Go to Related Reading
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 Genesis 2:25 and Exodus 20:26

Hebrew Bible

Share:

Summary

Genesis shows the first humans naked and unashamed, which contrasts with later priestly rules. Exodus forbids exposure during offerings, showing that ritual roles require clothing. This makes Adam’s nakedness an issue with portraying him as a priest.

Passages

Genesis 2:25

Hebrew Bible
23 Then the man said, “This one at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one will be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” 24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and unites with his wife, and they become one family. 25 The man and his wife were both naked, but they were not ashamed.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Genesis

Exodus 20:26

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

References

"... Genesis actually inspired this claim, since at several points it presents Noah (Genesis 8:20), Abraham (Genesis 12:8, etc.), and others as building altars and offering sacrifices on them. How could they know the rules of sacrifices—which animals to offer, how they were to be prepared, and so forth—if someone did not teach them? From this developed the idea of an unbroken chain of priests stretching back to earliest times. But how far back did this chain go? It would be nice to have it start from the very beginning, that is, from Adam. But Adam is never said in the book of Genesis to have built an altar or offered a sacrifice to God and with good reason! After all, most of the narrative of Adam and Eve is taken up with their stay in the Garden, where they were naked, while the Torah clearly states that a priest’s “nakedness may not be exposed” when he makes an offering (Exodus 20:26) ..."
James L. Kugel, A Walk through Jubilees: Studies in the Book of Jubilees and the World of Its Creation (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 41.

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

Your feedback

Genesis 2:25 and Exodus 20:26

Leave a comment

Your questions and comments are welcome!

Comments

Glossary

Search the Library