The Ten Commandments: Text, Tablets of the Law, Sinai

Everyone has heard of them, many people know three or four of them, and almost no one knows that in Hebrew they are not called “commandments”. What exactly do the Ten Commandments say? Why two Tablets of stone, why were they broken, and what place does this text really hold in Jewish life, alongside the 613 mitzvot? Here is a complete answer: the text, the sources, the explanations of the Sages, the history, and the teaching of Rav Raphaël Benizri.

In short: the Ten Commandments, in Hebrew Aseret Hadibrot or Aseret Hadevarim (“the ten words”), are the words that G-d made the whole people of Israel hear at Mount Sinai, seven weeks after the Exodus from Egypt. The Torah records them twice: in the book of Shemot (Exodus) 20:2-14 and in the book of Devarim (Deuteronomy) 5:6-18. They were engraved on two Tablets of stone, the “Tablets of the Law”, which Moshe (Moses) broke after the sin of the golden calf and then replaced with a second set of Tablets, placed in the Ark of the Covenant. They range from faith in G-d (“I am the L-rd your G-d”) to the basic rules of life in society (do not murder, do not steal, do not covet). Judaism regards them as the heart and summary of the Torah, but not as more important than the other commandments: all 613 mitzvot have the same divine origin.

Ten “words”, not ten “commandments”

The Torah never speaks of “ten commandments”. It says “aseret hadevarim”, the ten words (Shemot 34:28; Devarim 4:13 and 10:4). Rabbinic tradition also says “aseret hadibrot”, the ten utterances. The word “Decalogue”, found in translations, comes from Greek and means exactly the same thing: “ten words”.

The distinction is not a mere detail. The first of these words, “I am the L-rd your G-d, who brought you out of the land of Egypt” (Shemot 20:2), does not take the form of an order: it is a statement. And if one counts the actual commandments contained in this text, there are more than ten. The Sefer Ha-Chinukh, which lists the 613 mitzvot in the order of the Torah, counts fourteen in this single passage of Shemot (mitzvot 25 to 38): to believe in G-d, not to acknowledge any other deity, not to make an idol, not to bow down to it, not to worship it, not to swear in vain, to sanctify Shabbat, not to work on it, to honor one’s parents, not to murder, not to commit adultery, not to steal, not to bear false witness, not to covet.

The number ten, for its part, resonates deeply in the tradition. The Mishna (the first written compilation of the Oral Law, around the year 200) teaches that the world was created through ten utterances (Pirkei Avot 5:1): the Talmud finds them in the nine “and G-d said” of the Creation account, to which is added the first word, “Bereshit”, “in the beginning”, which also counts as an utterance (Rosh Hashana 32a). At Sinai, G-d speaks ten more words. The Sages, and Rav Benizri after them, see this correspondence as a key: the first words made the world, the second ones give it meaning.

The text of the Ten Words

Here is the text, translated as closely as possible to the Hebrew, following the version in the book of Shemot (20:2-14). The numbering is that of Jewish tradition.

1. “I am the L-rd your G-d, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” 2. “You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in the heavens above, on the earth below, or in the waters beneath the earth. You shall not bow down to them nor serve them […].” 3. “You shall not take the Name of the L-rd your G-d in vain, for the L-rd will not hold guiltless one who takes His Name in vain.” 4. “Remember the Shabbat day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is Shabbat to the L-rd your G-d: you shall not do any work […], for in six days the L-rd made the heavens and the earth […] and He rested on the seventh day.” 5. “Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long on the land that the L-rd your G-d is giving you.” 6. “You shall not murder.” 7. “You shall not commit adultery.” 8. “You shall not steal.” 9. “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” 10. “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

Two points of vocabulary are called for. “Lo tirtzach” does not mean “you shall not kill any living being”, nor even “you shall never kill”: the verb ratzach refers to homicide, the murder of an innocent person. The Torah itself provides elsewhere for self-defense (Shemot 22:1). And “lo tignov”, “you shall not steal”, refers according to the Talmud (the great commentary on the Mishna, completed around the year 500) to kidnapping, stealing a human being in order to sell him, since this verse is surrounded by two prohibitions punishable by death; the theft of objects is forbidden in another verse, “you shall not steal” (Vayikra [Leviticus] 19:11) (Talmud, Sanhedrin 86a, quoted by Rashi on Shemot 20:13).

