What Does Deuteronomy 10:1 Mean?
At that time the LORD said to me, Hew two tablets of stone for yourself, like the first, and come up to me into the mountain, and make for yourself an ark of wood.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
At that time the LORD said unto me, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first, and come up unto me into the mount, and make thee an ark of wood.THE KEY
The Hebrew verb for hewing the tablets shares its root with the word for a carved image, revealing that the act of shaping is shared even when what is shaped carries opposite meaning.
THE MEANING
A form can be renewed without changing what it is meant to carry: the tablets are shaped like the first, while a wooden ark is made to bear them. The upward call and the work of preparing a vessel belong together, joining encounter with something that can be carried forward.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that what has been broken can only be restored by becoming something entirely different: the new tablets are shaped like the first.
THE ROOT
פְּסָל־
pesal
GROWS FROM
פסל
To hew, cut, or carve into shape.
“Hew” in this verse is pesal. English separates hewing a tablet from a carved image, but Hebrew uses the פסל family for both. The shared seed is shaping by cutting; the tablets and the carved image take opposite roles, so the root shows that the act of making alone does not determine what an object signifies.
ALSO GROWS
pasal: To hew or carve.
פָּסַל
This verbal form names the shaping action in the command itself.
pesel: A carved image.
פֶּסֶל
The same consonants name a carved image, exposing a shared shaping action across two very different objects.
וַעֲלֵה
va'aleh
GROWS FROM
עלה
To rise, go up, or ascend.
The command to come up uses the same root that names an עֹלָה, a burnt offering that rises. Hebrew joins physical ascent with a wider image of what rises toward God.
ALSO GROWS
alah: To rise or go up.
עָלָה
This verb is the root action behind the command to ascend the mountain.
olah: A burnt offering; literally, something that rises.
עֹלָה
The offering shares the ascent root, extending the verse’s upward movement beyond the climb.
ma'alah: An ascent, rise, or step.
מַעֲלָה
This noun carries the same root into the idea of an upward way.
THE PATTERN
Covenant words are renewed on a prepared surface, then inscribed inwardly until the heart itself becomes their receiving place.
And the LORD said to Moses, Hew for yourself two tablets of stone like the first ones. I will write upon these tablets the words that were upon the first tablets, which you broke.But this is the covenant I will cut with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD. I will set my instruction within them, and write it upon their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.You are made visible as the letter of the Anointed One, served by us, written not with ink but with the breath of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh in the heart.THE THREAD
And the LORD said to Moses, Hew for yourself two tablets of stone like the first ones. I will write upon these tablets the words that were upon the first tablets, which you broke.Its Hebrew imperative again uses פסל (pasal, hew), joining the two verses through the same act of shaping. The promise to write the former words makes clear what the newly shaped surface is ready to receive.
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