How did the 10 Commandments came into existence?

The 10 commandments, also known as the Decalogue, were given by God on the Mount of Sinai directly to his servant Moses who had guided the Israelis out of Egypt and passed by the mount while travelling to the promised land. In the Bible this is described as follows:

“When the Lord finished speaking to Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave him the two tablets of the covenant law, the tablets of stone inscribed by the finger of God.”

Exodus 31:18

When Moses came down he saw that as God foretold him that his people were worshipping a golden calf they had created as Moses was away too long for their taste and they wanted to have a God that they can see as well. In burning anger about this, Moses threw the tablets out of his hand and they were shattered to pieces (Exodus 32:19-20). After severe punishment and some time had passed, Moses was instructed by God to come to the mount Sinai again and with two empty stone tables and explained his commandments to him:

“Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.’ Moses was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments.”

Exodus 34:27-28

Those stone tables were later put into the arch of covenant. The faith of this arc is unknown and there are different legends, theories and speculations on the whereabouts ranging from self-destruction to still being hidden somewhere. No matter where the original stone tables are, thanks to the fact that they were copied a many times on stone and also on other mediums, the content of the stone tables is well preserved to this date. 

The content of the ten commandments

With the ten commandments ,God made clear what he expects from humans who want to be rewarded with his friendship and eternal life. He broke them down into 10, the same numbers of fingers he gave us, so that we can remember them easily. 

If you think 10 is still too much to remember, don’t worry. Jesus was asked which of the ten are the most important. And he gave a wise answer, summarizing them without excluding any:

“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

Mark 12:29-31

In this short quote we hear the essence of the Christian belief twice: Love. Jesus calls us to Love God and Love our next. If we love both we will automatically be kind, respectful and honest. 

If we look at the ten commandments, we understand that this simple statement actually combines all 10 of them. When researching for this post, I found the following overview that I like a lot and that shows this quite well:

Referring to the commandments and the two key principles, in the visions of Maria Valtorta, Jesus states the following and adds a challenge:

“All I want is your good will. Is what I ask for difficult? No. It is not. I do not impose on you the hundreds of precepts of the rabbis. I say to you: follow the Decalogue. The Law is one and fresh, like a new-born creature, like a rose just opened on its stem. Simple, neat, easy to follow. Throughout centuries faults and trends have complicated it with many minor laws, with burdens and restrictions, with too many painful clauses. I am bringing once again the Law to you as the Most High gave it. But, in your own interest, I ask you to accept it with sincere hearts, like the true Israelites of bygone times.

(…) Deuteronomy states what is to be done, nothing else was necessary. But do not judge those who acted for other people, not for themselves. Do what God commands. And above all, strive and be perfect in the two main precepts. If you love God with all your souls, you will not sin, because sin gives pain to God. Who loves, does not want to give pain. If you love your neighbors, as you love yourselves, you will be respectful children to your parents, faithful husbands to your wives, honest merchants in your trade, without any violence against your enemies, truthful in bearing witness, without envy of wealthy people, without any incentive of lewdness for another man’s wife. And as you do not want to do to other people what you do not wish should be done to you, you will not steal, or kill, or slander, or enter someone else’s nest like cuckoos.

Nay, I say to you: ‘Carry to perfection your obedience to the two precepts of love: love also your enemies.’”

Maria Valtorta, The Poem of the Man-God, chapter 50, “Jesus at Bethsaida in Peter’s House. He Meets Philip and Nathanael.”

What happens if I do not follow a commandment?

“If we claim, “We don’t have any sin,” we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from everything we’ve done wrong.”

1. John 1:8-9

I think this Bible verse says it all. God does not expect us to be perfect. When we do not follow a commandment, we have sinned and God wants us to recognize that, confess and repent and ideally do not do it again. God wants us to be in contact with him, to turn to him anytime. He embodies grace and mercy and we can turn to God with everything. He wants to be our friend and wants to be here for us. Not turning to him, believing he is not almighty and that he cannot forgive us, might be even a bigger sin then the one that was originally committed.

