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The Ten Commandments and Signs of Keeping the Covenant

Old Testament

“Whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it.” (Ecclesiastes 3:14)

The Ten Commandments (Exodus 20)

1. You shall have no other gods before me.
2. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, in the earth below, or in the water under the earth.
3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
4. Remember the Sabbath.
5. Honour your father and your mother.
6. You shall not murder.
7. You shall not commit adultery.
8. You shall not steal.
9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.
10. You shall not covet your neighbour’s house, wife, servants, or possessions.

The ‘covenant’ is the agreement between God and His people to follow His laws and instructions.

Indications a believer is following the covenant:

• Circumcision was considered a sign of the covenant between God and the Jews (Genesis 17:11). However, for Christianity, “neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love (Galatians 5:6).
• Keeping the Sabbath (Exodus 31:13-17).
• Putting tassels on each corner of a garment: this is done with a cord of blue in each, they are a reminder to keep all the commandments of the Lord and to do them (Numbers 15:37-40).
• Receiving an inheritance: wealth passed on to children was an indication your family followed the word of God (Proverbs 13:22).

Indications the covenant is not being followed:

• Being defeated in battle, famine, and a lack of rain are all an indication that the people have sinned (1 Kings 8:33-40).
• Poverty comes to those who ignore instruction (Proverbs 13:18).

The following is a list of people who could experience these punishments, as even God had enemies:

• Those who do wrong or are rebellious. They break the covenant.
• Those who hate him.
• Those who don’t believe in him.
• Those who believe in other gods.

New Testament

The Great Commandment Matthew 22:37-40

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

Laws and Instructions

The following is a list of laws God’s children should abide by, they have been separated into those found in the Old Testament and the New Testament. Between these two lists, there is a set of indications from the Old Testament, on how to structure a legal system so they be put into force.

Old Testament Laws

• You shall not eat flesh with its life (Genesis 9:4).
• You must be circumcised (Genesis 17:11).
• Keep far from false charge. And you shall take no bribe (Exodus 23:7-8).
• You shall not permit a sorceress to live (Exodus 22:18).
• Whoever lies with an animal shall be put to death (Exodus 22:19).
• You may sacrifice to the Lord your God alone (Exodus 22:20).
• You shall not eat any flesh that is torn by beasts in the field; you shall throw it to the dogs (Exodus 22:31).
• You shall not oppress the sojourner. You know the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt (Exodus 22:21).
• Abide by holidays (Exodus 23:14).
• No offerings or sacrifices that are leavened (Exodus 23:18).
• There are many in-depth laws about intentional and unintentional acts such as violence towards men, women, children and slaves; stealing or killing of animals; fire consuming crops; sexual relations; lending money, animals and objects (Exodus 21-23).
• Detailed laws about sexual relationships: a person cannot be with family members, neighbours, animals, or people of the same sex; Accusations about a woman’s virginity (Leviticus 18, Leviticus 20:10-21, Deuteronomy 22:13-30).
• No child sacrifice (Leviticus 20:2).
• No necromancing (Leviticus 20:6).
• Laws for Priests: rules about hair state they cannot make bald patches on their heads, or shave the edges of their beards; they cannot make any cuts on their bodies; they cannot marry prostitutes, defiled or divorced women; the hair on his head shall not hang loose; they cannot come into contact with dead bodies (Leviticus 21).
• Help your brothers (Leviticus 25:35, Deuteronomy 15:7-8).
• When a man or woman commits any of the sins that people commit by breaking faith with the Lord, and that person realises his guilt, he shall confess his sin that he has committed. And he shall make full restitution for his wrong (Numbers 5:6-7).
• Vows made to God: If a man vows a vow to the Lord, or swears an oath to bind himself by a pledge, he shall not break his word (Numbers 30:2).
• Follow The Ten Commandments (Deuteronomy 4:40).
• When God delivers land for you to live on and drives out the previous people, you cannot serve them, bow down to them, or worship their gods; you also may not intermarry with them (Deuteronomy 7:1-4).
• You shall not charge interest on loans to your brother, interest on money, interest on food, interest on anything that is lent for interest. You may charge a foreigner interest (Deuteronomy 23:19-20).
• Marrying female captives: If the Lord lets you take captives during a war against your enemy, and you see a beautiful woman, you must follow these rules and then you may take her as a wife. If she no longer delights you after laying with her, you shall set her free and cannot sell her, as you have humiliated her (Deuteronomy 21:10-14).
• Lost items shall not be ignored, they shall be returned to their owner (Deuteronomy 22:1-4).
• A woman shall not wear a man’s garment, nor shall a man put on a woman’s cloak (Deuteronomy 22:5).
• If you go into your neighbour’s vineyard, you may eat your fill of grapes, as many as you wish, but you shall not put any in your bag (Deuteronomy 23:24).
• If a man is found stealing one of his brothers of the people of Israel, and if he treats him as a slave or sells him, then that thief shall die (Deuteronomy 24:7).
• You shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your brothers or one of the sojourners who are in your land within your towns. You shall give him his wages on the same day, before the sun sets (Deuteronomy 24:14-15).
• Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin (Deuteronomy 24:16).
• When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow (Deuteronomy 24:19).
• When someone is hanged from a tree, their body must be taken down on the same day as a hanged man is cursed by God, and you must not defile the land you inherited from God (Deuteronomy 21:22-23).
• If you make a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not delay fulfilling it, for the Lord your God will surely require it of you, and you will be guilty of sin. But if you refrain from vowing, you will not be guilty of sin (Deuteronomy 23:21-22).
• Take care, in a case of leprous disease, to be very careful to do according to all that the Levitical priests shall direct you (Deuteronomy 24:8).
• When you make your neighbour a loan of any sort, you shall not go into his house to collect his pledge. You shall stand outside, and the man to whom you make the loan shall bring the pledge out to you (Deuteronomy 24:10-11).
• Do not say to your neighbour ‘Go, and come again, tomorrow I will give it’ – when you have it with you (Proverbs 3:28).
• Do not plan evil against your neighbour, who dwells trustingly beside you. (Proverbs 3:29)
• Do not contend with a man for no reason (Proverbs 3:30).
• Do not envy a man of violence and do not choose any of his ways. (Proverbs 3:31).

