This is the first time in my life I've ever actually looked up and read the 10 commandments.
Some of them are very familiar, however. I've definitely heard 6 to 10 before somewhere (seems that coveting your neighbour's husband is OK, though?)
But I never realised before how lacking in a sense of priorities they seem to be. I honestly didn't know that 'obeying the Sabbath' was even on the list. Seems strange that nipping into the office on a Sunday (or is it a Saturday?) should be, by implication, equal in importance to murder.
Even odder, though, is that the list seems so front-laden in terms of the time and words spent on it. I mean, it goes into quite extensive and verbose detail on the 'craven images' and 'working-on-Sundays' stuff, before rapidly whizzing through murder, theft and screwing around (without any of the labouring the point or detail about the penalties that it includes with regard to the graven images bit), ending with all that covetting.
Honestly, it's just really oddly structured. Makes me wonder what the thought-processes were behind it.
[I'm sure this observation must have been made before, but seriously I've never looked them up before]
Hmmm, if I've understood the website sources correctly, the Jewish version is much less lop-sided, without all the excess verbiage on the first ones. Interesting.