The real Ten Commandments

What is more, everyone knows what the Commandments said -- I mean the ones that Moses carved with his own hands. We certainly hear enough about them in the daily news. Some people want them removed from all public space; others insist that they are the foundation of Western law. But nobody argues about what they actually say, because we all remember that from when we learned it as kids: the first tablet starts off forbidding any other gods before God, graven images, and so on; the second tablet forbids murder, adultery, theft, false witness, and coveting.

The great thing about facts that "everybody knows" is how often they are wrong. In fact, when Moses carved ten commandments onto the second set of tablets those were not the commandments he carved at all. Everyone who remembers this story the way I described it above -- as the moment when God first gives to mankind, in written form, the basic laws of any civilized social order -- is mistaken about which laws were actually carved onto those tablets in the first place.

The whole story of the "second carving" takes place in Exodus 34. In verse 1, God tells Moses to carve out a second set of tablets. In verse 4, Moses does it. Then he has a long talk with God, during which God outlines ten basic laws to Moses and tells him (verse 27) "Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel." In verse 28, we are told that Moses stayed there forty days and nights; and "he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments."

So it sounds pretty clear that the Ten Commandments which Moses carved on this second set of tablets consisted of the ten laws God had given him in the preceding verses. And those laws are nothing like the ones we hear about from Judge Roy Moore and all the other impassioned voices in our public square. I quote what follows from the Exodus 34:12-26 (NIV); all I have added is some formatting and headers to make the sense of the text clearer. Read it and remind yourself that this -- this! -- is the written law which Moses finally brought down intact from Sinai and stored in the Ark of the Covenant.

¹² Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land where you are going, or they will be a snare among you. ¹³ Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and cut down their Asherah poles. ¹⁴ Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God. ¹⁵ Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land; for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to them, they will invite you and you will eat their sacrifices. ¹⁶ And when you choose some of their daughters as wives for your sons and those daughters prostitute themselves to their gods, they will lead your sons to do the same.

III. Keep the Passover
¹⁸ Celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread. For seven days eat bread made without yeast, as I commanded you. Do this at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in that month you came out of Egypt.

IV. All firstborns belong to God
¹⁹ The first offspring of every womb belongs to me, including all the firstborn males of your livestock, whether from herd or flock. ²⁰ Redeem the firstborn donkey with a lamb, but if you do not redeem it, break its neck. Redeem all your firstborn sons.

VI. Keep the Sabbath
²¹ Six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even during the plowing season and harvest you must rest.

VII. Keep your religious festivals
²² Celebrate the Feast of Weeks with the firstfruits of the wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the turn of the year. ²³ Three times a year all your men are to appear before the Sovereign LORD, the God of Israel. ²⁴ I will drive out nations before you and enlarge your territory, and no one will covet your land when you go up three times each year to appear before the LORD your God.

VIII. Rules for sacrifice
²⁵ Do not offer the blood of a sacrifice to me along with anything containing yeast, and do not let any of the sacrifice from the Passover Feast remain until morning.

IX. God gets your firstfruits
²⁶ Bring the best of the firstfruits of your soil to the house of the LORD your God.

X. Do not seethe a kid in its mother's milk.
Do not cook a young goat in its mother's milk.

As Anna Russell once said in a very different contetxt, "I'm not making this up, you know ...." And this puts the whole story in a very different light. I'm not even sure what to say by way of comment, but I think the true content of the story -- especially when compared with the version that everyone remembers -- is very interesting indeed.