Deuteronomy 10

At that time the LORD said to me, "Cut two stone tablets like the first ones, and come up to me on the mountain. Also make yourself a wooden chest.

1At 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.

NoteThe "wooden chest" is what older translations call the ark, a portable box, later plated with gold, that held the stone tablets and traveled with Israel. "Ark" in the King James simply means chest; it has nothing to do with a boat except that Noah's vessel is called by the same English word. The mountain here is Horeb, also called Sinai, where the law was given.

2I will write on the tablets the same words that were on the first tablets, the ones you broke. Then you are to put the tablets inside the chest."

2And I will write on the tables the words that were in the first tables which thou brakest, and thou shalt put them in the ark.

NoteThe breaking of the first tablets refers back to the episode in which Moses, coming down and finding the people worshiping a golden calf, smashed them at the foot of the mountain (Exodus 32; retold in Deuteronomy 9).

3So I made a chest of acacia wood and cut two stone tablets like the first ones. Then I went up the mountain, carrying the two tablets in my hands.

3And I made an ark of shittim wood, and hewed two tables of stone like unto the first, and went up into the mount, having the two tables in mine hand.

NoteAcacia (King James "shittim") is a hard, dense, insect-resistant desert tree, one of the few sizeable timbers available in the Sinai wilderness.

4The LORD wrote on the tablets what he had written before: the Ten Commandments he had spoken to you on the mountain, out of the middle of the fire, on the day you all gathered there. And the LORD gave the tablets to me.

4And he wrote on the tables, according to the first writing, the ten commandments, which the LORD spake unto you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly: and the LORD gave them unto me.

NoteThe Hebrew phrase behind "Ten Commandments" is literally "the ten words", hence the older term Decalogue. "The day you all gathered there" refers to the assembly of the whole nation at the mountain when the law was first proclaimed.

5Then I turned and came down the mountain, and I put the tablets in the chest I had made, just as the LORD commanded me. They are still there.

5And I turned myself and came down from the mount, and put the tables in the ark which I had made; and there they be, as the LORD commanded me.

6The Israelites traveled from Beeroth of the people of Jaakan to Moserah. Aaron died there and was buried there, and his son Eleazar took his place and served as priest.

6And the children of Israel took their journey from Beeroth of the children of Jaakan to Mosera: there Aaron died, and there he was buried; and Eleazar his son ministered in the priest’s office in his stead.

NoteAaron was Moses' elder brother and the first high priest; the office passed by descent, so his son Eleazar succeeded him. These verses list stopping places on the wilderness route; the order and names differ from the itinerary given in Numbers 33, where Aaron dies at Mount Hor, and the difference has never been fully reconciled.

7From there they traveled to Gudgodah, and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, a land with streams of water.

7From thence they journeyed unto Gudgodah; and from Gudgodah to Jotbath, a land of rivers of waters.

NoteIn a desert march a "land with streams of water" is worth recording, permanent running water, not the seasonal wadis that carried water only after rain.

8At that time the LORD set the tribe of Levi apart to carry the chest that holds the LORD's covenant, to stand before the LORD and serve him, and to speak blessings in his name. They still do this today.

8At that time the LORD separated the tribe of Levi, to bear the ark of the covenant of the LORD, to stand before the LORD to minister unto him, and to bless in his name, unto this day.

NoteLevi was one of the twelve tribes; its men were assigned to the care and transport of the sanctuary and its furnishings rather than to farming. A covenant is a formal binding agreement, in this culture the same kind of instrument used for treaties between a ruler and his subjects, with stipulations and sworn obligations on both sides. The chest is called the ark of the covenant because the tablets stating those terms were kept inside it.

9That is why Levi has no share of land and no inheritance along with the other tribes. The LORD himself is Levi's inheritance, just as the LORD your God promised him.

9Wherefore Levi hath no part nor inheritance with his brethren; the LORD is his inheritance, according as the LORD thy God promised him.

Note"Inheritance" here means an allotted share of the land of Canaan, held permanently by a family and passed to its descendants. The Levites received no such territory; they lived on portions of the offerings brought to the sanctuary and in towns granted within other tribes' land.

10I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights, as I had the first time. That time too the LORD listened to me, and he agreed not to destroy you.

