What Makes the 10 Commandments Special?

Summary

BibleProject Podcast Episode Summary

Episode: What Makes the 10 Commandments Special?

Date: March 23, 2026
Hosts: Tim Mackey & John Collins

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Main Theme

This episode launches a new series on the 10 Commandments—reframed as "the Ten Words." The hosts, Tim and John, explore why the Ten Commandments are foundational, how their biblical context and language matter, and why thinking of them as "words" rather than just "commands" opens up a deeper, more expansive perspective for both ancient Israel and modern listeners.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Ten Commandments Are Actually "The Ten Words"

• [00:37] The Hebrew term is Aseret HaDevarim—“the ten words”—not “ten commandments.”
• The phrase "Ten Commandments" is a later translation convention, not the original biblical language.
  • Quote: “They’re not ten divine commands dropped out of heaven for all people of all time. They were spoken at a moment in time and place in history, in the context of a relationship.” – B [00:46]

2. Context & Covenant

• [01:15] The "ten words" are introduced before the other 603 laws and are set apart:
  • Only these are written in stone by the "finger of God" ([01:15], [20:31]).
  • The 10 are the ongoing test of Israel’s relationship with God and each other.
  • Quote: “These 10 are also the only ones that are said to be written on the two tablets etched on stone by the finger of God.” – B [01:15]
• The 10 form a foundation for the covenant partnership between God and Israel.

3. The Ten as Foundation in the Prophets & Jesus

• Prophets and Jesus regularly use the 10 as a moral and spiritual baseline.
  • [01:54, 32:41] Hosea and Jeremiah judge Israel’s faithfulness through the lens of these commandments.
  • [02:06, 34:29] Jesus references them (especially in the Sermon on the Mount and in his dialogue with the rich young ruler: “keep the commandments”—which ones? He lists five from the Ten.)
• Quote: “How do you know if Israel’s doing well or not? How are you doing with the 10? Let’s not even talk about the hundreds. Let’s just talk about the 10.” – B [01:41]
• Quote: “These ten show you the way to the life of God’s new creation.” – B [02:06]

4. A Pop Quiz: Remembering the Ten

• [04:38 – 07:22] Light-hearted segment where staff try to recall the Ten Commandments, showing how even familiar biblical teachings can be hard to enumerate from memory. Illustrates the familiarity yet vagueness many feel with the Ten.
  • Memorable Moment: “I failed miserably... we're not going to listen to me fumble through it.” – A [04:55]
  • Several staff conflate or forget specific ones, highlighting differences in how traditions count the 10.

5. Counting and Division: The Numbering Puzzle

• [19:24 – 22:13]
  • The commands aren’t explicitly numbered in the text; various traditions number them differently.
  • There are technically 11 imperatives but always referred to as "the ten."
  • The tablets are double-sided, not simply “five and five.”
  • Some speculate both tablets had all ten—one for God, one for Israel.
  • Quote: “There’s precedent for thinking that…there’s Israel’s copy and there’s God’s copy.” – B [22:35]

6. Why "Words," Not Just "Commands"?

• [10:31] The term "word" (Heb: devar) is about relationship and partnership, not just obligation.
  • In Hebrew, "mitzvah" is a command, but "devarim" (words/matters) is broader—vows, partnership terms.
  • Quote: “When a couple’s getting married and they say their vows…those are words…they’re binding…but we don’t call them the marriage commands.” – B [12:24]
• Seeing them as "words" opens up the sense of conversation, wisdom, and relational guidance.
  • Quote: “Calling them commandments can make us think of a checklist, but words can feel more like invitations to a way of being.” – Paraphrased from A [14:43]

7. The Structure: Relationship with God and Others

• [25:21 – 27:03]
  • The first four words concern relating to God; the last five concern relating to others.
  • The fifth—“Honor your father and mother”—serves as a hinge, connecting relationship with God to relationship with humans.
  • Quote: “What’s not covered in the 10? Like, really what area of human relationships isn’t covered?” – B [27:03]

8. Implicit and Explicit Meanings; The Wisdom in Flipping Commandments

• Commands have both negative (what not to do) and positive (what to do) implications.
  • [28:59 – 31:07] “Don’t murder” implicitly means “do seek your neighbor’s well-being,” etc.
  • Notable Reflection: “Do not murder. Do make it one of your main concerns to protect the well-being of your neighbor. …So when you go from negative to positive, the positive just like really opens it wide up.” – B [29:34]
• This "flipping" is how Jesus interprets them in the Sermon on the Mount ([34:29 – 38:52]).

9. Prophetic and Apostolic Use: The Ten as “Base Camp”

• The Ten serve as “base camp” for Israel’s faithfulness, and for Jesus, the apostles, and for ethical reflection in Christian history.
  • [41:13] “Generations of climbers have tried all the approaches to summit this thing, but this base camp reflects the wisdom of the generations.”

