DECALOGUE.
Names and Character (§ 1). Divisions and Original Form (§ 2). Variations in Expressions (§ 3). Mosaic Origin (§ 4).
The decalogue is the fundamental moral law of Jews and Christians. The words which, according to Ex. XX. 1; Deut. iv. 12, 13, v. 4, 19-23, God spoke at Sinai to the assembled Israelites, given Ex. XX. 2-17 and, in slightly different form, Deut. v. 6-78, are called the decalogue. These, according to the plain statement of Deut. iv. 13, v. 19, ix.
10, 11, x. 4, and the implication of I. Names Ex. xxiv. 12, xxxi. 18, and other and Char- passages, God had written upon the acter. two tables of stone which became part of the contents of the ark of the covenant. The name generally given to this code is " the ten commandments "; the Old Testament calls them the " ten words " (Ex. xxxiv. 28; Deut. iv. 13, x. 4; cf. Ex. xxiv. 3), because they possessed a preeminent excellence, spoken as they were to the people by their God. They alone were written on the two tables, which received the name " tables of the covenant," while the box in which they were deposited was called the " ark of the covenant," since they were the " witness " of the covenant (see Covenant) made on Mount Sinai. The decalogue is an independent and complete code, expressing the relations existing between the Creator and created man. The mass of laws which make up the codes of Israel may be considered the unfolding of the ethical-religious idea expressed in the ten words. The prohibition to worship other gods and to make images have a place only in antiquity, and the commandment concerning Sabbath-observance steps outside the purely ethical sphere and demands a cult which in Deuteronomy is applied to Israel. Again the ten commandments have reference to external acts only, the prohibitions outnumber the precepts, the threats and promises are limited to this life; nevertheless, the form is such as to be able to receive the whole content of the New Testament concepts of the divine will. As the Christian sees in the Yahweh of the Old Testament the God who in Jesus revealed himself as Father, so he finds stated in the decalogue the fact that God is the only good to be desired,_ that the material must be kept apart from the spiritual, and that there is a Sabbath after life's week of toil and travail. While it is the people as a whole who are addressed by the code, the commands come
Decalogrue
Declaration of Indulgence
THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
also to the individual; so Christians, to whom this tribal law has become the law of humanity, refer it to every individual within the range of its voice.
About the division of the decalogue churches differ: the Jews count Exod. xx. 2 as the first commandment, 3-6 as the second, and 17 is consequently the tenth; the Greek and Reformed churches make 3 the first, 4-6 the second, and 17 the tenth; the Roman and Lutheran churches see in 3-6 one commandment and in 17 two commandments. The oldest witness favors the second view, held by Josephus and Philo, and this is undoubtedly the correct one; there is no reason for seeing in 17 two commandments, moreover, the text forbids division; verse 2, though a highly important statement, is not a commandment, and 3. Divisions 4-5 may well on internal grounds be and Orig- taken as independent of verse 3. The inal Form. Samaritans have after Exod. xx. 17 and Deut. v. 18 another commandment, borrowed from Deut. xxvii. 2-7 and xi. 30, and wrongly affirm that the Jews have only nine commandments. The decalogue is divided in Exodus generally into nine, and in Deuteronomy always into ten sections. While the division into nine sections is certainly as old as the other, it has no necessary connection with that into ten " words." It is noteworthy that the prohibition to covet is nowhere divided into two verses. That there were two tables is witnessed by all the sources except E. It may be surmised that each contained five " words," and putting the fifth (Ex. xx. 12) on the first table gives excellent balance, the first table containing the commandments of piety, the second those of probity. Less attractive is the arrangement of Augustine and Calvin, who place the fifth commandment on the second table as enjoining performance of duties toward fellow men. The difference in length in the commandments is remarkable; and since this seems due to the addition of explanations, threats, or promises, the conviction is forced that originally the decalogue contained ten short sentences about as follows, which alone the designation "ten words " truly fits: (1) Thou shalt have no other gods besides me, (2) Thou shalt not make unto thee any image, (3) Thou shalt not take the name of Yahweh thy God in vain, (4) Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, (5) Honor thy father and thy mother, (6) Thou shalt not kill, (7) Thou shalt not commit adultery, (8) Thou shalt not steal, (9) Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor, (10) Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house. In this form the decalogue may easily have been written on two stone tables.
Among the additions certain expressions occur frequently, or only, in Deuteronomy, but this does not involve that these additions have been imported into Exodus from Deuteronomy. For, to the additions which the two statements have in common, Deuteronomy has others which 3. Varia- mark it as the younger, and has bctions in Ex- sides a different vocabulary in tlie pressions. fourth, ninth, and tenth commandments. Changes arc evidently not wilful ; they are due rather to the fact that at the time of the Deuteronomist the text was still fluctuating.
In common with other peoples of antiquity, Israel cared very little for verbal correctness, and thus it need not cause surprise that they did not end these discrepancies by consulting the original tables, since they were difficult of access. Notable in this connection is the commandment concerning Sabbathobservance. E bases it on the creation week, D on the exodus fiwm Egypt; it is difficult to believe that D would have dropped the former, had it stood in his copy. However, the conclusion that the reference to creation was incorporated into the decalogue later is by no means certain; while the common view now is that it is a postexilic enlargement on the basis of Gen. ii. l-4a, the expressions in the decalogue do not agree with those in Genesis (cf. W Lotz, Quoestiones de historia sabbati, Leipsic, 1883, 94-100).
The Mosaic origin of the decalogue, at least in the shorter form, is admitted by Delitzsch, Dillmann, Lemme, Konig, Kittel, Driver, and others. But Noldeke as early as 1869 declared that view extremely doubtful, and lately Wellhausen, Stade, Cornill have rejected it, while Smend and H. Schulz have lost faith in it. The main argument has always been that the prohibition to making 4. Mosaic images could not date back to Moses, Origin, since the worship of Yahweh under the form of images persisted in the northern kingdom, and in Judah was found at least until Solomon. But it is pure assumption that, while the image-worship existed, it was not displeasing. As far as is known, the true champions of the Yahweh-religion always stood for imageless worship, and where the ark stood, at Shiloh and at Jerusalem, there was no image (on the ephod, I Sam. xxi. 9; see Ephod). But that the mere existence of the prohibition would make imageworship impossible and would cause Jeroboam to refrain from introducing calf-worship no one would affirm who considers what even to-day is possible in the Christian Church. The other argument against the Mosaic origin is that the fourth commandment presupposes settlement in Canaan. While the Sabbath rest has less meaning when applied to nomads than when related to agricultural conditions, it must not be forgotten that Israel at Moses's time was not wholly nomadic. Again, it is urged that the mode of thought is that of the prophets, and is not met in preprophetic time. But it is not certain that the prophets invented the ethical standard; and, inasmuch as their teachings in complicated and developed form far surpass what in the decalogue is given in the most simple and fundamental precepts, the latter can not be the mere precipitate of the former. It is the narrative of E in which the decalogue in Exodus is found. That the writings of P contained it is denied by no one, though the doubtful opinion is advanced by Wellhausen, Jiilicher, Budde, and others, that J had a different Sinaitic decalogue, namely Ex. xxxiv. 14-26. But while it is possible on good grounds to have the conviction that the decalogue as an inheritance of the Mosaic time has stood in all Pentateuch sources, others, such as Meissner, Steuernagel, and Staerk, on religioushistorical and philological grounds have denied that even E contained it. (W, Lotz.)