Image Details

de Champaigne painting: Giraudon/Art Resource

Moses and the Tablets of the Law. Alert readers may have noticed that in our February 1994 issue the paintings by Rembrandt van Rijn, left, and Philippe de Champaigne, right, number the Ten Commandments in different ways (see “Re-creating the Tablets of the Law,” BR 10:01). Author Ronald Youngblood explains that de Champaigne’s version follows Catholic tradition by combining the prohibitions against polytheism and idolatry in the First Commandment but dividing those against coveting between the Ninth and Tenth Commandments. Rembrandt, on the other hand, in the tradition of Protestant reformed churches, separates the prohibitions against polytheism and idolatry into the First and Second Commandments and merges those against coveting in a single Tenth Commandment.