trustful in our attitude toward Him; and then to speak sincerely and frankly, as then we shall not fail to do. The words which rise naturally to the lips of men who think thus cannot fail to do Him honour, for out of the fulness of the heart the mouth speaketh.
And the prevalent notion that God should be mentioned seldom and with bated breath is rather an evidence of men's failure habitually to think of Him aright, than of filial and loving reverence. There is a large and powerful school of religion in our own day, whose disciples talk much more of their own emotions and their own souls than St. Paul did, and much less about God and Christ. Some day the proportions will be restored. In the great Church of the future men will not morbidly shrink from confessing their inner life, but neither will it be the centre of their contemplation and their discourse: they will be filled with the fulness of God; out of the abundance of their hearts their mouths will speak; His name shall be continually in their mouth, and yet they shall not take the name of the Lord their God in vain.
THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT.
Exo_20:8-11.
It cannot be denied that the commandment to honour the Sabbath day occupies a unique place among the ten. It is, at least apparently, a formal precept embedded in the heart of a moral code, and good men have thought very differently indeed about its obligation upon the Christian Church.
The great Continental reformers, Lutheran and Calvinistic alike, who subscribed the Confession of Augsburg, there affirmed that "Scripture hath abolished the Sabbath by teaching that all Mosaic ceremonies may be omitted since the gospel has been revealed" (II. vii. 28). The Scotch reformers, on the other hand, declared that God "in His Word, by a positive moral and perpetual commandment, binding all men in all ages, hath particularly appointed one day in seven for a Sabbath, to be kept holy unto Him" (Westminster Confess., XXI. vii.). They are even so bold as to declare that this day "from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ was the last day of the week, and from the resurrection of Christ was changed into the first day of the week"; but this proposition would be as hard to prove as the contrary assertion, still maintained by some obscure religionists, that the change of day, for however sufficient and sublime a reason, was beyond the capacity of the Church of Christ to enact.
Amid these conflicting opinions the doctrinal formularies of the Church of England are characteristically guarded and prudent; but her worshippers are bidden to seek mercy from the Lord for past violations of this law, and an inclination of heart to keep it in the future; and when the Ten have been recited, they pray that "all these Thy laws" may be written upon their hearts. There is no doubt, therefore, about the opinion of our own Reformers concerning the divine obligation of the commandment.
In examining the problem thus presented to us, our chief light must be that of Scripture itself. Is the Sabbath what the Lutheran confession called it, a mere "Mosaic ceremony," or does it rest upon sanctions which began earlier and lasted longer than the precept to abstain from shell-fish, or to sanctify the firstborn of cattle?
Does its presence in the Decalogue disfigure that great code, as the intrusion of these other precepts would do? When we find a Gentile church reminded that the next precept to this "is the first commandment with promise" (Eph_6:2), can we suppose that the tables to which St. Paul appealed, and the promise which he cited at full length, were both cancelled; that in so far as a moral element existed in them, that portion of course survived their repeal, but the code itself was gone? If so, the temporal promise went with it, and its quotation by St. Paul is strange. Strange also, upon this supposition, was the stress which he habitually laid upon the law as a convicting power, and as being only repealed in the letter so far as it was fulfilled by the spontaneous instinct of love, which was the fulfilling of the law.
The position of the commandment among a number of moral and universal duties cannot but weigh heavily in its favour. It prompts us to ask whether our duty to God is purely negative, to be fulfilled by a policy of non-intervention, not worshipping idols, nor blaspheming. Something more was already intimated in the promise of mercy to them "that love Me." For love is chiefly the source of active obedience: while fear is satisfied by the absence of provocation, love wants not only to abstain from evil but to do good. And how may it satisfy this instinct when its object is the eternal God, Who, if He were hungry, would not tell us? It finds the necessary outlet in worship, in adoring communion, in the exclusion for awhile of worldly cares, in the devotion of time and thought to Him. Now, the foundation upon which all the institutions of religion may be securely built, is the day of rest. Call it external, formal, unspiritual if you will; say that it is a carnal ordinance, and that he who keeps it in spirit is free from the obligation of the letter. But then, what about the eighth commandment? Are we absolved also from the precept "Thou shalt not steal," because it too is concerned with external actions, because "this ... thou shalt not steal ... and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this one saying, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself"? Do we say, the spirit has abolished the letter: love is the rescinding of the law? St. Paul said the very opposite: love is the fulfilling of the law, not its destruction; and thus he re-echoed the words of Jesus, "I am not come to destroy the law, but to fulfil."
All men know that the formal regulations which defend property are relaxed as the ties of love and mutual understanding are made strong; that to enter unannounced is not a trespass, that the same action which will be prosecuted as a theft by a stranger, and resented as a liberty by an acquaintance, is welcomed as a graceful freedom, almost as an endearment, by a friend. And yet the commandment and the rights of property hold good: they are not compromised, but glorified, by being spiritualised. As it is between man and his brother, so should it be between us and our Divine Father. We have learned to know Him very differently from those who shuddered under Sinai: the whole law is not now written upon tables of stone, but upon fleshly tables of the heart. But among the precepts which are thus etherialised and yet established, why should not the fourth commandment retain its place? Why should it be supposed that it must vanish from the Decalogue, unless the gathering of sticks deserves stoning? The institution, and the ceremonial application of it to Jewish life, are entirely different things; just as respect for property is a fixed obligation, while the laws of succession vary.
Bearing this distinction in mind, we come to the question, Was the Sabbath an ordinance born of Mosaism, or not? Grant that the word "Remember," if it stood alone, might conceivably express the emphasis of a new precept, and not the recapitulation of an existing one. Grant also that the mention in Genesis of the Divine rest might be made by anticipation, to be read with an eye to the institution which would be mentioned later. But what is to be made of the fact that on the seventh day manna was withheld from the camp, before they had arrived at Horeb, and therefore before the commandment had been written by the finger of God upon the stone? Was this also done by anticipation? Upon any supposition, it aimed at teaching the nation that the obligation of the day was not based upon the positive precept, but the precept embodied an older and more fundamental obligation.
How is the Sabbath spoken of in those prophecies which set least value upon the merely ceremonial law?
Isaiah speaks of mere ritual as slightly as St. Paul. To fast and afflict one's soul is nothing, if in the day of fasting one smites with the fist and oppresses his labourers. To loose the bonds of wickedness, to free the oppressed, to share one's bread with the hungry, this is the fast which God has chosen, and for him who fasts after this fashion the light shall break forth like sunrise, and his bones shall be strong, and he himself like an unfailing water-spring. Now, it is the same chapter which thus waives aside mere ceremonial in contempt, which lavishes the most ample promises on him who turns away his foot from the Sabbath, and calls the Sabbath a delight, and the holy of the Lord, honourable, and honours it (Isa_58:5-11, Isa_58:13-14).
There is no such promise in Jeremiah, for the observance of any merely ceremonial law, as that which bids the people to honour the Sabbath day, that there may enter into their gates kings and princes riding in chariots and upon horses, and that the city may remain for ever (Jer_17:24-25).
And Ezekiel declares that in the day when God made Himself known to His people in the land of Egypt, He gave them statutes and judgments and His sabbaths (Eze_20:11-12). Now, this phrase is a clear allusion to the word of God in Jeremiah, that "I spake not unto their fathers in the day when I brought them out of Egypt, concerning burnt-offerings or sacrifices, but this thing I commanded them, saying, Hearken unto My voice," etc. (Jer_7:23). And it sharply contrasts the sacredness of God's abiding ordinances with the temporary institutions of the sanctuary. But it reckons the Sabbath among the former.
It is objected that our Lord Himself treated the Sabbath lightly, as a worn-out ordinance. But He was "a minister of the circumcision," and always discussed the lawfulness of His Sabbath miracles as a Jew with Jews. Thus He argued that men, admittedly under the law, baked the shewbread, circumcised children, and even rescued cattle from jeopardy upon the seventh day. He appealed to the example of David, who met a sufficiently urgent necessity by eating the consecrated bread, "which was not lawful for him to eat" (Mat_12:4).
He did not hint that the law of the sabbath had disappeared, but insisted that it was meant to serve man and not to oppress him: that "the sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath" (Mar_2:27).
Now, there is not in the life of Christ an assertion, so broad and strong as that the Sabbath was made for the human race, which can be narrowed down to a discussion of any merely local and temporary institution. He Who stood highest, and saw the widest horizons, declared that the Sabbath was intended for humanity, and not for a section or a sect of it. Not because He was the King of the Jews, but because He was the Son of Man, the ripe fruit and the leader of the world-wide race which it was given to bless, therefore He was also its Lord.
And in Him, so are we. Like all things present and things to come, it is our help, we are not its slaves.
There is something abject in the notion of a Christian freeman, who has been for a long week imprisoned in some gloomy and ill-ventilated workshop, whose lungs would be purified, and therefore his spirits uplifted, and therefore his reason and his affections invigorated, and therefore his worship rendered more fresh, warm and reasonable, by the breathing of a purer air, yet whose conception of a day of rest is so slavish that he dares not "rest" from the pollution of an infected atmosphere, and from the closeness of a London court, because he conceives it imperative to "rest" only from that bodily exercise, to enjoy which would be to him the most real and the most delightful repose of all.
But there are other things more abject still; and one of them is the miserable insincerity of the affluent and luxurious, using the exceptional case of him whose week-days are thus oppressed, to excuse their own wanton neglect of religious ordinances, accepting at the hands of Christianity the sacred holiday, but ignoring utterly the fact that the Lord sanctified and hallowed it, that it is to be called the holy of the Lord, and to be honoured, and that we are free from the letter of the precept only in so far as we rise to the spirit of it, in loving and true communion with the Father of spirits.
Another utterance of Jesus throws a strong light upon the nature and the limits of our obligation. "My Father worketh even until now, and I work" (Joh_5:17) is an appeal to the fact that in the long sabbath of God His world is not deserted; creation may be suspended, but the bounties of Providence go on; and therefore Christ also felt that His day of rest was not one of torpor, that in healing the impotent man upon the Sabbath He was but following the example of Him by whose rest the day was sanctified. All works of beneficent love, all that ministers to human recovery from anguish, and carries out the Divine purposes of grace for body or soul, rescue from danger, healing of disease, reformation of guilt, are sanctioned by this defence of Christ.
They need not plead that the commandment is abrogated, but that Jesus of Nazareth, of the seed of David, found nothing in such liberties inconsistent with the duties of a devout Hebrew.
THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT.
"Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee."-- Exo_20:12.
This commandment forms a kind of bridge between the first table and the second. Obedience to parents is not merely a neighbourly virtue; we do not honour them simply as our fellow-men: they are the vicegerents of God to our childhood; through them He supplies our necessities, defends our feebleness, and pours in light and wisdom upon our ignorance; by them our earliest knowledge of right and wrong is imparted, and upon the sanction of their voice it long depends.
It is clear that parental authority cannot be undermined, nor filial disobedience and irreverence gain ground, without shaking the foundations of our religious life, even more perhaps than of our social conduct.
Accordingly this commandment stands before the sixth, not because murder is a less offence against society, but because it is more emphatically against our neighbour, and less directly against God.
The human infant is dependent and helpless for a longer period, and more utterly, than the young of any other animal. Its growth, which is to reach so much higher, is slower, and it is feebler during the process. And the reason of this is plain to every thoughtful observer. God has willed that the race of man should be bound together in the closest relationships, both spiritual and secular; and family affection prepares the heart for membership alike of the nation and the Church. With this inner circle the wider ones are concentric. The pathetic dependence of the child nourishes equally the strong love which protects, and the grateful love which clings. And from our early knowledge of human generosity, human care and goodness, there is born the capacity for belief in the heart of the great Father, from Whom every family in heaven and earth derived its Greek name of Fatherhood (Eph_3:15).
Woe to the father whose cruelty, selfishness, or evil passions make it hard for his child to understand the Archetype, because the type is spoiled! or whose tyranny and self-will suggest rather the stern God of reprobation, or of servile, slavish subjection, than the tender Father of freeborn sons, who are no more under tutors and governors, but are called unto freedom.
But how much sorer woe to the son who dishonours his earthly parent, and in so doing slays within himself the very principle of obedience to the Father of spirits!
No earthly tie is perfect, and therefore no earthly obedience can be absolute. Some crisis comes in every life when the most innocent and praiseworthy affection becomes a snare--when the counsel we most relied upon would fain mislead our conscience--when a man, to be Christ's disciple, must "hate father and mother," as Christ Himself heard the temptation of the evil one speaking through chosen and beloved lips, and said "Get thee behind Me, Satan." Even then we shall respect them, and pray as Christ prayed for His failing apostle, and when the storm has spent itself they shall resume their due place in the loving heart of their Christian offspring.
So Jesus, when Mary would interrupt His teaching, said "Who is My mother?" But imminent death could not prevent Him from pitying her sorrow, and committing her to His beloved disciple as to a son.
From the letter of this commandment streams out a loving influence to sanctify all the rest of our relationships. As the love of God implies that of our brother also, so does the honour of parents involve the recognition of all our domestic ties.
