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Bible Dictionaries
Commandment
Vine's Expository Dictionary of OT Words
or Mitsvâh (מִצְוָה, Strong's #4687), “commandment.” This noun occurs 181 times in the Old Testament. Its first occurrence is in Gen. 26:5, where mitsvâh is synonymous with choq (“statute”) and torah (“law”): “Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.” In the Pentateuch, God is always the Giver of the mitsvâh “All the commandments which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do, that ye may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers. And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no” (Deut. 8:1-2). The “commandment” may be a prescription (“thou shalt do …”) or a proscription (“thou shalt not do …”). The commandments were given in thhearing of the Israelites (Exod. 15:26; Deut. 11:13), who were to “do” (Lev. 4:2ff.) and “keep” (Deut. 4:2; Ps. 78:7) them. Any failure to do so signified a covenantal breach (Num. 15:31), transgression (2 Chron. 24:20), and apostasy (1 Kings 18:18).The plural of mitsvâh often denotes a “body of laws” given by divine revelation. They are God’s “word”: “Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to thy word” (Ps. 119:9). They are also known as “the commandments of God.”
Outside the Pentateuch, “commandments” are given by kings (1 Kings 2:43), fathers (Jer. 35:14), people (Isa. 29:13), and teachers of wisdom (Prov. 6:20; cf. 5:13). Only about ten percent of all occurrences in the Old Testament fit this category.
The Septuagint translations are: entole (“commandment; order”) and prostagma (“order; commandment; injunction”).
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Vines, W. E., M. A. Entry for 'Commandment'. Vine's Expository Dictionary of OT Words. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/vot/c/commandment.html. 1940.
