Bible Studies

Were there two different copies of the Ten Commandments?

by Robert Randle
10/28/16
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Most of us are used to thinking that the stone tablets called the Ten Commandments, which received and written with the finger of God, and that Moses later smashed after coming down from Mount Sinai, were later replicated as originally given when Moses went back up the mountain to appear before the Lord, but is this actually the case? The following study will explore this question in some detail.

Exodus 34: 1
The Lord said to Moses, “Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I will write on them the [same] words that were on the first tablets, which you broke

 Exodus 34: 11b
I will drive out before you the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites
(Cp. Exodus 23: 23).

Exodus 34: 13-14
Break down their sacred stones and cut down their Asherah poles. Do not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God (Cp. Exodus 20: 3, 5b, 23a; 23: 24b).

Exodus 34: 15
Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land (Cp. Exodus 23:32).

Exodus 34: 17
Do not make cast idols (Cp. Exodus 20: 4, 23??).

Exodus 34: 18
Celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread. For seven days eat bread without yeast, as I commanded you (Cp. Exodus 13: 6-7). Do this at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in that month you came out of Egypt (Cp. Exodus 13: 3-4; 23: 15).

Exodus 34: 19-20
The first offspring of every womb belongs to me [the Lord], including all the firstborn males of your livestock, whether from the herd or flock (Cp. Exodus 13: 12). Redeem your firstborn sons.

NOTE: This latter part of verse twenty is not found in the earlier version, as well as verse nineteen; which is found in the thirteenth chapter of Exodus.

Exodus 34: 20b
No one is to appear before the Lord empty handed (Cp. Exodus 23: 15b).

Exodus 34: 21
Six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even during plowing season and harvest you must rest (Cp. Exodus 20: 9-11; 23: 12).

Exodus 34: 22-23
Celebrate the Feast of Weeks with the firstfruits of the wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the turn of the year. Three times a year all your men are to appear before the Sovereign Lord, the God of Israel (Cp. Exodus 23: 16-17).

Exodus 34: 25
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 Feast” remain until morning (Cp. Exodus 23: 18).

NOTE: The Passover Feast is not mentioned in the previous account, but only “the fat of my festival offerings”??

Exodus 34: 26
Bring the best of the firstfruits of your spoil to the house of the Lord your God (Cp. Exodus 23: 19).

Exodus 24: 6b
Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk (Cp. Exodus 23: 19b).

Exodus 34: 27, 28b
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write down [all] these words, for in accordance to these words I have made a covenant with you and Israel. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant- The Ten Commandments (Cp. Exodus 24: 12). 

CONCLUSION: It is commonly believed that the Ten Commandments were just those statutes listed in chapter twenty in the Book of Exodus, but that just might be an oversimplification. Those statutes certainly are the main body of a moral as well as religious code for the Israelites but there is much more to it. The way I look at it, and the biblical text confirms this, some of the precepts from chapter thirteen were incorporated into the original instructions of the ten Commandments starting in chapter twenty, and then reintroduced in chapter thirty-four; but even so, there was additional material added that was not present in the original version. In Exodus 34: 1 the Lord says that he will write the words that were in the first set of stone tablets that Moses broke. It seems to me that Exodus 20: 1-17 comprises the first set of Ten Commandments and Exodus 23: 1-13 expands on those principles.

After Exodus 20: 18 thru 23: 13 appears to be an addition to the original Ten Commandments of Exodus 20. I surmise that Exodus 23: 14-33 is a somewhat altered repetition of the first set of Ten Commandments. Interestingly, or I might say oddly, Exodus 24: 7 says, “The he [Moses] took the Book of the Covenant and read it to the people. So, the words graven on stone tablets (“Ten Commandments”) in Exodus 20 are now, or become part of a book four chapters later. Then from Exodus 25 thru 34: 1, 27, 28b there are more instructions that are in themselves more amendments. So, it is not unreasonable to accept that the Ten Commandments were edited and expanded upon from the point when these instructions were initially given, by some unknown redactor or author throughout generations to accommodate the evolving religious, cultural, social, and historical development of this mixed heterogeneous grouping of a specific offshoot of Canaanite clans called Hebrews or Israelites.

Robert Randle
776 Commerce St Apt 701
Tacoma, WA 98402
October 28, 2016
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