Why Not Eleven Commandments?
Would it have been so difficult for Yahweh to have squeezed an 11th commandment onto those tablets? He's omnipotent, right? Did He have a decimal or even-number compulsion or something? "Thou shalt not enslave" would have been a good one -- not to mention truly pathbreaking. Slavery, after all, has existed throughout history and still does exist in Africa and the Middle East. It was in the modern West that abolitionism arose and achieved its goal. The only reference to slavery in the Decalogue is in the 10th commandment, where we're ordered not to covet our neighbor's stuff, including his servants. In other words, if you want slaves, go get your own! Don't even yearn for your neighbor's! If it had to be 10, Yahweh could have eliminated one of the existing commands, such as the prohibition against taking His name in vain (whatever that means) or the order not to work on Saturday. (What if you enjoy working?) We could have managed without those, considerin