Deuteronomy 10:5

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

I turned and came down from the mountain, and put the tables in the ark which I had made; and there they are as Yahweh commanded me.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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הַלֻּחֹ֔ת

lûwach

H3871

“the · planks”

Particle, Definite Article + Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Absolute

Appears 43× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Exodus 24:12

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from a primitive root

TWOT: 1091a

board, slab, tablet, plank - tablets (of stone) - boards (of wood) - plate (of metal)

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

15: words
14: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Shared distinctive vocabulary

הַלֻּחֹ֔ת plank H3871 occurs in 33 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

6 verbs
4 nouns
1 preposition
1 adverb
3 particles

Verb forms

וָאֵ֗פֶן Qal · Sequential Imperfect
וָֽאֵרֵד֙ Qal · Sequential Imperfect
וָֽאָשִׂם֙ Qal · Sequential Imperfect
עָשִׂ֑יתִי Qal · Perfect
וַיִּ֣הְיוּ Qal · Sequential Imperfect
צִוַּ֖נִי Piel · Perfect

Repetition

A word recurs within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

אֲשֶׁ֣ר which H834 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 27 words from the Hebrew and 30 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 15 Hebrew tokens and 22 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to Deuteronomy 10:5 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Exodus 34:29 It happened, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the testimony in Moses' hand, when he came down from the mountain, that Moses didn't know that the skin of his face shone by reason of his speaking with him.
Exodus 40:20 He took and put the testimony into the ark, and set the poles on the ark, and put the mercy seat above on the ark.
Deuteronomy 10:2 I will write on the tables the words that were on the first tables which you broke, and you shall put them in the ark.
Exodus 25:16 You shall put the testimony which I shall give you into the ark.
Exodus 32:15 Moses turned, and went down from the mountain, with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand; tablets that were written on both their sides; on the one side and on the other they were written.
Deuteronomy 9:15 So I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire: and the two tables of the covenant were in my two hands.
Joshua 4:9 Joshua set up twelve stones in the midst of the Jordan, in the place where the feet of the priests who bore the ark of the covenant stood: and they are there to this day.
1 Kings 8:8–9 The poles were so long that the ends of the poles were seen from the holy place before the oracle; but they were not seen outside: and there they are to this day.

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Deuteronomy 10:5 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וָאֵ֗פֶן וָֽאֵרֵד֙ מִן הָהָ֔ר וָֽאָשִׂם֙ אֶת הַלֻּחֹ֔ת בָּאָר֖וֹן אֲשֶׁ֣ר עָשִׂ֑יתִי וַיִּ֣הְיוּ שָׁ֔ם כַּאֲשֶׁ֥ר צִוַּ֖נִי יְהוָֽה

I turned and came down from the mountain, and put the tables in the ark which I had made; and there they are as Yahweh commanded me.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Deuteronomy 10:5 Septuagint · lemma form

καί ἐπιστρέφω καταβαίνω ἐκ ὁ ὄρος καί ἐνβάλλω ὁ πλάξ εἰς ὁ κιβωτός ὅς ποιέω καί εἰμί ἐκεῖ καθά ἐντέλλομαι ἐγώ κύριος

And I turned and came down from the mountain, and I put the tables into the ark which I had made; and there they were, as the Lord commanded me.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Onkelos Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

וְאִתְפְּנֵיתִי וּנְחָתִית מִן טוּרָא וְשַׁוֵיתִי יָת לוּחַיָא בַּאֲרוֹנָא דִי עֲבָדִית וַהֲווֹ תַמָן כְּמָא דִי פַקְדַנִי יְיָ

(no public-domain English translation for this verse)

Targum Onkelos — Aramaic: “Onkelos Genesis” (public domain); “Onkelos Exodus” (public domain); “Onkelos Leviticus” (public domain); “Onkelos Numbers” (public domain); “Onkelos Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “J.W. Etheridge. The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan Ben Uzziel on the Pentateuch. London: Longmans, Green, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

וְכַוָונִית וּנְחָתִית מִן טַוְורָא וְשַׁוְויַית יַת לוּחַיָא בָּאֲרוֹנָא דְעָבְדִית וַהֲווֹ תַּמָּן צְנִיעִין הֵיכְמָא דְפַקְדַנִי יְיָ

And I turned and came down from the mountain, and put the tables into the ark which I had made, and there are they laid up (hidden) as the Lord commanded me.

