Exodus 34:1 - Exposition

Hew thee two tables of stone. Literally, "of stones "—two separate tables, i.e; made of two separate stones. Moses is required to do this with strict justice, since it was by his act that the former tables were broken ( Exodus 32:19 ). Upon these tables. Literally," upon the tables," which has exactly the same force . The words that were in the first tables . It is quite true that we have not yet been explicitly told what these words were. (See Exodus 31:18 ; Exodus 32:15 , Exodus 32:16 , Exodus 32:19 .) It has been left to our natural intelligence to understand that they must have been the "ten words" uttered in the ears of all the people amid the thunders of Sinai, as recorded in Exodus 20:1-19 , which are the evident basis of all the later legislation. We have, however, in verse 28, and still more plainly in Deuteronomy 10:4 , and Deuteronomy 5:22 , the desired statement. The fiction of a double decalogue, invented by Goethe and supported by Hitzig, and even Ewald, is absolutely without foundation in fact.