And even unassisted nature will tend to make long the days of the loving and obedient child; for life and health depend far less upon affluence and luxury than upon a well-regulated disposition, a loving heart, a temper which can obey without chafing, and a conscience which respects law. All these are being learned in disciplined and dutiful households, which are therefore the nurseries of happy and righteous children, and so of long-lived families in the next generation also. Exceptions there must be. But the rule is clear, that violent and curbless lives will spend themselves faster than the lives of the gentle, the loving, the law-abiding and the innocent.
THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT.
"Thou shalt do no murder."-- Exo_20:13.
We have now clearly passed to the consideration of man's duty to his fellow-man, as a part of his duty to his Maker. It is no longer as holding a divinely appointed relation to us, but simply as he is a man, that we are bidden to respect his person, his family, his property, and his fair fame.
And the influence of the teaching of our Lord is felt in the very name which we all give to the second table of the law. We call it "our duty to our neighbour." But we do not mean to imply that there lives on the surface of the globe one whom we are free to assault or to pillage. The obligation is universal, and the name we give it echoes the teaching of Him who said that no man can enter the sphere of our possible influence, even as a wounded creature in a swoon whom we may help, but he should thereupon become our neighbour. Or rather, we should become his; for while the question asked of Him was "Who is my neighbour?" (whom should I love?) Jesus reversed the problem when He asked in turn not To whom was the wounded man a neighbour? but Who was a neighbour unto him? (who loved him?)
Social ethics, then, have a religious sanction. It is the constant duty and effort of the Church of God to saturate the whole life of man, all his conduct and his thought, with a sense of sacredness; and as the world is for ever desecrating what is holy, so is religion for ever consecrating what is secular.
In these latter days men have thought it a proof of grace to separate religion from daily life. The Antinomian, who maintains that his orthodox beliefs or feelings absolve him from the obligations of morality, joins hands with the Italian brigand who hopes to be forgiven for cutting throats because he subsidises a priest. The enthusiast who insists that all sins, past and future, were forgiven him when he believed, approaches far nearer than he supposes to the fanatic of another creed, who thinks a formal confession and an external absolution sufficient to wash away sin. All of them hold the grand heresy that one may escape the penalties without being freed from the power of evil; that a life may be saved by grace without being penetrated by religion, and that it is not exactly accurate to say that Jesus saves His people from their sins.
It is scarcely wonderful, when some men thus refuse to morality the sanctions of religion, that others propose to teach morality how she may go without them. In spite of the experience of ages, which proves that human passions are only too ready to defy at once the penalties of both worlds, it is imagined that the microscope and the scalpel may supersede the Gospel as teachers of virtue; that the self-interest of a creature doomed to perish in a few years may prove more effectual to restrain than eternal hopes and fears; and that a scientific prudence may supply the place of holiness. It has never been so in the past. Not only Jud¾a, but Egypt, Greece, and Rome, were strong as long as they were righteous, and righteous as long as their morality was bound up in their religion. When they ceased to worship they ceased to be self-controlled, nor could the most urgent and manifest self-interest, nor all the resources of lofty philosophy, withhold them from the ruin which always accompanies or follows vice.
Is it certain that modern science will fare any better? So far from deepening our respect for human nature and for law, she is discovering vile origins for our most sacred institutions and our deepest instincts, and whispering strange means by which crime may work without detection and vice without penalty. Never was there a time when educated thought was more suggestive of contempt for one's self and for one's fellow-man, and of a prudent, sturdy, remorseless pursuit of self-interest, which may be very far indeed from virtuous. The next generation will eat the fruit of this teaching, as we reap what our fathers sowed. The theorist may be as pure as Epicurus. But the disciples will be as the Epicureans.
Is there anything in the modern conception of a man which bids me spare him, if his existence dooms me to poverty and I can quietly push him over a precipice? It is quite conceivable that I can prove, and very likely indeed that I can persuade myself, that the shortening of the life of one hard and grasping man may brighten the lives of hundreds. And my passions will simply laugh at the attempt to restrain me by arguing that great advantages result from the respect for human life upon the whole. Appetites, greeds, resentments do not regard their objects in this broad and colourless way; they grant the general proposition, but add that every rule has its exceptions. Something more is needed: something which can never be obtained except from a universal law, from the sanctity of all human lives as bearing eternal issues in their bosom, and from the certainty that He who gave the mandate will enforce it.
It is when we see in our fellow-man a divine creature of the Divine, made by God in His own image, marred and defaced by sin, but not beyond recovery, when his actions are regarded as wrought in the sight of a Judge Whose presence supersedes utterly the slightness, heat and inadequacy of our judgment and our vengeance, when his pure affections tell us of the love of God which passeth knowledge, when his errors affright us as dire and melancholy apostacies from a mighty calling, and when his death is solemn as the unveiling of unknown and unending destinies, then it is that we discern the sacredness of life, and the awful presumption of the deed which quenches it. It is when we realise that he is our brother, holding his place in the universe by the same tenure by which we hold our own, and dear to the same Father, that we understand how stern is the duty of repressing the first resentful movements within our breast which would even wish to crush him, because they are a rebellion against the Divine ordinance and against the Divine benevolence.
Is it asked, how can all this be reconciled with the lawfulness of capital punishment? The death penalty is frequent in the Mosaic code. But Scripture regards the judge as the minister and agent of God. The stern monotheism of the Old Testament "said, Ye are Gods," to those who thus pronounced the behest of Heaven; and private vengeance becomes only more culpable when we reflect upon the high sanction and authority by which alone public justice presumes to act.
Now, all these considerations vanish together, when religion ceases to consecrate morality. The judgment of law differs from my own merely as I like it better, and as I am a party (perhaps unwillingly) to the general consent which creates it; he whom I would assail is doomed in any case to speedy and complete extinction; his longer life is possibly burdensome to himself and to society; and there exists no higher Being to resent my interference, or to measure out the existence which I think too protracted. It is clear that such a view of human life must prove fatal to its sacredness; and that its results would make themselves increasingly felt, as the awe wore away which old associations now inspire.
THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT.
"Thou shalt not commit adultery."-- Exo_20:14.
This commandment follows very obviously from even the rudest principle of justice to our neighbour. It is among those that St. Paul enumerates as "briefly comprehended in this saying, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."
And therefore nothing need here be said about the open sin by which one man wrongs another. Wild and evil theories may be abroad, new schemes of social order may be recklessly invented and discussed; yet, when the institution of the permanent family is assailed, every thoughtful man knows full well that all our interests are at stake in its defence, and the nation could no more survive its overthrow than the Church.
But when our Lord declared that to excite desire through the eyes is actually this sin, already ripe, He appealed to some deeper and more spiritual consideration than that of social order. What He pointed to is the sacredness of the human body--so holy a thing that impurity, and even the silent excitement of passion, is a wrong done to our nature, and a dishonour to the temple of the Holy Ghost.
Now, this is a subject upon which it is all the more necessary to write, because it is hard to speak about.
What is the human body, in the view of the Christian? It is the one bond, as far as we know in all the universe, between the material and the spiritual worlds, one of which slopes thence down to inert molecules, and the other upward to the throne of God.
Our brain is the engine-room and laboratory whereby thought, aspiration, worship express themselves and become potent, and even communicate themselves to others.
But it is a solemn truth that the body not only interprets passively, but also influences and modifies the higher nature. The mind is helped by proper diet and exercise, and hindered by impure air and by excess or lack of food. The influence of music upon the soul has been observed at least since the time of Saul. And hereafter the Christian body, redeemed from the contagion of the fall, and promoted to a spiritual impressibility and receptiveness which it has never yet known, is meant to share in the heavenly joys of the immortal spirit before God. This is the meaning of the assertion that it is sown a natural (soulish) body, but shall be raised a spiritual body. In the meantime it must learn its true function. Whatever stimulates and excites the animal at the cost of the immortal within, will in the same degree cloud and obscure the perception that a man's life consisteth not in his pleasures, and will keep up the illusion that the senses are the true ministers of bliss. The soul is attacked through the appetites at a point far short of their physical indulgence. And when lawless wishes are deliberately toyed with, it is clear that lawless acts are not hated, but only avoided through fear of consequences. The reins which govern the life are no longer in the hands of the spirit, nor is it the will which now refuses to sin. How, then, can the soul be alert and pure? It is drugged and stupified: the offices of religion are a dull form, and its truths are hollow unrealities, assented to but unfelt, because unholy impulses have set on fire the course of nature, in what should have been the temple of the Holy Ghost.
Moreover, the Christian life is not one of mere submission to authority; its true law is that of ceaseless upward aspiration. And since the union of husband and wife is consecrated to be the truest and deepest and most far-reaching of all types of the mystical union between Christ and His Church, it demands an ever closer approach to that perfect ideal of mutual love and service.
And whatever impairs the sacred, mysterious, all-pervading unity of a perfect wedlock is either the greatest of misfortunes or of crimes.
If it be frailty of temper, failure of common sympathies, an irretrievable error recognised too late, it is a calamity which may yet strengthen the character by evoking such pity and helpfulness as Christ the Bridegroom showed for the Church when lost. But if estrangement, even of heart, come through the secret indulgence of lawless reverie and desire, it is treason, and criminal although the traitor has not struck a blow, but only whispered sedition under his breath in a darkened room.
THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT.
"Thou shalt not steal."-- Exo_20:15.
There is no commandment against which human ingenuity has brought more evasions to bear than this. Property itself is theft, says the communist. "It is no grave sin," says the Roman text-book, "to steal in moderation"; and this is defined to be, "from a pauper less than a franc, from a daily labourer less than two or three, from a person in comfortable circumstances anything under four or five francs, or from a very rich man ten or twelve francs. And a servant whom force or necessity compels to accept an unjust payment, may secretly compensate himself, because the workman is worthy of his hire."[37] A moment's reflection discovers this to be the most naked rationalism, choosing some of the commandments of God for honour, and some for contempt as "not very grave" and wholly ignoring the principle that whoever attacks the code at any one point "is guilty of all," because he has despised it as a code, as an organic system.
Nothing is easier than to confuse one's conscience about the ethics of property. For the arrangements of various nations differ: it is a geographical line which defines the right of the elder son against his brothers, of sons against daughters, and of children against a wife; and the demand is still more capricious which the state asserts against them all, under the name of succession duty, and which it makes upon other property in the form of a multitude of imposts and taxes. Can all these different arrangements be alike binding? Add to this variability the immense national revenues, which are apparently so little affected by individual contributions, and it is no wonder if men fail to see that honesty to the public is a duty as immutable and stern as any other duty to their neighbour. Unfortunately the evil spreads. The same considerations which make it seem pardonable to rob the nation apply also to the millionaire; and they tempt many a poor man to ask whether he need respect the wealth of a usurer, or may not adjust the scales of Mine and Thine, which law causes to hang unfairly.
It is forgotten that a nation has at least the same authority as a club to regulate its own affairs, to fix the relative position and the subscription of its members. Common honesty teaches me that I must conform to these rules or leave the club; and this duty is not at all affected by the fact that other associations have different rules. In three such societies God Himself has placed us all--the family, the Church, and the nation; and therefore I am directly responsible to God for due respect to their laws. It is not true that the statute-book is inspired, any more than that the regulations of a household are divinely given. Yet a Divine sanction, such as rests upon the parental rule of fallible human creatures, hallows also national law. I may advocate a change in laws of which I disapprove, but I am bound in the meantime to obey the conditions upon which I receive protection from foreign foes and domestic fraud, and which cannot be subjected to the judgment of every individual, except at the cost of a dissolution of society, and a state of anarchy compared with which the worst of laws would be desirable.
This revolt of the individual is especially tempting when selfishness deems itself wronged, as by the laws of property. And the eighth commandment is necessary to protect society not merely against the violence of the burglar and the craft of the impostor, but also against the deceitfulness of our own hearts, asking What harm is in the evasion of an impost? What right has a successful speculator to his millions? Why should I not do justice to myself when law refuses it?
There is always the simple answer, Who made me a judge in my own case?
But when we regard the matter thus, it becomes clear that honesty is not mere abstinence from pillage. The community has larger claims than this upon us, and is wronged if we fail to discharge them.
The rich man robs the poor if he does not play his part in the great organisation by which he is served so well: every one robs the community who takes its benefits and returns none; and in this sense the bold saying is true, that every man lives by one of two methods--by labour or by theft.
St. Paul does not exhort men to refrain from theft merely in order to be harmless, but to do good. That is the alternative contemplated when he says, "Let the thief steal no more, but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing that is good, that he may have whereof to give to him that hath need" (Eph_4:28).
THE NINTH COMMANDMENT.
"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour."-- Exo_20:16.
St. James called the tongue a world of iniquity. And against its lawlessness, which inflames the whole course of nature, each table of the law contains a warning. For it is equally ready to profane the name of God, and to rob our neighbour of his fair fame.
Jesus Christ regarded verbal professions as a very poor thing, and asked, "Why call ye Me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I command you?" He aimed a parable at the hollowness of merely saying, "I go, sir." But, worthless though such phrases be, the act which substitutes professions for actual service is no trifle; and our Lord felt the importance of words, empty or sincere, so profoundly as to stake upon this one test the eternal destinies of His people: "By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." Now, the tongue is thus important because it is so prompt and willing a servant of the mind within. We scarcely think of it as a servant at all: our words do not seem to be more than "expressions," manifestations of what is within us.
