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The Ten Commandments at Sinai

Also called: Decalogue, Golden Calf, Giving of the Law

A story told in religious scripture.

A story told in the Book of Exodus: in the third month after leaving Egypt the Israelites reached Mount Sinai, made a covenant with God, and Moses received the Ten Commandments on two tablets of stone — while below the mountain the people made a golden calf.

Sunrise on Mount Sinai (Jebel Musa)
Sunrise on Mount Sinai (Jebel Musa)

Grand Parc - Bordeaux, France from France · CC BY 2.0 · Source

This is the story told in the Book of Exodus. After crossing the sea the Israelites passed Marah, with its bitter water, and Elim, with twelve springs and seventy palms, and came to the wilderness of Sin. When they complained of hunger, manna fell from heaven and quail flew in; at Rephidim water came from a rock.

In the third month after leaving Egypt they camped below Mount Sinai. Amid thunder and lightning the mountain was wrapped in smoke, and Moses went up and received from God ten commandments written on two tablets of stone — have no other gods, make no idols, keep the Sabbath, honour your parents, do not murder, do not steal, and the rest.

When Moses stayed on the mountain for forty days, the people had Aaron make a golden calf and bowed down to it. Coming down and seeing it, Moses smashed the tablets, then went up again and brought new ones. Mount Sinai is traditionally Jebel Musa in southern Sinai, but there are other candidates, among them Jebel al-Lawz in northwestern Arabia.

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The map in 1250 BC

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States at the time
New Kingdom of Egypt
Places
Mount Sinai

People

  • Moses

    key figure · Leader and prophet of Israel in the Hebrew Bible, who is said to have led the Israelites out of Egypt and received the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai; he does not appear in records outside the Bible

  • Aaron

    related figure · Elder brother of Moses in the Hebrew Bible, who spoke for him before Pharaoh and became the first high priest of Israel; he is said to have died on Mount Hor

Before and after

Earlier
1250 BC The Burning Bush
Later
1250 BC The Ten Plagues and the Passover

Themes that include this event

  • The Exodus1279 BC – 1208 BC

    From slavery and the burning bush, the ten plagues and the parted sea, to the Ten Commandments at Sinai, forty years in the wilderness and Moses on Mount Nebo — the Exodus as the Hebrew Bible tells it, followed on the map alongside Ramesses II’s capital and the Merneptah Stele, the first record to name “Israel”