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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Exodus 20:12 - 20:17
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The Commandments Concerning the Love of One's Neighbor
v. 12. Honor thy father and thy mother, they are to be given the reverence due to them as the representatives of God, with heart, mouth, and hand, in thought, word, and deed. In the home, in the family, is the foundation of all social life, all governments really being dependent upon the relation of parents and children, the existence and the welfare of the nations depending upon the moral stability given them by the home in its proper form, as the promise indicates; that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord, thy God, giveth thee. It is the first commandment with promise, as St. Paul writes Eph_6:2-3, where he changes the text to apply to all men, and not only to the Jewish nation.
v. 13. Thou shalt not kill, the duty of preserving the life which God has given to man being enjoined here in all its branches and manifestations.
v. 14. Thou shalt not commit adultery, the word here used including not only the unfaithfulness of men and women within holy marriage, but every form of impurity directed against the holiness of God's institution of wedlock. Not only is every thought, word, and deed that is sanctioned and commanded within the confines of marriage forbidden outside of these bounds, but also every form of obscenity and every kind of familiarity which is connected with the sexual development of man.
v. 15. Thou shalt not steal, the Lord here protecting the property of one's neighbor, as the condition of the dignity and peacefulness of life, not only against robbery and theft, but also against unfaithfulness, neglect, and waste.
v. 16. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor, the object being to protect truth, not only in all public, civil relations, but also in the home, the malice of evil tongues being well known.
v. 17. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's. Here the thoughts of the entire second table are once more summarized with reference to the source of sin; for it is out of the heart that the evil thoughts proceed which are afterward realized in various actual sins, Mat_15:19. So the admirable and fitting order of the commandments, as Luther cans it, is brought to an end and the circle of injunctions completed; for it is only by the sanctification of the heart according to the Tenth Commandment that the true worship of God according to the First Commandment can be secured. It should be noted here that both the division of the Decalogue as such and the distinction between the Ninth and the Tenth Commandment are matters of no material consequence.