Ten Commandments
The Ten Commandments arrive in the Hebrew Bible with a spectacle. On the morning of the third day at Mount Sinai, thunder and lightning break over the camp. A thick cloud settles on the peak, and a trumpet sounds louder and louder. Out of that scene, according to the text, God gives Moses a set of religious and ethical directives shaped like a covenant document.
Three markedly different versions of the text survive in the Hebrew Bible, two in Exodus and one in Deuteronomy. The list has also carried another name, the Decalogue. It has been carved into monuments, recited in confession, and argued over by rabbis, theologians and judges.
Several puzzles follow from that history. Jews, Catholics, Lutherans and Orthodox Christians all speak of ten commandments, yet they do not agree on which sentences make up each one. Muslims revere Moses and his tablets, but their scripture handles the matter differently again. Scholars cannot settle who composed the text or in which century.
Then there is the modern question. Why does a list of ancient commands keep turning up in lawsuits about the walls of American classrooms?
Before Moses climbed to the summit, he led Aaron, Nadab, Abihu and seventy elders of Israel partway up Sinai. From a distance they worshipped and saw the God of Israel standing above a pavement that looked like clear sapphire. The people below had already heard God speak the words of the covenant in Exodus 20. Modern scholars disagree about whether Israel heard all of it directly or only through Moses.
Frightened, the crowd retreated "afar off", and Moses answered them with two words: "Fear not." He then entered the thick darkness where God's presence waited. There he took in further statutes and judgments and wrote them in a book of the covenant. The next morning he read it aloud, and the people promised to obey everything that had been said.
Joshua, described as Moses's minister, went with him when God called him up for tablets of stone and a law written to be taught. A cloud covered the mountain for six days. On the seventh, Moses entered it and stayed forty days and forty nights. He later described the tablets as written with the finger of God.
In the camp below, the forty days dragged on. Before they ended, the Israelites concluded that something had happened to Moses and pressed Aaron to make a golden calf. Aaron built an altar before it, and the people worshipped.
After the full forty days, Moses reached the camp carrying the tablets. He saw the calf and the dancing, and his anger blazed. He hurled the tablets from his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain.
After the events of Exodus chapters 32 and 33, God told Moses to cut two new tablets like the first. The same words would be written on them again. Those replacement tablets were later placed inside the Ark of the Covenant.
The Hebrew phrase behind the title, Aseret had-Dibberot in Mishnaic Hebrew, can be rendered as the ten words, the ten sayings or the ten matters. In the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the 2nd to 3rd century BC, the phrase became dekalogos, or ten-word. Latin turned that into decalogus, and English took it as Decalogue.
Tyndale and Coverdale chose "ten verses" for their English Bibles. The Geneva Bible used "ten commandments", and the Bishops' Bible and the Authorized Version, better known as the King James Bible, followed it. Most major English versions have kept that wording since. The stone slabs themselves have their own Hebrew names, the tablets of the covenant and the tablets of the testimony.
Hebrew manuscripts older than the seventh century, including the Dead Sea Scrolls, print the passage as one unbroken stream together with its surrounding story. Odd gaps between words in the scroll columns fall in grammatically nonsensical places, so they cannot be markers between commands.
Exodus 20:1-17 and Deuteronomy 5:4-21 hold seventeen verses and far more than ten grammatical sentences. By the tenth century, the Masoretic Text added closed portion breaks, rather like a tab in the middle of a line. These match the divisions Lutherans use today. Some suggest the number ten was chosen to help people memorize the list, not for theological reasons.
The Septuagint set the first of two broad patterns by separating the ban on other gods from the ban on images. Eastern Orthodox Christians generally follow it. Reformed Christians adopted it through Calvin's Institutes of 1536, and so did the Anglican Book of Common Prayer.
The second pattern folds verses 3 to 6 into a single command. The Talmud of about 200 AD does this while counting the prologue, "I am the Lord thy God", as the first saying. Augustine in the 4th century also merged them, dropped the prologue as a command, and split coveting into two. The Catholic Church largely follows Augustine, and its Catechism of 1992 renames the sabbath as the Lord's day. Luther's Large Catechism of 1529 follows Augustine too. It tucks the ban on images under the sovereignty of God in the First Commandment.
