The most obvious objection to the previous post’s idea that the Torah was composed (or at least finally edited) in such a “cunningly ambiguous” manner as to allow divergent traditions and practices between and among Samaritans and Jews is the Samaritan tenth commandment. For Jews (or Judeans, the more appropriate term for the period we are addressing) the tenth commandment forbids coveting one’s neighbour’s house, wife, slave, ox or donkey. For the Samaritans, that is the ninth commandment. Their tenth is an order to construct an altar to Yahweh on Mount Gerizim. Since Judeans believed Jerusalem was ordained as the central place of worship we may think that a command to build an altar at Mount Gerizim could hardly have arisen through any collaborative effort of Samaritans and Judeans. But we would be wrong to think so.
But first, let’s be clear about what the Samaritan tenth commandment says. Here it is as it follows the command against coveting:
You shall not covet your neighbor’s house, you shall not covet his field, his male or female slave, his ox or his ass or anything that is your neighbor’s.
And when YHWH your God brings you to the land of the Canaanites which you are about to invade and occupy,
You shall set up large stones and coat them with plaster.
And you shall inscribe upon the stones all the words of this teaching.
And upon crossing the Jordan you shall set up these stones about which I charge you today, on Mount Gerizim.
And you shall build an altar there to YHWH your God, an altar of stones. Do not wield an iron tool over them.
You must build the altar of YHWH your God of unhewn stones. You shall offer on it burnt offerings to YHWH your God.
And you shall sacrifice well-being offerings and eat them there, and rejoice before YHWH your God.
That mountain is across the Jordan, beyond the west road which is in the land of the Canaanites who dwell in the Arabah, before Gilgal, by the terebinth of Moreh, before Shechem.
(Translation from Hepner 149; Hepner also points to an alternative Samaritan translation of the tenth commandment into English.)
There are several ways one can parse the words spoken from Mount Sinai to make them align with ten points. I have tried to capture the variants in this table along with some additional notes in the last row.
| Samaritan | Jewish | Protestant | Roman Catholic & Lutheran |
| 1 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. (Exodus 20:2)
(But see note below) |
1 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. . . . You shall have no other gods beside Me. . . You shall not make for yourself any graven image… |
||
| 1 You shall have no other gods before me.
You shall not make for yourself any graven image… |
2 You shall have no other gods beside Me. (Exodus 20:3)
You shall not make for yourself any graven image… (Exodus 20:4) |
1 You shall have no other gods before me. | |
| 2 You shall not make for yourself any graven image… | |||
| 2 You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
(But see note below) |
3 You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. (Exodus 20:7) | 3 You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. | 2 You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. |
| 3 Remember the Sabbath day… | 4 Remember the Sabbath day… (Exodus 20:8) | 4 Remember the Sabbath day… | 3 Remember the Sabbath day… |
| 4 Honor your father and your mother. | 5 Honor your father and your mother. (Exodus 20:12) | 5 Honor your father and your mother. | 4 Honor your father and your mother. |
| 5 You shall not murder. | 6 You shall not murder. (Exodus 20:13) | 6 You shall not murder. | 5 You shall not murder. |
| 6 You shall not commit adultery. | 7 You shall not commit adultery. (Exodus 20:14) | 7 You shall not commit adultery. | 6 You shall not commit adultery. |
| 7 You shall not steal. | 8 You shall not steal. (Exodus 20:15) | 8 You shall not steal. | 7 You shall not steal. |
| 8 You shall not bear false witness | 9 You shall not bear false witness (Exodus 20:16) | 9 You shall not bear false witness | 8 You shall not bear false witness |
| 9 You shall not covet your neighbor’s house… You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his man-servant… |
10 You shall not covet your neighbor’s house…
You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his man-servant… (Exodus 20:17) |
10 You shall not covet your neighbor’s house…
You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his man-servant… |
9 You shall not covet your neighbor’s house… |
| 10 You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his man-servant… | |||
| 10 Build an altar on Mount Gerizim | |||
| Ex 20:2 – Preamble or first commandment:
The official Jewish view takes Ex. xx, 2-3 to be the First Commandment, followed by verses 4-6 as Second. But R. Ishmael (second century A.D.) counts verse 3 as the First Commandment, viewing verse 2, apparently, as a preamble, in complete agreement with Samaritan practice. A similar system is adopted by Josephus and Philo who count verse 3 as Commandment 1, verses 4-6 as Commandment 2 and verse 7 as Commandment 3. The Samaritans consider the first commandment of the Jewish tradition as an introduction to the Decalogue, so that in their tradition there is room for an additional commandment.
