Ten Commandments and referring to the Greek translation (in accusative) , , "ten words", found in the Septuagint (or LXX) at Exodus 34:28 and Deuteronomy 10:4. The stone tablets, as opposed to the commandments inscribed on them, are called , "Lukhot HaBrit", meaning "the tablets of the covenant". Different religious traditions divide the seventeen verses of and their parallels at into ten "commandments" or "sayings" in different ways, shown in the table below. Some suggest that the number ten is a choice to aid memorization rather than a matter of theology. Traditions: The biblical narrative of the revelation at Sinai begins in
Ten Commandments yet was miraculously legible from both sides. The Mishna records that during the period of the Second Temple, the Ten Commandments were recited daily, before the reading of the Shema Yisrael (as preserved, for example, in the Nash Papyrus, a Hebrew manuscript fragment from 150–100 BCE found in Egypt, containing a version of the ten commandments and the beginning of the Shema); but that this practice was abolished in the synagogues so as not to give ammunition to heretics who claimed that they were the only important part of Jewish law, or to dispute a claim by early Christians that