Charles Ellicott Commentary Exodus 20

God spoke. —It is distinctly stated in Deuteronomy that the Ten Commandments were spoken to “all the assembly of Israel,” by God, “out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice” (Deuteronomy 5:22). It was not until after their delivery that the people entreated to be spared further communications of such an awe-inspiring nature. How the sounds were produced is an unrevealed mystery, and it is idle to speculate about it. Jehovah alone appears as the speaker in the Old Testament; in the New Testament, we hear of the instrumentality of angels (Acts 7:53; Galatians 3:19; Hebrews 2:2).

All these words. —In Scripture, the phrase used to designate the Ten Commandments is “the Ten Words” (Exodus 34:28; Deuteronomy 4:13; Deuteronomy 10:4). It has been universally recognized, both by the Jewish and Christian Churches, that they occupy a unique position among the utterances that constitute God’s revelation to humankind. Alone uttered publicly by God in the ears of the people, alone inscribed on stone by the finger of God Himself, alone, of all commands, deposited in the penetrale of worship—the Ark—they formed the germ and basis, the very pith and kernel of the covenant that God, through Moses, made with humankind, and that was to continue for over thirteen hundred years as the exposition of His will to the human race.

They enunciate a morality infinitely above that of all the then-existing nations of the earth—indeed, even above that of the wisest of humankind to whom revelation was unknown. There is no compendium of morality in Confucianism, in Buddhism, in the religion of Zoroaster, or of Egypt, or of Greece or Rome, that can rival the Decalogue.

Broad exceedingly (Psalms 119:96), yet searching and minute in its requirements; embracing the whole range of human duty, yet never vague or indeterminate; systematic, yet free from the hardness and narrowness commonly associated with systems: the Decalogue has maintained and will always maintain itself, if not as an absolutely complete summary of human duty, yet as a summary that has never been superseded.

When our Lord was asked what one must do to inherit eternal life, He replied by a reference to the Decalogue: “Thou knowest the commandments” (Mark 10:19).

When the Church wishes to impress upon her children their complete duty both to God and to neighbor, she requires them to be taught the “Ten Words.” When adult Christians are to be reminded, before coming to Holy Communion, of the necessity of self-examination and repentance, the same summary is read to them. It is an extraordinary testimony to the excellence of the compendium that, originating in Judaism, it has been maintained unchanged in a religious system so different from Judaism as Christianity.

I am the Lord your God. —The binding nature of commands upon the conscience depends upon the authority of the person who issues them. So that there might be no dispute as to what the authority was in the case of the Decalogue, God prefaced the commands themselves with this distinct statement. Regardless of who communicated them (see the first Note on Exodus 20:1), they were the commands of Jehovah Himself.

Which have brought you out of the land of Egypt. —Thus exhibiting at once Almighty power and the tenderest compassion and care. God desires the obedience which springs from love, not fear.

Thou shalt have no other gods before me. —Hebrew: There shall be to you no other god before me. The result is the same, whether we translate Elohim by “god” or “gods;” but the singular verb shows that the plural form of the name is a mere plural of dignity.

Before me —literally, before my face— means strictly, “side by side with me”— i.e., “in addition to me.” God does not suppose that the Israelites, after all that He had done for them, would discard Him and substitute other gods in His place, but fears the syncretism which would unite His worship with that of other deities.

All polytheisms were syncretic and readily enlarged their pantheons, since, once the principle of unity is departed from, whether the plurality is a little greater or a little less does not signify much.

The Egyptian religion seems to have adopted Ammon at a comparatively late period from Arabia; it took Bar, or Baal, Anta, or Anaïtis, Astaret, or Astarte, Reshpu, or Reseph, etc., from Syria, and it admitted Totuu from Ethiopia.

Israel, in later times, fell into the same error and, without intending to apostatize from Jehovah, added the worship of Baal, Ashtoreth, Moloch, Chemosh, Remphan, etc. It is this form of polytheism against which the first commandment is directed. It asserts the sole claim of Jehovah to our religious regards.

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image. —The two main clauses of the second commandment are to be read together, so as to form one sentence: “Thou shalt not make to thee any graven image, etc., so as to worship it.” (See the explanation of Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book 3, Chapter 5, § 5: ‘Ο δεύτερος λóγος κελεύει μηδένος εἰκόνα ζώον ποιήσαντας προσκυνεῖν.’) It was not until the days of Hebrew decline and degeneracy that a narrow literalism pressed the words into an absolute prohibition of the arts of painting and sculpture (Philo, De Oraculis, § 29). Moses himself sanctioned the cherubic forms above the mercy-seat, the brazen serpent, and the lilies and pomegranates of the golden candlestick.

Solomon had lions on the steps of his throne, oxen under his “molten sea,” and palm-trees, flowers, and cherubim on the walls of the Temple, within and without (1 Kings 6:29). What the second commandment forbade was the worship of God under a material form. It asserted the spirituality of Jehovah. While in the rest of the ancient world there was scarcely a single nation or tribe which did not “make to itself” images of the gods, and regard the images themselves with superstitious veneration, in Judaism alone was this seductive practice disallowed. God would have no likeness made of Him, no representation that might cloud the conception of His entire separation from matter, His purely spiritual essence.

In heaven above ... in the earth beneath ... in the water under the earth. —Compare to Genesis 1:1-7. The triple division is regarded as embracing the whole material universe. In the Egyptian idolatry images of all three kinds were included.

Nor serve them. —The idolatry of the ancient world was, practically, not a mere worship of celestial beings through material representations of them, but an actual veneration of the images themselves, which were regarded as possessing miraculous powers. “I myself,” says Arnobius, “not so very long ago, worshipped gods just taken from the furnace, fresh from the anvil of the smith, ivory, paintings, stumps of trees wrapped in bandages; and if I happened to cast my eyes on a polished stone smeared with olive oil, I paid reverence to it, as if a power were present in it, and I supplicated the senseless block for blessings” (Adversus Gentes, i. 29).

“People pray,” says Seneca, “to the images of the gods, implore them on bended knees, sit or stand long days before them, throw them money, and sacrifice animals to them, so treating them with deep respect” (Apud Lactantium, ii. 2).

A jealous God. —Not in the sense in which He was regarded as “jealous” by some of the Greeks, who supposed that success or eminence of any kind provoked Him (Herodotus iii. 40, 125), but jealous of His own honour, one who will not see His glory given to another (Isaiah 42:8; Isaiah 48:11), or allow rivals to dispute His sole and absolute sovereignty. (Deuteronomy 4:24; Deuteronomy 5:9; Deuteronomy 6:15; Joshua 24:19.)

Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children. —It is a fact that, under God’s natural government of the world, the iniquity of fathers is visited upon their children. Diseases caused by immoral practices are transmitted. The parents’ extravagance leaves their children beggars. To be the son of a felon is to be heavily handicapped in the race of life.

That this should be so is perhaps involved in “the nature of things”—at any rate, it is part of the scheme of Divine government by which the world is ordered. We all inherit countless disadvantages on account of our first parents’ sin. We each individually inherit special tendencies to this or that form of evil from the misconduct of our several progenitors.

The knowledge that their sins will put their children at a disadvantage is calculated to check people in their evil ways more than almost anything else; and this check could not be removed without a significant reduction of the restraints which restrain people from vice. Still, the penalty upon the children is not final or irreversible. Under whatever disadvantages they are born, they may struggle against them, lead good lives, and place themselves, even in this world, on a level with those who were born under every favourable circumstance.

It is needless to say that, regarding the next world, their parents’ iniquities will not be visited on them. Each man will bear his own burthen. The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son; the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him (Ezekiel 18:20).