If you want to understand this even better, in Valtorta’s Vision, Jesus explains this in more depth as follows:

“But can man, a weak creature, live without fault? The flesh, the world and Satan, in continuous ferment of passions, inclinations and hatred squirt out their spray to stain souls, and if Heaven were open only to those who lived without fault ever since the age of reason, very few men would enter Heaven, just as very few are the men who arrive at death without experiencing more or less grave diseases during their lifetime. So? Are the children of God barred from Heaven? And will they have to say: “I have lost it” when an attack of Satan or a storm of the flesh causes them to fall and they see their souls stained? Will there be no more forgiveness for the sinners? Will nothing delete the stain which disfigures the spirit? Do not fear your God with unjust fear. He is a Father and a father always stretches out a hand to his wavering children, he offers help so that they may rise again, he comforts them with kind means so that their dejection may not degenerate into despair, but it may flourish into humility willing to make amends and thus become again pleasing to the Father.

Now. The repentance of the sinner, the good will to make amends, both brought about by true love for the Lord, cleanse the stain of fault and make one worthy of divine forgiveness. And when He Who is speaking to you has completed His mission on the Earth, the most powerful absolution which the Christ will have achieved for you at the cost of His sacrifice, will be added to the absolutions of love, of repentance and of good will. With souls purer than those of new-born babies, much purer, because from the bosoms of those who believe in Me, rivers of living water will spring deterging also the original sin, the first cause of weakness in man, you will be able to aspire to Heaven, to the Kingdom of God, to His Tabernacles. Because the Grace which I am about to restore to you will help you to practise justice which, the more it is practised, the more it increases the right, that a faultless spirit gives you to enter the joy of the Kingdom of Heaven. Infants will enter Heaven and they will rejoice, because of the beatitude given to them gratuitously, as Heaven is joy. But also adults and old people will enter it, those who have lived, fought, won and who to the snow-white crown of Grace will add the many-coloured one of their holy deeds, of their victories over Satan, the world and the flesh, and great, very great will be their beatitude of winners, so great, that man cannot imagine it.

How does one practise justice? How does one gain victory? Through honesty of words and deeds, through charity for one’s neighbour. Acknowledging that God is God, not placing the idols of creatures, money, power in the place of the Most Holy God. By giving everybody the place to which they are entitled, without trying to give more or to give less than what is right. He who honours one because he is a friend or a mighty relative and serves him also in evil deeds, is not just. On the contrary, he who harms his neighbour because he has no hope of receiving any kind of profit from him and bears false witness against him on oath, or is bribed to testify against the innocent or to judge partially, not according to justice but according to the profit he may gain with his unfair judgement from the more powerful of the competitors, is not just and vain are his prayers and offers, because they are stained with injustice in the eyes of God.

You can see that what I am telling you is the Decalogue. The word of the Rabbi is always the Decalogue. Because good, justice, glory consist in doing what the Decalogue teaches and orders us to do. There is no other doctrine. In days gone by it was given amid the flashes of lightning on Mount Sinai, now it is given in the refulgence of Mercy, but the Doctrine is the same. It does not change. It cannot change. Many in Israel will say, as an excuse, to justify their lack in holiness, even after the passage of the Saviour on the Earth: “I did not have the possibility to follow and listen to Him”. But their excuse is of no value. Because the Saviour did not come to impose a new Law, but to confirm the first, the only Law, nay, to reconfirm it in its holy plainness, in its perfect simplicity. To re-confirm with love and the promises of the assured love of God what previously was said with severity on one side and listened to with fear on the other.”

Maria Valtorta, The Poem of the Man-God, chapter 450 Near the Place of the Leper. Parable on the Ten Commandments. 

The parable of the ten commandments

In Maria Valtorta’s visions, Jesus also tells a parable connected to the ten commandments to make us understand better how important it is to abide by them. It goes as follows:

