The Ten Commandments in the Bible

The phrase comes straight from the text. After Moses spends forty days on the mountain, the King James Version says: "And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments" (Exodus 34:28). Deuteronomy says it twice more. "And he declared unto you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even ten commandments; and he wrote them upon two tables of stone" (Deuteronomy 4:13, KJV). Deuteronomy 10:4 repeats the number when the second set of tablets is written.

The Hebrew behind "ten commandments" in all three places is closer to ten words, or ten sayings. In Greek the phrase became dekalogos, ten-word, which passed through Latin into the English word Decalogue. The Catholic Catechism opens its own treatment at paragraph 2056 by saying that Decalogue means literally ten words.

What the Bible never does is attach numbers. Exodus 20:2-17 opens with God introducing himself, then runs through commands and prohibitions of very uneven length, some of them two words in Hebrew and one of them four verses long. Rabbi Ronald Isaacs, writing for My Jewish Learning, counts thirteen sentences in the Jewish arrangement of the passage, and says the text alone makes it hard to be sure what the first commandment comprises.

Every tradition that arrives at ten has to make three decisions. Is the opening line, I am the LORD thy God, one of the ten or a preface to them? Are no other gods and no carved images one command or two? And if coveting is split, which object comes first, the house or the wife? The answers produce the four numberings in use today. The Samaritan Pentateuch goes further and makes the sanctity of Mount Gerizim, with an instruction to build an altar there, its tenth.

Exodus 20:1 introduces the speech: "And God spake all these words, saying," and verses 2 and 3 follow. "I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me."

"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments."

"Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain."

"Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: 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: 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."

"Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's."

Christian Bibles print that as verses 2 to 17. Jewish Bibles divide the same words differently, which is why the My Jewish Learning list cites murder, adultery, stealing and false witness all as Exodus 20:13 and coveting as 20:14. The words are identical. Only the verse numbers move.

Deuteronomy 5 has Moses repeating the list to Israel before the crossing of the Jordan. The retelling is close to Exodus and it is not identical. Five differences are worth knowing, and the last one is the reason Catholics and Lutherans disagree about the ninth commandment.

The first is the Sabbath verb. Exodus 20:8 opens with zakhor, remember. Deuteronomy 5:12 opens with shamor, which the King James renders "Keep the sabbath day to sanctify it" and the World English Bible renders "Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." Jewish tradition holds the two together. A midrash says God spoke both words at once, and the hymn Lekhah Dodi, sung to welcome the Sabbath, puts both in its first verse.

The second is the reason the Sabbath is kept. Exodus points to creation, six days of making and a seventh of rest. Deuteronomy points to slavery: "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" (Deuteronomy 5:15, KJV). Verse 14 also adds a purpose, "that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou."

The third is honour for parents, which gains two phrases. Exodus 20:12 promises long days in the land. Deuteronomy 5:16 adds "as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee" and "that it may go well with thee." Ephesians 6:2-3 quotes the commandment with the words "That it may be well with thee" and calls it "the first commandment with promise."

The fourth only shows in Hebrew. The false witness of Exodus 20:16 is sheqer, a lie. In Deuteronomy 5:20 it is shav, empty or worthless, the same word translated "in vain" in the commandment about God's name. English Bibles print both as false witness.

The fifth is coveting. Exodus 20:17 puts the neighbour's house first and his wife second, with one verb, chamad, for both. Deuteronomy 5:21 puts the wife first with chamad, switches to a second verb, hitavveh, for the house, and adds his field. The World English Bible keeps the switch: "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife. Neither shall you desire your neighbor's house, his field," and so on through the list. The King James, which uses covet for chamad in Exodus, prints desire for the wife here and covet for the house.

In the Jewish numbering the first of the ten is the sentence most Christian lists leave out: "I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage" (Exodus 20:2, KJV). It contains no instruction. That is less odd than it sounds, because the Hebrew title speaks of ten words, and a statement of who is speaking can be a word.

From there the count runs in sequence. The second word holds no other gods and no carved images together, verses 3 to 6. The third is the name of God, the fourth the Sabbath, the fifth father and mother. Murder, adultery, stealing and false witness are the sixth through the ninth. The tenth is one prohibition on coveting, house and wife and everything else together.

How the ten sat on the two tablets is argued inside Judaism as well. Isaacs records the general assumption of five on each, with honour for parents as a bridge between the words about God and the words about people. In an older rabbinic debate, Rabbi Hanina ben Gamaliel also gave five to each tablet, and the Sages answered that each tablet carried all ten, which would match the ancient Near Eastern habit of giving every party to a treaty a full copy.

The Mishnah records that in the Second Temple period the ten were recited daily before the Shema. Synagogues later dropped the practice so that nobody would conclude these were the only binding laws. Today they are heard when the reading cycle reaches Exodus in winter and Deuteronomy in late summer, and again on the festival of Shavuot.

The Catholic Catechism states at paragraph 2066 that the division and numbering of the commandments have varied over history. It follows the division set by St. Augustine, and it notes that the Lutheran confessions use the same one. In this count the opening line is the setting for the first commandment. The Catechism prints Exodus 20:2-5 at the head of its article on the first commandment, so no other gods and no carved images belong to one command about worship.

That leaves nine, and the tenth comes from dividing coveting. The Catholic split puts the wife first, as Deuteronomy does. Paragraph 2514 says that in Catholic catechetical tradition the ninth commandment forbids carnal concupiscence and the tenth forbids coveting another's goods, and the Catechism gives each its own article. Its article on the ninth sets Exodus 20:17 beside Jesus on looking at a woman with lust, from Matthew 5:28.

