What are the Ten Commandments and what do they mean?

God speaks His own name before He gives a single command.

Most people picture the Ten Commandments as a list to be graded on.

That is not how the passage opens.

And God spake all these words, saying,

Not Moses relaying a code. God Himself, addressing the whole nation. Before a single command, He says this:

I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

That sentence is gospel before it is law. Redemption is stated as an accomplished fact before a single demand is made. The commandments describe the life of a people already rescued, not the price of their rescue, as He had already said on the mountain:

And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation.

A kingdom of priests does not earn its way into the household. It is already in the household, and is being told how to live there.

The first four words guard who God is and how He is worshiped.

The ten words fall into two groups. The first four concern God. The last six concern the neighbour He has placed beside you.

Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

The Hebrew idiom behind "before me" is "before my face." God will not be one item in a crowded pantheon.

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image... Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God

This is not a ban on making things. The same God commanded cherubim of hammered gold over the ark, and bronze oxen under the temple's sea. The commandment is about worship, not artistry.

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.

The word behind "vain" means emptiness and falsehood — false oaths sworn in God's name, not only a careless exclamation.

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy... But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work

One day in seven, and the rest reaches the servant, the animal, the stranger inside the gate.

Worth saying plainly: the text is never numbered. Jewish tradition counts the preface as the first word. The Reformed and Orthodox count the preface as prologue and keep the two coveting clauses together as the tenth. Catholic and Lutheran tradition counts Exodus 20:2-6 as one word, then splits coveting in two. Nobody disputes the words, only where to draw the lines.

The last six words guard the neighbour God has put beside you.

Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

This stands at the hinge of the list — the first command that turns from duty toward God to duty toward another person, and the only one with a promise attached (Ephesians 6:2).

Then five short prohibitions follow, each a fence around something God has given: life, marriage, property, truth in the courts, and the desire behind all of them.

Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.

The tenth is different in kind. A court can convict a man of murder, theft, or false witness. No court can convict a man of coveting; only God sees it. The law reaches the heart, not just clean hands.

For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet... Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

Jesus did not shrink the law; He summed it up in two loves.

A lawyer once asked Jesus which commandment was the greatest.

Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

The order does not reverse. Love of God comes first; love of neighbour is "like unto it" — not the foundation beneath it. And hang is the load-bearing word. The ten are not abolished by the two; they are suspended from them, the way a door hangs on its hinges.

The law stops our mouth and sends us to Christ.

Here is the turn the whole passage has been walking toward.

Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

The law was never a ladder. James says one stumble makes a man guilty of the whole law. Paul says the tenth commandment found him out, because it named a desire no court could see.

What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.

Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:

Paul does not call the commandments a mistake. He quotes four of the ten elsewhere as the shape love takes (Romans 13:9). The redeemed do not throw the law away. They love it.

The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.

Where sincere Christians differ

Whether the Sabbath command binds Christians to a specific day. Some hold the seventh-day Sabbath still binds believers. Most hold the substance is worship and rest, that the day belonged to Israel's covenant, and the New Testament leaves the day free (Romans 14:5; Colossians 2:16-17). Ark Life holds the second view.

How the law applies to the church. Some hold the Ten Commandments as the church's abiding moral law in full. Others hold the Decalogue was Israel's covenant charter, restated for the church rather than imposed as Sinai's code. Ark Life keeps Israel distinct from the Church, but holds that these commandments express God's unchanging character, reaffirmed for believers (Romans 13:8-10). Both sides agree the law never justified anyone.

So what are the Ten Commandments, and what do they mean?

Not a ladder.

Not a scorecard.

Ten words spoken by a God who redeems first and commands second. Four words guarding who He is. Six words guarding the neighbour He has placed beside you. A law that is holy, and a heart that is not — so the law does what only a mirror can do. It shows us the truth. It stops our mouth. It sends us to the only place a sinner can stand.

Grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

The commandments are not canceled by that grace. They are fulfilled by it. Have you let the law do its work on you, or are you still hoping it will somehow save you?