TEN COMMANDMENTS (WORDS): A RARE BIBLICAL PHRASE

Edward Pothier August 1999

Nowhere in the Biblical texts (in either occurrence of the so-called Ten Commandments
in the Old Testament — in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5!) are the commandments themselves
explicitly numbered.

Nor is there a "heading" *immediately* before them saying "these are the
ten commandments". We will look below at a few other verses which *do* mention the
"ten".

Note that there are more than just 10 imperative verbs in the listings (Ex 20; Dt 5).
Any such grouping or numbering is a result of *a* tradition — and there are a variety of
traditions which are not taken as of being major significance. However, all the traditions
agree on the total number being 10.

[One of the major parts of the CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (CCC) is based on the
"Ten Commandments" and it continually refers to the Nth commandment (which is
OK, but only within a purely Roman Catholic context). CCC section 2066, however, points
out the "problem" of this: CCC 2066: "The division and numbering of the
Commandments have varied in the course of history. The present catechism follows the
division of the Commandments established by St. Augustine, which has become traditional in
the Catholic Church. It is also that of the Lutheran confessions. The Greek Fathers worked
out a slightly different division, which is found in the Orthodox Churches and Reformed
communities."]

The actual occurrence of the phrase "ten commandments" is quite rare in the
Bible.

(Exod 34:28)So Moses stayed there with the LORD for forty days and forty nights,
without eating any food or drinking any water, and he wrote on the tablets the words of
the covenant, the ten commandments.

(Deut 4:13)He proclaimed to you his covenant, which he commanded you to keep: the ten
commandments, which he wrote on two tablets of stone.

(Deut 10:4)The LORD then wrote on them, as he had written before, the ten commandments
which he spoke to you on the mountain from the midst of the fire on the day of the
assembly. After the LORD had given them to me, …

In all three of the above passages the phrase shown as "ten commandments", in
the NAB translation used above, was "literally" in Hebrew "ten words",
using the usual word with the "dbr" root. I checked a number of other English
translations and almost all of them, including the Jewish Publication Society’s version
known as the TANAKH, used "ten commandments" in these passages (with some
variations on capitalization). One exception (there are almost certainly others as well)
is the NEW JERUSALEM BIBLE which used "Ten Words" in all three places.

It is interesting that in Exodus 20:1, immediately preceding the list of the
commandments, most English translations do use "Then God spoke all these words".
The NAB is consistent with its other usage in the "ten commandments" by also
using "all these commandments" in Exodus 20:1.

The idea of "ten words", certainly wider than in the NJB use, is the origin
of the word "decalogue" we often use for the ten commandments. This is from the
Greek for "ten words" — "word" here meaning passage or saying, not
just a single simple lexical unit. We use "word" in this extended way also when
we speak of the Seven Last Words of Christ from the Cross, meaning the seven *sayings* we
obtain by concatenating the sayings from all four of our Gospels (none of which has more
than 3 [Lk and Jn, 3 apiece], and two share a single one [Mt, Mk]).

= Edward L. Pothier