B. Apocr. and NT.— No actual case of debt occurs in either. Both, like OT, inculcate duty of lending and paying (Sir 29, Lk &^- ■», Ro 13«). Mt 6" suggests a generous treatment of debtors. Sir IS'' points out the danger of borrowing.
In NT debt occurs chiefly in the parables, The Two Debtors (Lk 7"- «), the Two Creditors (Mt jgan») Iq jijg latter we find that, as in Greece and Rome, the slave could have property of his ONvn, and thus become a debtor to his master. The treatment of a defaulter is entirely at his master's disposal. Here too, however, the person of the ordinary debtor may be seized for debt. In the iiarables of the Talents (Mt 25"-'") and Pounds (Lk 19""^), and the narratives of the Cleansing of the Temple (Mt21i"-, Mk ll'i>-'9,Lk 19«-«, Jn2""), we come upon the advanced commercial system of the Rom. Empire, with money-changers, bankers, and commercial usury, which Christ mentions with- out condemning. In the parable of the Unjust Steward (Lk 16''") we trace a credit system in con- nexion witli agriculture. Interest is not con- demned in NT.
LiTRRATCRB. — See oommentaries on passages cited, eep. Driver on Dt IS'-fl, and gectious on debt in Heb. Arch, of Bcnzinger and o( Nowaclc W. H. BENNETT.
DECALOGUE.— The law of the Ten Words, virtually a transl.ition of the original Heb. name B"-!?^" n-r^y. Dt 4" 10*, cf. Ex 31-») is the most suitable title of the ethical code prefi.xed to the Sinaitic legislation. The name 'Ten Command- ments' is a less accurate rendering, and it pre- judges the disputed question as to whether all of the ten words are of the nature of commandments. It is also called the Testimony (i\:-i-i Ex 25^'), and the Covenant (n-i;, Dt 9').
Th« •ccounts of the first publication of the D.
contain a variety of extraordinary particulars in attestation of its immediate divine origin and of its sovereign authority. The nation gathered at the foot of Sinai to receive a revelation (Ex 19"). Amid thunder and lightning, and with the sound of a trumpet, the Lord descended upon the smoking mount (19'"'-). and from thence proclaimed the words of the law in articulate tones in the ears of the terrified people (20", Dt 4'^). The words thus uttered by the very voice were thereafter graven by the very finger of God on two tables of stone (Ex 31'^ Dt 4"). These tables, which were broken by Moses on witnessing the temporary apostasy of the people (Ex 32"), were replaced by another pair on which God had promised to rewrite the former words (Ex 34'), and which were tliere- after deposited in the ark with a view to their safe-keeping and in token of their paramount importance (Dt 10°).*
In consideration of these details, in which so much stress is laid on the authority of the D. and on the precautions taken for preserving it in its purity, it is remarkable that the Pent, contains two versions of it which exhibit not a few, or altogether unimportant, variations — the classic version, as it may be called, of Ex 20'"", and the less-regarded version of Dt 5'"". The principal divergences occur in the reasons annexed to the fourth and fifth commandments. Under the fourth Dt founds the duty of Sabbath observance, not upon the example of the God of Creation who rested from His works on the seventh day (Ex 20"), but upon the dictates of humanity and of gratitude. 'Observe the Sabbath-day to keep it holy . . . that thy man-servant and thy maid-servant may rest as well as thou. And thou shalt remember tuat thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and J" thy God brought thee out thence by a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm : therefore J" thy God com- manded thee to keep the Sabbath-day (Dt 5'-""). The fifth commandment, in the Deuteronomic text, sanctions filial conduct with the promise of pros- perity as well as of long life (5"). In the tenth, it may be added, Dt has a different order from Ex — the wife being placed at the head of the series, while the coveting of the neighbour's field, which would count for much with a peasant people, is expressly prohibited (5").t
That the Exodus version of the D. is on the whoU superior to, i.e. older and purer than, the text of Dt, is the opinion of the great majority of modern scholars, including Delitzsch, Dillmann, W. R. Smith, Driver.! For this opinion the principal ground is that the variations in Dt are obviously a personal contribution from this author, some bemg mere amplifications in his wonted style, others instances of the intrusion of his cliaracter- istic ideas or expressions (cf. Dillmann, Exod, p. 200 ; Driver, LUT p. 31).
• The account in Ex of tiie Sinaitic revelation is higiily com- posite. and many details of the critical analysis ore etill luiaettled. The Decalo^e l3 imbedded in E, wliich furnishes most of th« matter in Ex 19-24 ; but this is not decisive aa to its date — one section regarding it oa derived by E from pre-existing sources (Driver, LOT p. 30), while another assumes its intrusioa into the E stratum after the formulation of the Decalogue of Dt (Meisner, Der Dekalog p. 11). The J narrative is more prominent in Ex 32-34, and has often been alleged to set forth an older summary as the kernel of the legislation (see it\fra). This latter inference, apart from other grounds, is rendered very precarious by the fact that a preat part of the orifxinal contents of J is no lonfrer before us. The final redaction does not determine whether the words were rewritten by God (Ex 34") or by Moses (Ex 342»).