Part 13 (1/2)

_Hist. Bible_ I, 194-198.

_Prin. of Politics_, Chap. II.

Lowell, _Essay on ”Democracy.”

Thou shalt have no other G.o.ds before me.

Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image.

Thou shalt not take the name of Jehovah thy G.o.d in vain.

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Honor thy father and thy mother.

Thou shalt not kill.

Thou shalt not commit adultery.

Thou shalt not steal.

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house.--_Ex. 20:3-17_.

If ye know my commandments, happy are ye if ye do them.--Jesus.

Wherewithal shall I come before Jehovah, and bow myself before the High G.o.d? ... He hath showed thee, Oh man, what is good; and what doth Jehovah require of thee but to do justly, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with thy G.o.d?--Micah 6:6, 8.

Most religions are meant to be straight lines connecting two points--G.o.d and man. But Christianity has three points--G.o.d, man, and his brother--with two lines to make a right angle.--_Maltbie D.

Babc.o.c.k_.

So many prayers, so many creeds, So many paths that wind and wind, When just the art of being kind Is all the sad world needs.

--Eva Wheeler Wilc.o.x.

I.

THE HISTORY OF THE PROPHETIC DECALOGUE.

The decalogues of Exodus 20-23 clearly represent the earliest canon of the Old Testament. These are intended to define clearly the obligations of the nation to Jehovah, and to place these obligations before the people so definitely that they would be understood and met. As the term ”decalogue,” that is ”ten words,”

indicates, the Biblical decalogue originally contained ten brief sententious commands, easily memorized even by children. Each of the decalogues is divided into two groups of five laws or pentads.

This division of five and ten was without reasonable doubt intended to aid the memory by a.s.sociating each law with a finger or thumb of the two hands. Exodus 20-23 and its parallels in Deuteronomy contain ten decalogues, that is a decalogue of decalogues, suggesting that originally a decalogue was a.s.sociated with each of the fingers and thumbs of the two hands even as were the individual words or commands. This system of mnemonics was useful in teaching a child nation. It is still useful to-day. It is important to impress upon the child in this concrete way certain of the fundamental obligations to G.o.d and man. The form of the ten commandments in part explains the commanding place which they still hold in religious education throughout Christendom.

The Biblical accounts of the two decalogues in Exodus 20 and 34 vary in details. The early Judean prophetic narrative in Exodus 34 states that these commands were inscribed by Moses himself on two stone tablets. In the later versions of the story Jehovah inscribes them with his own fingers on the two tablets which he gave to Moses. That the older decalogue was written on two tablets and set up in the temple of Solomon is exceedingly probable, for by the days of the United Kingdom the Hebrews were beginning to become acquainted with the art of writing and therefore could read the laws in written form. The recently discovered code of Hammurabi, which comes from the twentieth century B.C., was inscribed in parallel columns on a stone monument. In the epilogue to this wonderful code the king states: ”By the order of Shamash, the judge supreme of heaven and earth, that judgment may s.h.i.+ne in the land, I set up a bas-relief to preserve my likeness in the great temple that I love, to commemorate my name forever in grat.i.tude. The oppressed who has a suit to prosecute may come before my image, that of a righteous king, and read my inscription and understand my precious words and let my stele elucidate his case. Let him see the law he seeks, and may he draw in his breath and say: 'This Hammurabi was to his people like the father that begot them!'”

Thus this devout king of ancient Babylonia graphically defines the motive which, at a later period, led Israel's spiritual leaders to set before the people those principles which made for the welfare both of the nation and of the individual. Each was keenly conscious that the laws which brought social and spiritual health to mankind emanated from the divine power that was guiding the destinies of men.

Hebrew tradition has described in a great variety of narratives the way in which G.o.d made known his will to the people. The scene in each case was Mount Sinai, which the ancient Hebrews as well as the Kenites regarded as Jehovah's abode. In the early Judean version, as some writers cla.s.sify the accounts, Moses alone ascends the mountain, while the people are forbidden to approach. In the Northern Israelite version, the people approach, but being terrified by the thunder and lightnings they request Moses to receive for them the divine message. This later version implies that a raging thunder storm shrouded the sacred mountain, while the early Judean and late priestly narratives apparently suggest an active volcano.

The element common to all these accounts is that under the direction of their prophetic leader, Moses, a solemn covenant was established between the nation and Jehovah, and that the obligations of the people were defined in the decalogue with its ten short commands. The problem is, however, complicated by the presence of two decalogues, one now preserved in Exodus 34 and the other, the familiar ten commandments of Exodus 20. Both agree in emphasizing as primary the nation's obligation to be loyal to Jehovah. The decalogue in Exodus 34, however, goes on to describe in succeeding laws the ways in which the nation may show its loyalty. This was through the observation of certain ceremonial customs and especially the great annual feasts. Did most ancient peoples show their loyalty to the G.o.ds by their lives and deeds or by the ceremonies of the ritual and the offerings which they brought to the altars? The first great prophet Amos declared that Jehovah hated and despised feasts and ceremonies unless accompanied by deeds of justice and mercy.

The decalogue in Exodus 34 may well represent the original commands which Moses laid upon the nation, but the higher moral sense of later editors has truly recognized the superiority of the ethical commands of the familiar decalogue in Exodus 20 and given it the commanding place which it richly deserves. (For a probable literary history of this decalogue see _Hist. Bible_ I, 194-5.) The two decalogues of Exodus 20 and 34 are not duplicates the one of the other, but rather supplement each other. The one defines the obligation of the nation, the other of the individual. The Hebrews long continued to retain in their homes the family images inherited from their Semitic ancestors. Not until the days of Amos and Isaiah did the prophets begin to protest against the calves or bulls and the cherubim in the sanctuaries of Northern Israel, and even in the temple at Jerusalem. Hence the second command, ”Thou shalt not make for thyself any graven image,” some believe comes from a period centuries later than Moses. Possibly, as in Exodus 34:17, it originally read ”molten image” and referred to foreign idols. If so, it may come in this older form from Moses. The tenth command which places the emphasis on the motive rather than the act also suggests a maturer age; but with these possible exceptions there is good reason for believing that the spirit and teaching of Moses are embodied in this n.o.ble decalogue.