The Sabbath commandment becomes the third. Catholic teaching applies it to Sunday, the day of the resurrection. Paragraph 2175 says that for Christians the ceremonial observance of Sunday replaces that of the Sabbath, and that Sunday fulfils the spiritual truth of the Jewish Sabbath.

Luther kept Augustine's shape and the order of Exodus. In the 1921 Concordia Triglotta translation of his Small Catechism, the first commandment is short: "Thou shalt have no other gods." The third reads "Thou shalt sanctify the holy-day." The ninth is "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house." The tenth is "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his man servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his cattle, nor anything that is his."

Luther's own preface shows how much the numbers matter in practice. He tells pastors that the Seventh Commandment, concerning stealing, must be strenuously urged among mechanics and merchants. A Presbyterian reading that line would expect stealing to be the eighth.

The Catholic Catechism itself records that the Greek Fathers worked out a slightly different division, now found in the Orthodox churches and the Reformed communities. Isaacs lists Philo of Alexandria among those who divide the text this way, along with most Protestant churches other than the Lutherans. Calvin carried it into Reformed teaching, and the Book of Common Prayer carried it into Anglican worship.

The Westminster Shorter Catechism of 1647 lays it out question by question. Question 43 names the opening line "the preface to the ten commandments," so it is not counted. Question 45 gives the first as "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." Question 49 gives the second as the whole prohibition on making any graven image and bowing down to it. Question 79 gives the tenth as all of Exodus 20:17, house and wife together.

Each side has a reason in its own terms. The Shorter Catechism's question 51 says the second commandment forbids "the worshiping of God by images," which it treats as a separate sin from having another god at all. The Catholic Catechism treats verses 2 to 6 as one command to worship God alone, and treats desire for a person and desire for property as two distinct desires. Both counts reach ten from the same verses.

I am the LORD thy God is the first word in the Jewish count and a preface everywhere else. No other gods is second for Jews and first for every Christian count.

Carved images sit inside the Jewish second and inside the Catholic and Lutheran first. Reformed, Orthodox and Anglican lists make images the second on their own.

Taking the name in vain is third for Jews and Reformed churches and second for Catholics and Lutherans. The Sabbath is fourth for the first pair and third for the second. Father and mother are fifth for the first pair and fourth for the second.

Murder is sixth for Jews and Reformed churches and fifth for Catholics and Lutherans. Adultery is seventh against sixth. Stealing is eighth against seventh. False witness is ninth against eighth.

Coveting is a single tenth for Jews and Reformed churches. Catholics split it into a ninth about the neighbour's wife and a tenth about his goods. Lutherans split it into a ninth about his house and a tenth about his wife, servants and cattle.

So when a sermon or a confirmation handout mentions the fifth commandment, check whose list it is using before you argue about it.

The King James and the American Standard Version both print "Thou shalt not kill." The World English Bible prints "You shall not murder." The Hebrew is two words, lo tirtsach, and the Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon glosses the verb as murder or slay, with premeditation, at this verse. The same body of law permits killing in some cases. Exodus 22:2 says of a thief caught breaking in, "there shall no blood be shed for him," and the next verse reverses that once the sun is up.

Translation does not settle questions about war, capital punishment or self-defence for a reader today. Churches answer those from their wider teaching, and they do not all answer the same way. If you are facing a real decision, take it to your own pastor, priest or rabbi.

When a man runs up and asks what he must do to inherit eternal life, Jesus answers with a list in Mark 10:19: "Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Defraud not, Honour thy father and mother." Every item concerns other people, the order matches no tradition's count, and Defraud not is not in Exodus 20 at all. Matthew's version adds "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" (Matthew 19:19).

Asked for the great commandment, Jesus gives two: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets" (Matthew 22:37-40, KJV).

The traditions divide the ten between those two loves in different proportions. The Catholic Catechism puts three commandments under love of God and seven under love of neighbour at paragraph 2067. In the Reformed count the commandments about God run to four, because images have their own number. The Westminster Shorter Catechism, at question 42, gives the sum of all ten as the same two loves.

Paul does the same compression in Romans 13:9, listing adultery, killing, stealing, false witness and coveting, and then: "if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."

The churches named on this page all teach that Christians still keep the ten. The Catholic Catechism cites the Council of Trent at paragraph 2068 that they are obligatory for Christians, and the Shorter Catechism says the moral law is summarily comprehended in them. The live disagreement is the Sabbath. Catholic, Orthodox and most Protestant churches keep the Lord's Day on Sunday. Seventh-day churches keep Saturday, from Friday evening, and hold that the Old and New Testaments show no change in the seventh-day Sabbath. Jews keep Saturday as the Sabbath.

Two of the ten bring people here with something heavy behind the search. The first is honour thy father and thy mother, read by someone whose father or mother did real harm. Whatever honour means in your tradition, a child in danger needs safety first. In the United States the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline takes calls and texts at 1-800-422-4453. An adult working out what honour means toward a parent who hurt them deserves a licensed therapist and their own pastor, priest or rabbi, in the same room or in sequence.

The second is the person who reads the list and cannot stop checking. Did that thought count as coveting? Was that phrase taking the name in vain? The International OCD Foundation describes scrupulosity as a form of OCD built on religious or moral fears, with compulsions such as reassurance seeking, excessive prayer and repeated confession. The foundation, based in Boston, lists its phone number as (617) 973-5801, and its website keeps a resource directory of clinicians. Telling a confessor or pastor that you think this is happening is a good first conversation.

If any of this has you thinking about not being here, reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline tonight by calling or texting 988. PrayWithJesus.ai is software from a company that holds no church office and no authority to teach. Where your church or synagogue numbers or reads the commandments differently from this page, follow your church or synagogue.