The Still Small Voice - observations on the Bible

עשרת הדברות / עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדְּבָרִים

Observation #1

What’s in a name?

The common English term, “The Ten Commandments” is a poor and misleading label for the commandments given at Mount Sinai which were engraved onto two stone tablets.

It does not match or reflect the Bible’s Hebrew text original term: הַדְּבָרִים עֲשֶׂרֶת which means “the 10 speakings” (Exodus: 34:28 and Deut. 4:13; Deut. 10: 4) nor the commonly used Talmudic version, עשרת הדברות [i which has the exact same meaning, “the 10 speakings”.

The term, “The Ten Commandments”, is a poor and misleading choice for two reasons:

1. The Chumash contains far, far more commandments than just ten.

According to Jewish tradition there are 613: covering religious rituals, religious holidays, marriage, inheritance, court systems, criminal and civil law, diet, and even for the protection of the poor, widows, orphans and foreigners/converts.

2. Calling them the “Ten Commandments” also misses the key aspect of the Hebrew - ”the 10 speakings” - because these 10 were uttered by God directly to the entire Jewish people assembled at Mount Sinai: in a transcendental and unique experience (Exodus: 20:18-22 and Deut.4:12).

So while these commandments were thereafter carved onto two stone tablets (twice) and also recorded on parchment by Moses in the Torah, it is the Divine, transcendental moment that the original Hebrew text and Talmud emphasize.

For both above reasons, it would be preferable to avoid the term “The Ten Commandments” in future English Bible translations.

The alternative used by the Jewish Publication Society’s Bible, 1917, is “the ten words”[ii]: a poor choice that is misleading as there are 11 sentences with well over 100 words!

The “10 sayings” [iii] suggested by www.lexico.com is better, but the term ‘sayings’ has over a dozen different meanings: from aphorisms to epigrams to epitaphs to clichés and even idioms[iv].

There is always the formal English term, the DECALOGUE - derived from the ancient Septuagint Greek which literally means the same as the original Hebrew.

But, personally, I prefer and recommend the translation “the ten speakings” which exactly, unambiguously and in ordinary English matches the original Hebrew text in wording and intent.

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NB: Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, in his similar observations on the English, prefers to use the term ”ten utterances”, but I feel that “ten speakings” is more appropriate in North American English usage[v].