Giving of the Ten Commandments

The law recorded in Ex 20:2—17, also called the Decalogue, which sums up what God requires of man, and defines his duty toward God and toward his fellow men (cf. Mt 22:34—40). The principles enunciated by the Ten Commandments are eternal, for they are based upon the character of God, but the form in which these principles were uttered at Sinai was adapted to the understanding and instruction of men in their state of sinfulness and natural nonconformity to the divine will. The 10 commands of the Decalogue have the unique distinction of being the only words addressed audibly by God to the entire congregation of Israel (see Ex 20:1, 18, 19 Deut 4:10—13 5:22).

All of the other laws and regulations God ordained at that time were communicated through Moses as an intermediary (see Ex 20:19—22 Deut 4:14 Deut 6:1). Subsequent to the oral delivery of the law God inscribed these 10 commands upon 2 tables of stone which He gave to Moses to be preserved in the ark (Ex 31:18 32:19 34:1—4 Deut 5:22 10:1—5). Moses' original account of the law as proclaimed by God, and later engraved upon the tables of stone, gives the Decalogue in the wording of Ex 20:1—17. Later Moses repeated the law in oral form with slight variations in wording (Deut 5:6—21).

The only noteworthy difference in this repetition of the law is the reason assigned for the observance of the 7th—day Sabbath— deliverance from Egyptian bondage, in place of the creation of the world in 6 days, as in the original form. The many civil regulations enacted at Mount Sinai were an application of the principles of the second table of the Decalogue to the society and needs of the Jewish people. The ceremonial law, which sets forth a divinely ordained system of worship appropriate to the period of earth's history when that law was given, was an extension and development of the principles enunciated in the Decalogue particularly with respect to man's relationship to his God.