What Does Deuteronomy 9:10 Mean?
And the LORD gave me the two tablets of stone, written with the finger of God. On them was written according to all the words that the LORD spoke with you in the mountain, out of the midst of the fire, in the day of the assembly.
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
And the LORD delivered unto me two tables of stone written with the finger of God; and on them was written according to all the words, which the LORD spake with you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly.THE KEY
The words God speaks and the words written into stone are one and the same word.
THE MEANING
What is spoken is held on a surface, and what is written carries those words beyond the moment of speaking. The verse presents the words as something given and marked, emerging from fire in a form that can be held and read. Voice and inscription meet in the same words.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that a spoken word must disappear when the moment passes.
THE ROOT
דְּבָרִים
devarim
GROWS FROM
דבר
D-B-R
Word, matter; speak.
“words / spake” in this verse is devarim. The words written on the tablets and the words the LORD spoke belong to the same root family. The verse holds speech and its content together: what is inscribed carries the very word that was spoken.
ALSO GROWS
davar: Word, matter, thing.
דָּבָר
The written words are not detached marks; they carry the matter spoken.
dibber: Spoke.
דִּבֵּר
This is the speaking action named in the verse, joined by the root to the words that are written.
כְּתֻבִים
ketuvim
GROWS FROM
כתב
K-T-B
Write, inscribe.
The verse describes the words as written, giving speech a visible and lasting form. The same root names both the act of writing and what writing leaves behind.
ALSO GROWS
katav: To write.
כָּתַב
This is the verb behind the inscription on the tablets.
mikhtav: Writing, letter, inscription.
מִכְתָּב
This related word names writing as a thing that can be kept and read.
וַיִּתֵּן
vayitten
GROWS FROM
נתן
N-T-N
Give, set, place.
The Hebrew verb says that the LORD gave the tablets. The root also carries the sense of placing, so the verse presents the words as something given into human hands, already inscribed.
ALSO GROWS
natan: To give, set, place.
נָתַן
This is the verb used for the LORD’s giving of the tablets.
mattanah: Gift.
מַתָּנָה
This related form makes the given tablets legible as something received.
THE PATTERN
What God speaks is given a durable form that can be received again.
And he gave to Moses, when he had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, two tablets of the witness, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God.Thus says the LORD God of Israel, Write for yourself in a scroll all the words I have spoken to you.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 these words, which I command you this day, shall be in your heart.The word for words in both verses is דְּבָרִים (devarim, words), from דָּבָר (davar, word or matter). Here the words are written on stone; there, those same words are in the heart.
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