[T]he first three Commandments which are extant only on two of the stones (Nablus and Palestine Museum) are quoted with an interesting variation. The Nablus Decalogue has no trace of Ex. xx, 2 as part of the First Commandment, which verse is treated in the Samaritan MSS. as a preamble to the Decalogue. … The Palestine Museum inscription starts off with what is definitely taken from the official Jewish First Commandment (Ex. xx, 2). It has, after that, as its Second Commandment verse Ex. xx, 3 in exactly the same form as the Nablus stone, which latter treats this phrase as First Commandment. But the Jewish Third, ” thou shalt not take the name of Lord thy God in vain”, which is the Samaritan Second Commandment, is omitted in the [Palestinian inscription] while it is found in the [Nablus inscription]. This seems to suggest that [Palestinian inscription] included in its Second Commandment by implication Ex. xx, 7, the Jewish Third Commandment. |
|||
As we can see from the table there are several ways one can count “the ten”.
Furthermore, Judeans would interpret the Gerizim command as a one-time action to apply to the moment when Israel entered the land of Canaan and not as an ongoing command.
Bóid’s observation that we cited in the previous post applies:
We see, then, that there is nothing in the Samaritan Torah that is necessarily unacceptable to Jews, and nothing in the MT [=Masoretic Text of the Jewish Bible] that is necessarily unacceptable to Samaritans.
(Bóid 340)
But is not the Samaritan tenth commandment a “blatant interpolation”, an egregious sectarian intrusion into the narrative of the Ten Commandments? It does not have to be read that way. There is nothing in the tenth commandment that is not found elsewhere in the Jewish Torah. The editors have merely turned to Deuteronomy and copied verses from there into the Exodus account of the Ten Commandments. So there is nothing new or objectionable in the wording, even to Judeans who worshiped in Jerusalem. And what for the Samaritans could be read as a command to be kept “forever” for the Judeans could be read as a one-time historical edict.
I have constructed the following table from an article by Stefan Schorch (2019) to illustrate how the Samaritan tenth commandment was composed. It begins with the Samaritan ninth commandment and shows what passages from Deuteronomy were inserted at this point in Exodus 20 and the second narration of the ten commandments in Deuteronomy 5. The column on the right lists the verses of the Samaritan tenth commandment so you can see how they were taken from Deuteronomy 11 and 27 (middle column). You will notice that the passage from Deuteronomy 11:29-30 has been split to form an inclusio — a frame — for the main body of the commandment.
| Ex 20:17 Dt 5:21 |
You shall not covet your neighbour’s house. You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife . . . | |
| Dt 11:29 | When the LORD your God has brought you into the land you are entering to possess, you are to proclaim on Mount Gerizim the blessings, and on Mount Ebal the curses. | And when YHWH your God brings you to the land of the Canaanites which you are about to invade and occupy, |
| Dt 27:2 | When you have crossed the Jordan into the land the LORD your God is giving you, set up some large stones and coat them with plaster. | You shall set up large stones and coat them with plaster. |
| Dt 27:3 . . . . . . Dt 27:8 |
Write on them all the words of this law when you have crossed over to enter the land the LORD your God is giving you, a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your ancestors, promised you.
