Traditionally, the first five books of the Old Testament are attributed to Moses, so they are known as the Law of Moses. These writings, which are also called “10 Commandments”, “ten words of God” or precepts of divine law, were written by “finger of God” in the Tables of the LawY present God’s directives for his people. In the Bible, the biblical passage of Exodus 20 presents the scene in which Moses descended from the mount sinai and showed “the decalogue” to the people. We invite you to discover what are the ten Commandments of God, and to know better the two main commandments that summarize them in the Bible.
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The tables of the law in the book of Exodus
“1 Then God spoke these words:
2 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of a place of slavery.
3 You will have no other gods before me.
4 You shall not make for yourself any sculpture or image of what is above, in the sky, or below, on the earth, or under the earth, in the waters.
5 You will not prostrate yourself before them, nor will you worship them, for I am the Lord your God, a jealous God, who punishes the wickedness of the fathers in the children, even to the third and fourth generation, if they hate me;
6 and I have mercy throughout a thousand generations, if they love me and keep my commandments.
7 You shall not pronounce the name of the Lord your God in vain, for he will not leave unpunished those who pronounce it in vain.
8 Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
9 For six days you will work and do all your tasks;
10 but the seventh is a day of rest in honor of the Lord your God. Neither you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male or female slave, nor your animals, nor the foreigner residing in your cities, will do any work on it.
11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and everything in them, but on the seventh day he rested. That is why the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and declared it holy.
12 Honor your father and your mother, so that you may have a long life in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
13 You shall not kill.
14 You shall not commit adultery.
15 You shall not steal.
16 You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
17 You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male slave, or his female slave, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything else that belongs to him.” (Exodus 20:1-17).
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The two main commandments
Love the Lord your God
When a scribe asked Jesus “(…) «What is the first of the commandments?». Jesus answered: “The first is: Listen, Israel: the Lord our God is the only Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, with all your spirit and with all your strength.” (Mark 12:28-30). Loving God is the greatest commandment. But what does this mean concretely? The apostle John answered this question by saying: “And this love does not consist in our having loved God, but in the fact that he first loved us, and sent his Son as the propitiatory victim for our sins” (1 John 4:10). In this way, it can be said that to love God is to accept, believe and receive his great love for us. When we believe that: “God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3:16), we begin to love God in response to his great love.
Love your neighbor as yourself
The book of Mark lets us see that Jesus added these words to his speech to the scribe: “You love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.”. (Mark 12:31). In addition, Jesus also told the parable of the Good Samaritan, to show us how to put love for our neighbor into practice. In fact, when we love others, we are not indifferent to their affliction, but we stop to offer them our time, our attention, and even our money to make them happy. Therefore, it is necessary that we ask for the grace of God to be able to walk each day with this thought: “All who want others to do for you, do it for them: this is the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 7:12).