The Ten Commandments in Hebrew

The Bible never calls them “the Ten Commandments.” In Hebrew they are “the ten words”:

He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.

Exodus 34:28

Where the English says “the ten commandments,” the Hebrew says עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדְּבָרִים, aseret ha-devarim: literally “the ten words.” The same phrase appears in Deuteronomy 4:13 and 10:4. Later Jewish writers used the form aseret ha-dibrot, “the ten utterances,” and Greek-speaking Jews such as Philo called them the Decalogue, from deka logoi, “ten words,” which is where the English word comes from.

The Hebrew word for a commandment is mitzvah, and it is not the word used here. The first of the ten words, “I am the LORD your God,” is a statement, not an order, which is one reason Jewish tradition calls them statements. (Catholic vs Protestant Ten Commandments explains how that affects the numbering.)

The short answer: the Ten Commandments in Hebrew are עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדְּבָרִים, aseret ha-devarim, “the ten words,” spoken by God in Exodus 20:1–17 and repeated in Deuteronomy 5:6–21. The Hebrew of each one is short, sometimes only two words, and it shows several things English translations can hide. For what each one means, see The Ten Commandments: What Each One Means.

Here is the opening of each commandment in the Hebrew of Exodus 20, with a simple transliteration and a literal rendering. Hebrew reads from right to left, and the text comes from the Leningrad Codex (about AD 1008), the manuscript behind most printed Hebrew Bibles. The vowel marks are the Masoretes’ medieval addition; the letters are much older.

The opening of each commandment

• 20:2 אָנֹכִי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ anokhi Adonai eloheikha: I am the LORD your God.
• 20:3 לֹא יִהְיֶה־לְךָ אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים עַל־פָּנָי lo yihyeh lekha elohim acherim al panai: you shall have no other gods before my face.
• 20:4 לֹא תַעֲשֶׂה־לְךָ פֶסֶל lo ta’aseh lekha pesel: you shall not make for yourself a carved image.
• 20:7 לֹא תִשָּׂא אֶת־שֵׁם־יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ לַשָּׁוְא lo tisa et shem Adonai eloheikha la-shav: you shall not carry the name of the LORD your God for nothing.
• 20:8 זָכוֹר אֶת־יוֹם הַשַּׁבָּת לְקַדְּשׁוֹ zakhor et yom ha-shabbat le-kadsho: remember the Sabbath day, to make it holy.
• 20:12 כַּבֵּד אֶת־אָבִיךָ וְאֶת־אִמֶּךָ kabbed et avikha ve-et imekha: give weight to your father and your mother.
• 20:13 לֹא תִּרְצָח lo tirtsach: you shall not murder.
• 20:14 לֹא תִּנְאָף lo tin’af: you shall not commit adultery.
• 20:15 לֹא תִּגְנֹב lo tignov: you shall not steal.
• 20:16 לֹא־תַעֲנֶה בְרֵעֲךָ עֵד שָׁקֶר lo ta’aneh ve-re’akha ed shaker: you shall not answer against your neighbor as a lying witness.
• 20:17 לֹא תַחְמֹד בֵּית רֵעֶךָ lo tachmod beit re’ekha: you shall not covet your neighbor’s house.

There are eleven clauses here, not ten, because traditions divide them differently. Verse 2 is the first “word” for Jewish readers, verses 3 to 6 are one commandment for Catholics and Lutherans, and so on. The Hebrew has no numbers at all.

The divine name in verses 2 and 7 is written יְהוָה, four letters that Jewish readers do not pronounce. They say Adonai, “my Lord,” which is why transliterations print that word instead.

Read slowly in Hebrew, the ten words have features that are easy to miss in translation.

“No” plus a future verb. Most of the prohibitions are lo, “not,” with a verb in the imperfect: לֹא תִּרְצָח. That form can be read as “you must not” and as “you will not.” Many readers hear both: a command, and a picture of what a rescued people becomes.

Everything is singular. “You” in every commandment is the singular, לְךָ and אֱלֹהֶיךָ, so each listener hears it addressed to him or her personally.

Weight. The verb for “honor” in כַּבֵּד is kabbed, from the root for “heavy.” To honor parents is to give them weight (the noun, kavod, is the Bible’s word for glory).

