Rabbi Daniel Siegel – Head of Jewish Life

The Ten….

This week’s parashah, Yitro, contains what has been popularly called the “Ten Commandments”. A slightly different version to this Book of Exodus formulation is found in Deuteronomy, parashat VaEtchanan. The Bible employs the term דברים/devarim, utterances, or עשרת הדברים/aseret ha-devarim, the Ten Utterances, but never commandments (mitsvot), when referring to the contents of the Tablets. Accordingly, the Septuagint uses the term Decalogue, derived from the Greek dekalogos, ten words (utterances). Or, as we sing at the Pesach seder, עשרא דבריא/asara dibraya – “Ten are the Utterances”.

Similar to the suzerainty treaties (of the Hittites, and other ancient near eastern peoples), the first statement of the Decalogue, “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery”, is not a commandment but a preamble, reminding the servant/vassal of the benevolent acts of his saviour/king requiring adherence to the commandments/obligations that follow. This would be consistent with the terminology עשרת הדברים/aseret ha-devarim, the Ten Utterances. Still, some have counted this first statement as a commandment while others have sub-divided the remaining 9 commandments leading to a count of as much as 13 commandments. 

The Tablets of the Decalogue are called לוחות הבריתluchot/ha-berit, the tablets of the covenant. Berit is a legal term reflective of the treaty/covenant in which Israel and God have entered as attested by the Tablets. Reference, therefore, is to tablets in the plural form as it was believed one copy of the agreement was deposited with the sovereign and one with the servant.

Consequently, each copy of the tablet had the entire 10 Utterances, 5 on each side. In the words of the Bible, לוחות כתובים משני עבריהם מזה ומזה הם כתובים /luchot Ketuvim mi-sheni evreihem, mi-zeh u-mi-zeh heim Ketuvim – “tablets inscribed on both their sides, on the one side and on the other were they inscribed”.

The depiction of two (adjoining) tablets with 5 utterances on one side and 5 on the adjacent side, as we see in many synagogues, is thought to have been introduced in the Middle Ages following the form of hinged writing tablets. Like the Bible, the Talmudic Rabbis speak of 10 Utterances, עשרת הדברות/aseret ha-dibrot, 5 on each side of a tablet. In addition, they speak of the tablets as rectangular in shape rather than rounded at the top, which was a later introduction, as well.

The Bible and Rabbinic tradition also refer to the “stone tablets” (לוחות האבנים/luchot ha-avanim), as in “the two stone tablets, the tablets of the Covenant (לוחות הברית/luchot ha-berit)”.  לוחות/Luchot is related to the word לח/lach, moist or soft,  reflecting the impressionable clay tablets on which people would write. Though the clay may become hardened into “stone tablets, the Rabbis teach “do not read charut/incised upon the tablets, but read cheirut/freedom”. Judaism teaches that for the divine word to be everlasting it needs to be everchanging in accordance with the developing needs and understanding of the “People of the Covenant”.