And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end
of
communing with him on Mount Sinai
After all those laws, orders, and instructions before related,
which having done, he ceased to converse with him any longer in
that manner he had, and at parting gave him
two tables of testimony;
the two tables of the law, which is a testimony of the will of
God, and contained the duty of the Israelites both towards God
and man, and are reducible to these two, love to God, and love to
our neighbour: five of the commands of the decalogue were written
on one table, and five on the other; or it may be rather four on
one table, the first being the largest, and containing the duty
owing to God, and six on the other, which regard the duty of men
one to another; so Orpheus the Heathen poet, speaking of the law
of Moses, calls it (diplaka
yesmon) F19. "Tables of stone"; the Targum of
Jonathan will have them to be of the sapphire stone, from the
throne of glory; the paraphrast seems to have respect to (
Exodus
24:10 ) and, with as little appearance of truth, says their
weight was forty seahs; it is more probable they were of marble
stone, of which there were great quantities in Mount Sinai. Dr.
Shaw says F20 that part of Mount Sinai, which
lies to the westward of the plain of Rephidim, consists of a hard
reddish marble like "porphyry", but is distinguished from it by
the representations of little trees and bushes, which are
dispersed all over it. The naturalists call this sort of marble
"embuscatum", or "bushy marble"; some think Sinai had its name
from thence F21. This may denote the firmness,
stability, and duration of the law, not as in the hands of Moses,
from which these tables were cast and broke, but as in the hands
of Christ, and laid up in him the ark of the covenant, the
fulfilling end of the law for righteousness: and it may also
figure the hardness of man's heart, which is destitute of
spiritual life, obdurate and impenitent, stupid, senseless and
ignorant, stubborn and inflexible, and not subject to the law of
God, and on which no impressions can be made but by the power and
grace of God:
written with the finger of God:
by God himself, and not by an angel, or by any creature or
instrument: and it is by the finger of God, the Spirit, grace,
and power of God, that the laws of God are put into the inward
part, and written on the heart, to which the apostle refers, (
2
Corinthians 3:3 ) . This account is given by way of
transition to what is recorded in the next chapter.
F19 De Deo, "prope finem".
F20 Travels, p. 443.
F21 See Buxtorf. in voce (hno) .
