Were the ten commandments written by the Lord and handed down to Moses on Mount Sinai?
Disclaimer
Debating the Bible is an extremely difficult and delicate task. And the 10 commandments in the Bible are the dogma. The Bible is by far the most read, the most translated, and, many would say, the most influential book there is. It is the foundation for Christianity, and the original form of the old testament, Tanakh, is the foundation for Hebraism. Even Islam is largely based on the biblical tradition.
Still, we have to regard it as mostly non-historical, as there are very few historical facts outside the Bible itself to support its accuracy.
Who wrote the ten commandments?
Most modern scholars believe that Moses is a mythological figure and didn’t actually exist in real life. The consensus is also that the Exodus never happened or at least not in the way it is described in the Bible and not from Egypt.
So, we have to discuss the ten commandments strictly from a biblical point of view, the actual writings in the Bible. And here we find other difficulties… What’s been added, what’s been taken away, what’s been modified, and what has been lost in translation. I am going to use the King James Bible as it is regarded by most scholars as authoritative.
What are the 10 commandments in the Bible?
The 10 commandments in the Bible are ten rules or guidelines for the Hebrew people, later also for Christians. They represent the essence of how to live in accordance with the will of God. The fact that they are ten could be symbolic as the number 10 could represent Divine authority, obedience, etc. The commandments are not numbered in the Bible. Although in some other texts they are organized in 10 distinct spaces. The number ten is mentioned in Exodus. (Exodus 34:28 …he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.) The fact that they’re not numbered has led to many different interpretations of where one ends and the next begins.
Apart from the story in Exodus, they are also mentioned in Deuteronomy 5. The place where the covenant was made in Deuteronomy 5 is Horeb. It could be another location than Sinai, but probably is just another name of the same area.
Deuteronomy 27 is another passage that arguably includes the ten commandments.
So how did they get into the hands of Moses?
In Ex. 19:20 the Lord comes down on Mount Sinai with fire and smoke. Moses walks up on the mountain. There God tells him to go down again and fetch his brother Aaron. Ex. 19:25 So Moses went down unto the people, and spake unto them.
Then the word continuous… Ex.20:1 And God spake all these words, saying, {20:2} I [am] the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. This is the first time the ten commandments are cited: Ex. 20:3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me…
Reading the text as it’s written, it’s clear that Moses is down at the camp when he tells his people about the commandments. When he is finished talking, the people answer him.Ex. 20:18 And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings… they removed, and stood afar off. {20:19} 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 clear that Moses was among his people, referring to what God had said when he talks about the ten commandments.
Moses walks into the darkness or up onto Mount Sinai.
At this point, the children of Israel are very scared because there are lightnings, thunders and smoke, and even trumpets. So they ask Moses to go and talk to God but not let God talk to them, because they would all surely die. So Moses walks into the darkness where God was.
And here follows the law. From Ex. 20:23 until Ex. 31:17. It is the Hebrew law, very detailed and complex. It is six pages in the Bible, 11 chapters, and almost 10.000 words. The Hebrew tradition sometimes regards all 613 commandments in the law as equally important and thus doesn’t refer to the commandments as ten.
At the end of it all, the Lord gives the two stone tablets to Moses Ex. 31:18 And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.
We could assume that they were written on the stone tablets, alone or together with the law, even though the commandments were actually cited by Moses before entering the darkness where God was.
The Golden calf.
Now God tells Moses to go down to the camp because the children of Israel have already turned away from the Lord. And here’s the story about the Golden Calf. Moses in his desperation throws the stone tablets to the ground and breaks them. Ex. 32:19 …and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount.
Moses convinces God to not kill everybody. Then God talks to Moses in the Tabernacle. He orders him to go up again to the Mountain and to bring two stone tablets, identical to the ones he destroyed so that he could write the same words as on the first two. Moses does so.
Ex.34:1 … and I will write upon [these] tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest.
Who wrote the second set of the ten commandments?
The Lord speaks to Moses, but he doesn’t repeat the same words as in Exodus 20. This time the ten commandments are different. At the end, it says Ex. 34:28 … And he (Moses) wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.
So who wrote down the ten commandments? The first time it was God, but the second time it was Moses.
Conclusion.
The ten commandments in one way or the other were given to Moses by God. The writings on the first tablet could have included the ten commandments but they could also have been omitted. What’s interesting is that the commandments as we know them were destroyed. In their place, the Israelites got ten new commandments that were different from the original. Ex.34:27… And the LORD said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel.
Later consensus somehow excluded the second ones and put the first set of tablets inside the Ark and hid them there. I would strongly recommend everybody to read a little from the Bible.
Yes, and no. The commandments were given to Moses twice and in two versions. The first time handed over to- and the second time written by Moses. The commandments that were carried in the Ark, that helped in crushing the walls of Jerico, that were kept in the temple in Jerusalem, and finally lost after the Babylonian Conquest were the second ones.
The ten Commandments
Exodus 34:11 Observe thou that which I command thee this day: behold, I drive out before thee the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite.
34:12 Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee:
34:13 But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves: {34:14} For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name [is] Jealous, [is] a jealous God:
34:15 Lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go a whoring after their gods, and do sacrifice unto their gods, and [one] call thee, and thou eat of his sacrifice;
34:16 And thou take of their daughters unto thy sons, and their daughters go a whoring after their gods, and make thy sons go a whoring after their gods.
34:17 Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.
34:18 The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep. Seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread, as I commanded thee, in the time of the month Abib: for in the month Abib thou camest out from Egypt.
34:19 All that openeth the matrix [is] mine; and every firstling among thy cattle, [whether] ox or sheep, [that is male. ]
34:20 But the firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb: and if thou redeem [him] not, then shalt thou break his neck. All the firstborn of thy sons thou shalt redeem. And none shall appear before me empty.
34:21 Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest: in earing time and in harvest thou shalt rest.
34:22 And thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year’s end.
34:23 Thrice in the year shall all your men children appear before the Lord GOD, the God of Israel.
34:24 For I will cast out the nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders: neither shall any man desire thy land, when thou shalt go up to appear before the LORD thy God thrice in the year.
34:25 Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven; neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the passover be left unto the morning.
34:26 The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring unto the house of the LORD thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk.
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34:27 And the LORD said unto Moses, Write thou
these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a
covenant with thee and with Israel.
34:28 And he was
there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did
neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the
tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.
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