The Ten Commandments: A Concise Summary for High School Students (and Adults)

CERC ^ | May 29, 2014 | DEACON DOUGLAS MCMANAMAN

[NYer]

The Ten Commandments in the Torah (Exodus 20) are a formulation of the basic precepts (principles) of morality.

Jews and Christians believe they were revealed by God to Moses, though to understand the content of those precepts does not require the supernatural virtue of faith as such, but are understandable through the natural light of human reason.  Let's go over each one:

1.  You shall have no other gods besides the Lord your God:  As you know by now, it is of the utmost importance to read Scripture in its historical context.  Thus, let's keep in mind that the Jews spent years in Egypt, and when Moses came down from Mount Sinai, he found them engaged in revelry; they'd fallen into the worship of the Egyptian god, Apis, who is represented in the Egyptian pantheon as a bull (Ex 32, 1ff).  Apis was the god of strength and fertility, that is, power and wealth.

To worship something is to make it the center around which your life revolves.  There are many possible things around which a person might center his life.  Although very few can be found who actually bow before idols of gold, few can be found who have not made the pursuit of power and wealth their chief purpose in life.  No matter what form it may take, violating the first commandment, which is the sin of idolatry, is nothing other than the worship of the self; for the pursuit of power and money as one's principal end is, in the end, a pursuit of the self as center of one's life.

2.  You shall not take the Lord's name in vain:  The primary way of violating this commandment is to "swear" an oath, using God's name: "... so help me God" — thus calling on God as a witness that you are telling the truth — and then lying.  This is perjury.  The commandment is also violated when using the name of God as a curse, typically in response to anger, or simply using God's name frivolously, without reverence.  This is "swearing" in the true sense of the world.  Using foul language that does not include the name of God (i.e., the "s" word) is not the same as swearing.  The latter is certainly inconsiderate and a sign of a lack of self-control, but it is much less serious than swearing in the true sense of the word.

3.  Keep holy the Sabbath day:  For Jews, the Sabbath begins on Friday evening and continues throughout the following Saturday.  For Christians, because Christ rose from the dead on Sunday, the Sabbath begins on Saturday evening and continues throughout the following Sunday.  For the Jews, the word 'sacred' means 'set apart.'  The Sabbath is set apart from all other days as a day of worship and contemplation.  This life is about preparing for eternal life, and eternal life is a life of eternal worship and contemplation of God as He is in Himself.  This is represented in the 7 day work week, which is an ever recurring microcosm of human life to remind us where we are going.  Each day of the week is a work day, but our labour is ordered towards 'rest', which is the Sabbath (saba is Hebrew for 'seven' and 'oath' by which we enter into covenant).  Leisure is a holy activity, and the highest way to leisure is to contemplate, and the highest form of contemplation is to contemplate the highest being, which is God.  The very word 'holiday' means holy day.  Western culture has lost a sense of this notion of holiday as a holy day, which is why holidays are devoted less to worship than they are to 'shopping.'  Consumerism has become the new religion, and the malls have become the new churches.

 

No matter what form it may take, violating the first commandment, which is the sin of idolatry, is nothing other than the worship of the self; ...

4.  Honour your father and mother, so that you may live long in the land that the Lord is giving you:  We have a debt to our parents, a debt that we cannot fully repay.  But we are obligated in justice to repay that debt as much as we are able.  We do that by honouring them.  To honour, for the Jews, meant 'to glorify.'  We are called to glorify our parents, who are glorified by our success, because our success reflects back on them.  We need to be careful, however, of the way we define success; for it has come to mean a number of different things for different people.  Good marks, a well-paying job, material prosperity are "success" relatively speaking, but one can achieve a great deal in this area and turn out to be a moral failure, and that dishonours our parents.  Human success has more to do with human integrity, which is a moral achievement.  A saint is an example of what it means to be a genuine success.

5.  You shall not kill:  The human person is created in the image and likeness of God, that is, in the image of "knowledge and love", or "mind and heart."  In other words, a human being is like God insofar as he is a person who has the power to think and choose freely.  Everything else in creation, i.e., plants, animals, minerals, exists to serve his needs.  The human person, on the other hand, was willed into existence by God for his own sake, not as an instrument of the state or an instrument to be used by others (i.e., slavery in all its many forms).  We destroy instruments when they are no longer useful (we throw out old computers, televisions, pens, clocks, etc.).  But the value of a human being cannot be calculated on the basis of his/her usefulness; to do so is to reduce him or her to a mere instrument to be used.  As this utilitarian mentality spreads throughout a culture, we see a corresponding increase in the direct and indirect killing of others (i.e., abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, fraud, the murder of reputations, indifference to the sick, the suffering, the poor, etc.).

