a group of ten, with the thing being counted left unsaid: the tenth day of a month, a run of ten days, or a ten-stringed instrument
Hebrew builds this word straight off the number ten and then leaves the reader to supply what is being counted. English cannot do that, so translators fill in the missing word: "the tenth day" in a date, "ten-stringed" when the subject is music. The Hebrew itself says only "ten."
Twelve of its sixteen uses fix a date, and the days they mark are among the heaviest in Israel's calendar:
- the Passover lamb is picked out on the tenth of the first month (Exodus 12:3)
- the Day of Atonement falls on the tenth of the seventh month (Leviticus 16:29; 23:27; Numbers 29:7)
- the ram's horn announcing the year of release sounds on the tenth of the seventh month (Leviticus 25:9)
- Israel comes up out of the Jordan and camps at Gilgal on the tenth of the first month (Joshua 4:19)
- Babylon's army closes around Jerusalem on the tenth of the tenth month (2 Kings 25:1; Jeremiah 52:4; Ezekiel 24:1)
- Ezekiel's vision of a restored temple is dated to the tenth of the month at the turn of the year (Ezekiel 40:1)
Three times the word turns up in a song of praise rather than a date. Twice it describes the harp as having ten strings (Psalm 33:2; 144:9), and once it stands on its own beside the harp, as though it were an instrument in its own right (Psalm 92:3). Because the Hebrew gives only the number, English versions disagree over whether one instrument is in view there or two.
One use measures a stretch of time instead of a point in it. In Genesis 24:55 Rebekah's family asks that she stay "days, or ten" before setting out, which most read as a plea for roughly ten more days at home.