The Samaritan Pentateuch, dated to about 120 BC, goes its own way. Samaritans count as nine what others count as ten, and their tenth commandment concerns the sanctity of Mount Gerizim. It tells Israel to set up large stones coated with lime and inscribe the law on them. It also calls for an altar of uncut stone, using no iron, for burnt offerings and peace offerings. The mountain lies near Elon Moreh, facing Shechem.
James Strang, founder of the Strangite splinter of the Latter-day Saint movement, made a related claim. He wrote a "Note on the Decalogue" in the Book of the Law of the Lord. In it he insisted that no other version holds more than nine commandments. His missing fourth is "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself". He speculated that it dropped out of other texts perhaps as early as the time of Josephus, around 37-100 AD.
Philo, in his four-book work The Special Laws, treated the Ten Commandments as headings under which he sorted other biblical rules. Jewish tradition broadly agrees with him. It sees the Ten Commandments as the basis of Rabbinic law. They are the theological root of the other 613 commandments, which include dietary rules and the rituals of priests in the Temple. Rabbi Saadia Gaon also grouped other commandments under the Ten.
Conservative Rabbi Louis Ginzberg saw the ten as tightly entwined, so that breaking one leads to breaking another. Echoing an older comment by Rashi, he paired the first five with the last five. Murder destroys the image of God, so it matches the first commandment. Adultery is faithlessness like idolatry, and stealing leads to false oaths in God's name. False witness against a neighbor resembles false witness that God did not create the world in six days. Coveting another's wife produces children who may take a stranger for their father.
Traditional Rabbinic belief holds that these commandments bind only the Jewish people. Humanity in general is addressed by the seven Noahide laws, a concept found nowhere in the Tanakh. In the era of the Sanhedrin, breaking six of the ten theoretically carried the death penalty. The exceptions were the First Commandment, honouring parents, misusing God's name, and coveting. In practice executions were rare, because the oral law set stringent evidentiary requirements.
Rabbi Hanina ben Gamaliel held that each stone tablet carried five commandments. The Sages said ten on each, so the tablets were duplicates, much as ancient Near Eastern treaties were copied for each party. The Talmud adds a miracle. One reading says the carving ran through the full thickness of the stone yet could be read from both sides.
The Mishna records that during the Second Temple period the commandments were recited daily before the Shema Yisrael. The Nash Papyrus is a Hebrew fragment from 150 to 100 BC, found in Egypt. It pairs a version of the Ten Commandments with the opening of the Shema. The synagogues abolished the practice so as not to arm heretics who claimed these were the only important laws. It also countered early Christians who said only the Ten Commandments were handed down at Sinai.
Later rabbis kept them out of daily prayer for the same reason. They feared Jews might think they were bound by nothing else, such as holy days other than the sabbath. Some authorities still recommend private reading, and some prayerbooks include the text for that purpose.
Today the commandments are heard in synagogue three times a year. The Exodus version is read in parashat Yitro around late January to February and again on Shavuot. The Deuteronomy version is read in parashat Va'etchanan in August to September. In some communities worshippers stand for the reading. Maimonides and many other rabbis opposed the custom, fearing people would rank these above the rest of the mitzvot.
Printed and handwritten Chumashim carry two sets of cantillation marks for this passage. The upper accentuation, ta'am 'elyon, makes each commandment a separate verse and is used for public reading. The lower, ta'am tachton, breaks the text into verses of more even length for private study. Torah verse numbering follows the lower marks.
The Apostolic Constitutions urge believers to "always remember the ten commands of God", a sign of how central the Decalogue was in the early Church. Through most of Christian history it served as a summary of God's law and a standard of conduct. Texts within the New Testament confirm a traditional Septuagint order of adultery, murder and theft, where the Masoretic order runs murder, adultery, theft.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus referred directly to the bans on murder and adultery. Asked by a man what good thing he must do for eternal life, Jesus told him to keep the commandments. He listed murder, adultery, stealing, false witness and honour for father and mother. Then he added the command to love one's neighbour as oneself. Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans, named five of the commandments and tied them to neighbourly love. He wrote that "love is the fulfilling of the law."
