Read Three Different Versions of the Ten Commandments in Exodus and Deuteronomy

The list of Ten Commandments is presented in three different stories.  Read below to note the differences.  Which version have you never heard?  Why?   The sections A, B, and C function as dividers since the wording is longer in some versions than in others.

Do some versions seem more primitive or more sophisticated?  Could this reflect the date of writing or the social development of the source? Why did the editors of the Bible include all three versions?  For clues, read the passages before and after these commandments.  How is Moses depicted?  Aaron? The Jewish population? How does God interact with the people?      

Exodus 20                19:24  Yahweh told Moses, “come up again bringing Aaron with you.”  --------------------------------------------- 20:  Then God spoke all these words.  (A) He said, “I am Yahweh your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.  You shall have no gods except me.  You shall not make yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything in heaven or on earth beneath or in the waters under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them.  For I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God and I punish the father’s fault in the sons, the grandsons, and the great-grandsons of those who hate me; but I show kindness to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments You shall not utter the name of Yahweh your God to misuse it, for Yahweh will not leave unpunished the man who utters his name to misuse it. (B) Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.  For six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day Is a Sabbath for Yahweh your God.  You shall do no work that day, neither you nor your son nor your daughter nor your servants, men or women, nor your animals nor the stranger who lives with you.  For in six days, Yahweh made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that these hold, but on the seventh day he rested; that is why Yahweh has blessed the Sabbath day and made it sacred.  © Honor your father and your mother so that you may have a long life in the land that Yahweh your God has given to you. You shall not kill.  You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house, wife, servant, man or woman, ox, donkey, or anything that is his.

Deuteronomy 5            Listen, Israel, I stood all the time between Yahweh and yourselves to tell you of Yahweh’s words, for you were afraid of the fire and had not gone up the mountain.  He said: --------------- (A) I am Yahweh your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.  You shall have no gods except me.  You shall not make yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything in heaven above or on earth beneath or in the waters under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them.  For I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God and I punish the fathers’ fault in the sons, the grandsons, and the great-grandsons of those who hate me; but I show kindness to thousands, to those who love me and keep my commandments.   You shall not utter the name of Yahweh your God to misuse it, for Yahweh will not leave unpunished the man who utters his name to misuse it. (B) Observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy, as Yahweh your God has commanded you.  For six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh is a Sabbath for Yahweh your God.  You shall do no work that day, nor your son nor your daughter nor your servants, men or women, nor your ox nor your donkey nor any of your animals, nor the stranger who lives with you.  Thus your servant, man or woman, shall rest as you do.  Remember that you were a servant in the land of Egypt and that Yahweh your God brought you out from there with mighty hand and outstretched arm; because of this, Yahweh your God has commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. © Honor your father and your mother, as Yahweh your God has commanded you, so that you may have long life and may prosper in the land that Yahweh your God gives to you. You shall not kill. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, house, field, servant – man or woman- ox, donkey, or anything that is his. These are the words Yahweh spoke to you when you were all assembled on the mountain.  He added nothing, but wrote them on two tablets of stone which he gave to me. 6: These then are the commandments, the laws and customs which Yahweh your God has instructed me to teach you that you may observe them in the land which you are going to make your own.  Thus, if you fear Yahweh your God all the days of your life, and if you keep all his laws and commandments, you will have a long life, you, and your son, and your grandson.

Exodus 34                  32:  Yahweh spoke to Moses, Go down now because your people whom you brought out of Egypt have apostasized…Leave me, my wrath shall blaze out against them and devour them; of you however, I will make a great nation… Moses pleaded. Yahweh relented. Moses made his way down the mountain with two tablets.. Aaron had allowed them to lapse into idolatry with enemies all round them.  Moses threw down the tablets, broke them, burned the calf they had made, grinding it into powder.  Yahweh said to Moses, Cut two tablets of stone like the first ones and come up to me on the mountain, and I will inscribe on them the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke.  ---------------------------------------- (A) 34:14:  You shall bow down to no other god, for Yahweh’s name is the Jealous One; he is a jealous God.  Make no pact with the inhabitants of the land or, when they prostitute themselves to their own gods and sacrifice to them, they may invite you and you may consent to eat from their victim; or else you may choose wives for your sons from among their daughters and these, prostituting themselves to their own gods, may induce your sons to do the same.  You shall make yourself no gods of molten metal. (B) You shall celebrate the feast of Unleavened Bread; you shall eat unleavened bread as I have commanded you, at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in the month of Abib you came out of Egypt. All that first issues from the womb is mine: every male, every first-born of flock or herd.  But the first-born donkey you must redeem with an animal from your flocks.  If you do not redeem it, you must break its neck.  You must redeem all the first-born of your sons.  And no one is to come before me empty-handed. For six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest, even at plowing time and harvest. You shall celebrate the feast of Weeks, of the first-fruits of wheat harvest, and the feat of Ingathering at the close of the year. Three times a year all your menfolk must present themselves before the Lord Yahweh, the God of Israel.  When I have dispossessed the nations for you and extended your frontiers, no one will covet your land, if you present yourselves three times in the year before Yahweh your God. You must not offer the blood of the victim sacrificed to me at the same time as you offer unleavened bread, nor is the victim offered at the feast of Passover to be put aside for the following day. You must bring the best of the first-fruits of your soil to the house of Yahweh your God.  You must not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.  ---------------- Yahweh said to Moses, “Put these words in writing, for they are the terms of the covenant I am making with you and Israel.”  He stayed there with Yahweh for forty days and forty nights, eating and drinking nothing.  He inscribed on the tablets the words of the Covenant – the Ten Words.