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(3.) A debt could not be exacted during the Sabbatic year (Deuteronomy 15:1-15).
For other laws bearing on this relation see Leviticus 25:14, 32, 39; Matthew 18:25, 34.
(4.) A surety was liable in the same way as the original debtor (Proverbs 11:15; 17:18).
•DECALOGUE the name given by the Greek fathers to the ten commandments; “the ten words,” as the original is more literally rendered (Exodus 20:3-17). These commandments were at first written on two stone slabs (31:18), which were broken by Moses throwing them down on the ground (32:19). They were written by God a second time (34:1). The decalogue is alluded to in the New Testament five times (Matthew 5:17, 18, 19; Mark 10:19; Luke 18:20; Romans 7:7, 8; 13:9; 1 Timothy 1:9, 10).
These commandments have been divided since the days of Origen the Greek father, as they stand in the Confession of all the Reformed Churches except the Lutheran. The division adopted by Luther, and which has ever since been received in the Lutheran Church, makes the first two commandments one, and the third the second, and so on to the last, which is divided into two. “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house” being ranked as ninth, and “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife,” etc., the tenth. (See COMMANDMENTS.)
•DECAPOILS ten cities=deka, ten, and polis, a city, a district on the east and south-east of the Sea of Galilee containing “ten cities,” which were chiefly inhabited by Greeks. It included a portion of Bashan and Gilead,