Two versions, one message

Forty years later, just before entering the land of Israel, Moshe reminds the people of the revelation at Sinai and repeats the Ten Words (Devarim 5:6-18). The text is almost identical, with a few differences. The best known concerns Shabbat: Shemot says “zakhor”, “remember” the Shabbat day, and links rest to Creation; Devarim says “shamor”, “keep” the Shabbat day, and links it to the Exodus from Egypt: “you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt” (Devarim 5:15).

How could G-d have said two different things? The Talmud answers: “Zakhor and shamor were said in a single utterance, something the human mouth cannot say and the human ear cannot hear” (Shevuot 20b; Rosh Hashana 27a). This is the origin of the words of the song Lekha Dodi, sung every Friday night: “Shamor vezakhor bedibur echad”. In practice, halakha (Jewish law) derives from this two sides of Shabbat: zakhor, the positive mitzvot such as Kiddush; shamor, the prohibitions on work. In the commandment to honor one’s parents, Devarim also adds “so that it may go well with you”; we will see further on what the Talmud and Rav Benizri say about this.

Sinai: a revelation to an entire people

The Ten Words are part of a story. The people who came out of Egypt arrive in the Sinai desert “in the third month” (Shemot 19:1). G-d offers a covenant: “You shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Shemot 19:6). The people answer with one voice: “All that the L-rd has spoken, we will do” (19:8). Three days of preparation follow: the people purify themselves, wash their clothes and keep away from the mountain. On the morning of the third day come thunder, lightning, a thick cloud and the very powerful sound of the shofar (the ram’s horn); the mountain smokes and trembles (19:16-19). According to the Talmud, it was a Shabbat and, according to the view of the Sages accepted by tradition, the 6th of Sivan (Shabbat 86b). This is why the festival of Shavuot, on the 6th of Sivan, celebrates the giving of the Torah.

What makes this account unique is that the revelation is not received by a single prophet, in secret, but by an entire people, men, women and children. The Torah insists on this point: “The L-rd spoke to you out of the midst of the fire; you heard the sound of words, but you saw no form, only a voice” (Devarim 4:12). And it invites us to ask whether such a thing has ever happened: “Has any people ever heard the voice of G-d speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard it, and lived?” (Devarim 4:33).

The Kuzari, the work of Rabbi Yehuda Halevi (12th century), makes this one of the foundations of Jewish faith. It notes that the Ten Words do not begin with “I am the L-rd who created heaven and earth”, but with “who brought you out of Egypt” (Kuzari 1:25). G-d does not introduce Himself through a philosophical proof, but through a history lived by those who are listening to Him, and passed down from parents to children ever since.

Yet the people are seized with fear. “All the people saw the voices and the flames […]; they drew back and stood at a distance. They said to Moshe: You speak to us, and we will listen; but let not G-d speak to us, lest we die” (Shemot 20:15-16). The Talmud records a tradition according to which the people heard only the first two words, “I am” and “You shall have no”, directly from the mouth of G-d, and the rest through Moshe (Makot 24a). The Midrash (a collection of interpretations by the Sages) adds that at the moment G-d spoke, no bird sang, no ox lowed, the sea did not stir: the whole world fell silent (Shemot Rabba 29:9). And according to another tradition, each word split into seventy languages, so that all the nations could hear it (Shabbat 88b).

