Covenant Codes Compared
Some scholars, calling attention to Exodus 34:10, "Then the LORD said: 'I am making a covenant with you'," note that the laws of Exodus 34 appear to be a shorter and differently organized version of the Covenant Code (Exodus 20:22–23:33). These have been differentiated as the "Small Covenant Code" (Exodus 34) and the "Large Covenant Code" (Exodus 20–23). These views are not mutually exclusive. Aaron (2006), for example, discusses how the "Exodus 34 Decalogue", while presented as the Ten Commandments, appears to be a reworking of the Covenant Code. Indeed, H.L. Ginsberg believed that the Ritual Decalogue was an interpolation, and that the phrase "Ten Commandments" in Exodus 34:28 originally referred to a portion of the Covenant Code, Exodus 23:10–27, which he called the First Ritual Decalogue.
| Small Covenant Code, Exodus 34:11–26 | parallel section of the Large Covenant Code, Exodus 23:10– |
|---|---|
| 11 Observe what I command you today. See, I will drive out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. | 22 But if you listen attentively to his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and a foe to your foes.
23 When my angel goes in front of you, and brings you to the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, and I blot them out, |
| 12 Take care not to make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land to which you are going, or it will become a snare among you.
13 You shall tear down their altars, break their pillars, and cut down their sacred poles 14 (for you shall worship no other god, because the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God). 15 You shall not make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to their gods, someone among them will invite you, and you will eat of the sacrifice. 16 And you will take wives from among their daughters for your sons, and their daughters who prostitute themselves to their gods will make your sons also prostitute themselves to their gods. |
32 You shall make no covenant with them and their gods.
33 They shall not live in your land, or they will make you sin against me; for if you worship their gods, it will surely be a snare to you. 24 Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their doings; but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and break in pieces their pillars. 13 Be attentive to all that I have said to you. Do not invoke the names of other gods; do not let them be heard on your lips. |
| 17 You shall not make cast idols. | |
| 18 You shall keep the festival of unleavened bread. For seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month of Abib; for in the month of Abib you came out from Egypt. | 15a You shall observe the festival of unleavened bread; as I commanded you, you shall eat unleavened bread for seven days at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt. |
| 19 All that first opens the womb is mine, all your male livestock, the firstborn of cow and sheep.
20a The firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it you shall break its neck. All the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem. |
|
| 20b No one shall appear before me empty-handed. | 15b No one shall appear before me empty-handed. |
| 21 For six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even in ploughing time and in harvest time you shall rest. | 10 For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield; 11 but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, so that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the wild animals may eat. You shall do the same with your vineyard, and with your olive orchard. 12 Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest, so that your ox and your donkey may have relief, and your homeborn slave and the resident alien may be refreshed. |
| 22 You shall observe the festival of weeks, the first fruits of wheat harvest, and the festival of ingathering at the turn of the year. | 16 You shall observe the festival of harvest, of the first fruits of your labor, of what you sow in the field. You shall observe the festival of ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in from the field the fruit of your labor. |
| 23 Three times in the year all your males shall appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel.
24 For I will cast out nations before you, and enlarge your borders; no one shall covet your land when you go up to appear before the Lord your God three times in the year. |
17 Three times in the year all your males shall appear before the Lord God. |
| 25 You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven, and the sacrifice of the festival of the passover shall not be left until the morning. | 18 You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with anything leavened, or let the fat of my festival remain until the morning. |
| 26 The best of the first fruits of your ground you shall bring to the house of the Lord your God.
You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk. |
19 The choicest of the first fruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of the LORD your God.
You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk. |
Read more about this topic: Ritual Decalogue
Famous quotes containing the words covenant, codes and/or compared:
“Happy is the house that shelters a friend! It might well be built, like a festal bower or arch, to entertain him a single day. Happier, if he know the solemnity of that relation, and honor its law! He offers himself a candidate for that covenant comes up, like an Olympian, to the great games, where the first- born of the world are the competitors.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“... until both employers’ and workers’ groups assume responsibility for chastising their own recalcitrant children, they can vainly bay the moon about “ignorant” and “unfair” public criticism. Moreover, their failure to impose voluntarily upon their own groups codes of decency and honor will result in more and more necessity for government control.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“Letter-writing too often degenerates into a communicating of facts, and not of truths; of other men’s deeds and not our thoughts. What are the convulsions of a planet, compared with the emotions of the soul? or the rising of a thousand suns, if that is not enlightened by a ray?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)