Note 3.—Don Isaac Abarbanel, in his Commentary on Exodus xx., says: “The Ten Commandments are distinguished from the other Divine precepts in three things: they were directly communicated by God to the Israelites, not through a prophet; they were revealed to a whole nation at once; and they were written on the two tables of stone by the finger of God. Such distinction necessarily indicates a greater intrinsic value of the Ten Commandments. My opinion is therefore that they are laws of a general character, and principles including all the 613 precepts which the Holy One, blessed be He, gave to His people. E.g., love and worship of God. sanctification of His Name, submission to His judgment, fear of God, reverence of His sanctuary, and other duties towards God; Passover, Tabernacles, Tefillin, Mezuzah, and such other precepts as are ‘a memorial of the departure from Egypt;’ the separation of the first-born, tithes, &c.—all these duties are implied in the first commandment. Also Rabbi Levi ben Gershon and the Gaon Saadiah assume that all the 613 precepts are implicitly contained in the Decalogue. Although all precepts involving practice (‏מצוות מעשיות‎) are implied in the Decalogue, and even allusions to each one of the thirteen principles of faith may be discovered in it, there is no precept concerning our faith. It has already been proved by Rabbi Chisdai that by the Divine commands we are either told to do a certain thing, or told not to do a certain thing; but what we have to believe or not to believe the Almighty taught us through signs, wonders, and revelation. The words ‘I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage,’ teach a certain truth, a principle from which many of the 613 precepts may be derived, but which is in itself no commandment.—The Decalogue (‏עשרת הדברים‎) must therefore not be understood as designating ten commandments, but ‘ten words’ or ‘ten paragraphs’ indicated in the Hebrew text by the pauses, or spaces left between two paragraphs. “The ‘ten words’ were written on two tables, five on each. The first five, containing positive and negative precepts, with the announcement of reward and punishment, were exclusively addressed to the Israelites. The latter five are simple prohibitions without any mention of punishment; because they were addressed to man as man, and include only such laws as are also suggested to him by human reason, without direct revelation.” Rabbi R. S. Hirsch, in his Commentary on Exodus xx., says in reference to the first commandment: “As this verse is not understood as a mere declaration, but as a commandment (‏מצוה‎), it does not say ‘I am thy God,’ but ‘I, the Lord, shall be thy God,’ and thus contains as the foundation of all our duties towards God an exhortation to acknowledge the sovereignty of God, ‏קבלת עול מלכות שמים‎.