The Still Small Voice - observations on the Bible

UNDERSTANDING THE BIBLE

“The 10 Speakings” עשרת הדברות / עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדְּבָרִים

Why 2 stone tablets?

Observations #2

Question: Why on stone?

As the Torah or Chumash contains hundreds of commandments, 613 according to Jewish tradition, why do these 10 get special treatment and engraving in stone?

After all, they were recorded in the parchment of Moses’s Torah scroll in Exodus ch.20 and restated by him in Deut. Ch.5.

Answers:

1. Unlike parchment, papyrus, clay tablets or paper --stone is permanent and eternal.

This made clear that these 10 commandments have an extra level of importance and primacy; for they are the fundamentals of Judaism’s relationship with God and the keystones to maintaining familial and societal order and harmony. (See further below.)

The stone tablets (i.e, the broken first set and the unbroken second set) were kept in the Ark of the Covenant for posterity (Exodus 25:21, Deuteronomy 10:2,5).

2. The tradition of engraving important ‘messages’ in stone was common practice in the ancient Near East.

Giant, stand-alone towering obelisks were placed before temples and in public areas to make everyone aware of a pharaoh’s or Assyrian/Mesopotamian king’s conquests and achievements[i].

The famous Rosetta stone, whose trilingual text allowed linguists to ‘rediscover’ how to read hieroglyphics, is a fragment of a much larger black granite pillar listing a series of Ptolemaic royal decrees[ii].

The world’s oldest surviving peace treaty – the full text -- is engraved on the walls of two of Ramses II’s temples, while clay tablet fragments have been found in the Hittite royal archive at Hattusa. A copy is also now prominently displayed on the wall of the UN headquarters in New York[iii].

And the 282 laws of the Mesopotamian Code of Hammurabi were engraved on a black pillar placed prominently in the Babylonian temple of their god, Marduk.[iv]

So having the key 10 commandments recorded in stone was not unique.

The use of stone would not have been a surprise to the Israelites, as it was consistent with the readily visible Near Eastern traditions and concepts of highlighting key royal ‘messages’ in permanent rock.

Observations #3

Question: Why Two Tablets – not One?

The 10 Speakings were not only recorded on parchment in Exodus ch 20 (and reviewed by Moses in his sermon in Deut. 5) but engraved in stone and kept in the Ark of the Covenant for posterity.

Question: Why were they not carved (either on the first time or second time) on a single tablet but split over two tablets?

Answer: Because they deal with two radically different spheres.

The Creator Tablet

The first table I call the Creator Table. It sets out five (5) basic principles and commandments regarding God, the Creator, and our interactions with Him.

· Firstly, God intervenes in human history as evidenced by his actions in Egypt and the exodus of the Jewish people from slavery (Exodus 20:2 and Deut. 5:6).

So He is not a distant or uninvolved ‘watchmaker’ who ‘retired’ once His ‘watch’, i.e., the universe, was created and set going.

· Secondly, God is the only Deity in the universe (Exodus 20:3-5 and Deut. 5:7-9) and has no physical shape: no body or form.

Consequently the faithful are not to pray or bow down to the various false gods worshipped by other peoples: the natural objects in the sky, or on the land or in the oceans (e.g., sun, moon, trees, animals) nor any pseudo-humans such as Mesopotamian Marduk or Egyptian Isis or Greek Zeus, etc..

And certainly not to make any images of them for worship, nor any speculative ‘representation’ of the one and only, non-corporeal God.

Moses elaborates this in Deut. 4:12 and 15-19, and in the mystical experience of God’s presence in Exodus 34:18-23.

It is also a key feature stressed by Maimonides as #3 of his Thirteen Principals of Faith.

#3. I believe with perfect faith that the Creator, Blessed be His Name, has no body, and that He is free from all the properties of matter, and that there can be no (physical) comparison to Him whatsoever.[v]

The third Commandment is “Thou shall not use God’s name in vain”. Treating the Divine name frivolously or through false oath is wrong and will be punished as God is constantly around and listening.

· The fourth Commandment – keeping the Sabbath --attests to the fact the Earth, all its plant and animal life, and the Sun and Moon and Stars and the entire Universe are God’s doing and His creation.