And you shall write very clearly all the words of this law on these stones you have set up. |
And you shall inscribe upon the stones all the words of this teaching. |
| Dt 27:4 | And when you have crossed the Jordan, set up these stones on Mount Ebal [original=Mount Gerizim — see note below], as I command you today, and coat them with plaster. | And upon crossing the Jordan you shall set up these stones about which I charge you today, on Mount Gerizim |
| Dt 27:5 | Build there an altar to the LORD your God, an altar of stones. Do not use any iron tool on them. | And you shall build an altar there to YHWH your God, an altar of stones. Do not wield an iron tool over them. |
| Dt 27:6 | Build the altar of the LORD your God with fieldstones and offer burnt offerings on it to the LORD your God. | You must build the altar of YHWH your God of unhewn stones. You shall offer on it burnt offerings to YHWH your God. |
| Dt 27:7 | Sacrifice fellowship offerings there, eating them and rejoicing in the presence of the LORD your God. | And you shall sacrifice well-being offerings and eat them there, and rejoice before YHWH your God. |
| Dt 11:30 | As you know, these mountains are across the Jordan, westward, toward the setting sun, near the great trees of Moreh, in the territory of those Canaanites living in the Arabah in the vicinity of Gilgal. | That mountain is across the Jordan, beyond the west road which is in the land of the Canaanites who dwell in the Arabah, before Gilgal, by the terebinth of Moreh, before Shechem. |
It is clear, therefore, that the Samaritan tenth commandment is nothing other than a rearrangement of passages from Deuteronomy. In the narrative flow of the Pentateuch, a Judean reader would have understood that an altar was to be built on Mount Gerizim but the same Judean reader would have understood those passages as a reference to a one-time historical moment – not as an eternal command.
Indeed, the above method of rearranging biblical material into new configurations was typical of the way scribes worked to produce expanded and “clearer” or more “relevant” texts, as can be seen in the “rewritten scriptures” of the Dead Sea Scrolls:
Scholars have long noted that the redactional process resulting in the new Samaritan Tenth Commandment shares many characteristics with the scribal tradition that produced the expanded Qumran scrolls. In fact, the techniques are identical. . . . The creation of the new tenth commandment, which takes material from Dtn 27 that had no connection to Sinai, exhibits the same type of freedom as in the third insertion in SP [=Samaritan Pentateuch] Ex 20, »showing that the ›Samaritan‹ scribe was only following his predecessor’s footsteps«. Moreover, the Samaritan Tenth Commandment did not involve the creation of any new material; the scribe simply duplicated text found elsewhere in the Pentateuch, including the reference to Gerizim, taken from Dtn 27,4 according to what many scholars now regard as the original text of that passage. As Tigay rightly comments: »What is noteworthy about the interpolator’s technique is that actual changes in substance are remarkably few. On the whole he accomplished his tendentious purpose with material already present somewhere in his sources.«
(Gallagher 104)
.
Mount Ebal or Mount Gerizim?
In case you think I am cheating by striking out Mount Ebal in the above table and replacing it with Mount Gerizim, I appeal to the scholars in my defence. (Recall also the same point made by Gallagher in the above quotation.)
We have to realize, however, that the Masoretic [=the Jewish Bible] reading in Deut 27:4 בהר עיבל “on Mount Ebal” is almost certainly a secondary ideological correction, as opposed to the text-historically original בהר גריזים “on Mount Gerizim”, which is preserved in the Samaritan Pentateuch and the Old Latin (Vetus Latina). According to the original text of the Book of Deuteronomy, therefore, this altar is to be built on Mount Gerizim, which is the mountain of the blessings according to the framing passages Deut 11:29 and 27:12‒13.
(Schorch 2011 28)
Magnar Karveit discusses the manuscript evidence through a six page excursus and concludes:
… that the reading “Gerizim” in Deut 27:4 is older than the reading “Ebal” of the [Masoretic Text = Jewish Text].