How the system is ordered to work

• Justice: You shall appoint judges and officers in all your towns that the Lord your God is giving you, according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with righteous judgement. You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality, and you shall not accept a bribe (Deuteronomy 16:18-19).
• Laws concerning witnesses: one is not enough, there must be two or three witnesses or no charge shall be made. If someone bares false witness then they will have done to them what they wished to do to the other. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth (Deuteronomy 19:15-21).
• Legal decisions made by priests: If any cases arise requiring a decision between one kind of homicide and another, one kind of legal right and another, or one kind of assault and another, any case within your towns that is too difficult for you, then you shall come to the Levitical priests and to the judge who is in office in those days, and you shall consult them, and they shall declare to you the decision. Then you shall do accordingly to what they declare (Deuteronomy 17:8-10).
• Laws concerning Israel’s kings: When you come to the land the Lord your God has given you, you may set a king over you whom the Lord God has chosen. One from among your brothers, never an outsider. He may not acquire for himself or ask another to acquire for him by returning to Egypt, as the Lord has said you shall never return that way again, many horses, wives, or excess in silver and gold (Deuteronomy 17:14-20).

New Testament Laws

Jesus’ laws are harsher than God’s original ones, they follow the same presidents but are more extreme.

• Anger: The Old Testament’s law stated that murder was liable to judgement, however, The New Testament states that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgement. Before leaving offerings at the altar, you must first be reconciled with your brother (Matthew 5:22 and 24).
• Adultery: For Jesus adultery begins with lustful intent from a look (Matthew 5:28).
• Oaths: Before it was said not to swear falsely, but in The New Testament it says “not to take an oath at all [and] let what you say be simply ‘yes’ or ‘no’; anything more than this comes from evil.” (Matthew 5:33-37)
• The concept of ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’ is no longer encouraged. Now retaliation is seen as something to resist, and if someone wants to take the jacket off your back, you offer him your shirt as well (Matthew 5:38-42).
• Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven (Matthew 5:44-45).
• The Golden Rule: Do to others what you wish them to do to you (Matthew 7:12).
• Love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. All commandments are summed up in ‘you shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ And love does no wrong to a neighbour; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law (Romans 13:8-10).
• Be at peace among yourselves, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all, rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances. Hold fast to what is good, abstain from what is evil (1 Thessalonians 13-22).
• No one can add words to the prophesy of this book, nor take away any of the words from it (Revelation 22:18-19).

Some teachings taken from the Bible about the Laws

• God’s words and rules are wisdom. Their understanding is better than gaining metal riches (Proverbs 3:13-14).
• “Do not love the world or the things in the world [or] desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes.” (1 John 2:15-17)
• Fulfil the law through love (Romans 13:8).
• “Do not think that I [Jesus] have come to abolish the Laws or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.” (Matthew 5:17-18)
• The law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ (John 1:17).

Holidays

Passover (Exodus 12:43-50)

• It will be eaten in one house, you cannot go outside that house, and no bones will be broken.
• No foreigner shall eat of it or hired servant.
• Slaves may eat after being circumcised.
• All males must be circumcised before.

Sabbath

• No work (Leviticus 23:3).
• No gathering food (Exodus 16:25).
• No fire in the home (Exodus 35:3).

Clean and Unclean, Illnesses

• Rules about animals you can and cannot eat (Leviticus 11)
• Purification after childbirth (Leviticus 12)
• Illnesses: protocol for ill people and cleansing the house (Leviticus 13-15)
• Clean and unclean food (Deuteronomy 14)
• Purification after touching a dead body (Numbers 19:11-13)
• After killing in a war, how to clean a person and their possessions (Numbers 31)

Offerings and sacrifice

• Laws for Burnt Offerings (Leviticus 1)
• Laws for Grain Offerings (Leviticus 2)
• Laws of Peace Offerings (Leviticus 3)
• Laws for Sin Offerings (Leviticus 4)
• Laws for Guilt Offerings (Leviticus 5:14 – 6:7)
• The place of sacrifice (Leviticus 17: 1-9)
• Punishment for Child Sacrifice (Leviticus 20:1-9)
• Acceptable Offerings (Leviticus 22:17-33)
• Laws about sacrifices (Numbers 15:1-21)
• Laws about unintentional sins (Numbers 15:22-31)
• Daily and Monthly Offerings (Numbers 28:1-8 and 11-15)
• Sabbath Offerings (Numbers 28:9-10)
• Passover Offerings (Numbers 28:16-25)
• Offerings for the day of atonement (Numbers 29:7-11)
• Forbidden forms of worship (Deuteronomy 16: 21-22 and 17:1-7)
• Offerings of Firstfruits (Deuteronomy 26)

The Bible. ESV, Good News Publishers, 2007.