The Tablets of the Law: engraved, broken, remade

After the revelation, Moshe goes up the mountain and stays there forty days and forty nights (Shemot 24:18). He comes down with “the two Tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of G-d” (Shemot 31:18). The Torah specifies that they were written on both sides, “the work of G-d, and the writing was the writing of G-d, engraved on the Tablets” (Shemot 32:15-16).

What the Sages say about the Tablets

The Talmud gives their dimensions: six tefachim (about half a meter) long, six wide and three thick (Bava Batra 14a). They were therefore square and massive, a far cry from the round-topped tablets popularized by Western art. The letters went right through the stone; the letters final mem and samekh, which are closed, stayed suspended in the middle of the stone by a miracle (Shabbat 104a; Megila 2b). The Mishna counts the Tablets among the ten things created on the eve of the first Shabbat, at twilight (Pirkei Avot 5:6).

On the word “charut”, “engraved”, the Sages make a wordplay that has become famous: “do not read charut, engraved, but cherut, freedom, for no one is free except the one who engages in Torah” (Pirkei Avot 6:2; Eruvin 54a). The law engraved in stone is not a chain: it frees man from his inner forms of slavery.

How were the ten words divided? The most widespread opinion, already among the Sages, is that there were five on each Tablet (Mekhilta de-Rabbi Yishmael, Bachodesh 8; Jerusalem Talmud, Shekalim 6:1, where other Sages hold that each Tablet bore all ten). The philosopher Philo of Alexandria and the historian Flavius Josephus, in the 1st century, also speak of five and five.

The sin of the golden calf and the broken Tablets

During the forty days that Moshe is on the mountain, the people, worried by his delay, make a golden calf (Shemot 32:1-6). When Moshe comes down and sees the calf and the dancing, “his anger burned; he threw the Tablets from his hands and shattered them at the foot of the mountain” (Shemot 32:19). According to the Mishna, this was the 17th of Tammuz, which has remained a fast day (Taanit 4:6).

After the teshuva (return, repentance) of the people and Moshe’s prayer, G-d says to him: “Carve for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and I will write on these tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke” (Shemot 34:1). A crucial difference: the first Tablets were entirely the work of G-d; the second are carved by Moshe, and only the writing is divine. Moshe goes back up, stays another forty days, and comes down with the second Tablets on the 10th of Tishrei, the day that would become Yom Kippur (Rashi on Shemot 33:11, based on Seder Olam).

The second Tablets were placed in the Ark of the Covenant, which was later set in the Holy of Holies of the Temple (Devarim 10:1-5; Melakhim I [1 Kings] 8:9). And the fragments of the first? The Talmud teaches that they too were placed in the Ark, beside the whole Tablets (Bava Batra 14b; Berakhot 8b). Hence this lesson: “Be careful with an elderly scholar who has forgotten his learning through no fault of his own, for the Tablets and the fragments of the Tablets lay together in the Ark.” What has been broken remains holy.

How to read the ten words: two Tablets that answer each other

Why two Tablets rather than one? The classic reading distinguishes two domains. The first Tablet groups the commandments between man and G-d (bein adam laMakom): faith, the prohibition of idolatry, respect for the divine Name, Shabbat, and respect for parents, who are G-d’s partners in creating a child (Kiddushin 30b). The second groups the commandments between man and his fellow (bein adam lachavero): do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not lie in court, do not covet.

But the Sages go further: they read the two Tablets facing each other, line by line. The Mekhilta, the ancient commentary on the book of Shemot, thus teaches that “I am the L-rd your G-d” faces “You shall not murder”: whoever sheds blood diminishes the image of G-d, since man was created in His image. “You shall have no other gods” faces “You shall not commit adultery”: idolatry is a form of unfaithfulness, and unfaithfulness a form of idolatry. Swearing in vain faces stealing, which often leads to a false oath; Shabbat, a testimony that G-d created the world, faces false testimony; and the honor due to parents faces coveting (Mekhilta de-Rabbi Yishmael, Bachodesh 8). The message is clear: one cannot separate one’s relationship with G-d from one’s relationship with others.