(Karveit 305 — the title of the excursus is Deuteronomy 27:4 in the Old Greek Papyrus Giessen 19 and in the Old Latin Lyon Manuscript, and the Altar-Pericope in Joshua 8:30–35)
In the following passage the sign ⅏ represents the Samaritan Pentateuch:
The main ideological change in ⅏ concerns the central place of worship. Wherever the Torah mentions or alludes to Jerusalem as the central place of worship, ⅏ inserted, sometimes by way of allusion, Mount Gerizim, . . . This change is particularly evident in the Samaritan tenth commandment referring to the sanctity of Mount Gerizim. This commandment consists of verses occurring elsewhere in the Torah: Deut 11:29a, Deut 27:2b-3a, Deut 27:4a, Deut 27:5-7, Deut 11:30, in that sequence in ⅏-Exodus and Deuteronomy. The addition includes the reading of ⅏-Deut 27:4 “Mount Gerizim” instead of “Mount Ebal,” which appears in most other witnesses, as the name of the place where the Israelites were commanded to erect an altar after the crossing of the Jordan.140
140 This reading is usually taken as tendentious, but since it is also found in the Vetus Latina+ it should probably be considered non-sectarian and possibly original. . . . A reading [Mount Gerizim] is also found in a Judean Desert fragment (Qumran cave 4?). –> U. Schattner-Rieser, “Garizim versus Ebal: Ein neues Qumranfragment Samaritanischer Tradition?” Early Christianity 2 (2010) 277-81. See also R. Pummer, “APΓAPIZIN: A Criterion for Samaritan Provenance?” JSJ 18 (1987) 18-25. This reading, written as one word, occurs also in a Masada fragment written in the early Hebrew script+ (papMas 1o). –> Talmon, Masada VI, 138-47. However, the Samaritan nature of that fragment is contested by H. Eshel, “The Prayer of Joseph, a Papyrus from Masada and the Samaritan Temple on APΓAPIZIN,” Zion 56 (1991) 12536 (Heb. with Eng. summ.).
(Tov 87f)
Who proclaimed the commandments? God or Moses?
One may object that in both the Samaritan and Jewish/Judean texts it is Moses who is instructing the Israelites to build the altar on Mount Gerizim so it could hardly be one of the “Ten Commandments” per se. Not so, however. It is only in the first of the ten commandments even in the non-Samaritan versions where God speaks in the first person. Returning to Schorch:
[O]nly the First of the Ten commandments (according to the traditional Samaritan counting), uses indeed the divine first person:
You shall have no other gods besides Me. . . .
Beginning with the Second commandment (Samaritan counting), God is referred to in the third person, where applicable:
You shall not swear falsely by the name of the LORD your God; for the LORD will not clear one who swears falsely by His name. etc. (Exod. 20:7)
The literary difference between these two parts is obvious and was already observed by early Jewish Midrashim preserved in Pesikta de-Rab Kahane and the Babylonian Talmud, which solved the problem by suggesting that only the beginning of the Decalogue reflects God’s own speech, while the reminder is attributed to Moses and refers to God in the third person. 34 From that perspective, the Gerizim composition, inevitably continuing the mode of speaking introduced already with the Second commandment (Exod 20:7), is more plausibly understood as being inserted in the context of Moses’ words rather than God’s
(Schorch 2019 93f)
So the fact that the narrative has Moses speaking the Mount Gerizim command to the Israelites does not disqualify it from being one of the “Ten Commandments” — if one’s tradition wanted it that way.
The Samaritans read this passage as the tenth commandment. The Jews can find nothing objectionable in the extended verse because all of those instructions are found elsewhere in the Pentateuch; the main difference is that the Jews count the earlier commandments differently so that the Jews would not need to read the extended passage of the Samaritans as one of the ten commandments. So it comes down to how one counts and how one interprets the temporal context of the command.
In the next post I hope to present some of the evidence that the Mount Gerizim command preceded both the traditional Samaritan Pentateuch and Jewish Bibles.
Bóid, Iain Ruairidh MacMhanainn. Principles of Samaritan Halachah. Leiden ; New York: Brill Academic Pub, 1989.
Bowman, J., and S. Talmon. “Samaritan Decalogue Inscriptions.” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 33, no. 2 (March 1951): 211–36. https://doi.org/10.7227/BJRL.33.2.3.
Gallagher, Edmond L. “Is the Samaritan Pentateuch a Sectarian Text?” Zeitschrift Für Die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 127, no. 1 (January 20, 2015). https://doi.org/10.1515/zaw-2015-0007.
