This part of our introduction to the Ten Commandments concerns the necessity of being sure that we know exactly what was written on the tables of stone. It is impossible to understand the theological significance of the tables of the covenant if we do not know exactly what is being commanded in the terms of the covenant. We must first know precisely what duty is being commanded before we start discussing its nature and purpose. Nothing but confusion and misunderstanding will result if we are not all talking about the same thing.

What was written on the tablets of stone? Exactly what are the ‘Ten Commandments’?

What was the exact content of the Old Covenant document that God wrote with his finger on the tables of the covenant? One would think that such a question is unnecessary, and some may be surprised that we start with something so simple. If we do not start here, and just assume that everyone knows the answer, we will be guilty of contributing to the ignorance already in existence about the Ten Commandments, and the bad theology that ignorance has produced.

It is essential to note that the Bible gives two different versions of the Ten Commandments as they were written on the first set of stone tablets. Both Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 refer to the same set of stone tablets. The Exodus account records the occasion at Sinai; in Deuteronomy, Moses recounts the history of that incident to refresh the people’s memory. Because of the very real differences in the two accounts, it is not possible that all the words recorded in Deuteronomy 5 and all the words recorded in Exodus 20 could have both been written on the same tables of stone. The following chart compares some of the differences in the two versions of the Ten Commandments as they are found in Exodus, chapter 20 and Deuteronomy, chapter 5. The first through third and the sixth through ninth commandments are almost identical. The greatest differences are in the fourth and fifth. Since our concern at this point is only in the fact that there are two different versions of the Ten Commandments, we will only note the differences in the fourth commandment.

A dotted line (…….) indicates that something is missing in that particular account, and words in italics signify that something has been added that is not in the other account. We only need to glance at the number of dotted lines and words in italics to see that there is a vast difference between the two different accounts of the fourth commandment. We find it surprising and somewhat irresponsible that these differences are almost totally ignored by theologians today. Remember, we are discussing the original set of the tables of stone that were written with the finger of God. There cannot be two different versions of something that is written on the same stone tablets.

Exodus 20	Deuteronomy 5
8. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it Holy ……………………………….	12. Keep the sabbath day to sanctify it, as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee.[1]
9. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work:	13. Six days thou shalt labor, and do all thy work:
10. But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, …………………………………………… nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: …………………………… ……………………………..	14. But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou.
11. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.	…………………………………..
……………………………………	15. And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the LORD thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore the LORD thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath day.

There is a great difference in the fourth commandment as recorded in Exodus 20:8-11 and the same commandment as recorded in Deuteronomy 5:12-15. The entire contents of Exodus 20:11 are missing from Deuteronomy 5, and likewise, all the words contained in Deuteronomy 5:15 are omitted in Exodus 20. Moses gave two very different reasons for why the sabbath was to be kept holy. The first reason, Exodus 20:11, was to follow God’s example in Genesis, and the second, Deuteronomy 5:15, was to remember the recent deliverance from Egypt. Very few writers even mention these differences in the two versions of the Ten Commandments, and most of them make no attempt to deal with the obvious problems created by the impossibility of having two different things written on the same tables of stone.

A.W. Pink, in his commentary on Exodus, never notices the problem. Walter Chantry, in God’s Righteous Kingdom, not only neglects to mention the fact that there are differences, he also uses Deuteronomy 5:22 in a manner that greatly compounds the problem.^[2] Chantry insists that when Moses said, “and He added nothing more” that God explicitly meant that ‘nothing can be added’ to the commandments recorded in Deuteronomy 5:1-21. This would mean that none of the words recorded in Exodus 20 that are omitted in Deuteronomy 5 can be added to Deuteronomy 5 and then considered to be part of the actual commandment written on stone. Patrick Fairbairn, in The Revelation of God in Scripture, is the only writer I have read who seriously attempts to resolve the problem.^[3] Fairbairn does not mention the further problem created by the words “and he added no more” in Deuteronomy 5:22.

I think it is more than fair to say that any attempt to understand the true meaning and function of the tablets of stone in the history of redemption that does not begin by clearly establishing exactly what was written on those tablets is doomed to confusion and contradiction. How is it possible to know the true meaning and significance of commandments when we do not know for sure what a given commandment actually says? Likewise, I feel justified in thinking that a person’s understanding of the significance of the Ten Commandments is rather shallow if that person never even noticed that the Bible gives two conflicting versions of those commandments.

What are the implications involved in the fact that there are ‘Two Different Versions’ of the Ten Commandments in the Bible?

One: The doctrine of the verbal inspiration of the Scripture is involved. We are not talking about two versions of a parable or miracle; we are dealing with very special and unique commandments of great significance that the finger of God wrote in stone. These commandments were the terms of a covenant document; nothing should be more exact and specific than that. It is not possible that God wrote on the tablets of stone everything found in both the Exodus 20 version and the Deuteronomy 5 version of the Ten Commandments. Something is obviously wrong and crucial tenets of the faith are at stake until the problem is resolved. The solution might be a bit easier if two different writers had given the two different versions. However, in this case Moses is the author of both Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5.