10. Modern Relevance and Next Steps

• [42:20 – 42:49] The next episode will explore the concept of “commands of God” broadly, starting from Genesis where the first divine instructions are blessings, not commands.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “They’re not ten divine commands dropped out of heaven for all people of all time. They were spoken at a moment in time and place in history, in the context of a relationship.”
   — B [00:46]

• “Did you know that the Bible doesn’t call them the Ten Commandments?”
   — A [16:47]

• “When a couple’s getting married and they say their vows…those are words…they’re binding…but we don’t call them the marriage commands.”
   — B [12:24]

• “Familiarity kills wonder. And that unknowing is the way back.”
   — B [15:48]

• “Don’t commit adultery… Flip it: pro-actively support, encourage, create a culture where marriage covenant partnerships can thrive.”
   — B [30:36]

• “Let’s not even talk about the hundreds. Let’s just talk about the 10.”
   — B [01:41 / 34:28]

• “Base camp reflects the wisdom of the generations. The best way to the top… Start from here.”
   — B [41:09]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |---------------|---------------------------------------------------| | [00:05]–[01:54] | Overview: Ten Commandments as cultural touchstone and biblical foundation | | [04:38]–[07:22] | Pop quiz: Staff try to recall the Ten Commandments | | [08:44]–[10:41] | Why “Ten Words” is the original, biblical term | | [12:24]–[13:14] | Vows vs. commands: relational language | | [19:24]–[22:13] | How the Ten are counted; tablets discussion | | [25:21]–[27:03] | Commandments as relational structure | | [28:59]–[31:07] | Flipping commands: negative/positive wisdom | | [32:41]–[38:13] | Prophetic use and Jesus’ interpretation | | [41:07]–[41:25] | Base camp metaphor: Foundation for good living | | [42:20]–[42:49] | Preview of next episode: “commands of God” theme |

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Tone and Style

The episode maintains a conversational, inquisitive, and sometimes playful style. The hosts encourage listeners to experience "unknowing"—a process of setting aside familiarity to discover depth. They blend scholarly insight with relatable metaphors (base camp, diamond facets) and encourage rethinking standard interpretations.

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Summary Takeaway

The Ten Commandments—better understood as "the ten words"—serve as the foundation not just for ancient Israel’s law, but for the moral reflection of prophets, Jesus, and the early followers of Jesus. By reframing them as “words”—rooted in relationship, not merely obligation—the hosts open the door for listeners to profound, expansive wisdom that extends into every aspect of human life, inviting personal and communal reflection anew. Future episodes will broaden the discussion to what it means for God to speak “commands” at all, starting from Genesis.

Transcript

[A]

Thou shalt not. What do you think of when you hear those words? Well, probably the Ten Commandments. Even if you know very little about the Bible, you've likely heard thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not steal. Honor your mother and father. The Ten Commandments are everywhere. They're in our movies, our literature, they're even engraved on public monuments. The Ten Commandments are central to our life now, but more importantly, they were central to the story of ancient. But surprisingly, in the Bible, they're not introduced as the Ten Commandments.

[B]

Instead, they're called Aseret Adevrim, which means the ten words.

[A]

So this new podcast series is on the ten words.

[B]

So they're not ten divine commands dropped out of heaven for all people of all time. They were spoken at a moment in time and place in history, in the context of a relationship.

[A]

After God gives the ten words, he gives hundreds of laws to ancient Israel. 613 to be exact. And these laws are about all sorts of things, from what animals to eat to how do we treat widows and orphans. But the 10 words come first, and they're treated as foundational.

[B]

These 10 are also the only ones that are said to be written on the two tablets etched on stone by the finger of God. The story is inviting us to see these 10 as a uniquely pure expression of the will of God for his people.

[A]

The 10 words are so central to Israel's identity that they become this ongoing litmus test for how well they are relating to God and others.

[B]

The prophets take the Ten Commandments as this essential base of the covenant partnership. How do you know if Israel's doing well or not? How are you doing with the 10? Let's not even talk about the hundreds. Let's just talk about the 10.

[A]

In many of the teachings of Jesus, including the Sermon on the Mount, he references and builds on the Ten Commandments. And when the rich young ruler asks Jesus how to inherit eternal life, guess where he points him?

[B]

Jesus says, don't murder. Don't commit adultery. Don't steal. Don't bear false witness. Honor your father and mother. The 10 function as this foundational statement of immense, expansive wisdom. In Jesus mind, these 10 show you the way to the life of God's new creation.

[A]

Today, Tim Mackey and I begin a new series on the Ten Commandments, or as we'll call them, the ten Words. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. Hello, Tim.

[B]

John Collins. Hello to you.

[A]

Today we begin a new journey.

[B]

We do. It's an exciting day. I mean, these are always exciting days when we start a new series. So we are doing a series that has been long requested both externally by people in our audience, but also internally. A number of people on our team have been encouraging us to move towards this topic. Theme in the Bible. Yeah, we're starting it today.

[A]

This is the Ten Commandments.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Which isn't a theme. The Ten Commandments is just. They're ten laws.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

In the Torah.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

But you're also going to show us how the idea of the command of God is a theme.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

So we'll look at that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then we're just gonna go through the 10. And I kind of imagine. Here's what I kind of expect. I expect all 10 of the commandments to themselves become little mini theme journeys.

[B]

Yeah. Yep. Ways of thinking about the story of the whole Bible. Yeah. Yeah. Probably the Ten Commandments rank up there among the most well known things associated with the Bible. Even for people who haven't grown up around the Bible, they don't read the Bible. It's not a part of their family history, personal whatever journey. They probably know, they know about the Ten Commandments. There's this thing called the Ten Commandments and that it's in the Bible probably. And in terms of Christian culture, it ranks up there with like the, the Adam and Eve story, Jesus, the Sermon on the Mount and the Ten Commandments. Just kind of the basic.

