Deuteronomy 4:13

Summary

The verse describes Yehovah declaring his covenant to the people, a covenant he had commanded them to observe, consisting of "ten words." It then states that he wrote these on two tablets of stone.

Key words

• yaged ("he declared", H5046) — hiphil (causative) narrative form; the causative stem implies "he caused to be known / made declared" rather than a simple report.
• berito ("his covenant", H1285) — feminine singular noun in construct with the pronominal suffix "his," identifying the covenant as belonging to the one speaking (contextually Yehovah).
• tzivvah ("he commanded", H6680) — piel (intensive) perfect; the intensive stem often marks authoritative or emphatic commanding, and the perfect aspect marks it as a completed act prior to the writing.
• aseret ha-devarim ("ten of the words", H6235 + H1697G) — aseret is a construct-state numeral ("ten of"), governing ha-devarim ("the words"), literally "the ten of the words," i.e., "the ten words."
• yikhtevem ("he inscribed them", H3789) — qal narrative form with a pronominal suffix ("them") attached directly to the verb, indicating the object (the ten words) without a separate object marker.

What the text says

The verse is built as a chain of narrative (vav-consecutive) verbs: va-yagged ("and he declared") and va-yikhtevem ("and he inscribed them"), which carry the main narrative sequence — first the declaring, then the writing. Between them sits a relative clause introduced by asher ("which", H0834A), modifying berito ("his covenant"): "which he commanded you to observe" (la'asot, an infinitive construct meaning "to do/observe"). This clause specifies the content of the covenant as the object of command, not merely of information.

The phrase aseret ha-devarim is grammatically a construct chain: aseret ("ten of") governs ha-devarim ("the words"), the plural noun devarim (H1697G) meaning simply "words," "matters," or "things said," without inherent legal or commandment-specific meaning in the lexical form itself. The tablets are described with shenei lukhot avanim, "two of tablets of stones" — a double construct chain (shenei → lukhot → avanim), each noun governing the next, producing the sense "two stone tablets."

Differences between versions

The Hebrew devarim (H1697G, "words") is rendered literally in the LXX as ῥήματα ("words/sayings") and in the Vulgate as verba ("words"), matching the Hebrew construct sense of "the ten words." The BSB, however, renders this phrase as "the Ten Commandments," an interpretive translation that shifts from the literal "words" to a specific legal category not explicitly present in the Hebrew noun devarim itself. The RV1909 and SBLIBRE render it as "las diez palabras" and "los diez mandamientos" respectively, showing the same range between literal ("words") and interpretive ("commandments") choices among translations.