6.  You shall not commit adultery:  The first and immediate community into which we are born is the family, which is the fundamental unit of society, often compared to the cell of the human body.  The family begins in marriage, and marriage is holy.  It is an institution, that is, an organization that exists for the public welfare.  In other words, it is more than a private friendship.  Moreover, it was established by God (see Gn 2, 24).  Marriage is a complete and mutual self-giving of two, male and female; as such it is a joining of two into a one flesh, one body union.  Because this self-giving is total, it is physical, until death, exclusive and undivided, and it is ordered to the generation of new life.  The act of sexual union is an expression of this one flesh union; adultery is an act of infidelity to one's marital promises and reduces the sexual act to a lie (one is joining himself to someone who is not his spouse).  The precept against adultery includes, within its scope, all sexual activity that is outside of marriage.

7.  You shall not steal:  A right always corresponds to a duty, and so if you have a duty to raise your children, to protect, feed and educate them, etc., then you have a right to the means needed to achieve that end.  This means you have a right to the property you need to carry out your obligation.  But that property has to be purchased, and the first step to purchasing the property we need is to develop our skills in order to create wealth (i.e., goods and/or services).  To purchase property, you must enter into a mutually agreed upon transaction with another or others, and so you produce something that someone else wants and is willing to pay for (money is simply an artificial means of exchange).  So you have agreed, for example, to produce a table (since you possess those skills) for someone who has agreed to pay the cost of the materials and labour.  Now, to steal is to take property that rightfully belongs to another; thus, if I steal from you, what I am doing in effect is changing the terms of your agreements with others.  For example, you earned $100 as a result of a mutually agreed upon transaction involving your skills (i.e., carpentry, accounting, or teaching skills, etc.), but I take that money when you are not looking.  Essentially, what I have done is I have decided, without your permission or knowledge, that you are going to produce that table for him, but he is going to pay me for it.  This is a violation of justice.

8.  You shall not bear false witness: A liar is a person who cannot be trusted.  He is one who brings about a "split" within himself, that is, a division, a degree of disintegration.  Lying is an immediate violation of "integrity"; for there is a separation between what is in the liar's word and what is in his mind.  Although the truth is in his mind, it is not in his word.

As the liar continues to lie — for we are creatures of habit — he gradually loses himself, and at some point his loss is virtually irretrievable.

But man has been created in the image and likeness of God, who is absolutely one with His Word, which is why everything comes into existence through the power of His Word: "God said: Let there be light, and there was light..."  Hence, I ought to become increasingly one with my words, not divided from them; for the more our word becomes united and filled with the content of the truth that is in us, the more like God we become.  The more our word is emptied of that content and is made to express not ourselves but some other falsehood (as happens when we lie), the more unlike God we become.

Lying involves a kind of meditation.  Consider a poorly constructed lie: "I couldn't return your urgent call because I was out all weekend, hunting elephants."  It is easy to see through such a lie — not much thought has gone into it.  A more carefully crafted lie requires more thought and meditation.

Why meditation?  The reason is that the mind thinks, but the spirit meditates, and when the liar thinks of the best way to craft his lie, his spirit is open to the best suggestions.  But spirit opens upon spirit, not flesh.  The spirit of the liar does not open upon God, who is Spirit and Truth, but upon the spirit whom Christ refers to as "the father of lies" (Jn 8, 44), whom Scripture refers to as the most crafty of all God's creatures (Gn 3, 1).  The crafty liar engages in a kind of anti-prayer.  And the "split" within the self that the liar brings about by lying is a fissure through which the influence of darkness seeps in even further.

As the liar continues to lie — for we are creatures of habit — he gradually loses himself, and at some point his loss is virtually irretrievable.  Soon he will begin to delight in his lies, because through his successes he demonstrates to himself his apparent intellectual superiority over all who have been hoodwinked, every one of whom has become a means to the liar's own ends, puppets within the environment he schemes to construct for himself.

