write upon the tablets the words that appeared on the first tablets, which you shattered.” (Ex. 34:1-4) And so after another forty days spent in the mountain, a duplicate copy of the Ten Words was obtained. These were kept by Moses in an ark of acacia wood. (Deut. 10:1-5) The two tablets were called “the tablets of the covenant.” (Deut. 9:9, 11, 15) Evidently this is why the gold-overlaid ark later made by Bezalel, in which the tablets were eventually kept, was called “the ark of the covenant.” (Josh. 3:6, 11; 8:33; Judg. 20:27; Heb. 9:4) This legislation of the Ten Words was also called “the testimony” (Ex. 25:16, 21; 40:20), and the “tablets of the Testimony” (Ex. 31:18; 34:29), hence the expressions “the ark of the testimony” (Ex. 25:22; Num. 4:5), and also “the tabernacle of the Testimony,” that is, the tent where the Ark was housed.—Ex. 38:21.

Concerning the first set of tablets, it is stated that they not only were made by Jehovah, but were also “written on by God’s finger”, evidently denoting God’s spirit. (Ex. 31:18; Deut. 4:13; 5:22; 9:10) Likewise, the second set of tablets, although carved out by Moses, were written upon by Jehovah. When, at Exodus 34:27, Moses was told, “Write down for yourself these words,” reference was not to the Ten Words themselves, but, rather, as on a previous occasion (Ex. 24:3, 4), he was to write down some of the other details pertaining to the covenant regulations. Hence, the pronoun “he” in Exodus 34:28b refers to Jehovah when it says: “And he [Jehovah, not Moses] proceeded to write upon the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Words.” Verse one shows this to be so. Later, when recalling these events, Moses confirms that it was Jehovah who duplicated the tablets.—Deut. 10:1-4.

CONTENTS OF THE COMMANDMENTS

By way of an introduction to these ten great Words is the forthright statement in the first person: “I am Jehovah your God, who have brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slaves.” (Ex. 20:2) This not only states who is speaking to whom but shows why the Decalogue was especially given to the Jews at that time. It was not given to Abraham.—Deut. 5:2, 3.

The first commandment, “You must not have any other gods against my face,” put Jehovah first. (Ex. 20:3) It involved his lofty office and unique position as the Almighty God, the Most High, the Supreme Sovereign. This commandment indicated that the Israelites were not to have any other gods as rivals to Jehovah.

The second commandment was a natural follow-up of the first in that it forbade idolatry in any shape or form as an open affront to Jehovah’s glory and Personage. ‘You must not make a carved image or a form like anything in the heavens, on the earth or in the waters under the earth, nor are you to bow down to or serve them.’ This prohibition is underscored with the declaration: “Because I Jehovah your God am a God exacting exclusive devotion.”—Ex. 20:4-6.

The third commandment, in its proper and logical sequence, declared: “You must not take up the name of Jehovah your God in a worthless way.” (Ex. 20:7) This harmonizes with the prominence attached to Jehovah’s name throughout the Hebrew Scriptures (it occurs 6,962 times). Within just these few verses of the Ten Words (2-17), the name occurs eight times. The phrase “not take up” has the thought of “not pronounce” or “not lift up (or carry).” To do this to God’s name in a “worthless way” would be to lift up that name to a falsehood, or “in vain.” The Israelites who were privileged to bear Jehovah’s name as his witnesses and who became apostate were in effect taking up and carrying about Jehovah’s name in a worthless way.—Isa. 43:10; Ezek. 36:20, 21.

The fourth commandment stated: “Remembering the sabbath day to hold it sacred, you are to render service and you must do all your work six days. But the seventh day is a sabbath to Jehovah your God. You must not do any work, you nor your son nor your daughter, your slave man nor your slave girl nor your domestic animal nor your alien resident who is inside your gates.” (Ex. 20:8-10) By their holding this day as holy to Jehovah, all, even the slaves and the domestic animals, would have the benefit of refreshing rest. The sabbath day also provided opportunity to concentrate on spiritual matters without distraction.

The fifth commandment, “Honor your father and your mother” (Ex. 20:12), may be viewed as linking together the first four, which define man’s duties toward God, and the remaining commandments, which set forth man’s obligations toward fellow creatures. For since parents serve as God’s representatives, by keeping the fifth command one is, in a twofold sense, honoring and obeying both the Creator and those creatures upon whom God has conferred authority. This command was the only one of the Ten with a promise attached: “in order that your days may prove long upon the ground that Jehovah your God is giving you.”—Ex. 20:12; Deut. 5:16; Eph. 6:2, 3.

