Section V: The Tablets of the Decalogue, § 31.
SECTION V: THE TABLETS OF THE DECALOGUE
The tablets of the Decalogue are called the work of God.
§ 31. Now that we have explained the manner of the promulgation, let us direct our attention to the tablets on which the Decalogue was inscribed. (I) With respect to their efficient cause, these tablets were 
(“the doing, or work, of God”). Hence we understand that God Himself formed those tablets in a miraculous way, for clearly not only the writing but also the making of those tablets is attributed to God. Exod. 32:16: “And the tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tablets.” But when Moses came down from the mountain, he became enraged because of the idolatry of the people, hurled the tablets from his hands, and broke them at the base of the mountain (v. 19). Therefore Moses was commanded to carve out two other tablets similar to the first ones on which God had written the words of the Law (Exod. 34:1). Augustine (Quaestiones on Exodus, bk. 2, q. 144) writes that this breaking of the tablets was a figure of the repetition of the New Testament, because the Old had to be abolished and the New given. [Augustine again] (q. 166):
Here the great question arises as to how those tablets which Moses was going to make, as God certainly foreknew, are not called the work of man but the work of God, and are said to have been written not by man but by the finger of God. But those later tablets which would endure for so long and be in the tabernacle and temple of God at His command were carved and written by man. Perhaps, in the case of those first tablets, the grace of God and not the work of a man was signified. They became unworthy of that grace when they returned to Egypt in their hearts and made the idol. As a result they were deprived of that benefit, and therefore Moses broke the tablets. On the other hand, the later tablets signified those who boast about their own works. Therefore those tablets, carved by human effort and written by human effort, were given to stay with them and signify that they would boast in their own works instead of in the finger of God, that is, the Spirit of God, etc. In those first tablets the Old Testament is signified, because God gave the command there, but man did not do it. In the case of the second tablets, man carved out the tablets and wrote on them with God’s help, because the love of the New Testament did the Law.
The tablets were of stone.
§ 32. (II) With respect to their material they are called: “tablets of stone” (Exod. 24:12; 31:18; etc.). The words 
mean “tablets of stones”; 
(“tablet”) comes from “smoothness.” F.rster believes that 
[“stone”] comes from the root 
(“he built”) because various buildings are constructed of stone. The rabbinic scholars say that they were made of sapphire. The Gloss. interlin. reads: “The Law was written on stone tablets because the strong must keep it with steadfast intent. When examples of these are set down for us to imitate, the Law is being shown as if written in stone.” More properly this denotes the severity and perpetuity of the divine Law carved on stone tablets. Matt. 5:18: “Until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.” This also denotes the stubbornness of the human heart, which by nature is like stone (Ezek. 36:26). In connection with this, Joshua, when he repeated the Law in the presence of the children of Israel, put up a large stone under an oak which was in the sanctuary of the Lord and told all the people: “Behold, this stone shall be a witness against us, for it has heard all the words of Jehovah which He spoke with us” (Josh. 24:26–27). Surely Joshua intended to remind them of the stone tablets on which the Law of the Lord had been written. In 2 Cor. 3:3, Paul, with an elegant contrast of opposites, calls the regenerate “a letter from Christ, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on fleshy tablets of the heart.” That is, the Spirit of God writes the Law in the hearts of the regenerate and gives the power to do those things that are prescribed in the letter of the Law. Without this Spirit of God, the Law and those tablets of stone remain a dead letter and, in fact, a killing letter. Consequently, the apostle ([2 Cor. 3:]7) calls it “the ministration of death, carved in letters on stones.” Those stone tablets of the Law will not grant us salvation and life. (In fact, the weakness and corruption of our flesh hinder perfect obedience.) Therefore we must by true faith come to the blessed Stone in the church, to the precious Stone which God has placed in Zion (Isa. 28:16; Dan. 2:45; 1 Pet. 2:4; etc.).
They were written by the finger of God.
§ 33. (III) With respect to their form, it says that these tablets were written by the finger of God (Exod. 31:18; Deut. 9:10). Thus there is the clear addition in Exod. 32:16: “The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tablets.” Moses uses the words 
(“wrote”) and 
(“engraved”). The latter word is found nowhere else in all of Scripture. In 2 Cor. 3:7 the apostle very beautifully calls the Law ἐντετυπωμένην [“imprinted”], as if to say that its letters were pressed down and impressed upon the tablets.
But could God, who is incorporeal, write with a finger? We respond. (1) The characters of the letters were shaped on those tablets by God Himself in a heavenly and indescribable way.