To acknowledge this Divine act and gift, we are to consecrate the 7^th day as a day of rest from ‘creative’ labour (ברה) (though physical exertion labour (עבדה) is allowed).

The 4^th Commandment can also be seen as an elaboration and reinforcement of the second commandment and declaration of monotheism: that there is only one deity and creator: not two (Zoroastrianism, Hwiccan, God vs. Satan) or three or entire families (Greek and Romans) or nature/animal spirits (North American Indian) as believed by all other ancient nations and cultures.

· The fifth Commandment – which may seem out of place in a ‘Creator tablet’, fits here too.
“Honour (or show respect to) your father and mother.”

Parents have the ability to create new human life; life that is described in Genesis ch. 1 as having Divine characteristics:

כז וַיִּבְרָא אֱלֹהִים אֶת-הָאָדָם בְּצַלְמוֹ, בְּצֶלֶם אֱלֹהִים בָּרָא אֹתוֹ: זָכָר וּנְקֵבָה, בָּרָא אֹתָם.

27 And God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.

http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0101.htm

Moreover, the Bible repeatedly asserts that sexual intercourse alone does not lead to pregnancy and that the successful mingling of male sperm and female egg occurs only when God so wills it.

That is made clear in the stories of the barren Sarah, Abraham’s wife, Rebecca who bore twins only after her husband Isaac prayed (Gen. 25:21), the Divine role in both the fertility of Leah, the unloved wife, (Gen. 29:31 and again Gen. 30:17), Rachel’s complaint to Jacob re: being barren and his reply (Gen. 30:2), God finally ‘remembering’ Rachel (Gen 30:22), and Hannah, the eventual mother of the prophet Samuel (1 Samuel ch.1).

Tamar had sex with Judah only once yet she became pregnant and became the ancestor of King David. (Gen ch. 38)

So Commandment #5 truly belongs on the Creator tablet.

The Social Contract Tablet

The second and separate tablet in direct and terse language sets out the principles essential to maintain a civil society and promote peace and order among neighbours. (Exodus 20: 12-13 and Deut. 5: 16-17)

· The 6^th prohibits wanton/premeditated murder.

· The 7^th prohibits adultery.

· The 8^th prohibits robbery and theft.

· The 9^th prohibited baring false witness and perjury.

Every society: whether tribal and with only oral rules and traditions to cultures with lengthy legal codes and written statutes, include these first four of these fundamental requirements.

Otherwise, freedom of action out of anger, greed, lust and even poverty would cause social chaos.

But as they are cited in the Bible as ‘Divine commandments’ – not just rules made up by a king or society -- their infringement becomes automatically, a sin against God. They are, thereby, twice immoral, and subject to Divine punishment when human police and courts fail to succeed.

· Lastly, the 10^th prohibits lustful desires for another’s property, wife, animals, etc.

Exodus 20:13.

“Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house; thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.”

By prohibiting ‘thoughts’ that are anti-social, this last commandment goes beyond anything a human society can monitor or punish, but which is within God’s divine realm.

Only God could ask or expect or monitor such ‘thought crimes’, as human rules and laws only focus on actions.

Consequently, its inclusion can be seen as further proof of the tablet’s Divine origin.

Moreover, Commandment #10 is the key to preventing the harmful actions of #6, #7, #8 and #9.

It warns that becoming mentally and emotionally fixated on what belongs to a neighbour or another will lead to the various preceding crimes.

Put simply, actions arise from thoughts.

The Ladder of Crimes
It is also noteworthy that the commandments on the 2^nd tablet have a reverse order and ladder of escalating crime that arises from the “thought crime” of Commandment #10.

Lying (#9) may seem far less harmful than actual theft (#8,) and even theft, which is punishable by compensation and a fine, is far less harmful than adultery (#7) – punishable by death; and, finally, at the top of the ladder, is wanton, premeditated murder (#6). Like adultery, the punishment in the Bible for murder is death.

So what start with ‘thoughts’ (#10) escalate from small or easy to do harm to the destruction of families (= adultery) and human life (= murder).