R&I – TxPAT ***
…only these aren’t the Ten Commandments.
In the photo above next to State Senator Jason Rapert (R- Arkansas) are what many regard as the Ten Commandments as listed in Exodus 20. While it may be adopted by many as the Decalogue a careful student of the Bible realizes that the actual words: “THE TEN COMMANDMENTS” do not appear until fourteen chapters later.
We’ll take a look at the actual Ten Commandments but first let’s review the events leading up to chapter 34.
In Chapter 31 Moses goes up to the top of Mt. Sinai to meet with God for 40 days & 40 nights.
In Chapter 32 the Israelites demand Aaron make them a gold calf and then commence to have a drunken orgy. Moses comes down from the mountain, throws the tablets at the calf smashing them and gives the Israelites an ultimatum.
In Chapter 33 Moses builds the Tent of Meeting and God shows Moses his back (whatever that means).
In Chapter 34 Moses carves out another two tablets and God inscribes them. And here they are, The Ten Commandments, starting in verse 15 (numbered and edited for brevity with some of my commentary):
I Be careful about making treaties with foreigners
II Do not make any idols.
III Celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread.
IV Consecrate the firstborn. Redeem the firstborn lamb with a donkey. If not break its neck. <i>(WTF?)</i>
V No one is to appear before me empty-handed. <i>I think this means that you should always bring money and give it to Creflo Dollar.</i>
VI Rest on the seventh day
VII Celebrate the Festival of Weeks with the firstfruits of the wheat harvest, and the Festival of Ingathering at the turn of the year.
VIII 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 Festival remain until morning.
XI Bring the best of the firstfruits of your soil to the house of the Lord your God.
X <i>My favorite</i> Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.
27 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.” 28 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—<b>the Ten Commandments.</b>
Wouldn’t you rather see this copy on a courthouse lawn? Please, if you want to put these in a Statehouse, be my guest. I dare you!
Does anybody know why the Exodus 20 version of the Ten Commandments is so widely accepted and the Chapter 34 version are forgotten or ignored? (I’m lookin’ at you, Cofion!)
If Christians have not broken donkey necks lately then how should they be repent?
Does anyone struggle with cooking baby goats in their mothers’ milk?
Joe M RN