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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 20:14 and Apocalypse of Abraham 24:6

Hebrew Bible · Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses

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Summary

In Exodus, God forbids murder, adultery, theft, false witness, and coveting. In the Apocalypse of Abraham, Abraham sees these same sins in the same order, each with the punishment that comes as its consequence.

Passages

Exodus 20:14

Hebrew Bible
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.”
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Exodus

Apocalypse of Abraham 24:6

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
4 And I looked and saw there what existed in creation before me; 5 I saw Adam, and Eve there with him, and with them the cunning Adversary, and Cain who acted lawlessly through the Adversary and the murdered Abel, (and) the destruction brought and inflicted on him through the lawless one. 6 I saw there also Impurity, and those who desire it, and its pollution, and their jealousy, and the fire of their corruption in the lowest parts of the earth. 7 I saw there Theft, and those who rush after it, and the arrangement [of their retribution, the judgment of the Great Court]. 8 I saw there naked men, with their foreheads against each other, and their disgrace, and the harm they did to their companions, and their retribution. 9 I saw there Desire, and in her hand the head of every kind of lawlessness [and her scorn and her waste assigned to destruction].
70–150 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Apocalypse of Abraham

References

“... Kugel posits a corruption at the Hebrew stage of transmission: erom (‘rwm), “na- ked,” from edim (‘dym), “witnesses,” which allows verses 24:5–9 to be seen as referring to the violation of the last five prohibitions of the Ten Commandments (murder, adultery, theft, false witness, and covetousness). ...”
Alexander Kulik, “Apocalypse of Abraham,” in Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture, ed. James L. Kugel Louis H. Feldman and Lawrence H. Schiffman (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2013), 1472.

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 20:14 and Apocalypse of Abraham 24:6

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