The tenth commandment: forbidding a desire?

“You shall not covet” always surprises: how can the Torah forbid a feeling? The Rambam (Maimonides) explains that the prohibition of “lo tachmod” is transgressed when one takes action to obtain the coveted object, for example by pressuring its owner until he gives it up, even for payment; the book of Devarim adds “lo titaveh”, “you shall not desire”, which targets the desire itself once one starts devising schemes (Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Gezela 1:9-11).

Rabbi Avraham Ibn Ezra, in the 12th century, offers an image that has remained famous (commentary on Shemot 20:14). A sensible peasant does not long to marry a princess: he knows she is outside his world. In the same way, someone who has understood that what his neighbor owns was given to him by G-d does not covet it: it is simply not “for him”. The last word thus joins the first: coveting is, at bottom, a lack of faith.

The Ten Words and the 613 mitzvot

If Judaism counts 613 commandments, what do these ten represent? A very ancient tradition sees them as the summary of the entire Torah. Rashi writes that “the 613 mitzvot are included in the Ten Words”, and that Rav Saadia Gaon (10th century) composed a poem, azharot, linking each mitzva to one of the ten (Rashi on Shemot 24:12). The Midrash counts 620 letters in the text of the Ten Words, from “Anokhi” to “lereekha” (“of your neighbor”): 613 like the commandments of the Torah, and 7 more, corresponding to the seven days of Creation, to teach that the world was created only for the sake of the Torah (Bamidbar Rabba 13:16).

But be careful: a summary does not mean a hierarchy. The Mishna records that in the Temple the Ten Words were recited every day before the Shema (Mishna Tamid 5:1). The Sages wanted to institute this recitation everywhere, but gave it up “because of the claims of the heretics” (Berakhot 12a): certain groups asserted that only the Ten Words had been given at Sinai, and that the rest of the Torah was secondary. So as not to lend them support, the Ten Words stopped being said publicly in the prayers.

The Rambam, asked about the custom of standing during the reading of the Ten Words in the synagogue, opposed it for the same reason: it could suggest that some parts of the Torah are worth more than others (Teshuvot HaRambam, Blau ed. no. 263). To this day, the entire Torah, from the Ten Words to the laws of damages, is held to be equally divine.

“Honor your father and your mother”: since Sinai, the ten words have been handed down from generation to generation.

The Ten Words in Jewish life today

Even though they are not part of the daily public prayers, the Ten Words accompany Jewish life in many ways.

In the synagogue. They are read three times a year in the cycle of Torah readings: on the Shabbat of parasha (weekly Torah portion) Yitro (Shemot 18-20), on the Shabbat of parasha Va’etchanan (Devarim 3:23-7:11), and on the first day of Shavuot, the festival of the giving of the Torah. For these readings, many communities use a special cantillation, the taam elyon, which makes each of the words a single verse.
Standing or seated? Despite the Rambam’s reservations, the custom of standing during the reading has spread in many communities, Ashkenazi and Sephardi alike, as if reliving Sinai. Others remain seated. Rav Moshe Feinstein, in the 20th century, accepted the custom of standing, which highlights the importance of the event at Sinai (Igrot Moshe, Orach Chaim 4:22). Everyone follows the custom of their own synagogue.
In private. The Shulchan Aruch writes that it is good to say the Ten Words every morning, together with other passages such as the account of the binding of Yitzchak (Isaac) and that of the manna; the Rema specifies that they are said individually, not in public (Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 1:5). Many prayer books print them, along with these passages, in the morning service.
In the Shema. The Jerusalem Talmud teaches that the Ten Words are contained, by allusion, in the three paragraphs of the Shema Yisrael recited morning and evening (Berakhot 1:5): their memory is therefore present every day, in another form.
In synagogue art. Above the holy ark one often sees two Tablets bearing the first words of each of the ten. This is a symbol, not a ritual object, and its rounded shape is an artistic convention.

