THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (Versions)         Different Divisions and Wording

Many years ago, I was reading Philip Schaff’s Trilogy: The Creeds of Christendom.  Admittedly, this is not a Series that would interest everyone, but I do highly recommend to all, his excellent and very readable Eight Volume Series: History of the Christian Church.

Schaff mentioned that the Protestant Reformers had children memorize The Ten Commandments (along with The Lord’s Prayer and the Nicene and/or Apostle’s Creeds).  I decided that I also wanted to memorize The Ten Commandments.  

To my great surprise, I learned that the Jewish, the several kinds of Protestant, the Eastern Orthodox, and the Roman Catholic divisions and wordings, had slight differences.

You will want to memorize the version your own Church uses, if it uses a specific version, but what if it doesn’t?

The Lutheran and Roman Catholic versions are similar to each other in divisions, but use different wording.  Different from both, is the division used by the Eastern Orthodox, which is similar to Anglican, Reformed, and most Protestant Churches.  The Jewish division is different again from all of them.

What Version Did Jesus Memorize?

It occurred to me: wouldn’t the Jewish version, the one Jesus learned, be the correct one?  It turns out that the current Jewish version, known as The Talmudic Division, didn’t even exist until the third century.

In the time of Jesus, what was in use was known as The Philonic Division, mentioned by both of the two major Jewish Historians of the time: Josephus and Philo.  This version turns out to be very similar to what Eastern Orthodox and most Protestants (non-Lutheran) use.

The Ten Commandments are recorded in context in Exodus 20:1-17, and in even more extensive context in Deuteronomy 5:7-21.  The listing in Exodus seems to me to be more in keeping with the brevity generally used.

The version I compiled, memorized,  and included in our Worship Service, is posted in the Column at the Lower Right of this page.  I have updated the word kill to murder, because that is the actual meaning of the original Hebrew word: ratsah.

Eliezer Segal writes:

“The word kill in English is an all encompassing verb that covers the taking of life in all forms and for all classes of victims.  That kind of generalization is expressed in Hebrew through the verb: harag.  However, the verb that appears in the Torah’s prohibition is a completely different one: ratsah, which should be rendered murder.  This root refers only to criminal acts of killing.”

-Excerpted from: “Thou Shalt Not Murder” by Eliezer Segal, “Jewish Free Press,” October 19, 2000; p.8.  Eliezer Segal has written several books, and more than 350 editions of his Column “From the Sources,” concerning Judaism and related areas.

The Greek Septuagint translation correctly translated the Hebrew word ratsah into Greek using the Greek word for murder.  The King James Version, usually very accurate in its rendering of Hebrew words, here retains Jerome’s translation “kill,” found in his Latin Vulgate version.