** They were “written by the finger of God,” that is, by the effort of God, by God Himself, not by man or angel. The “finger of God” means God’s omnipotence (Exod. 8:19; Luke 11:20). Therefore the meaning is that the Law was engraved on two tablets by the immediate working of God without the ministry of angels, because God’s saying is doing (Ps. 115:3; 33:9). **
(2) In the fullness of time, the Son of God was going to assume a true human nature, and it is in this respect that Scripture attributes a finger to God. During the promulgation of the Decalogue, God is speaking about God; that is, the Son is speaking about the Father (Exod. 19:10–11; 34:5–6). (3) The finger of God is the Holy Spirit, as is understood from a comparison of Matt. 12:27 with Luke 11:20. That means that God’s Law must be inscribed upon our hearts through the preaching of the Gospel by the Holy Spirit (Jer. 31:33), that we may begin to show a spontaneous obedience to God and His Law. Augustine (De civ. Dei, bk. 16, ch. 43):
The Law was given on the fiftieth day after the celebration of the Passover by immolating a lamb. This surely is a type of Christ, prophesying that through His sacrificial suffering He would pass over from this world to His Father. In fact, pascha in Hebrew means “passing over,” so that even back then the new testament was being revealed; for afterward Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed, and on the fiftieth day the Holy Spirit came down from heaven, who is called “the finger of God” in the Gospel because He reminds one of things done previously by types, and because those tablets of the Law are said to have been written by the finger of God.
“On both sides.”
§ 34. (IV) Also related to the form of these tablets is the fact that they are said to have been written 
(“on both their sides,” as Pagninus renders it, or, according to Förster, “on the two faces or sides”). This is explained more clearly in Exod. 32:15: 
(“on the one side and on the other they were written”).
** Some of the Hebrews propose that the words were written only on the one side but that they could also be read on the other side by some miracle. Others claim that the same words were written on both sides so that God’s Commandments were on both sides. Word for word the Hebrew reads: “And the tablets were written on both their surfaces. They were written here and there.” The Vulgate has: “They were written on both sides.” Therefore the tablets of the Decalogue were written on both sides and were filled with the Scripture of the Ten Commandments. (Fagius, [commentary on] Exodus 32) **
The rabbinic scholar Salomon says: “There was just one writing, which nevertheless was legible without any difference on the one side as well as on the other. This is a miracle because a letter shaped on the one side in the right way will appear reversed on the opposite side.” Lyra remarks that we can dispense with such a miracle and say that “the letters were doubled so that the Commandments were carved on the one side and on the other side similarly.” Münster translates: “Those tablets were written on their two faces.” The word 
properly means “a going across,” from which perhaps comes the German über. Therefore that the tablets are said to have been written on both their “goings across” must be taken either distributively, that the writing was on both sides of each tablet, or collectively, that the writing of one tablet corresponded in the opposite to the writing of the second tablet. However, the prior interpretation seems to come closer to the text.
The two tablets.
§ 35. (V) With respect to their number, there were 
(“two tablets”), for the most wise Lawgiver was pleased to give the Commandments not on one but on two distinct tablets because there are distinct commandments about love for God and for neighbor. That is why Christ calls this the “first and the second commandment,” but Moses calls it the “first and second tablet.” Matt. 22:37–39: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart. This is the greatest and first commandment. And the second is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Clearly this is because the commandments of the First Tablet speak about love for God, and those of the Second Tablet, about love for one’s neighbor. Lyra explains the number of the two tablets in such a way that through it is indicated the intellect and the emotional state [affectus] of man, in which the new Law is written through faith and love by the work of the Holy Spirit. Nor would it be absurd to say that the tablets of the Law signify that in His Law God requires of us an inner holiness of soul and body and an exterior obedience. Bede (on Exodus 20) writes: “The Law was written on two tablets because of the two Testaments, or because of the love for God and for one’s neighbor.” We shall speak later [§§ 38–52] about which commandments and how many are to be assigned to each tablet.
They are called the “tablets of the testimony” and “of the covenant.”
§ 36. (VI) With respect to their end purpose, the tablets of the Decalogue are called 
(“the tablets of the testimony,” Exod. 31:18; 32:15; 34:29; etc.). This is because the voice of the Law testifies about the will of God, the judgment of God against sin, and the benefits of God shown to the people of Israel. Deut. 4:7[–8]: “For what great nation is there that has gods so near to it as Jehovah our God is to us? And what greater nation is there that has statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law that I set before you this day?”
Also, they are called 
them were written the words of the covenant which God made with His people (Exod. 34:28). The solemn consecration of this is described in Exod. 24:6ff. There Moses read the book of the covenant in the hearing of the people. After they had given their promise of obedience, he sprinkled them with the blood of the sacrifices; half of this blood he had sprinkled on the altar, and he said, “Behold, the blood of the covenant which Jehovah has made with you upon all these words” [v. 8].
What happened to them in the end.