History and ancient witnesses

Where is Mount Sinai? No one knows for certain. Christian tradition has identified it since the Byzantine period (4th-6th centuries) with Jebel Musa, in the south of the Sinai Peninsula, at the foot of which stands Saint Catherine’s Monastery. Other sites have been proposed, in Sinai or in Arabia. Jewish tradition, for its part, never made the mountain a place of pilgrimage: the holiness of Sinai, the Sages say, ended when the revelation ended. What matters is not the place, but the word.

The oldest written witnesses of the text are remarkable. The Nash Papyrus, bought in Egypt at the turn of the 20th century by the British collector W. L. Nash, published in 1903 and kept at Cambridge University Library, dates from the 2nd or 1st century BCE; it contains the Ten Words followed by the Shema Yisrael, a sign that they were recited together. Among the Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered at Qumran from 1947 onward, several scrolls of Deuteronomy and ancient tefillin also contain the text of the Ten Words.

The Ten Words are sometimes compared with the law codes of the ancient Near East, such as the Code of Hammurabi (around 1750 BCE). There are similarities in the prohibition of murder or theft, but the differences run deep: the Ten Words address each person in the second person singular (“you”), base morality on the relationship with G-d, and contain things no ancient code knew: Shabbat, a weekly day of rest for all, slaves and animals included, and the prohibition of a desire.

Finally, the Ten Words have become part of humanity’s heritage. Christianity and Islam took them up in various forms. The Christian churches do not all number them the same way: most do not count “I am the L-rd your G-d” as a separate word and divide the others differently. The Jewish numbering, which makes the first word a statement of faith, is that of rabbinic tradition, attested as early as the Mekhilta and the Talmud.

What Rav Raphaël Benizri teaches

Rav Benizri often returns to the Ten Words, in his lectures on Shavuot, Pesach, Sukkot and Rosh Hashana and on the weekly parasha. Here are his main ideas, faithfully summarized.

“Anokhi” is not a commandment but a given

In “Pesach: time is not continuous”, the Rav explains that of the ten words of Sinai, only nine command. “I am the L-rd your G-d” establishes the One who commands; without Him there is no hierarchy, and therefore no commandment. It is exactly like the Creation account, where the word Bereshit, “in the beginning”, precedes the nine utterances by which the world was made.

In “Pirkei Avot: acquiring the Torah before Shavuot”, he draws an overall reading from this. After this first word, which is a fact, nine commandments remain, which the Rav divides into three series of three: what obliges us toward G-d, what obliges us toward our fellow, what obliges us toward ourselves. Having no other G-d concerns G-d; not taking His Name in vain concerns our fellow; remembering Shabbat concerns first of all our own elevation. Honoring one’s parents is a respect for one’s fellow that counts as respect for G-d; not shedding blood, and the Rav reminds us that “there are words that kill”, belongs to our duty toward others; adultery concerns the person himself. Finally, stealing concerns G-d, because it is done “behind the other person’s back, as if no one could see us”; false testimony concerns our fellow; coveting again concerns oneself.

The two Tablets facing each other

In “Sukkot: from Yom Kippur to the sukkah of peace”, the Rav takes up the Sages’ reading of the Tablets facing each other: “I am the L-rd your G-d” opposite “you shall not murder”, because whoever kills diminishes the image of G-d that is in man; the Name of G-d taken in vain opposite stealing, because whoever infringes on his neighbor’s property disputes the way G-d has distributed the riches of this world; Shabbat opposite false testimony. He draws a powerful conclusion: on the day of judgment, a person is asked whether he affirmed the sovereignty of G-d, but also whether he recognized that of his fellow. One without the other leads nowhere.

In “Pesach: Peh-Sach, the mouth that speaks”, answering a question, he clarifies the difference between common morality and the Torah. The second Tablet, he says, belongs to a commonly accepted morality, which we share with other religions and even with secular ethics. But without “Anokhi”, without the first Tablet, “you shall not murder” does not yet say that whoever takes a life diminishes the image of G-d in man. “You are dealing with a being, with a creature of G-d.”

