Deuteronomy 10:5
וָאֵפֶן וָֽאֵרֵד מִן־הָהָר וָֽאָשִׂם אֶת־הַלֻּחֹת בָּאָרוֹן אֲשֶׁר עָשִׂיתִי וַיִּהְיוּ שָׁם כַּאֲשֶׁר צִוַּנִי יְהוָֽה׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וָאֵ֗פֶן וָֽאֵרֵד֙ מִן־הָהָ֔ר וָֽאָשִׂם֙ אֶת־הַלֻּחֹ֔ת בָּאָר֖וֹן אֲשֶׁ֣ר עָשִׂ֑יתִי וַיִּ֣הְיוּ שָׁ֔ם כַּאֲשֶׁ֥ר צִוַּ֖נִי יְהוָֽה׃
καὶ ἐπιστρέψας κατέβην ἐκ τοῦ ὄρους, καὶ ἐνέβαλον τὰς πλάκας εἰς τὴν κιβωτὸν ἣν ἐποίησα, καὶ ἦσαν ἐκεῖ καθὰ ἐνετείλατό μοι Κύριος.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Reversusque de monte, descendi, et posui tabulas in arcam, quam feceram, quæ hucusque ibi sunt, sicut mihi præcepit Dominus.
Me volví y bajé del monte, y puse las tablas en el arca que había hecho; y allí están, tal como Yehová me lo ordenó.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y volví y descendí del monte, y puse las tablas en el arca que había hecho; y allí están, como Jehová me mandó.
and I went back down the mountain and placed the tablets in the ark I had made, as the LORD had commanded me; and there they have remained.
✦ What the text says
Summary
Moses recounts turning away, descending the mountain, and placing the two tablets inside the ark he had made, exactly as Yehovah had commanded him. The verse closes a narrative sequence describing the fate of the tablets after the mountain events.
Key words
- 'Efen ("I turned", H6437G) — qal narrative form, first person; marks the first link in the chain of consecutive actions ("and I turned").
- 'Ered ("I came down", H3381) — qal narrative, continuing the sequence begun by 'Efen; indicates movement away from the mountain.
- 'Asim ("I put", H7760H) — qal narrative, first person; the main act of depositing the tablets into the ark.
- Lucḥot ("tablets", H3871) — feminine plural noun with definite article ha (H9009), referring to the specific tablets already introduced in context.
- Tzivvani ("he commanded me", H6680 + H9030) — piel perfect (intensive stem) with first-person suffix "me"; expresses a completed, forceful act of command, distinct from the ordinary qal verbs used for Moses' own actions.
What the text says
The verse is built as a chain of four narrative (vav-consecutive) verbs — 'Efen, 'Ered, 'Asim, and yihyu ("they have been", H1961) — each introduced by the narrative va (H9001). This construction presents the actions as a sequential, connected report: turning, descending, placing, and then a resulting state ("and they have been there"). The subject throughout the first three verbs is Moses speaking in first person, while the fourth verb shifts to third person plural, referring to the tablets themselves remaining in the ark.
The object of the placing action, ha-lucḥot ("the tablets", H3871), is marked by the direct object particle 'et (H0853), which is grammatically required but has no independent translation. The tablets are placed ba-'aron ("in the ark", H0727), the same ark described with the relative clause 'asher 'asiti ("which I had made", H6213H) — a qal perfect denoting an action completed prior to the main narrative sequence.
The final clause uses ka'asher ("as", H0834D) with tzivvani Yehovah ("Yehovah commanded me", H6680 + H9030 + H3068), where the piel stem of tzivva conveys a directive, intensive nuance of command, contrasted with the simpler qal forms used for Moses' own actions of turning, descending, and placing.
Differences between versions
The LXX renders va-yihyu sham ("and they have been there") with καὶ ἦσαν ἐκεῖ, matching the Hebrew's shift to third person, while the Vulgate expands this into "quæ hucusque ibi sunt" ("which are there until now"), adding a temporal marker ("until now") not explicit in the Hebrew text itself.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.