1. At that time the Lord said unto me He had had intercourse with the people for some time, before he returned into the mount with the second tables; and therefore he now begins to relate more fully what he had already mentioned in the inverted order of time, i.e., that he stayed in the mount forty days to make entreaty for them. And this also the repetition in the 10 verse more clearly demonstrates, where he says, that he stayed in the mount “according (393) to the first days.” But, although he there says that he was hearkened to when he interceded in the mount, still he includes the prayers which he had previously offered when he heard of the people’s revolt, and after he had broken the tables and taken away God’s tabernacle, in which he prayed apart to obtain pardon for their sin. What is also here said respecting the ark is not in its proper place; for it was a part of the tabernacle, as we have elsewhere seen. It is, therefore, exacting too much to require that the things which are related together, should be referred to the same instant of time.
(393) See Margin, A.V.