Deuteronomy 10:4

4. He wrote on the tables, according to the first writing In Deuteronomy 9:10, it reads, “written with the finger of God.”

It is held by some of the critics that Deuteronomy 10:6-7 are out of place, that they interrupt the order of the narrative, and that no satisfactory reason for their being introduced can be given. They would indeed be difficult to account for on the theory of some critics, that the work is of a later origin. Moses recalls the death of Aaron. But though Aaron dies the high priesthood is continued. “His aim throughout is to prove the patient mercy of the Lord to his people in spite of their aggravated sins. The calf worship had brought on them a double token of the divine displeasure. First, the tables of the covenant were broken, and the covenant itself dissolved almost as soon as made; but in answer to the intercession of Moses new tables were provided, written upon by the finger of God, and placed in the ark. Next, the Lord had been angry with Aaron to have destroyed him; and with such a judgment on the high priest the covenant of grace to Israel would have come doubly to an end. But Moses prayed for Aaron at that time, and he was forgiven. Not only so, but when the time of death arrived there was a new token of God’s restored and enduring favour, when ‘Eleazar his son ministered in the priest’s office in his [Aaron’s] stead.’ Thus doubly, at the close of their wanderings, by the presence of the new tables in the ark, and by the high priesthood of Eleazar in the place of Aaron, mercy had rejoiced against judgment. These verses, then, are natural in a retrospect by Moses himself at the close of his life, and on this hypothesis alone.” BIRKS, The Pentateuch and its Anatomists, pp. 261, 262.