Ten Commandments

142:3.10“Again should you have dis­cerned the growth of the un­der­stand­ing of di­vine law in per­fect keep­ing with these en­larg­ing con­cepts of di­vin­ity. When the chil­dren of Is­rael came out of Egypt in the days be­fore the en­larged rev­e­la­tion of Yah­weh, they had ten com­mand­ments which served as their law right up to the times when they were en­camped be­fore Sinai. And these ten com­mand­ments were:

142:3.11“1. You shall wor­ship no other god, for the Lord is a jeal­ous God.

142:3.12“2. You shall not make molten gods.

142:3.13“3. You shall not ne­glect to keep the feast of un­leav­ened bread.

142:3.14“4. Of all the males of men or cat­tle, the first-born are mine, says the Lord.

142:3.15“5. Six days you may work, but on the sev­enth day you shall rest.

142:3.16“6. You shall not fail to ob­serve the feast of the first fruits and the feast of the in­gath­er­ing at the end of the year.

142:3.17“7. You shall not of­fer the blood of any sac­ri­fice with leav­ened bread.

142:3.18“8. The sac­ri­fice of the feast of the Pass­over shall not be left un­til morn­ing.

142:3.19“9. The first of the first fruits of the ground you shall bring to the house of the Lord your God.

142:3.20“10. You shall not seethe a kid in its mother’s milk.

142:3.21“And then, amidst the thun­ders and light­nings of Sinai, Moses gave them the new ten com­mand­ments, which you will all al­low are more wor­thy ut­ter­ances to ac­com­pany the en­larg­ing Yah­weh con­cepts of De­ity. And did you never take no­tice of these com­mand­ments as twice re­corded in the Scrip­tures, that in the first case de­liv­er­ance from Egypt is as­signed as the rea­son for Sab­bath keep­ing, while in a later rec­ord the ad­vanc­ing re­li­gious be­liefs of our fore­fa­thers de­manded that this be changed to the rec­og­ni­tion of the fact of cre­ation as the rea­son for Sab­bath ob­ser­vance?

142:3.22“And then will you re­mem­ber that once again—in the greater spir­i­tual en­light­en­ment of Isa­iah’s day—these ten neg­a­tive com­mand­ments were changed into the great and pos­i­tive law of love, the in­junc­tion to love God su­premely and your neigh­bor as your­self. And it is this su­preme law of love for God and for man that I also de­clare to you as con­sti­tut­ing the whole duty of man.”

126:4.9This Sab­bath af­ter­noon Je­sus climbed the Naz­a­reth hill with James and, when they re­turned home, wrote out the Ten Com­mand­ments in Greek on two smooth boards in char­coal. Sub­se­quently Martha col­ored and dec­o­rated these boards, and for long they hung on the wall over James’s small work­bench.

137:2.9They all re­mained overnight with Joseph in Je­sus’ boy­hood home. The as­so­ciates of Je­sus lit­tle un­der­stood why their new-found teacher was so con­cerned with com­pletely de­stroy­ing ev­ery ves­tige of his writ­ing which re­mained about the home in the form of the ten com­mand­ments and other mot­toes and say­ings. But this pro­ceed­ing, to­gether with the fact that they never saw him sub­se­quently write—ex­cept upon the dust or in the sand—made a deep im­pres­sion upon their minds.

89:1.4The seven com­mand­ments of Dala­ma­tia and Eden, as well as the ten in­junc­tions of the He­brews, were def­i­nite taboos, all ex­pressed in the same neg­a­tive form as were the most an­cient pro­hi­bi­tions. But these newer codes were truly eman­ci­pat­ing in that they took the place of thou­sands of pre-ex­is­tent taboos. And more than this, these later com­mand­ments def­i­nitely prom­ised some­thing in re­turn for obe­di­ence.

96:4.4The fact that Yah­weh was the god of the flee­ing He­brews ex­plains why they tar­ried so long be­fore the holy moun­tain of Sinai, and why they there re­ceived the ten com­mand­ments which Moses pro­mul­gated in the name of Yah­weh, the god of Ho­reb. Dur­ing this lengthy so­journ be­fore Sinai the re­li­gious cer­e­mo­ni­als of the newly evolv­ing He­brew wor­ship were fur­ther per­fected.

131:2.12“Says God, the cre­ator of heaven and earth: ‘Great peace have they who love my law. My com­mand­ments are: You shall love me with all your heart; you shall have no gods be­fore me; you shall not take my name in vain; re­mem­ber the Sab­bath day to keep it holy; honor your fa­ther and mother; you shall not kill; you shall not com­mit adul­tery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false wit­ness; you shall not covet.’