And what language and region is it?
I’ve noticed my language teacher uses the informal you in one language and the formal one in the other.
And what language and region is it?
I’ve noticed my language teacher uses the informal you in one language and the formal one in the other.
Well, maybe. If thou is for peasants, then the implication the commandments are directed specifically at the non-royal?
No, because who gets addressed as you and who gets addressed as thou, was dependent not on the social standing of the one being addressed, but the social standing of the speaker compared to the one they’re speaking to. To put it more simply, in a given situation, the “dominant” party is addressed as you by the “subservient” party, while the subservient party is addressed as thou by the dominant party.
So, for example, in conversation A peasant and their lord are talking. The peasant would address their lord as you, and the lord would address their subject, the peasant, as thou. But in conversation B when the lord is talking with their own liege, let’s say, the king, the lord addresses the king as you and the king would address his vassal, the lord, as thou.
In conversation A, the lord is the dominant party, and thus is to be addressed as you by the subservient party. In conversation B however, the lord is the subservient party, and thus is to be addressed as thou by the dominant party.
So, getting back to the commandments, since in an interaction between God and a human the human always is the subservient party while God is always the dominant party, God would address the human as thou.
No. OP got the premise a bit wrong, for one thing. And usually it was other poor people that did the sanctioned killing, anyway - it’s dirty unpleasant work that a king would have avoided in the Early Modern period.