Verse of the Day — Tuesday, October 6, 2026

This verse opens the Ten Commandments. Only about three months earlier, the Israelites had been slaves in Egypt, building cities for Pharaoh, until God sent Moses, brought the plagues, and led them out through the sea. Now they are camped at the foot of Mount Sinai in the desert, and God speaks to the whole people from the mountain while thunder, fire and smoke fill the air around them.

Before he gives a single command, God tells them who is speaking. "The LORD" stands for God's personal name, the one he gave Moses at the burning bush when he first sent him back to Egypt, which is why it is often printed in small capitals. So God introduces himself the way a person would, first by name and then by what he has done: he is the one who brought them out of Egypt, out of "the house of slavery," the place where they had worked for someone else with no say over their own lives.

That order shapes everything that comes next. Israel was set free first and given the commands second, so the commands describe how a people who have already been rescued should live with their God and with each other. They come from someone who has already shown, very concretely, that he is on their side.

In the original Hebrew, the "you" in "your God" is singular, as though God were speaking to each person in the crowd one by one while also speaking to the nation as a whole. The Bible itself calls these commands the "ten words," and Jewish tradition counts this verse as the first of them, because knowing who God is comes before everything he asks.

So the verse sets the frame for the whole law: before God asks anything of his people, he reminds them who he is and what he has already done for them.