Patrick Fairbairn uses the basic ‘dynamic equivalent’ theory to reconcile the two versions. This theory proposes the concept that a writer may use different words or phrases in two separate accounts of the same thing, but the basic meanings of the two are the same. Even if this method is accepted as legitimate, it could not be stretched to reconcile the radical differences in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5. How can the action of God in the deliverance of Israel from Egypt be in any way the dynamic equivalent of the work of God in the creation of the heavens and earth in six days and rest on the seventh day? 

The belief that the Ten Commandments, as given in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5, are the ‘eternal unchanging moral law of God’ only adds to the problem. How can we believe that God intended the tablets of stone to be what some preachers, with no biblical proof, insist on calling the unchanging moral law of God, and also believe that God would inspire Moses to give two different versions of his ‘unchanging moral law’? The fact that we have two versions ought to be enough to alert any serious mind to stop and think. The two different versions of the Ten Commandments must be reconciled to each other before it is possible to know for sure what God actually wrote on the tablets of stone! We have people arguing vehemently about ‘unchanging laws’ without even knowing what those laws actually say. Listed below are three possible approaches to the problem of the two different versions of the Ten Commandments:

1. The Bible contradicts itself. Every Bible believer will reject this explanation. 
2. Moses, in Deuteronomy 5, forgot what God actually wrote on the tablets of stone in Exodus 20 and therefore left out the part about creation. (Fairbairn is weak in his arguments against this point.) Moses also added, in Deuteronomy 5, the part about deliverance from Egypt even though it was not actually part of the original Ten Commandments given in Exodus 20. We must reject this explanation, also. It is merely a rational version of the first approach.
3. It is possible that all that was written on the tablets of stone were the bare commandments. In the case of the fourth commandment, all that would have been written on the tables were the words Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy. All of the rest of the words relating to the actual observance of the sabbath, in both Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5, are commentary added by Moses and not part of the commandment itself as written on the tablets of stone.

Of the three proposed, the last solution is the only position that is consistent with verbal inspiration, even though it might create some problems for some theologians. It would be appropriate for Moses, standing at Mount Sinai, to point Israel back to the God of Creation as grounds for obedience to the newly given covenant sign, or sabbath commandment. As we shall see later, the seventh-day sabbath was the specific sign of the Mosaic covenant that established the nation of Israel as a body politic at Mount Sinai. It would be just as appropriate for Moses to remind Israel, at the second giving of the law in Deuteronomy 5, of God’s redemptive rights over Israel because of their recent deliverance by blood and power from Egypt. The two reasons together combine the creation rights and redemptive claims of God over his chosen nation and furnish a double obligation for obedience to the covenant sign and thus the covenant for which the sign stands. This makes for great preaching; we must consider, however, the strong probability that neither of the two different reasons given by Moses for keeping the seventh day holy were part of the actual commandments, or covenant terms, that God wrote on the tablets of stone. Both reasons are commentary added by Moses to enforce the great significance of the covenant sign (sabbath) that had just been given to Israel.

Two: This has an effect on our understanding of the sabbath commandment. It is impossible to use Exodus 20:11 to prove that the seventh-day sabbath was a so-called ‘Creation ordinance’. You must add the Creation argument to the version given in Deuteronomy 5 before you can make it part of the actual commandment. However, as Walter Chantry has clearly demonstrated, Deuteronomy 5:22 forbids any such additions:

1. “God spake ‘these words’” (Deut. 5:22) refers to the words just spoken in Deuteronomy 5:1-21.
2. There is no mention at all of Creation in Deuteronomy 5, just as there is no mention of deliverance from Egypt in Exodus 20.
3. Moses is emphatic that God ‘added no more’ to the words just written in Deuteronomy 5:1-21.

The purpose of Chantry, in the section where he quotes Deuteronomy 5:22, is to prove that the seventh-day sabbath is a Creation ordinance. It is surprising that he did not realize that his comments on Deuteronomy 5:22 make it impossible to use Exodus 20:11 as proof that the sabbath began at Creation. In order to make Exodus 20:11 to be a part of the fourth commandment, Chantry must clearly show how he can add the words found in this verse to the account in Deuteronomy 5 without admitting that the words added no more in Deuteronomy 5:22 really do not mean added no more. If anyone chooses to believe that the sabbath commandment existed before Sinai, he must get his evidence from a source other than Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5. 

It is significant that the words “as the Lord commanded you” are found in the Deuteronomy 5 account of the Ten Commandments and not in the Exodus 20 account. This helps us establish exactly to what point in time Deuteronomy 5 refers. When did God ‘command Israel’ (the ‘you’ of verse 12) to keep the seventh day holy? Moses could not possibly be referring to Adam at creation because (1) Moses does not say, “commanded Adam” but “commanded you.” (2) In Deuteronomy 5:2, 3, Moses explicitly says, “the covenant (which included the Sabbath commandment) was not made with the fathers,” but was made at Sinai with those who came out of Egypt. This is why the reason given in Deuteronomy for obedience to the Sabbath is not referenced to Adam and Creation, but to Israel and their deliverance from Egypt. Adam could not have ‘remembered the Exodus’ as a reason for keeping the Sabbath, but the Israelites could. (3) Nowhere in Genesis does God command Adam, or anyone else, to keep the seventh day holy; but in Exodus 16:23-29, God did command, for the first time, Israel to keep the seventh day holy.

