The Sabbath and the two Decalogues
Date
500BCE
from the Persian age onwardapproximate date
Archaic and incomplete texts called for interpretation, and early Jewish readers, such as the Dead Sea community, drew rules from the Sabbath and explained even the differences between the two Decalogues.
Sourced narrative
Each block is a verifiable statement. The number opens the cited page; amber or coral blocks flag tradition or contested interpretation.
9 statements
01A hard text
Jews seeking guidance from the Bible ran into a difficulty: its texts were not always easy to understand, being written in an archaic language, incomplete, not always coherent and composed for a different age than theirs. A. J. Jacobs's book A Year of Living Biblically, in which he tries to follow every biblical law literally, shows the modern version of the problem: many laws are impractical or clash with present-day American values.
Tradition or narrative
The Sabbath commandment illustrates the problem. A great deal is at stake: God promises to punish those who disobey, and their descendants, and to show kindness 'to the thousandth generation' to those who obey (Exodus 20:5 and 6). But keeping the Sabbath requires knowing what the text does not say: it forbids work on the seventh day, but what counts as work? Preparing a meal? Tending a child or a sick person? And if someone died because of keeping the Sabbath, would that not break the commandment against killing?
Another problem was applying ancient texts to contemporary reality. In 2 Samuel 7 David is assured by God that his line will reign forever, but what could that mean in a world with no Davidic dynasty and with Jews under foreign powers? Isaiah's prophecies speak of the Assyrians, but what did they mean when Jews faced Greeks and Romans? Early interpretation assumed the Bible was perpetually relevant, which stood in tension with the fact that much of it was out of date.
02Ancient methods
Early Jewish readers solved these problems in ways that often violate our sense of literal meaning: they saw significance in tiny details, derived from a spare law like the Sabbath's numerous restrictions and rituals with no apparent basis in the text, read prophecies about the past as predictions of their own future, and filled gaps with fanciful stories and newly made laws. There was a logic to it: they assumed God had planted the inconsistencies and gaps in the text for a reason, as signals of an encrypted message to be uncovered by resolving them.
03Two versions of the Decalogue
The Bible contains two versions of the Ten Commandments, in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5, nearly the same but varying in small ways, among them the wording of the Sabbath command: Exodus says to 'remember' the Sabbath day, Deuteronomy to 'keep' or 'guard' it. For modern scholars the two versions are one more doublet in the Torah, evidence that the text combines material from different sources.
Tradition or narrative
For ancient Jewish interpreters the difference was no contradiction but a sign that God was sending two distinct messages. The Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael says 'remember' and 'keep' were spoken by God as one word, citing Psalm 62:12, which in its reading says God spoke one thing and humans heard two. That would be a feat of communication impossible for mortals; for these interpreters the whole Torah exceeds the limits of human communication and must be read deeply and creatively.
Some early Jews, including the Dead Sea Scrolls community, concluded that 'keep' the Sabbath in Deuteronomy 5 was a distinct commandment revealed at the same time: the duty was not only to observe the day but to safeguard it by stopping work beforehand so as not to miss its start. The biblical Sabbath began at sunset on Friday, yet by the first century CE many Jews were already laying down their work earlier, around 3 p.m., and what led them to do so was their reading of the command to 'guard' the Sabbath.
This reading had its reasons: the Torah never specifies the moment the Sabbath starts, an ambiguity that puts a person at risk of violating it, and fixing the start early enough removed any chance of failing to rest. To modern eyes such interpretation inflates a small discrepancy beyond what the text intends, but early Jews held other standards of plausibility: details that seem trivial to us had serious religious and existential consequences for people who needed to understand the text to sustain their covenant with God.
Context
If, as the texts suggested, exile was punishment for wrongdoing, there was still a chance to soften God's anger and repair the relationship. Jews found in the Five Books of Moses guidance on what God required of them, and biblical interpretation, the reading and explaining of texts, arose in this period as a way to reestablish the bond with God.
§ 01Geography
Where it happened
§ 03Historiography
What scholars debate
Scholarly debate · 01
How should the two versions of the Sabbath commandment be understood?
3 positions · no single answer · take a seat →
- A
A doublet from different sources
Modern scholars
The two versions of the Ten Commandments would be one more doublet in the Torah, which combines material from different sources.
- B
Two messages spoken at once
Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael (rabbis)
'Remember' and 'keep' would have been said by God as one word, a feat impossible for mortals, showing that the Torah exceeds ordinary human speech.
- C
A separate command: safeguard the Sabbath
Members of the Dead Sea Scrolls community
'Keep' in Deuteronomy 5 would be another command revealed at the same time: stop working before the Sabbath so as not to risk missing its start.
§ 04Network
Connections
§ 05Bibliography
Further reading
James Kugel, The Bible as It Was (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997).
The Bible as read by early Jews · recommended in Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 61
James Kugel, How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2007).
How antique and contemporary modes of reading the Bible diverge · recommended in Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 61
§ 06Apparatus
Sources on this page
- 01Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 58inspect
- 02Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 58inspect
- 03Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 58inspect
- 04Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 58inspect
- 05Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 58inspect
- 06Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 59; Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 59inspect
- 07Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 59inspect
- 08Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 59inspect
- 09Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 48inspect
- Documented evidenceAttested by contemporary evidence: texts, inscriptions, coins, papyri or archaeology.
- Scholarly reconstructionHistorians' inference from indirect evidence.
- Tradition or narrativeA literary, traditional or religious account; significant in itself, but not independently verified.
- Contested interpretationScholars explicitly disagree; see the positions in the debate.
- Illustrative reconstructionA hypothesis or visual scheme to guide reading; not a historical claim.