If this is your first page — start here.
The theory builds on itself. That page gives you the foundation everything else stands on.
Exodus is the book that delivers the Ten Commandments. Chapter 20. The foundation. The law that everything else is supposed to be built on.
How long do the commandments last inside their own book?
Not long.
The commandment.
"Thou shalt not kill."
The commandment: Thou shalt not kill.
Chapter 32, Verses 27–28 — The golden calf. While Moses is on the mountain receiving the commandments, the Israelites build an idol. Moses comes down and God's response through Moses:
"Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour."
God said: Every man strap on a sword. Go through the camp from one end to the other. Kill your brothers. Kill your friends. Kill your neighbors.
The Levites obeyed. About 3,000 killed that day.
Their brothers. Their companions. Their neighbors.
"Thou shalt not kill" was still warm in Moses's hands.
The commandment and its violation delivered by the same man, in the same book, in the same trip down the mountain.
The commandments: Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods.
The entire premise of the Exodus narrative is a promise. God promises the Israelites a land — Chapter 3, Verse 8:
"And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites."
God said: I have come to rescue them from Egypt and bring them to a rich and spacious land — the land where the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites are already living.
Whose land is it?
The Canaanites'. The Hittites'. The Amorites'. The Perizzites'. The Hivites'. The Jebusites'.
Six nations are named. The land is already occupied. The "promise" is someone else's home.
What is coveting your neighbor's goods?
What is taking something that belongs to someone else?
The word the text uses is "inheritance." But inheritance given by taking is not inheritance. It's conquest with a blessing attached.
The commandments: Thou shalt not steal. Honor thy father and mother. Thou shalt not kill.
Chapter 21, Verses 2–11 — One chapter after the commandments are delivered, God provides rules for buying and selling Hebrew slaves.
"If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing ... If his master have given him a wife, and she have born him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself."
If you buy a Hebrew slave, he serves for six years and goes free in the seventh. But if his master gave him a wife during those years and she had children — the wife and children belong to the master. The man leaves alone.
The man is freed. His family is not.
"And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free: Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an aul; and he shall serve him for ever."
If the slave says: I love my wife and children — I won't leave without them — then his master takes him to the doorpost and drives a metal tool through his ear. He is now a slave for life.
What kind of freedom requires you to abandon your family to keep it?
What kind of system uses love as the trap that makes slavery permanent?
"And if a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant, she shall not go out as the menservants do."
If a man sells his daughter as a slave, she does not get freed the way male slaves do.
The son gets six years. The daughter gets forever.
One chapter after "honor thy father and mother" — fathers are given the right to sell their daughters.
The commandment: Thou shalt not kill.
Chapter 21, Verses 20–21 — Laws regarding the beating of slaves:
"And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money."
If you beat your slave with a rod and the slave dies on the spot, you will be punished. But if the slave survives for a day or two before dying, there is no punishment — because the slave is your property.
If the slave dies immediately — punishment.
If the slave survives a day or two before dying — no punishment.
"For he is his money."
A human being reduced to a financial asset. The commandment says don't kill. The law says don't kill them too quickly.
What is the difference between "thou shalt not kill" and "thou shalt not kill them fast enough for it to count"?
The commandment: Thou shalt not steal.
Chapter 3, Verse 22 — Before the Israelites even leave Egypt, God instructs them:
"But every woman shall borrow of her neighbour, and of her that sojourneth in her house, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment: and ye shall put them upon your sons, and upon your daughters; and ye shall spoil the Egyptians."
Every woman should ask her Egyptian neighbor for silver jewelry, gold jewelry, and clothing. Put them on your sons and daughters. Strip the Egyptians of their wealth.
Chapter 12, Verses 35–36 — And they did:
"And the children of Israel did according to the word of Moses; and they borrowed of the Egyptians jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment... and they spoiled the Egyptians."
The Israelites did what Moses told them. They asked the Egyptians for silver, gold, and clothing. They took it all and left the Egyptians with nothing.
"Borrowed."
They were leaving permanently. There was no intention of returning anything. The word is "borrowed." The act is taking. Under God's direct instruction.
What is bearing false witness?
What is stealing?
The commandment: Thou shalt not kill.
Chapter 12, Verse 29 — The tenth plague. The one that finally breaks Pharaoh:
"And it came to pass, that at midnight the LORD smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle."
At midnight, God killed every firstborn in Egypt — from Pharaoh's heir on the throne to the firstborn child of the prisoner locked in the dungeon. He killed the firstborn animals too.
Every firstborn child in Egypt. From the palace to the dungeon. Including the children of prisoners who had no say in Pharaoh's decisions. Including the children of slaves who were captives themselves.
What did the infant in the dungeon do?
What commandment was the infant violating?
And Chapter 4, Verse 21 — before any of it began:
"And the LORD said unto Moses... I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go."
God told Moses: I will make Pharaoh refuse to let the people go.
God hardened Pharaoh's heart. Then punished Egypt for what Pharaoh did with a hardened heart.
The architect of the refusal punished the innocent for the refusal.
Children died for a decision that was engineered by the God who said "thou shalt not kill."
Exodus Chapter 20 delivers the commandments.
Chapter 21 legislates slavery.
Chapter 32 orders the slaughter of 3,000.
Chapter 3 instructs theft and promises stolen land.
Chapter 12 kills every firstborn child in a nation —
for a decision God himself engineered.
The commandments didn't survive their own book.
Say the name slowly.
Exodus.
Exit-us.
The book where the principles of the commandments
exit through the very narrative that delivers them.
It was right there in the name.
The whole time.
The next book is Numbers.
One chapter breaks five commandments at once.
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