Exodus 31:18

THE TWO TABLES, Exodus 31:18.

18. Two tables of testimony These were soon broken, (Exodus 32:19,) and others were subsequently hewn, (Exodus 34:1-4. ) Their size must have been smaller than the dimensions of the ark in which they were deposited, and sufficiently small and light for Moses to carry in his hand . They were doubtless some two or three inches in thickness, to prevent their being easily broken; but they need not have been one foot square to contain all the words of the decalogue . See, further, note on Exodus 32:15. The fact that they were written with the finger of God is no greater a miracle than that they should have been spoken “out of the midst of the fire . ” Deuteronomy 4:12. But the ministry of angels may be assumed as one of the means by which these tables, as well as the utterance of the words, were produced . See note on Exodus 20:1. The expression finger of God is simply an anthropomorphic way of designating the divine agency in the preparation of the tables, and is not designed to teach that the infinite Being has a physical “body or parts.”