Deuteronomy 10:2
וְאֶכְתֹּב עַל־הַלֻּחֹת אֶת־הַדְּבָרִים אֲשֶׁר הָיוּ עַל־הַלֻּחֹת הָרִאשֹׁנִים אֲשֶׁר שִׁבַּרְתָּ וְשַׂמְתָּם בָּאָרֽוֹן׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וְאֶכְתֹּב֙ עַל־הַלֻּחֹ֔ת אֶת־הַדְּבָרִ֔ים אֲשֶׁ֥ר הָי֛וּ עַל־הַלֻּחֹ֥ת הָרִאשֹׁנִ֖ים אֲשֶׁ֣ר שִׁבַּ֑רְתָּ וְשַׂמְתָּ֖ם בָּאָרֽוֹן׃
καὶ γράψεις ἐπὶ τὰς πλάκας τὰ ῥήματα ἃ ἦν ἐν ταῖς πλαξὶν ταῖς πρώταις ἃς συνέτριψας, καἰ ἐμβαλεῖς αὐτὰ εἰς τὴν κιβωτόν.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
et scribam in tabulis verba quæ fuerunt in his qui ante confregisti: ponesque eas in arca.
Yo escribiré en las tablas las palabras que estaban en las primeras tablas que rompiste, y las pondrás en el arca.”
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y escribiré en aquellas tablas las palabras que estaban en las tablas primeras que quebraste; y las pondrás en el arca.
And I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke; and you are to place them in the ark.”
✦ What the text says
Summary
Yehovah instructs that he will inscribe on new tablets the same words that had been on the first tablets, the ones Moses had shattered, and directs that these tablets be placed in the ark.
Key words
- 'ekhTov ("I may inscribe", H3789) — qal imperfect with vav, expressing purpose or intended continuation: "so that I may write."
- luchot ("tablets", H3871) — feminine plural noun, referring to the stone tablets, repeated twice in the verse (once for the new set, once for "the former" ones).
- shibBarta ("you shattered", H7665) — piel perfect, second person masculine singular; the piel stem intensifies the action, marking a forceful or thorough breaking, not a mere accidental crack.
- samTa ("you will put", H7760H) — qal sequential perfect, continuing the narrative chain begun by the vav-imperfect 'ekhtov; grammatically it carries forward the sequence as a following action/command.
- 'aRon ("ark", H0727) — masculine singular noun, the object into which the tablets are to be placed, preceded by the preposition-plus-article form ba- ("in the").
What the text says
The verse is built as a chain of two verbal actions joined by vav: first 'ekhtov ("I may inscribe"), a first-person qal imperfect expressing the speaker's intended act, and then samta ("you will put"), a second-person qal perfect that continues the sequence as an instruction to be carried out. This grammatical shift from first person ("I will write") to second person ("you will put") within the same sentence marks a division of roles: Yehovah performs the writing, while Moses is assigned the placing of the tablets into the ark.
The content of what is written is defined by a relative clause: ha-devarim 'asher hayu ("the words that were") on ha-luchot ha-ri'shonim ("the former tablets"). A second relative clause, 'asher shibbarta ("which you shattered"), modifies "the former tablets," using the piel perfect to stress the intensity of the breaking action attributed to Moses. The repetition of luchot ("tablets") in both the near and distant reference (new tablets vs. former tablets) is grammatically distinguished only by the addition of the ordinal ha-ri'shonim ("the former") on the second occurrence.
Differences between versions
The Hebrew verb 'ekhtov is first-person singular ("I may inscribe"), matched by the Vulgate's scribam ("I will write"). The LXX, however, renders this with grapseis ("you will write"), a second-person singular future, shifting the grammatical subject of the writing action from Yehovah to Moses. The Hebrew and Vulgate thus assign the writing to the speaker (Yehovah), while the Greek text assigns it to the addressee.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.