God takes you where you are, and speaks the language you recognize, in order to move you where He wants you. The language of the Covenant begins with a suzerain-vassal treaty. It’s a form the Hebrew people would have recognized, all the way back to Abraham and even before. This first section is typically called the Ten Commandments. It depends on whom you ask how they are divided and listed as ten separate items. We won’t bother with that here. The point is that this represents an image of what God wants to see in His people.
So this is just an overview. It is the part written for all to see and review often. It’s meant to be fairly concrete and simple. It would never occur to Hebrew people at this point in their history to play semantic games. They would understand what was demanded here. The rest of the Books of Moses are judgments the Lord made regarding various issues, but these first provisions here are universal, with no context needed.
The prologue is simple: Jehovah identifies Himself as the deliverer who invested a ransom for this nation. He took them from slavery and set them free to serve Him. They owe Him their very lives. He is their God; He owns them.
The wording of the next line says that He will not tolerate them attempting to adopt foreign deities, strangers who have no interest in them, who did nothing for them. The wording echoes many marriage covenants: They are His bride and shall not turn to any other man for support and love. Thus, the Covenant already starts to be tinged with other types of covenant.
Next, He will not tolerate the use of idols in His household, imaged dedicated to Himself or any other. They must not use anything they can make with their hands to form a barrier between them and God. They must learn to come before Him personally and directly. No proxies allowed. He will treat it like adultery, and His memory of such things is longer than any of them could live.
By the same token, He shows favor to those who genuinely favor Him. He doesn’t lose track of those who love Him.
He will not tolerate people defaming Him and tearing down His reputation. Don’t act in ways that will embarrass Him. Don’t pretend you can keep secret your lack of respect for Him. If you rally under His flag, don’t cross Him.
One of the best ways to honor Him is to remember that He claims each seventh day for Himself. You can’t use it for your own purposes; it belongs to God and will be rendered as your justly owed time-tax. No one will be required to work for you on that day, whether it be family, slave, or animal. Don’t allow your guests to work for profit, either. Everything you do on that day will belong to God. He rested from His labor of Creation on the seventh day, and you will, too.
Live so that people around you get the impression your parents were really wise. Don’t make them look bad. God expects His people to maintain a stable society from generation to generation, so take the established customs seriously. God will honor your commitment to that stability by keeping you alive long enough to pass on your wisdom and experience.
Don’t murder; don’t kill people for your own personal gain. Killing is reserved for protecting the Covenant.
Don’t break your marriage vows. People who cheat on their spouses are cheating on their God.
Don’t plunder your own people. Respect their property as you would your own. They are your family; defend their control of their possessions.
Don’t betray your people by lying about them. Report the honest truth of what you have witnessed about them, for good or ill.
Don’t let your fleshly lusts for things of this world turn you against your people. Don’t let envy corrupt your heart, making you a threat to them. Be glad and grateful for what your God provides you and trust Him for your needs. Stick to your mission and calling and mind your own business.
The context is entirely Ancient Near Easter feudalism. This list offers a very potent warning that He regards them all as one family under His adoption. If anyone has a complaint against his brother or sister, he must bring it before the Lord. We must not take matters into our own hands, but defer to His decisions in all things. They must cling to Him first, then to each other.
Well said. As you have pointed out in the past the Mosaic Law is a refined version of the earlier Noahide Covenant/Law extrapolated from Genesis⁵⁵. It appears that even the Patriarchs of the Hebrew nation had a hard time with obedience to the seventh commandment as Abraham had 2 women, Jacob 4 and the list goes on, multiple wives and concubines. I may be wrong but, it appears to be mostly about ensuring that a child is a blood heir. One is more than enough for me, it’s all I can do to keep one unhappy…sorry I meant happy…well…at least not unhappy for a reasonable amount of the time. My counsel to young men is; if you have an overwhelming need to procreate, go right ahead and marry, if you can live without sex, do not marry and devote yourself 100 % to God rather than, than the measly 2% that’s left after placating a wife who is never satisfied with your efforts at pleasing her. Yeah, there’s sarcasm in there but, many a truth is spoke in jest.
Well, technically speaking, multiple wives was not adultery. They were all legal spouses in that culture. The issue was actually not stepping outside the marriage vows to satisfy the urges, because it typically means poaching a spouse that belongs to someone else. This provokes distrust and hatred and destroys peaceful coexistence in a community. But what Jesus said about divorce does seem to indicate that one-on-one was the ideal, and that God tolerated some variation from that based on a historical context that no longer exists.
Yes. These are the types of questions I get from college kids that work during the season at the country club. I think my answer was along the lines of keeping peace within the society. One had a course in, I’m gonna say comparative religion? maybe, I don’t quite recall it’s name. Basically, I pointed out the difference in ane culture and western. It’s not like I sit down and draw it out, it’s more like snippets where I attempt to get the little robots to consider stuff outside of the standard indoctrination received in college. The curious return for more punishment…uh…educatin’.
Ain’t we awful? And it’s so much fun!
Some joker (not sure if he was serious) tried to argue that it was allowable for wives to lust after men other than her husband because of the wording of 6 and 10. Of course, he also argued that the apostles had orgies whenever they went out to fish, so…whatever.
Sophistry like that is risible. Words can be twisted to justify anything the flesh desires.