I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt. God's right to give laws to the Hebrew nation is not founded upon His being the one only God, but upon His having by miraculous interpositions and works of power laid the foundations of their state-not upon His character and claims as the Creator of heaven and earth, but upon His special relation to them as their national Founder and Protector; and hence, by the unparalleled services which He had rendered to the Israelites, He had acquired all the title to their willing and grateful obedience that a benefactor could possibly have. This verse is commonly termed "the preface to the Ten Commandments." Several Jewish writers-Talmud, Targum, Jonathan, and Maimonides-regard this as forming a distinct precept.
The Roman Catholic Church, and the Lutherans after the example of Augustine, divide the commandments into the duties pertaining to God, comprised in the first three, and those relating to man, contained in the remaining seven. In their view also which is supported by the Masoretic division, the first commandment extends from Exodus 20:2 to Exodus 20:6; the second commandment is expressed in Exodus 20:7; and in order to make up the required number ten, they divide Exodus 20:17 into two. One part prohibits the coveting of another's house, the second part the coveting of another's wife, etc. (see the note at Exodus 24:12; Exodus 31:18). The various branches of the Protestant Church consider Exodus 20:2 as merely introductory; and follow the natural and obvious distribution of the commandments into those which have reference to God, Exodus 20:3-11, and those which regulate the conduct of man to his fellows (see Kurtz, ch. 3:, p. 123; Kiel and Delitzsch, Clark's Ed., ch. 2:, pp. 108, 109).