The next commandments in the code were stated very tersely: the sixth, “You must not murder”; the seventh, “You must not commit adultery”; the eighth, “You must not steal.” This is the way these laws are listed in the Masoretic text—laws dealing with crimes causing the greatest to the least harm to one’s neighbor, in that order. In some Greek manuscripts (Codex Alexandrinus, Codes Ambrosianus) the order is ‘murder, theft, adultery’; Philo has ‘adultery, murder, theft’; the Codex Vaticanus, ‘adultery, theft, murder.’ Going then from deeds to words, the ninth says: “You must not testify falsely as a witness against your fellow man.”—Ex. 20:16.

The tenth commandment (Ex. 20:17) was unique in that it forbade covetousness, that is, wrong desire for the property and possessions, including the wife, belonging to a fellowman. No human lawmakers originated such a law, for, indeed, there would be no way humanly possible of enforcing it. Jehovah, on the other hand, by this tenth commandment made each one directly accountable to Him who sees and knows all the secret thoughts of a person’s heart.—1 Sam. 16:7; Prov. 21:2; Jer. 17:10.

OTHER LISTINGS OF THESE LAWS

The above division of the Ten Words as found at Exodus 20:2-17 is a natural one. It is the same as given by Josephus, Jewish historian of the first century C.E. (Antiquities of the Jews, Book III, chap. V, par. 5), and by the Jewish philosopher Philo, also of the first century C.E. (Biblical Antiquities, chap. XI, pars. 6-13) Others, however, including Augustine, combined the two laws against foreign gods and images (Ex. 20:3-6; Deut. 5:7-10) into one commandment, and then, in order to recover a tenth, divided verse 17 of Exodus chapter 20 (Deut. 5:21) into two commandments, thus making a ninth against coveting a man’s wife, and a tenth against coveting his house, and so forth. Augustine sought to support his theoretical division on the later parallel listing of the Decalogue at Deuteronomy 5:6-21, where two different Hebrew words in verse 21 are found (“Neither must you desire [Heb., hha·madhʹ] . . . Neither must you selfishly crave [Heb., ʼa·wahʹ]”), rather than on the earlier text in Exodus 20:17, where just the one verb (“desire”) occurs twice.

There are other minor differences in the wording between the parallel enumerations of the Ten Commandments in Exodus and Deuteronomy, but these in no way affect the force or the meaning of the laws. Whereas, in the former listing, the Ten Words are stated in formal legislative style, its later repetition is more narrative in form, for on the latter occasion Moses was merely rehearsing God’s commandment in the way of a reminder. The Ten Words also appear elsewhere in still other variations, for they were often quoted or cited along with other instructions by Bible writers of both the Hebrew and Christian Greek Scriptures.—Ex. 31:14; 34:14, 17, 21; Lev. 19:3, 11, 12; Deut. 4:15-19; 6:14, 15; Matt. 5:27; 15:4; Luke 18:20; Rom. 13:9; Eph. 6:2, 3.

The Ten Words were God-given, hence comprise a perfect law code. When a man, “versed in the Law” asked Jesus Christ, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”, Jesus quoted a command that, in effect, epitomized the first four (or possibly five) of the Ten Commandments, saying: “You must love Jehovah your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with your whole mind.” The rest of the Decalogue Jesus then summed up in the few words of another command: “You must love your neighbor as yourself.”—Matt. 22:35-40; Deut. 6:5; Lev. 19:18.

CHRISTIANS NOT UNDER DECALOGUE

Jesus was born under the Law, and kept it perfectly, finally giving up his life as a ransom for mankind. (Gal. 4:4; 1 John 2:2) Furthermore, by his death on the torture stake, he freed those under the Law (including the basic Ten Words or Commandments) “by becoming a curse instead” of them. His death provided for the ‘blotting out of the handwritten document,’ it being nailed to the torture stake.—Gal. 3:13; Col. 2:13, 14.

Nevertheless, a study of the Law with its Ten Words is essential for Christians, for it reveals God’s viewpoint of matters, and it had “a shadow of the good things to come,” of the reality that belongs to the Christ. (Heb. 10:1; Col. 2:17; Gal. 6:2) Christians are “not without law toward God but under law toward Christ.” (1 Cor. 9:21) But they are not condemned as sinners by that law, for the undeserved kindness of God through Christ provides forgiveness for their errors due to fleshly weakness.—Rom. 3:23, 24.

TERAH

(Teʹrah) [ibex].

1. Abraham’s father, the eighth generation from Shem. (Luke 3:34; Gen. 11:10-24; 1 Chron. 1:24-26) Terah, through his sons Abraham, Nahor and Haran, became a forefather of numerous tribes. (Gen. 11:27; 22:20-24; 25:1-4, 13-15; 1 Chron. 1:28-42; 2:1, 2) Terah began having children at seventy. While Abraham is listed first, this appears to be because he is the most famous of Terah’s sons rather than the firstborn. When Terah died at 205, Abraham was only seventy-five, so Terah must have been 130 when Abraham was born. (Gen. 11:26, 32; 12:4) Sarah was Abraham’s half sister, likely a daughter of Terah by a different wife. (Gen. 20:12) Terah’s firstborn was most likely Haran, whose daughter was old enough to marry Terah’s other son Nahor.—Gen. 11:29.

