What Does Deuteronomy 10:1 Mean in the King James?
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 analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
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 unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest.But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.THE THREAD
And the LORD said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest.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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