[A]

But surprisingly, it's hard to remember all 10.

[B]

Oh, right. It's hard to remember 10 of anything.

[A]

It kind of is, isn't it?

[B]

Yeah. Seven is a little easier, like a phone number, but 10. Right. There's some brain science principle at work there, I think. But anyway, 10. It's hard to remember all 10. Do you want to do a pop quiz right now? Put you in the hot seat.

[C]

Oh, boy.

[B]

Well, I just. You brought up this point. Maybe you could help illustrate it for you.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll be a live illustration of how.

[B]

John Collins. What? Do you remember what the Ten Commandments are?

[A]

Okay. Should I do it with thou shalts

[B]

or do not see.

[A]

I don't even know what the first one is. Okay. Spoiler alert. I didn't get all ten. I failed miserably. So we're not going to listen to me fumble through it. However we thought, how would other people in the office do with a pop quiz of what are the Ten Commandments? So we're walking around bioproject office. Here is Danny. My mother takes care of our patrons.

[D]

Hi, John.

[A]

How many of the ten Commandments do you think you know?

[D]

I hope I could say them all. Do not lie. Do not steal. Do not covet. Do not commit adultery. Is that in there? Yeah, man. I haven't read that for a while.

[A]

This is the soundstage, and Luke should be in here. Okay, man. How confident do you feel about listing the Ten Commandments?

[B]

Oh, shoot. No other gods before me. Sabbath day. Obey your parents. Shall not murder. Shall not steal. Is that oh Lord's name in vain? Right. Isn't that one?

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

What am I missing?

[A]

Bearing false witness.

[B]

Oh, everyone's got to forget that one. Bearing false witness. Who even knows what that?

[A]

This is Rose.

[B]

Hey, John.

[A]

So I'm gonna set you up to fail. I'm sorry.

[C]

Oh, no.

[A]

We're gonna try to list as many of the Ten Commandments as you think you might know.

[B]

There's definitely. Thou shalt not kill. Honor your parents. No idols. No bearing false witness. Did I say lying? Is that. There's no lying.

[A]

Damn. Ten Commandments. Can you list them all? Ten? You seem like a guy who knows them.

[E]

Really? I am a PK after all.

[A]

Yeah.

[E]

Love your God.

[B]

God only.

[A]

Yeah.

[E]

No idols.

[A]

Yeah, which.

[E]

Those two kind of seem like the same to me.

[A]

Ooh, bonus points. Some people think that's one command.

[B]

Oh, man.

[E]

Get me on this podcast more often.

[A]

Alex, can I bug you for a sec? How many 10 commands do you think you know?

[C]

I think I can confidently do, like, four. I'm gonna start with the easy one. Do not murder. Don't want to kill anybody. Do not covet. Honor your mother and father. No other gods before me.

[A]

Okay, those are the four confident ones.

[C]

Don't commit adultery.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And blank from there.

[A]

Good job.

[B]

50%.

[A]

That is an F, Christopher.

[F]

Hey, John.

[A]

Okay, 10 Commandments. How many do you think you know?

[F]

I think I can get a passing grade.

[A]

Okay, let's go.

[F]

No other God before me.

[B]

Okay.

[F]

No graven images. No name in vain. Keep the Sabbath. Honor your father and mother. Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness.

[A]

Last one.

[F]

Do not covet your neighbor's house.

[A]

Ding, ding, ding, boom. Wow.

[F]

Do I win anything?

[A]

Yes. What is his prize?

[F]

I want Levi's desk.

[A]

He can't have my desk plugging his computer.

[B]

Okay, so here's the quick list again, in order. No other gods before me. Number one. Number two. Don't make idols. Number three. Don't carry the name of the Lord in vain. Number four. Keep the Sabbath. Number five. Honor your father and mother. Number six. Don't murder. Number seven. Don't commit adultery. Number eight, don't steal. Number nine, don't offer false testimony. And number ten, don't covet. That is, don't desire what belongs to your neighbor.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Ten Commandments.

[A]

The big Ten.

[B]

The big Ten. Here's an interesting factoid. For the majority of the history of these commands being in the Bible of both Jewish and Christian traditions, for the majority of their history, they are not called the Ten Commandments. That's a modern innovation in the history of referring to them. The majority of their Christian history, as long as it's been in Greek, which is still how many followers of Jesus refer to them today. It's called the Decalogue, which comes from a compound Greek word, deca, which is 10, and then logos, which is the words. The 10 words.

[A]

10 words.

[B]

Yeah. Decalogue.

[A]

That's cool.

[B]

Yep, the 10 words. And that is actually a Greek translation of the Hebrew way of referring to this, which in Hebrew is the aseret hadim, which means the ten words. And the reason why that title has lived on in both Jewish and Christian traditions is because it's how they're referred to in the Bible. That's actually what the Bible calls them, the words. Yep. Yeah, totally. So just real quick. Exodus 34:27, the LORD said to Moses, write down these words. And he's referring to the words that were spoken, like the ten words. Write down these words. For in accordance with these words, I've made a covenant with you and with Israel. So Moses was with the Lord 40 days and 40 nights, didn't eat bread or drink water, and he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten words. But it gets translated in English as commandments. And so this is repeated, but it's

[A]

not technically 10 words. There's many words.

