Exodus 20

Exodus 20:1-11

We hear in this chapter, 1. The ten commandments, as God himself spake them upon mount Sinai, ver. 1—17. 2. The imperfere made upon the people thereby, ver. 18—21. 3. Some particular instructions, which God gave privately to Moses, to be by him communicated to the people, relating to his worship, ver. 22—26.

1. AND God spake all these words, saying, 2. ‘I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of ‘bondage. 3. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. 4. Thou shalt not make unto thee any grave, image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, ‘visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me: 6. And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. 7. Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain: for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. 8. Remember the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy. 9. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work. 10. But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD 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. 11. For ‘in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and reflect the seventh day: wherefore the LORD bleffed the Sabbath-day, and hallowed it.

Never before, or since, was such an auditory, or such a speaker. God himself appears from heaven, to promulgate that sacred law which once was written on the heart, but by sin defaced and obliterated. Oblivory.

1. The preface, v. 2. He is the Lord, who hath a right to demand the obedience he enjoins; and their God, in a covenant of peculiar favour, who would never be wanting in every instance of regard, which almighty power, joined with boundless love, could shew. He had manifested himself to them already in their deliverance from Egypt, and this is the earnest of what he further could and would do for them. Nor, That dear Redeemer, who hath delivered us from bondage worse than Egyptian, may justly claim our hounded duty and service in return.

2. The moral law. It opens with the duty we owe to God our Creator’s enjoins his worship, service, and obedience.

3. God must alone be the object of our worship, no other may be joined with him; for there is no other God besides him, and no him must be placed our supreme confidence, fear, and hate. To let them on any creature or thing, in preference to him, is immediately to become idolaters. How few are worshippers than of the true God, when pleasure, gain, honour, and the whole train of worldly gratifications, afford so many gods to the idol heart of fallen man!

4. God must be worshipped, not under any representation, but as a spirit, in spirit and in truth. No image must be made of him, nor religious worship be paid through any creature to him. We are not, even in our minds, to liken him to any object that is seen; and he is to be served with the internal affections of the God, and with the outward service of prayer and praise. He threatens as a jealous God to visit offenders. They who neglect his worship, or walk contrary to his command herein, shall be treated as haters of him; and children’s children shall suffer for it; who, taught by their fathers example, shall share in their visitations: whilst they who serve him in his prescribed way, shall find his mercy, and entail their blessing on generations yet to come. Nor, (1.) The idolatry of the Ramish church, in such gross violations of this commandment, which they artfully would conceal from the people, by omitting the second commandment in their catechisms, and joining the reasons against idolatry here given, to the full. (2.) The necessity of the confessions and constant worship of God, without which we never can be enabled to love him, and keep his commandments.

5. God’s name must not be taken in vain, by hypocritical prayers, which never come from the heart, or by vows of fidelity to him we are negligent to keep; by any oath or false swearing, or by light and irreverent use of his holy name in our ordinary conversation. And however little attended to this commandment may now be, the same fanatic speech, it is ever. God will not hold the transgrefier guiltless; and it is a fearful thing to meet him in wrath.

6. The Before Chill 1461.

7. The Sabbath-day must be kept holy. Nothing should break in to disturb the sacred rest; all worldly badlands must be laid aside, and the whole employed in the more immediate service of God. And not only ourselves, but all under our roof, must cease from labour, and join with us in the celebration of the holy day: and this in memory of God’s finished work of creation, and because he hath chodes it, and let it apart for his own. Nate, (1.) We need many a remembrance, so get are we to forget God and his laws. (2.) Nothing will conduce more, as a means to our preparation for the eternal rest, which remaineth for the people of God, than a serious and constant obliteration of the seventh day.

8. ¶ ⁹ Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee. 13. ¶ Thou shalt not kill. 14. ¶ Thou shalt not commit adultery. 15. Thou shalt not steal. 16. ¶ Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. 17. ¶ Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, ’thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his as, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.

Exodus 20:13-17

The first table related to God; the second respects our neighbour. When we conscientiously deny the one, we shall infallibly desire to walk upright before the other.