But a thought, once expressed, is transformed and energetic as a bullet when the charge is fired; it modifies other minds, and the word which we took to be far less potent than a deed becomes the mover of the fateful deeds of many men. And thus, being at once powerful and unsuspected, it is the most treacherous and subtle of all the forces which we wield.
And the ninth commandment does not undertake to bridle it by merely forbidding us in a court of justice to wrong our fellow-man by perjury.
We transgress it whenever we conceive a strong suspicion and repeat it as a thing we know; when we allow the temptation of a biting epigram to betray us into an unkind expression not quite warranted by the facts; when we vindicate ourselves against a charge by throwing blame where it probably but not certainly ought to lie; or when we are not content to vindicate ourselves without bringing a countercharge which it would perplex us to be asked to prove; when we give way to that most shallow and meanest of all attempts at cleverness which claims credit for penetration because it can discover base motives for innocent actions, so that high-mindedness becomes pride, and charity withers up into love of patronising, and forbearance shrivels into lack of spirit. The pattern and ideal of such cleverness is the east wind, which makes all that is fair and sensitive to shut itself up, forbids the bud to expand into a blossom, and puts back the coming of the springtime and of the singing bird.
There are very gifted persons who have never found out that a kindly and winning phrase may have as much literary merit as a stinging one, and it is quite as fine a thing to be like the dew on Hermon on as to shoot out arrows, even bitter words.
It is a pity that our harsh judgments always speak more loudly and confidently than our kindly ones, but the reason is plain: angry passion prompts the former, and its voice is loud; while the calm reflection which tones down and sweetens the judgment softens also the expression of it.
It has to be remembered, also, that false witness can reach to nations, organisations, political movements as well as individuals. The habit of putting the worst construction upon the intentions of foreign powers is what feeds the mutual jealousies that ultimately blaze out in war. The habit of thinking of rival politicians as deliberately false and treasonable is what lowers the standard of the noblest of secular pursuits, until each party, not to be undone, protests too much, raises its voice to a falsetto to scream its rival down, and relaxes its standard of righteousness lest it should be outdone by the unscrupulousness of its rival.
And there is yet another neighbour, against whom false witness is woefully rife, both in the Church and in society. That neighbour is mankind at large. There is a prevalent theory of human sinfulness which unconsciously scoffs at the appeals of the gospel, striving indeed to influence me by love, gratitude, admiration for the Perfect One, and desire to be like Him, by the hope of holiness and the shame of vileness, but telling me at the same time that I have no sympathies whatever except with evil. The observation of every day shows that man's nature is corrupt, but it also shows that he is not a fiend--that he has fallen indeed, but remembers yet in what image he was made. But the world cannot upbraid the Church for these exaggerations, since they are but the echo of its own.
"I do believe, Though I have found them not, that there may be
Words which are things, hopes which will not deceive,
And virtues which are merciful, nor weave
Snares for the failing; I would also deem
O'er others' griefs that some sincerely grieve;
That two, or one, are almost what they seem,
That goodness is no name, and happiness no dream."
Childe Harold, III., cxiv.
Cynicism is false witness; and if it does not greatly wrong any one of our fellow-men, it injures both society and the cynic. If he is of a coarse fibre, it excuses him to himself in becoming the hard and unloving creature which he fancies that all men are. If he is too proud or too self-respecting to yield to this temptation, it isolates him, it chills and withers his sympathies for people quite as good as himself, whom he thinks of as the herd.
As for the more flagrant sins, so for this, the remedy is love. Love sympathises, makes allowance for frailty, discovers the germs of good, hopeth all things, taketh not account of evil.
THE TENTH COMMANDMENT.
"Thou shalt not covet ... anything that is his."-- Exo_20:17.
It will be remembered that the order of the catalogue of objects of desire is different in Exodus and in Deuteronomy. In the latter "thy neighbour's wife" is first, as of supreme importance; and therefore it has been thought possible to convert it into a separate commandment.
But this the order in Exodus forbids, by placing the house first, and then the various living possessions which the householder gathers around him. What is thought of is the gradual process of acquisition, and the right of him who wins first a house, then a wife, servants, and cattle, to be secure in the possession of them all. Now, between foes, we saw that the evil temper is what leads to the evil deed, and the man who nurses hatred is a murderer at heart. Just so the householder is not rendered safe, and certainly not happy in the enjoyment of his rights, by the seventh commandment and the eighth, unless care be taken to prevent the accumulation of those forces which will some day break through them both. To secure cities against explosion, we forbid the storage of gunpowder and dynamite, and not only the firing of magazines.
But the moral law is not given to any man for his neighbour's sake chiefly. It is for me: statutes whereby I myself may live. And as the Psalmist pondered on them, they expanded strangely for his perception. "I have kept Thy testimonies," he says; but presently asks to be quickened,--"So shall I observe the testimony of Thy mouth,"--and prays, "Give me understanding, that I may know Thy testimonies." And at the last, he confesses that he has "gone astray like a lost sheep" (Psa_119:22, Psa_119:88, Psa_119:125, Psa_119:176). Starting with a literal innocence, he comes to feel a deep inward need, need of vitality to obey, and even of power to understand aright. If the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, it follows that they are a spirit, and inward loyalty is the necessary condition upon which external obedience can be accepted. The cheers of a traitor, the flattery of one who scorns, the ritual of a hypocrite, these are quite as valuable, as indications of what is within, as a reluctant relinquishment to my neighbour of what is his. I must not covet. Plainly this is the sharpest and most searching precept of all; and accordingly St. Paul asserts that without this he would not have suffered the deep internal discontent, the consciousness of something wrong, which tortured him, even although no mortal could reproach him, even though, touching the righteousness of the law, he was blameless. He had not known coveting, except the law had said "Thou shalt not covet."
Here, then, we perceive with the utmost clearness what St. Paul so clearly discerned--the true meaning of the Law, its convicting power, its design to work not righteousness, but self-despair as the prelude of self-surrender. For who can, by resolving, govern his desires? Who can abstain not only from the usurping deed, but from the aggressive emotion? Who will not despair when he learns that God desireth truth in the inward parts? But this despair is the way to that better hope which adds, "In the hidden part Thou shalt make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean."
And as a strong interest or affection has power to destroy in the soul many weaker ones, so the love of God and our neighbour is the appointed way to overcome the desire of taking from our neighbour what God has given to him, refusing it to us.
THE LESSER LAW.
Exo_20:18 - Exo_23:33.
With the close of the Decalogue and its universal obligations, we approach a brief code of laws, purely Hebrew, but of the deepest moral interest, confessed by hostile criticism to bear every mark of a remote antiquity, and distinctly severed from what precedes and follows by a marked difference in the circumstances.
This is evidently the book of the Covenant to which the nation gave its formal assent (Exo_24:7), and is therefore the germ and the centre of the system afterwards so much expanded.
And since the adhesion of the people was required, and the final covenant was ratified as soon as it was given, before any of the more formal details were elaborated, and before the tabernacle and the priesthood were established, it may fairly claim the highest and most unique position among the component parts of the Pentateuch, excepting only the Ten Commandments.
Before examining it in detail, the impressive circumstances of its utterance have to be observed.
It is written that when the law was given, the voice of the trumpet waxed louder and louder still. And as the multitude became aware that in this tempestuous and growing crash there was a living centre, and a voice of intelligible words, their awe became insufferable: and instead of needing the barriers which excluded them from the mountain, they recoiled from their appointed place, trembling and standing afar off. "And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us and we will hear, but let not God speak with us lest we die." It is the same instinct that we have already so often recognised, the dread of holiness in the hearts of the impure, the sense of unworthiness, which makes a prophet cry, "Woe is me, for I am undone!" and an apostle, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man."
Now, the New Testament quotes a confession of Moses himself, well-nigh overwhelmed, "I do exceedingly fear and quake" (Heb_12:21). And yet we read that he "said unto the people, Fear not, for God is come to prove you, and that His fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not" (Exo_20:20). Thus we have the double paradox,--that he exceedingly feared, yet bade them fear not, and yet again declared that the very object of God was that they might fear Him.
Like every paradox, which is not a mere contradiction, this is instructive.
There is an abject fear, the dread of cowards and of the guilty, which masters and destroys the will--the fear which shrank away from the mount and cried out to Moses for relief. Such fear has torment, and none ought to admit it who understands that God wishes him well and is merciful.
There is also a natural agitation, at times inevitable though not unconquerable, and often strongest in the highest natures because they are the most finely strung. We are sometimes taught that there is sin in that instinctive recoil from death, and from whatever brings it close, which indeed is implanted by God to prevent foolhardiness, and to preserve the race. Our duty, however, does not require the absence of sensitive nerves, but only their subjugation and control. Marshal Saxe was truly brave when he looked at his own trembling frame, as the cannon opened fire, and said, "Aha! tremblest thou? thou wouldest tremble much more if thou knewest whither I mean to carry thee today." Despite his fever-shaken nerves, he was perfectly entitled to say to any waverer, "Fear not."
And so Moses, while he himself quaked, was entitled to encourage his people, because he could encourage them, because he saw and announced the kindly meaning of that tremendous scene, because he dared presently to draw near unto the thick darkness where God was.
And therefore the day would come when, with his noble heart aflame for a yet more splendid vision, he would cry, "O Lord, I beseech Thee show me Thy glory"--some purer and clearer irradiation, which would neither baffle the moral sense, nor conceal itself in cloud.
Meanwhile, there was a fear which should endure, and which God desires: not panic, but awe; not the terror which stood afar off, but the reverence which dares not to transgress. "Fear not, for God is come to prove you" (to see whether the nobler emotion or the baser will survive), "and that His fear may be before your faces" (so as to guide you, instead of pressing upon you to crush), "that ye sin not."
How needful was the lesson, may be seen by what followed when they were taken at their word, and the pressure of physical dread was lifted off them. "They soon forgat God their Saviour ... they made a calf in Horeb, and worshipped the work of their own hands." Perhaps other pressures which we feel and lament today, the uncertainties and fears of modern life, are equally required to prevent us from forgetting God.
Of the nobler fear, which is a safeguard of the soul and not a danger, it is a serious question whether enough is alive among us.
Much sensational teaching, many popular books and hymns, suggest rather an irreverent use of the Holy Name, which is profanation, than a filial approach to a Father equally revered and loved. It is true that we are bidden to come with boldness to the throne of Grace. Yet the same Epistle teaches us again that our approach is even more solemn and awful than to the Mount which might be touched, and the profaning of which was death; and it exhorts us to have grace whereby we may offer service well-pleasing to God with reverence and awe, "for our God is a consuming fire" (Heb_4:16, Heb_12:28). That is the very last grace which some Christians ever seem to seek.
When the people recoiled, and Moses, trusting in God, was brave and entered the cloud, they ceased to have direct communion, and he was brought nearer to Jehovah than before.
What is now conveyed to Israel through him is an expansion and application of the Decalogue, and in turn it becomes the nucleus of the developed law. Its great antiquity is admitted by the severest critics; and it is a wonderful example of spirituality and searching depth, and also of such germinal and fruitful principles as cannot rest in themselves, literally applied, but must lead the obedient student on to still better things.
It is not the function of law to inspire men to obey it; this is precisely what the law could not do, being weak through the flesh. But it could arrest the attention and educate the conscience. Simple though it was in the letter, David could meditate upon it day and night. In the New Testament we know of two persons who had scrupulously respected its precepts, but they both, far from being satisfied, were filled with a divine discontent. One had kept all these things from his youth, yet felt the need of doing some good thing, and anxiously demanded what it was that he lacked yet. The other, as touching the righteousness of the law, was blameless, yet when the law entered, sin revived and slew him. For the law was spiritual, and reached beyond itself, while he was carnal, and thwarted by the flesh, sold under sin, even while externally beyond reproach.
This subtle characteristic of all noble law will be very apparent in studying the kernel of the law, the code within the code, which now lies before us.
Men sometimes judge the Hebrew legislation harshly, thinking that they are testing it, as a Divine institution, by the light of this century. They are really doing nothing of the sort. If there are two principles of legislation dearer than all others to modern Englishmen, they are the two which these flippant judgments most ignore, and by which they are most perfectly refuted.
One is that institutions educate communities. It is not too much to say that we have staked the future of our nation, and therefore the hopes of humanity, upon our conviction that men can be elevated by ennobling institutions,--that the franchise, for example, is an education as well as a trust.
The other, which seems to contradict the first, and does actually modify it, is that legislation must not move too far in advance of public opinion. Laws may be highly desirable in the abstract, for which communities are not yet ripe. A constitution like our own would be simply ruinous in Hindostan. Many good friends of temperance are the reluctant opponents of legislation which they desire in theory but which would only be trampled upon in practice, because public opinion would rebel against the law. Legislation is indeed educational, but the danger is that the practical outcome of such legislation would be disobedience and anarchy.