“The father of a family had two sons. He loved them both equally and wanted to be their benefactor impartially. This father, in addition to the house in which his sons lived, owned some property in which great treasures were hidden. The sons were aware of such treasures, but did not know the way to go there because the father, for reasons of his own, had not revealed the road which led there, and that had been the situation for many many years. But one day he called his sons and said: “The time has now come when you ought to know where the treasures are, which I laid aside for you, so that you may go there when I tell you. You had better know the road and the signals which I put on it, so that you may not go astray. So listen to me. The treasures are not in a plain where waters stagnate, where dog days scorch, where dust spoils everything, thorns and bramble suffocate, and where robbers can easily go and rob you. The treasures are on the top of that high rugged mountain. I put them on the top there and they are waiting for you up there. There is more than one path on the mountain, in actual fact there are many. But one only is the right one. Of the others some end up in precipices, some in caves with no exit, some in ditches full of muddy water, some in nests of vipers, some in craters of burning sulphur, some against insurmountable walls. The right road, instead is a difficult one, but it arrives at the top without any interruption of precipices or other obstacles. In order to enable you to recognise it, I placed along it, at regular intervals, ten stone monuments, on each of which is carved these three identification words: `Love, obedience, victory’. Follow that path and you will reach the place of the treasure. I will come along another road, which is known to me alone and I will open the doors to you, so that you may be happy”.

The two sons said goodbye to the father who, as long as they could hear him, repeated: “Follow the path I told you. It’s for your own good. Do not yield to the temptation to follow the others, even if they seem better to you. You would lose both the treasure and me…”.

They arrive at the foot of the mountain. The first monument was there, at the beginning of the path, which was in the middle of several paths radiating in different directions towards the mountain top. The two brothers began to climb the good path. At first it was very good, although there was not the least shade. From the sky the sun darted down on it, flooding it with light and heat. The white rock in which the path had been dug, the clear sky above them, the warm sun embracing their bodies: that is what the brothers saw and felt. But still animated by good will, by the remembrance of their father and by his advice, they climbed joyfully toward the top. Then the second monument… and later the third one. The path had become more and more difficult, solitary, warm. They could not even see the other paths with grass, trees or clear waters, and above all, where the slope was more gentle, because it was not so steep and the tracks were laid on ground and not on rocks.

“Our father wants us dead when we get there” said one of the sons on arriving at the fourth monument. And he began to slacken his pace. The other encouraged him to go on saying: “He loves us as his very own and even more because he saved the treasure for us in such a wonderful way. He dug this path in the rock and it takes one from the foot of the mountain to its top without any risk of getting lost. And he put these monuments to guide us. Just consider that, my brother! He did all that by himself, for our sake! To give it to us! To ensure that we arrive there without the possibility of mistakes and without any danger”.

They continued to walk. But the paths they had left down in the valley reappeared now and again close to the track in the rock and they did so more and more frequently as the cone of the mountain became narrower near the top. And how beautiful, shady and attractive they were!…

“I think I will take one of those” said the discontented brother, when he arrived at the sixth monument. “It goes to the top as well”.

“You cannot be sure of that… You cannot see whether it goes up or down…”.

“There it is, up there!”

“You do not know whether it is this one. In any case our father told us not to leave this good path…”.

The listless brother continued to climb against his will. At the seventh monument he said: “Oh! I am definitely going away”. “Don’t, brother!”

They went on their way up the path, which was now very difficult, but the top was now close at hand…

They arrived at the eighth monument and very close to it was the flowery path. “Oh! you can see that this one goes up as well, although not in a straight line!”

“You don’t know if it is the same one”.

“I do. I recognise it”.

“You are mistaken”.

“No. I’m going”.

“Don’t. Think of father, of the dangers, of the treasure”.

“They can all go to the dogs! What am I going to do with the treasure if I will be as good as dead when I get up there? Which danger is greater than this path? And which hatred is stronger than our father’s, who fooled us with this track to let us die? Goodbye. I will arrive before you, and alive…” and he jumped on to the adjacent path, and disappeared with a joyful exclamation behind the tree trunks shading it.

His brother went his way sadly… Oh! the last part of the track was really dreadful! The man was exhausted. He felt worn out with fatigue and heat! At the ninth monument he stopped panting, leaning against the carved stone and reading the engraved words mechanically. Nearby there was a shady path with water and flowers… “I almost… No! It is written there, and it was my father who wrote it: `Love, obedience, victory’. I must believe in his love, in his truthfulness, and I must obey to show my love… Let us go… May love support me…”. He is now at the tenth monument… Exhausted, burnt by the sun, he walked stooping, as if he were under a yoke… It was the loving holy yoke of faithfulness, which is love, obedience, strength, hope, justice, prudence, everything… Instead of leaning on the monument he sat down in the narrow shade which it cast on the ground. He felt that he was dying… From the nearby path came the gurgle of streams and the smell of forests… “Father, help me with your spirit, in this temptation… help me to be faithful until the end!”

