# Only Ten commandments? Where's the distinction come from?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-ten-commandments-wheres-the-distinction-come-from/155382
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [February 16, 2003, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-ten-commandments-wheres-the-distinction-come-from/155382 "2003-02-16T04:18:11Z")
**Posts on this page:** 14
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@RexDart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RexDart)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2003, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-ten-commandments-wheres-the-distinction-come-from/155382/1 "2003-02-16T04:18:11Z")
Having looked it up, upon seeing a GQ on the topic, I noticed that the subsequent four chapters are all laws, and labeled as such by the headings in my Harper Collins study bible.
What sets the first ten apart, when the others in the subsequent chapters are delivered with the same intentions, and all the “you shall” and “you shall not” language?
(Only asking it here in GD due to religious subject matter.)
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### Author:  [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2003, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-ten-commandments-wheres-the-distinction-come-from/155382/2 "2003-02-16T04:33:38Z")
In the New Testament it’s reduced to only two. Love your neighbor as you would yourself. Which would preclude you breaking most of the 10 commandments. And the place no Gods before me. The only one left out is remember the Sabbath and keep it Holy.
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### Author:  [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2003, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-ten-commandments-wheres-the-distinction-come-from/155382/3 "2003-02-16T04:36:41Z")
I see two main reasons, and one requires a little background.
The main account of the giving of the Ten Commandments is in Exodus 19, with the text of the commandments themselves beginning chapter 20. But at the end of the 40 years in the Wilderness, as described in Deuteronomy, Moses calls the people together and repeats them, and adds a bit of detail:
> [@](#):
>
> 1 Moses convened all Israel, and said to them:
> Hear, O Israel, the statutes and ordinances that I am addressing to you today; you shall learn them and observe them diligently. 2 The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Horeb. 3 Not with our ancestors did the Lord make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us here alive today. 4 The Lord spoke with you face to face at the mountain, out of the fire. 5 (At that time I was standing between the Lord and you to declare to you the words F11 of the Lord; for you were afraid because of the fire and did not go up the mountain.) And he said:
>
> 6 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; 7 you shall have no other gods before F12 me. 8 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 9 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me, 10 but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation F13 of those who love me and keep my commandments. 11 You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name. 12 Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. 13 Six days you shall labor and do all your work. 14 But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you. 15 Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day. 16 Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God commanded you, so that your days may be long and that it may go well with you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. 17 You shall not murder. F14 18 Neither shall you commit adultery. 19 Neither shall you steal. 20 Neither shall you bear false witness against your neighbor. 21 Neither shall you covet your neighbor’s wife.
>
> Neither shall you desire your neighbor’s house, or field, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. 22 These words the Lord spoke with a loud voice to your whole assembly at the mountain, out of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, and he added no more. **He wrote them on two stone tablets, and gave them to me**. [Emphasis added]
So one big reason is that while God is depicted as dictating the rest of the Law to Moses at various times on the forty years in the Wilderness, these ten are set apart as having been written down by the Divine Hand Itself.
Second, you’ll take note that the contents are pretty well applicable to everyone and deal with issues important to any person (well, any religious person, for the first few). While it may be interesting to know whether one may licitly eat the liver of a camel or how to become ritually pure if you have a discharge from an open wound, I think there’d be common consent that cheating on one’s spouse, stealing, murder, willful and malicious false statements, and such are probably more important than the examples I gave at the beginning of this sentence.
I think those two factors have worked together to set off the Ten Commandments as “special” as opposed to the rest of Torah.
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### Author:  [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2003, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-ten-commandments-wheres-the-distinction-come-from/155382/4 "2003-02-16T04:38:06Z")
(Apologies for the F11 and such in the quote – Moses didn’t have Israeli Air Force overflights going on – they were references to footnotes in the text I copied and pasted, which I neglected to edit out.)
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### Author:  [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2003, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-ten-commandments-wheres-the-distinction-come-from/155382/5 "2003-02-16T07:38:12Z")
Of course there’s also [Exodus 34:1-28](http://bible.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/bible?passage=Exodus+34%3A1-28&NIV_version=yes&language=english):
> [@](#):
>
> The LORD said to Moses, “Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. Be ready in the morning, and then come up on Mount Sinai. Present yourself to me there on top of the mountain. No one is to come with you or be seen anywhere on the mountain; not even the flocks and herds may graze in front of the mountain.”
