Inspiration and Incarnation: The Ten Commandments

The 10 commandments (in English) written on 2 stone tablets. Image source.

I've been blogging about the book "Inspiration and Incarnation" by Peter Enns. We're in the middle of chapter 3 now, and there's a section that talks about the laws given in the bible, and how sometimes they say different or contradictory things. In this post, I'll talk about the Ten Commandments, but there are several other examples in the book, so if you are interested in this, you should buy the book.

The Ten Commandments are listed in 2 different places in the bible: Exodus 20:2-17 and Deuteronomy 5:6-21. Enns points out that most of the wording in these 2 lists is exactly the same, but there are some differences. A few of the differences are along the lines of, something is worded differently but the meaning is the same, *but* the 4th commandment has an interesting difference in what it says about the motivation:

[The differences are marked in italics]

Exodus 20:8-11

Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

Deuteronomy 5:12-15

Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the Lord your God has commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns, so that your male and female servants may rest, as you do. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.

A bit of background about the timeline of this bible story: This passage from Exodus is set just after Moses brought the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt. God is giving them laws in order to tell them what kind of nation they are going to be. Then, they have to wander in the desert for 40 years, and the book of Deuteronomy is set at the end of those 40 years, just before they enter the promised land. In this passage from Deuteronomy 5, Moses is retelling what happened 40ish years before, when God gave him the 10 commandments.

"Inspiration and Incarnation" tells us that these 2 versions of the 10 commandments are slightly different because the people needed to hear them in a slightly different way, since their situation had changed. In Exodus, the motivation for resting on the Sabbath is that God made the world in 6 days and rested on the 7th. But in Deuteronomy, the motivation is that the Israelites used to be slaves in Egypt- so they need to make sure they do not treat their own servants/slaves the way they were treated; they need to allow their servants/slaves to have 1 day to rest. (Yes, the Israelites had just been brought out of slavery, and immediately instituted a system where they can own slaves. For more on this, see my post The Slavery We Ignore in the Book of Exodus.) It was important to emphasize this point, as they were getting ready to enter the promised land.

"Inspiration and Incarnation" says:

We must also take note of the way in which the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy are introduced. We do not have here the direct revelation from God on Sinai, as is the case in Exodus, but we have Moses recounting that experience for the Israelites who are now forty years removed from that event. And, regardless of what theory of pentateuchal authorship one subscribes to, the simple fact of the matter is that Deuteronomy presents Moses as someone who, forty years after the fact, recounts God's words differently than they were given in Exodus. There is diversity even in the Ten Commandments.

[italics in original]

Yes, this is fascinating (if you're a bible nerd like me). Deuteronomy is recounting the same event, but records the words of God differently than the account in Exodus. What's going on? What are the actual facts about what God said? If you believe in biblical inerrancy, you have to invent fan theories like "God must have said both of these things, on the mountain when giving Moses the 10 commandments, and Moses wrote it down one way in Exodus, and then waited 40 years and wrote it down the other way in Deuteronomy."

I don't believe in biblical inerrancy, so my opinion is more like, who knows if this is a true story or not, maybe it's partly true, but I'm not really worried about that. I'm interested in how people thought about these concepts, how that changed, and how it was affected by the culture they lived in.

Anyway, the point that "Inspiration and Incarnation" is making is "there seems to be a situational dimension to law, just as we saw with wisdom literature." God has given us a bible that with 2 slightly different versions of the 10 commandments, because sometimes people need to hear the laws in slightly different ways, depending on their situation.

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Next, there's discussion of the contrast between the 2nd commandment and a passage in Ezekiel. The 2nd commandment says,

You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

[caveat: Throughout history, there have been various Jewish and Christian lists of the 10 commandments which number them in slightly different ways. In the numbering I learned, this is the 2nd one, but not everyone numbers them that way. The original text of the bible doesn't have numbers.]

