Posted ByNeal Walters on July 24, 1999 at 23:03:38:
Following is an email I got, and how I answered it,
regarding Hebrew Word Issue #91
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Email #1
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also sometimes ASERET HADEBROT.....
but you didn't answer your question (or I didn't find it in the rest of
your e-mail)....why IS it translation "the 10 commandments".
Is this a Christian mistranslation?
Should Jews not use "the 10 Commandments" because, among
other things, it denigrates the other....603?
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Email #2
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Could you please elaborate on what is meant by the 10 words? Also, have you thought any more about teaching that class online, I think it would be a good thing.
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My answer:
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I figure there is more learning in the question than in the answer!
I have heard many Jewish people refer to "the 10 words" as "the 10 commandments",
so its probably not wrong to do so. Obviously, there was something special about these 10,
or they wouldn't have been written on tablets!
I have heard lessons where the 10 contain the whole 613. For example, if you can't keep Shabat, how can you expect to keep Yom Kipur, Sucot, Pesach, Shavuot, etc...? And that when properly numbered, there is relationship between 1 and 6, 2 and 7, etc... So there are really only 5 summations.
There are other summations in groups of 3, 2, and 1:
1) KJV Micah 6:8 He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth
the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk
humbly with thy God?
2) To the man who wanted to learn Torah while standing on one foot, and who had been booted out by Shamai, Hilell said: "That which is hateful unto yourself, do it not unto your neighbor. That is the whole of Torah. The rest is commentary. Now go and learn."
3) Ecclesiastes 12:13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter:
Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.
4) Yeshua (Jesus): Obviously, they weren't talking about the 10 commandments in this story:
Matthew 22:35-40 Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God
with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. is 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.
Neal
P.S. Have you heard that theory that each of the "10 commandments" were written on each tablet. We normally picture 5 on each tablet. It was the policy of kings to make a suzereign? treaties with a group of people that he would take over. He would write two copies of the treaty, and it would be kept in a special place!