The 10 Commandments

150 Bible Basics

The central commandments of the Law of Moses, given on Mt. Sinai in Exodus 20 and repeated in Deuteronomy 5. Other than literal observance of the Sabbath (the fourth commandment), all of these commandments have been carried forward into the New Covenant and are still pertinent today.

The 10 are often divided into two sections—commandments pertaining to God (the first four) and commandments pertaining to man (numbers five through 10).

Because of this, the commandments can further be reduced to Jesus’ two greatest commandments given in Matthew 22:37-40: “‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” For example, having no other gods before Him (commandment #1) would be included in loving Him with all our heart, soul, and mind. Not coveting our neighbors’ possessions (commandment #10) would be included in loving our neighbors as ourselves.

God “hand-wrote” these commandments for Israel on two tablets of stone on two different occasions (Exodus 31:18, 34:1-4). Moses broke the first set upon seeing the people of Israel worshiping the golden calf (32:19). The second set ended up stored in the Ark of the Covenant (Deuteronomy 10:5), showing the importance of these specific commandments to God’s covenant with Israel.