[B]

Oh, right. Okay. So in Hebrew, devar is the singular da'. Rim. Matters.

[A]

Matters.

[B]

Yeah. It can refer to the spoken word, but can also refer. It's a meta word referring to an abstract category of thing. Yeah, it's kind of like a word thing.

[A]

Okay, interesting.

[B]

The same word for word and thing is one word in Hebrew. Just there's a separate word for command, mitzvah. And so that's why it's a bit of a misnomer to call them the Ten Commandments.

[A]

But they are commandments.

[B]

But they are commandments. So it's not, like, wrong. But I think we missed something.

[A]

Okay. I don't see what we're missing.

[B]

Okay, well, let's talk about that a little bit. So first of all, let's just Note, remember, in the history of English Bible translation, the pioneer is John Wycliffe in the, like, 14th century. So we're like, in the mid, late 1300s. Yeah. It was the Wycliffe Bible that made that move to translate as commandment. So the difference is important, though, because every mitzvah in Hebrew, command is a word, is spoken word. But not every word is a command. Right.

[A]

Not everything that God says is a command or not everything someone says is a command.

[B]

Both.

[A]

Right?

[B]

Yeah. Okay. We speak a lot of words. Not all of them are commands. So I think it's just interesting that these 10 words are referred to when the first time they're referred to as a bundle, as a thing. They're referred to as davar, which means that they're words spoken in the context of a covenant partnership. And we're going to see the Ten Commandments don't come out of nowhere. They occur at a moment in God's relationship with a group of people that he invites into a covenant partnership. But the point is that the word used to describe these 10 things isn't command. It's words, words spoken from one person to another in the context of making a partnership. Now, those words are going to be about the terms of how we relate. Like when a couple's getting married and they say their vows to each other, those are words, and they're binding on each other's behavior. Right. When I said my vows to my wife, like in our wedding, those are words that I was putting on myself.

[A]

We don't call them the marriage commands.

[B]

No, we call them vows, call them vows. Things that I'm going to do. Now, actually, it's a little different because in my wedding, I said what I was going to do, and then she said what she was going to do. She didn't tell me what to do, and I didn't tell her what to do. And that is what the 10 words are.

[A]

It's God telling Israel.

[B]

Telling Israel what to do. Yeah. And God doesn't say in that moment what God's going to do, though he does in the many words around the 10. So I'm not saying commands is wrong. I just want to introduce this little point. They're not referred to as the 10 commands in the Bible.

[A]

You're saying there's something significant that the Bible itself doesn't call them commands, calls

[B]

them words, doesn't call them commands in the first context of them being named. We're gonna flesh out why command is one way you can refer to these

[A]

words, but they're introduced as words. And that language gives you. It sounds like a little bit of freedom to step back and then ask yourself, what's the context for these words?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What's the story we're in?

[B]

Totally. The 10 words were spoken at a time and a place, in a context. And a constant interplay we're going to be seeing is that these 10 words were seen and intended to have a broad, universal invitation to all people of all places to think about the will and purpose of God for a human life. But at the same time, these words appeared out of a moment in a story with God and a particular people at a time and place in history. And that's also a crucial part of what they mean. Okay, so they're not ten divine commands dropped out of heaven for all people of all time. They were spoken at a moment in time in the context of a relationship. But what God said in that moment with that one people actually has immense wisdom to offer all people of all times. So maybe what after here is that these 10 words occur within a specific context. And to really get their full significance, I think means honoring that story and seeing what they mean there first.

[A]

Yeah. I think I'm also hearing that by using this new language, it's an opportunity to think about them in a fresh way. When you talk about them as commands, it's easy to think about them as just a checklist. But when you talk about them with this new language of the 10 words now, you're open to thinking about them in a new way. Perhaps a way of being, a way of relating to each other and to the God of the universe. Just an invitation, Something a little grander.

[B]

Yeah. So it might feel new. My point is that this is actually the oldest way is to call them the 10 words. That's actually what God calls them, and it's what the narrator, the Torah calls them. But for us, it's new. And I guess maybe it's also the dynamic of translation that we've talked about, how to translate ancient biblical texts in other languages into modern languages. And that's a dynamic process. And sometimes what have become familiar ways of referring or talking about things in the Bible, things can become unfamiliar.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Or as some co workers say, familiarity kills wonder. And that unknowing is the way back.

[A]

Unknowing is the way back.

[B]

Yeah. And unknowing sometimes means finding other words to translate old biblical concepts so we hear them in a new way.

[A]

And you want us to unknow these 10 commandments in a way. These are very familiar.

[B]

And I don't want to overstate this, because one way to think about them is God commanding a group of people and telling them what to do. Yeah, that is one way to think about them.

[A]

Hey, everyone, stop killing each other.

[B]

Yeah. So how about this? Let's just let that point be.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And let's see if it bears any fruit later. Bears any fruit throughout the conversation. Okay, but the first title for these 10 things within the Bible itself before

[A]

it got rebranded before it got rebranded

[B]

by John Wycliffe in the English translation tradition is Ten Commandments is the ten words.

[A]

Did you know that the Bible doesn't call them the Ten Commandments?

[D]

I didn't know that.

[A]

Yeah, it's a mistranslation.

