About this episode
Exodus 20 is familiar to Bible readers for the Ten Commandments. Actually, only Exod 20:1-17 delineates those commands. The rest of the chapter resumes the Sinai theophany whose description began in Exodus 19. The “interruption” of that episode with the Decalogue is actually one of six issues discussed in this episode of the podcast—all preparatory to getting into the listed commands in future episodes. This episode deals with the unusual position of the Decalogue, the legal nature of the commandments, Jewish and Christian disagreement as to their number, the relationship of the Decalogue to ancient Near Eastern treaties, and the question as to why they were written on two tablets of stone.