Week 5

1/5/2025

Winter 2025

• Central Passage: Exodus 19-20; 31

• Click here to see the Middle School Sunday school handout for Exodus. 

• Check out the Middle School Sunday School Resources page for other books of the Bible resources.

The Ten Commandments are a summary of the Old Covenant laws and stipulations, a point which Deuteronomy makes clearer. Note a few things about this passage.

First, God had already adopted Israel into a covenant relationship with Himself through Abraham. He acted as their covenantal protector when He delivered them from Egypt, bringing them to Himself (Ex 19:4; 20:2). God graciously chose Israel to be His new Adam/kingdom of priests in a fallen world.[1] God’s bestowal of the covenantal relationship on Abraham’s descendants was unmerited and unconditional favor from God, but the enjoyment of that covenant was conditioned by the stipulations of the covenant given through Moses.

Second, we conventionally divide them into the first table (commands 1-4, our relationship to God) and the second table (commands 5-10, our relationship to neighbor). This is a proper division that Jesus affirmed (Matt 22:36-40). Both tables bear on one another, such that love for God entails love for neighbor, and proper love for neighbor protects us from idolatry. The Pharisees in Matt 15:1-9 had created a dichotomy between love for neighbor and love for God. Through the Law of Corban (a Pharisaical law from outside the Bible), one could devote his possessions to the temple instead of using them to care for elderly parents. Thus, it was all too common to dishonor parents in order to appear spiritually devoted, but Jesus condemned this, quoting Exodus 20:12 and 21:17. There are no real ethical dilemmas in loving your neighbor and loving God.

The final command against coveting is the bookend that calls our attention back to the first commandment. The Hebrew word for covet means to desire, delight in, or take pleasure in. David used the same word in Psalm 19:10 when he says about God’s word, “More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.” Coveting concerns matters of worship, being consumed with desire for what God has given to another. It comes from an idolatrous heart (first table) that hates one’s neighbor (second table). Moses clarified this further in Deuteronomy 5:21 when he added the additional word desire. The Greek translation of this passage uses the same verb Jesus used in Matt 5:28: "But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart." Misplaced worship of God always has devastating effects on how we love one another, and proper love for one another safeguards us from misplaced worship—the two tables work together to demonstrate that all Christian ethics are about heart-captivated worship.

Jesus illustrated this point to the rich young man who asked him how to inherit eternal life (Matt 19:16-22; Mark 10:17-22; Luke 18:18-23). In each account, Jesus mentioned every commandment, except for the tenth commandment that forbids coveting. Though the Sermon on the Mount in Matt 5-7 shows us that his superficial understanding of keeping the commandments fell short, Jesus temporarily granted him this understanding that he had kept the other commandments of the second table. But then He commanded, “Sell all you have, give it to the poor, and follow me.” Jesus’s command released this man from ownership of his belongings; they now belong to the poor. The man’s response revealed a covetous and idolatrous heart. He preferred to covet the possessions that Jesus declared now belong to the poor because he did not want to worship the God of eternal life. Our misplaced worship has devastating effects on our relationships with other people, and our injustice toward other people reveals an idolatrous heart.

Additional Notes

1. Notice the terrifying scene at Mt. Sinai in Exodus 19 and 20:18-21. Though thunderstorms were often associated with pagan gods, they were typically associated with warfare, not revelation. Thus, a thunderstorm accompanying divine revelation was a unique occurrence. Furthermore, the last time Moses used the Hebrew word for “flashes of lightning” (which can be more woodenly translated as “torch” or “flame”) was Genesis 15:17 when God, in the form of a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch, passed between the animal pieces while Abraham slept. This distant story of God’s covenant dealing with Abraham became reality before Israel’s face as they watched the flaming sky. Furthermore, trumpets were typically used in war, but this trumpet blast from heaven was for God’s history-shaping revelation. The only other instance of a trumpet from heaven is when Paul says Jesus will return with the sound of a trumpet (1 Cor 15:52; 1 Thess 4:16). Trumpets from heaven mark key turning point moments in salvation history: the beginning of the Old Covenant and the beginning of Christ’s fully consummated earthly rule.

2. Exodus 31 can appear troubling to us if not properly understood. Several places throughout the Pentateuch say that these rules shall be a statute forever (31:16-17). The Hebrew word “forever” has a range of meaning that context must determine. At times, it can mean everlasting/in perpetuity, but the base meaning of the word is “to the age;” thus, the statute is to be kept to the end of the age in perpetuity. It is enduring for the Old Covenant community, but a New Covenant marks a new age. The covenant God gave at Mt. Sinai through Moses was never referred to as an everlasting covenant (see the times other biblical covenants are referred to as everlasting: Gen 9:16; Isa 24:5; Gen 17:7, 19; Ps 105:10; 1 Chron 16:17; 2 Sam 23:5; Isa 55:3; 61:8; Jer 32:40; 50:5; Ezek 16:60; 37:26). The principle of Sabbath and rest/consecration continues, but the particular stipulation of the Sabbath commandment in this Old Covenant has been fulfilled. There was an end to the Old Covenant that Israel broke but Jesus fulfilled. The prophets, therefore, spoke of God establishing a new everlasting covenant.