As we saw last time in our journey to understand the biblical Hebrew, the ten commandments appear two times in The Scriptures- the first in the book of Exodus; the second in Deuteronomy. A question that always rises is why Moses needed to say the Ten Commandments twice? One time isn’t good enough?

Though those 40 years have passed by, the generation is not the same. This is off course the traditional answer- Moses needed to say the words one more time before the people of Israel entered the promise land in order tom remind them and also in order to tell them for those who are new to the crowd – the new generation….

But, my dearest friends, if we will look close enough we will find some differences between the ten commandments in the book of Exodus to those which appears in the book of Deuteronomy. Today we will focus on the tenth from the tenth…

In exodus (20:13) the tenth goes like this:

“לֹא תַחְמֹד, בֵּית רֵעֶךָ; לֹא-תַחְמֹד אֵשֶׁת רֵעֶךָ, וְעַבְדּוֹ וַאֲמָתוֹ וְשׁוֹרוֹ וַחֲמֹרוֹ, וְכֹל, אֲשֶׁר לְרֵעֶךָ”

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

In Deuteronomy (5:17) the tenth goes like this:

“וְלֹא תַחְמֹד, אֵשֶׁת רֵעֶךָ; וְלֹא תִתְאַוֶּה בֵּית רֵעֶךָ, שָׂדֵהוּ וְעַבְדּוֹ וַאֲמָתוֹ שׁוֹרוֹ וַחֲמֹרוֹ, וְכֹל, אֲשֶׁר לְרֵעֶךָ. 

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife.You shall not set your desire on your neighbor’s house or land, his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

Not just the words are different, also the order- at first the house was more important than the wife; in the book of Deuteronomy the wife is more important than the house- my question is this – is this reflects a change of 40 years or a change of an author, who had more feministic stile in his writings….?

Main phrases of the post + transcription + translation

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