Exodus 20:11-13
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them; but on the seventh day he rested.(A) That is why the Lord has blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.[a]
12 [b](B)Honor your father and your mother, that you may have a long life in the land the Lord your God is giving you.(C)
Read full chapterFootnotes
- 20:11 Here, in a formulation which reflects Priestly theology, the veneration of the sabbath is grounded in God’s own hallowing of the sabbath in creation. Compare 31:13; Dt 5:15.
- 20:12–17 The Decalogue falls into two parts: the preceding precepts refer to God, the following refer primarily to one’s fellow Israelites.
- 20:13 Kill: as frequent instances of killing in the context of war or certain crimes (see vv. 12–18) demonstrate in the Old Testament, not all killing comes within the scope of the commandment. For this reason, the Hebrew verb translated here as “kill” is often understood as “murder,” although it is in fact used in the Old Testament at times for unintentional acts of killing (e.g., Dt 4:41; Jos 20:3) and for legally sanctioned killing (Nm 35:30). The term may originally have designated any killing of another Israelite, including acts of manslaughter, for which the victim’s kin could exact vengeance. In the present context, it denotes the killing of one Israelite by another, motivated by hatred or the like (Nm 35:20; cf. Hos 6:9).
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