words “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” Thus to take
the preface as a distinct word is not reasonable unless there are cogent
grounds for uniting the commandments against polytheism and
idolatry. But that is far from being the case. The first precept of
the Philonic scheme enjoins monolatry, the second expresses God’s
spiritual and transcendental nature. Accordingly Kuenen does not
deny that the prohibition of images contains an element additional
to the precept of monolatry, but, following De Goeje, regards the
words from “thou shalt not make unto thyself” down to “the
waters under the earth” as a later insertion in the original Decalogue.
Unless this can be made out, the Philonic scheme is clearly best, and
as such it is now accepted by most scholars.
How were the ten words disposed on the two tables? The natural arrangement (which is assumed by Philo and Josephus) would be five and five. And this, as Philo recognized, is a division appropriate to the sense of the precepts; for antiquity did not look on piety towards parents as a mere precept of probity, part of one’s duty towards one’s neighbour. The authority of parents and rulers is viewed in the Old Testament as a delegated divine authority, and the violation of it is akin to blasphemy (cf. Ex. xxi. 17 and Lev. xx. 9 with Lev. xxiv. 15, 16, and note the formula of treason, 1 Kings xxi. 13).
We have thus five precepts of piety on the first table, and five of probity, in negative form, on the second, an arrangement which is accepted by the best recent writers. But the current view of the Western Church since Augustine has been that the precept to honour parents heads the second table. The only argument of weight in favour of this view is that it makes the amount of writing on the two tables less unequal, while we know that the second table as well as the first was written on both sides (Ex. xxxii. 15). But we shall presently see that there may be another way out of this difficulty.
Date.—It is much disputed what the original compass of the Decalogue was. Did the whole text of Ex. xx. 2-17 stand on the tables of stone? The answer to this question must start from the reason annexed to the fourth commandment, which is different in Deuteronomy. But the express words “and he added no more,” in Deut. v. 22, show that there is no conscious omission by the Deuteronomic speaker of part of the original Decalogue, which cannot therefore have included the reason annexed in Exodus. On the other hand the reason annexed in Deuteronomy is rather a parenetic addition than an original element dropped in Exodus. Thus the original fourth commandment was simply “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.”[1] When this is granted it must appear not improbable that the elucidations of other commandments may not have stood on the tables, and that Nos. 6-9 have survived in their original form. Thus in the second commandment, “Thou shalt not bow down to any visible form,” &c., is a sort of explanatory addition to the precept “Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image.” And so the promise attached to the fifth commandment was probably not on the tables, and the tenth commandment may have simply been, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house,” which includes all that is expressed in the following clauses. Such a view gets over the difficulty arising from the unequal length of the two halves of the Decalogue.
It is quite another question whether there is any idea in the Decalogue which can be as old as Moses. It is urged by many critics that Moses cannot have prohibited the worship of Yahweh by images; for the subsequent history shows us a descendant of Moses as priest in the idolatrous sanctuary of Dan. There were teraphim in David’s house, and the worship of Yahweh under the image of a calf was the state religion of the kingdom of Ephraim. Even Moses himself is said to have made a brazen serpent which, down to Hezekiah’s time, continued to be worshipped at Jerusalem. It is argued from these facts that image-worship went on unchallenged, and that this would not have been possible had Moses forbidden it. The argument is supported by others of great cogency. Although the literary problems of the chapters which narrate the law-giving on Mt. Sinai are extremely intricate, it is generally agreed that Ex. xx. cannot be ascribed to the oldest source, and if, in accordance with many critics, this chapter is ascribed to the Elohist or Ephraimite school, its incorporation can scarcely be older than the middle of the 8th century, and is probably later. With this, the condemnation of adultery in Gen. xx. 1-17 (contrast xii. 10-20, xxvi. 6-11) is in harmony, and the prohibition of the worship of the heavenly bodies is aimed at a form of idolatry which is frequently alluded to in the times of the later kings. The lofty ethics (e.g. tenth commandment) is in itself no sound criterion, whilst the external form of the laws, though characteristic of later codes, need not be taken as evidence of importance. But the general result of a study of the Decalogue as a whole, in connexion with Israelite political history and religion, strongly supports, in fact demands, a post-Mosaic origin, and modern criticism is chiefly divided only as to the approximate date to which it is to be ascribed. The time of Manasseh (cf. especially its contact with Micah vi. 6-8) has found many adherents, but an earlier period, about 750 B.C. (time of Amos and Hosea), is often held to satisfy the main conditions; the former, however, is probably nearer the mark.