[D]

Oh, my goodness. So what's the real thing?

[A]

The ten words.

[D]

Ten words. Wow. I got a word for you.

[A]

Do you know that they're not introduced as the Ten Commandments in the Bible?

[E]

I didn't know that.

[A]

Do you know what they were introduced as? Take a guess.

[E]

God's Greatest Hits.

[A]

The 10 Greatest Hits.

[E]

Yeah, the 10 Life Lessons.

[A]

I have no idea. The 10 Words. They're called the 10 Words.

[E]

Whoa.

[B]

Oh, yeah. Okay.

[A]

Did you know that the Bible doesn't introduce them as the Ten Commandments? What do you think it is?

[B]

The ten Articles of Confederation. One unique thing about this list of ten words is that they are repeated two times in the Torah in the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. The list of ten is found in Exodus 21:17, and then it's also found in Deuteronomy, chapter five. So remember, Deuteronomy is Moses speech to the second generation that came out of Egypt. And he's actually reminding them the significance of the moment that their parents experienced. But they were kids. Yeah. So, you know, kind of like reminding them of this thing that happened. Do you find we're both in the child raising years. Our kids are in the teenage era. Do you find yourself reminding them of things from their early childhood that they have already forgotten?

[A]

Yeah. I was just talking to my oldest about his kindergarten experience, and I realized, like, he had largely forgotten a lot of it.

[B]

Yeah, interesting.

[A]

I mean, I've forgotten about my kindergarten experience.

[B]

Yeah, totally.

[A]

But I didn't realize how early. Surely that begins to fade from your memory.

[B]

Yes, I think that's what I'm drawing attention to. I've noticed that too. Certainly I don't remember vast amounts of my childhood, but I was really struck by how early that process begins, like you just said. So anyway, Moses is reminding the children of the Exodus Generation, what they experienced when they were all up Mount Sinai three months later. So he repeats the Ten Commandments almost verbatim, but not identical. We'll talk about that along the way. What's interesting is, remember, they're referred to within the Bible by God and the narrator as the 10. But the narrator or God, when God says them in Exodus 20, doesn't say number one, the first command. The second command, kind of like the seven days of Genesis that each end with day one, day two, day three. The numbering isn't given.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Explicitly, you gotta do it yourself. You gotta do it yourself. And incidentally, it's kind of hard.

[A]

Yeah. And we talked about this too.

[B]

Yes. So some traditions, Jewish and Christian, have taken don't have any other gods and don't make idols as a twin expression of a single command. But if you do that, you have to go find nine more. And there is something very interesting. The last command, do not covet. The verb do not covet is repeated

[A]

twice in the command.

[B]

Yep, that's right. And it's either don't covet your neighbor's wife and do not covet your neighbor's house or donkey or ox, or.

[A]

So you can split those into two.

[B]

Right. All right, so if you take no other gods and no idols as one, you can actually find nine more things in the list.

[A]

You could split covet and nine more.

[B]

Yep, that's right. Or you can take no other gods and no idols as separate as 1 and 2, and then you just bundle together the two repetitions of do not covet as a single command. All that to say is there's actually 11 verbs.

[A]

Oh.

[B]

11 sentences, but they're called the 10. Okay, so that's interesting. Here's another thing that sets them apart, actually. Within the story itself, there's, we note, hundreds of commands that God speaks to Israel at Mount Sinai. These 10 are the first. These 10 are also the only ones that are said to be written on the two tablets. Yeah, the famous stone tablets.

[A]

Okay, I've wondered about that. Like, are the rest of the commands written on other tablets?

[B]

Right.

[A]

We don't know.

[B]

No, what we're told is that they were written on a scroll.

[A]

Oh, okay.

[B]

Like separate. Ah. So there's something about these 10 that are set apart. They're etched on stone. And interestingly, they are etched on stone by the finger of God. Very interesting. So Back to Exodus 34, where Moses was up on the mountain 40 days and 40 nights. And what we get was, and he wrote on the tablets, the words of the Covenant, the ten words. So what we heard was Moses was there with Yahweh 40 days and 40 nights and he wrote on the tablets. Okay, what is so interesting then is when you get to another moment in the story and it's when Moses goes down from the mountain, when the people

[A]

have made the golden calf, breaking the first two commandments.

[B]

That's right. Exodus 32:15. Moses went down the mountain. The two tablets were in his hand. Tablets written on their two sides on the front and on the back.

[A]

It's double sided.

[B]

Very interesting. So that little detail has spawned a whole history of discussion of how are the 10 distributed on the tablets.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Isn't that interesting?

[A]

There's no easy way to do that if you just have two tablets, single sided. Five and five.

[B]

Five and five done. Right. But we're explicitly told it wasn't five and five on each. Yeah, interesting because they're on front and back. So you're like, is it two on the front, Is it three on the back? So it could be that it's all 10 on each.

[A]

You got a copy. You got one tablet with all 10. One tablet with all 10.

[B]

Yep. So it could be that. And there's a rabbit hole. There's precedent for thinking that. And it makes sense. Yeah. There's like Israel's copy and there's God's copy.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

What we're next told, however, Exodus 32:16, those tablets were the work of God and the writing was the writing of God engraved on the tablets. So that's actually saying somehow these tablets were uniquely inscribed. And this links back to the end of Exodus 31. When Yahweh finished speaking with Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave Moses the two tablets of the testimony. Tablets of stone, written by the finger of God. Now what does that mean, written by the finger of God? This is a great mystery.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But the story is inviting us to see these 10 as like a uniquely pure expression of the will of God for his people. So much so that it's unmediated. I mean, Moses is the one carrying it down. Right, right.

