Tables of the Law

TABLES of the Law. Those that were given to Moses upon Mount Sinai were written by the Finger of God, and contained the Decalogue, or Ten Commandments of the Law, as they are rehearsed in Exodus xx. Many Questions have been started, about these Tables, about their Matter, their Form, their Number, he that wrote them, and what they contained. D’ Herbelot. Bibl. Orient. p. 649.Some Oriental Authors make them amount to ten in number, others to seven; but the Hebrews reckon but two. Some suppose them to have been of Wood, others of precious Stone. And these again are divided, some supposing them to have been Vol. III.a Acts ix. 36. Tabitha, quæ interpretatur Dorcas. Syr. Hebrew, Tabitha. Gr. Greek, a Doe. been of Ruby, or Carbuncle; but the greatest part are for Carbuncle. Those that make them of Wood, suppose it to have been a Wood called Sedr, or Sedras, which is a kind of Lotum, with which the Mussulmen plant their Paradise.

Moses observes,¹ that these Tables were written on both Sides. Many think they were transparent, so that they might be read through; on one Side towards the right, and on the other Side towards the left. Others will have it, that the Law-giver only makes this Observation, that the Tables were written on both Sides, because generally in writing Tables, they only wrote on one Side. O’easter & Rivet. in Exod. xxxii.Others thus translate the Hebrew Text; they were written on the two parts that were contiguous to each other: Because being shut upon one another, the two Faces that were wrote upon touched one another, so that no Writing was seen on the Outside. Some think that the same Ten Commandments were wrote on each of the two Tables; others that the Ten were divided, and only five on one Table, and five on the other. Some make the Tables to have been of ten or twelve Cubits.

Moses says expressly that the Tables we are speaking of were wrote by the Hand of God: Scriptas digito Dei. These last Words are diversly explained: Some understand them simply and literally, that they were wrote by the Operation of God himself; others understand it of the Ministry of an Angel; others of the Spirit of God, which is sometimes called the Finger of God. Others See Exod. viii. 19. Luke xi. 20.explain it by an Order of God to Moses to write them: This Opinion may be maintained from Chap. xxxiv. 27, 28. where, speaking of the second Tables which God gave to Moses, God ordered him to write down the Words of the Covenant which he had made with Israel; and a little after, Moses relates that he had written the Words of the Covenant upon Tables. In the same Chapter it is said, that he hewed two other Tables like the former which he had broken. From hence St. Austin and St. Cyprian have concluded, that the second Aug. qu. 186. in Exod. Cyprian. l. de Spiritu Sanct. Deut. x. 4.Tables were not written by the Hand of God, though the first were. But Moses in Deuteronomy, repeating what had been before said of the second Tables that God had given him, takes express notice that God himself wrote them: Scripsitque in tabulis, juxta id quod priùs scripserat. Whence it follows, that neither the one nor the other were written by the Finger of God, or that both of them were so written. But it is sufficient that God inspired Moses, and by his Spirit enabled him to write, in order to procure Authority to his Words; and it is needless to have recourse D’Herbelot. Bibl. Orient. p. 649.to a new Miracle.

The Mussulmen say, that God commanded the celestial Graver to write, or to engrave these Tables: Or that he commanded the Archangel Gabriel to make use of the Pen, which is the Invocation of the Name of God, and of the Ink, which is taken out of the River of Light, wherewith to write the Tables of the Law. They add, that when Moses let fall the first Tables, and brake them, the Angels carried the Pieces into Heaven, except one Piece of the bigness of a Cubit, which continued upon Earth, and was put into the Ark of the Covenant.

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