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 Hedricks 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) Im 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.)