Now, these principles are the ample justification of all that startles us in the Pentateuch.
Slavery and polygamy, for instance, are not abolished. To forbid them utterly would have substituted far worse evils, as the Jews then were. But laws were introduced which vastly ameliorated the condition of the slave, and elevated the status of woman--laws which were far in advance of the best Gentile culture, and which so educated and softened the Jewish character, that men soon came to feel the letter of these very laws too harsh.
That is a nobler vindication of the Mosaic legislation than if this century agreed with every letter of it. To be vital and progressive is a better thing than to be correct. The law waged a far more effectual war upon certain evils than by formal prohibition, sound in theory but premature by centuries. Other good things besides liberty are not for the nursery or the school. And "we also, when we were children, were held in bondage" (Gal_4:3).
It is pretty well agreed that this code may be divided into five parts. To the end of the twentieth chapter it deals directly with the worship of God. Then follow thirty-two verses treating of the personal rights of man as distinguished from his rights of property. From the thirty-third verse of the twenty-first chapter to the fifteenth verse of the twenty-second, the rights of property are protected. Thence to the nineteenth verse of the twenty-third chapter is a miscellaneous group of laws, chiefly moral, but deeply connected with the civil organisation of the state. And thence to the end of the chapter is an earnest exhortation from God, introduced by a clearer statement than before of the manner in which He means to lead them, even by that mysterious Angel in Whom "is My Name."
PART I.--THE LAW OF WORSHIP.
Exo_20:22-26.
It is no vain repetition that this code begins by reasserting the supremacy of the one God. That principle underlies all the law, and must be carried into every part of it. And it is now enforced by a new sanction,--"Ye yourselves have seen that I have talked with you from heaven: ye shall not make other gods with Me; gods of silver or gods of gold ye shall not make unto you" (Exo_20:22-23). The costliest material of this low world should be utterly contemned in rivalry with that spiritual Presence revealing Himself out of a wholly different sphere; and in so far as they remembered Him, and the Voice which had thrilled their nature to its core, in so far would they be free from the desire for any carnal and materialised divinity to go before them.
Impressed with such views of God, their service of Him would be moulded accordingly (Exo_20:24-25). It is true that nothing could be too splendid for His sanctuary, and Bezaleel was presently to be inspired, that the work of the tabernacle might be worthy of its destination. Spirituality is not meanness, nor is art without a consecration of its own. But it must not intrude too closely upon the solemn act wherein the soul seeks the pardon of the Creator. The altar should not be a proud structure, richly sculptured and adorned, and offering in itself, if not an object of adoration, yet a satisfying centre of attention for the worshipper. It should be simply a heap of sods. And if they must needs go further, and erect a more durable pile, it must still be of materials crude, inartistic, such as the earth itself affords, of unhewn stone. A golden casket is fit to convey the freedom of some historic city to a prince, but the noblest offering of man to God is too humble to deserve an ostentatious altar.
"If thou lift up a tool upon it thou hast polluted it:" it has lost its virginal simplicity; it no longer suits a spontaneous offering of the heart, it has become artificial, sophisticated, self-conscious, polluted.
It is vehemently urged that these verses sanction a plurality of altars (so that one might be of earth and another of stone), and recognise the lawfulness of worship in other places than at a central appointed shrine. And it is concluded that early Judaism knew nothing of the exclusive sanctity of the tabernacle and the temple.
This argument forgets the circumstances. The Jews had been led to Horeb, the mount of God. They were soon to wander away thence through the wilderness. Altars had to be set up in many places, and might be of different materials. It was an important announcement that in every place where God would record His name He would come unto them and bless them. But certainly the inference leans rather toward than against the belief that it was for Him to select every place which should be sacred.
The last direction given with regard to worship is a homely one. It commands that the altar must not be approached with steps, lest the clothes of the priest should be disturbed and his limbs uncovered. Already we feel that we have to reckon with the temper as well as the letter of the precept. It is divinely unlike the frantic indecencies of many pagan rituals. It protests against all infractions of propriety, even the slightest, such as even now discredit many a zealous movement, and bear fruit in many a scandal. It rebukes all misdemeanour, all forgetfulness in look and gesture of the Sacred Presence, in every worshipper, at every shrine.
FOOTNOTES:
[35] Prof. Tyndall, Belfast Address, p. 60. What progress has scientific unbelief made since 1874 in solving this "question of questions for the present hour"? It has perfected the phonograph, but it has not devised a creed.
[36] "Or beside Me" (R.V.) The preposition is so vague that either of our English words may suggest quite too definite a meaning, as when "before Me" is made to mean "in My angry eyes," or "beside Me" is taken to hint at resentment for intrusion upon the same throne.
[37] Gury, Compend., i., secs. 607, 623.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 7, 8, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 22 Exo_20:1. All these words.] Concerning which observe
CRITICAL NOTES.—
Exo_20:1. All these words.] Concerning which observe
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(1.) That they form the basis of the covenant, of which ch. Exo_19:3-6 offers the first proposal; chs. 21–23, the detailed sketch; and ch. Exo_24:1-8, the formal ratification.
(2.) That they are all grounded upon the existing relationship between Jehovah and Israel announced in Exo_20:1; so that THE LAW, par excellence, is itself founded upon redeeming grace.
(3.) That thus they may all be united by the principle to which they owe their privileged position—faithfulness to Him who has redeemed Israel, shown directly towards God Himself in matters of worship (“four commands.” 3–11); and indirectly towards man—for whom Jehovah cares—in matters of social intercourse (“six commands.” 12–17).
(4.) That, nevertheless, they reveal the immeasurable inferiority of the old covenant to which they give character, as compared with the new: the leading note of the former being “Thou shalt,” that of the latter “I will” (cf. Jer_31:31-34; Hebrews 8).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Exo_20:1-3
THE FIRST COMMANDMENT
The recollection, and admiration, and love, and worship, and obedience, and fellowship of God, form the substance of true religion. Salvation is God revealed in Christ.
I. Every man must have a god—originally.
1. Man must draw enjoyment from without—God alone is independent.
2. Man has capacities which are exercised on something external.
3. Man must now have many gods (Jer_2:28).
II. Jehovah claims to be the God of each individual. The grounds of this claim are stated in the Preface to the Ten Commandments. “I am the Lord thy God.
1. His intrinsic excellence.
2. His relation to men—to His people—to all.
3. God willingly submits to comparison (1 Kings 18).
III. Jehovah’s claims to be the God of His creatures are generally overlooked and rejected. The forms of human idolatry are very numerous.
1. The creature is deified (Rom_1:25).
2. God Himself is made after the fancies and tastes of depraved men.
3. God is contemplated out of Christ.
IV. Jehovah observes and marks the manner in which His Divine claims are disposed of by men.—
1. He observes it as omniscient.
2. He observes it as jealous of His glory.
3. He observes it as forming a righteous judgment respecting the conduct of all His creatures.
4. He observes it that He may deal with men accordingly.
5. Prepare to meet thy God.—Outlines by Stewart.
ILLUSTRATIONS
BY
THE REV. WILLIAM ADAMSON
Law Divine! Exo_20:1. A converted infidel exclaimed on reading Exodus 20, “Where did Moses get this law? The Egyptians and the adjacent nations were idolaters. So were the Greeks and Romans. The wisest Greeks and the best Romans never gave a code of morals like this. Where did Moses get this Law, which surpasses the wisdom and philosophy of the most enlightened age? He lived at a period comparatively barbarous; yet he has given a law in which the learning and sagacity of all subsequent time can detect no flaw. Where did he get it? He could not have soared up to it. It must have soared down to him. It must be from God.” No Canova-eye can detect the tiniest flaw in this snow-white marble code.
“How holy is the precept,
How righteous the decree,
Revealing to His creatures
The Lord’s own purity.”
Moral Law! Exo_20:1. A boat on a summer sea is a pleasant picture. But a boat full of people on the Indian Ganges or the mighty Amazon, when the day is dull and the sky dismal—when the wind roars and the thunder peals—when the waters swell and the stream flashes past—is a spectacle of horror. You hear the shrieks between the thunderpeals as they on surging waters, and you on solid strand, wonder how salvation is to come. Ah! if their frail barque could but be drawn into yonder narrow creek, all would be well. A rope is flung out to them, and fastened to the boat. Suddenly a frantic sailor seizes a hatchet, and by one frenzied blow severs the rope. One blow—no more! The boat sweeps headlong against the rock. A crash—and all is o’er. It needs not that the rope should be cut in ten places to sever the connection and injure salvation. If one commandment be broken; if frenzied passion cut God’s Law at any one point—all is broken. Thus we see how
“One mischief entered brings another in;
The second pulls a third, the third draws more,
And they for all the rest set open the door.”
—Smith.
Divine Denial! Exo_20:2. Kircher, the famous astronomer, anxious to convince an infidel friend of the Divine existence, procured a very handsome astronomical globe, and placed it in a corner of his room. When his friend called, he saw the globe, and admiring it, inquired to whom it belonged! “It was never made; it came here by ‘chance.’ ” The sceptic declared it was but a sorry jest, since such was impossible. The wise philosopher at once happily retorted, “You will not believe that this tiny, frail globe came from ‘chance,’ and yet you expect me to believe that all those mighty worlds have no Maker!” He then proceeded to reason with his friend, so earnestly that he flung his infidel ideas to the wind, convinced of the existence of the Divine “I am.”
“Infinite strength, and equal skill,
Shine through Thy works abroad;
Our souls with vast amazement fill,
And speak the builder God.”
—Watts.
Idolatry! Exo_20:2-3. A man’s idol is not necessarily an image of gold. It may be a child of clay—the fruit of his own loins—the wife of his bosom. It may be wealth, fame, position, success, business—anything which absorbs unduly the affections and attention. Against such idols God hurls His resistless missile here as resolutely as against “the heathen idols of wood and stone.” When the English captured Rangoon, the saintly Havelock established a prayer-meeting in a famous heathen temple. The room was filled with idol-images, and in the lap of each of these “dumb gods” he placed a lamp to give light. He turned the idols into lampstands for the Divine glory. When there is no danger of our worshipping our old human-idols, let us turn them to good account. We may transform them into lampstands. We may make them serveas lights to enable us to worship Him, whose glory is that of the One True God.
“There are many heathen people,
Who yet God’s name have known;
And many other idols
Than those of wood and stone.”
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 Exo 20:1-2
Exo 20:1-2
The Ten Commandments hold a conspicuous position in that prolonged revelation of Himself, of His character, His will, and His relations to mankind, which God made to the Jewish people. They can, therefore, never become obsolete. The changing circumstances of the human race cannot destroy the significance and worth of any institutions or facts which reveal the life of God.
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I. The Ten Commandments rest on the principle that God claims authority over the moral life of man. He claimed that authority in the earliest times. He claims it still.
II. There can be no doubt that God intended that these commandments should be kept. This may seem an unnecessary observation; but there are many religious people who have quite a different theory than this about the intention of Divine laws. They suppose that the commandments of God are principally intended to bring us to a sense of our guilt, and to suggest to us the sins for which we have to ask God’s forgiveness. The thought of actually obeying them, and obeying them perfectly, scarcely ever occurs to them.
III. These commandments deal chiefly with actions, not with mere thought or emotion. Man is not a pure intellect or a disembodied passion. God’s laws, which deal with man as he is, take large account of his external conduct. His actions are as truly part of his life as his thoughts and passions, his faith or unbelief, his sorrow for sin and his joy in the infinite love of God.
IV. Before God gave these commandments to the Jewish people, He wrought a magnificent series of miracles to effect their emancipation from miserable slavery and to punish their oppressors. He first made them free, and then gave them the law.
R. W. Dale, The Ten Commandments, p. 1
References: Exo 20:1-3.—J. Oswald Dykes, The Law of the Ten Words, p. 19; F. D. Maurice, The Commandments, p. 1. Exo 20:1-17.—J. Hamilton, Works, vol. v., p. 199.
Exo 20:2-3
I. This commandment does not tell the Jew that the gods worshipped by other nations have no existence; it tells him that he must offer them no homage, and that from him they must receive no recognition of their authority and power. The Jew must serve Jehovah, and Jehovah alone. This was the truest method of securing the ultimate triumph of monotheism. A religious dogma, true or false, perishes if it is not rooted in the religious affections and sustained by religious observances. But although the First Commandment does not declare that there is one God, the whole system of Judaism rests on that sublime truth, and what the Jews had witnessed in Egypt and since their escape from slavery must have done more to destroy their reverence for the gods of their old masters than could have been effected by any dogmatic declaration that the gods of the nations were idols.
II. The First Commandment may appear to have no direct practical value for ourselves. It would be a perversion of its obvious intention to denounce covetousness, social ambition, or excessive love of children. These are not the sins which this commandment was meant to forbid. It must be admitted that there is no reason why God should say to any of us, "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me." If He were to speak to many of us, it would be necessary to condemn us for having no god at all. The appalling truth is, that many of us have sunk into Atheism. We all shrink from contact with God. And yet He loves us. But even His love would be unavailing if He did not inspire those who are filled with shame and sorrow by the discovery of their estrangement from Him, with a new and supernatural life.
