Expert: Brenda Martin - 10/2/2005

Question
Why are there 2 versions of the 10 comandments. How did this happen?

Answer
The division of the Ten Words as found at Exodus 20:2-17 is a natural one. It is the same as given by Josephus, Jewish historian of the first century C.E. (Jewish Antiquities, III, 91, 92 [v, 5]), and by the Jewish philosopher Philo, also of the first century C.E., in The Decalogue (XII, 51).

Others, however, including Augustine, combined the two laws against foreign gods and images (Ex 20:3-6; De 5:7-10) into one commandment, and then, in order to recover a tenth, divided Exodus 20:17 (De 5:21) into two commandments, thus making a ninth against coveting a man's wife, and a tenth against coveting his house, and so forth.

Augustine sought to support his theoretical division on the later parallel listing of the Decalogue at Deuteronomy 5:6-21, where two different Hebrew words in verse 21 are found (“Neither must you desire [form of Heb. cha·madh´] . . . Neither must you selfishly crave [form of Heb. ´a·wah´]”), rather than on the earlier text in Exodus 20:17, where just the one verb (desire) occurs twice.


There are minor differences in the wording between the parallel enumerations of the Ten Commandments in Exodus and Deuteronomy, but these in no way affect the force or the meaning of the laws.

Whereas, in the former listing, the Ten Words are stated in formal legislative style, its later repetition is more narrative in form, for on the latter occasion Moses was merely rehearsing God's commandment in the way of a reminder.

The Ten Words also appear elsewhere in still other variations, for they were often quoted or cited along with other instructions by Bible writers of both the Hebrew and Christian Greek Scriptures.—Ex 31:14; 34:14, 17, 21; Le 19:3, 11, 12; De 4:15-19; 6:14, 15; Mt 5:27; 15:4; Lu 18:20; Ro 13:9; Eph 6:2, 3.

thanks
Brenda