Three: The theological view of ‘unchanging moral law’ is greatly affected by having “two versions” of that law. As mentioned earlier, we must ask this question: “If God intended the tables of stone to be a revelation of his ‘one unchanging moral law,’ would he have given us two different versions of what he had written?” We think this is self-contradictory. We need to develop a new mindset that thinks and speaks in biblical terms instead of theological terms. Instead of accepting theological terms as if they were equal to Scripture verses, we need to insist on clear texts of Scripture. The Bible does not refer to the Ten Commandments as the ‘unchanging moral law of God’; we must not do so either, and instead begin to think and speak of them in a biblical manner. We must call them, as the writers of Scripture do, the ‘tables of the covenant’ or use one of the other biblical synonyms. Whenever we hear the words, ‘the Ten Commandments’, our first thought should automatically be, ‘the terms of the Old Covenant written on the tables of stone at Mount Sinai’. Until we train ourselves to do this, we are not thinking and speaking in biblical terms.

We are not suggesting that there are no timeless duties written on the tablets of stone. The Ten Commandments contain much that is just as binding on a Christian today as it was on Moses and the Israelites. However, that is decidedly different from the concept that “the Ten Commandments, as written on the tablets of stone, are THE eternal unchanging moral Law of God.” We do not hesitate to say, “The Ten Commandments, not as they are written as a unit on the tablets of the covenant at Mount Sinai, but as they are individually interpreted and applied by our Lord and his apostles in the New Covenant Scriptures, are a very essential part of our rule of life.”

We simply must fix in our minds that the Bible always treats the Ten Commandments as a single unit, or codified list that constitutes a covenant document. When that covenant ended, everything it represented also ended. However, the specific duties commanded in the individual commandments written on those tables are another thing altogether. Nine of the ten individual commandments are clearly repeated as duties enjoined upon his followers by both our Lord in the Gospels and the apostles in the Epistles. 

Every law that God commands is an ‘ethical absolute’ and is a ‘duty’ to the individual so commanded. To pick up sticks on the sabbath day was one of the most severely punished sins that a man could commit under the Old Covenant. Was his act of picking up sticks ‘immoral’? What is inherently immoral about picking up a few sticks? In no sense is picking up sticks in and of itself an ‘immoral’ act. In Numbers 15:32-36, the man was stoned to death because the Fourth Commandment, which was the covenant sign, specifically forbad any physical labor on the seventh day. When viewed by itself, this commandment would seem to be purely ‘ceremonial’ in nature; yet it became a ‘moral’ duty when God made it the sign of the covenant. We will say more about covenant signs in a later chapter.

It was not ‘immoral’ for a man to take a second wife under the same Old Covenant that had a man stoned to death for gathering sticks. The same ‘book of the covenant’ (Exod. 24:7) that commanded ‘keep the sabbath holy’ also commanded a man to sleep with both wives when he took the second one (Exod. 21:10). Can anyone seriously believe that God would command a man to commit adultery for any reason whatsoever? Is it not easier to just believe what is clear in Scripture; namely, that polygamy was not a sin for an Israelite living under the Old Covenant? The exact opposite is true of the above two examples under the New Covenant. The Fourth Commandment established the sabbath as the ceremonial sign of the Old Covenant. The sign of the covenant ceased when the covenant, of which it was a sign, was done away in Christ (Col. 2:16-17; Heb. 8:13). The Seventh Commandment was changed by Christ and raised to a higher level by the new lawgiver. Although we have no specific text that states, “polygamy is now a sin,” a case can be built from the clear implications of texts like Ephesians 5:22-33 and 1 Corinthians 7. I think we can say, “Polygamy is now considered adultery.” Polygamy was not a sin against the so-called ‘moral law of God’ according to the covenant under which David lived, but it is a sin according to the New Covenant under which a Christian lives today. Under the Old Covenant, picking up sticks on the sabbath was punishable by death. There is no holy twenty-four hour day under the New Covenant. The Bible defines a believer’s duty according to the laws of the specific covenant under which that individual lives, and never by an imaginary code of ‘unchanging moral law’.

Summary

The fact that there are two conflicting versions of the Ten Commandments in the Bible presents some problems. It would seem that there was less written on the tables of stone than most people realize. The Exodus 20 version and the Deuteronomy 5 version give two different accounts of the Fourth (Sabbath) Commandment. It seems impossible to us that God meant for us to think of the Ten Commandments as the ‘eternal, unchanging moral law of God’ when we are not positively sure what those commandments actually say. An Israelite’s prescribed duty to God was not the same as that given to a Christian today. The Christian’s duty is much higher because of grace (Heb. 12:25-29). An act that may not be inherently immoral may become a heinous sin under the terms of a given covenant. 

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