[A]

That Moses didn't carve it in.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Finger of God carved it in.

[B]

Divine agency was uniquely intensified in the writing of these ten. Isn't that interesting? I mean, this is probably the thing that sets the 10 apart the most.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

You're really hearing a pristine, pure statement of the will of God in these ten in a way that's different from all the other hundreds. Remember, we've had discussions like when we're talking about Deuteronomy and there'll be these laws. And it's like, well, if a guy is fighting with another guy and they stumble and fall and then they end up hitting a pregnant woman sitting by, here's what you do. So, like, all of that assumes people are screwed up. They're going to do terrible things to each other. And what does God's will look like as a form of damage control in an already bad situation? But the 10 commands kind of work upstream of all that. And they're just. They're working at almost the source of human reflection about right and wrong and good and bad.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And this finger of God description is, I think, trying to draw our attention to that.

[A]

Yeah, I see that. I mean, it seems like these 10, there's something pretty grand about them that sets them apart. It's a shorter list that feels like it gives a pretty complete picture of what it means to live in right relationship with God and other people.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

Now, that doesn't mean Israel's not going to need any other laws. Kind of dig in deeper. But there's something about the 10.

[B]

Something about the 10. And so think about what they cover. They cover the human relationship to God. Don't have any other gods.

[A]

Yeah. Carry his name.

[B]

Yep. Carry his name. Don't worship idols. Keep the Sabbath. Cause the Sabbath belongs to God. We'll get there later on in these conversations. But the Sabbath is something that belongs to God. And you're doing right by God when you keep it. When you keep it. So the first four are all explicitly in relationship to God. Five is this interesting hinge, Honor your father and mother. So you're relating to humans, your father and mother. Yeah. But then it says, so that life will go well for you in the land. And as you read onto the Torah, it's God who will give goodness and life to the people of Israel and the land.

[A]

So that could have bread. Honor God so that life will go well for you in the land.

[B]

Exactly. It's this interesting hinge where the way that you honor God is by honoring father and mother. It's an interesting hinge. So first four, how you relate to God, and. And then the fifth is this hinge where how you relate to God is bound up with how you relate to humans, specifically the two humans who birthed you into the world.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then it pivots. The last set of five are about how you relate to your neighbor, other humans. So don't murder, don't commit adultery, don't steal, don't offer false witness, and don't desire what belongs to your neighbor. So what's not covered in the 10? Like really what area of human relationships isn't covered?

[A]

You're saying if we came up with any sort of scenario of like something going awry in a human relationship, you

[B]

could bring him back to or in

[A]

relationship with God, you can say, oh well, that's because of one of these 10.

[B]

Yeah, essentially. Maybe I'll just throw that out there to say that would be a cool thing to meditate on as you go for a run or a walk or hang out with some friends.

[A]

What about road rage?

[B]

Ah, okay, fantastic. I think if we have learned how to meditate on the commands from Jesus, he would say that falls under the wisdom contained in do not murder.

[A]

When you are raging at someone on the road and your hatred for them is spilling up out of you.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Verbal abuse.

[A]

Yeah. Which could turn into the fist, the finger, the shouting.

[B]

Yeah, that's right.

[A]

That's a type of contempt.

[B]

Yeah. In fact, here, I was gonna save this later, but I'll bring it up now. Okay. I was really helped by an excellent book by Hebrew Bible scholar Patrick Miller. It's called the Ten Commandments. It was written near the end of a long, very productive career as a Hebrew Bible scholar. And he saved his book on the Ten Commandments for last. It's radio. It's a rad little book. In his introduction, he names kind of the persistent, challenging issues that Jewish and Christian communities have had in interpreting the 10 commands and making them relevant throughout history. And one of those is noticing that the commands have both an explicit meaning, but then each of them also contains an implicit meaning. So some commands are negative. They're prohibitions. Don't do X. Don't make idols, don't have any other gods. Don't murder, don't commit adultery. But some of them are positive. So do honor your parents. Some of them have both. Do remember the Sabbath. Don't do any work on the Sabbath. So what that invites you to begin thinking is that any negative command also implies a positive. And then every positive command implies a negative, as it were. So not worshiping other gods. The inverse of that is do give your total allegiance right to God. So don't worship other God. Seems very clear and focused, but once you flip it, it's like a wide open world.

[A]

What does it mean to give your allegiance to God?

[B]

Yeah, that's a bigger way bigger, yes. So do not murder. Do make it one of your main concerns to protect the well being of your neighbor. Protect the life and well being, which is way more open ended just if you invert it. Yeah. So when you go from negative to positive, the positive just like really opens it wide up. When you go from positive to negative, it usually goes from general to specific.

[A]

Makes it feel very simple.

[B]

Yeah. So it's just saying that the commands have an implicit and explicit meaning. And you were pondering this question, what area of human life is not covered by them? And in a way, once you flip from explicit to implicit, when you allow

[A]

yourself to flip do not murder into how do I respect and love the image of God in others, which is the opposite of destroying their life.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

Now you're in a much grander territory.

