One obvious question is whether commands such as not killing, not stealing, or not bearing false witness were really new moral discoveries at Sinai. Human societies had rules against murder, theft, and perjury long before the biblical account of Moses. In that sense, part of the Ten Commandments may be less about inventing morality from nothing and more about giving familiar moral boundaries divine authority, memorable form, and covenant status.

Another criticism is that some commandments say relatively little on matters modern readers often regard as central, such as compassion, equality, consent, poverty, abuse of power, or care for the natural world. That gap is one reason later moral traditions, reform movements, and modern rewritings keep trying to restate what a foundational set of commandments ought to emphasize.