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Ten Commandments

Also known as Decalogue

The Ten Commandments, or Decalogue, are religious and ethical directives which according to the Hebrew Bible God gave to Moses. The biblical narrative tells that God revealed them to the Israelites at Mount Sinai and gave Moses two stone tablets, which he broke on seeing the worship of a golden calf, then a second set, placed in the Ark of the Covenant. The text appears in three distinct versions, at Exodus 20, Deuteronomy 5 and the Ritual Decalogue of Exodus 34, divided into ten commandments in different ways by different traditions. They are the foundational core of Jewish law, and most Christian traditions regard them as divinely authoritative.

Ten Commandments
Image: Photography by Ardon Bar Hama. Manuscript at the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana, Amsterdam HS.ROS.PL.a-33. Colophon in the bottom right corner re · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons

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Cite this entry
APA
The Epoch Institute. (2026). Ten Commandments. In The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/ten-commandments
MLA
“Ten Commandments.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/ten-commandments. Accessed .
Chicago
The Epoch Institute. “Ten Commandments.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/ten-commandments.
Harvard
The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Ten Commandments’, The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/ten-commandments (Accessed: ).

Last reviewed October 2026Random entry ↻