The ten commandments
20
📚And God spoke all these words, saying,20:1 This is one of the key chapters of the Bible, of the whole literature of the world. The laws recorded here are not man’s but God’s. They give His standard of holiness and justice. They were given for the good of Israel and for the good of people everywhere.⚜
2 📚“I am the LORD your God, who has brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
20:2 God first identifies Himself so there can be no mistake. He is Jehovah (“LORD”), the eternally self-existing one, the Creator of man (Gen 2:7), the one who displayed His marvelous power in bringing Israel out of Egypt (note on Jehovah at Ex 3:14-15).⚜
3 📚“You shall have no other gods besides 📖 me.
20:3 The first law of God is often repeated in the Bible (Deut 6:14; 2 Kings 17:35; Jer 25:6; 35:15; Matt 4:10). The Bible teaches the centrality of God the Creator, and this is the most important of His laws. If people follow other gods they will reject Him, neglect other laws of His, ignore His way of salvation, and thus bring ruin upon themselves. The meaning of this verse is not that there are many gods all struggling for supremacy. There is only one true God and He hates everything that is false, everything that man makes into a god or falsely imagines to be God. He loves human beings and wants their love in return (Deut 6:5). Even if a person follows all the other laws of God and breaks only this one, that person is guilty of a great sin against God, and is worthy of terrible punishment (Deut 13:6-18; 17:2-7).⚜
4 📚“You shall not make for yourself any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; 5 📚You shall not bow down to them, or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God 📖, visiting 📖 the wrongdoing 📖 of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 📚and showing mercy to thousands, to those who love me and keep my commandments.
20:4-6 God, the Creator of the universe and of man, forbids all idolatry. This commandment too is repeated many times in the Bible (for example Lev 19:4; 26:1; Deut 4:15-19; 5:8-9; 27:15; 1 John 5:21). God does not have to give any reasons for this; He is God and knows what is right and good. But excellent reasons why He gave this command are later revealed in the Bible.
First, idols give a false view of what God is like. They dishonor and slander God (Isa 40:18-26; Acts 17:29; Rom 1:20-23). Nothing that men can make can in any way represent God’s eternal being, His holiness, His grandeur, His supremely excellent nature. Man-made images will be ugly and abominable by comparison with God’s glory. Even if there could be images which truly represented God’s nature (and this is impossible), they would not be good for people to have and worship. By them we could only know the images of God and not God Himself. God can be known only through spirit, only by direct experience with Him. The Lord Jesus taught that God is spirit and that they who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth (John 4:24).
Second, the Bible says that idols are vain and worthless (Ps 115:2-8; 135:13-18; Isa 44:9-20; Jer 10:5; Hab 2:18-19; 1 Cor 12:2; Rev 9:20).
Third, idolatry corrupts individuals and nations. It leads people astray from the one true God (Ps 106:36-39; Ezek 6:9; 44:10; Hos 4:12). So God in His love for people emphatically forbids all idolatry.⚜
7 📚“You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that takes his name in vain.
20:7 Lev 19:12; Deut 6:13; 10:20. God is holy and His name is holy (note at Lev 20:7). People must regard it as holy and use His name only sincerely, truly, lovingly. The penalty for breaking this law was severe (Deut 28:58-59).⚜
8 📚“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 📚Six days you are to labour, and do all your work; 10 📚but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. You shall not do any work in it, neither you, nor your son, nor your daughter, your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your foreigner who is inside your gates; 11 📚for in six days 📖 the LORD made the heaven 📖 and the earth 📖, the sea, and all that is in them, and ceased on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day, and made 📖 it holy.
20:8-11 Gen 2:2-3; Ex 23:12; 31:13-17; 34:21; 35:2-3; Deut 5:12-15; Isa 58:12-13. The Sabbath was a day of quietness, relaxation, and rest. It was also the day when Israel met together to worship God (Lev 23:3). God knew that man needed such a day after six days of work. The law had Saturday for their rest day. Christians now, no longer under the law (Rom 6:14), generally have Sunday as their rest day (Acts 20:7; 1 Cor 16:2). The particular day is not the important thing but the fact of having some day for rest and worship. In the whole of the New Testament there is no command to Christians to take Saturday (or any other day) as their day of rest.⚜
12 📚“Honour your father and your mother, so that your time may be long in the land which the LORD your God is giving you.
13 📚“You shall not commit murder.
20:13 Gen 9:6; Ex 21:12; Lev 24:17; Deut 5:17. This is not a command against killing, but against murder. God Himself commanded men to put other men to death for various offenses (see note at 21:36), and sent the nation Israel into Canaan to kill its inhabitants. So to translate this command as “You shall not kill” is misleading. The Hebrew word means murder.⚜
14 📚“You shall not commit adultery.
15 📚“You shall not steal.
16 📚“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour 📖.
17 📚“You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour”.
20:17 Deut 5:21; Rom 7:7; 13:9; Eph 5:3, 5. All the other commandments in this chapter concern outward actions. This one concerns the secret desires of the heart. The apostle Paul once thought he could keep all of the law, but this one command revealed to him the uncontrollable desires that were in his fallen nature and convicted him of sin (Rom 7:7-8). More than any other commandment perhaps this one shows that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23). The Lord Jesus revealed that sin is in the inner desire as well as in the outward act of a person (Matt 5:27-28; 15:19-20).⚜
The People's Fear
18 📚And all the people saw the thunder and the lightning flashes, and the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking. And when the people saw it, they trembled and stood at a distance.
19 📚And they said to Moses, “You speak with us, and we will listen; but do not have God speak with us, or we will die”.
20 📚And Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid; for God has come to test you so that his fear may be before your faces, so that you do not sin”.
21 📚And the people stood at a distance, and Moses drew near the thick darkness where God was.
Further laws and instructions
22 📚And the LORD said to Moses, “This is what you are to say to the children of Israel: You have seen that I have talked with you from heaven. 23 📚To be with me you shall not make for yourself gods of silver, and you shall not make for yourself gods of gold.
20:23 The one law God repeats in this chapter is the prohibition of other gods. This law was of the utmost importance. In fact all the other laws are based on this one.⚜
24 📚“You shall make an altar of earth for me, and on it you shall sacrifice your burnt offerings, and your peace offerings, your sheep, and your oxen. In every place that I cause my name to be remembered I will come to you, and I will bless you 📖.
20:24 The Jewish sacrificial system at this time had symbolic significance. A sacrificial lamb or goat could not of itself atone for a person’s sin. A slain lamb pointed to the future “Lamb of God” Who would be slain and take upon Himself God's anger against our sin, so that His people would be delivered from eternal punishment. An animal was killed always reminding the people that a life had to be substituted for the sinners sin. In this way, Old Testament believers expressed their faith in the promises of God and in His “Anointed One” Whom we now know is Jesus Christ, The Lamb of God. This One is spoken of all through the Old Testament pointing forward to a time future to them. The New Testament reveals His identity and the work of God's redemptive plan, Burnt and peace offerings signify Christ sacrificed for sinners to deliver them from the curse of the very law now revealed (Gal 3:13-14). See notes on these offerings at Leviticus chapters 1 and 3.⚜
25 📚And if you make an altar of stone for me, you shall not build it with cut stones, for if you use your chisel on it, you have polluted it. 26 📚Neither shall you go up by steps to my altar, so that your nakedness is not exposed on it.’