> So Moses chiseled out two stone tablets like the first ones and went up Mount Sinai early in the morning, as the LORD had commanded him; and he carried the two stone tablets in his hands. Then the LORD came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the LORD. And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.”
> Moses bowed to the ground at once and worshiped. “O Lord, if I have found favor in your eyes,” he said, “then let the Lord go with us. Although this is a stiff-necked people, forgive our wickedness and our sin, and take us as your inheritance.”
> Then the LORD said: "I am making a covenant with you. Before all your people I will do wonders never before done in any nation in all the world. The people you live among will see how awesome is the work that I, the LORD will do for you. Obey what I command you today. I will drive out before you the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land where you are going, or they will be a snare among you. Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and cut down their Asherah poles. Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.
> "Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land; for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to them, they will invite you and you will eat their sacrifices. And when you choose some of their daughters as wives for your sons and those daughters prostitute themselves to their gods, they will lead your sons to do the same.
> "Do not make cast idols.
> "Celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread. For seven days eat bread made without yeast, as I commanded you. Do this at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in that month you came out of Egypt.
> "The first offspring of every womb belongs to me, including all the firstborn males of your livestock, whether from herd or flock. Redeem the firstborn donkey with a lamb, but if you do not redeem it, break its neck. Redeem all your firstborn sons.
> "No one is to appear before me empty-handed.
> "Six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even during the plowing season and harvest you must rest.
> "Celebrate the Feast of Weeks with the firstfruits of the wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the turn of the year. Three times a year all your men are to appear before the Sovereign LORD , the God of Israel. I will drive out nations before you and enlarge your territory, and no one will covet your land when you go up three times each year to appear before the LORD your God.
> "Do not offer the blood of a sacrifice to me along with anything containing yeast, and do not let any of the sacrifice from the Passover Feast remain until morning.
> "Bring the best of the firstfruits of your soil to the house of the LORD your God.
> “Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.”
> Then the LORD said to Moses, “Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.” Moses was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant–the Ten Commandments.
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### Author:  [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2003, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-ten-commandments-wheres-the-distinction-come-from/155382/6 "2003-02-16T07:59:27Z")
Exodus 34:28 at first glance seems to be saying that Moses wrote the Ten Commandments on the tablets – which would be another in our ongoing collection of Internal Contradictions of the Bible – but that “he” could refer either to Moses or to the Lord, as opposed to the “Write down these words” instruction to Moses a couple of verses before – which would refer to the commandments in this chapter. (BTW, I have no idea why anybody would want to seethe a kid in goat’s milk – it sounds like a gross sort of dish!)
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### Author:  [@RexDart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RexDart)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2003, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-ten-commandments-wheres-the-distinction-come-from/155382/7 "2003-02-16T12:41:10Z")
I don’t have the upbringing in Christian tradition to necessarily get all this stuff, I own a bible and have read the relevant parts but I may be missing some things. I am making quite an effort of late to understand Christianity, thus my inquisition into this subject. So, the covenent made in “Horeb” as referred to above, was that the covenant with Abraham promising a homeland? Is that significant, that the laws connected to the covenant would be of a different stripe than merely the laws proferred in general? Is it the pretense under which they were presented that sets them apart from, say, the dietary laws, or is it the fundamental nature of those laws?
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### Author:  [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2003, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-ten-commandments-wheres-the-distinction-come-from/155382/8 "2003-02-16T17:21:13Z")
I think this is the only place where “ten commandments” appears in the Bible, but even if these are not necessarily a reference to the traditional ten, it does at least answer the OP’s question doesn’t it? I mean, it’s not like the “ten” part came out of nowhere, especially given the significance of ten to Hebrews.