Ten utterances of Creation, ten words of Revelation

In “Mishpatim: the Hebrew slave and freedom”, the Rav sets the two series of ten words side by side. Those of Creation brought the world into being in its material form; those of Revelation gave that matter a soul. Just as man, barely formed, was placed into Shabbat, so the people, barely extracted from “the Egyptian clay”, received at the foot of Sinai a breath of life through these ten words. But, he adds, the people “washed their clothes, they did not remake their soul”: they stand far from the mountain. This is why the Torah immediately goes on to the detailed civil laws of Mishpatim. If the Ten Commandments were practiced in their full scope, he says, there would be neither slaves nor thieves.

In the same lecture, he insists on the spirit in which these words should be received: “One must not fear the law, one must love it.” Fear can give rise to sin; loving the law means making it the natural expression of oneself, through a free act. And he notes that the Torah does not ask us to “love” our parents but to respect them: respect, he says, is a love that has broken free of its natural bonds and clothed itself in freedom. This is why it appears on the first Tablet.

The letters that fly away

On the broken Tablets, the Rav takes up an image of the Sages: the letters were not prisoners of the stone. “The Tablets can break, the letters cannot: they fly away.” Even if an entire society were to abandon the law, ten righteous people would be enough to save the whole community and the whole of the law (“Mishpatim: the Hebrew slave and freedom”).

In “Pirkei Avot: acquiring the Torah before Shavuot”, he explains why there were two pairs of Tablets: those that G-d fashions, and those that Moshe fashions. The first express a thought still detached from this world, which the people had not yet absorbed. “If the Tablets can break, it is because my part in them is fragile”: what breaks is whatever in me has not yet wrapped itself around the divine teaching. The second Tablets, carved by human hands, are those to which each person brings his own part. Hence the Rav’s formula in “Shavuot: the fiftieth day, outside the count”: “The Torah was given at Sinai, but it was only received on Yom Kippur”, the day when the people had agreed to wipe the slate clean of everything that separated them from their fellow and from their Creator.

Why “so that it may go well with you” appears only in the second version

In “Inscribe us in the book of life”, the Rav comments on a passage of the Talmud (Bava Kama 54b-55a): why, in the first Ten Words, does the commandment to honor one’s parents promise only length of days, while the second version adds “so that it may go well with you”? The Talmud answers that the first Tablets were destined to be broken: had the word “good” appeared on them, the good would have been taken away from Israel. The Rav draws a personal reading from this: life is a blessing in itself and needs no qualifier. In the first text, respect for parents is required with no reward other than life itself. Only a people who, after Sinai, had bowed down before a golden calf needed to be promised more.

Frequently asked questions about the Ten Commandments

Where are the Ten Commandments in the Bible?

In the Torah, in two places: in the book of Shemot (Exodus), chapter 20, verses 2 to 14, in parashat Yitro; and in the book of Devarim (Deuteronomy), chapter 5, verses 6 to 18, in parashat Va’etchanan. Some translations number the verses slightly differently (Exodus 20:1-17).

What is the first of the Ten Commandments?

In Jewish tradition, it is “I am the L-rd your G-d, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage” (Shemot 20:2). For most commentators, including the Rambam, it is the commandment to believe in G-d (Sefer Ha-Mitzvot, positive commandment 1). For others, it is not a commandment but the foundation of all the others.

Are the Ten Commandments more important than the other mitzvot?

No. They are their summary and their heart, but all the mitzvot of the Torah have the same divine origin. It is precisely to avoid suggesting otherwise that the Sages gave up reciting them in the daily prayers (Berakhot 12a).

What happened to the Tablets of the Law?

The second Tablets and the fragments of the first were kept in the Ark of the Covenant, in the Holy of Holies of the Temple in Jerusalem. The Ark is no longer mentioned after the end of the First Temple. According to a tradition in the Talmud, King Yoshiyahu (Josiah) hid it before the destruction (Yoma 52b). Where it is today is unknown.

