The Ten Commandments as a Wedding Gift

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If any one loves the world, love for the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world passes away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides for ever.

1 John 2:15-17

Perspective is important.

A perspective from which catechesis could be taught is that of God as our loving Father. The Ten Commandments, for example, are clearly moral proscriptions against specific thoughts, actions, mindsets, and understandings. Applicable to everyone everywhere and at all times, the Ten Commandments are the foundation of the Moral Law. Besides, you don't get much more direct and, arguably, negative than, "Thou shalt not..." And this is exactly how they are taught, too. So negative do catechists deem the Commandments' formulations, many attempt positive "Thou shalt" formulations. Each of my sons was subjected to this exercise in the first or second grade.

This is wholly unnecessary, if the story of the Ten Commandments is understood as both a marriage feast and the birth of a child. Let's present the Ten Commandments, then, from the perspective of God as a loving Bridegroom and Father rather than as a joy-killing ogre.

Catechists should be aware, if not out right familiar with the story of Exodus as told in the Bible. Yes, Disney adds some great music, but we're going to stick with the actual story. As we all know, Pharaoh made Joseph his prime minister and gave him authority over all of Egypt, when Joseph was thirty years old. The famine of which Joseph had warned Pharaoh came seven years later, as did Joseph's family and the Hebrews looking to escape the famine in their land. After the generation which had first entered Egypt had died, "there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph" (Exodus 1:8). That it was a new king signifies, that a new dynasty had assumed power in Egypt. That the new king did not know Joseph signifies, that he did not consider himself bound to to any of the agreements, pacts, or treaties the previous dynasty had made with the Hebrews. It was these very bonds with the previous dynasty, which concerned the new king. The last thing he needed was a Hebrew army allied with the old dynasty rising up against him or overthrowing him and raising up their own dynasty. To consolidate his power and to deeply cripple the greatest threat to his authority, the new king began a genocidal persecution of the Hebrews, including slaughtering all of their male children and pressing them into a harsh, bitter and cruel slavery.

The Hebrews had been begging God for relief from their slavery. God, therefore, sent Moses to request from Pharaoh his permission for the Hebrews to leave Egypt to perform three days of ritual worship in the desert. Moses was eighty years old at this time. Pharaoh, sensing a plot to organize an army and return to destroy him, refuses. Now thinking that these revolution-minded Hebrews must have too much time on their hands and too much strength remaining in their bodies, Pharaoh increases their workload exponentially. The additional benefit to Pharaoh is having the Hebrews blaming and abandoning Moses, the organizer of these troubles.

Frustrated, and angry, Moses returns to God and asks, essentially, why did you just punk me? God explains to Moses, that He was only provoking Pharaoh to act out like the arrogant fool he is. God then reveals His plan, "'Say therefore to the people of Israel, "I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment, and I will take you for my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians"'" (Exodus 6:6-7). These two verses summarize the rest of Exodus and foreshadow exactly what God does.

With these words, God, also, proposes marriage to the Hebrews, which later takes the form of the Mosaic covenant sealed on Mount Sinai. This is the essential perspective from which to both understand and to teach the Ten Commandments. "When I passed by you again and looked upon you, behold, you were at the age for love; and I spread my skirt over you, and covered your nakedness; yea, I plighted my troth to you and entered into a covenant with you, says the LORD God, and you became mine" (Ezekiel 15:8). God, too, having born them on eagle's wings and "brought you to myself" (Exodus 19:4), claims them as "my own possession among all peoples; for all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation" (Exodus 19:5) God loves the children of Israel and wishes to shower His love upon them.

The Hebrews, though, had spent a couple of generations in Egypt and had become acclimated to the Egyptians' worship of false gods. The animals, which God required them to sacrifice, were representations of the false gods of the Egyptians and taught the Hebrews the absolute powerlessness of these false gods. Once they reached Mount Sinai, God commanded them to prepare themselves to enter into His presence by purifying themselves for three days, a purification meant to turn them away from the Egyptian gods and cleanse them of any demonic attachments. On the appointed day, the Hebrews gathered at the foot of the mountain, purified and dressed in their best. God, too, arrived wearing His best: "And Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke, because the LORD descended upon it in fire; and the smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain quaked greatly. And the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder" (Exodus 19:18-19).

Now God, the bridegroom, arrayed in His finest, and the Hebrew people, purified and arrayed in their numbers, face each other and God gave Moses the Ten Commandments. It is in the midst of this most beautiful, earth-shaking wedding during which God has professed His unyielding love and protection of the Hebrew people, that God gave them the Ten Commandments. The tone of the Ten Commandments changes with this scene in mind. It is apparent, that the Commandments are the way to achieve Heaven on Earth. If the Hebrews are in right relation to God by following the first three commandments and are in right relation to each other by following the last seven commandments, then God's grace and mercy will wash over them and keep them in the peace and prosperity He promised them at the outset. God is not only acting as bridegroom in giving them the Ten Commandments, but also as a wise, loving and strong Father. He knows what is best for His children and has just told them exactly how they can have it.

This aspect of God's relationship with the children of Israel is born out in the ordinances given after the Ten Commandments. These ordinances make clear the Israelites' relationship to God as Father and to each other as brother and sisters. It is my contention, that this is why Hebrew has no terms for familial relationships beyond mother, father, brother and sister. This visceral understanding of themselves as the family of God was enshrined in even their language. The nation of Israel is born at the moment they received the Ten Commandments from God. The loving living out of the Ten Commandments facilitates their relationships as both children of God and God's bridegroom.

So, looking back at the entire story of the Ten Commandments, can there be anything more positive? Through no fault of their own, a politically-insecure and threatened king binds the Hebrews to a cruel and deadly persecution of extinction. God, as Father and Bridegroom, answers their prayers by delivering them and making them His people, a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation. To ensure they attain this, God gives to them the Ten Commandments, the moral law, which ensures their right relation with Him as their Father and with each other as brothers and sisters.

There are many different problems contributing to the faulty presentation of the Ten Commandments prevalent in Catholic catechesis today. The one which feeds all of the others is this horrible idea, that each Testament has its own God. The Old Testament and the New Testament have the same God. Catechists, first, have to actually read the Old Testament. Otherwise, catechists are left with others' analyses and few of these are good. Second, catechists have to work a little and do some research. Nothing presented above is new or original. All of it comes from the Fathers and Doctors of the Church and excellent theologians from all periods of the Church's history, including contemporaries like Drs. Scott Hahn and Bob Rice and Deacon Stephen Miletic. Presenting the Catholic faith both generally and specifically as the way in which God loves us is the antidote to the hopelessness afflicting us and our neighbors and the key to evangelizing our communities.

Perspective is critical.