Ten Commandments Ten Commandments The Ten Commandments (, "Aseret ha'Dibrot"), also known as the Decalogue, are a set of biblical principles relating to ethics and worship, which play a fundamental role in Judaism and Christianity. The commandments include instructions to worship only God, to honour one's parents, and to keep the sabbath, as well as prohibitions against idolatry, blasphemy, murder, adultery, theft, dishonesty, and coveting. Different religious groups follow different traditions for interpreting and numbering them. The Ten Commandments appear twice in the Hebrew Bible, in the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy. Modern scholarship has found likely influences in Hittite and Mesopotamian
Ten Commandments laws and treaties, but is divided over exactly when the Ten Commandments were written and who wrote them. In biblical Hebrew, the Ten Commandments are called (transliterated ) and in Mishnaic Hebrew (transliterated ), both translatable as "the ten words", "the ten sayings", or "the ten matters". The Tyndale and Coverdale English biblical translations used "ten verses". The Geneva Bible used "tenne commandements", which was followed by the Bishops' Bible and the Authorized Version (the "King James" version) as "ten commandments". Most major English versions use "commandments." The English name "Decalogue" is derived from Greek , "dekalogos", the latter meaning