The Narrow Path Ministries

All of us have been taught the well-known “ten commandments” quoted from Exodus 20. But are those the ten commandments to which Moses himself refers when he used the term? Or was he referring to the ten commandments given in Exodus 34?

TEN COMMANDMENTS (as found in Exodus 34)

1.You shall worship no other god, Yahweh, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God. (vs 14)
2. You shall not make for yourself any gods of cast metal. (vs 17)
3. You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. (vs 18)
4. All that open the womb are mine, all your male livestock, the firstborn of cow and sheep. (vs 19)
5. Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest. (vs 21)
6. You shall observe the Feast of Weeks, the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the year’s end. (vs 22)
7. You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with anything leavened. (vs 25)
8. Neither shall the sacrifice of the Feast of the Passover be left unto the morning. (vs 25)
9. The best of the firstfruits of your land you shall bring to the house of the Yahweh your God. (vs 26)
10. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk. (vs 26)

Immediately after these commandments were given, we read in verses 27 and 28:

And Yahweh said to Moses, "Write these words; in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel." And he was there with the Yahweh forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.

This is the first occurrence of the words “the ten commandments.”
These words are also found in Deut 4:13 and 10:4.

At the beginning of the chapter, Yahweh asks Moses to make two more stone tablets and write on them the commandments which he had written on those that he broke. Did he write these commandments? Or did he write those found in Exodus 20?

He was pretty old maybe he just forgot the original ones.

It is confusing because the Lord says He will write on the tablets the original ten commandments, then after giving more commandments, it reads:

27 And the LORD said to Moses, “Write these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.”

Perhaps He is saying that He is doing the writing even though Moses is the one who actually takes chisel in hand. But which commandments? The ones he just spoke to Moses and/or the original ten?

Exodus 34:1 The LORD said to Moses, “Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke.
....
4 So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the first. And he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai, as the LORD had commanded him, and took in his hand two tablets of stone.

The Bible says that God wrote the Ten Commandments on tablets of stone.

Jacob wrote:The Bible says that God wrote the Ten Commandments on tablets of stone.

That is true, Jacob. But that is not the issue. The issue is what the ten commandments in fact ARE.

Are they those in Exodus 20 as is commonly believed, or are they those in Exodus 34?


I think Jepne has made an important point. I was aware of it. I was not trying to push anything in my original post. I was only presenting what seemed a possibility at first glance in order to invite discussion.

Paidion wrote:

Jacob wrote:The Bible says that God wrote the Ten Commandments on tablets of stone.

That is true, Jacob. But that is not the issue. The issue is what the ten commandments in fact ARE.

Are they those in Exodus 20 as is commonly believed, or are they those in Exodus 34?


I think Jepne has made an important point. I was aware of it. I was not trying to push anything in my original post. I was only presenting what seemed a possibility at first glance in order to invite discussion.

The Ten Commandments are not only found in Exodus 20. They are also found in Deuteronomy 5.

When it says:
And Yahweh said to Moses, "Write these words; in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel." And he was there with the Yahweh forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.

I don't think there's any direct implication the ten commandments were what immediately come before, rather it is a separate thought.