R. W. Dale, The Ten Commandments, p. 21.
References: Exo 20:1-11.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. ii., p. 137. Exo 20:1-17.—Ibid., p. 207. Exo 20:2.—Ibid., p. 222; A. M. Fairbairn, The City of God, p. 128; S. Leathes, The Foundations of Morality, pp. 1, 14.
Exo 20:3
This was the commandment broken by Adam and Eve in Paradise; they obeyed the voice of the devil, and took him for their god instead of their heavenly Father. Since that time the devil has been called the god of this world and the prince of this world, because men have commonly obeyed him and hearkened to his voice. Even the one family and nation to whom God revealed Himself were quite as unwilling as the rest of the world to serve Him alone, and so they needed this commandment.
I. It may be asked why it is necessary to say, "Thou shalt have no other gods but Me," because we know that there is no other god at all. If we do not worship and serve God, yet we cannot give His honour to another, for there is no other to give it to. The reason is this, that all those false gods and false religions are ways in which the devil is worshipped and served, for whenever we fall away from the worship and service of God, we fall into his power; we take him for our god.
II. What Satan requires is only, as it were, that we should once serve him. Such was his temptation to our Lord, to Adam and Eve, to Daniel, to the first Christian martyrs. On the other hand, God requires our whole service. As long as there is any single point in which we are acting contrary to the law of God, no other service we can do will be acceptable to Him. Satan would have us but once worship and serve other gods, because we thus become so polluted in our heart and conscience as to be unfit to serve God at all.
Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times," vol. i., p. 240.
References: Exo 20:3.—S. Leathes, The Foundations of Morality, pp. 53, 66; J. Vaughan, Children’s Sermons, 3rd series, p. 152; J. W. Burgon, Ninety-one Short Sermons, No. 22.
Exo 20:4-5
The First Commandment condemns the worshipping of false gods; the Second condemns the making of any image or symbol even of the true God.
I. It would have been natural for the Jews to do this. They had many traditions of Divine revelations made to their ancestors. They might have attempted to perpetuate in a visible and permanent form the impressions which His supernatural acts had made upon their imagination and their hearts. They actually did it, for the golden calf was not intended to represent any false god, any deity worshipped by heathen races, but Jehovah Himself. It was the symbol of the God who had brought them out of Egypt.
II. The fundamental principle of this commandment has authority for us still. The whole history of Christendom is a demonstration of the peril and ruin which come from any attempt to supplement by art and by stately and impressive rites the revelation which God has made of Himself in Christ.
III. The justice of the penalty which is denounced against those who transgress this commandment it is very easy to dispute. The crime is to be punished not only in the men who are personally guilty, but in their descendants. The answer is: (1) The same unity of race by which the results of the virtue and genius of one age are transmitted to the ages which succeed it renders it inevitable that the results of the folly and vice of one age should be entailed on the ages which succeed it, and (2) the commandment shows that the righteousness of men endures longer than their sin. The evil which comes from man’s wickedness endures for a time, but perishes at last; the good that comes from man’s well-doing is all but indestructible.
R. W. Dale, The Ten Commandments, p. 40.
References: Exo 20:4-6.—H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiii., p. 188; J. Oswald Dykes, The Law of the ’Ten Words, p. 53; F. D. Maurice, The Commandments, p. 18; S. Leathes, The Foundations of Morality, pp. 79, 92. Exo 20:5.—C. Kingsley, National Sermons, pp. 144, 153; J. B. Mozley, Ruling Ideas in Early Ages, p. 104. Exo 20:5, Exo 20:6.—S. Cox, Expositions, 3rd series, p. 1.
Exo 20:7
The name of God stands for Himself and for that which He has revealed of Himself, not for our thoughts about Him. It is not surprising that this great name was invested with a superstitious sanctity. Even the Jews used it rarely. There is a tradition that it was heard but once a year, when it was uttered by the high-priest on the great day of atonement. In reading the Scriptures it became customary never to pronounce it, but to replace it with another Divine name, which was regarded as less awful and august. The Third Commandment requires something very different from this ceremonial homage to His name. His name stands for Himself, and it is to Him that our reverence is due.
I. We may transgress the commandment in many ways: (1) by perjury; (2) by swearing; (3) by the practice of finding-material for jesting in Holy Scripture; (4) by the habit of scoffing at those who profess to live a religious life, and taking every opportunity of sneering at their imperfections.
II. It is not enough to avoid the sin of profanity; we are bound to cultivate and to manifest that reverence for God’s majesty and holiness which lies at the root of all religion. We have to worship Him. It is the "pure in heart" who see God, and only when we see God face to face can we worship Him in spirit and in truth.
R. W. Dale, The Ten Commandments, p. 64.
References: Exo 20:7.—J. Vaughan, Sermons to Children, 4th series, p. 163; J. Oswald Dykes, The Law of the Ten Words, p. 71; S. Leathes, The Foundations of Morality, p. 104; F. D. Maurice, The Commandments, p. 35; E. Blencowe, Plain Sermons to a Country Congregation, 1st series, p. 260. Exo 20:7-11.—A. W. Hare, Sermons to a Country Congregation, vol. ii., p. 347. Exo 20:8.—R. Newton, Bible Warnings; Addresses to Children, p. 214; Todd, Lectures to Children, p. 89; S. Leathes, The Foundations of Morality, p. 115; C. Wordsworth, Occasional Sermons, 6th series, p. 29; J. Percival, Some Helps for School Life, p. 186; C. Girdlestone, Twenty Parochial Sermons, p. 227.
Exo 20:8-11
The early reference to the Sabbath in the Book of Genesis is no proof of its early institution, for there can be no doubt that in the Pentateuch Moses felt himself at perfect liberty, while using ancient traditions and documents, to introduce additions, explanations, and comments of his own. Although there are many references to weeks in the Book of Genesis, there is not a solitary passage which even suggests that the patriarchs kept the seventh day or any other day as a Sabbath. Even if such a commandment had been given to Adam and recorded in Holy Scripture, it could not have any greater authority for us than the commandment given to the Jews. The Jewish revelation has become obsolete, because a nobler revelation has been made in Christ; but the Jewish revelation itself was nobler than any previous revelation, and if Moses has vanished in the Diviner glory of Christ, all that preceded Moses must have vanished too. Dismissing, therefore, all arbitrary fancies as to a primitive Sabbath, consider the characteristics of the Sabbath as given to the Jews: (1) The Jewish Sabbath was founded on a definite Divine command. (2) The particular day which was to be kept as a Sabbath was authoritatively determined. (3) The purpose of the day was expressly defined. (4) The manner in which the Sabbath was to be kept was very distinctly stated. (5) The sanction which defended the law of the Sabbath was most severe.
The only similarity between the Lord’s Day and the Jewish Sabbath is that both recur once a week, and that both are religious festivals. To the idea of the Jewish Sabbath rest was essential, worship was an accident; to the idea of the Christian Sunday worship is essential, rest an accident. The observance of Sunday as a religious institution is a question of privilege, not of duty.
R, W. Dale, The Ten Commandments, p. 87.
I. The first word of the Fourth Commandment reminds us that the Sabbath Day was already established among the Israelites when the law was delivered on Sinai. That law created nothing. It preserved and enforced what God had already taught His people to observe by another method than that of formal decrees.
II. In this commandment work is enjoined, just as much as rest is enjoined. Man’s sin has turned work into a curse. God has redeemed and restored work into a blessing by uniting it again to the rest with which, in His Divine original order, it was associated.
III. God rests; therefore He would have man rest. God works; therefore He would have man work. Man cannot rest truly unless he remembers his relation to God, who rests.
IV. It is not wonderful that the Jews after the Captivity, as they had been schooled by a long discipline into an understanding of the meaning of the Second Commandment, so had learnt also to appreciate in some degree the worth of the Fourth. Nehemiah speaks frequently and with great emphasis of the Sabbath as a gift of God which their fathers had lightly esteemed, and which the new generation was bound most fondly to cherish. His words and acts were abused by the Jews who lived between his age and that of our Lord’s nativity, and when Christ came, the Sabbath itself, all its human graciousness, all its Divine reasonableness, were becoming each day more obscured.
V. Jesus, as the Mediator, declared Himself to be the Lord of the Sabbath, and proved Himself to be so by turning what the Jews made a curse into a blessing. He asserted the true glory of the Sabbath Day in asserting the mystery of His own relation to God and to His creatures.
F. D. Maurice, Sermons on the Sabbath Day, p. 1.
References: Exo 20:8-11.—J. Vaughan, Sermons to Children, 4th series, p. 177; H. F. Burder, Sermons, p. 386; R. Lee, Sermons, pp. 399, 411, 421; J. Oswald Dykes, The Law of the Ten Words, p. 87; F. D. Maurice, The Commandments, p. 50.
Exo 20:12
I. The relationship in which we stand to our parents, a relationship based upon the fact that we owe our existence to them, that we are made in their image, that for so long a time we depend on them for the actual maintenance of life, and that, as the necessary result of all this, we are completely under their authority during childhood—this relationship is naturally made the highest symbol of our relationship to God Himself.
II. Honouring our parents includes respect, love, and obedience as long as childhood and youth continue, and the gradual modification and transformation of these affections and duties into higher forms as manhood and womanhood draw on.
III. The promise attached to the commandment is a promise of prolonged national stability. St. Paul, slightly changing its form, makes it a promise of long life to individuals. Common experience justifies the change.
IV. There is one consideration that may induce us to obey this commandment which does not belong to the other nine: the time will come when it will be no longer possible for us to obey it.
R. W. Dale, The Ten Commandments, p. 120.
I. Consider various ways in which a man may honour his father and mother: (1) by doing his best in the way of self-improvement; (2) by habits of care and frugality; (3) by keeping himself in soberness, temperance, and chastity.
II. Honour to parents is only the principal and most important application of a general principle. The Apostle bids us honour all men, and again, "In lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves."
III. From the conception of love due to father and mother, we rise to the conception of the love due to God. When God calls Himself our Father, the clouds which conceal Him from our sight seem to break and vanish, and we feel that we can love and honour Him. Above all, we can recognise Him as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in Him, and through His incarnation, has adopted us into the highest condition of sonship, and made us heirs with Him of eternal life.
Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Oxford and Cambridge Undergraduates’ Journal, Oct. 30th, 1884.
I. The Israelite, when he came into the land which the Lord God gave him, may have found many temptations not to honour his father and mother; and unless he believed that God knew what was good for him and for all men, and was commanding the thing that was right and true, and unless he believed that God would give him strength to obey that which He commanded, he would yield continually to his evil nature.
But the words would be fulfilled to him. His days would not be long in the land which the Lord his God gave him.
II. We too have the land for our inheritance. Our fathers and mothers belonged to it, as their fathers and mothers did, and while we reverence them, every one of us may feel that his days are indeed very long in this country. Yes, for they are not bounded by our birth, or by our death either. The country had people in it who belonged to us before we came into it; it will have those belonging to us when we have gone out of it. It is the Lord God who is, and was, and is to come, who has watched over our family, and will watch over those who shall come hereafter.
III. Count this commandment which God gives thee to be thy life. So out of the earthly honour there will spring one that is eternal. The vision of the perfect Father, the joy and blessedness of being His child, will dawn upon thee more and more, and with the higher blessing there will come a greater enjoyment and appreciation of the lower.
F. D. Maurice, Sermons Preached in Country Churches, p. 88.
References: Exo 20:12.—J. Vaughan, Sermons to Children, 4th series, p. 194; E. Irving, Collected Writings, vol. iii., p. 244; R. Newton, Bible Warnings, p. 309; J. Oswald Dykes, The Law of the Ten Words, p. 105; S. Leathes, The Foundations of Morality, p. 141; F. D. Maurice, The Commandments, p. 76. Exo 20:12-21.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. ii., pp. 210, 214.
Exo 20:13
I. That this commandment was intended, as some suppose, to forbid the infliction of capital punishment, is inconceivable. The Mosaic law itself inflicted death for murder, Sabbath-breaking, and the selling of a Jew into slavery. The root of the commandment lies in the greatness of human nature; man is invested with a supernatural and Divine glory; to maintain the greatness of man it may be sometimes necessary that the murderer, who in his malice forgets the mystery and wonderfulness of his intended victim, should be put to death.
II. Does the commandment absolutely forbid war between nations? Certainly not. The nation to which it was given had a strict military organisation, organised by the very authority from which the commandment came. Moses himself prayed to God that the hosts of Israel might be victorious over their enemies. Wars of ambition, wars of revenge—these are crimes. But the moral sense of the purest and noblest of mankind has sanctioned and honoured the courage and heroism which repel by force of arms an assault on a nation’s integrity, and the great principle which underlies this commandment sanctions and honours them too.
R. W. Dale, The Ten Commandments, p. 146.
References: Exo 20:13.—J. Oswald Dykes, The Law of the Ten Words, p. 123; S. Leathes, The Foundations of Morality, p. 154; F. D. Maurice, The Commandments, p. 87. Exo 20:13-16.—Parker, The City Temple, vol. i., p. 320, also The Contemporary Pulpit, vol. iii., p. 122: Preacher’s Monthly, vol. ii., p. 215.