[B]

Yeah. Do not commit adultery that is taking advantage of and ruining someone else's covenant partnership of marriage. You flip it. Do proactively support, encourage, create a culture where marriage covenant partnerships can thrive and be healthy. Isn't that interesting to flip that one? Yeah. Once you do that, all of a sudden, the 10 cover almost everything.

[A]

What do you think the difference between a commandment and a word is?

[D]

A word sounds much more like a sage. It's wisdom. It's intentional to live by. It has a deeper reason than commandments, you know, kind of pointing your finger at you.

[E]

It makes it a lot more simple and less right or wrong structure attached to it. That authority word that we kind of put when we say laws, commandments, that's kind of a scary, intense word

[A]

around

[C]

that part of the Bible. It often feels very lawful. It's like, here are the laws you have to follow to change that mindset of it's not necessarily a law, but words to follow. It feels just as important, but less like I'm following a set of rules, but more of a guideline from how I live my life.

[B]

Within the Hebrew Bible, these 10 are brought up regularly. So Hosea, for example, the prophet Hosea, chapter four reads, children of Israel, hear the word of Yahweh. Yahweh has an indictment against the inhabitants of the land. There's no faithfulness, there's no loyalty, there's no knowing God in this land. So the covenant has been violated. There's swearing and lying, there's murdering, there's stealing, there's adultery, it's all breaking out and bloodshed follows bloodshed. That's a little short list right there.

[A]

He lists a few, what, four or five of them.

[B]

Yep. Swearing and lying are bound up and don't offer false testimony. Same ideas, same words for murder, steal, adultery. Okay. In fact, those three are next to each other in the 10 Jeremiah, century and a half later, after Hosea is in the Jerusalem Temple. Haranguing.

[A]

Haranguing.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, I picked up that word recently. Yeah.

[A]

What does that word mean?

[B]

It's kind of like you're critiquing someone in a kind of louder way to get other people's attention in on the criticism. Haranguing.

[A]

Haranguing, yeah. Okay. You're criticizing loudly to get people to participate.

[B]

Yeah. You want to create some peer pressure around this situation. That's a good word.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Haranguing. So he's haranguing specifically the leaders of Israel that are in and around the temple. And he says, you are relying on deceitful words without benefit. Will you go on stealing? Will you murder? Will you commit adultery? Will you swear falsely? Will you make offerings to the baal? Will you go after other gods whom you haven't known and then come stand before me at this temple, which is called by my name, and say, yeah, we're good to go. We're safe, doing all this stuff. Yahweh's good with us. So you can see the logic of how he's operating here. The point is that the prophets take the Ten Commandments as kind of this essential base. It's like base camp of the Covenant Partnership. How do you know if Israel's doing well or not in maintaining faithfulness to the Covenant Partnership?

[A]

How are you doing with the 10?

[B]

How are you doing with the 10?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like, let's not even talk about the hundreds. Let's just talk about the 10. Yeah, yeah. Jesus himself referenced the 10 in arguably the most important condensed form of moral reflection Jesus has on, like, what is good and what is bad in the Sermon on the Mount. And we actually spent many months working through these sayings. So you've heard it said, don't commit murder. And Jesus says, that's right. And then he says, and I say to you, whoever has road rage, that his neighbor is guilty. Right. Of breaking one of the 10.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

He quotes adultery in the same way. There's that interesting story when a wealthy guy comes to Jesus and says, hey, Jesus, what do I need to do to inherit life of the age to come? And Jesus says, why are you asking me this question? Why are you asking me about what is good? Listen, there is one who is good, the source of all goodness, Implied my father. But if you really need me to tell you something, I'll tell you. Keep the commandments. Now, he doesn't even say the 10. He just says, keep the commands, which

[A]

could be all of them.

[B]

Yeah. That's why the guy says, well, which ones? And Jesus says, don't murder, don't commit adultery, don't steal, don't bear false witness, honor your father and mother.

[A]

Why don't we start with Those? The Big Ten.

[B]

Yeah. So he quotes six of the 10. No, excuse me, five. That's five.

[A]

Yeah. And he focuses on the human relationship.

[B]

Yeah. He quotes on the hinge on your father and mother. And then on the second set. Yeah. So clearly for Jesus, this is also base camp. Like all reflection about what is good and not good for Israel needs to go back to the 10. And just in case we're tempted to think this is just an Israel thing, the apostles, you know, that Jesus commissioned also regularly referred to the 10. Paul the Apostle does this, like in Romans. In Romans, chapter 13, he'll say, Listen, these commands, don't commit adultery, don't murder, don't steal, don't covet. Those all are valid. And then he says, if there is any other commandment that is summed up in this statement, you will love your neighbor as yourself. So he wants to go from the hundreds to the ten.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

To the one to the one. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Which is what Jesus did.

[B]

The move that Jesus pulled. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah. So Paul quotes, honor your father and mother when he's writing to children in the house. Churches of Ephesus. That's interesting. Letter to the Ephesians. I guess my point is just this. The ten have a vital foundational status both within the Hebrew Bible and in the teaching of Jesus and in the teaching of the apostles. So for what it means for followers of Jesus today to be looking at all of scripture as a unified story that leads to Jesus, the 10 are important. They're an important home base for ethical moral reflection. And they've played a key role in church history in teaching people, like, what is good.

