This week’s Torah reading centers on the story, told in verses 2–14 of the twentieth chapter of Exodus, of the giving of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai. Why is it then that Hebrew, through which this story was transmitted to the world, does not speak of Sinai’s “commandments,” its mitzvot, but rather of its “sayings,” its dibrot?
Or, to reverse the question: why, when Hebrew says there were ten “sayings” at Sinai, do English and other languages say there were ten “commandments”?
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