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judgments. Then Moses came once more to the people and told them all the words of the
Lord and all the judgments, and once more all the people answered with one voice, "All
the words which the Lord hath said will we do" (Exod. 24: 3).
The people having re-asserted their agreement, Moses next put the words of the Lord
unto writing (Exod. 24: 4). He then built an altar on twelve pillars, one for each tribe,
and caused sacrifices to be made. Half of the blood shed Moses reserved in basins. He
then took the book of the covenant, and read it over in the audience of the people:
and they again replied, "All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient"
(Exod. 24: 7). Moses then took the blood and sprinkled it on the people, saying:--
"Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you concerning all
these words" (Exod. 24: 8).
A covenant instituted with such solemnity, framed with words of such weight and far
reaching effect, demands a respectful study. We cannot hope to do more than point the
way in articles such as these, but we earnestly trust that the reader will be stirred up to see
something of the heights and depths of this revelation of the righteousness of God.
The Ten Words (Exod. 34: 28 margin).
The ten commandments are pre-eminently the basis of the covenant:--
"And the Lord said unto Moses, Write thou these words; for after the tenor of these
words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel . . . . . And he wrote upon the
tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments" (Exod. 34: 27, 28).
"He declared unto you His covenant, which He commanded you to perform, even ten
commandments, and He wrote them upon two tables of stone" (Deut. 4: 13).
Let us summarize these ten commandments. There are quite a variety of ways in
which the commandments have been divided and numbered, for it must be remembered
that there is no numeration in the original. Some think that numbers 1:-4: belong to the
first table and relate to God, and numbers 5:-10: belong to the second table and relate to
man. This would place number 5: as "the first commandment with promise" at the
head of the list, and remove the difficulty created by the apparent promise found in
Exod. 20: 6. On the other hand "that thy days may be long upon the land" (verse 12) is
the first definite promise in the covenant.
The Companion Bible draws attention to the fact that the first five commandments
contain the title "The Lord thy God", but that no title or name of God appears in the
second set. This seems to fall under the natural division of two sets of five, the one
dealing with love to God, the other with love to neighbour. If this be accepted, the
honouring of parents is placed upon the table devoted to the honouring of God, and
demands serious thought.