I think the 10 Commandments reveal God’s wisdom for living in the land. Jesus fulfills the 10 words and then through the cross makes a way for the 10 words to be written in our hearts by the grace of the Holy Spirit. I am thinking that we can look through these commands and begin to see God’s wisdom at work on multiple levels. For example, We can look through two commands at once to find interesting implications about how the blessed life looks.

We are commanded to take Sabbath, 6 days of work, 1 day of rest and remembrance. Rest is rooted in the 6 day creation and 7th day of rest (enjoyment). Remembrance is the discipline to remember God’s provision for delivering His people from Egypt (slavery through wilderness to Promised Land). So we have two rhythms: 6 days of work, 1 day of celebration; and Egypt-Wilderness-Promised Land (or Death-Burial-Resurrection).

Now think of Sabbath in relation to the command, “Do not commit adultery.” This is the blessing of covenantal relationship. The slave mindset moves from relation to relation without the capacity to enter into permanent relationship. The free man can enter into covenant with another free woman for covenantal love.

Sabbath can shine light on fulfilling the covenant. 6 days to create and then celebrate. God creates and then enjoys the creation. In particular, He creates a world for His special love: Adam (and Eve) created in the image of God. So he works for 6 days to prepare the relationship and then takes a 7th day to celebrate.

We work to form and maintain the relationship, but we also must pause regularly to rest/enjoy/celebrate the gift of relation. This might be a meal, a day, a weekend. Time set aside to rest and enjoy. But also to remember. Sometimes the relationship goes through testing (wilderness). During the wilderness, we rest and remember the gift of covenant.

This rhythm of work and rest/remember is in contrast with adultery, which is work with no rest. It goes from one romance (working to create) to another romance (working to create) to another romance. Some people confuse romance for enjoyment, but romance is actually a precursor, a developmental stage for the long-term enjoyment (sabbath) of covenantal relationship. Those who move from romance to romance to romance will never know the fruit of covenantal love that blossoms after years of slow growth.