Carrying and emptiness. “Take” in the third commandment is tisa, “carry,” and “in vain” is la-shav, “for emptiness.” See What Does Taking the Lord’s Name in Vain Mean?

Two kinds of killing and stealing. לֹא תִּרְצָח uses ratsach, the verb for unlawful killing, not the general verb for killing (Thou Shalt Not Kill — or Murder?). לֹא תִּגְנֹב uses ganav, and Jewish tradition reads the commandment in the ten as being about stealing a person (What Does ‘You Shall Not Steal’ Mean?).

Two verbs for wanting. Exodus uses תַחְמֹד, tachmod, “covet,” for everything. Deuteronomy keeps it for the neighbor’s wife and uses a second verb, תִתְאַוֶּה, titaveh, “crave,” for his house (What Does ‘You Shall Not Covet’ Mean?).

Remember and observe. Exodus begins the Sabbath commandment with זָכוֹר, zakhor, “remember.” Deuteronomy begins it with שָׁמוֹר, shamor, “observe”:

Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the LORD your God commanded you.

Deuteronomy 5:12

Jewish tradition says God spoke both words at once, and a well-known hymn sung on Friday evening says so: “observe” and “remember” in a single utterance. (The two versions are compared side by side in The Ten Commandments in the King James Version.)

The Hebrew we read today passed through many hands. The earliest Hebrew copy of the commandments outside the Bible text is the Nash Papyrus, a small fragment found in Egypt and dated about 150 to 100 BC, which pairs the Ten Commandments with the Shema. Copies of the commandments were also found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, some inside the small boxes (tefillin) that Jews wore at prayer.

The vowel points and accents were added to the consonant text by Jewish scholars called Masoretes, between about the sixth and the tenth centuries, so that the pronunciation would never be lost. The Leningrad Codex, copied about AD 1008, is the oldest complete Hebrew Bible that carries their work. There are even two sets of accent marks for the commandments: an “upper” set, used in the public reading in synagogue, which groups the text into ten units, and a “lower” set that follows the verse divisions.

That chanting tradition is a reminder that the ten words were meant to be heard first. In Exodus God “spoke all these words” (Exodus 20:1) to a people who stood at the foot of the mountain, long before anything was written on stone.

If you want to learn the commandments in Hebrew, start with the short ones. Three are only two words each:

1. לֹא תִּרְצָח lo tirtsach: you shall not murder.
2. לֹא תִּנְאָף lo tin’af: you shall not commit adultery.
3. לֹא תִּגְנֹב lo tignov: you shall not steal.

Once you can say those, the rest follow a pattern: lo plus a verb, and then the object. The Hebrew of Exodus 20 is among the simplest in the Bible, and many learners begin with it.

Alongside the ten, learn the Shema, the prayer Jesus called the first and great commandment (What Is the Greatest Commandment?):

Hear, Israel: the LORD is our God. The LORD is one.

Deuteronomy 6:4

In Hebrew it is שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהוָה אֶחָד, Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai echad: six words that Jewish children learn before almost anything else.

What are the Ten Commandments called in Hebrew?

עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדְּבָרִים, aseret ha-devarim, “the ten words,” as in Exodus 34:28 and Deuteronomy 4:13. Later Jewish writers used aseret ha-dibrot, “the ten utterances.” In English they are the Ten Commandments or the Decalogue.

What does “Decalogue” mean?

“Decalogue” comes from the Greek deka logoi, “ten words.” Greek-speaking Jews, including Philo, used it for the commandments, and the church inherited the name.

What is the first word of the Ten Commandments in Hebrew?

The first word of the commandments proper (Exodus 20:2) is אָנֹכִי, anokhi, “I,” the emphatic form of the pronoun. The first commandment begins with God naming himself before it gives a single instruction.

Why does the Hebrew say “words” and not “commandments”?

The Bible calls them devarim, “words” or “utterances.” Not all of them are orders: the first is a declaration of who God is and what he has done. Jewish tradition therefore calls them statements, and speaks of 613 commandments in the whole law, of which these ten are the heart.

Is the Hebrew of Exodus 20 the same as Deuteronomy 5?

Nearly. The differences are small: “remember” (זָכוֹר) becomes “observe” (שָׁמוֹר), the Sabbath is grounded in the exodus instead of creation, and the last commandment uses a second verb for the neighbor’s house. The ten are the same.