What does "Posuk" mean in Torah division?

Question

I understand very well what "a sentence" is. Most time it works for the scriptures too, but sometimes it makes no sense to be a standalone Posuk, like:

וּמִשְׁמָע וְדוּמָה וּמַשָּׂא׃
Mishma, Dumah, Massa,

אַבְנֵי־שֹׁהַם וְאַבְנֵי מִלֻּאִים לָאֵפֹד וְלַחֹשֶׁן׃
lapis lazuli and other stones for setting, for the ephod and for the breastpiece.

Or the opposite:

לֹא תִּגְנֹבוּ וְלֹא-תְכַחֲשׁוּ וְלֹא-תְשַׁקְּרוּ אִישׁ בַּעֲמִיתוֹ (three sentences in one)

Assuming the division is not arbitrary,
what does it mean to be a standalone Posuk in Hebrew scriptures? In what sense is it a standalone unit? What dod G-d mean by making it a unit?

Answer 1

As you most likely know, when viewing the Torah scroll, you would not know from reading it where a pasuk begins or ends, because it's written as a continuous paragraph. Thus, to determine where it ends, you need trope (cantillation notes.)

Every pasuk has exactly one sof pasuk trope. As its name means, it marks the end of a pasuk. So, this is how you know.

Incidentally, one cannot definitively say that the end of a paragraph (parsha) is the end of a pasuk. There are several situations where there is an etnachta at the end of a parsha.

In the case of the 10 Commandments, this is actually part of the whole debate between ta'am elyon vs. tachton. If you're using elyon, then these are 3 separate psukim.

Hence, there is controversy as to how many total psukim there are in the Torah.