TEN COMMANDMENTS

as one, and the Tenth as two, is that of the Massoretic Hebrew text both in Ex. and Dt., and was that of the whole Western Church from the time of St. Augustine to the Reformation, and is still that of the Roman and Lutheran Churches. Moreover, it may seem to have some support from the Deuteronomic version of the Tenth Commandment. Our present arrangement, however, is that of the early Jewish and early Christian Churches, and seems on the whole more probable in itself. A wife, being regarded as a chattel, would naturally come under the general prohibition against coveting a neigh-bour's goods. If, as already suggested, the original form of the commandment was a single clause, it would have run, 'Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house' (see 8 (X.)).

4. The contents o£ each table. — If, as suggested, the original commandments were single clauses, it is most natural to suppose that they were evenly divided be-tween the two tables — five in each. This view is adopted without hesitation by Philo, and it is not contradicted by our Lord's division of the Law into the love of God and the love of one's neighbour. It would be difficult to class parents in the category of neighbour, whereas the reverence due to them was by the ancients regarded as a specially sacred obligation, and was included, by both Greeks and Romans at any rate, under the notion of piety.

5. Order of the Decalo^e. — The Hebrew texts of Ex 20 and Dt S agree in the order — murder, adultery, theh — as the subjects of the 6th, 7th, and_8th Com-mandments. The LXX (best MSS) in Ex. have the order — adultery, theft, murder; in Dt. — adultery, murder, theft. This last is borne out by Ro 13» and by Philo, and may possibly have been original.

6. Mosaic origin of the Decalogue. — The chief diffi-culty arises out of the Second Commandment. There can be little doubt that from primitive times the Israelites were monolatrous, worshipping J" as their national God. But it is argued that this does not appear to have prevented them from recognizing to some extent inferior divine beings, such as those repre-sented by teraphim, or even from representing their God under visible symbols. Thus in Jg l?^ we find Micah making an image of Jahweh, without any disapproval by the writer. David himself had teraphim in his house (IS 19"-"); Isaiah speaks of a pillar as a natural and suitable symbol of worship (Is 19") ; Hosea classes pillar, ephod, and teraphim with sacrifices as means of worship, of which Israel would be deprived for a while as a punishment (Hos 3^). The frequent condemnation of asheroth (sacred tree-images, AV 'groves') suggests that they too were common features of Semitic worship, and not confined to the worship of heathen gods. But it may reasonably be doubted whether these religious symbols were always regarded as themselves objects of worship, though tending to become so. Again, it may well have been the case that under the deteriorating influences of surrounding Semitic worship, the people, without generally worshipping heathen gods, tailed to reach the high ideal of their traditional religion and worship. We may fairly say, then, that the Decalogue in its earliest form, if not actually Mosaic, represents in all probability the earliest religious tradition of Israel.

7. Objectofthe Decalogue.— LookingfromaChristian point of view, we are apt to regard the Decalogue as at any rate an incomplete code of religion and morality. More probably the ' ten words ' should be regarded as a few easily remembered rules necessary for a half- civilized agricultural people, who owed allegiance to a national God, and were required to live at peace with each other. They stand evidently in close relation to the Book of the Covenant (Ex 21-23), of which they may be regarded as either a summary or the kernel. With one exception (the Fifth, see below, 8 (v.)) they are, like most rules given to children, of a negative character — 'thou shalt not,' etc.

TENT

8. Interpretation of the Decalogue. — There are a few obscure phrases, or other matters which call for comment.

(i.) 'before me* may mean either 'in my presence,' con-demning the eclectic woiship of many gods, or 'in preference to me.' Neither interpretation would necessarily exclude the belief that other gods were suitable objects of worship for other peoples (cf. Jg 11").

(ii.) 'the water under the earth.' The Israelites conceived of the sea as extending under the whole land (hence the springs). This, beingin their view the larger part, might be used to express the whole. Fish and other marine animals are, of course, intended.

'unto thousands,' better 'a thousand generations,' as in RVm. 'The punishment by God of children for the faults of parents was felt to be a moral difficulty, and was denied by Ezekiel (ch. 18). Similar action by judicial authorities was forbidden by Deut. (24"; cf . 2 K \f). But the words show that if evil actions influence for evil the descendants of the evil-doer either by heredity or by imitation,the influence of good actions for good is far more potent.

(iii.) "Thou ... in vain,' i.e. 'for falsehood.' This may mean 'Thou shalt not perjure thyself' or 'Thou shalt not swear and then not keep thy oath.' The latter seems to be the current Jewish interpretation (see Mt 6^). Philo takes it in both senses.

(iv.) 'within thy gates,' i.e. 'thy cities' (see 2).

'for in six days,' etc. We find in OT three distinct reasons for the observance of the Sabbath. (1) The oldest is that of the Book of the Covenant in Ex 23^^^ ' that thine ox and thine ass may have rest, and the son of thine handmaid and the stranger may be refreshed.' In Ex 20 and Dt 5 the rest of the domestic animals and servants appeare as part of the inj unction itself. (2)InDt5 there is added as a second-ary purpose, 'that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou'; whereas the chief purpose of the observance is as a commemoration of the Exodus. (3) Ex 20, revised after the Exile at or after the time that the Priestly Code was published, bases the observance on the Sabbatical rest of God after the Creation (Gn 2^-3 P).

(v.) ' Honour thy Father,' etc. It is not improbable that this coramandment has been modified in form, and was origi-nally negative like all the rest, and referred hke them to a prohibited action rather than to a correct feeling, as, very

{)0S3ibly, ' Thou shalt not smite,' etc. (cf . Ex 21"- ")• At a ater time such an outrage would have been hardly contem-plated, and would naturally have given way to the present commandment. The word 'honour' seems, according to current Jewish teaching (see Lightfoot on Mt 16^), to have specially included feeding and clothing, and Christ assumes rather than inculcates as new this application of the com-mandment. The Rabbinical teachera had encouragedmen in evading a recognized law by their quibbles.

(x.) 'Thou shalt not . . . house.*- Deut. transposes the firat two clauses, and reads ' desire' with wife. The teaching of Ex 20 is, beyond question, relatively the earliest. The wife was originally regarded as one of the chattels, though undoubtedly the most important chattel, of the house, or general estab-lishment.

On the Decalogue in the NT see art. Law (in nt).

F. H. Woods.

TENT. — Apart from the traditions of the patriarchs as 'quiet' men, 'dwelling in tents* (Gn 25" RVm), the settled Hebrews preserved a reminder of their nomad ancestry in such phrases as 'going to one's tent' for to 'go home' (Jg 19'), and in the recurring call, 'to thy tents (i.e. to your homes), O Israel' (1 K 12" etc.). For an interesting case of adherence to the 'nomadic ideal' on religious grounds, see Reohabites.

The Hebrew tent, even in later days, cannot have differed much from the simple Bedouin tent of to-day, made by sewing together strips of the native goats' hair cloth (cf. Ca 1' ' I am black as the tents of Kedar'). These 'curtains' (Jer 42", Ex 26^ and oft.) are held up by poles, generally 9 in number, arranged in three rows of three, and 6-7 ft. high, which are kept in position by ropes — the 'cords' of EV, and the 'tent-cord' of Job 4" RV — attached to 'stakes' or 'tent-pins' driven into the ground by a mallet (Jg 4»). The larger the tent, the longer the cords and the stronger the stakes, according to the figure. Is 54". The tent, then as now, was probably divided into two parts by

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