Lying is the very antithesis of prayer, and its effects are equally opposed to those of genuine prayer, such as integration, light, community, and salvation.  The only remedy against lying is a commitment that absolutely excludes it, always, everywhere, and in every circumstance.

9 & 10.  You shall not covet your neighbor's wife; You shall not covet your neighbor's goods:  To covet, as used here, is to have inordinate desire for something or someone.  The one who covets is unsatisfied with what he has; or more to the point, with what he is.  Everything is subject to the providence of God, and everything that happens is contained within the larger plan of divine providence.  This is true even in light of the fact that human beings make free choices.  Now all of us have a place within the plan of divine providence.  We all have our place in this world, just as an artist assigns a specific place to a particular dab of paint of a particular color.  Our place contributes to the splendor of the whole plan of providence fully realised.  The problem is we love ourselves too much, and so we must spend the rest of our lives working to decrease that inordinate love of self in order to give greater increase to the love of God and the entire plan of providence.  Coveting is a sign that have work to do; it is an indication that we still desire to exceed our natural limitations, to be more than what we are.  And that's the root of the problems in this world; we love ourselves too much and others not enough.  This commandment calls us to learn to love others as 'another self', to delight in their blessings as if they were our own.  The more progress we make along these lines, the happier we become, because the happiness of others eventually becomes our own.

A final thought.  There is a reason why the first three commandments have to do with our relationship with God, while the last seven govern our relationship to our neighbours.  The reason is that we simply cannot love our neighbour unless we love God first.  A right relationship with our neighbor is simply the result of a right relationship with God.  If I do not see my neighbour in relation to God, that is, as belonging to Him, it is not long before I begin to love him primarily for the sake of what he does for me.  It is only when I see him from God's point of view that I can love him for his own sake, and not for my sake, because God has loved each person into existence for his own sake.  Our love of neighbour will merely be an extension or an expression of our love for God.  If an atheist truly and genuinely loves his neighbor for his own sake — something I am simply unable to judge with any certainty, one way or another — then I would have to say that such an "atheist" loves God without explicitly knowing it, just as whoever says, "I love God," but hates his brother, is a liar, "for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen" (1 Jn 4, 20).

[NYer]

Ping!

[GladesGuru]

Commandment 5 is described in error.

Murder is forbidden, not killing.

The original is quite clear, so this is either an error driven by agenda or sloppy writing.

[Gamecock]

To worship something is to make it the center around which your life revolves. There are many possible things around which a person might center his life.

Like Mary?

[Viennacon]

Very correct. To kill is simply to end life. It carries no moral connotation.

[SkyDancer]

Actually nine with one statement.

[Tzimisce]

The 10 commandants were written to keep old Jewish men in charge.

[GreyFriar]

Using “kill” in place of “murder” is, I’ve been told, based upon the KJV translation. When “kill” was commonly understood to mean what we now call murder. Something premeditated. such as Cain murdered Able.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

A note should be made that Jews do not consider Christians to be the inheritors of Mosaic law, but instead are covered by the seven laws of Noah, the Noahide Laws.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Laws_of_Noah

They see it as somewhat paradoxical that Christians would generally disregard the Hebraic laws, statutes and judgments devolving from Mosaic law, which is according to Christian doctrines, yet embrace just the Ten Commandments.

And even stranger that Christians would cherry pick *some* of the Hebraic laws, statutes and judgements, even though their doctrines tell them they have been superseded.

[verga]

Thankfully there is not single Catholic that does this, in spite of the constant violation of the eighth commandment by prots about this.

[Gamecock]

It is quite evident that they do.

[Salvation]

The Ten Commandments: A Concise Summary for High School Students (and Adults)
Lists Every Catholic Should be Familiar With: The 10 Commandments
The Catholic Church Changed The Ten Commandments? Ecumenical]

The Essentials of the Catholic Faith, Part Three: The Will of God, Christian Morality
The Essentials of the Catholic Faith, Part Three: The Will of God, The Ten Commandments
The Essentials of the Catholic Faith, Part Three: The Will of God, First Commandment
The Essentials of the Catholic Faith, Part Three: The Will of God, Second Commandment
The Essentials of the Catholic Faith, Part Three: The Will of God, Third Commandment
The Essentials of the Catholic Faith, Part Three: The Will of God, Fourth Commandment
The Essentials of the Catholic Faith, Part Three: The Will of God, Fifth Commandment
The Essentials of the Catholic Faith, Part Three: The Will of God, Sixth and Ninth Commandments
The Essentials of the Catholic Faith, Part Three: The Will of God, Seventh and Tenth Commandments

