Christians often picture the God who delivers the ten commandments as a stern and forbidding judge. The thou-shalt-nots outnumber the thou-shalts eight to two.
A closer reading recognizes their life-giving vision. The commandments hold a pattern of right relationships between the Creator God and all creatures, including humans.
The first commandment describes God as one who brings people out of slavery and one who is jealous and passionate for such love to be returned with love.
The third commandment models a day for worship on God’s rest after the work of creation. People, animals, and aliens among the people are to work for six days and then to rest on the seventh day, just as God did in creating the world. Honoring parents, ancestors, and animals leads to long life in the land which God promises.
The commandments forbid killing, adultering, stealing, giving false witness to neighbors, and coveting a neighbor’s spouse, slave, animal, or possessions. These are actions that break down relationships and don’t fit the pattern of liberating life in the image of God, the Creator.
The Ten Commandments.
“I, Yahweh, am your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery.
“You shall have no other gods besides me. You shall carve no idols for yourselves in the shape of anything in the sky above, or on the earth below, or in the waters beneath the earth. You shall not bow down before them or worship them. For I, Yahweh, your God, am a jealous God, inflicting the punishment for the ancestors’ wrongdoing on the children of those who hate me, down to the third and fourth generation; but bestowing mercy down to the thousandth generation, on the children of those who love me and keep my commandments.
“You shall not take the name of Yahweh, your God, in vain. For the Holy One will not leave unpunished those who take God’s name in vain.
“Remember to keep holy the sabbath day. Six days you may labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the sabbath of Yahweh, your God. No work may be done then either by you, or your son or daughter, or your male or female slave, or your beast, or by the alien who lives with you. In six days God made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them; but on the seventh day God rested. That is why Yahweh has blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.
“Honor your father and your mother, that you may have a long life in the land which, Yahweh, your God, is giving you.
“You shall not kill.
“You shall not commit adultery.
“You shall not steal.
“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s spouse, nor male or female slave, nor ox or ass, nor anything else that belongs to him or her.”
Exodus 20.1-17
- In what ways are the commandments liberating and life-giving for you?
- Where would we be without them?