A Better Understanding of The Ten Commandments

I promise these will become more frequent once I'm out of classes for the semester and have a ton more time to work with on things!

As I've mentioned previously, during our last half of class in Hebrew this semester, we've been studying the 5th Chapter of the book of Deuteronomy in the Old Testament. Those of you that are unfamiliar with this Chapter, it is essentially a reiteration of the 20th Chapter of Exodus by Moses to the children of Israel. We're studying this because there are slight variations with it, enough that our understanding (and some of us - memorization) of Exodus 20 does not corrupt or influence our translations too much.

In any case, as we've been translating only two verses a class period, we've come to a much greater understanding of the true meanings of some of these scriptures. There are some key points that I'd like to bring up from what I've learned that I think others may find insightful.

1. Credit the King James translators for their accuracy in translation. They are pretty dang good with most of their translations...but at the same time there are a few spots that they gave themselves a much greater latitude than perhaps they should have. One of these spots is in Deuteronomy 5:11 - which is the commandment that "thou shalt not take the name of the Lord, thy God, in vain..."

...The only problem is that in the original Hebrew manuscript, the term "take" is not used...or even really implied. In fact, the Hebrew word that is used in the manuscript at that spot is "תִשּׂא" which is actually the Hebrew verb form of the word "to bear" or even "to hold" but the Hebrew term for the word "to take" is completely different. When you consider this, you gain a new insight into this scripture - because it then reads "Thou shalt not bear the name of the Lord, they God, in vain..."

What does this mean to us? It means that for those that go on their missions and mess around - they are breaking this commandment. Those that go out drinking on a Saturday night and carousing and then show up to bless the Sacrament - they are breaking the commandment. Basically every time we do something in the name of the Lord and we represent it inappropriately, we are in violation of this commandment.

2. If you take the Ten Commandments and put them in terms of "God" then you will come to a greater understanding of not only the commandments themselves, but the progression of the commandments themselves.

In summary, the Ten Commandments are as follows:

- No other Gods before God
- No graven images
- No bearing the name of God in vain
- Keep the Sabbath Day holy
- Honor parents
- Do not kill
- Do not commit adultery
- Do not steal
- No false witnesses
- No coveting neighbors house, family, possessions, etc.

Now - place this in terms of God and you come to an even greater understanding of this:

- God above everything
- Nothing coming before God or misrepresenting HIS image
- Take not upon yourself the image of God inappropriately
- Keep the day of God in proper perspective and do not desecrate His day
- Honor those that are put in proxy of God on earth
- Do not destroy the living creations of God
- Do not destroy the family unit of God
- Do not take for yourself the blessings of God which are not yours
- Do not cause another creature of God to be portrayed in a false / bad light
- Do not even THINK about harming another creature of God or inappropriately acquiring their blessings.

When you look at it that way, I think it offers a great deal more insight into these commandments. I'll explain how this fits into Latter-Day theology in my next post!