Exo 20:13-14
There are very sad and fearful thoughts connected with these commandments. But there are also very blessed thoughts connected with them.
I. Is it nothing to remember that the Lord God Himself watches over the life of every one of us, poor creatures as we are, that He has declared, and does declare, how precious it is in His eyes? Our life is subject to a thousand accidents. All things seem to conspire against it. Death seems to get the mastery over it at last. But no; He has said, "Death, I will be thy plague." As every plant and tree seems to die in winter and revive in spring, so He says to this more wonderful life in our bodies, "It shall go on, and this is the pledge and witness that it shall: the Head of you all, the Son of man, the only-begotten Son of God, died Himself and rose again. God’s conflict with death is accomplished. The grave shall not kill."
II. And so, again, the Lord is the God over the household. He who says, "Thou shalt not kill," bids us understand that it is well to pour out blood as if it were water rather than to become base and foul creatures, beasts instead of His servants and children. That was the reason He sent the Israelites to drive out the Canaanites. They were corrupting and defiling the earth with their abominations. It was time that the earth should be cleared of them. The God who gave these commandments is King now, and there is no respect of persons with Him.
III. Christ died to take away the sins of men. He died to unite men to the righteous and sinless God. The Lord our God, who has redeemed us out of the house of bondage, will always deliver us from sin, will give us a new, right, and clean heart.
F. D. Maurice, Sermons Preached in Country Churches, p. 98.
Exo 20:14
As there is a Divine idea to be fulfilled in the relations between parents and children which makes that relationship sacred, so there is a Divine idea to be fulfilled in marriage, in all the offices of mutual love and service which it creates, and in all the happiness which it renders possible; and therefore marriage is sacred too. In its form the commandment only forbids acts which violate the idea on which it rests, but it requires for its true and perfect fulfilment the realization of the idea itself. The institution rests on the possibility of the absolute mutual surrender to each other of man and woman, a surrender in which nothing is reserved but loyalty to God and to those supreme moral duties which no human relationship can modify or disturb. By such a life will the true idea of marriage which underlies this commandment be fulfilled, and all peril of violating this particular precept be kept far away.
R. W. Dale, The Ten Commandments, p. 170.
References: Exo 20:14.—J. Oswald Dykes, The Law of the Ten Words, p. 139; S. Leathes, The Foundations of Morality, p. 167; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. ii., p. 216; F. D. Maurice, The Commandments, p. 100.
Exo 20:15
I. In this commandment the institution of property is recognised and sanctioned by the authority of God. The institution of property is necessary: (1) for increasing the produce of the earth; (2) for preserving the produce of the earth to maturity; (3) for the cultivation and development of the nature of man; (4) for the intellectual development of man.
II. The institution of property imposes upon all men the duty of industry in their callings; the duty of maintaining independence; the duty of avoiding any, even the least, invasion of the rights of others; the duty of self-restraint in expenditure, as well as of honesty in acquisition.
III. If property is a Divine institution, founded on a Divine idea, protected by Divine sanction, then in the use of it God should be remembered, and those whom God has entrusted to our pity and our care. There are a thousand good works which appeal to us for sympathy, and have a moral right to demand our aid. Definite provision should be made for discharging the duties of charity as well as for meeting the inexorable demands of justice.
R. W. Dale, The Ten Commandments, p. 196.
References: Exo 20:15.—J. Oswald Dykes, The Law of the Ten Words, p. 156; J. Vaughan, Sermons to Children, 4th series, p. 224; S. Leathes, The Foundations of Morality, p. 179; Preacher’s Monthly. vol. ii., pp. 216, 219; F. D. Maurice, The Commandments, p. 116.
Exo 20:16
This commandment is not to be restricted to false testimony given in courts of justice. It prohibits slander, calumny, misrepresentation, at any time, in any circumstances. On the other hand, we shall miss the moral significance of the commandment if we regard it as a prohibition of lying in general. It is a specific kind of falsehood which is forbidden: "false witness against our neighbour."
On what grounds does the commandment fasten on this particular kind of falsehood, instead of condemning falsehood in general? It may be suggested that the bearing of false witness against our neighbour is the most frequent and most injurious kind of falsehood, that the sin of bearing false witness in favour of others is not so common or so mischievous, and that lying to our own advantage is a sin which soon ceases to have any effect.
I. This commandment is a recognition of those tribunals which are necessary to the peace and to the very existence of the State.
II. In this commandment there is a Divine recognition of the importance of the moral judgments which men pronounce on each other: the judgment which individual men form of other men as the result of the testimony to which they have listened, whether it was true or false; the judgments which large classes of men or whole communities form of individuals, and which constitute what we call the opinion of society concerning them.
III. Many ways might be mentioned in which we may avoid bearing false witness against our neighbour. (1) We should try to form a true and just judgment of other people before we say anything against them. (2) We have no right to give our mere inferences from what we know about the conduct and principles of others as though they were facts. (3) We have no right to spread an injurious report merely because somebody brought it to us.
R. W. Dale, The Ten Commandments, p. 218.
References: Exo 20:16.—J. Oswald Dykes, The Law of the Ten Words, p. 171; J. Vaughan, Sermons to Children, 4th series, p. 239, S. Leathes, The Foundations of Morality, p. 191; F. D. Maurice, The Commandments, p. 127.
Exo 20:17
I. The history of the world is stained and darkened by the crimes to which nations have been driven by the spirit of covetousness. Covetousness is forbidden not merely to prevent the miseries, and horrors, and crimes of aggressive war, but to train the spirit of nations to the recognition of God’s own idea of their relations to each other. Nations should see underlying this commandment the Divine idea of the unity of the human race; they should learn to seek greatness by ministering to each other’s peace, security, prosperity, and happiness. II. Individuals, as well as nations, may violate this law.
They may do it: (1) by ambition; (2) by discontent and envy; (3) by the desire to win from another man the love which is the pride and joy of his life. The very end for which Christ came was to redeem us from selfishness. The last of the Ten Commandments touches the characteristic precept of the new law, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."
R. W. Dale, The Ten Commandments, p. 241.
References: Exo 20:17.—J. Oswald Dykes, The Law of the Ten Words, p. 189; S. Leathes, Foundations of Morality, p. 205; F. D. Maurice, The Commandments, p. 137; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. ii., p. 220; J. Vaughan, Sermons to Children, 4th series, p. 252. Exo 20:18 (with Exo 24:1-18).—W. M. Taylor, Moses the Lawgiver, p. 198. Exo 20:22.—Parker, vol. ii., p. 320. 20:22—24.—J. Monro Gibson, 7he Mosaic Era, p. 9. Exo 20:24.—Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times," vol. ii., p. 89. Exo 20:25.—H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 2158; Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 196. 20—G. Gilfillan, Alpha and Omega, vol. ii., p. 93. Exo 21:5, Exo 21:6.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xx., No. 117. Exo 21:17.—Parker, Fountain, Feb. 7th, 1878. 21-23.—Parker, vol. ii., pp. 161, 168, 177.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv1, 12 Exo 20:1 - - Exo 20:11.
Exodus
THE DECALOGUE: I-MAN AND GOD
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Exo 20:1 - - Exo 20:11.
An obscure tribe of Egyptian slaves plunges into the desert to hide from pursuit, and emerges, after forty years, with a code gathered into ‘ten words,’ so brief, so complete, so intertwining morality and religion, so free from local or national peculiarities, so close fitting to fundamental duties, that it is to-day, after more than three thousand years, authoritative in the most enlightened peoples. The voice that spoke from Sinai reverberates in all lands. The Old World had other lawgivers who professed to formulate their precepts by divine inspiration: they are all fallen silent. But this voice, like the trumpet on that day, waxes louder and louder as the years roll. Whose voice was it? The only answer explaining the supreme purity of the commandments, and their immortal freshness, is found in the first sentence of this paragraph, ‘God spake all these words.’
I. We have first the revelation, which precedes and lays the foundation for the commandments; ‘I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt.’ God speaks to the nation as a whole, establishing a special relation between Himself and them, which is founded on His redeeming act, and is reciprocal, requiring that they should be His people, as He is their God. The manifestation in act of His power and of His love precedes the claim for reverence and obedience. This is a universal truth. God gives before He asks us to give. He is not a hard taskmaster, ‘gathering where He has not strawn.’ Even in that system which is eminently ‘the law,’ the foundation is a divine act of deliverance, and only when He has won the people for Himself by redeeming them from bondage does He call on them for obedience. His rule is built on benefits. He urges no mere right of the mightier, nor cares for service which is not the glad answer of gratitude. The flashing flames which ran as swift heralds before His descending chariot wheels, the quaking mountain, the long-drawn blasts of the trumpet, awed the gathered crowd. But the first articulate words made a tenderer appeal, and sought to found His right to command on His love, and their duty to obey on their gratitude. The great gospel principle, that the Redeemer is the lawgiver, and the redeemed are joyful subjects because their hearts are touched with love, underlies the apparently sterner system of the Old Testament. God opens His heart first, and then asks for men’s.
This prelude certainly confines the Decalogue to the people of Israel. Their deliverance is the ground on which the law is rested, therefore, plainly, the obligation can be no wider than the benefit. But though we are not bound to obey any of the Ten Commandments, because they were given to Israel, they are all, with one exception, demonstrably, a transcript of laws written on the heart of mankind; and this fact carries with it a strong presumption that the law of the Sabbath, which is the exception referred to, should be regarded as not an exception, but as a statute of the primeval law, witnessed to by conscience, republished in wondrous precision and completeness in these venerable precepts. The Ten Commandments are binding on us; but they are not binding as part, though the fundamental part, of the Jewish law.
Two general observations may be made. One is on the negative character of the commandments as a whole. Law prohibits because men are sinful. But prohibitions pre-suppose as their foundation positive commands. We are forbidden to do something because we are inclined to do it, and because we ought to do the opposite. Every ‘thou shalt not’ implies a deeper ‘thou shalt.’ The cold negation really rests on the converse affirmative command.
The second remark on the law as a whole is as to the relation which it establishes between religion and morality, making the latter a part of the former, but regarding it as secured only by the prior discharge of the obligations of the former. Morality is the garb of religion; religion is the animating principle of morality. The attempts to build up a theory of ethics without reference to our relations to God, or to secure the practice of righteousness without such reference, or to substitute, with a late champion of unbelief, ‘the service of man’ for the worship of God, are all condemned by the deeper and simpler wisdom of this law. Christians should learn the lesson, which the most Jewish of the New Testament writers had drawn from it, that, ‘pure and undefiled service’ of God is the service of man, and should beware of putting asunder what God has joined so closely.
II. The first commandment bears in its negative form marks of the condition of the world when it was spoken, and of the strong temptation to polytheism which the Israelites were to resist. Everywhere but in that corner among the wild rocks of Sinai, men believed in ‘gods many.’ Egypt swarmed with them; and, no doubt, the purity of Abraham’s faith had been sadly tarnished in his sons. We cannot understand the strange fascination of polytheism. It is a disease of humanity in an earlier stage than ours. But how strong it was and is, all history shows. All these many gods were on amicable terms with one another, and ready to welcome newcomers. But the monotheism, which was here laid at the very foundation of Israel’s national life, parted it by a deep gulf from all the world, and determined its history.
The prohibition has little force for us; but the positive command which underlies it is of eternal force. We should rather think of it as a revelation and an invitation than as a mere command. For what is it but the declaration that at the centre of things is throned, not a rabble of godlings, nor a stony impersonal somewhat, nor a hypothetical unknowable entity, nor a shadowy abstraction, but a living Person, who can say ‘Me,’ and whom we can call on as ‘Thou,’ and be sure that He hears? No accumulation of finite excellences, however fair, can satisfy the imagination, which feels after one Being, the personal ideal of all perfectness. The understanding needs one ultimate Cause on which it can rest amid the dance of fleeting phenomena; the heart cannot pour out its love to be shared among many. No string of goodly pearls will ever give the merchantman assurance that his quest is complete. Only when human nature finds all in One, and that One a living Person, the Lover and Friend of all souls, does it fold its wings and rest as a bird after long flight.
The first commandment enjoins, or rather blesses us by showing us that we may cherish, supreme affection, worship, trust, self-surrender, aspiration, towards one God. After all, our God is that which we think most precious, for which we are ready to make the greatest sacrifices, which draws our warmest love; which, lost, would leave us desolate; which, possessed, makes us blessed. If we search our hearts with this ‘candle of the Lord,’ we shall find many an idol set up in their dark corners, and be startled to discover how much we need to bring ourselves to be judged and condemned by this commandment It is the foundation of all human duty. Obedience to it is the condition of peace and blessedness, light and leading for mind, heart, will, affections, desires, hopes, fears, and all the world within, that longs for one living Person even when it least knows the meaning of its longings and the reason of its unrest.
