cover image The Nine Commandments: Uncovering the Hidden Pattern of Crime and Punishment in the Hebrew Bible

The Nine Commandments: Uncovering the Hidden Pattern of Crime and Punishment in the Hebrew Bible

David Noel Freedman. Doubleday Books, $24.95 (240pp) ISBN 978-0-385-49986-6

This book is the rare example of a scholar who manages to say something new--new!--in an utterly accessible and engaging book about the Bible. Freedman, the general editor of the Anchor Bible series, argues for a pattern of disobedience throughout the Old Testament: God gave the Ten Commandments, and then one by one, the Israelites broke them. Israelites broke the first two commandments (""You shall have no other gods before me"" and ""You shall not make for yourself an idol"") by worshiping a golden calf instead of God. They subsequently took the Lord's name in vain, broke the Sabbath, shamed their parents, committed adultery and murder, and stole. The tenth commandment--""You shall not covet""--lies at the heart, Freedman asserts, of the other nine; although it is never broken by itself, it is, in a sense, broken nine times. In other words, Achan stole because he coveted someone else's property (Joshua 7); David committed adultery because he coveted another's wife. Throughout the Old Testament, the people of Israel failed to uphold their half of their covenant with God. The ""scarlet thread of commandment violations"" ends with the exile of Israel. God, Freedman suggests in an important argument, did not abandon Israel; Israel abandoned him and his laws, and God responded. In the tradition of Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg and Robert Alter, Freedman merges two styles of biblical study, exploring the Bible both as theological text and as a work of literature. Freedman has produced a riveting book that will fundamentally change the way readers understand the Old Testament. (Nov.)