In an essay in a Festschrift for Daniel Block (available here), Jason DeRouchie wants to teach us to count to ten, as in Ten Commandments. He examines the Hebrew cantillation signs, discourse features, stylistic elements of the Ten to settle which of the various numbering systems is preferable.

One issue has to do with the commandment against coveting - one or two? The other has to do with the numeration of the first five commandments. I'll focus on this latter issue.

There's a consensus about the numbering the commandments about bearing the Name, keeping Sabbath, honoring parents. It's the first lines of the Ten that provokes dispute.

Specifically: Is the indicative declaration, "I am Yahweh your God," one of the ten words, a prologue, or linked with the first commandment? And: Is the prohibition of images a separate commandment (as in Reformed and Orthodox numbering) or a single commandment?

DeRouchie argues that the prohibition against images is part of the first commandment, and also argues for a two prohibitions against coveting. Thus, he arrives at something close to the Catholic-Lutheran numbering, though without the dangling indicative "prologue" at the beginning.

He presents a series of exegetical arguments in favor of combining the prohibition of images with the prohibition of idolatry. First, he argues that "I am the Lord your God" is grammatically integrated with the commandment against idolatry. "Before me" lacks an antecedent unless "I am Yahweh" is considered part of the commandment. Further, each of the first five commandments names "Yahweh your God." If the indicative statement in Exodus 20:2 isn't part of the First Word, then it doesn't include the Name. Those are convincing arguments. There is no "prologue" to the Ten Words. "I am Yahweh" is the beginning of the First Word.

Second, he observes that Yahweh speaks in first person in the indicative declaration, in the prohibition of idolatry, and in the prohibition of images ("I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God"). After that, the grammar shifts to third-person references to Yahweh.

This isn't decisive, however, since there are similar grammatical shifts elsewhere in Torah (as DeRouchie acknowledges) and because there are further shifts in the course of the Decalogue itself. As he notes, after the commandment to honor father and mother, Yahweh's name drops out entirely. There seems to be a movement of divine departure: I Yahweh (1/2 commandments?) --> He Yahweh (3 commandments) --> no reference to Yahweh at all (5/6 commandments). That needs explanation, but it suggests that the common first person of the prohibition of idols and images doesn't mean that they're the same commandment.

Third, unless "other gods" is part of the same commandment as the prohibition of images, there's no explicit antecedent to "do not bow to them or serve them." DeRouchie buttresses this point by indicating other passages where prostration and serve are offered to "other gods" rather than physical images.

This is a strong point, but may be parried: What are people bowing to, if not to images of the other gods? Those other texts may imply the presence of physical objects of veneration. And that means that the antecedent to "them" may well be the graven images and likeness.

Fourth, each of the first commandments includes a motivation clause. The statement of Yahweh's jealousy is, he says, the motivational clause for both the prohibition of false worship and the prohibition of images. As DeRouchie recognizes elsewhere, though, the opening indicative ("I am Yahweh your God") serves as a ground or foundation to the prohibition against idolatry. That is: It's possible that the motive clause comes prior to the imperative in the first commandment, while it comes after the imperative in the second commandment.

If the two prohibitions are read together, we get a pattern of clauses: long/short/long/short/long. Neat, as is the inclusio of "Yahweh your God" that surrounds the opening declaration and the warning at the end of the prohibition of images. But neither of these is decisively in favor of a single commandment forbidding idolatry and iconolatry. We have already seen on other grounds that these commandments form a unit (first person). But other groups of commandments form units too (e.g., name-Sabbath-parents use Yahweh's name but not in first person; killing-adultery-theft are each 2-word negative commands).

DeRouchie's careful, insightful article thus leaves me unpersuaded, though no doubt wiser.