By Carl Sunshine, August 9, 2025
This week’s parsha is our second chance to hear a core teaching of Judaism, the 10 commandments. We shall try to examine how this second version differs from the one in Exodus. Also what exactly was on the two tablets? And how have the commandments been elaborated by Christianity. At the outset, I want to acknowledge the source of this material from a zoom class taught by Rabbi Vernon Kurtz of the Schechter Institutes.
First regarding differences between Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5. The biggest difference is found in commandment #4 regarding Shabbat.
Exodus says to Remember (zachor) the Sabbath, while Deut says to Observe (shomer), echoing the use of these two different verbs elsewhere regarding acceptance of the broader Torah. Exodus gives the rationale for Shabbat as remembering and imitating God’s rest after creation. Deut mentions observing Shabbat, and hence adds some explicit means of doing that: saying that male and female slaves must rest as the master does, and adding an explicit mention of “your ox and your ass” to the more general term “your cattle.” Deut also gives a different thing to remember about Shabbat, that we were slaves in Egypt and God brought us out from there.
Another interesting difference come from the verses in Leviticus 19 which recapitulate the Decalogue. These are mostly the same meaning as Exodus, but #10, “You shall not bear false witness” (Exodus 20:13), is written in Lev as: “You shall not go as a gossip” (Leviticus 19:16), elevating the avoidance of loshen hora to the level of a commandment.
Next let us consider how the actual tablets have been understood and portrayed through the ages. How many commandments were on each tablet? Most renderings show 5 commandments on each tablet, but there is an alternative view.
In the Jerusalem Talmud tractate Shekalim 6:1 Rebbi Ḥanania ben Gamliel presents the conventional view saying there were five commandments on each of the two tablets. But the passage then continues by noting “the rabbis say ten on each tablet, as it is written (Deut 4:13): He declared to you the covenant that you were commanded to observe, the Ten Commandments, inscribing them on two tablets of stone, ten on each tablet. This suggests that Moses received two copies of the commandments. Is there further rationale for this view?
Rabbi David Golinkin of the Schechter Institutes has pointed out some relevant material. Rabbi Josiah Derby writing in an article in Conservative Judaism Magazine in 1982 and Dr. Meshulam Margaliot, writing on the Bar Ilan website in 1998, both came up with similar suggestions.
In the ancient Near East when two kings or a king and a vassal made a treaty, each received a complete copy of that treaty. For example, there is a treaty between the Hittite king and King Bitani of Mesopotamia from 1350 BCE, of which they found two copies in two different places. There is also a treaty between Ramses II of Egypt and a Hittite king from 1269 BCE. The Egyptian copy was found in Egypt and the Hittite copy was found in Turkey. They are both identical and in each case the treaty was deposited in the temple.
So why did Moses descend with two copies? One was God’s copy for deposit in His mishkan or tabernacle and the other was our copy for deposit in our mishkan, which in the time of the Exodus were the same facility. So both were placed in the aron habrit, the ark of the covenant.
If we return to the conventional understanding that there were two tablets that together conveyed the ten commandments, we must envision them 5 on one side and 5 on the other. According to the words of R. Chanina b. Gamliel in Mehilta BaHodesh (the Halachic Midrash to the Book of Exodus), instead of just reading them in sequential order, we can learn something by considering them as paired on the right and left, for example #1 with #6. The interpretation is somewhat lengthy, so I will omit from my talk the prooftexts that you may find if you wish in the written version on our web site.
First consider #1, “I am the Lord your G–d,” along with #6, “You shall not murder,” whereby Scripture apprises us that spilling blood diminishes and stains the likeness of G-d. [[An analogy: A king of flesh and blood enters a province, sets up statues of himself, makes images of himself, and mints coins in his likeness. After some time, they upset his statues, break his images, devalue his coins — and “diminish” the likeness of the king. Likewise, Scripture equates spilling blood to “diminishing” the likeness of the King, as it is written (Genesis 9:6) “One who spills the blood of man … (For in the image of G–d did He make man.”) ]
Continuing to consider #2, “There shall not be unto you any other gods in My presence,” opposite #7, “You shall not commit adultery,” whereby Scripture apprises us that idolatry is tantamount to adultery. [[As it is written (Ezekiel 16:32) “You are the (very essence of the) adulterous woman, who (though) living with her husband, (still) takes strangers,” and (Hoshea 3:1) “And the Lord said again to me: “Go and love a woman beloved by her husband, and playing the harlot under him — just as the Lord loves the children of Israel, while they turn to other gods…” ]
Continuing to consider #3 and #8, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your G–d in vain,” and, opposite it, “You shall not steal,” whereby we are apprised that one who steals, in the end comes to swear in vain, [[as it is written (Jeremiah 7:9) “Shall one steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely (… and go after the gods of others, etc.?” And it is written (Hoshea 4:2) “swearing, lying, murdering, stealing, (committing) adultery…”]
Continuing to consider #4 and #9, “Remember the Sabbath day to sanctify it,” and, opposite it, “You shall not testify (falsely),” whereby Scripture apprises us that one who desecrates the Sabbath thereby testifies falsely that God did not create the world in six days and rested on the seventh day, [[as it is written (Isaiah 43:10) “You are My witnesses, says the Lord … that I am He. Before Me no god was created and there will be none after Me.”]
Continuing to consider #5 and #10, “Honor your father and your mother,” and, opposite it, “You shall not covet,” whereby Scripture apprises us that whoever covets, in the end comes to beget a son who dishonors his parents.
So if the ten commandments are so important, why are they not included in our prayer service? The Mishna (Berachot 12a) tells us that they were included in the Second Temple practice, before the Sh’ma. A set of tfillin from the Bar Kocba era (135 CE) was found that included the ten commandments. But it seems that they were dropped from the communal prayer service to reduce their prominence to counter the claim by sceptics that only the 10 commandments were given at Sinai. There were attempts during the Babylonian exile and again in the Middle Ages to restore them to the prayer book. But the prevailing viewpoint was to leave them out of communal prayer and encourage their recitation during personal prayer. So if any of you wish to consider the ten commandments more frequently, you are invited to add them to your silent rendition of the Amidah
I will conclude with a very brief note on how Christian practice has treated the ten commandments. The main theme seems to have been to extend them. For example, Matthew 5:21 says “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment.” Thus the commandment don’t murder is extended to do not become angry. In other extensions, do not commit adultery is extended to do not look lustfully. Do unto others is extended to love your enemy and turn the other cheek. Do not swear falsely is extended to do not swear at all. One commandment not mentioned is keeping the Sabbath, although Christians later adopted a day to refrain from normal work.
I hope this rapid tour has provided you some additional perspectives on the ten commandments that will help you find further nuances in their practice.