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About this book

Exodus

About this book

The Ten Commandments and the Covenant

Chapter 20

1 God spoke all these words: 2 “I, the Lord, am your God, who brought you from the land of Egypt,⁠ from the house of slavery.⁠ 3 “You shall have no other gods before me. 4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is on the earth beneath or that is in the water below.⁠ 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God, responding to the transgression of fathers by dealing with children to the third and fourth generations of those who reject me,⁠ 6 and showing covenant faithfulness to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.⁠ 7 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold guiltless anyone who takes his name in vain. 8 “Remember the Sabbath day to set it apart as holy. 9 For six days you may labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; on it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, or your male servant, or your female servant, or your cattle, or the resident foreigner who is in your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is in them, and he rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy.⁠ 12 “Honor your father and your mother,⁠ that you may live a long time in the land the Lord your God is giving to you.⁠ 13 “You shall not murder.⁠ 14 “You shall not commit adultery.⁠ 15 “You shall not steal.⁠ 16 “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.⁠ 17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife,⁠ nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that belongs to your neighbor.”⁠ 18 All the people were seeing the thundering and the lightning, and heard the sound of the horn, and saw the mountain smoking—and⁠ when the people saw it they trembled with fear and kept their distance.⁠ 19 They said to Moses, “You speak to us and we will listen, but do not let God speak with us, lest we die.” 20 Moses said to the people, “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you so that you do not sin.” 21 The people kept their distance, but Moses drew near the thick darkness where God was. 22 The Lord said to Moses, “Thus you will tell the Israelites: ‘You yourselves have seen that I have spoken with you from heaven.⁠ 23 You must not make gods of silver alongside me,⁠ nor make gods of gold for yourselves. 24 “‘You must make for me an altar made of earth, and you will sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your cattle. In every place where I cause my name to be honored I will come to you and I will bless you.⁠ 25 If you make me an altar of stone, you must not build it of stones shaped with tools, for if you use your tool on it you have defiled it.⁠ 26 And you must not go up by steps to my altar, so that your nakedness is not exposed.’⁠

Texts in conversation

Compare Exodus 20:12 and Letter of Aristeas 228

Hebrew Bible · Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions

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Summary

In Exodus 20, God commands Israel to honor father and mother. Asked to whom the king should show gratitude, the translator in the Letter of Aristeas answers with this commandment, the one answer at the banquets that appeals directly to Jewish law.

Passages

Exodus 20:12

Hebrew Bible
10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; on it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, or your male servant, or your female servant, or your cattle, or the resident foreigner who is in your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is in them, and he rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy. 12 “Honor your father and your mother, that you may live a long time in the land the Lord your God is giving to you. 13 “You shall not murder. 14 “You shall not commit adultery.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Exodus

Letter of Aristeas 228

Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions · Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates
Having expressed his agreement with the answer, the king asked the sixth to reply to the question, To whom ought we to exhibit gratitude? And he replied, 'To our parents continually, for God has given us a most important commandment with regard to the honor due to parents. In the next place He takes account of the attitude of friend toward friend for He speaks of "a friend who is as your own soul". You do well in trying to bring all men into friendship with yourself.' The king spoke kindly to him and then asked the next, What is it that resembles beauty in value? And he said, 'Piety, for it is the pre-eminent form of beauty, and its power lies in love, which is the gift of God. This you have already acquired and with it all the blessings of life.'
200–150 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Letter of Aristeas

References

“... 228. God has given the greatest commandment concerning honor to parents This evidently cites the fifth commandment. (Exod. 20:12). friend the equal of a man’s soul The phrase derives from the LXX version of Deut. 13:7. See also Sir. 6:11. ...”
Erich S. Gruen, “The Letter of Aristeas,” in Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture, ed. Louis H. Feldman, James L. Kugel, and Lawrence H. Schiffman (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2013), 2753.
“... The answer is the only one to appeal directly to the Jewish law. The first part of the answer singles out parents. Three elements of the response suggest that Ps.-Aristeas has the fifth commandment in mind. First, Ps.-Aristeas specifically claims that God gave the commandment. Second, he uses the term ἐντολή, which only occurs here in Aristeas and is common for God’s commandments in the Septuagint (although not in the Decalogue per se). Third, both Exod 20:12 and Deut 5:16 have the verb τιμάω, and Ps.-Aristeas uses the noun related τιμή, even though the main verb in the question is χαρίζω. [...] these two features of the answer tie it directly to the Decalogue, and there seems little doubt that he is alluding to the biblical injunction here. ...”
Benjamin G. Wright III, The Letter of Aristeas: ‘Aristeas to Philocrates’ or ‘On the Translation of the Law of the Jews’ (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015), 372–373.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Exodus 20:12 and Letter of Aristeas 228

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