§ 37. (VII) Finally, with respect to their duration, one should consider what happened to these tablets in the end and how long they were preserved. By order of God Himself, they were first stored in the ark of the covenant (Exod. 40:20; Deut. 10:5; a description of the ark is found in Exod. 25:10ff.). Later they, in and with the ark, were brought into the tabernacle (Exod. 40:21). When Solomon’s temple was built, the ark and the tablets of the covenant preserved therein were transferred to the inner part of the temple called “the Holy of Holies” (1 Kings 8:6). Verse 9 expressly states that the tablets of the covenant were still preserved in the ark at that time, and this is repeated in 2 Chron. 5:10. Therefore the tablets of the Decalogue were still preserved in the temple of Solomon along with the ark. The rabbinic scholars say that the tablets were not in the second temple built by Zerubbabel, which is called 
(“the latter house,” Hag. 2:9). This is discussed in the Talmudic work called Massecheth Yoma, where we read: “There were five things in the first temple which were not in the second temple: the ark, the Urim and Thummim, the heavenly fire, the presence of the divinity which they call 
, and the Holy Spirit.” David Kimchi and Salomon Jarchi say the same in their scholia on Haggai 2. Be advised, though, that they interpret “Holy Spirit” here to mean the prophetic spirit which ceased after Malachi, for the Holy Spirit otherwise is always present in the church. Josephus (Antiq. Judaic., bk. 3, ch. 9) writes about the Urim and Thummim (he himself calls them the “Essena”) that they ceased to exist two hundred years before he produced his history, namely, because God had become angry over the transgression of His laws. Now, Josephus was born in the first year of the rule of Gaius Caesar [Caligula], in AD 39,1 the year of the world 4001. By this reckoning, the Urim and Thummim would also have been in the second temple. However, here the trustworthiness of Josephus seems to vacillate, for, in addition to the fact that Kimchi and Salomon testify otherwise, as we have mentioned, it is reported in the book of Hananeel, called Gorionidi (ch. 5, fol. 17, col. 4), that Jaddus, the priest of the Hebrews—the one who received Alexander of Macedon—was asked to consult that light and learn from it the outcome of the Persian War. He responded in these words: “From the day when that house was carried off into Babylon, the Urim and Thummim were hidden away from it.” (See the very learned Drusius, Observat., bk. 15, ch. 13, p. 355.) Josephus ben Gorion writes about the ark and says that it was hidden by Jeremiah in a cave on Mount Nebo, where Moses had once viewed “the possession of God,” that is, the Holy Land. All of this is in harmony with what we read in 2 Maccabees 2:4[–8]:
It was also noted in that writing (in the book of the annals of Jeremiah) that the prophet, in obedience to a revelation, gave orders that the tabernacle of the Lord and the ark should accompany him, and he went away to the mountain which Moses climbed and saw God’s inheritance. And Jeremiah came and found the place of the cave, and he took inside the tabernacle and the ark and the altar of incense and blocked up the door. Some of those who were following him came to mark the place for themselves, but they could not find it. When Jeremiah found out about this, he faulted them and said that the place would remain unknown until God would gather together the gathering of His people. Then the Lord would reveal those things.
However, such figments of the imagination must be left to the Jews, for neither in the true and genuine writings of Jeremiah nor in Ezra do we find anything like that. Jeremiah was detained in prison until the destruction of the city (Jer. 38:28); therefore he could not have carried off and hidden the ark while the city and temple were still standing. Furthermore, the priests would not have permitted it. When the Chaldeans took the city, they burned the temple after plundering all its precious treasures, both gold and silver (2 Kings 25:9, 13, 15; Jer. 52:19). Who would believe that they would have spared the ark, which was completely covered with gold? Even if the ark had been discovered again after the return of the Israelites from the Babylonian captivity, as this falsely named “prophecy” claims, why do the rabbinic scholars deny its survival in the second temple? It is frivolity when Bellarmine (De verb. Dei, bk. 1, ch. 15) claims that this prophecy refers to the conversion of the Jews that will occur shortly before the end of the world. He should listen to the true prophecy of the genuine Jeremiah (3:16): “And when you have multiplied and increased in the land” (that is, when Christ’s church will have multiplied), “in those days, says the Lord, they will no more say, ‘The ark of the covenant is with us.’ It will not come to mind nor be remembered nor be made again nor be repaired nor will there ever be such an ark.” Because Lyra cannot remove these difficulties in his commentary on 2 Maccabees 2, he correctly admits that many count that book very apocryphal. In the New Testament, we have God, the true mercy seat, and by His Spirit the Law of God is written in the hearts of believers. Therefore it was by God’s will that the typological mercy seat was destroyed, that the stone tablets were destroyed, and that the ark of the antiquated covenant was destroyed. When the body came, the shadows ceased [cf. Col. 2:17].
1 He is now considered to have been born in AD 37/38. See Edith Mary Smallwood and Tessa Rajak, “Josephus (Flavius Iosephus),” in Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd ed., rev. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 798–99.