Denominations then built different structures on that base. The Articles of the Church of England, revised at Westminster in 1643, say no Christian is free from obeying the commandments called moral. Catholics hold that Jesus freed Christians from the rest of Jewish law but not from the Ten Commandments. The Catechism calls them essential to spiritual health and the basis of social justice. Lutherans split the Mosaic law into moral, civil and ceremonial parts. They say only the moral part remains in force.
Methodism's founder John Wesley taught that the moral law was instituted from the beginning of the world and is written on every human heart. In Eastern Orthodox practice, confession begins with the priest reciting the Ten Commandments and asking the penitent which he has broken. Pentecostals note that the Feast of Pentecost, fifty days after Passover, commemorates the giving of the law. They say that apart from the Ten Commandments they are not bound by the 613.
Others lean harder on the difference between old and new. The Heidelberg Catechism describes a third use of the law, as instruction for grateful Christian living, and John Calvin deemed that use the primary one. The Westminster Confession says the moral law binds the justified and others forever. Baptists see Sinai as a works covenant fulfilled by Christ. Dispensationalists, among them the Plymouth Brethren and certain Independent Baptists, teach that the Law of Moses, Ten Commandments included, no longer applies.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints says Jesus completed the Mosaic law and counts the commandments as eternal principles. Its Book of Mosiah tells of Abinadi, who taught them in the court of King Noah and was martyred. He knew them from the brass plates. In October 2011 the Church president Thomas S. Monson stressed that they are commandments and "not suggestions".
The Quran tells the story of Moses and the tablets in Surah A'raf, verses 142 to 145. Verse 150 has Moses throw the tablets down in anger when he sees the Israelites worshipping the golden calf. In verse 154 he takes them up again once his anger has eased. The text describes their inscription as guidance and mercy for those who fear their Lord.
Three verses of Surah An'am, 6:151-153, are widely read as a restatement or revised version of the commandments. They forbid joining anything with God in worship and killing children out of poverty. They order kindness to parents, honest weights and truthful testimony, even against a relative. They also protect an orphan's property, require keeping God's covenant, and call this the Straight Path. The verse that follows them mentions God giving Moses the Book, which supports the link.
Early authorities attached weight to the passage. Ibn Abbas called these verses clear and said they belong to the Mother of the Book. Ubada ibn as-Samit reported that the Prophet recited them while asking for a pledge to do three things. Abdullah ibn Mas'ud, as Ibn Kathir records, said anyone who wished to read the Messenger's will and testament, sealed by him, should read these verses. The sabbath commandment, though, does not appear in the Quran's version.
Saturday, reckoned from dusk to dusk, is the Jewish Sabbath. Christians usually keep Sunday, sometimes Saturday, and some keep no Sabbath at all. Sunday observance, tied to the day of resurrection, gradually became dominant from the Jewish-Roman wars onward. The 4th-century Council of Laodicea shows the Church distancing itself from Jewish practice. Its Canon 29 says Christians must work on the Jewish Sabbath and honour the Lord's Day. It calls those who judaize anathema from Christ.
The Hebrew words lo tirtzach appear in English as both "thou shalt not kill" and "thou shalt not murder". They sit in the fifth or sixth commandment, depending on the count. The imperative targets unlawful killing that brings bloodguilt. The Hebrew Bible treats warfare, capital punishment and defence against a home invasion as justified. The New Testament agrees that murder is a grave moral evil.
In 1953 the German Old Testament scholar Albrecht Alt published Das Verbot des Diebstahls im Dekalog. He argued that "thou shalt not steal" originally forbade stealing people, meaning abduction and slavery. The Talmud's reading at Sanhedrin 86a, "thou shalt not kidnap", is similar. His claim is somewhat questionable, because the Decalogue verse forbids theft in general. The Sanhedrin discussion rests on Deuteronomy 24:7, which explicitly covers stealing a person to sell.
Judaism forbids making or worshipping an idol or a representation of God but places no restriction on art unrelated to God. Islam goes further, banning images of God and in some cases of Muhammad, of humans, and in some readings of any living creature. Eastern Orthodoxy still bars images of God the Father but allows depictions of Jesus. It prefers flat icons to statues.
