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I'm looking for some help here. I've been reading my King James version and I'm confused.
Exodus 20:2-17 lists the commandments that are accepted today, but Moses is repeating to the people what god told him. They are not written down.
Some time later, Moses goes back to God and gets the stone tablets. Exodus 31:18. But, when he came down, the people were busy building a golden calf (I know the feeling, turn your back for one minute) and he smashed the tablets...Exodus 31:19. The word commandment hasn't been mentioned to this point. In the first instance, these were words that god "spake". In the second, the words are called "testimony".
Moses goes back a third time and when he returns with the new tablets, the term "10 commandments" is finally mentioned. Exodus 34:28. This time, though, we have a different set of commandments.
They are (Exodus 34: 13-28):
Thou shall worship no other god.
Thou shall make thee no molten gods.
The feast of unleavened bread shall be kept.
Six days shalt thou work, but on the seventh, thou shalt rest.
Thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year's end.
Thrice in a year shall all your men children appear before the Lord God.
Thy shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven.
Neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of passover be left unto the morning.
The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt being unto the house of the Lord thy God.
Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk.
Appears we are missing out on a number of feasts.
My wife has a friend in Texas with whom she lost contact for a number of years. They got together by phone a few weeks back and the friend said she was getting back to her "jewish roots"...meaning she had joined a church that observed the above commandments, not the others. I went back and reread the sections I mentioned with the result I raise.
Many christians practice earlier Hewbrew traditions, We have to remember Jesus and his followers and Paul were all worshiping in the temple,
But no, Exodus 34:13 was not written on stone by God, there were a covenant for the people, a promise ( God did several of those in the Old Testement) It was like a contract, where God would do this or that, and the people were to do this or that.
The difference is with Exodus 32 was that God himself wrote the tablets.
And it was those broken pieces carried in the ark becuse they were the law of God,
But there are many feasts, but then the New testement also did away with the worship of many holy days, a new covenant was made with the people.
The feasts were not part of the "10 Commandments" but deserve serious study. They were apparently both celebrations of past occurences and prophecy of coming events. The Passover pointed back to deliverance from Egypt, and forward to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, deliverance from sin. The feast of first-fruits pointed to the resurretion of Jesus Christ, and the feast of Pentecost pointed to the birth of the Church. The fulfillment of these first three feasts each occurred on the day of the type. The final four feasts are of interest when viewed as prophecy of events still future to us. Of course, hindsight is 20/20.
Exodus 34:1 The lord Said to Moses, "Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones," and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke..."
We get the commandments I mentioned and then Exodus 34:27-28 Then the Lord said to Moses "Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel." Moses was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. And he wrote on the tables the words of the covenant - the Ten Commandments.
According to this, the covenant is the 10 commandments.
And no, God didn't physically write it, but it appears that was his intent. He wrote it through Moses.
And no, God didn't physically write it, but it appears that was his intent. He wrote it through Moses.
Deuteronomy
10 1At that time Jehovah said unto me, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first, and come up unto me into the mount, and make thee an ark of wood. 2And I will write on the tables the words that were on the first tables which thou brakest, and thou shalt put them in the ark. 3So I made an ark of acacia wood, and hewed two tables of stone like unto the first, and went up into the mount, having the two tables in my hand. 4And he wrote on the tables, according to the first writing, the ten commandments, which Jehovah spake unto you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly: and Jehovah gave them unto me.
From this it appears God did physically write it through the "Finger of God." Although I do not see that it really matters.
Good. God says to put them in the chest. That explains who did the writing, but it doesn't explain how the commandments got switched. Someone must have an explanation for this. Did the Christian church just decide they liked the others better? It seems pretty clear from Exodus 34 which God wanted.
In Matthew 22, Jesus addresses the issue of the commandments that the Jewish leaders posed to Him. Here is His answer:
The Scribes: Which Is the First Commandment of All?
34 But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying, 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”
37 Jesus said to him, “ ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’[d] 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’[e] 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
Love god, love your neighbor. Excellent tenets to live by no matter what philosophy one follows. But, which are the real 10 commandments? Am I missing out on some feasts? Could I have been coveting all these years?
BTW, I used to worry about coveting. When I was a kid, I was told it was "wanting" something too much. When I did a little research, I found it means "wanting exclusively." I want it and I don't want anyone else to have it. That's a much easier standard and it fits with loving your neighbor...I want good things for me and I want good things for my neighbor.
Good. God says to put them in the chest. That explains who did the writing, but it doesn't explain how the commandments got switched. Someone must have an explanation for this. Did the Christian church just decide they liked the others better? It seems pretty clear from Exodus 34 which God wanted.
I wonder what the Jewish position is?
We Jews invite you to post this question under the Judaism subject area here, where you'll get a genuine Jewish perspective on the answer to this question.
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