Terah lived in Ur of the Chaldeans and there his family grew up. (Gen. 11:28) According to Joshua 24:2, Terah at one time worshiped gods other than Jehovah, perhaps the moon-god Sin, the favored deity of Ur. Nonetheless, when Jehovah called Abraham to leave Ur, Terah as family head went along to Haran where they all lived until after his death about 1943 B.C.E.—Gen. 11:31, 32; Acts 7:2-4.

2. One of the campsites during Israel’s wilderness wandering; its location is unknown.—Num. 33:27, 28.

TERAPHIM

Family gods or idols. (Gen. 31:30, 34) Although in the plural, the designation “teraphim” can also apply to a single idol. At least some of these idols may have been the size and shape of a man. (1 Sam. 19:13, 16) Others must have been much smaller, able to fit inside a woman’s saddle basket. (Gen. 31:34) The teraphim were, on occasion, consulted for omens.—Ezek. 21:21; Zech. 10:2.

The findings of archaeologists in Mesopotamia and adjacent areas indicate that the possession of the teraphim images had a bearing as to who would receive the family inheritance. According to one tablet found at Nuzi, the possession of the household gods entitled a son-in-law to appear in court and claim the estate of his deceased father-in-law. Perhaps Rachel, with this in mind, reasoned that she was justified in taking the teraphim because of her father’s deceptive dealings with her husband Jacob. (Compare Genesis 31:14-16.) The importance of the teraphim with respect to inheritance rights would also explain why Laban was so anxious to recover them, even to the point of pursuing Jacob in company with others for a distance of seven days’ journey. (Gen. 31:19-30) Of course, what Rachel had done was completely unknown to Jacob (Gen. 31:32), and there is no indication that he ever attempted to use the teraphim to gain the inheritance from Laban’s sons. Jacob had nothing to do with idols. At the latest, the teraphim would have been disposed of when Jacob hid all the foreign gods turned over to him by his household under the big tree that was close by Shechem.—Gen. 35:1-4.

In Israel the idolatrous use of teraphim existed in the days of the judges as well as the kings. (Judg. 17:5; 18:14, 17, 20; Hos. 3:4) It is not likely, though, that the teraphim served for purposes of inheritance in Israel, in view of God’s express command against the making of images. (Ex. 20:4) Also, the prophet Samuel spoke of teraphim in parallel with uncanny power, comparing the use of both to pushing ahead presumptuously (1 Sam. 15:23), and the teraphim were among the appendages of idolatry cleared out of Judah and Jerusalem by faithful King Josiah. (2 Ki. 23:24) Hence, the fact that Michal, the wife of David, had a teraphim image among her possessions suggests that her heart was not complete with Jehovah and that David either did not know about her having the teraphim image or else he tolerated it because she was the daughter of King Saul.—1 Sam. 19:12, 13.

TERESH

(Teʹresh) [possibly, desire].

One of two doorkeepers in the Persian palace who conspired against King Ahasuerus. Upon learning of the plot, Mordecai informed Queen Esther who, in turn, revealed it to the king. Teresh and his accomplice were hanged on a stake, and the incident was entered in the royal records.—Esther 2:21-23; 6:1, 2.

TERTIUS

(Terʹtius) [third].

The writer or transcriber of Paul’s letter to the Romans, and the only one of Paul’s “secretaries” identified by name. Tertius inserts his own personal greetings to the Romans.—Rom. 16:22.

TERTULLUS

(Terʹtul·lus) [from Tertius, third].

A public speaker who presented the Jews’ case against Paul before Governor Felix in Caesarea. Of what Luke recorded, much of Tertullus’ statement personally praises Felix, with only a very brief accusation against Paul, attempting to implicate him with the frequent seditions against Rome. (Acts 24:1-8) Nothing definite is known as to Tertullus’ nationality, whether Jewish or Roman.

TESTICLES

God’s law to Israel barred from the priesthood a man having his testicles broken, as one of several disqualifying physical defects. (Lev. 21:17-21, 23) This high standard for the priesthood was in harmony with the holiness of the office of the priests as representatives of Jehovah’s holiness before Israel. It likewise accords with the fact that Israel’s priesthood symbolized the heavenly priesthood of Christ and his congregation of underpriests, among whom there is found no blemish. (Heb. 7:26; Eph. 5:27; Rev. 14:1, 5; 20:6) Furthermore, God wanted priests who could have children to succeed them. The Law provided, however, that such a defective person could eat of the holy things provided for the sustenance of the priesthood.—Lev. 21:21, 22.

For similar reasons an animal having its testicles squeezed, crushed, cut off or pulled off could not be