The Ten Commandments Are Answers to Ten Questions

Before the Sinai theophany we’re told that Moses spoke,

and that God answered Moses there by using His great voice.

This might imply that Moses was the source we should invoke

for Ten Commandments, indicating all Ten were his choice,

as if the Bible’s words are hinting to us that all Ten

were generated as God’s ten divine responses to

the questions Moses chose to ask Him on Mount Sinai when

he wondered what might be the most important things to do

and not do, being given answers on two tablets in

the form of Ten Commandments, which were God’s replies to all

ten questions Moses asked, and like the universe begin

in that great waste and void which we should every question call,

including this one: “Why did God create the universe?”

The Torah gives a clue, by stating that the world began

with tohu vohu, meaning “waste and void.” Lo, this very verse

suggests all fundamental questions asked by Everyman —

unenlightened by the light that God created to reverse

the darkness that makes Everyman, deprived of light, to be depressed —

for explanations of a world the Bible tells us God has blessed.

This poem explains the use of word dibrot, meaning “words” to describe the Ten Commandments, a problematic translation that is well discussed by Hillel Halkin (Philologos) in “Did God Give Moses Ten Sayings, Ten Commandments, or Just Ten Things?” mosaicmagazine.com, 2/12/25.

The poem also provides a new explanation for the problematic dagesh in the dalet in the word מִדַּבֵּר, middabber, Num, 7:89. Rashi points out the implication that when God was speaking to Moses, he was hearing words that God was actually speaking to Himself (see Benjamin D. Sommer, “YHWH’s Simulated Speech: The Priestly Interpretation of Prophecy,” thetorah.com).