Let's go one at a time, and see what there is to discover.

If that is the case then Dr. Sigfried Horn, a great Seventh-day Adventist archaeologist, could be right, that each commandment as God wrote them on the stones, contained but a single Hebrew word.

I wonder, though, how big the words are or how small the tablets were, since they were written on both sides.

We often imagine these were huge stones, but how do we know? Moses had to carry them all the way down the mountain slope. He was more than 80 years old at that time. You recall that he had a problem holding his arm straight out during the war of Israel. How much could he carry?

I had a hard time carrying the gravestone I picked in the mountains for my father - from the area where he had lived. And then two stones?

Were they just a few inches? Does the size really matter? They were hidden in the ark.

Just as an example, it should be possible to write in one Hebrew word, "Thou shalt sabbatize." Just one word shorter than the English rendering.

As to whether God wrote ten sentences or a mere ten words, we have the Hebrew as Moses transcribed it from the Tables. I think that what Moses transcribed is most likely what God wrote with His own finger.

Are you talking about Exodus or Deuteronomy?

Both. Though it literally reads "10 words", reading the actual transcription of those words reveals that God did in fact pen them within sentence structure. When God said to remember the Sabbath, He, not Moses, included the details of what that mean. If He merely said for us to "Sabbatize", then our idea of what that meant would take over. Instead, God penned with His own finger what it meant to keep the Sabbath Holy. He used the words "Shabbath", "zakar (remember)", "qadash (keep holy)" all in one commandment (Word). The fact that the Hebrew refers to them as the 10 Words emphasizes more the fact that they were penned by God Himself, rather than the succinctness of His expression.

I am not questioning the inspiration of Moses as he wrote down the commandments. But how do you compare this with what Ellen White wrote - under inspiration - that it is not the words that are inspired, but the men, using human language?

Was the description "10 words" written under inspiration, but not meaning 10 words? How do I know your interpretation is correct, and that Dr. Siegfried Horn was not right in his suggestion? After all, he is the one who wrote our SDA Bible Dictionary.

Good idea.