God gave to the people separately through Moses the commandments that enslave: these were precepts suited to their instruction or their condemnation. As Moses said: “The Lord commanded me at that time to teach you precepts of righteousness and of judgment”. The precepts that were given them to enslave and to serve as a warning have been cancelled by the new covenant of freedom.

Spiritual reflection: The covenant of the Lord



From the treatise Against Heresies by Saint Irenaeus, bishop and martyr



In the book of Deuteronomy Moses says to the people: The Lord your God made a covenant on Horeb; he made this covenant, not with your fathers but with you. Why did God not make this covenant with their fathers? Because the law is not aimed at the righteous. Their fathers were righteous: they had the power of the Decalogue implanted in their hearts and in their souls. That is, they loved the God who made them and did nothing unjust against their neighbor. For this reason they did not need to be admonished by written rebukes: they had the righteousness of the law in their hearts.



When this righteousness and love for God had passed into oblivion and had been extinguished in Egypt, God had necessarily to reveal himself through his own voice, out of his great love for men. […] Through the Decalogue he prepared man for friendship with himself and for harmony with his neighbor. This was to man’s advantage, though God needed nothing from man. […]



This was the life that the Lord was preparing man to receive when he spoke in person and gave the words of the Decalogue for all alike to hear. These words remain with us as well; they were extended and amplified through his coming in the flesh, but not annulled.






God gave to the people separately through Moses the commandments that enslave: these were precepts suited to their instruction or their condemnation. As Moses said: “The Lord commanded me at that time to teach you precepts of righteousness and of judgment”. The precepts that were given them to enslave and to serve as a warning have been cancelled by the new covenant of freedom.



The precepts that belong to man’s nature and to freedom and to all alike have been enlarged and broadened. Through the adoption of sons God had enabled man so generously and bountifully to know him as Father, to love him with his whole heart, and to follow his Word unfailingly.



Moses receives the Decalogue, 565–566 A.D., from St. Catherine Monastery, Sinai, Egypt.