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form of “manna,” an English translation derived from the Hebrew words Man hu for “What is it?” In The Five Books of Moses, Everett Fox suggests that an appropriate playful translation of manna is “whaddayacallit” (p. 348). Exodus mentions that quails came each evening and the manna was there in the morning, leading some to surmise it was bird droppings. Others suggest that there is a dewlike substance found on the tamarisk tree that is actually excreted by an insect. Whichever it was, it sounds unappealing, and any attempts at a natural explanation for “manna,” as Everett Fox notes, miss the point of the story: divine providence kept the Children of Israel alive. Alive, but still complaining. They all remembered that Egyptian food was a lot better.

As the grumbling continues, God directs Moses to bring the people to the mountain; he will speak to them. God tells Moses to have the people wash their clothes, not to touch the holy mountain (Sinai here), and to refrain from sex for three days. In a cloud, accompanied by thunder and lightning and trumpets blowing, God descends from heaven to the top of Mount Sinai. God warns Moses not to let the people get too close and look at the divine presence. Moses reminds God that he already said the people can’t touch Sinai, so God says, “Then go get Aaron.” Then, in the first delivery of the Ten Commandments, God speaks. Afraid of the smoke and noise, the people think it would be a good idea for Moses just to go and talk to God alone.

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (EXODUS 20: 1-17 KJV)

And God spake all these words, saying,

(1st) I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. (In the Jewish tradition, this is the first “commandment,” or more precisely, “statement.”)

Thou shalt have no other gods before me. (Jewish tradition combines this with the following verse to make the second commandment/statement.)

(2d) Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:

Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God an a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.

And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

(3d) 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.

(4th) Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work:

But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:

For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

(5th) Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

(6th) Thou shalt not kill.

(7th) Thou shalt not commit adultery.

(8th) Thou shalt not steal.

(9th) Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

(10th) Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor’s.

The first round of commandments is given orally—no mention of tablets is made yet. Moses must go back onto the mountain for forty days and is given a long set of specifications for how to build the Ark (chest) of the Covenant that will hold the tablets, and descriptions of how priests should dress. Only at the end of those forty days does Moses come back with the “two tablets of the covenant, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God.” (Ex. 31:18)

The Ten Commandments: A Modern Take on Some Ancient Laws

A cartoon by the madcap artist Gahan Wilson once appeared in Playboy magazine.