- Deuteronomy 5 BSB ↗
At a wedding anniversary, a couple sometimes renews their vows. The words are nearly the same as on the first day, but now there are children in the front row, and the promises mean more because of everything that has happened since. Deuteronomy 5 is a renewal like that. Most of the people listening were children, or not yet born, when the Ten Commandments were first given at Horeb. Moses tells them the covenant was not only with their parents — it was with them, standing here, alive today. Then he speaks the ten words again, with a few changes that show what forty years have taught.
Where it sits in the story: The Ten Commandments sit at the centre of the Sinai covenant (Exodus 20) and now stand at the head of Deuteronomy's law, as the summary from which the rest unfolds. Act 3 is being passed from one generation to the next, and this chapter shows how: the covenant is not a museum piece but something each generation receives as its own. Jesus and the apostles will later quote these commandments as still binding in their heart and aim.
What this chapter is doing: To present the Ten Commandments to the new generation as their own covenant, to recall the fear at Horeb that made Moses their go-between, and to set these words as the foundation for everything that follows in the book.
- 5:1–5 — Moses calls Israel to hear. God made a covenant at Horeb 'not with our fathers' only but with us, all who are alive today. God spoke face to face out of the fire, while Moses stood between them because they were afraid.
- 5:6–21 — The ten words, as in Exodus 20, with notable differences. The Sabbath is to be 'kept', and its reason is not creation but memory: you were slaves in Egypt, so your servants too must rest. And in the last command the neighbour's wife is listed first, separately from his house and fields.
- 5:22–27 — These words God spoke with a loud voice and added no more, writing them on two stone tablets. The elders, terrified of the fire, asked Moses to go near and hear the rest, promising to listen and obey.
- 5:28–33 — God approves their request and adds a longing: 'Oh that they had such a heart' to fear me always, so that it might go well with them and their children. Moses stays to receive the commands, and the people are urged to walk in God's way.
- Jewish tradition: the first 'word' is 'I am the LORD your God who brought you out of Egypt'; no other gods and no images together form the second.
- Catholic and Lutheran tradition (following Augustine): no other gods and no images form one commandment; coveting a neighbour's wife and coveting his goods are counted as two — a split that follows Deuteronomy's wording closely.
- Orthodox and Reformed tradition (as in Philo and Josephus): no other gods is the first, no images the second, and coveting is one commandment.
Key verse: Deuteronomy 5:3 · So what: The changed reason for the Sabbath is worth pausing on. Rest is grounded in the memory of slavery, so it must be given to servants, foreigners and even animals — people who could never demand a day off. A faith that remembers being powerless is meant to protect the powerless. And God's sigh in verse 29 shows that the law is about hearts, not just rules.