The non-canonical Gospel of Barnabas puts a sweeping claim in the mouth of Jesus, that idolatry is the greatest sin. It extends the idea to whatever a man loves so much that he leaves everything else for it. The glutton, the fornicator and the greedy all have idols in this reading. The book is known only from 16th- and 17th-century manuscripts and often reflects Islamic rather than Christian ideas.
Adultery meant something narrower in ancient Israel. The commandment barred male Israelites from sexual intercourse with another Israelite's wife, and it did not extend to their own slaves. Intercourse between a man and a woman who was neither married nor betrothed did not count. The concept grew from a society that was not strictly monogamous. A husband held exclusive rights over his wife, but she held none over him.
In 1883 Julius Wellhausen's documentary hypothesis proposed that Exodus 20-23 and 34 could be regarded as the document from which Israel's religious history started. On this view, Deuteronomy 5 reflects King Josiah's attempt to link a document produced by his court to the older Mosaic tradition. Bernard Levinson has argued that Goethe originated the idea of Exodus 34:11-26 as an ancient legal source. Goethe cast the Jew as the particularistic "other" against a universal German Protestant self.
John Bright drew a line between the Decalogue and the "book of the covenant" in Exodus 21-23 and 34:10-24. In his view the Decalogue was modelled on Hittite suzerainty treaties. Such a treaty opened by recalling the king's kindnesses, as Exodus 20:2 recalls the exodus from Egypt. It then barred vassals from ties with outsiders, as the ban on other gods does. Read as a treaty rather than a law code, its purpose is to define the king's power.
The book of the covenant, Bright noted, resembles Mesopotamian law codes such as the Code of Hammurabi, which was inscribed on a stone stele. He thought it described judicial procedure in the days of the Judges, and so it too predates the monarchy. Julius Morgenstern instead tied Exodus 34 to King Asa's reforms in 899 BC. For Kaufmann, the Decalogue and the book of the covenant were two ways of showing God's presence. One took the form of stone tablets, the other of spoken word.
Exodus 34:28 names a different list, verses 11 to 27, as the Ten Commandments. It says nothing about murder, adultery or theft and concerns proper worship of Yahweh. Some scholars therefore call it the Ritual Decalogue and call the familiar list the Ethical Decalogue. Richard Elliott Friedman thinks Exodus 20:1-17 belongs to none of the major sources. He sees an independent document inserted by the Redactor, who added the explanation that the Exodus 34 tablets replace shattered ones. He suggests the differences between the J and E accounts stem from priestly power struggles.
Scholars have proposed three main datings: early Mosaic authorship, a pre-exilic monarchic origin, or a postexilic composition. Michael Coogan argues that the versions differ so much that the text was not fixed in ancient Israel. Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman place the composition in the seventh century BC. David H. Aaron argues for a date after 586 BC and calls the text a literary afterthought in Israelite ethnic self-definition. Timothy S. Hogue points to the northern kingdom in the 9th-8th centuries BC. He cites Luwian parallels and the masseboth later destroyed by Hezekiah and Josiah.
Thomas Römer argued in 2015 that "clearly… the tablets of the law are a substitute for something else." In his view the original Ark held a cult image of Yhwh, brought into the Jerusalem temple under Josiah. He imagines either two betyles, meaning sacred stones, or two cult statues symbolizing Yhwh and his female companion Ashera. A lone statue of Yhwh is his other option.
In 1846, impoverished serfs in Austrian Galicia rose against the Polish nobles, the szlachta, whose oppression included manorial prisons. A popular rumor said the Austrian Emperor had abolished the Ten Commandments. The peasants took this as religious permission to massacre their lords. The uprising is credited with helping end serfdom with corvée labor in Galicia in 1848.
Christopher Hitchens attacked the commandments for failing to forbid rape, child abuse, slavery or genocide. He called the God of the Bible "a Bronze Age demagogue" and read the list as the product of a nomadic tribe. He objected to punishing children for their ancestors' failings. Of the tenth commandment he asked, "Create them sick, and then command them to be well?" The Jesuit priest Richard J. Clifford notes that the tenth commandment treats owning slaves as normal. Some scholars also point to capital punishment for blasphemy, cursing parents and Sabbath-breaking.
