Abstract
This monography has four chapters. In the first chapter the Decalogue is described in terms of its literary style and structure, the text recipient is identified, and all its Old Testamental names thereof are described.
The potential structuring of the Decalogue is discussed, including reflections on the forms of the Hebrew verbs used in the Ten Commandments. The following chapter concentrates on the Decalogue’s context in the Second and the Fifth Books of Moses and in the Samaritan Pentateuch.
The context is supplemented with a study on a text of a similar nature in Deut 6:4-9 (the Shema creed). The third chapter uses synchronous exegesis to unveil each of the commandments given in the Decalogue.
The reflection upon them is based on the extraordinary position of the first commandment and its two formulation, their influence on the remaining commandments of the Decalogue, which is examined in the broad context of the entire TeNaK and in a scope reaching over to the New Testament; the same applies to other commandments of the Decalogue. The last chapter describes each of the statements of the Cultic Decalogue and confronts it with the Ten Commandments.