Tablets of the Covenant

Biblical References

In Exodus 24:12, God tells Moses to come up on Mount Sinai to receive tablets of stone on which the law and commandments are written. Exodus 31:18 records that God gave Moses "two tables of testimony," written by God Himself. According to 32:15-16, the two tablets were inscribed on both sides, and both the tablets and the writing were the work of God. When Moses came down from the mountain and saw the people worshiping the golden calf, he broke the tablets at the foot of the mountain (32:19; see Golden Calf Incident). God then had Moses hew two tablets of stone like the first, and the Ten Commandments were written on them again (34:1, 28). Deuteronomy 9:9-11 calls these tablets "the tables of the covenant." Deuteronomy 10:1-5 relates that the second set of tablets was placed in an ark made of shittim wood.

Names and Background

The Hebrew text refers to the tablets as "tablets of stone," "tablets of the testimony" (luchot ha'edut), and "tablets of the covenant" (luchot habrit). The word edut means "testimony" or "witness." The tablets are thus understood as a document bearing witness to the covenant between God and Israel. For this reason the Ark of the Covenant, which held the tablets, is also called the "ark of the testimony" (Exodus 25:16, 22). First Kings 8:9 records that when the ark was brought into the Most Holy Place of Solomon's temple, there was nothing in it except the two tablets of stone.

Significance Across Scripture

In contrast to the covenant engraved on tablets of stone, the prophets foretell a new covenant in which God writes His law on the heart (Jeremiah 31:33; Ezekiel 36:26). In 2 Corinthians 3:3, Paul describes believers as an epistle of Christ, written "not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart." He goes on to contrast the ministry of the law engraved in stone with the ministry of the Holy Spirit (3:7-8). Hebrews 9:4 mentions that the tables of the covenant were in the ark of the tabernacle.

Interpretation and Debated Questions

• How the commandments were divided between the tablets: The text does not state how the ten commandments were distributed between the two tablets. The Reformed tradition commonly groups the first through fourth commandments as duties toward God and the fifth through tenth as duties toward one's neighbor. Lutherans and Roman Catholics follow the division of Augustine, separating the commandments into groups of three and seven. Some scholars, in light of the ancient Near Eastern treaty practice in which each party kept its own copy, suggest that the two tablets were duplicate copies of the same text.
• Who wrote the second tablets: In context, Exodus 34:28 can be read as though Moses did the writing. However, because 34:1 and Deuteronomy 10:2, 4 state that God wrote them, the verse is usually understood to mean that God was the writer.
• Contents of the ark: The accounts in 1 Kings 8:9 and Hebrews 9:4 differ. Among the explanations offered is the view that the difference reflects the distinction between the tabernacle period and the temple period.
• Traditions outside the text: The familiar image of tablets with rounded tops is a convention of Western art and does not appear in the Bible. The story that the fragments of the broken first tablets were also kept in the ark is a Jewish tradition. Scripture does not record the final fate of the tablets. The apocryphal book of 2 Maccabees, chapter 2, contains an account of Jeremiah hiding the ark.

In the Korean Church

Sermons and Bible studies on the Ten Commandments frequently explain how the commandments are divided between the two tablets. The expression "to engrave on the tablet of the heart," drawn from Proverbs 3:3 and 2 Corinthians 3:3, is widely used in preaching and prayer to mean treasuring God's word in one's heart.