The name is derived from a mistake made by the compositors: in the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20:14, the word "not" was omitted from the sentence, "Thou shalt not commit adultery".

The 1886 Reports of Cases in the Courts of Star Chamber and High Commission (which gives the Bodleian Library manuscript Rawlinson A 128 as its source) lists this as one of the "two grossest errors", among "divers other faults".

[4] Rob Ainsley of the British Library, in a 2009 letter to the London Review of Books, suggested that the existence of this second error was highly dubious.

[13] The British Library in London had a copy of the Wicked Bible on display, opened to the misprinted commandment, in a free exhibition until September 2009.

[22] In 2014, William Scheide donated his library of rare books and manuscripts to Princeton University, with a copy of the Wicked Bible among its holdings.