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan — Aramaic: “Targum Jonathan on Genesis” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Exodus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Leviticus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Numbers” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “The Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel, trans. J. W. Etheridge, London, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on Deuteronomy 10:5 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

Deu 10:5 And 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.

Ver. 5. And put the tables in the ark.] Which was thenceforth called "the ark of the testimony."

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Tyndale Open Study Notes

Tyndale Open Resources

10:5 still there: Occasionally, phrases such as this one appear in Deuteronomy, indicating that the book received final touches sometime after Moses originally composed it. At the time the book was finally edited, the stone tablets were still in the Ark.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown

Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown

I . . . put the tables in the ark which I had made; and there they be, as the Lord commanded me--Here is another minute, but important circumstance, the public mention of which at the time attests the veracity of the sacred historian.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(5) I . . . put the tables in the ark which I (had) made; and there they be.—Or, and they were there, or they continued there. According to the narrative in Exodus, the ark in which the tables ultimately remained was made afterwards. The English reader must not be misled by the word “had” in “I had made.” There is no pluperfect in Hebrew. The time of an action is determined not so much by the form of the verb as by its relation to the context. “I put the tables in the ark which I made, and they remained there,” is the literal sense. “I made” may very well mean “I caused to be made,” and refers to the ark which Bezaleel constructed under Moses’ directions.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

5. And I turned and came down from the mount] So Deu_9:15 and Exo_32:15, E, but of Moses’ first descent with the tables.

and put the tables in the ark] This also certainly from the original form of E; see above, general note on Deu_10:1-3. P, Exo_40:20 has put the testimony in the ark.

and there they be] Whether this is said in accommodation to the date of the speaker, or as still true of the writer’s time in the seventh century, is uncertain. See above, the general note on Deu_10:1-3. All that is certain is that such was the fact till at least the time of Solomon, cp. 1Ki_8:9.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

And I turned myself,.... From the Lord, out of whose hands he had received the tables:

and came down from the mount; with the two tables in his hand as before, one in one hand, and the other in the other hand:

and put the tables in the ark which I had made; or ordered to be made:

and there they be, as the Lord commanded me; there they were when Moses rehearsed what is contained in this book, on the plains of Moab, about thirty eight years after the putting them, into it; and there they continued to be when the ark was brought into Solomon's temple, Kg1 8:9 and there they were as long as the ark was in being; which may denote the continuance of the law in the hands of Christ under the Gospel dispensation as a rule of walk and conversation to his people.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

unfoldingWord translationNotes

Door43 World Missions Community

General Information:

Moses continues to remind the people of Israel about what happened in the past.

I turned

Here "I" refers to Moses.

came down from the mountain

"came down from Mount Sinai"

in the ark

"in the box" or "in the chest"

translationWords

Yahweh

command

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

Ramban (Nachmanides)

Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman (Ramban / Nachmanides)

AND I TURNED AND CAME DOWN FROM THE MOUNT, AND PUT THE TABLETS IN THE ARK WHICH I MADE. The meaning thereof is “which I made at the time I came down from the mountain.” And there they were forever, as the Eternal commanded me, that His Glory dwell among the children of Israel., Verse 45.

Ramban (Nachmanides) on the Tanakh — English translation: “Commentary on the Torah by Ramban (Nachmanides). Translated and annotated by Charles B. Chavel. New York, Shilo Pub. House, 1971-1976” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Deuteronomy, in the Pentateuch, opens this verse with 15 words (14 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is lûwach (“plank”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

What does “plank” (lûwach) contribute to the verse as a whole?
How does Exodus 24:12, which shares the word «plank», read alongside this verse?
What does the repetition of “which” (2× in this one verse) do in this verse?
These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
«וָאֵ֗פֶן» is a Qal Sequential Imperfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Tyndale Open Study Notes read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

This verse counts 15 Hebrew ↔ 22 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 13 words in this verse.
“which” occurs 2× in this single verse.
14 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 15 words in this verse.