III. The second commandment forbids all representations, whether of the one God or of false deities. The golden calf, which was a symbol of Jehovah, is condemned equally with the fair forms that haunted the Greek Olympus, or the half-bestial shapes of Egyptian mythology. The reasons for the prohibition may be considered as two,-the impossibility of setting forth the glory of the Infinite Spirit in any form, and the certainty that the attempt will sink the worshipper deeper in the mire of sense. An image degrades God and damages men. By it religion reverses its nature, and becomes another clog to keep the soul among the things seen, and an ally of all fleshly inclinations. We know how idolatry seemed to cast a spell over the Israelites from Egypt to Babylon, and how their first relapse into it took place almost before the voice which ‘spake all these words’ had ceased.
In its grosser form, we have no temptation to it. But there are other ways of breaking the commandment than setting up an image. All sensuous worship in which the treacherous aid of art is called in to elevate the soul, comes perilously near to contradicting its spirit, if not its letter. The attempt to make of the senses a ladder for the soul to climb to God by, is a great deal more likely to end in the soul’s going down the ladder than up it. The history of public worship in the Christian Church teaches that the less it has to do with such slippery help the better. There is a strong current running in England, at all events, in the direction of bringing in a more artistic, or, as it is called, a ‘less bare,’ form of service. We need to remember that the God who is a Spirit is worshipped ‘in spirit,’ and that outward forms may easily choke, and outward aids hinder, that worship.
The especial difficulty of obedience to this commandment is marked by the reason or sanction annexed. That opens a wide field, on which it would be folly to venture here. There is a glimpse of God’s character, and a statement of a law of His working. He is a ‘jealous’ God, We need not be afraid of the word. It means nothing but what is congruous with the loftiest conception of a loving God. It means that He allows of no rival in our hearts’ affection, or in our submission for love’s sake to Him. A half trust in God is no trust. How can worship be shared, or love be parted out, among a pantheon? Our poor hearts ask of one another and get from one another, wherever a man and a woman truly love, just what God asks,-’All in all, or not at all.’ His jealousy is but infinite love seeking to be known as such, and asking for a whole heart.
The law of His providence sounds hard, but it is nothing more than stating in plain words the course of the world’s history, which cannot be otherwise if there is to be any bond of human society at all. We hear a great deal in modern language about solidarity {and sometimes it is spelled with a final ‘e,’ to look more philosophical} and heredity. The teaching of this commandment is simply a statement of the same facts, with the addition that the Lawgiver is visible behind the law. The consequences of conduct do not die with the doers. ‘The evil that men do, lives after them.’ The generations are so knit together, and the full results of deeds are often so slow-growing, that one generation sows and another reaps. Who sowed the seed that fruited in misery, and was gathered in a bitter harvest of horrors and crimes in the French Revolution? Who planted the tree under which the citizens of the United States sit? Did not the seedling go over in the Mayflower? As long as the generations of men are more closely connected than those of sheep or birds, this solemn word must be true. Let us see that we sow no tares to poison our children when we are in our graves. The saying had immediate application to the consequences of idolatry in the history of Israel, and was a forecast of their future. But it is true evermore and everywhere.
IV. The third commandment must be so understood as to bring it into line with the two preceding, as of equal breadth and equally fundamental. It cannot, therefore, be confined to the use of the name of God in oaths, whether false or trivial. No doubt, perjury and profane swearing are included in the sweep of the prohibition; but it reaches far beyond them. The name of God is the declaration of His being and character. We take His name ‘in vain’ when we speak of Him unworthily. Many a glib and formal prayer, many a mechanical or self-glorifying sermon, many an erudite controversy, comes under the lash of this prohibition. Professions of devotion far more fervid than real, confessions in which the conscience is not stricken, orthodox teachings with no throb of life in them, unconscious hypocrisies of worship, and much besides, are gibbeted here. The most vain of all words are those which have become traditional stock in trade for religious people, which once expressed deep convictions, and are now a world too wide for the shrunk faith which wears them.
The positive side underlying the negative is the requirement that our speech of God shall fit our thought of God, and our thought of Him shall fit His Name; that our words shall mirror our affections, and our affection be a true reflection of His beauty and sweetness; that cleansed lips shall reverently utter the Name above every name, which, after all speech, must remain unspoken; and that we shall feel it to be not the least wonderful or merciful of His condescensions that He ‘is extolled with our tongues.’
V. The series of commandments referring to Israel’s relations with God is distinctly progressive from the first to the fourth, which deals with the Sabbath. The fact that it appears here, side by side with these absolutely universal and first principles of religion and worship, clearly shows that the giver of the code regarded it as of equal comprehensiveness. If we believe that the giver of the code was God, we seem shut up to the conclusion that, though the Sabbath is a positive institution, and in so far unlike the preceding commandments, it is to be taken as not merely a temporary or Jewish ordinance. The ground on which it is rested here points to the same conclusion. The version of the Decalogue in Deuteronomy bases it on the Egyptian deliverance, but this, on the divine rest after creation. As we have already said, we do not regard the Decalogue as binding on us because given to Israel; but we do regard it as containing laws universally binding, which are written by God’s finger, not on tables of stone, but on ‘the fleshly tables of the heart.’ All the others are admittedly of this nature. Is not the Sabbath law likewise? It is not, indeed, inscribed on the conscience, but is the need for it not stamped on the physical nature? The human organism requires the seventh-day rest, whether men toil with hand or brain. Historically, it is not true that the Sabbath was founded by this legislation. The traces of its observance in Genesis are few and doubtful; but we know from the inscriptions that the seventh, fourteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-eighth days of the moon were set apart by the Assyrians, and scholars can supply other instances. The ‘Remember’ of this commandment can scarcely be urged as establishing this, for it may quite as naturally be explained to mean ‘Remember, as each successive seventh day comes round, to consecrate it.’ But apart from that, the law written on body, mind, and soul says plainly to all men, ‘Rest on the seventh day.’ Body and mind need repose; the soul needs quiet communion with God. No vigorous physical, intellectual, or religious life will long be kept up, if that need be disregarded. The week was meant to be given to work, which is blessed and right if done after the pattern of God’s. The Sabbath was meant to lift to a share in His rest, to bring eternity into time, to renew wasted strength ‘by a wise passiveness,’ and to draw hearts dissipated by contact with fleeting tasks back into the stillness where they can find themselves in fellowship with God.
We have not the Jewish Sabbath, nor is it binding on us. But as men we ought to rest, and resting, to worship, on one day in the week. The unwritten law of Christianity, moulding all outward forms by its own free spirit, gradually, and without premeditation, slid from the seventh to the first day, as it had clear right to do. It was the day of Christ’s resurrection, probably of His ascension, and of Pentecost. It is ‘the Lord’s Day.’ In observing it, we unite both the reasons for the Sabbath given in Exodus and Deuteronomy,-the completion of a higher creation in the resurrection rest of the Son of God, and the deliverance from a sorer bondage by a better Moses. The Christian Sunday and its religious observance are indispensable to the religious life of individuals and nations. The day of rest is indispensable to their well-being. Our hard-working millions will bitterly rue their folly, if they are tempted to cast it away on the plea of obtaining opportunities for intellectual culture and enjoyment. It is
‘The couch of time, care’s balm and bay,’
and we shall be wise if we hold fast by it; not because the Jews were bid to hallow the seventh day, but because we need it for repose, and we need it for religion.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On vv1, 22 The Ten Commandments (vv. 1-21)
The Ten Commandments (vv. 1-21)
Exodus 20-23, containing (1) the Decalogue (Gk. = 'Ten Words' or 'Commandments') and (2) a code of laws regulating the religious and social life of the people, and called the Book of the Covenant (see Exo_24:7), form perhaps the most important part of the Pentateuch. It is the nucleus of the entire Mosaic legislation, and in all probability existed for long as a separate document.
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1-17. The Decalogue. In chapter Exo_34:28; Deu_4:13 this is called the 'Ten Words' or 'Commandments.' It is also called the 'Testimony' in Exo_25:16 (see on Exo_16:34) and the 'Covenant' in Exo_34:28; Deu_9:9. These words were uttered in the hearing of the awe-struck people (Exo_19:9; Exo_20:19; Deu_4:12), and afterwards graven by the finger of God on two tables of stone (Exo_31:18; Deu_4:13). On witnessing the apostasy of the people Moses broke these tables (Exo_32:19), but they were afterwards replaced by another pair on which the same words were written (Exo_34:1; Deu_10:1, Deu_10:4). When the ark was made the two tables of the testimony were deposited in it (Deu_10:5; Heb_9:4). As the ark itself stood in the innermost sanctuary of the tabernacle, this position of the Tables of the Law bore emphatic witness to the great truth that the beginning and end of all religious observances is the keeping of the commandments of God: cp. Mat_19:17; Rom_2:25; 1Co_7:19.
Two versions of the Ten Commandments are preserved in the Pentateuch, the second, exhibiting a few variations, being given in Deu_5:6-21. Most scholars agree that the version given in Exodus is the older and purer of the two, the variations in Deuteronomy being due to the characteristic ideas and style of the writer of that book. The main divergences occur in the fourth and fifth commandments. There is a good deal to be said for the view that the commandments as originally promulgated were shorter than either form, that they consisted merely of the precepts without the reasons annexed, the second e.g. reading simply, 'Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image,' and the fourth, 'Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy': see on Deu_5:11. That the commandments, at least in this terser form, are really Mosaic, there is no reasonable ground to doubt.
The Ten Commandments were inscribed on two tables and divided into two parts, but opinions differ as to their enumeration and arrangement. The Jews themselves regard Exo_20:2, usually called the Preface, as the First Word, and maintain the number ten by uniting Exo_20:2-6 (the first and second) and calling these the Second Word. The Roman Catholies and Lutherans combine the first two, and split up the tenth. Our common enumeration is that of Philo and Josephus, who are followed by the Greek and Reformed Churches. As to their arrangement, some have assigned five commandments to each table; while others have divided them in the proportion of four to six. According to the latter division the first four are religious, defining the duties man owes to God ('Thou shalt love the Lord thy God'); the last six are moral, defining the duties men owe to each other ('Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself'). On the other hand, seeing that in ancient times filial duty was regarded more as a religious than a moral obligation, there is something to be said for placing the fifth commandment on the first table: see on Exo_21:15.
Christians, while freed from the obligations of the Mosaic law of ceremonies, are still bound, bound more than ever (see Romans 6), to 'the obedience of the commandments which are called moral.' What our Lord did with regard to the Ten Commandments was (1) to sum them up under the two obligations of love to God and love to our neighbour, which, again, are the two sides of the one law of universal Love ('love is the fulfilling of the law'); (2) to widen and deepen their scope, making them apply not only to the outward act, but to the inner spirit and motive, and (3) to change them from mere negative commands to abstain from certain sins to positive obligations, which are never exhausted and involve a perpetual advance in holiness where mere abstention from evil acts implies moral stagnation: see Mat_22:37-40; Mat_5:17-48.
2. Redemption is the ground of obedience which springs, not from fear, but from gratitude and love: see Rom_12:1; 2Co_5:14; 1Jn_4:19. This evangelical truth of obedience springing from gratitude is the great theme of the book of Deuteronomy, where it is reiterated over and over again: see e.g. Deu_4:32-40 and Intro. to that book, § 3.
3. Before me] RM 'beside me.' Monotheism is implied rather than expressly enunciated here. It was only gradually that Israel rose to the truth that there is but one God. Israel was led to this truth along the way of practice. By ceasing to worship other gods they would cease to believe in their existence. It is true still that the sure result of discontinuing the worship of God is the denial of His existence: see on Exo_15:11; Exo_32:1.
4. If the first commandment implies the truth of God's unity, the second implies that of His spirituality. Israel is forbidden to worship even the true God under any external form. God is not like anything that human hands can make. In Egypt the Israelites had been familiar with the worship of images.
The water under the earth] This refers to the belief of the time that the earth was a flat disk (Isa_40:22) resting on an abyss of waters: see Gen_1:6; Gen_7:11; Psa_24:2.
5. A jealous God] Human jealousy is usually of an ignoble kind, the fruit of suspicion. But there is a holy jealousy, the pain of wounded love. The heart of God is grieved when His love is rewarded with indifference and unfaithfulness. He will brook no rival in the affections of His people: see Deu_32:16-21; Psa_78:58; Isa_42:8, and on chapter Exo_34:15.
Unto the third and fourth generation] RV 'upon..' It is a law of the divine government that the penalty of one man's sins is shared by those connected with him: cp. Jos_22:20. If this seem hard it must be remembered that the law cuts both ways. The benefits of a man's good deeds are likewise distributed over a large area. We cannot enjoy the one result without taking the risk of the other. The law relates, however, only to the consequences of sin, not its guilt. The latter adheres to the sinner personally: cp. Eze_18:2-4.
6. Unto thousands] i.e. unto a thousand generations, as in Deu_7:9. it is implied here that God's mercy in rewarding righteousness infinitely transcends His anger in punishing the sinful. The consequences of righteousness are more enduring and farreaching than those of iniquity.
7. This prohibition applies strictly to perjury or false swearing, the breaking of a promise or contract that has been sealed with an oath in the name of God. He will not allow His name to be associated with any act of falsehood or treachery. His name must not be taken in vain, i.e. lightly or heedlessly. This forbids also the careless or profane use of the divine name and titles. Jesus extended the scope of this commandment so as to prohibit the use of oaths entirely. A man's mere word should be his bond: see Mat_5:33-37.
