A New Covenant
A New Covenant. But are these New Rules or a rehash of the old ones? The short answer is a bit of both. Exodus has two versions (here and 20:1-17) with a third in Deuteronomy (5:1-22). Despite the biblical order scholars regard this as the earliest source, the others dating from the later period of restoration and woven into the Exodus at the time of its compilation. That being the case it provides an interesting example of how a Focal Point may remain much the same for hundreds of years — still mercy and forgiveness (hesed) and the faithfulness of Yahweh despite the faithlessness of the people — but then submit to modification with fresh thinking and a new environment leading to a variety of new interpretations, reflecting the way in which fresh communities have fresh values.
At the risk of over-simplification, some scholars have suggested this gives us two versions of the Ten Commandments, one ritual (34: 17-24), the other ethical (20: 3-17). Rather than compare them and see which we might prefer it might be more rewarding to ask two different questions.
One, standing in their shoes, what does the difference of emphasis tell us about the community thinking that lay behind them? All of course are attributed to the Almighty but it is hard to think that there was no human input if only in the way they were preserved, handed down, modified and still made central to the faith. Think of similar Focal Points in your tradition.
Two, who (then and now) would welcome these commandments and want to see them honoured, and who would not? Not everybody, for example, wants to live the life of isolation reflected in vv 15-17, and many clearly don’t. Women seem to be overlooked altogether (v 23) and shopkeepers were not over enthusiastic about Sabbath regulations restricting work which appears to have needed a law to enforce it. So what sort of community is this and how has it changed over hundreds of years? Addressing, identifying, evaluating their Focal Points may have something to say to us about our own.