The “Three Shekels” inscription from the Shlomo Moussaieff Collection in London, published in BAR,a may change the way we punctuate—and therefore the way we understand—some of the Ten Commandments. I do not suggest the change is a major one, but it is highly interesting nonetheless.
The Ten Commandments appear twice in the Bible, once in Exodus and again in Deuteronomy. But they are not identical. The phrase “as the Lord your God commanded you” (Deuteronomy 5:12, 16) appears twice in Deuteronomy. This phrase is omitted from the parallel passages in Exodus (Exodus 20:8, 12) because in Exodus the Lord is speaking. In Deuteronomy, a second telling of Biblical events, Moses recounts to the people what God had said at Sinai as they are about to enter the Promised Land.
But it is unclear whether the phrase in Deuteronomy, “as the Lord your God commanded,” refers to the commandment just given or to the material that follows.
The first appearance of the phrase in the Deuteronomic decalogue is in the Fourth Commandment. The problem is how to punctuate it:
Observe the Sabbath, to keep it holy as the Lord your God commanded you six days shall you labor, and do all your work; but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, or your manservant, or your maidservant, or your ox, or your ass, or any of your cattle, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your manservant and your maidservant may rest as well as you…
Should the commandment read, “Observe the Sabbath, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you?” Or should it read, “Observe the Sabbath, to keep it holy. As the Lord your God commanded you: Six days shall you labor,” etc.?
In the second appearance of the phrase, the question is whether it connects to the preceding commandment to honor one’s father and mother or to a series of commandments afterward:
Honor your father and mother as the Lord your God has commanded you that your days may be long and that it may go well with you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. You shall not murder; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife…
Traditionally, “as the Lord God has commanded you” is interpreted to apply to what went before, and a period is placed at the end of the phrase: “Honor your father and mother as the Lord your God has commanded you.” It could, however, apply instead to the following material and take a colon instead of a period. So while the first appearance of the phrase could introduce the instructions as to how the sabbath should be observed, the second appearance, instead of being appended to the commandment to honor your parents, would introduce the fifth commandment: “As the Lord your God has commanded you, ‘That your days may be long and that it may go well with you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you: You shall not murder; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal…’” and so on.
This issue turns on the Hebrew word ka’aser, meaning “as” or “thus” or “because.” It has been thought that in Biblical Hebrew ka’aser cannot begin a sentence, and so the phrase in question must be attached to the previous sentence. The inscription published in BAR, which records a three-shekel donation to the Temple of Yahweh and dates to sometime between the ninth and seventh centuries B.C.E., forces us to revise this view: It begins with the word ka’aser! The authors of the original French publication of the ostracon translate it “as”—“As Ashyahu the king commands you…”1 The inscription shows that even in Biblical times, a sentence could begin with “as.” It thus shows that the phrase “as the Lord your God commanded you” may just as likely apply to what follows it as to what precedes it.
