Cecile B. DeMille

“And God spoke all these words, saying, ‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.’” - Exodus 20:1-17 ESV

I grew up in an age when there were only three TV channels (maybe 4 if the weather was right) available. In fact, I’ve written that I didn’t get cable (and the 20 or so channels at the time) until I went to college.

That meant watching TV was a family affair, with my sister and I serving as the remote control. The networks aired certain movies about the same time every year. For example, “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” always seemed to play around Thanksgiving. Another famous movie that always played around Easter was “The Ten Commandments,” directed by Cecil B. DeMille. The movie starred Charleston Heston and was released in 1956. I’m still amazed at the special effects used to portray the Red Sea crossing and the creation of the Ten Commandments tablets.

In my assessment, the movie portrayal was close to the Biblical story of the exodus, with maybe a few embellishments for cinematic effect. In fact, for a long time, when I thought about the exodus story, I would translate it in my mind to what I could recall from the movie.

A few months ago, I was hankering to watch “The Ten Commandments” and not wanting to pay to rent it or buy it, I searched to see if a copy was available online. My search brought up a movie released in 1923 by Cecile B. DeMille. I thought I found it and queued it up to watch. Imagine my surprise when a black-and-white, silent movie started playing. The movie had two parts.

The first part was the exodus story that started around the 8th plague. Because it is a silent movie, you’d watch for a minute or two, and then a dialogue screen would pop up. Anyway, this first part took the Israelites from bondage to receiving the Ten Commandments (including their sin of creating a golden calf while Moses was on the mountain ).

The second part of the movie was centered around a contemporary (1920s) mother and her two sons. The first son believed in God and tried to follow the Ten Commandments and be a good person in his daily life. He was a hard-working laborer who wasn’t very successful from a monetary or career perspective. The second son was an atheist determined to gain wealth, status and prestige. He became a real estate developer and won the bid to build a church. In doing so, he used inferior products to skim money and became wealthy. I won’t tell you exactly how the movie ends, but like the Israelites sinning and making a Golden Calf, it ended in disaster for the second son.

So much of Western civilization is built around the Ten Commandments and the structure God gave the wandering Israelites. Additionally, most of the Old Testament reminds us how lost we are without God and how, left to our own nature, we could mess up a free lunch.

“as it is written: ‘None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.’” - Romans 3:10-18

Praise God for his mercy and forgiveness. There is nothing we can do to save ourselves from our own sin. But forgiving us our sins is just the start; we have become heirs with Christ.

“So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.” - Romans 8:12-17

If movies like Cecil B. DeMille’s “Ten Commandments” help us remember and praise God for redeeming us, I say it is a good investment of time to watch.

Epilogue–I was watching the 1923 movie in the background while I was composing this. Like all silent films, it had music that originally would have been played by a pianist or organist while the movie was playing. They have since added a soundtrack. During the second part of the movie, I heard a familiar melody that I recognized from one of my favorite artists, Enya. I searched online and found that, in 2021, a group of famous artists updated the soundtrack that played along with the version I had found. We all have things we’ve found that we have inexplicable love and admiration for. What a gift from God.