10And I stayed in the mount, according to the first time, forty days and forty nights; and the LORD hearkened unto me at that time also, and the LORD would not destroy thee.

NoteThis is the second forty-day stay on the mountain, after the golden calf, when Moses asked God not to wipe out the people.

11The LORD said to me, "Get up. Set out on the journey ahead of the people, so they can go in and take the land I promised their ancestors with an oath."

11And the LORD said unto me, Arise, take thy journey before the people, that they may go in and possess the land, which I sware unto their fathers to give unto them.

NoteThe "ancestors" (King James "fathers") sworn to are Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to whom the land was promised in Genesis.

12And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you? Only this: to hold the LORD your God in awe, to live the way he says, to love him, and to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and all your soul,

12And now, Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul,

Note"Fear" in the King James, and "awe" here, translates a Hebrew word that covers everything from dread to reverence to loyal respect for a superior; it does not mean simple fright.

13and to keep the commands and rules of the LORD that I am giving you today, for your own good.

13To keep the commandments of the LORD, and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good?

Note"Commands and rules" (King James "commandments and statutes") are near-synonyms in Hebrew legal language; the piling up of such terms is a standard way of saying "the whole body of law," not a list of distinct categories.

14Look: the heavens belong to the LORD your God, even the highest heavens, and so do the earth and everything in it.

14Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the LORD’s thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is.

Note"The heaven and the heaven of heavens" is a Hebrew way of forming a superlative by repeating a word, the sky, and beyond it the very highest reaches of the sky. The same construction produces "God of gods" and "Lord of lords" in verse 17.

15Yet the LORD set his heart on your ancestors and loved them. And he chose you, their descendants who came after them, out of all the peoples, as things still stand today.

15Only the LORD had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day.

16So circumcise your hearts, and be stubborn no longer.

16Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked.

NoteCircumcision, the cutting away of the foreskin, was the physical mark of belonging to this people, performed on every male infant. Here the image is turned into a figure of speech: cut away what is blocking the heart. "Stiffnecked" is a farming image, an ox that sets its neck against the yoke and refuses to be steered.

17For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords. He is the great, mighty, and awesome God, who shows no favoritism and takes no bribe.

17For the LORD your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward:

Note"Regardeth not persons" is a courtroom term: literally "does not lift the face," that is, does not favor one party over another because of who they are. "Taketh reward" in 1611 English means accepts a bribe, not receives a reward. "Terrible" in the King James means awe-inspiring, not dreadful in the modern sense.

18He makes sure that children without fathers and women whose husbands have died get justice. He loves the foreigner living among you, and gives him food and clothing.

18He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment.

NoteFatherless children, widows and resident foreigners were the three groups with no male head of household and no clan land to fall back on, and so with no standing to press a claim in court. Ancient law codes across the region single them out as the test of a just ruler.

19So you must love the foreigner too, because you were foreigners in the land of Egypt.

19Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.

Note"Stranger" in the King James means a foreigner living long-term among the people, a resident outsider with limited legal standing, not a passing traveler or an unknown person.

20Hold the LORD your God in awe. Serve him. Hold on to him and stay close to him. And when you swear an oath, swear by his name.

20Thou shalt fear the LORD thy God; him shalt thou serve, and to him shalt thou cleave, and swear by his name.

Note"Cleave" in 1611 English means to stick fast to something, the opposite of its other modern sense of splitting apart. Swearing by a god's name was the ordinary legal procedure for guaranteeing testimony or a contract; whose name you swore by declared whose authority you lived under.

21He is the one you praise, and he is your God. He did these great and awesome things for you, and you saw them with your own eyes.

21He is thy praise, and he is thy God, that hath done for thee these great and terrible things, which thine eyes have seen.

Note"Terrible things" again means acts that inspire awe, here the plagues and the escape from Egypt.

22Your ancestors went down into Egypt, seventy people in all. And now the LORD your God has made you as many as the stars in the sky.

22Thy fathers went down into Egypt with threescore and ten persons; and now the LORD thy God hath made thee as the stars of heaven for multitude.

Note"Threescore and ten" is seventy (a score is twenty). This is the number given in Genesis 46 for Jacob's household when it went down to Egypt during the famine.