On the morning of the third day of their encampment, "there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud", and the people assembled at the base of the mount. The biblical narrative of the revelation at Sinai begins in Exodus 19 after the arrival of the children of Israel at Mount Sinai (also called Horeb). The stone tablets, as opposed to the ten commandments inscribed on them, are called לוחות הברית, Lukhot HaBrit, meaning "the tablets of the covenant".ġ896 illustration depicting Moses receiving the commandments Most major English versions use the word "commandments". The Geneva Bible used "ten commandments", which was followed by the Bishops' Bible and the Authorized Version (the "King James" version) as "ten commandments". The Tyndale and Coverdale English biblical translations used "nine verses". This term is also sometimes used in English, in addition to Ten Commandments. In the Septuagint (or LXX), the "ten words" was translated as "Decalogue", which is derived from Greek δεκάλογος, dekalogos, the latter meaning and referring to the Greek translation (in accusative) δέκα λόγους, deka logous. In all sources, the terms are translatable as "the ten words", "the ten sayings", or "the ten matters".
In Biblical Hebrew, the Ten Commandments, called עשרת הדיברות ( transliterated aseret ha-dibrot), are mentioned at Exodus 34:28, Deuteronomy 4:13 and Deuteronomy 10:4. It is dated to the early Herodian period, between 30 and 1 BC Part of the All Souls Deuteronomy, containing the oldest extant copy of the Decalogue.