Commandment 1

September 1, 2022

No Other Gods “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3 NKJV. Other texts are from theChristian Standard Bible, CSB, unless otherwise noted). The first three commandments of the Decalogue set Israel’s focus on God as the one and only source of national and personal blessings. Israel had just been delivered through the ten plagues in Egypt and the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea. Yet believing in one supreme invisible God was a challenge for some Israelites, even up […]

Commandment 2

September 1, 2022

No Graven Image “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, nor any likeness of any thing that isin heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth”(Exodus 20:4). By Micah Hess The second commandment builds upon the principle in the first commandment, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” The ban on crafting graven images includes not only the things in the earth, but also extends upward to the heavens, […]

Commandment 3

September 1, 2022

Respect the Name of God “Thou shalt not take the name of Jehovah thy God in vain” (Exodus 20:7 RVIC). The word “vain,” as used in Exodus 20:7 (S7723), is translated from the Hebrew word shav. It means desolating; (destructive) evil. In that sense, ruin. Its root is from the word show (S7722), meaning, by implication, devastation. After examining the meaning of the Hebrew, God’s command impresses upon the hearer that His name is holy. Though no one is capable of committing […]

Commandment 4

September 1, 2022

The Holy Sabbath “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8). By Tom Ruggirello The remainder of commandment four reads as follows. “Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is a sabbath unto Jehovah thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days Jehovah made […]

News and Views

September 1, 2022

Religious Moscow’s chief rabbi, Pinchas Goldschmidt, is “in exile” after resisting Kremlin pressure to support the war in Ukraine, his daughter-in-law has said. Goldschmidt, who also heads the Conference of European Rabbis, left Russia just weeks after it launched its invasion of Ukraine, saying he had to take care of his ailing father in Jerusalem. But his daughter-in-law revealed that Goldschmidt and his wife had also been put under official pressure to support the war and now considered themselves to be in […]