After the Reformation, European Protestants replaced some church art with plaques of the commandments. In England these "Decalogue boards" also stood for the monarch's emphasis on royal law. In Washington, Moses with the tablets appears on the pediment friezes of the Supreme Court building. Solomon, Confucius and Muhammad holding the Quran appear beside him.
In the 1950s and 1960s the Fraternal Order of Eagles placed possibly thousands of displays in courthouses and schoolrooms. Because numbering can signal a sectarian position, the Eagles produced a version without numbers, as on the monument at the Texas capitol. Director Cecil B. DeMille added hundreds of monuments as a publicity stunt for his 1956 film The Ten Commandments. The commandments have also inspired the Polish series Dekalog and the American comedy The Ten. Mel Brooks parodied them in a scene of History of the World Part I.
By the early 2000s these monuments had become a legal battleground. The ACLU and Americans United for Separation of Church and State sued over displays in public buildings. They were supported by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the American Jewish Congress. In 1980, in Stone v. Graham, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Kentucky law requiring a copy in every public classroom. The law lacked a nonreligious legislative purpose.
Texas Republican Phil King introduced SB 1515 in 2023 to require a display in every public school classroom. It lapsed in the House but passed in 2025 as Senate Bill 10. A federal judge blocked it in November 2025. On the 21st of April 2026 the Fifth Circuit reversed that injunction, ruling that the law does not violate the Constitution.
Louisiana's Governor Jeff Landry signed House Bill 71 on the 19th of June 2024, saying the commandments are "not solely religious" but historically significant. The mandated text includes the phrase "Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven images". That wording traces to the Eagles-DeMille campaign, not a traditional Bible. On the 12th of November 2024, Judge John W. deGravelles called the law "unconstitutional on its face" in Roake v. Brumley. Three days later the Fifth Circuit stayed that ruling for all but five parishes.
In June 2025 a three-judge Fifth Circuit panel affirmed that the law is unconstitutional. On the 20th of February 2026 the full court voted 12-6 to lift the injunction as premature. Judge James Ho wrote that the statute "is not just constitutional" but affirms the nation's noblest traditions. Judge James L. Dennis wrote that it is precisely the establishment the Framers sought to prevent.
Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed her state's version on the 14th of April 2025. By August 2025 a federal court in the Western District of Arkansas had ruled it unconstitutional under Stone v. Graham, the same 1980 decision. The court granted the parents a preliminary injunction.
Updated
Common questions
What are the Ten Commandments and where do they appear?
The Ten Commandments, also called the Decalogue, are religious and ethical directives that the Hebrew Bible says God gave to Moses at Mount Sinai. The text appears in three markedly different versions: in Exodus, in Deuteronomy, and in the Ritual Decalogue of Exodus.
Why do religions number the Ten Commandments differently?
Exodus 20:1-17 and Deuteronomy 5:4-21 contain seventeen verses and far more than ten grammatical sentences, so each tradition divides them in its own way. The Septuagint, Augustine, the Talmud, Luther and the Samaritan Pentateuch all draw the lines differently.
What happened to the first tablets of the Ten Commandments?
Moses broke the first tablets at the foot of Mount Sinai after seeing the Israelites worship a golden calf. God then told him to cut two new tablets, which were later placed in the Ark of the Covenant.
When were the Ten Commandments written according to scholars?
Scholars propose three main datings: early Mosaic authorship, a pre-exilic monarchic origin, or a postexilic composition. Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman favor the seventh century BC, while David H. Aaron argues for a date after 586 BC.
How does the Quran treat the Ten Commandments?
The Quran describes Moses receiving the tablets in Surah A'raf, verses 142 to 145. Surah An'am, verses 151-153, is widely read as a restatement of the commandments, and the Quran's version does not include the sabbath commandment.
Why are the Ten Commandments disputed in United States courts?
