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 Code of Hammurabi xlvii 79 and Exodus 20:24

Ancient Near East, Babylonian · Hebrew Bible

Summary

Exodus 20 follows a tradition based on the Code of Hammurabi, where justice is connected to honoring a deity’s name at a sacred place. Hammurabi preserves his own name on a monument and Exodus reshapes this to emphasize honoring God's name.

Passages

Code of Hammurabi xlvii 79

Ancient Near East, Babylonian · Babylonian Legal Text

The great gods have called me. I am the shepherd who brings salvation, whose staff is straight, the good shadow spread over my city. I carry the inhabitants of the land of Sumer and Akkad on my breast; in my shelter I have let them rest in peace; in my deep wisdom I have enclosed them. So that the strong might not wrong the weak, and so that the widow and the orphan might be protected, I have set up these my precious words in Babylon, the city where Anu and Bel raise high their heads, in E-Sagil, the temple whose foundations stand firm like heaven and earth, to declare justice in the land, to settle all disputes, and to heal all injuries; I have written them on my memorial stone, before my image as king of righteousness. I am the king who rules among the kings of the cities. My words are well considered; there is no wisdom like mine. By the command of Shamash, the great judge of heaven and earth, let righteousness go out over the land; by the order of Marduk, my lord, let no destruction come to my monument. In E-Sagil, which I love, let my name be repeated forever. Let the oppressed man who has a case at law come and stand before this image of me as king of righteousness; let him read the inscription and understand my precious words; the inscription will explain his case to him. He will see what is just, and his heart will be glad, so that he will say: "Hammurabi is a ruler who is like a father to his subjects, who holds the words of Marduk in reverence, who has won victory for Marduk in the north and the south, who rejoices the heart of Marduk his lord, who has secured blessings for his subjects forever, and who has established order in the land."

1750 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Code of Hammurabi

Exodus 20:24

Hebrew Bible

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.

750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Exodus

References

"... The key to understanding many of the correspondences in the apodictic laws is to realize that the Covenant Code has replaced Hammurabi and Mesopotamian gods with Yahweh. The Israelite-Judean god is now the author and revealer of law. His cult symbol, the altar, has replaced Hammurabi’s temple statue. Just as the exhortatory block has Hammurabi’s name memorialized at a cult site (“May my name [šumī] be recalled in the Esagil temple favorably forever”), The Covenant Code has Yahweh’s name memorialized at a cult site (“In every place where I cause my name to be recalled”) and prohibits the memorializing of other gods (“you shall not mention/recall the name of other gods”). The Covenant Code extends the theme of name memorialization to prohibit the cursing of deity and the native “chieftain” (i.e., the king). The coming of a wronged man before Hammurabi’s statue and stela at the Esagil temple (“let a wronged man who has a case come before the statue of me, king of justice”) is replaced with the thrice-yearly visit of male pilgrims for the festivals ..."

David P. Wright, Inventing God’s Law: How the Covenant Code of the Bible Used and Revised the Laws of Hammurabi (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 11.

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

The Ten Commandments and the Covenant

Exodus40 chapters

Compare Code of Hammurabi xlvii 79 and Exodus 20:24

Summary

Passages

Code of Hammurabi xlvii 79

Exodus 20:24

References

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