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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 20:17 and Samaritan Exodus 20:17

Hebrew Bible · Samaritan

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Summary

The Hebrew Bible ends the Ten Commandments with the command against coveting. The Samaritan Pentateuch adds a command to build an altar on Mount Gerizim, drawn from Deuteronomy, making Gerizim worship part of the Ten Commandments.

Passages

Exodus 20:17

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

Samaritan Exodus 20:17

Samaritan · Samaritan Penteteuch
16 You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. 17 You shall not covet your neighbor’s house, and you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, his field, his male slave, or his female slave, [or] his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s. And when Shema your God brings you into the land of the Canaanite, which you are entering to take possession of it, you shall set up large stones, and plaster them with plaster. And you shall write on the stones all the words of this law. And when you have passed over the Jordan, you shall set up these stones, which I command you today, on [Mount] Ārgarizem. And there you shall build an altar to Shema your God, an altar of stones; you shall not raise any iron [tool] over them. You shall build an altar to Shema your God of uncut stones, and you shall offer burned offerings on it to Shema your God. And you shall sacrifice peace offerings, and shall eat there, and you shall rejoice in the presence of Shema your God. That mountain beyond the Jordan, beyond the road toward the sunset, in the land of the Canaanites who live in the Arabah, opposite Gilgal, beside Elon Moreh, opposite Shechem.” 18 And all the people heard the thunder, and the sound of the trumpet, and saw the lightning, and the mountain smoking. And when all the people saw [it], they trembled, and stood far away.
130–120 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Samaritan Exodus

References

... By including the Mount Gerizim diktats among the ten words spoken by Yhwh to his people on Mount Sinai, Samaritan scribes granted these decrees a privileged place within the Torah. Whereas in Deuteronomy 27:1, the directives are given by Moses (accompanied by the elders) to the people, the literary recontextualization of the material drawn from Deuteronomy 27:4a, 5-7 within the Ten Commandments elevates the Mount Gerizim altar commands into orders given directly by Yhwh to his people. In so doing, Samaritan scribes accord the (new) tenth commandment an extraordinary status. ...
Gary N. Knoppers, “Altared States: The Altar Laws in the Samaritan and Jewish Pentateuchs, and Their Early Interpreters,” in The Samaritan Pentateuch and the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. Michael Langlois (Leuven: Peeters, 2019), 109–111.

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 20:17 and Samaritan Exodus 20:17

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