The most important of the commandments

If asked, which of the Ten Commandments is the most important, few would choose the fourth. This is the seemingly innocuous instruction: "Remember the Sabbath to keep it Holy". Ask anyone what this signifies and most people will tell you it is there to make sure everyone gets at least one day of rest a week. In the Jewish religion it is held to be a day of rest and spiritual refreshment, a time to acknowledge that God is the creator of the Universe.

Think about this for a moment. The Ten Commandments is an optimally efficient list of instructions that have been deliberately pared down to be as short as possible - such that it contains only the most important directives. If this fourth commandment were there to instruct people to take a day of rest it would be an anomaly - because, although periodic rests are a necessity, it shouldn't be necessary to issue a specific command to make people do so. Certainly not in an optimum list that should contain only those instructions that were the most strategically vital.

Another strange thing about this fourth commandment is that it didn't appear in the very earliest of Hebrew texts. Also, its meaning is ambiguously explained in many different ways by different religions.

Resolving this anomaly, to uncover the real reason for this fourth commandment, provides clear evidence that the Ten Commandments have been set up for the express purpose of organising and ordering the behaviour of a large community of people.

Supposing there really had been such a person as Moses, imagine the predicament he would have been in. He would have had to lead about a million people with all of their belongings and their herds of livestock across a desert. How would he exercise this leadership?

The biggest problem would have been communication. One million people, no telephones or radios. How would Moses communicate with them all? How could he give even the simplest of instructions, such as 'turn left at the next oasis'? People would be going in all directions, finding camp sites, making sure their flocks had enough food and water. It would have been a nightmare to keep in touch with everybody.

The idea of a structured religion would have been an inspired solution to this problem. According to the religious histories, Moses appointed the largest group amongst the people, the Levis, to be the servants of the religion. This allowed Moses to use these servants to communicate his leadership decisions: sending them out amongst the people to give them his instructions. Moses need only make the people aware that these servants carried the word of God to ensure that his instructions were obeyed and treated with great respect.

Even with this communication set up though, with all the servants spread around the community to communicate his directives, Moses would still have had quite a problem contacting all the people because they would be spread over a large area, tending their herds and the like. Would it not have been logical if the reason for this fourth commandment had been to improve the efficiency of the delivery of these communications?

Every form of activity was banned by the fourth commandment, except for one. That one exception was local religious meetings - presided over by Moses's message couriers - where people could hear the word of God: as proclaimed by Moses.

If these meetings were the only thing happening on that particular day, they could be sure of having a reasonably good attendance. In this way Moses could ensure that instead of his servants spending time trying to chase everyone around to give them instructions, everyone would go to these meetings once a week on the Sabbath and get the instructions there. It was a simple but extremely effective way to communicate to a large group of nomadic people.

Not only could he issue instructions, the meetings could additionally provide feedback from the people. His servants could gather intelligence and information as to the state of the community and the conditions of the terrain and surrounding areas. From a macro view point, the effect of this fourth commandment would have been to turn a disorganised rabble into a highly coordinated body of people, complete with a system of intelligent feedback. It is not at all surprising that the Roman Empire became converted to Christianity.