Before Moses climbed the mountain, to get the Big 10, did his desert nomads think killing & stealing were okay

Question

A modest question.

Answer 1

And a modest answer ... God has had a standard of righteous conduct that began at the time of the creation of Adam and has not changed since. Nine of the ten commandments were known by men and punished by God long before and after God gave them to Israel as a covenant at Sinai. Every specific duty commanded in the Ten Commandments except the fourth, or Sabbath, was punished before Mt Sinai, and likewise, every commandment except the fourth, is repeated in the NT Scriptures.

Answer 2

Good question! The country of Egypt was such a wreck at that point that people of all description were joining the group just to get out of there. There would certainly need to be some clarification and concensus on how things should be done.

I would wonder, how did Abraham know? Or Noah?

Answer 3

The 10 Commandments came from the Ancient Egyptians, which is who the Jews lived with the previous 400 years.

Answer 4

Stealing was defined totally different. It wasn't stealing if you took what you needed to feed yourself. The stealing they were referring to had more in common with what we today call the corporate culture. As for killing, it doesn't appear as though anything stood between Moses successor Joshua and a good mass murder. In Exodus, depending on interpretation, there were 19 to 25 separate instructions. They were reduced to a decalogue for marketing purposes.

Answer 5

The law was in place before it was written on the tablets of stone. They honored the 7th day Sabbath (Saturday) before Sinai.

Answer 6

Probably not (Moses ran away from Egypt after killing a man), but you know, when God says something, you gotta listen.

Answer 7

Yes, killing was considered okay.

Moses was plan B, you see....

Answer 8

Yes, because no one had said otherwise.