Forty-two declarations set the standard by which a heart was weighed. They are older than any code of ten, and they are still the working square of the Craft.
The 42 Declarations, preserved in Spell 125 of the Papyrus of Ani, are not commandments issued downward. They are statements the initiate must be able to make truthfully about his own life.
The difference matters. A commandment tells you what to avoid. A declaration asks what you have already become. That is why the Order studies them one at a time, for a week at a time.