The Decalogue

I. There is first to be noted, the aspect in which the great Lawgiver here presents Himself to His people: “I am Jehovah, thy God, who have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” Jehovah, the unchangeable and eternal, the great I am; this alone, had it been all, was a lofty idea for men who had been so long enveloped in the murky atmosphere of idolatry; and if deeply impressed upon their hearts, and made a pervading element in their religion and polity, would have nobly elevated the seed of Israel above all the nations then existing on the earth. But there is more a great deal than this in the personal announcement which introduces the ten fundamental precepts; it is His faithful love and sufficiency for all future time, to protect them from evil or bring them salvation.

II. Yet it did not the less on that account assume--being a revelation of law in form as well as substance, it could not but assume--a predominantly stringent and imperative character. The loving spirit in which it opens is not, indeed, absent from the body of its enactments, though, for the most part, formally disguised; but even in form it reappears more than once--especially in the assurance of mercy to the thousands who should love God and keep His commandments, and the promise of long continuance on the land of rest and blessing, associated respectively with the second and the fifth precepts of the law. But these are only, as it were, the relieving clauses of the code: the law itself, in every one of the obligations it imposes, takes the imperative form--“Thou shalt do this,” “Thou shalt not do that”; and this just because it is law, and must leave no doubt that the course it prescribes is the one that ought to be taken, and must be taken, by everyone who is in a sound moral condition. Still, the negative is doubtless in itself the lower form of command; and when so largely employed as it is in the Decalogue, it must be regarded as striving to meet the strong current of evil that runs in the human heart. III, Viewing the law thus, as essentially the law of love, which it seeks to protect as well as to evoke and direct, let us glance briefly at the details, that we may see how entirely these accord, alike in their nature and their orderly arrangement, with the general idea, and provide for its proper exemplification. As love has unspeakably its grandest object in God, so precedence is justly given to what directly concerns Him--implying also that religion is the basis of morality, that the right adjustment of men’s relation to God tends to ensure the proper maintenance of their relations one to another. God, therefore, must hold the supreme place in their regard, must receive the homage of their love and obedience; and this in regard to His being, His worship, His name, and His day. The next command may also be taken in the same connection--a step further in the same line, since earthly parents are in a peculiar sense God’s representatives among men. This, however, touches on the second division of moral duty, that which concerns men’s relation to each other; and according to the particular aspect in which it is contemplated, the fifth command may be assigned to the first or to the second table of the law. Scripture itself makes no formal division. Though it speaks frequently enough of two tables, it nowhere indicates where the one terminates and the other begins--purposely, perhaps, to teach us that the distinction is not to be very sharply drawn, and that the contents of the one gradually approximate and at last pass over into the other. And finally, to show that neither tongue, nor hands, nor any other member of our body, or any means and opportunities at our command--that not these alone are laid under contribution to this principle of love, but the seat also and fountain of all desire, all purpose and action--the Decalogue closes with the precept which forbids us to lust after or covet wife, house, possessions, anything whatever that is our neighbour’s--a precept which reaches to the inmost thoughts and intents of the heart, and requires that all even there should be under the control of a love which thinketh no evil, which abhors the very thought of adding to one’s own heritage of good by wrongfully infringing on what is another’s. Viewed thus as enshrining the great principle of love, and in a series of commands chalking out the courses of righteous action it was to follow, of unrighteous action it was to shun, the law of the two tables may justly be pronounced unique--so compact in form, so orderly in arrangement, so comprehensive in range, so free from everything narrow and punctilious--altogether the fitting reflex of the character of the Supremely Pure and Good in His relation to the members of His earthly kingdom.