Many Christians mistakenly think that there are only ten commandments, but there are actually hundreds of commandments in the Torah. (The Rabbis teach that there are 613 commandments, but I have not yet counted them myself to find out for sure)
The Hebrew word for “commandment” is “mitzvah”, and is used in connection with hundreds of commandments throughout scripture, except what we call the “Ten Commandments”. The word that the Bible uses here is “d’varum”, which means “word, thing, or saying”, and is used to mean “the sum of that which is spoken”.
So, according to the Bible, what we call the “Ten Commandments” are actually the “Ten Sayings that sum up that which God has spoken”.
Understanding this helps to bring clarity to the scriptures. For example, when Yeshua (Jesus) quoted the “Greatest Commandment”, he quoted from Deuteronomy 6:5, and then when he gave the second greatest commandment, he quoted from Leviticus 19:18, neither of these “commandments” are listed in the “Ten Commandments”, but Yeshua said that these are the two greatest commandments, so obviously when he speaks about the commandments of God, he is referring to more than just the “Ten Commandments”.
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