Hepner, Gershon. “The Samaritan Version of the Tenth Commandment.” Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament 20, no. 1 (May 2006): 147–52. https://doi.org/10.1080/09018320600757101.
Kartveit, Magnar. The Origin of the Samaritans. Leiden: Brill, 2009.
Schorch, Stefan. “The Samaritan Version of Deuteronomy and the Origin of Deuteronomy.” In Samaria, Samarians, Samaritans: Studies on Bible, History and Linguistics, edited by József Zsengellér, 23–38. Walter de Gruyter, 2011.
Schorch, Stefan. “The So-Called Gerizim Commandment in the Samaritan Pentateuch.” In The Samaritan Pentateuch and the Dead Sea Scrolls: 94, edited by M. Langlois, 77–98. Leuven ; Bristol, CT: Peeters, 2019.
Tov, Emanuel. Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible. 3rd edition, revised and expanded. Minneapolis, Mn: Augsburg Books, 2011.
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Regarding date of composition, does it necessarily have to be the Samaritan commandments copying from Deuteronomy? What about vice versa? If the Deuteronomist was writing/compiling at a later, even Hellenistic date, doesn’t that suggest he drew from the prior Samaritan commandments?
There’s no reason to think that the Samaritans copying to make their distinctive Samaritan Pentateuch could not have happened in the Hellenistic era.
As for direction of copying, though, the simplest model is that some Samaritans copied from a simpler text to create their tenth commandment. If it were the other way around then we would have to postulate that Judeans removed the Mount Gerizim command from the list of Big Ten but still kept it elsewhere — which would not be much point if they were really trying to eliminate the Mount Gerizim command altogether.
The Ten Commands actually have a chiastic literary structure that indicates very clearly that the Samaritan 10th command to build the temple on Mt. Gerazim is an out of place addition.
The chiastic structure using the Jewish number is that commandments 1 and 2 are supposed to go with 10, 3 with 9, 4 with 8, 5 with 7, and 6 stands along in the center being of particular importance. Actually the Samartian number in the table is easier to use because the pairings under Samaritan numberings are 1-9, 2-8, 3-7, 4-6, 5.
Under the Jewish number, 1 and 2 go with 10 because the things that you are not supposed to covet in commandment 10 are things that symbolize other religion’s gods (neighbor’s ox and ass) and temples (neighbor’s house).
The themes behind the other chiastic pairings are fairly obvious except for the sabbath-stealing connection. The sabbath-stealing connection is a subtle jab at Marduk, stealing the names of 50 other gods in his victory celebration on his Sabbath. The Ten Commandments are heavily inspired by Enuma Elish and may even have even been listed in some form in Berossus’ Babyloniaca Book 1.
The Samaritan commandment to “build a temple on Mt. Gerazim” is completely out of place.
The fact that the Samartian 10th commandment is out of place becomes even more obvious when you recognize that the Ten Commandments themselves are not just a standalone chiasmus but are the center of a significantly larger chiasmus that wraps them in which the Samaritan 10th command is completely out of place. The chiastic structure is extremely easy to identify if you are looking for it.
Interesting. Could it be argued that there are really 9 commandments, and that the Judeans added a short prologue, and the Samaritans a long epilogue?
My view is that the Pentateuch had one lead author who wrote almost everything except maybe most of Deuteronomy. This guy loved math and numerology would probably have intentionally wanted this to be interpreted as the definitive list of 10.
The way I like to look at it is as though the “first commandment” is a standalone special commandment. It is the supreme command of Marduk: You shall have no other gods before me. Then the rest of the stuff about not making graven images etc can be where the chiasmus starts.
The Exodus outline was probably one of the first parts of the Pentateuch to be written alongside an outline of Genesis. So I don’t think the prologue about “Lord your god who brought you out of Egypt” is a later insertion.
I’m no gematriist, but I asked Gemini about the significance of 9 and 10 in Judaism.
There are 10 “words” in the Decalogues (both Judean and Samaritan), but only 9 _commandments_.
The 10th “word”, a non-commandment, may have a special significance.
