Deuteronomy 10:1 At that time the LORD said to me, Hew you two tables of stone like to the first, and come up to me into the mount… These were made before any part of the tabernacle furniture. Their history heralds forth their transcendant importance. No compend of moral truth may pretend to compare with them, for glory and grandeur of origin; for simplicity and completeness of adaptation to man's necessities, or for sublime exhibitions of the Divine perfections. Such an illustrious transcript of the moral attributes of God and His claims upon the supreme adoration of men, and of their obligations to one another, is sought for in vain among the records of human wisdom. Who but Jehovah Himself can reveal the perfections of His own being? Whose right is it to dictate law to the moral universe, if not its Author? But Jehovah exists as the Elohim — the plurality of persons in the essential unity. Has the issuance of these ten words any special reference to this personality? Certainly; the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. All that man knows truly of the Divine perfections, he knows through the teachings of the second person in the Elohim — the Divine Loges, by whom the world was made and without whom was not anything made that was made. It was the voice of the Word, afterwards made flesh — the same Word which said Let there be light, and there was light, that thundered from the summit of the burning mountain these ten words, and afterwards delivered them to Moses along the ranks of angels. This will be evident upon a comparison of a few Scriptures (Psalm 68:17, 18, 20; Ephesians 4:1; Deuteronomy 33:2). The entire system of ceremonial observances is evangelical — all relate to the Gospel scheme of salvation. "For unto us," says Paul (Hebrews 4:2) "was the Gospel preached, as well as unto them." As to the kind of stone used, we are left even more in the dark than as to the wood, and therefore infer it to be a matter of no consequence. Only this is plain, that they were fragile, being shattered to pieces when thrown from Moses' hands. Nor have we anything specific as to their size, unless it be that Moses seems to have carried them down the mount (Exodus 32:19), in his own hands, whence we may infer they were not very thick, and they could not have been more than forty-two or three inches long, and twenty-six wide. The first suggestion of a symbolical meaning is durability. Engraving on stone intimates permanency. Job, in his sorrows, exclaims (Job 19:23), "Oh, that my words were now written! oh, that they were printed in a book! that they were graven with an iron pen and laid in the rock forever." Then he proceeds to express his faith in the living Redeemer, and his hope in a glorious resurrection: truths these, which he wished to perpetuate forever. The first tables represented the law of God as written in the heart of man at his creation: or, we may say, human race — Adam, with the law created in him. The breaking of the tables sets forth the fall of man and the utter defacement of God's law and image. The replacement of the tables by Moses, and the rewriting of the law upon them, by the power of the great Redeemer, forcibly illustrates His entire work of restoring man to the full dominion of the holy law, or, in other words, the restoration of the law to its ruling power over him; or may we not say the second Adam, the pattern of all the redeemed. The bringing of man under the power of law, the protection of the law from violence and profanation, and the security of its rightful dominion, is the grand idea herein set forth. All around it is encased within its golden enclosure. The casket indeed is precious, costly, and beautiful, but the jewels it contains are the priceless treasure. In connection, however, with the remarks above, that the ceremonial ordinances are Gospel ordinances, it is important to distinguish them from the legal matter of the old covenant. The ten words and the various applications of their principles throughout the Pentateuch, are quite different from the sacrifices, the lustrations, the incense burnings, the cities of refuge, etc. The former are legal, and whenever separated from the latter become a law of works — the very covenant made with Adam. But the latter, coalescing with and qualifying and pointing out the way of fulfilling the former, transmute the whole into the new covenant, or true Gospel, which was revealed to Adam before his expulsion from Paradise. (George Juntem, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: At that time the LORD said unto me, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first, and come up unto me into the mount, and make thee an ark of wood. |
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