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### Author:  [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2003, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-ten-commandments-wheres-the-distinction-come-from/155382/9 "2003-02-16T18:03:36Z")
[apologies for the hijack]
Am I the only one picturing Mel Brooks as Moses, standing on Mt. Sinai with three tablets? "People of Israel, I bring you these fifteen…
::crash::
…TEN Commandments!"
Carry on…
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### Author:  [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2003, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-ten-commandments-wheres-the-distinction-come-from/155382/10 "2003-02-16T18:45:26Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by RexDart \*
> \*\*I don’t have the upbringing in Christian tradition to necessarily get all this stuff, I own a bible and have read the relevant parts but I may be missing some things. I am making quite an effort of late to understand Christianity, thus my inquisition into this subject. So, the covenent made in “Horeb” as referred to above, was that the covenant with Abraham promising a homeland? Is that significant, that the laws connected to the covenant would be of a different stripe than merely the laws proferred in general? Is it the pretense under which they were presented that sets them apart from, say, the dietary laws, or is it the fundamental nature of those laws? \*\*
With regard to your last question, I strongly suspect that it’s the combination of the two that sets them apart. Perhaps **Chaim** or **Zev** will wander by and say what the Talmud has to say about the distinction as seen in Judaistic tradition. Since the early Christians seem to have picked up on an existing Jewish tradition, the answer would be much the same.
“Horeb” appears to have been a synonym for “Sinai” – meaning the mountain on which Moses received the greater part of the Law. There are several mountains on the Sinai Peninsula and the area just north of it which are in contention for the title, but there seems to have been a traditional acceptance of “Mount Sinai” AKA Jebel Musa towards the tip of the peninsula, nearly opposite the mouth of the Gulf of Aqaba on a map of the area. Some modern scholarship suggests a lower mountain further north, southwest of Kadesh-Barnea, as what was referred to by these names.
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### Author:  [@bong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bong)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2003, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-ten-commandments-wheres-the-distinction-come-from/155382/11 "2003-02-16T20:48:49Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Reeder \*
> **In the New Testament it’s reduced to only two. Love your neighbor as you would yourself. Which would preclude you breaking most of the 10 commandments.**
Unless you happen to be a masochist, in whitch you WANT stuff like taht to happen…
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### Author:  [@boyohboy17](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boyohboy17)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2003, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-ten-commandments-wheres-the-distinction-come-from/155382/12 "2003-02-16T23:20:43Z")
**RexDart** , you’re quite correct. There are many more than 10 commandments. In fact, there are 613 (in the “Old Testament”), and the Big 10 are not even the first ones. (The first commandment is “be fruitful and multiply”).
These ten are particularly special for a few reasons:
1. They are written on stone tablets.
2. They are given immediately after the children of Israel decided to accept the Torah.
3. According to Midrash (an interpretive Rabbinic commentary), these ten were to have been declared by G-d directly to the people. However, after the first commandment, the people begged G-d to stop, and to give them via Moses.
Despite this special treatment, these laws do not necessarily rank above others. In Jewish tradition, it is practice generally not to compare the importance of commandments.
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### Author:  [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2003, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-ten-commandments-wheres-the-distinction-come-from/155382/13 "2003-02-17T04:03:43Z")
These ten, as quoted above, were spoken by God to the whole people Israel gathered below the mountain. After these ten, the people request Moses to hear the rest and pass them on, because the thunderous Voice is too terrible for them to hear more.
Hence, these ten had “special significance” as being the only ones spoken to the people as a whole.
What **boyohboy** says is correct but reflects later tradition. In the early days of Synagogue services, the Ten Commandments were recited at services. However, somewhere around the 1500s (give or take a century or two), Christians argued that the Ten Commandments were the ONLY commandments that need be followed, and pointed to their prominence in the Jewish service as evidence of this. The recitation of the Ten was then dropped from Jewish services, to avoid any implication that these ten are more important that the other 603.
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### Author:  [@Harmonious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious)
#### Post date: [February 17, 2003, 9:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-ten-commandments-wheres-the-distinction-come-from/155382/14 "2003-02-17T09:00:00Z")
It might be interesting to note that in Hebrew, the Decalogue is called “The Ten Statements.” The laws and commandments found therein can be found elsewhere within the Torah.