Deuteronomy 5 · a question people ask
If the wording is different, did Moses change the ten commandments?
Moses says of these words, "The LORD spoke these words to all your assembly on the mountain out of the middle of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice. He added no more. He wrote them on two stone tablets, and gave them to me" (5:22). The second tablets, he says later, were written "according to the first writing" (10:4). Some differences between Exodus 20 and this chapter are only in the English: "a carved image" (5:8) and "an idol" (Exodus 20:4) are the same Hebrew word. Others are in the Hebrew too, such as "Observe" (5:12) where Exodus has "Remember" (Exodus 20:8). Twice this telling adds "as the LORD your God commanded you" (5:12, 5:16). The text doesn't say which wording was written on the stone, and it doesn't set one telling against the other.
The verses
“The LORD spoke these words to all your assembly on the mountain out of the middle of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice. He added no more. He wrote them on two stone tablets, and gave them to me.”
“He wrote on the tablets, according to the first writing, the ten commandments, which the LORD spoke to you on the mountain out of the middle of the fire in the day of the assembly; and the LORD gave them to me.”
““You shall not make a carved image for yourself—any likeness of what is in heaven above, or what is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.”
““You shall not make for yourselves an idol, nor any image of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:”