The Essentials of the Catholic Faith; Part Three: The Will of God, Eighth Commandment
Catechism of Aquinas |SUMMARY OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS| THE OUR FATHER & FIVE QUALITIES OF PRAYER
A Brief Catechism for Adults - Lesson 34: The First Commandment
A Brief Catechism for Adults - Lesson 35: The Second Commandment
A Brief Catechism for Adults - Lesson 36: The Third Commandment
A Brief Catechism for Adults - Lesson 37: The Fourth Commandment
A Brief Catechism for Adults - Lesson 38: The Fifth Commandment (w / special prayer request)
A Brief Catechism for Adults - Lesson 39: The Sixth and Ninth Commandments
A Brief Catechism for Adults - Lesson 40: The Seventh and Tenth Commandments
A Brief Catechism for Adulst - Lesson 41: The Eighth Commandment

[brent13a]

What christianity has labeled as the “Ten Commandments” is a blunt and complete misrepresentation of what Moses was given by God. In the Tanakh what was inscribed on those stone tablets are called “The Ten Words or “The Ten Sayings”. They were the Ten Words because there were only ten words inscribed on the tablets.

The first time the hebrew name Asereth ha-D'bharîm was mistranslated as the “Ten Commandments” was the Geneva Bible in 1557ad. The King James Bible followed and the Asereth ha-D'bharîm has been mistranslated in christianity as the Ten Commandments ever since. However, the Septuagint did properly translate the Ten Sayings as the dekalogos literally meaning the “Ten Words”.

The two stone tablets of which Moses famously brought down from Mount Sinai were also not labeled the “Ten Commandments” or the “Commandments Tablets”, or any variation thereof. In the Tanakh they are called Luchot HaBrit or the the “Tablets of the Covenant”. The first tablet, containing the first five declarations, identifies duties regarding our relationship with God, while the second tablet, containing the last five declarations, identifies duties regarding our relationship with other people.

The above facts have significant meaning because the Ten Words were never considered to be the “core commandments” nor were the Ten Words considered to be a “paring down of the Law of Moses”. Simply put, from the inception of the Law of Moses, the Ten Words were a simple categorizing of the Law, or the summary headings of the whole Law. Each word on the tablets corresponds to a whole section of the Law, each word represents a whole chapter of the Law.

The significance is awesome in that while christianity has erroneously taught that the Torah or Mosaic Law has a singular purpose, the ancient biblical and cultural understanding of even the Ten Commandments shows that the Torah is not singular in purpose. Jesus taught as much and whether it was First Temple Judaism or Second Temple Judaism the meaning of the Ten Words never changed and Jesus himself never changed them. Just as Jesus taught the whole of the Law and Torah, you cannot have the Ten Words separate from the Law and Torah. The Ten Words are the written Mosaic Law and vice versa.

[SkyDancer]

Was just saying.

[ravenwolf]

Just one thing I disagree.

Keep holy the Sabbath day:
The Christians worship on the first day of the week but it
can not be their Sabbath if they also believe in the father.

Exodus 20
8Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: 10But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work,

[verga]

It is quite evident that they do.

And every Catholic wishes that the prots would quit violating the eighth commandment. Start a trend be the first.

[Elsie]

Like Mary?

ARRRGH!!!

Not another Catholic-bashing thread!!!!

[Elsie]

Thankfully there is not single Catholic that does this, in spite of the constant violation of the eighth commandment by prots about this.

"Just look carefully, I only want you to look carefully. Do not repeat the lies of liars. Do not become like them. Once again, I blame Al-Jazeera before it ascertains what takes place. Please, make sure of what you say and do not play such a role."

[Elsie]

It’s really interesting that AFTER the ‘ten’ were given; there seems to be NO ‘explantion’ of them to be found in the Bible...

[Elsie]

What christianity has labeled as the “Ten Commandments” is a blunt and complete misrepresentation of what Moses was given by God.

"Search for the truth. I tell you things and I always ask you to verify what I say. I told you yesterday that there was an attack and a retreat at Saddam's airport."