Today on Brevity=Wit we delve into the realm of irreverence and (hopefully not too serious) blasphemy by taking a look at the Ten Commandments.

When the Commandments were first handed down by Moses, coming down from Mt. Sinai bearing in his hands the stone tablets presented to him by almighty God, I have to assume that no one would really have dared to disobey them.  Nowadays, of course, the commandments are disregarded all the time, as anyone who watches the news can attest to.  I have to wonder if the Ten Commandments are regarded so lightly today because they weren’t designed to match the modern attention span.

Let’s see how far we get before people run out of patience, working from Chapter 5 of Deuteronomy in the King James Bible:

“I am the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. Thou shalt have none other gods before me. Th”

Well there’s your problem.  Moses was too long-winded.  It’s no wonder that the majority of the Commandments are ignored today.  Depending on how you count them, you’re not even able to finish the first one without running over your character limit.  Moses at least gets a chance to start on the next imperative, but all he has time to get out is a “th.”  We can assume it’s going to be a “thou,” but that’s as far as we can guess.  We don’t even know if it’s a “thou shalt” or “thou shalt not.”

So I present this abbreviated version of the Ten Commandments.  Not only does it get in all the important points before everyone stops paying attention, it also allows you to save a fortune on stone tablets:

“I’m God. I’m #1. Respect my name, Sunday, Mom and Dad. No murder, adultery or theft. Don’t betray your neighbor or covet his stuff.”

In the beginning there was the Word.  But the Word was too long and confused modern audiences.  So nowadays we have the W.