This doesn’t affect Jonathan’s hypothesis, but it might shed light on the Decalogue.
Gemini also pointed out that traditionally is it portrayed on two tablets,
five “words” on each, which might make the chiasm more (or less?) perspicuous.
Gemini:
In gematria, 9 and 10 represent fundamentally different stages of spiritual and numerical development. While 9 represents ultimate completion, truth, and self-containment, 10 represents a divine transition, a new beginning, and transitions into a higher dimension. [1, 2]
The fundamental differences and core meanings of 9 versus 10 are as follows:
The Number 9
• Completion and Truth: In Hebrew gematria, 9 is the highest single-digit number, symbolizing ultimate wholeness, integrity, and truth.
• Self-Contained: Mathematically and mystically, 9 is known as a self-contained number because any multiple of 9 always reduces back to 9 when its digits are added together (e.g., 2 × 9 = 18 and 1 + 8 = 9).
• Symbolic Meanings: It represents the fruit of the spirit (as there are 9 fruits) and the 9 days of preparation between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
• The “10th” Rule: When applied to tithing (giving 10% of one’s earnings to charity), 9 represents the material or the “whole,” while the 10th portion elevates the whole to the divine.
The Number 10
• Divine Transcendence and New Beginnings: Just as 9 represents the ultimate peak of the physical or single-digit realm, 10 breaks that boundary, representing a move into a higher dimension, a new decimal, or a fresh beginning.
• Sacred Number: It holds deep religious and structural significance (e.g., the Ten Commandments, the Ten Plagues, and the 10 Sefirot through which God manifests in Jewish mysticism).
• Quorum (Minyan): In traditional Jewish law, 10 is the minimum number of adults required to form a quorum for communal prayer, symbolizing a complete community necessary for the Divine Presence (Shechinah) to dwell among them.
• The Decimal System: While 1 is the start of the sequence, 10 is the completion of one cycle of sequence and the birth of a new tier of counting.
In gematria practice, 10 is also represented by the Hebrew letter Yud, which is the smallest letter in the alphabet but serves as the “point” or “spark” from which all other letters are drawn and manifested. [1]
AI responses may include mistakes.
If you ask the Google AI for gematria interpretations of words and numbers, most of the time it gives you nonsense, but occasionally it gives useful information. Most of the gematria interpretations are essentially just nonsensical “smooth talking” that may sound cool but is extremely unlikely to at all be related to what the authors of the Bible had in mind.
That said, the author of Genesis / lead author of the Pentateuch definitely engaged in the use of picking words and letters to hit certain gematria totals. This practice was done throughout the Bible and has not been fully appreciated by mainstream scholarship. It actually has massive implications for identifying authorship and direction of dependence and dating.
The author of Genesis should be thought of as a highly intelligent person with a lot of free time and creativity who liked to do math and was treating the Pentateuch was a creative writing project. On the gematria front he clearly made use of standard gematria (1-9, 10-90, 100-400), ordinal gematria (1-22), and digit sum / reduced gematria. He was also involved in the translation into Greek and paid attention to isopsephy.
Some numbers he particularly liked were: 7 (and any multiple of 7, particularly 14 (reduced Elohim), 21, 63, 119), 17 (ordinal / digit sum of YHWH), 26 (YHWH), 40, 41 (ordinal Elohim), 86 (Elohim), 257 (“and God said”). He also surely liked palindromes, squares (Ezra 1 is all about squares), possibly triangular numbers, and 37×3=111 and the various multiples of 111.
I’m at a major loss for why the author of Genesis would want to prioritize the number 9 over 10 in this context. 10 is the number of fingers and hands of humans, and it’s the basis for mathematical systems (in 270s BCE Egypt they were working in powers of 10s).
Also, note that the Ten Commandments were written on two tablets with 5 commandments each. Note that an EXTREMELY important theme in the Bible is the slicing of Tiamat in two. Splitting is required for creation. This fact seems like a pretty strong indicator that 10 was what was implied. Anytime you see the number 2 your mind should immediately go to Tiamat.