The Decalogue of Exodus xxxiv.—In the book of Exodus the words written on the tables of stone are nowhere expressly identified with the ten commandments of chap. xx. In xxv. 16, xxxi. 18, xxxii. 15, we simply read of “the testimony” inscribed on the tables, and it seems to be assumed that its contents must be already known to the reader. The expression “ten words” first occurs in xxxiv. 28, in a passage which relates the restoration of the tables after they had been broken. But these “ten words” are called “the words of the covenant,” and so can hardly be different from the words mentioned in the preceding verse as those in accordance wherewith the covenant was made with Israel. And again, the words of ver. 27 are necessarily the commandments which immediately precede in vv. 12-26. Accordingly many recent critics have sought to show that Ex. xxxiv. 12-26 contains just ten precepts forming a second decalogue.[2]
These consist not of precepts of social morality, but of several laws of religious observance closely corresponding to the religious and ritual precepts of Ex. xxi.-xxiii. The number ten is not clearly made out, and the individual precepts are somewhat variously assigned. They prohibit (1) the worship of other gods, (2) the making of molten images; they ordain (3) the observance of the feast of unleavened bread, (4) the feast of weeks, (5) the feast of ingathering at the end of the year, and (6) the seventh-day rest; to Yahweh belong (7) the firstlings, and (8) the first-fruits of the land; they forbid also (9) the offering of the blood of sacrifice with leaven, (10) the leaving-over of the fat of a feast until the morning, and (11) the seething of a kid in its mother’s milk. This scheme ignores the command to appear thrice in the year before Yahweh which recapitulates Nos. 3-5, and the decade is obtained by omitting No. 6, which some hold to be out of place. Others include “none shall appear before me empty-handed” (xxxiv. 20), and unite Nos. 4-5, 9 and 10. C. F. Kent (Beginnings of Heb. Hist. pp. 183 sqq.) obtains a decalogue from scattered precepts in Ex. xx.-xxiii., which corresponds with Nos. 2, 7, 6, 3 and 5 (in one), 9 and 10 (in one), 11 above, and adds (a) the building of an altar of earth (xx. 24), (b) offering from the harvest and wine-press (xxii. 29), (c) firstlings of animals (xxii. 29 sqq.; cf. No. 7, and xxxiv. 19); (d) prohibition against eating torn flesh (xxii. 31).[3] The so-called Yahwist Decalogue in xxxiv. presupposes a rather more primitive stage in society, partly nomadic and partly agricultural; No. 6 is suitable only for agriculturists and cannot have originated among nomads. The whole may be summed up in a sentence:—“Worship Yahweh and Yahweh alone, without images, let the worship be simple and in accord with the old usage; forbear to introduce the practices of your Canaanitish neighbours” (Harper). It would seem to represent more precisely a Judaean standpoint (cf. the simpler customs of the Rechabites, q.v.).
- ↑ It is generally assumed that the addition in Exodus is from a hand akin to Gen. ii. 2 sqq.; Ex. xxxi. 17 (P.).
- ↑ So Hitzig (Ostern und Pfingsten im zweiten Dekalog, Heidelberg, 1838), independently of a previous suggestion of Goethe in 1783, who in turn appears to have been anticipated by an early Greek writer (Nestle, Zeit. für alt-test. Wissenschaft (1904), pp. 134 sqq.).
- ↑ See also W. E. Barnes, Journ. Theol. Stud. (1905), pp. 557-563.