1. The fifth commandment enjoins the reverence due to our parents, and in them to all superiors; a respectful carriage towards them; obedient submission to their just commands; patience under their corrections; teachableness under their instructions; and readiness to help and succour them at all times, according to our abilities. The promise annexed to it, is long profession of the promised land. Nate, The career of a self-obedient child is often short, and even in this world has a miserable end.

2. The sixth commandment forbids murder in every kind and degree, of others or ourselves; and not only restrains from the outward act, but equally condemns the raft anger that leads to it, whether in thought, word, or deed. Nate, He that reads, Mde. v. 12. will need humble his soul for the murder he hath committed.

3. The seventh commandment respects our own, and our neighbour’s chastity. Not only is condemns the gender act, but every desire, thought, look, word, or action, which would lead to impurity.

4. The eighth commandment enjoins all honesty and fidelity; condemns every act of injustice, fraud, or oppression, whether to individuals or the public, and also that profusion or covetousness, which naturally leads to the breach of it.

5. The ninth commandment forbids all perjury, all lying, backbiting, slandering, equivocation, and whatever would deceive, or be to the injury of our neighbour.

6. The tenth commandment is the spirituality of all the rest in one, and strikes at the root of all that selfishness which is in the corrupted nature of man, forbidding the worshiping of vain desire, and the imagination of lust and covetousness. Well will it be for us, if the deep views of this holy law affect our hearts, both with a sense of our need of the blood of Jesus Christ, to save us from the violations of it, and of the spirit of Christ, to enable us to perform any acceptable obedience to it.

7. ¶ And ‘all the people’ saw the thundering, and the lightning, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar off. 19. And they said unto Moses, ‘Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die. 20. And Moses said unto the people, Fear not: for ‘God is come to prove you, and that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not. 21. And the people stood afar off, and Moses drew near unto the ’thick darkness’ where God was.

Exodus 20:18-21

With pomp of terrible majesty God thus proclaims his holy will. An emblem of the dispensation they were under, begetting terror and bondage, and designed to make the reception of the grace and truth, which comes by Jesus Christ, the more welcome. Observe,

1. The people’s apprehensions. They are now cured of their curiosity; and trembling retreat, even from the nearness permitted them; so fearful are they of the presence of God. They retreat Moses to be their modesty, whose terror cannot make them afraid. Who would have thought, after such a scene, the golden calf could on that spot have ever traced its guilty head? Nate, Legal terrors will never cure men of their sins.

2. Moses encourages them. Dejected hearts must be supported against their fears: God was come to prove, not to punish them; to put his fear before them, that they sin not. A filial fear of offending, is the great preservative from evil.

Vol. I.

3. Moses, as God’s command, returns to the thick darkness to commune with God. It is the property of divine faith, to see through the thick cloud of sense, and hold communion with him that is invisible.

4. ¶ And the LORD said unto Moses, Thus thou shalt say unto the children of Israel, Ye have seen that I have talked with you from heaven. 23. Ye shall not make ‘with me gods of silver, neither shall ye make unto you gods of gold. 24. ¶ An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt-offerings, and thy peace-offerings, ’thy sheep; and thine oxen: In all places where I record my name, I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee. 25. And ‘if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it. 26. Neither shall thou go up by steps unto mine altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon.

Exodus 20:22-26

Idolatry being the sin to which God saw the people most inveterately addicted, he gives Moses some particular directions to guard them from it.

1. All images are forbidden: the most costly are an abomination in the sight of God. The most expensive worship, if not according to God’s commandment, is but a more splendid iniquity.

2. Their altars must be plain, unadorned, of earth or unhewn stone, and low, for the reason given, v. 26. God must be worshipped in spirit, and gorgeous ornaments are there superfluous, where the heart is to be regarded. The showy pageantry of the Romish church, is but as the sinery of a whore; that though it may draw in the unwary, is the signal to the wise to turn away.

3. God will meet those who wait upon him in his ways, and will bless them, in every place where his name should be worshipped, according to his own institution. Now they were allowed as many altars as they chose; afterwards their sacrifices were all to be offered at Jerusalem; but since the true Lamb of God was slain there, this peculiarity is destroyed; and now in every place, God is near those who call upon him out of a pure heart fervently.