Did Moses Write on the Tables of Stone?

WE have been requested by a correspondent, to give an answer to this question. It is easily answered.

Those who claim that Moses did write on the tables of stone rest entirely on the 28th verse of the 34th chapter of Exodus, which reads thus:—

"And he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread nor drink water; and he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments."

The case turns on this one question: when a pronoun is repeated without a substantive intervening, does it necessarily in each case refer to the same antecedent?

Without any regard to the context or to other texts, and with modern ideas of grammatical constructions, it would be decided at once that Moses wrote on them. But no candid student of the Bible will contend that a text must be taken without regard to the context or to other texts speaking on the same point. It should also be considered that the Hebrew is a very brief language, leaving far more to be gathered from the context than do modern languages. Learned Jewish Rabbis consider the Christian teachers greatly at fault in trying to bring down the Hebrew to the grammatical precision of the Western languages. The great proportion of supplied words in many texts gives force to this objection. Without these supplied words we have barely the skeletons of sentences, to be filled out according to the connection.

What, then, was the usage of the early writers of the Hebrew in regard to the pronoun? Every observing reader must have noticed that they use pronouns often when we, for the sake of greater clearness, would insert the proper name. A few instances will suffice to show this.

1 Sam. 16:21: "And David came to Saul and stood before him; and he loved him greatly; and he became his armor bearer."

It was Saul that loved David greatly, as he said in verse 22, of David, "He hath found favor in my sight." According to modern ideas of grammar we must decide against the evident meaning of the text.

Isa. 37:36: "Then the angel of the Lord went forth, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and four-score and five thousand: and when they arose in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses."

Here there is no antecedent expressed but the Assyrians who were all slain; we are left to infer that it was the remaining Assyrians who arose and found one hundred and eighty-five thousand corpses in the camp.

Zech. 6:13: "Even he shall build the temple of the Lord, and he shall bear the glory, and he shall sit and rule upon his throne, and he shall be a priest upon his throne."

Although the pronouns in this text are not the same, one being possessive, the construction is similar, so much so that some have strenuously claimed that he and his refer to the same person. But the context shows that it is upon the throne of the Lord, the Father, that the Branch, or the Son of God, sits a priest. "The counsel of peace shall be between them both." This shows there are two to whom the text applied. Heb. 7 and 8 show positively that our Saviour, the King of peace, is a priest on his Father's throne. And this is in distinction from his own throne, upon which he will never be a priest, as is said in Rev. 3:21. "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne."

This method of expression is not confined to the Old Testament. We find a striking instance of it in Paul's language in 1 Cor. 15:25. "For he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet."

Here, according to our rules of grammar, we must decide that he who reigns is the same who puts all enemies under his feet. But the context and other Scriptures show that he is not. In the two preceding verses both the Father and Son are introduced, and the two instances of the pronoun in verse 25 apply, the first to the Son, the second to the Father, exactly as the pronouns refer to Moses and to God in Ex. 34: 28. In Ps. 110:1, the Father says to the Son, "Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool." He is now sitting at his Father's right hand from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool.

1 Cor. 15:28 shows positively that the Father puts his enemies under the feet of his Son. "And when all things shall be subdued unto him [the Son], then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him [the Father] that put all things under him [the Son], that God may be all in all."

This verse also presents the same interchange of pronouns that we find in Ex. 34:28, and it shows that the same rule of grammar which would make Moses write the ten commandments on the tables of stone, would make the Son become subject to himself! instead of becoming subject to the Father who will put all things under him. And verse 25 stands thus:—

"For he [the Son] must reign till he [the Father] hath put all enemies under his [the Son's] feet."

And thus in Ex. 34:28. "And he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he [Moses] did neither eat bread nor drink water. And he [the Lord] wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments."

The context and other texts show that this is the true reading of the text. See verse 1 of this chapter:—

"And the Lord said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest."

This alone fully justifies our application of the pronouns as above. But it is placed beyond all possibility of doubt in Deut. 10:1-5. We will copy entire; they are the words of Moses speaking to Israel:—

"At that time the Lord said unto me, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first, and come up unto me into the mount, and make thee an ark of wood. And I will write on the tables the words that were in the first tables which thou brakest, and thou shalt put them in the ark. And I made an ark of shittim wood, and hewed two tables of stone like unto the first, and went up into the mount, having the two tables in mine hand. And he wrote on the tables, according to the first writing, the ten commandments, which the Lord spake unto you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly: and the Lord gave them unto me. And I turned myself and came down from the mount, and put the tables in the ark which I had made."

The opposers of the truth have waxed so bold as to even deny that God wrote upon the first tables except through Moses as his agent. In Deut. 5:22, Moses said:—

"These words the Lord spake unto all your assembly in the mount out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice: and he added no more. And he wrote them in two tables of stone, and delivered them unto me." Also Deut. 4:12, 13.

So far from it being true that Moses wrote on the tables, the Lord prepared the first tables and wrote upon them before he called Moses up into the mount to receive them. See Ex. 24:12:—

"And the Lord said unto Moses. Come up to me into the mount, and be there; and I will give thee tables of stone and the law, and the commandments, which I have written, that thou mayest teach them."

Accordingly Ex. 31:18 says they were "written with the finger of God." And Ex. 32:16 says:—"And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables."

God prepared the tables and wrote upon them the ten commandments before he called Moses up to the mount to receive them. This is too plain to be denied by any candid man. They only who regard theories more than truth will deny the evident teachings of these Scriptures. Unfortunately there are many in these days who strive for the mastery without regard to the contradictions in which they involve the Scriptures. They who "tremble at the word" of God, will ever seek to harmonize the Scriptures and to bring them into agreement one with another. And they will also try to bring themselves in harmony with the whole truth of God, instead of distorting the word to make it conform to their own opinions.