Also, upon rereading the Ten Commandments more closely, the opening “I am YHWH your Elohim who brought you out of the land of Egypt and the house of bondage” is extremely clearly part of the chiastic structure to pair up with commandment 10 (contrary to what I might have suggested in my previous comment). That explains that the neighbors whose temples/houses you are not supposed to covet are the Egyptians. So it’s a very important part of the chiasmus. This also got me thinking that Elohim could perhaps be translated “highest god” or “most important god”. “I am yahweh, your highest god”. It is a possessive statement and an introduction and explanation of the next commandment.
However, upon thinking more about the Samaritan 10th commandment, it looks like it was actually carefully crafted with the intro in mind. It actually opens in such a way as to indicate that the author was writing it with the “I am YHWH your Elohim who brought you out of the land of Egypt and the house of bondage.” “And when YWWH your Elohim brings you into the land of the Canaanites which you are about to invade and occupy”. That suggest that whoever wrote the Samaritan 10th commandment read the sentence about YHWH your Elohim bringing you out of the house of bondage.
The Samaritan 10th commandment full text actually shares a lot in common with the corresponding section in Exodus 20:18-26. If you look at Exodus 21, in some sense it looks like the author is going backwards through the Ten Commandments to pick the topics he is writing about. That suggests that this mucked up point after the 10th commandment in the text was intended to be a chiastic center piece. One possible interpretation is that the author of the Samaritan 10th commandment deleted the opening and moved it to the end to start a downward chiasmus from after the “thou shalt not covet your neighbor’s house, etc.”. Another way to look at it might be that if you think the Samaritan version is original, then the author of the canonical version deleted the intro and moved it to the beginning.
I’m not totally sure what to make of this, but maybe you’re correct that these sentences were both in some sense added/moved around.
I still think that the canonical version looks more likely to be original. YHWH introducing himself just seems like such a key point. If he doesn’t, then how do we know who is talking in the next sentence? The conquest of Canaan was probably one of the last things that was written after the Pentateuch and not top of mind on the first draft, and as this article points out, the Samaritan 10th commandment can be seen as basically taking chopped apart text from Deuteronomy and inserting it in place here.
My takeaway is this: whoever inserted the Samartian 10th commandment was fully aware of the intended chiastic structure of the original text. It may very well be the case that the same person wrote both versions.
One conclusion I have drawn from analyzing Genesis is that the author of Genesis was not afraid to contradict himself if he wanted. Biblical scholarship has traditionally painted a picture of the final redactor of the Pentateuch as a naive pious preserver of traditions who felt forced to occasionally contradict himself in the interest of preserving his source narratives. This is utter nonsense. The authors of the Pentateuch were lying, atheist propagandists who would happily write whatever propaganda Ptolemy was paying them to write in exchange for their lavish livestyle at the library of Alexandria. They knew full well they were completely making it all up, and they very well could have written different versions tailored to different groups.
The silly statement in Exodus 20:26 about not going up on steps to the altar or your private parts will be exposed takes on a whole new meaning if you recognize that it was written to be an alternate competing version of the Samaritan version. I assumed it might be a jab at ziggurats (and maybe it is) but it also works as a jab at the Samaritans on their mountain. The author of Genesis / lead author of the Pentateuch was very much willing to freely insult everyone. All characters in all the stories have serious dirt.
“The chiastic structure is extremely easy to identify if you are looking for it.” — True, but only if we are “looking for it” through Enuma Elish spectacles to make it take the pairing structure we seek. 😉 The chiasm is not self evident from the text itself.
Calum Carmichael compares the structure of the Decalogue with the narrative structure of the Pentateuch, identifying the two parts (cf the two tablets — which, by the way, should not be assumed to contain 5 apiece) with the beginnings of creation (Gen 1-4, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel) and the beginnings of Israel (Ex 32, the Golden Calf). Linking these narratives became embedded in Jewish thought, being witnessed in the rabbinic era, Carmichael argues.
Carmichael, Calum M. The Origins of Biblical Law: The Decalogues and the Book of the Covenant. Cornell University Press, 1992.