1. We may confidently believe that in the Decalogue we have an original monument of Mosaism. It is indisputable that the Ten Words are an index to the character of Moses' work in so far as they place morality in the forefront of Israel's religion, and form a commentary on the meaning of the “holiness” ascribed to the God of redemption. We seem to be justified in adhering to the traditional view of the Decalogue chiefly on the ground that it is intrinsically credible. It is consistent with all that we know of Israel's subsequent history, and it would be impossible to explain satisfactorily the vitality and vigour displayed in the conquest of Canaan without the supposition that the long observance of some primary laws of moral conduct had moulded the character of the nation and consolidated its strength.
Much as critics have denied, there have been found very few who deny that in the main some such law as this must have been given to Israel in Moses' day. Even Kuenen admits as much as that in his History of the Religion of Israel. The only commandment of the ten he has difficulty in accepting is the second, which forbids the making of any graven image for worship. That, he thinks, cannot have been in the original Decalogue, not because of any peculiarity of language, or because of any incoherency in composition, but simply because he cannot believe that at that early date the religion of Yahweh could have been so spiritual as to demand the prohibition of images.1 [Note: A. Harper, The Book of Deuteronomy, 61.]
2. It is scarcely conceivable that the prophets were the first ethical teachers of Israel. It has been justly pointed out that “the more the pre-prophetic religion is depreciated, the more difficult it will be to account for its sudden rise to the level in which we find it in the earliest writing prophets.” The prophets never claim the position of pioneers in religion; they regard themselves as restorers of a moral and religious ideal which had been set before the nation at the very outset of its history. Their language implies that Mosaism was pre-eminently an ethical religion; that, in fact, it had laid the foundations of Israel's polity in a lofty conception of God, and in the exaltation of righteousness as the essential element in true and acceptable worship. Certainly this view harmonizes with the fact that the Old Testament uniformly ascribes to Moses a prophetic character.
On any reading of the commandments only the third and fourth (two out of ten) refer to matters of mere worship; and even these may more correctly be taken to refer primarily to the moral aspects of the cultus. All the rest deal with fundamental relations to God and man. Consequently the prophets who, after the manner of Amos and Hosea, denounce the prevailing belief that Yahweh's help could be secured for Israel, whatever its moral state, by offerings and sacrifices, were not teaching a new doctrine, first discovered by themselves. They were simply reasserting the fundamental principles of the Mosaic religion. Reverence and righteousness-these from the first were the twin pillars upon which it rested.1 [Note: Andrew Harper, The Book of Deuteronomy, 75.]
The Decalogue is a mirror and brief summary of all virtues, and teaches how we should conduct ourselves towards God and towards man. And no more beautiful, perfect, and shorter book of virtues was ever written.…
The law is a light which enlightens us, not to see God's grace or righteousness, through which we attain to eternal life; but to see sin, our infirmities, death, God's anger, and judgment. The gospel is a far different light. It lights up the troubled heart, makes it live again, comforts and helps. For it shows how God forgives unworthy, condemned sinners for Christ's sake, when they believe that they are redeemed by His death; and that through His victory are given to them all blessings, grace, forgiveness of sins, righteousness, and eternal life.2 [Note: Luther, Table-Talk (ed. Förstemann), ii. 94.]
