184 r Michael Katz
And if at this place in his work Ibn-Ezra had a symbol, say 0, for zero, he
could have added it left of the 9. Then he would start with 09, as we some-
times write the number 9 today (e.g., in dates), and end with an additional
number, 90 (9 times 10), thus neatly closing the story (and the circle).
The Ten Commandments
One last sentence we want to quote from the passage we are dealing with
is this:
והנה עשר ספירות, כמספר עשר אצבעות, חמש כנגד חמש.
[And here are ten numberings, like the number ten fingers, five
against five.]This dichotomy, five against five, leads us to a similar dichotomy, relating
to the Ten Commandments. Like other traditional commentators,^13 Ibn-
Ezra speaks of two tables with five commandments on each—those con-
cerning human-to-God commitments on one table and those concerning
human-to-human commitments on the other. Ibn-Ezra adds an assertion,
accompanied by a detailed explanation, that in each of the tables the com-
mandments appear in order of importance (or severance). Most severe
on the first table is “I am the Lord thy God,” and on the other “Thou shalt
not kill.”
Ibn-Ezra’s comments on Exodus 20:2 (where we find the first com-
mandment) are even longer than those on the verse concerning God’s
name that we scrutinized above. Among other things he writes here the
following lines that are relevant to our discussion.
ואנשי המחקר מצאו כל דברי הגופות שהם עשרה... וכולם
נסמכים על הראשון ונלווים אליו וממנו יצאו, כי הוא
כמדות האחד בחשבון עשרה. כי ממנו יצא כל חשבון וכל
חשבון ימצא בו כי הוא היסוד. והנה זה הדבור הראשון
שאמר השם הנכבד כולל כל מצוות הלב הלשון והמעשה, כי
מי שאינו מאמין בלבו בשם, אין עליו מצוה... וכבר פירשתי
כי הדבור הראשון הוא היסוד ועליו כל בניני המצוות.
[And the men of research have found all things of the objects to
be ten.... And they all lean on the first one and accompany it and
were derived of it, for it is like the virtues of the one in the sum of ten.