From afar the joyful voice of his brother shouted: “Come, I will wait for you. Eden is here… Come…”.

“And if I went?…” and shouting loud: “Does it really go to the top?”

“Yes, come. There is a cool tunnel which takes one up. Come! I can already see the top beyond the tunnel, in the rock…”.

“Shall I go? Shall I not?… Who will help me?… I will go…”. He pushed his hands on the ground to help himself get up and while doing so he noticed that the engraved words were not as clear as those on the first monument. “At each monument the words were less distinct… as if my father, being exhausted, had found it difficult to engrave them. And… look!… Here also is the dark red mark, which has been visible as from the fifth monument… The only difference is that here it fills the hollow of each letter and it has overflowed, furrowing the rock as if it were dark tears, tears… of blood…”. With a finger he scratched a blotch as large as two hands. And the blotch crumbled into dust leaving uncovered and clear these words: “Thus I loved you. To the extent of shedding my blood to lead you to the Treasure”.

“Oh! oh! Father! And I was thinking of not obeying your order?! Forgive me, father. Forgive me”. The son wept leaning on the rock, and the blood filling the words became fresh and as bright as a ruby, and the tears became food and drink and strength for the good son… He stood up… out of love he called his brother him: “Come back”. But no one replied…

The young man resumed his way, almost on his knees on the hot rock, because his body was exhausted with fatigue, but his spirit was serene. There was the top… and his father.

“Father!”

“My beloved son!”

The young man threw himself on his father’s breast, his father embraced him and kissed him fondly.

“Are you alone?”

“Yes… But my brother will soon be here…”.

“No. He will never arrive. He left the way of the ten commandments. He did not come back to it after the first warning disappointments. Do you want to see him? There he is. In the abyss of fire… He persisted in his error. I would have forgiven and awaited him if, after realising his mistake, he had retraced his steps and, although late, he had passed where love had passed first, suffering to the extent of shedding the best part of his blood, the dearest part of himself for you”.

“He did not know…”.

“If he had looked with love at the words engraved in the ten monuments, he would have understood their true meaning. You read it as from the fifth monument and you called his attention to it when you said: `Our father must have injured himself here!’ and you read it in the sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth… clearer and clearer, until by instinct you discovered what was under my blood. Do you know the name of that instinct? `Your true union with me’. The fibres of your heart, blended with my fibres, startled and they said to you: `You will have here the measure of how much your father loves you’. Now, since you are affectionate, obedient, for ever victorious, take possession of the Treasure and of me”. That is the parable.

The ten monuments are the ten commandments. Your God engraved them and placed them on the path that takes to the eternal Treasure, and He suffered to lead you to that path. Do you suffer? God does, too. Do you have to force yourselves? God has, too. Do you know to what extent? Suffering to separate with all the miseries of mankind: to be born, to suffer from cold, starvation, fatigue, to suffer sarcasm, affronts, hatred, snares, and at the end to die, shedding all His Blood to give you the Treasure. God, Who descended to save you, suffers all that. God suffers that in Heaven, allowing Himself to suffer it.

I solemnly tell you that no man, however laborious his path may be to reach Heaven, will ever follow a more laborious and sorrowful way than the one along which the Son of man has to go to come from Heaven to the Earth and from the Earth to the Sacrifice, to open the doors of the Treasure to you. On the tablets of the Law there is already My Blood. On the Way which I am tracing out for you there is My Blood. It is the gush of My Blood that opens the door of the Treasure. Your souls become pure and strong through the purification and nourishment of My Blood. But to prevent it from being shed in vain, you must follow the immutable way of the ten commandments.”

Maria Valtorta, The Poem of the Man-God, chapter 450 Near the Place of the Leper. Parable on the Ten Commandments. 

Summary

In summary, God gave us the Ten Commandments to teach us to love, guide us in righteous living, define sin, establish justice, set His people apart, point us to Christ, and bring blessing and eternal life. The commandments lead us to rely on God’s grace for our misconducts and the transformative and intuitive power of the Holy Spirit to live in a way that honors Him.