Sunday, October 11, 2026 · Pentecost 20
Exodus 19:3–7; 20:1–17
3 Then Moses went up to God; the Lord called to him from the mountain, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob and tell the Israelites: 4 ‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. 5 Now, therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, 6 but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the Israelites.”
7 So Moses went, summoned the elders of the people, and set before them all these words that the Lord had commanded him…
Then God spoke all these words,
2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; 3 you shall have no other gods before me.
4 “You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above or that is on 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, punishing children for the iniquity of parents to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me 6 but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.
7 “You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.
8 “Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work. 10 But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it.
12 “Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
13 “You shall not murder.
14 “You shall not commit adultery.
15 “You shall not steal.
16 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, male or female slave, ox, donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
Notes
All of this is so ancient: fleshpots, unleavened bread, laws carved into stone tablets. Even the name is a translation. Verse 1 says "God spoke all these words," (kol-hadevarim ha'eleh), and where English Bibles later say "the ten commandments" (Exodus 34:28; Deuteronomy 4:13; 10:4), the Hebrew says aseret hadevarim, "the ten words." The Greek translation kept the phrase, δέκα λόγοι (deka logoi), which is where we get "Decalogue." And look how uneven the ten are. "You shall not murder" is two words in Hebrew, while the Sabbath command runs four verses. Most scholars think Exodus 20 grew out of an even simpler set of short devarim, with reasons and explanations added over time. Deuteronomy 5 has its own version, and its explanations don't always match.
Before a single command, God says who is speaking: "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery." Less than two months earlier (19:1), these people were making Pharaoh's bricks. Which brings me to my one soapbox. For all that's great about the Ten Commandments, I don't think we should hang them in public schools. Texas passed a law in 2025 requiring them in classrooms, in a version whose first line reads "I AM the LORD thy God." The rest of that sentence, the part about Egypt and the house of slavery, isn't there. Cut that clause and the commandments read like rules from whoever runs the building. If Christians really want to influence the culture, let's start with the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3–12).
"You shall have no other gods before me." The Hebrew is 'al-panay, literally "before my face" or "in front of me." The commandment assumes other gods exist and tells Israel not to serve them. Early Israel was henotheist: one God for us, with no claim that the others weren't real. The flat statement that there is no other god at all comes later, in Isaiah 40–55.
Verse 4 forbids images of anything "in heaven above or ... on the earth beneath or ... in the water under the earth." Israel's neighbors divided that cosmos among different gods. In the Ugaritic texts from the Syrian coast, Baal rides the storm clouds, Yamm rules the sea, and Mot rules death and the underworld. Exodus hands every level to one God, and nothing found on any level can stand in for that God. Verse 5 then calls God "jealous," (el qanna), a word that also means zealous or ardent. Robert Alter calls this "the revolutionary idea of a single God uniting all the realms of creation," "a noble and philosophically bold idea."
The next line is harder. God punishes "children for the iniquity of parents to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me." Jewish interpreters hung a lot on that phrase. The Aramaic Targum Onkelos adds a condition: when the children go on sinning after their fathers. The Talmud says the punishment applies when children "hold their fathers' deeds in their hands" (Berakhot 7a). In other words, the children are punished for following their parents' example. But the plain sense is that the ancient writer considered this the merciful version. Punishment runs out after three or four generations, while steadfast love runs (la'alafim), "to thousands," which the NRSVue reads as "the thousandth generation." Ezekiel will argue with the whole idea. He quotes the proverb people kept repeating, "The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge" (Ezekiel 18:2), and answers it: "A child shall not suffer for the iniquity of a parent nor a parent suffer for the iniquity of a child" (18:20).
"You shall not make wrongful use of the name" is, more literally, "you shall not lift up the name for falsehood." Alter says this refers "to the use of the potent divine name in adjuration and perhaps also in magical conjuration, not to the mention of the name in casual speech. 'In vain' has the sense of 'falsely.'" Picture someone swearing a false oath by God's name in court, or using the name like a spell.
The Sabbath command opens with "Remember," (zakhor). To keep the Sabbath is to reenact creation: six days of work, then rest, because God made the world in six days and rested on the seventh (verse 11). The rest runs all the way down the household, to sons and daughters, male and female slaves, livestock, and "the alien resident in your towns." Deuteronomy's version opens with "Observe," שָׁמוֹר (shamor), and gives a different reason: "so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you. Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt" (Deuteronomy 5:14–15). Exodus grounds the Sabbath in creation, Deuteronomy in liberation.
With "Honor your father and your mother," the commandments turn from obligations toward God to obligations toward other people. The Sabbath sits on the line between them, a day for God that is also a day off for the slave and the donkey.
The King James "Thou shalt not kill" is too broad. רָצַח (ratzah) means murder, a criminal act of killing. Hebrew has a general verb for killing, הָרַג (harag), and the commandment doesn't use it.
The last command uses חָמַד (hamad), which covers yearning, desiring, lusting after, and plain ole wanting. The same root shows up in Eden, where the tree "was to be desired to make one wise," and then "she took of its fruit" (Genesis 3:6). Can you legislate a feeling? The medieval commentator Abraham ibn Ezra thought desire could at least be trained. His example is a sensible peasant who sees a beautiful princess and doesn't covet her, because he knows she's out of reach. We all learn to sort what's realistic to want from what has to stay fantasy, and ibn Ezra wants your neighbor's things filed under fantasy. Notice, too, who the commandment is talking to. Like Saturday's "do not go near a woman," the "you" here is a man, and his neighbor's wife sits in the list between the house and the slaves. Deuteronomy gives her a sentence of her own, "Neither shall you covet your neighbor's wife" (5:21), before it moves on to the property.
Questions for reflection
The commandments open with "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery." What changes when you read the rest of them as words spoken to people just out of slavery?
The Sabbath command gives rest to the slave and the resident alien along with the head of the household. Whose work makes your rest possible, and when do they get to rest?
