Biblical Hebrew Forum

["AMK Judaica" <amkjudaica AT hotmail.com>]

Some comments from a Rabbinic perspective pertaining to the recent thread on 
the versification of the “Ten Commandments” (TC):

1)	The entire section containing the TC in Rabbinic Bibles has two sets of 
cantillation: taam elyon (upper cantillation) and taam tahton (lower 
cantillation). Taam tahon divides the section into the “regular” verse 
lengths and is the “standard” versification. Taam tahton divides the section 
into ten verses of abnormal-length according to the TC.
2)	Words that in taam elyon with initial begedkefet letters containing a 
dagesh kal may lose it in taam tahton because the reordering of the 
cantillation results in disjunctive cantillation becoming conjunctive 
cantillation. Also, there is a strong tendency for words to become proclitic 
in taam elyon.
3)	There are different traditions pertaining to specifically when taam 
tahton or taam elyon are used for public worship.
4)	As per Gary Hedrick’s statement that “Perhaps the difference in verse 
numbering is related to the fact that the rabbis consider the introduction 
("I am the LORD your God," v. 2) to be the first commandment”: this is the 
dominant view in the Jewish tradition, but not only one. Isolated midrashic 
sources, Philo and Josephus see it otherwise. What may have at one time been 
a more vibrant debate among the rabbis is hinted at by the variant 
traditions over how to cantillate that first verse in taam elyon. Some 
cantillate it to the effect of making it a separate verse, whereas others 
join it to the next commandment.
5)	Two things to keep in mind when considering whether it is a separate 
commandment or not: A) Hebrew Bibles are divided into parshiyot (sing. 
parashah), or sections (like paragraphs) by gaps in the text (with petuhot 
and setumot). Each commandment of the TC gets it own parashah (whether the 
two-word lo tirtzah or the fifty-word Sabbath commandment). That first 
commandment, however, does not get its own parashah and is part of the 
parashah with the second commandment. (There is no debate on this issue, 
even among those who maintain it must be cantillated as a separate verse in 
taam elyon.) B) I’m not sure why there is a need to account for (or to 
count) “ten commandments” This phrase is a regular part of our popular 
parlance, but it is not an accurate one; the Hebrew text refers only to 
aseret ha-devarim, which translates not as “ten commandments, ” but rather 
as “ten statements” (or Decalogue). (From a strictly “commandments” 
perspective I count at least 14 separate commandment.)

-Ari Kinsberg

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