8. What is laid down here is not the institution of the sabbath rest, but its strict observance. The sabbath rest was known to the Babylonians before this time, and there are indications of its being previously known to the Israelites: see on Exo_16:5. Hence, probably, the use of the word remember. To keep it holy] The seventh day is to be distinguished from other days (the root meaning of the word rendered 'hallow' is to separate: 'see on Lev_20:24), by abstinence from labour. Nothing is said here as to the religious observance of the day. But after the institution of the Levitical priesthood, the morning and evening sacrifices were doubled on the sabbath (see Num_28:9-10), and in later times the day was naturally that on which a 'holy convocation' was held: see Lev_23:3; Isa_66:23. After the exile, when synagogues were established, divine service was always celebrated on the sabbath.
9. It is sometimes forgotten that the fourth commandment 'enforces the six days' work as well as the seventh day's rest.'
10. Shalt not do any work] such as gathering manna (see on Exo_16:22), lighting a fire (Exo_35:3), gathering sticks (Num_15:32-36), agricultural labour (cp. Exo_34:21), carrying burdens (Neh_13:15-19), buying and selling (Neh_10:31). The Jewish legalists developed the negative side of this precept to such an extravagant and absurd extent that the sabbath, instead of being a day of rest, became the most laborious day of the seven. The philanthropic motive for its observance (cp. Exo_23:12; Deu_5:14) was almost entirely lost sight of till our Lord said, 'The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath' (Mar_2:27. Thy manservant] The command is specially addressed to heads of families and employers of labour, and requires (1) that they must themselves rest from labour, and (2) allow those in their employment to rest also.
11. In Deu_5:14-15 another reason is given for the observance of the sabbath rest, in accordance with the philanthropic spirit which pervades the whole of that book: cp. Exo_23:12. Both reasons are probably later amplifications of the original commandment. Blessed.. and hallowed it] consecrated it to Himself with a special blessing upon it. The unusually frequent mention in OT. of the duty of observing the sabbath is an indication of its importance. It is often referred to as constituting along with circumcision the sign of the covenant between God and Israel: see on Exo_31:13.
12. This is the 'first commandment with promise' (Eph_6:2). The promise has been understood by some as applying to the nation as a whole. Undoubtedly the nation takes its character from the home, and well-ordered family life is the prime condition of national welfare and stability: see on Deu_21:18. But the promise is also to the individual. 'Righteousness tendeth to life' (Pro_11:19). A promise of long life and material prosperity is frequently attached in OT. to moral precepts: see e.g. Deu_23:25; Leviticus 26; Deu_7:12; Psalms 1; Psa_34:12; Psalms 37. The doctrine of present rewards and punishments had an important educative value at a time when the truth of a future life was not yet clearly revealed. But the manifest exceptions which experience of human life afforded to this simple view of the divine government proved a great trial to faith, as the book of Job in particular shows, and such passages as Psalms 73 Jer_12:1-2, etc. That faith was able even in these circumstances to triumph over doubt is shown e.g. in Hab_3:17-18; Psa_73:23-26, in which it may be said that the high-water mark is reached of a trust in God that is superior to and independent of all outward circumstances. In later times, when the belief in a future life was more consistently held, it was only natural that the rewards and penalties should be regarded as in many cases postponed to find their full completion in the next world: see on Deu_2:7.
13-16. These commandments are given to safeguard a man's life, domestic peace, property, and reputation. For the way in which our Lord extended the scope of the sixth and seventh commandments so as to apply not merely to the outward act but to the inner thought and motive lying at its root, see Mat_5:21-30
16. It is noteworthy that of the ten commandments, two (the third and the ninth) refer to sins of speech. For the penalty prescribed in cases of false witness, see Deu_19:15-21. The spirit of the ninth commandment forbids all lying and slander.
17. Of all the commandments, the tenth is the one that goes deepest. What is condemned is not an action, but a thought or desire: cp. Pro_4:23; Mat_15:18-20. This commandment shows that the Decalogue is more than a mere code of civil law. Human laws cannot take cognizance of the thoughts of the heart.
19. The Decalogue was given in the hearing of the people. The following commandments were given to them through their mediator Moses: see Exo_20:21-22, chapter Exo_21:1.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 18, 20 So Moses
So Moses
The Mosaic Covenant,
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(1) given to Israel
(2) in three divisions, each essential to the others, and together forming the Mosaic Covenant, viz.: the Commandments, expressing the righteous will of God Exo 20:1-26 the "judgments," governing the social life of Israel; Exo 21:1 to Exo 24:11 and the "ordinances," governing the religious life of Israel; Exo 24:12 to Exo 31:18. These three elements form "the law," as that phrase is generically used in the New Testament (e.g.) Mat 5:17; Mat 5:18. The Commandments and the ordinances formed one religious system. The Commandments were a "ministry of condemnation" and of "death" 2Co 3:7-9 the ordinances gave, in the high priest, a representative of the people with Jehovah; and in the sacrifices a "cover" (see "Atonement," (See Scofield "Lev 16:6") for their sins in anticipation of the Cross; Heb 5:1-3; Heb 9:6-9; Rom 3:25; Rom 3:26. The Christian is not under the conditional Mosaic Covenant of works, the law, but under the unconditional New Covenant of grace.; Rom 3:21-27; Rom 6:14; Rom 6:15; Gal 2:16; Gal 3:10-14; Gal 3:16-18; Gal 3:24-26; Gal 4:21-31; Heb 10:11-17. See NEW COVENANT.
(See Scofield "Heb 8:8")
See,for the other seven covenants:
EDENIC (See Scofield "Gen 1:28"); ADAMIC See Scofield "Gen 3:15"; NOAHIC See Scofield "Gen 9:1"; ABRAHAMIC See Scofield "Gen 15:18"; PALESTINIAN See Scofield "Deu 30:3"; DAVIDIC See Scofield "2Sa 7:16"; NEW See Scofield "Heb 8:8".
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 CHAPTER 20 The Covenant Revealed
CHAPTER 20 The Covenant Revealed
1. The Ten Commandments (Exo 20:1-17)
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2. Jehovah’s gracious provision (Exo 20:18-26)
This law covenant is now stated. It was given three times. First orally here, when God spake all these words. Then in Exodus 31 Moses received the tables of stone, “written with the finger of God,” the same finger which later wrote on earth in the sand (John 8). The first tables were broken and Moses was commanded to hew two tables of stone upon which Jehovah again wrote the Ten Commandments (Exo 34:1). This law was given to Israel exclusively, which is seen in the opening word. The voice of God spoke these words so that the people heard Him speak. In what sense the law was given by the ministration of angels (Act 7:53; Gal 3:19, Heb 2:2) is not revealed here. Our Lord has divided the Ten Commandments into two sections. The first three go together and speak of duties towards God and the seven which follow of duties towards our fellowmen. And He who gave this law expounded the law and filled it full when He appeared on earth in humiliation. And after He lived that holy life on earth He went to the cross and the curse of the law rested upon Him (Gal 3:13). The law given in these commandments shows man’s condition. Most of the commandments are negative, “thou shalt not.” It is a prohibition of the will and natural tendency of man. Man is a sinner, and the law was given to make a full demonstration of it. Read Rom 5:12-14; Rom 5:20; Rom 7:6-13; Gal 3:19-29. May we fully understand that this law cannot give righteousness nor life and that it is not in force as the rule for the Christian in order to receive blessing from God. We are not under that law but under grace. But grace teaches us to live righteously, soberly and godly in this present evil age. The righteous requirements of the law are fulfilled in us, who walk according to the Spirit.
The altar is mentioned and in the sacrifice we behold Christ. “But further, God will meet the sinner at an altar without a hewn stone or a step--a place of worship which requires no human workmanship to erect, or human effort to approach. The former could only pollute, and the latter could only display human ‘nakedness.’ Admirable type of the meeting place where God meets the sinner now, even the Person and work of His Son, Jesus Christ, where all the claims of law, of justice, and of conscience are perfectly answered! Man has, in every age and in every clime, been prone, in one way or another, to ‘lift up his tool’ in the erection of his altar, or to approach thereto by steps of his own making; but the issue of all such attempts has been ‘pollution’ and ‘nakedness.’“ (C.H. Mackintosh, Notes on Exodus.)
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 12, 18, 22 The Decalogue
The Decalogue
v. l. And God spake all these words, saying,
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v. 2. I am the Lord, thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. That was the Lord’s solemn introduction to the legislation on Mount Sinai, a reminder of the wonderful deliverance which He had wrought when He led forth His people out of the land of Egypt, where they had virtually been slaves. Note that the Decalog, as here given, was intended for the children of Israel and applied its principles to the circumstances under which they lived, with a form of government every detail of which was fixed by the Lord.
v. 3. Thou shalt have no other gods before Me, no strange, false gods, no idols, over against Me, setting them up as rivals for the glory and power which belong to Me alone. Not that such figments of man’s imagination, such works of their hands, were in truth gods in any sense of the word, but that the very thinking and fashioning of idols is forbidden by the Lord. He is supreme, He is the only God, and His will should govern all men in all situations of life; for the other nine commandments are but explanations and applications of the first.
v. 4. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, a carved or sculptured idol, or any likeness of anything, any representation that is intended for religious worship, that is in heaven above, birds or stars (heavenly bodies) of any kind, or that is in the earth beneath, men or beasts, or that is in the water under the earth, and marine animals;
v. 5. thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, in the act of adoration, nor serve them, actually giving them the worship, the honor which pertains to God alone, for that is the point of the entire prohibition, that pictures and images should not be made for purposes of worship. For I, the Lord, thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me, not with the certainty of absolute fatality, but as a just punishment of those children that follow their parents and ancestors in their evil ways;
v. 6. and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love Me and keep My commandments. The Lord’s holiness and righteousness demands that He visit the sinners with His punitive justice, but He takes far greater pleasure in giving proofs of His mercy and kindness: He would rather reward than punish.
v. 7. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord, thy God, in vain, without purpose and object, in a frivolous manner; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain, an emphatic warning that the punishment of God will surely strike everyone who lightly and blasphemously utters the Lord’s name, whether this be in thoughtless foolishness or in deliberate perjury.
v. 8. Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy. This commandment presupposes a knowledge of the Sabbath, but not of its formal celebration. All those that urge the keeping of the Sabbath according to the Jewish pattern with the argument that this day and this form were included in the will of God as written into the hearts of men at the beginning, overlook or ignore the facts of history as found in the Book of Exodus. The deliberate setting aside of this special day of the week and the form of observance of this day as outlined to the Jews was intended for them only.
v. 9. Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work, perform everything connected with trade, business, or profession;
v. 10. but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord, thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, perform the labor of your ordinary occupations, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter; thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor the stranger that is within thy gates, the enumeration purposely being made inclusive, in order to emphasize the commandment.
v. 11. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it, set it apart to the Jews for His worship. The commandment was later fixed even more definitely by the mention of specific forms of labor which were not permitted among the children of Israel, Psa 104:23; Num 4:47; Neh 3:15; Jer 17:21; Amo 8:5; Num 15:32 ff. Note that the simple understanding of the text demands the assumption that the Lord created the world in six ordinary days.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 4, 7, 8, 12, 15, 18, 22, 24 house of slavery
house of slavery
"place where you were slaves"
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You must have no other gods before me
"You must not worship any other gods but me"
translationWords
God
word
Yahweh
Egypt
servant
false god
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 22 20:1–23:33 The Sinai covenant follows very closely the form…
20:1–23:33 The Sinai covenant follows very closely the form of the covenants, or suzerain-vassal treaties, that great kings (the suzerains) in the ancient Near East offered to subject peoples (the vassals) as follows: (1) An introduction named the great king who was offering the covenant (20:1). (2) A historical preamble set out the circumstances that had led to the offer of a treaty (20:2). (3) Stipulations, the terms upon which the two parties were to agree, typically included the king’s offer of protection from enemies and care during emergency, while the people would agree to behave in conformity to the preferences of that king. Exodus includes a brief setting forth of the terms of the covenant (20:3-17) followed by expanded terms (chs 21–23). (4) Another statement indicated where a written copy of the covenant should be kept and when it should be read (24:7; 25:16). (5) The gods were called upon to witness the agreement (in Exodus, historical markers are substituted for the gods, 24:4). (6) The blessings and curses were stated that would follow upon obedience or disobedience to the covenant (23:20-33). Utilizing the political form of the covenant, God invited his people into a formal relationship with himself as king while avoiding the pagan overtones that contaminated religious forms of the time. Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5:1–7:29) is a New Testament parallel to this section of Exodus, with the Beatitudes (Matt 5:3-12) paralleling the Ten Commandments.
20:1-17 The brief statement of the terms of the covenant (see also Deut 5:6-21).
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20:1 This corresponds to the introductory statement in the ancient covenant format. • all these instructions (literally all these words): When these statements are referred to elsewhere (34:28; Deut 4:13; 10:4), the Hebrew text refers to them as the “Ten Words.” These are not arbitrary commandments, but an explanation of God’s basic instructions for human living given by the Creator of human life.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.