David's Pen

17  “You must not murder.   We’ve begun to see that all the commands are rooted in the character of God – a God who is love. It’s easy to see that killing someone isn’t very loving! But let’s pause for a moment to ask why? Love, the Bible tells us, ‘does not insist on its own way’ – it gives choice. Put simply, death precludes choice – it steals that which is at the heart of love – it is the most profound opposite of love. And this thought finds its home in this command. The Hebrew from which this is translated certainly encompasses the command not to take someone’s life unjustly, but it casts wider than that. Rabbinical tradition includes the broader concept of not stealing someone’s life – and in recent times was used by Rabbis as a command against kidnapping or enslaving. For Moses, such thoughts would have resonated profoundly. Firstly, he did steal someone’s life, literally, he killed the Egyptian. But his people, who he was called to lead to freedom, had ...

20  “You must not testify falsely against your neighbour. The first commandment that we looked at warned us not to make false images of God because t he law (Deuteronomy 19:15-21) specified that the testimony of one witness was not sufficient to prove a case, however, the testimony of two or three witnesses was conclusive. There was no CSI, no Inspector Morse, no ‘Silent Witness’, no jury. The investigation of a case was limited to the credibility of the witnesses – and if two or three agreed, that was enough to convict. Clearly, those motivated by malice could conspire to testify against someone: John and Jane, having a grudge against Fred, might drag him before the judge saying: “We saw Fred steal that fruit” Provided their individual testimonies agreed and the witnesses were therefore credible, poor Fred would be found guilty. To mitigate this risk, the law instituted the famous ‘eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth’ clause. If the witnesses are shown to be bearing fa...

8  “You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind, or an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea.   9  You must not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the  Lord  your God, am a jealous God who will not tolerate your affection for any other gods. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and fourth generations of those who reject me.   10  But I lavish unfailing love for a thousand generations on those who love me and obey my commands. What is God like, how are we to know Him? It’s a fundamental question that has been asked down the ages and still is. When Moses went up the mountain, it is what the people waited to discover – Moses was going to meet with God and find out what He was like on their behalf. When it looked like he had died in the process, they had Aaron make an image of God. One way or another, they wanted something tangible to see – ...

“Hear O Israel, The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the  Lord  your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. ” This passage, from Deuteronomy 6 is known as the Shema (from the Hebrew “to hear”.) It comes after the commandments themselves and acts as a summary. Indeed, when asked what the greatest commandment was, rather than picking one of the ten, Jesus quotes from the Shema, arguing that all the commandments flow from this. So, what does it tell us, what context does it provide? ‘Hear O Israel’ As Moses reminded them, they went into Egypt as seventy persons, but by now outnumber the stars in the sky. Israel had become a vast multitude, yet God was addressing them as one nation. From the disunity of twelve tribes had come the community of one people. ‘The Lord our God, the Lord is one’ In the same way, God, who had begun to reveal Himself as three persons through the ‘First Book of Moses (Genesis), is nonet...