ten commandments or ten discourses in the course of discussing the sabbath with some folks i came across something that was completely new to me and i thought i d offer it for comment to keep this as brief as possible let me state my observation as a declarative statement and then whoever wants to can comment on it basically what i think i ve observed is that the phrase the ten commandments as used by moses is not a reference to ex but rather a reference to ten distinct discourses from ex through ex that is the phrase the ten commandments should more accurately be translated the ten discourses of which the passage we call the ten commandments is really only the first i m not completely convinced that the above is true but for purposes of discussion let me argue it as though i was sure arguments supporting the above idea there aren t really ten commandments in ex in order to get commandments you have to get two of them out of verses and the verses themselves do not support such a division because they are all about not worshipping other gods that is verse commands to have no other gods and verse commands to not worship the idols mentioned in verse you can t violate verses without violating verse indicating that the whole passage is one command and leaving us with only nine commandments i could go on at length about this but for now i ll just stop with this summary there are ten speeches between ex the beginning of the traditional ten commandments and ex where god actually gives moses the two tablets with the ten commandments discourses written on them i break these ten down as follows and in most cases each of these passages begins with some variation of the phrase and the lord spoke to moses saying the exception is ex which begins now these are the ordinances which you are to set before them the word translated commandments in the phrase the ten commandments isn t really the word for commandment its the word for a speech or an utterance it s a word often used for longer discourses rather than individual statements for instance when combined with the word yom day this word is translated chronicles in such phrases as now the rest of the acts of so and so are they not written in the chronicles of x the word for commandment is freely used throughout the books of moses and perhaps it is significant that when moses spoke of the ten x s he appears to have avoided the word for commandment and chosen instead a word associated with discourses longer than just a single command god tells moses that he is going to give him the stone tablets with the law and the commandments ex yet he does not give moses the tablets until he has finished all ten discourses on mount sinai if the ten commandments were only ex it is not immediately clear why god would wait several days and nine more discourses before giving these tablets to moses on the other hand if we have the ten discourses written on the tablets then it makes perfect sense that god would not give moses the tablets until he had finished delivering all ten discourses when moses did get the tablets he found that both tablets were written on both sides ex if these ten commandments were only the first verses of ex god would have had to have written in large letters not that he couldn t have of course but it does seem more likely to me that this is a reference to two tablets containing ten discourses written in normal sized letters in ii cor paul seems to specifically single out the commandments written on stone as being the ministry of death that which is fading away and the ministry of condemnation with the possible exception of the commandment about the sabbath it is difficult to see why paul would refer to the commands in ex as being temporary fading away type commandments this is less of a problem if the stone tablets should happen to have included all of the commandments from ex through ex arguments against this idea the main argument against this idea aside from the fact that it contradicts a long standing tradition is that in dt moses says after quoting the commands in ex these words the lord spoke and he added no more and he wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me this appears to identify the words just quoted as being the only contents of the two stone tablets that was my first impression anyway however after some thought i noted that a great deal hinges on how you understand the phrase these words if moses meant these words which i have just related to you were spoken by god etc then that would mean that only the traditional ten commandments were on the stone tablets if however moses was making a parenthetical comment these words which i am now telling you were spoken by god etc then that s quite different i did note that in the dt account moses tells of being given the stone tablets before telling of the people asking moses to represent them before god whereas in the exodus account the people asked this of moses between the first and second discourses several days before god gave moses the stone tablets this reinforces the idea that moses remarks in dt ff were intended as a parenthetical remark rather than a strictly chronological account of when god wrote what and at what point he stopped adding to what was on the tablets summary all things considered i find it somewhat more likely that the nine commands in ex are really only the first of what moses regarded as the ten discourses of god i don t know if anybody has ever espoused this idea before it s brand new to me so while i lean towards accepting it i would be very interested in hearing any comments and criticisms anyone may care to offer mark