[A]

So when you think of them as just commands, it's really focusing on. I just want to check these off the list. I want to make sure I'm doing them. It's kind of like the rich young ruler just being like, I want to make sure I got the checklist done.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And when you think of them as words, this thing that you started showing us about, you can invert them.

[B]

Yeah. Flip them over.

[A]

Flip them over. And you can mine them. And you can find this kind of deep wisdom in them, like calling it a word kind of gives it more space for that.

[B]

Yeah. Have to have a wider. Yeah, yep. Wider significance.

[A]

And then you can see what Jesus is doing then you've heard it said, do not commit murder. If you think of that as a command, then that seems pretty cut and dry. Let's think of it as something bigger. Think of it as a word and let's flip it over. When you call someone a fool, when you hate someone, aren't you breaking that command as well? And suddenly these become base camp.

[B]

Yep. Yeah, that's right. The 10 function as this kind of like foundational statement of immense expansive wisdom about what is the good in Jesus mind. These 10 show you the way to life of God's new creation. When the guy says, oh, yeah, what

[A]

must I do to inherit eternal life?

[B]

To inherit. Yeah, life of the age of God's new age of infinite life and abundance. What's the kind of life patterns and habits that lead to that outcome that allow me to participate in that?

[A]

It's so funny because you could think of the 10 as like, simplifying life, but the way Jesus thinks about it is so full.

[B]

Right. Okay, so we didn't finish that story, but in Jesus mind, meditating on the 10 should have led this guy to realize he was. He's trusting in his stuff too much. And you're like, whoa, how'd you get there from the tent?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then as he goes on in the Sermon on the Mount, we find out that how you relate to your stuff, which he calls mammon, the thing in which you trust, is in competition to your loyalty to God. And so all of a sudden, the first command, don't have any other gods in Jesus mind, should have led this

[A]

guy to realize, I need to get rid of some of my stuff. In fact, I need to get rid of all my stuff.

[B]

All my stuff. And in our minds we might go, whoa, how'd you get there? From the first command? But I think that's what it means to see the 10 as the core of. It's the diamond with so many facets. It's the jewel that every time you flip it, turn it from negative to positive, positive to negative, you look at these 10 facets of the diamond and you will see the whole of human life unfold out of these 10. That seems to be how Jesus viewed these commands. And he's not alone in that.

[A]

We've also used the metaphor of base camp a few times, and it's a cool metaphor.

[B]

Yeah. Generations of climbers have tried all the approaches to summit this thing, but this base camp reflects the wisdom of the generations. The best way to the top. You really want to get to the top. You need to start.

[A]

You want to inherit eternal life.

[B]

Yeah. Start from here. Not over there, not on the other side.

[A]

But you don't end up here. You don't end up with just like checking off the 10. You end up in a pretty cosmic place. You're giving away all your stuff or you're doing something pretty radical.

[B]

So again, maybe just we could conclude by flipping each of these. When the guy says, what must I do to obtain eternal life? What he's asking is, what are the kinds of human behaviors that participate in or that anticipate what kind of world God has in store in a fully restored creation? What's the kind of life like? What kind of lives will we lead so. Well, we won't kill each other. Okay. But flip it over and you're like, what would a creation look like where the life of every creature, one of the central focuses of every life, was to protect and value and support every other life. The Ten Commandments are a way of thinking about the life that we will lead in the new creation.

[A]

Yeah. The ten words.

[B]

The ten words.

[A]

Thanks for listening to this episode of BibleProject Podcast. Next week, we'll continue in the study of the Ten Commandments. Now, before we go directly to the Ten Commandments, read them one by one. We're going to do a short study on the theme of the commands of God. What does it mean to listen to God's voice? What does it mean for God to tell humans what to do? And it just so happens the first time God instructs humans about anything is on page one of the Bible. But it's not called a command.

[B]

Be fruitful, do multiply, do fill the land, subdue it, and rule it. But they are called blessings, words of blessing. So the first directives God gives to the humans are essentially imitate the divine life. So the first time God tells anybody what to do, it's a blessing.

[A]

Bibleproject is a crowdfunded nonprofit and we exist to experience the Bible as a unified story that leads to Jesus. Everything that we make is free because of the generous support of thousands of people just like you. Thank you so much for being a part of this with us.

[B]

Hi, my name is Ryan Emily Aaron

[G]

Tally, and we are from the Colony, Texas. We first heard about Bible projects a couple years ago when our pastor used one of the videos in his sermon. And ever since, we have been using the Bible project videos and podcasts in our family Bible studies. And I even use some of the videos in my classroom as I teach high school Science at a private Christian school and I use the videos for a lot of the lessons about environmental issues. We believe the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus. Bibleproject is a non profit funded by people like me. Find free videos, articles, podcasts, classes and more on the Bibleproject app [e-mail] hi, I'm Dave.

[H]

I'm a software engineer working on Search. When you search Bibleproject.com or use search in the app, that's one of the tools I get help build. My favorite thing about working at bibleproject is getting to see behind the curtain and discovering that this group of people truly practices what they preach from top to bottom. We don't just study the Bible, we live it out in our company practices. There's a whole team of us to help make the podcast happen every week. For a full list of everyone involved in this episode, check out the show credits wherever you stream the podcast and on our app sa.