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Exodus 20: What the Passage Says

85 claims across 26 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What Exodus 20 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

God speaks directly to Israel, giving the ten commandments: no other gods, no carved images, no misuse of his name, keeping the Sabbath, honoring parents, and prohibitions of murder, adultery, theft, false witness, and coveting. When the people see the thunder, lightning, trumpet sound, and smoking mountain, they stand far off and ask Moses to speak to them instead of God, and Moses tells them God has come to test them. Moses then approaches the thick darkness where God is, and God gives him further instructions for the people about not making gods of silver or gold and about how to build an altar.

Claim by Claim

  1. 20:1
    • God spoke all these words.
    • The words that follow are introduced as spoken speech.
  2. 20:2
    • The speaker identifies himself as the LORD, the God of the one addressed.
    • The speaker brought the one addressed out of the land of Egypt.
    • The speaker brought the one addressed out of a house of slavery.
  3. 20:3
    • You shall have no other gods before the LORD.
    • It is unclear whether 'before me' means in his presence, in preference to him, or in defiance of him.
  4. 20:4
    • You shall not make for yourself a carved image.
    • You shall not make any likeness of what is in the heavens above.
    • You shall not make any likeness of what is on the earth beneath.
    • You shall not make any likeness of what is in the waters under the earth.
  5. 20:5
    • You shall not bow down to them.
    • You shall not serve them.
    • The LORD your God is a jealous God.
    • He visits the guilt of fathers upon children.
    • He visits it to the third and fourth generation.
    • This applies to those who hate him.
  6. 20:6
    • He shows steadfast love to thousands.
    • It is unclear whether 'thousands' means thousands of generations or thousands of persons.
    • This applies to those who love him.
    • This applies to those who keep his commandments.
  7. 20:7
    • You shall not take up the name of the LORD your God emptily or falsely.
    • The LORD will not leave unpunished the one who takes up his name emptily or falsely.
  8. 20:8
    • Remember the sabbath day.
    • Keep the sabbath day holy.
  9. 20:9
    • Six days you shall labor.
    • In six days you shall do all your work.
  10. 20:10
    • The seventh day is a sabbath belonging to the LORD your God.
    • On it you shall not do any work.
    • The prohibition covers you yourself.
    • The prohibition covers your son and your daughter.
    • The prohibition covers your male servant and your female servant.
    • The prohibition covers your livestock.
    • The prohibition covers the resident foreigner within your gates.
  11. 20:11
    • In six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth.
    • The LORD made the sea.
    • The LORD made everything in them.
    • The LORD rested on the seventh day.
    • Therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day.
    • The LORD made the sabbath day holy.
  12. 20:12
    • Honor your father.
    • Honor your mother.
    • The purpose is that your days may be long on the land.
    • The LORD your God is giving that land to you.
  13. 20:13
    • You shall not kill a person unlawfully.
  14. 20:14
    • You shall not commit adultery.
  15. 20:15
    • You shall not steal.
  16. 20:16
    • You shall not testify falsely against your neighbor.
  17. 20:17
    • You shall not covet your neighbor's house.
    • You shall not covet your neighbor's wife.
    • You shall not covet his male servant or his female servant.
    • You shall not covet his ox or his donkey.
    • You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor.
  18. 20:18
    • All the people were seeing the thunder.
    • All the people were seeing the flashes of fire.
    • All the people were hearing the sound of the horn.
    • All the people were seeing the mountain smoking.
    • The people saw it and trembled and drew back.
    • The people stood at a distance.
  19. 20:19
    • The people said to Moses that Moses himself should speak with them.
    • The people said they would listen if Moses spoke.
    • The people said God should not speak with them.
    • The people said the reason was that they would otherwise die.
  20. 20:20
    • Moses said to the people not to be afraid.
    • Moses said God had come to test them.
    • Moses said the purpose was that the fear of God would be before their faces.
    • Moses said the purpose of that fear was that they would not sin.
  21. 20:21
    • The people stood at a distance.
    • Moses approached the thick darkness.
    • God was in that thick darkness.
  22. 20:22
    • The LORD spoke to Moses.
    • The LORD told Moses what to say to the children of Israel.
    • The LORD said they had seen that he spoke with them from heaven.
  23. 20:23
    • They shall not make gods of silver alongside the LORD.
    • They shall not make gods of gold for themselves.
  24. 20:24
    • You shall make an altar of earth for the LORD.
    • You shall sacrifice your burnt offerings on it.
    • You shall sacrifice your peace offerings on it.
    • The offerings come from your flock and your herd.
    • In every place where the LORD causes his name to be remembered, he will come to you.
    • In such places the LORD will bless you.
  25. 20:25
    • If you make an altar of stones for the LORD, you shall not build it of cut stone.
    • The reason is that wielding your iron blade upon it profanes it.
  26. 20:26
    • You shall not go up to the LORD's altar by steps.
    • The reason is that your nakedness should not be exposed upon it.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