Do non-Jews have to observe the Ten Commandments?

Judaism does not ask non-Jews to observe the whole Torah, nor Shabbat. It offers them the seven Noahide laws, a universal moral foundation: do not murder, do not steal, do not practice idolatry, establish just courts, and so on (Sanhedrin 56a). Much of the second Tablet is found there.

Why “You shall not kill” rather than “You shall not murder”?

It is a question of translation. The Hebrew verb ratzach refers to the killing of an innocent person, that is, murder. It covers neither self-defense, which the Torah permits, nor the sentences of a court in the days when such courts existed. Indeed, many recent translations say “You shall not murder”.

Why are the Ten Commandments read on Shavuot?

Because Shavuot, on the 6th of Sivan, is according to tradition the anniversary of the revelation at Sinai. The account of that event is read on this day (Shemot 19-20). Many people spend the first night studying Torah, to show that they are ready to receive it anew.

Sources and references

Shemot (Exodus) 19:1-19; 20:2-16; 22:1; 24:12; 24:18; 31:18; 32:1-19; 33:11; 34:1; 34:28
Vayikra (Leviticus) 19:11
Devarim (Deuteronomy) 3:23-7:11 (parashat Va’etchanan); 4:12-13; 4:33; 5:6-18; 10:1-5
Melakhim I (1 Kings) 8:9
Mishna, Pirkei Avot 5:1; 5:6; 6:2
Mishna, Taanit 4:6
Mishna, Tamid 5:1
Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 8b and 12a
Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 86b, 88b and 104a
Babylonian Talmud, Eruvin 54a
Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 52b
Babylonian Talmud, Rosh Hashana 27a and 32a; Shevuot 20b
Babylonian Talmud, Megila 2b
Babylonian Talmud, Kiddushin 30b
Babylonian Talmud, Bava Kama 54b-55a
Babylonian Talmud, Bava Batra 14a-14b
Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 56a and 86a
Babylonian Talmud, Makot 24a
Jerusalem Talmud, Berakhot 1:5; Shekalim 6:1
Mekhilta de-Rabbi Yishmael, Bachodesh 8
Shemot Rabba 29:9; Bamidbar Rabba 13:16
Seder Olam
Rashi on Shemot 20:13; 24:12; 33:11
Rabbi Avraham Ibn Ezra, commentary on Shemot 20:14
Rabbi Yehuda Halevi, Kuzari 1:25
Rambam, Sefer Ha-Mitzvot, positive commandment 1
Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Gezela 1:9-11
Teshuvot HaRambam, Blau ed. no. 263
Sefer Ha-Chinukh, mitzvot 25 to 38
Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 1:5, and Rema
Rav Moshe Feinstein, Igrot Moshe, Orach Chaim 4:22
Philo of Alexandria, De Decalogo; Flavius Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, book III
Nash Papyrus (2nd-1st century BCE), published by Stanley A. Cook in 1903, Cambridge University Library
Dead Sea Scrolls (Qumran), discovered from 1947 onward
Code of Hammurabi (around 1750 BCE), Louvre Museum
Rav Raphaël Benizri, Pesach: time is not continuous
Rav Raphaël Benizri, Pirkei Avot: acquiring the Torah before Shavuot
Rav Raphaël Benizri, Sukkot: from Yom Kippur to the sukkah of peace
Rav Raphaël Benizri, Pesach: Peh-Sach, the mouth that speaks
Rav Raphaël Benizri, Mishpatim: the Hebrew slave and freedom
Rav Raphaël Benizri, Shavuot: the fiftieth day, outside the count
Rav Raphaël Benizri, Inscribe us in the book of life

Article by the Pensées Juives editorial team. Passages attributed to Rav Raphaël Benizri are taken from his lectures published on this site.

What Are the Ten Commandments? Text, Meaning and Place in Judaism