The Order Of The Ten Commandments

[southern california guy]

Why are the Ten Commandments organized differently between the Jews, Protestants, and Catholics?

[CatherineM]

Why are the Catholic 10 commandments different from the Protestant version? I once made a really bad joke about this issue.


St. Irenaeus, one of our Fathers of the Church, wrote, “Through the Decalogue he [God] prepared man for friendship with himself and for harmony with his neighbor" (Treatise against Heresies). Protestants take their 10 from the book of Exodus chapter 20, and we take ours from the book of Deuteronomy chapter 5. The first two for Protestants are: 1) “I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt have no other gods before me,” and 2) “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.” Their number 10 is “Thou shalt not covet.” Our #1 is “I am the Lord your God: You shall not have strange Gods before me.” Our numbers 9 and 10 are, “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, and You shall not covet your neighbor’s goods.”

It’s believed that Deuteronomy reflects a later understanding of women, after their wandering in the desert was over. Breaking apart the coveting into goods and wives separately makes me feel better that wives weren’t just considered part of their husband’s property. Think about why Protestants would want to emphasize the "graven image" version. I am often asked if the veneration of Mary and the Communion of Saints violate the 1st commandment. The prohibition of images in worship of Yahweh did not prohibit all artistic images in their lives or in our places of worship. Moses was directed to make the cherubim statues on the Ark of the Covenant. Moses even had a serpent fashioned in bronze on his staff to heal those who had been bitten by snakes during their time in the desert. With the first commandment God instructs us to not make an image of other gods.

Christians have always made paintings and statues of our protective saints and angels, to inspire admiration and therefore hopefully, imitation. We make representations of Jesus in his human form suffering on the cross, or as the Good Shepherd. Such art does not violate the first commandment. We understand that there is a difference between admiring, imitating, or honoring someone and worshiping them. We honor national heroes with monuments, we keep pictures of loved ones to remember them, so it shouldn’t seem strange that we would want images of our hero saints to admire and honor as well.