20:1
The Hebrew tradition calls what follows "the ten words" (Exodus 34:28); "commandments" comes from the Greek and Latin translations. Jewish, Catholic and Protestant traditions divide these words into ten in different places, which is why numbered lists of them vary.
20:2
LORD printed in capitals stands for the four Hebrew letters YHWH, the personal name of Israel's God. Ancient Jewish practice was to say "my Lord" instead of pronouncing it, and English translations follow that by printing the substitute word in capitals. Where you see "God" or "Lord" in ordinary type, a different Hebrew word lies behind it.
20:3
The Hebrew reads literally "before my face." It can mean "in preference to me," "in addition to me," or "in my presence," and translators disagree about which. The old "before me" is easily misread as only "ahead of me in rank," which is narrower than the Hebrew.
20:4
A carved image (Hebrew pesel) is a figure cut from wood or stone, or cast in metal, the ordinary equipment of worship in Egypt, Canaan and Mesopotamia, where a god was thought to be present in its statue. "The heavens above, the earth below, the waters under the earth" is the standard ancient description of the whole world in three layers; the phrase means "anything anywhere."
20:5
"Jealous" here translates a Hebrew word used of a husband's exclusive claim on a wife; it is not the English sense of envying someone else's possessions. The verb rendered "punish" is literally "visit", to come and deal with. An ordinary household of the period held three or four generations under one roof, so "third and fourth generation" describes everyone alive in a family at one time, not a distant future.
20:6
The Hebrew word for "thousands" is ambiguous: it can mean thousands of people or a thousand generations, and Deuteronomy 7:9 takes it the second way. Either reading sets a very large number against the "third and fourth generation" of the previous verse.
20:7
The Hebrew word behind "in vain" or "in an empty way" means empty, worthless or false. The phrase covers swearing an oath in God's name that you do not mean to keep, as well as using the name for a lie or for nothing. Oaths sworn by the divine name were the ordinary way of guaranteeing testimony and contracts, so this had legal weight, not only conversational.
20:8
The Hebrew word Sabbath comes from a root meaning "to stop" or "cease." It is the seventh day of the week, reckoned from sunset to sunset. "Holy" translates a word meaning set apart from ordinary use for God, not "morally pure."
20:10
"Inside your gates" means inside your town, a walled settlement was identified by its gate. The word translated "foreigner" (ger) means a resident outsider who lived permanently among Israelites but held no inherited family land, and so depended on the household he worked for.
20:11
The old word "hallowed" means made holy, or set apart as special.
20:12
The Hebrew verb translated "honor" means literally "to give weight to." In practice it covered obeying parents while young and providing for them materially in old age, at a time when there was no other support for the elderly.
20:13
The Hebrew verb here (ratsach) covers unlawful killing of a person, murder, and killing through negligence. It is not the general word for killing, and is not used in the Hebrew Bible of killing in war, of judicial executions, or of slaughtering animals. The King James "kill" is broader than the original.
20:14
The Hebrew word refers to sexual relations between a man and another man's wife or betrothed. In Israelite law the offense was defined by the woman's marital status and was treated as a wrong against her husband and his household line.
20:16
This is courtroom language. Cases were heard by the elders at the town gate and decided on the word of witnesses, with no police or investigators; a witness who lied could cost a neighbor his property, his freedom or his life. "Neighbor" means a fellow member of the community, not simply the person living next door.
20:17
The Hebrew verb means a desire that reaches out toward taking, not a passing wish. The list (house, wife, servants, working animals) is the standard inventory of a household's assets; "house" at the start may mean the household as a whole, with the rest spelling out what it contains.
20:18
"Saw the thunder" is literal Hebrew: the verb covers perceiving by any sense, so it means the people witnessed all of this. The "trumpet" is the shofar, a ram's horn blown as a signal in war and at assemblies, not a metal instrument.
20:20
The Hebrew uses the same root twice: do not be terrified, yet keep the fear of God before you. The second sense is closer to awe or dread that governs behavior. "Test" means to put to the proof, to find out what someone will do.
20:21
"Thick darkness" translates a specific Hebrew word for a dense storm cloud, used elsewhere of the cloud in which God appears.
20:23
The Hebrew "with me" is ambiguous. It may forbid making images of other gods to stand alongside the LORD, or it may forbid making images of the LORD himself out of silver and gold. Translators divide on which.
20:24
An altar is a raised platform on which animals and food were burned as gifts to a god; every ancient religion had them, and the instruction here is about how Israel's should be built. A burnt offering was consumed entirely by fire on the altar. A peace offering (or fellowship offering) had only part burned; the rest was eaten as a shared meal by the worshiper and his household. "Where I cause my name to be remembered" refers to a place God designates as one where he may be approached.
20:25
"Cut stone" means blocks squared and dressed with an iron chisel, the technique used for temples elsewhere in the region. "Unclean" here translates a word meaning made common or profane, unfit for sacred use, rather than dirty.
20:26
Men of this period wore a long robe or a wrapped garment with nothing underneath. Climbing steps above people standing at the foot of the altar would expose the body. Exodus 28:42 later requires priests to wear linen undergarments for the same reason.

Read Exodus 20