Azharot (Hebrew: אזהרות, "exhortations") are didactic liturgical poems on, or versifications of, the 613 commandments in rabbinical enumeration.
The first known example are 'Ata hinchlata' and 'Azharat Reishit', recited to this day in some Ashkenazic and Italian communities, and dating back to early Geonic times.
[4] Two attempts to ascribe special meaning to that choice of term have been suggested:[5] Abraham ibn Ezra (Yesod Moreh, gate 2, end) compared azharot to counting medicinal herbs enumerated in medical works without knowing anything of their virtues.
[4] Maimonides claims in the introduction to Sefer HaMitzvot, his own prose enumeration of the commandments, that he was motivated to compose that work because of errors in the azharot.
[6] (Source[4]) While the original intent of the azharot may have been educational, its terse and cryptic poetic form led to a need for its content to be explained.