Deuteronomy 10:1

Summary

Yehovah instructs the speaker (Moses) to carve two new stone tablets like the first ones, come up the mountain, and construct a wooden ark. The verse opens a divine command sequence using three verbs that together form one continuous instruction.

Key words

• pesol ("cut out", H6458) — qal imperative, giving the first command: an act of physical carving/hewing into stone.
• luchot ("tablets of", H3871) — feminine plural construct, forming part of the phrase shenei-luchot avanim ("two tablets of stones"), a triple construct chain.
• ka-rishonim ("like the former [tablets]", H7223G) — comparative construction using ka ("like the") attached to an ordinal/adjective, referencing tablets mentioned earlier in the narrative.
• ha-harah ("the mountain[-ward]", H2022G) — noun with directional he suffix (position 23), indicating motion toward the mountain without needing a separate preposition.
• 'asita ("you will make", H6213H) — qal sequential perfect (perfect + vav), which in this construction continues the force of the preceding imperatives rather than describing a separate completed action.

What the text says

The sentence begins with a temporal marker, ba'et hahiv ("at that time," H9003/H6256/H1931), anchoring the command in the narrative sequence. The subject-verb order 'amar Yehovah 'elai ("Yehovah said to me") introduces direct speech. Within that speech, the grammar shows one connected command built from three verb forms: the qal imperative pesol ("cut out"), the qal imperative 'aleh ("come up," H5927G), and the qal sequential perfect 'asita ("you will make"). In Biblical Hebrew, a perfect verb following imperatives and joined by the narrative vav (H9001) typically extends the imperative force rather than shifting to simple future — so the three actions (carving, ascending, building) are presented as one continuous directive rather than three isolated statements.

The phrase shenei-luchot avanim stacks three nouns in construct relationship — literally "two-of tablets-of stones" — a chain that Hebrew uses instead of adjectival modification. The comparison ka-rishonim ("like the former ones") assumes prior reference to tablets, marked by the definite article ha (H9009) attached to rishonim.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate renders ka-rishonim as sicut priores fuerunt ("as the former ones were"), adding the verb fuerunt ("were") where the Hebrew comparative clause has no verb at all. The LXX renders the directional ha-harah with an explicit prepositional phrase, πρὸς μὲ εἰς τὸ ὄρος ("to me, into the mountain"), splitting into two prepositional elements what the Hebrew expresses through a single noun with directional he suffix.