I. Title. — The popular name in this, as in so many instances, is not that of Scripture. There we have the "ten words" (n"^"i-'nrt PT'vZJS', asereth kaddeba- liiii, the decade of the words ; Sept. to. S'tKa pi'ifiara ; Vulg. verba decern), not the ten commandments (Exod. xxxiv, 28; Deut. iv, 13; x, 4, Heb.). The difference is not altogether an unmeaning one. The word of (iod, the "word of the Lord," tlie constantly recurring term for the fullest revelation, %vas higher than any phrase expressing merely a command, and carried with it more the idea of a self-fultilling power. If, on the one side, there was the special contrast to which our Lord refers between the commandments of (i(xl and the traditions of men (IMatt. xv,3), the arrogance of the rabbins showed itself, on the other, in placing the words of the scribes on the same level as the words of God. See Sckibk. Nowhere in the later books of the Old Test, is any direct reference made to their number. The treatise of Philo, however, Trepi nov osKa Xoyiojv, shows that it had fixed itself on the .Jewish mind, and, later still, it gave occa- sion to the formation of a new word (the " Decalogue," »/ CtKciXoyoc, first in Clem. Al. Pad. iii, 12), which has perpetuated itself in modern languages. Other names are even more significant. These, and these alone, are '• the words of the covenant," the unchanging ground of the union between Jehovah and his people, all else being as a superstructure, accessory and subordinate (Exod. xxxiv, 28). They are also the tables of testi- mony, sometimes simply "the testimony," the witness to men of the divine will, righteous itself, demanding righteousness in man (xxv, 16 ; xxxi, 18, etc.). It is by virtue of their presence in it that the ark becomes, in its turn, the ark of the covenant (Numb, x, 33, etc.), that the sacred tent became the tabernacle of witness, of testimony (Exod. xxxviii, 21, etc.). See Tabeuna- CLK. Tiiey remain there, throughout the glory of the kingdom, the primeval relics of a lioar anti(juity (1 Kings viii, 9), their material, the writing on them, the sharp incisive character of the laws themselves, presenting a striking contrast to the more expanded teaching of a later time. Not less did the commandments themselves speak of the earlier age when not the silver and the gold, but the ox and the ass, were the great representatives of wealth (comp. 1 Sam. xii, 3).
Ewald is disposed to think that even in the form in which we have the commandments there are some ad- diticms made at a later period, and that the second and the fourth commandment were originally as briefly imperative as the sixth or seventh {Gesch. Isr. ii, 206). The difference l)etween the reason given in Exod. xx, 11 for the fonrtli commandment and that stated to have been given in Deut. v, liy makes, perhaps, such a con- jecture possible. Scholia, which modern annotators put into the margin, are, in the existing state of the Old Test., incorporated into the text. Obviously both forms could not have appeared written on the two tables of stone, yet Deut. v, 1,5, 22 not only states a different rea- son, but afKrms that " all these words" were thus written. Keil (^Comment, on Exod. arx) seems on this point disposed to agree with Ewald. — Smith.
II. Double Record. — The Dec.ilogue is found in two passages, Hrst in Exod. xx, 2-17, again in Deut. v, 6- 21: and there are certain dilTerences between the two forms, which have been taken advantage of by ration- alistic inierpreters, sometimes for tlic purpose of dis-
paraging the liistorical correctness of either form, and sometimes as a conclusive argument against the doc- trine of inspiration. The differences are of three kinds : (1.) Simply verbal, consisting in the insertion or omis- sion of the Hebrew letter 1, which signifies atid ; in Exod. it is only omitted once where it is found in Deut., namely, between tjraven iituif/e and ani/ likeness, in the second commandment; but in Deut. it occurs altogether six times where it is wanting in Exod.; and of th(-'SQ,f'our are at the commencement of the last four commandments, which are severally introduced with an and, joining them to what precedes. (2.) Differences in form, where still the sense remains essentially the same: under the fourth commandment, it is in Exod. '•nor thy cattle," while in Deut.it is "nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle" — a mere amplifica- tion of the former by one or two leading particulars; and in the tenth commandment, as given in Exod., " thy neighbor's house" comes first, while in Deut. it is " thy neighbor's wife;" and here also after " thy neigh- bor's house," is added " his field" — another slight ampli- fication. (3.) Differences in respect to matter: these are altogether four. The fourth commandment is intro- duced in Exod. with rcinemhcr, in Dent, with keep; the reason also assigned for its observance in Exod. is de- rived from God's original act and procedure at creation, while in Deut. this is omitted, and the deliverance of Israel from the land of Egypt is put in its stead ; in Deut. the lifth commandment runs, " Honor thy father and thy mother, as the Lord thy God commanded thee,''' the latter words having no place in Exod.; and in the tenth commandment, instead of "Thou shalt not coret thy neighbor's wife," it stands in Deut. "Tliou shalt not desire thy neighbor's wife" — differing only, how- ever, in this, that the one (covet) lixes attention more upon the improper desire to possess, and the other upon the improper desire itself.