Exodus 32:15

15 1Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, 2tablets which were written on both sides; they were written on one side and the other.

Exodus 32:15 Meaning and Commentary

Exodus 32:15

And Moses turned, and went down from the mount
He turned himself from God, with whom he had been conversing forty days; his back was to the ascent of the mount, and he turned himself in order to go down; or "he looked" F7, as a man considers what is to be done, as Aben Ezra observes, and he saw that he was obliged to go down in haste:

and the two tables of the testimony [were] in his hand;
or hands, as in ( Exodus 32:19 ) for they were, perhaps, as much as he could carry in both hands, being of stone, as in ( Exodus 31:18 ) on which was written the law, the "testimony" of the will of God with respect to what was to be done or not done:

the letters were written on both their sides, on the one side and
on the other were they written;
some think that the engraving of the letters was such, that it went through the stones, and in a miraculous manner the letters and lines were in a regular order, and might be read on the other sides; to which Jarchi seems to incline, saying, the letters might be read, and it was a work of wonders; others think that the letters were written both within and without, like Ezekiel's book of woes; that the same that was within side was written without, that so, when held up, they might be read by those that stood before and those that stood behind; but rather so it was that the whole was written within, some of the commands on the right, and some on the left, and so the tables might be clapped together as a book is folded.


FOOTNOTES:

F7 (Npyw) "et aspexit", Pagninus.

Exodus 32:15 In-Context

13 "Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants to whom You swore by Yourself, and said to them, 'I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heavens, and all this land of which I have spoken I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.' "
14 So the LORD changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people.
15 Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, tablets which were written on both sides; they were written on one side and the other.
16 The tablets were God's work, and the writing was God's writing engraved on the tablets.
17 Now when Joshua heard the sound of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, "There is a sound of war in the camp."

Cross References 2

Footnotes 1

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