The Ten Commandments are disputed because laws in Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas require classroom displays, and challengers argue this violates the separation of church and state. In 1980, Stone v. Graham struck down a similar Kentucky law because it lacked a nonreligious legislative purpose.
All sources
180 references cited across the entry
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- 3Deuteronomy 10:4 – multiple versions and languagesStudybible.info
- 4BookThe Ten Commandments: Ethics for the Twenty-First CenturyMark Rooker — B&H Publishing Group — 2010
- 5Exodus 34:28 – multiple versions and languagesStudybible.info
- 6Holy Bible: English Standard VersionCrossway Bibles — Crossway — 28 December 2011
- 7Somer, Benjamin D. Revelation and Authority: Sinai in Jewish Scripture and Tradition (The Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library). pp = 40.
- 9Mechon Mamre, (The closed portion breaks are marked with " {} ".)
- 10BookThe Ten Commandments and the BeatitudesYiu Sing Lúcás Chan — Rowman & Littlefield — 2012
- 11I am the your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
- 12You shall have no other gods before me.
- 13You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to
- 14You shall not take the name of the your God in vain, for the will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.
- 15Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your
- 16Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the your God. On it you shall not do any wor
- 17Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the your God is giving you.
- 18Honor your father and your mother, as the your God commanded you, that your days may be long, and that it may go well with you in the land that the your God is giving you.
- 19You shall not murder.
- 20You shall not commit adultery.
- 21And you shall not commit adultery.
- 22You shall not steal.
- 23And you shall not steal.
- 24You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
- 25And you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
- 26You shall not covet your neighbor's house
- 27And you shall not desire your neighbor's house, his field,
- 28You shall not covet your neighbor's wife …
- 29And you shall not covet your neighbor's wife.
- 30… or his male slave, or his female slave, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's.
- 31… or his male slave, or his female slave, his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's.
- 32And when you have passed over the Yardan Jordan, you shall set up these stones, which I command you today, on Mount Ārgarizem Gerizim.
- 33BookThe Samaritan Pentateuch: An English Translation with a Parallel Annotated Hebrew TextMoshe Florentin et al. — University of Cambridge & OpenBook Publishers — 2024
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- 49Talmud Makkos 1:10
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- 52Babylonian Talmud, tractate Shabbat 104a.
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- 86God's Law in Old and New CovenantsOrthodox Presbyterian Church — 2018
- 90The Savior's Use of the Old TestamentThe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
- 91Mosiah 12:34–36churchofjesuschrist.org
- 94Ten CommandmentsThe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
- 95AbinadiMacmillan — 1992
- 97Stand in Holy Places – Thomas S. MonsonChurchofJesusChrist.org
- 98No Other Gods – Dallin H. OaksChurchofJesusChrist.org
- 99Book of the Law of the Lord, pp. 24–25. This commandment is number four in Strang's version of the Decalogue.
- 100Book of the Law of the Lord, pp. 38–46.
- 102Qasas ul Anbiya (Stories of the Prophets) Ibn Kathir
- 103The Noble Quran, trans. Muhsin Khan; Taqi-ud-Din Hilali. Verse 7:145
- 104The Noble Quran, trans. Muhsin Khan; Taqi-ud-Din Hilali. Verse 7:154
- 106BookThe Infographic Guide to the Bible: The Old Testament: A Visual Reference for Everything You Need to KnowHillary Thompson et al. — Simon and Schuster — 7 November 2017
- 107BookThe Quranic Ten Commandments: This Is My Straight Path Al An'am (6:153)Hussein M. Naguib — 2014
- 108The numbering of the verses is given in bold while the numbering of the Commandments is in superscript.
- 109The Noble Quran, trans. Muhsin Khan; Taqi-ud-Din Hilali. Verses 6:151–153
- 110The Noble Quran, trans. Muhsin Khan; Taqi-ud-Din Hilali. Verse 6:154
- 116Matthew 5:21, Matthew 15:19, Matthew 19:19, Matthew 22:7, Mark 10:19, Luke 18:20, Romans 13:9, 1 Timothy 1:9, James 2:11, Revelation 21:8
- 117Matthew 23:30–35, Matthew 27:4, Luke 11:50–51, Romans 3:15, Revelation 6:10, Revelation 18:24
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- 130The Oldest Document of the HexateuchJulius Morgenstern — HUAC — 1927
- 131Bright, John, 2000, A History of Israel 4th ed. p. 173.
