Autor: Voegelin, Eric

Buch: Israel and Revelation

Titel: Israel and Revelation

Stichwort: Dekalog (3 Teile), Decalogue, Moses

Kurzinhalt: it certainly is animated by the insight that right order will somehow grow in a community when the attunement to the hidden divine being is not disturbed by human selfassertion

Textausschnitt: 84/12 The meaning of the Decalogue is determined by its own contents, as well as by the context of the drama which begins with the Message of Exodus 19:4-6. The Berith has been concluded, and Israel is accepted as the royal domain of Yahweh the King. Hence, the Decalogue is not a catechism of religious and moral precepts, but a proclamation of the God-King laying down the fundamental rules for the order of the new domain. It opens with a declaration of the authority from which the commands emanate: (425; Fs)
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86/12 The first group of three or, with the subdivisions of the second one, of five commandments deals with the relation between God and man. The commandments contain no "monotheistic doctrine"; they rather prohibit fallacious conduct that would obscure the nature of the God who has revealed himself as the ehyeh asher ehyeh. Yahweh is the hidden God who manifests himself in the form, and at the times, of his choice. He must not be made manifest through images of human device, because his nature as the hidden God would be obscured - and man cannot obscure the nature of God through symbolic action without affecting the order of his relation with God. Moreover, behind all attempts to image God in the likeness of anything within the visible cosmos, even though the attempts are apparently harmless, there lurks the desire to bring God within the reach of man. ...
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87/12 The third group of five commandments is self-explanatory. The commandments transfer the rules of internal clan solidarity to the new social body of the people of Israel. The injunctions protect the basic goods of life, marriage, property, and social honor. And the last commandment again penetrates to the source of disturbance when it prohibits the cherishing of covetous sentiments, of envy, which ultimately might break out in the specific disturbances. (427; Fs)

The two groups of injunctions are skillfully linked by the positive commandments of the middle group. The order of a people lives not only in the here and now of man's right relations with God and fellow man but in the rhythms of the people's existence in time. The articulation of order in time, through both the divine rhythm of the holy day and the human rhythm of the generations, must be honored. The command to remember the divine rhythm (4) concludes the commandments concerning the relation with God; and the commandment to honor the human rhythm (5) opens the commandments concerning the relation with fellow man. (427; Fs)

88/12 Clearly, the Decalogue is not an accidental collection of "religious" and "moral" precepts, but a magnificent construction, with a firm grip on the essentials of human existence in society under God. While the compact symbol offers an explicit "philosophy of order" no more than the thornbush episode offered a "philosophy of being," it certainly is animated by the insight that right order will somehow grow in a community when the attunement to the hidden divine being is not disturbed by human selfassertion. Since it does not issue positive rules, either cultic or moral, the field remains wide open, in both respects, for civilizational growth. Nevertheless, the Decalogue restrains and directs the growth by its injunctions against rebellious existence. It is framed by the firm blocks of the first and tenth commandments with their injunctions against the antitheistic rebellion of pride and the antihuman rebellion of envy. Between the two protective dams, in the middle, can move the order of the people through the rhythm of time. Through the articulation of the divine will into the commandments of the Decalogue Moses, indeed, has given Israel its constitution as the people under God in historical existence. (427; Fs) (notabene)