So, what's this business about "punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments"? This is something I picked up on when I was a child and was reading this- so, if a person in one generation obeys God's laws, then their descendants will be blessed for a thousand generations- okay but what if their son or daughter doesn't keep God's laws, then that son or daughter's descendants will be punished for 3-4 generations- so, then what happens with the next generation? God is supposed to bless them because their grandparent obeyed God, and also punish them because their parent disobeyed God- do these cancel each other out, or? "Showing love to a thousand generations" becomes kinda meaningless if what it actually means is "showing love to a thousand generations, unless their ancestors from the most recent 3-4 generations were disobedient, then it cancels out."

It feels like it's treating one's descendants as sort of a symbol of one's success/legacy, rather than as actual people who can make their own choices. (And "Inspiration and Incarnation" says "There is some discussion whether 'third and fourth generation' should be taken literally (especially since 'a thousand generations' seems not to be literal)".

But anyway, the point is, your actions will have consequences in how God treats your descendants.

In Ezekiel 18 (hundreds of years after the 10 commandments were given), we get this hypothetical situation: What if there's a righteous man who follows God's laws, and then his son disobeys God's laws? Is the son blessed because of his father? No! And then what if the grandson obeys God's laws- does the grandson get punished because his father was wicked? No! Everyone gets punished for their *own* sin, not their ancestors'. Ezekiel goes on about this for a whole chapter, really hammering the point home, that though you may think that a son should be blessed or punished based on his father's actions, that's not the way it is.

"Inspiration and Incarnation" says,

The stark contrast between Ezekiel and the second commandment even gave some early rabbis pause to question whether Ezekiel was authoritative. But there is more to this than simply whether Ezekiel contradicts the second commandment. I venture to guess that Ezekiel was quite aware of the second commandment. In fact, I suggest that he was consciously addressing it. His problem, however, is not with the second commandment itself but with those who appeal to it in a mechanical manner, perhaps in an attempt to excuse themselves from the consequences of their actions. Ezekiel's response, perhaps also to be read, along with Chronicles, in the context of national rebuilding, is, "Don't hide behind the law. You are still responsible for keeping it."

The reason why Exodus and Deuteronomy don't address the possible abuses of "generational consequences" as Ezekiel does is that such abuses would have been beside the point. How would it be if, after Exodus 20:6, we had read, "Of course, such a promise as this is subject to abuse, so don't get too comfortable with this." The law is the law, and it is stated succinctly. But, as future generations work out what it means to keep that law-- as situations and circumstances change-- it is not enough simply to read the law. Rather, it must be interpreted. And any attempt to interpret the law is necessarily an interaction between the law itself and the circumstances to which it is being applied. Ezekiel's words are instructive to us precisely because they are so extreme. To address his own context, where the second commandment was being abused, the prophet speaks in a way that relativizes the letter of that commandment.

So, apparently in Ezekiel's time, people were making the argument "my parents obeyed God, so I'm covered, I can do whatever I want." Or "my parents disobeyed God, so why should I even bother? I'm going to be punished anyway."

What all of this says to me, thinking about it from a "biblical inerrancy"/"absolute truth" perspective, is that the second commandment didn't really mean what it said. God just threw that part about "showing love to a thousand generations" in there because it sounded good, but if you actually think about the implications, if you be a rules-lawyer about it, you come to the conclusion "well it doesn't matter what I do- God has already decided to bless or punish me based on my parents' [and/or ancestors from a thousand generations ago's] actions." That *is* the logical implication, and the reason we should reject this logical implication is that that part of the 2nd commandment is actually not true. I mean, maybe true in kind of a vague way, but don't take it too seriously.

Anyway, the point of this section of "Inspiration and Incarnation" is that sometimes the bible gives the same laws in slightly different ways (which may even contradict each other) because the application of the law depends on the situation. I like how the book encourages us to really look at the differences between different passages of Scripture, to really engage with them and ask questions about why they are different, rather than just pretend they're the same and there's exactly one "biblical view" on every issue.

Stay tuned for next time, when we discuss whether the bible teaches there is 1 god or many gods.

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Posts about "Inspiration and Incarnation":

Inspiration and Incarnation: Introduction
Inspiration and Incarnation: Other Ancient Near East Literature
Inspiration and Incarnation: An Aside About Apologetics
Inspiration and Incarnation: Wisdom Literature
Inspiration and Incarnation: The Ten Commandments

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