- 133Yehezkal Kaufmann 1960 The Religion of Israel: From its beginnings to the Babylonian Exile trans. and Abridged by Moshe Greenberg. New York: Schocken Books, pp. 174–175.
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- 143Commentary on the Torah. Richard Elliott Friedman, 2003
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- 145Friedman, p. 177
- 146Friedman, Richard Elliott. "Who Wrote The Bible?" 1987 pp. 73–74
- 147MagazineThe New CommandmentsChristopher Hitchens — 2010-03-04
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- 149Dump the Ten Commandments.Christopher Hitchens — 27 August 2003
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- 152BookKnowing God Through the Old Testament: Three Volumes in OneChristopher J.H. Wright — InterVarsity Press — 2019
- 153BookDictionary of Scripture and EthicsChristopher Marshall — Baker Publishing Group — 2011
- 154BookWhat's On God's Sin List for Today?Tom Hobson — Wipf and Stock Publishers — 2011
- 155BookEveryday Law in Biblical Israel: An IntroductionRaymond Westbrook et al. — Presbyterian Publishing Corporation — 2009
- 156BookThe Decline and Fall of the Habsburg Empire, 1815-1918Alan Sked — Routledge — 1989
- 157BookLiterary and Cultural Images of a Nation Without a State: The Case of Nineteenth-Century PolandPeter Lang — 2008
- 158BookMusical Constructions of Nationalism: Essays on the History and Ideology of European Musical Culture, 1800-1945Harry White et al. — Cork University Press — 2001
- 159BookAustrian PolandG. W. Prothero — H.M. Stationery Office, London, via World Digital Library — 1920
- 162Emmet V. Mittlebeeler, (2003) "Ten Commandments." P. 434 in The Encyclopedia of American Religion and Politics. Edited by P. A. Djupe and L. R. Olson. New York: Facts on File.
- 163MPR: The Ten Commandments: Religious or historical symbol?News.minnesota.publicradio.org — 10 September 2001
- 166STONE v. GRAHAM, 449 U.S. 39 (1980)November 17, 1980
- 167NewsPublic schools would have to display Ten Commandments under bill passed by Texas SenateBrian Lopez — 20 April 2023
- 169Bill to Force Texas Public Schools to Display Ten Commandments FailsJ. David Goodman — May 24, 2023
- 171NewsCivil liberties organizations sue Texas over law requiring Ten Commandments display in public schoolsAndrew Schneider — July 2, 2025
- 172Texas judge temporarily blocks law requiring ten commandments in schoolsMichelle Watson — 2025-11-19
- 173News5th Circuit allows Texas to require Ten Commandments in classroomsLaura Meckler — 2026-04-21
- 174Texas can force schools to post Ten Commandments, federal appeals court rulesJaden Edison — 2026-04-21
- 175NewsACLU Takes Texas Ten Commandments Fight To Supreme CourtAugust 19, 2026
- 177HB71 SCHOOLS: Requires the display of the Ten Commandments in schoolsDodie Horton — 2024
- 178NewsLouisiana's public classrooms now have to display the Ten CommandmentsSara Cline — Associated Press — 2024-06-20
- 179NewsLouisiana Will Post The Twelve Commandments In SchoolsFred Clark — 20 May 2024
- 180Federal judge blocks Louisiana law that requires classrooms to display Ten CommandmentsSara Cline et al. — 2024-11-12
- 181NewsCourt temporarily limits scope of ruling that Louisiana's Ten Commandments law is unconstitutionalKevin McGill — The Associated Press — 15 November 2024
- 184NewsLouisiana schools can display Ten Commandments, appeals court rulesLucy Campbell — Scott Trust Limited — 21 February 2026
- 186NewsArkansas Parents Sway Judge to Pause Ten Commandments Law (1)Sam Skolnik et al. — August 5, 2025
- 187Federal judge stops enforcement of Arkansas Ten Commandments lawChristina Grube — August 5, 2025