The nucleus of all Israelitish law appears to have been a simple decalogue, which gave the terms of the original covenant between Jehovah and his people, and definitely stated the obligations they must discharge if they would retain his favor. The oldest version of this decalogue is now embedded in the early Judean narrative of Exodus xxxiv. There is considerable evidence, however, that it once stood immediately after the Judean account of Jehovah's revelation of himself at Sinai, and was transposed to its present position in order to give place for the later and nobler prophetic decalogue of Exodus xx. 1-17. Its antiquity and importance are also evidenced by the fact that it has received many later introductory, explanatory, and hortatory notes. Exodus xxxiy. 28 preserves the memory that it originally consisted of simply ten words. The slightly variant version of these original ten words Is also found in Exodus xx. 23, xxiii. 12, 15, 16, 18, 29, 30. Furthermore, it probably once occupied a central position in the corresponding Northern Israelltish account of the covenant at Sinai.
[Sidenote: The oldest decalogue]
With the aid of these two different versions, that of the North and that of the South, it is possible to restore approximately the common original:
I. Thou shalt worship no other God.
II. Thou shalt make no molten gods,
III. Thou shalt observe the feast of unleaven bread.
IV. Every first-born is mine.
V. Six days shalt thou toil, but on the seventh thou shalt rest.
VI. Thou shalt observe the feast of weeks and ingathering at the end of the year,
VII. Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven. VIII.
The fat of my feast shall not be left until morning.