Thread by @JoelBaden

#Deuteronomy 5

The Ten Commandments

Here they are, in all their (original) glory. But as I’ve commented on the content of them already, here I’m going to talk about how they function in D, because they do two neat things at once.

We gotta remember that D never just recounts past events for their own sake. This isn’t a history - it’s a speech by Moses that has a clear purpose, to convince his audience to follow the laws that he’s about to give them. Everything has to be understood through that lens.

So here’s Moses, at the beginning of this second oration, telling them about the Ten Commandments. Why? First, because those laws were the beta version of the expanded laws he’s about to proclaim. They were the wilderness laws, the basic starter package.

How the Israelites would respond to those laws determined the course of their lives - the time in the wilderness - just as how they respond to these news laws will determine their time in the promised land. (He’ll get to the disobedience later, but it’s set up here.)

Second, and more importantly here, the Ten Commandments are raised as a reminder that not only did Israel accept a set of laws earlier in their collective life, but back then they even pledged to accept *the next* set of law - the ones Moses is about to deliver.

That’s 5:24-28, the people pledging future acceptance, and then 5:29-30, Moses reminding them that they did so, and that as a result they have to obey the laws he’s about to give. This - more than the content of the Ten Commandments themselves - is the point of this chapter.

That’s not to say that the content doesn’t matter - as I’ve said before, D invents the Ten Commandments for precisely this place and purpose. They are a good representation of D’s concerns: this is what D thinks is basic cultural stuff.

And what D makes clear here is that the Ten Commandments were really spoken directly by Yahweh to Israel (5:5 is a later insertion). That’s a central part of the claim, and of the experience, and of the obedience. That’s in part why Israel remains bound to Yahweh’s laws.