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.
He wrote on the tables, according to the first writing - i:e., not Moses, acting under the divine direction, as the amanuensis (copyist), but God Himself, who made this inscription a second time with His own hand, to testify the importance He attached to the Ten Commandments. Different from other stone monuments of antiquity, which were made to stand upright, and in the open air, those on which the divine law was engraven were portable, and designed to be kept as a treasure. Josephus says that each of the tables contained five precepts. But the tradition generally received, both among Jewish and Christian writers, is, that one table contained four precepts, the other six.
The ten commandments. [The Septuagint, followed by Philo and Josephus, has: tous deka logous, whence was derived their word 'Decalogue' (see the notes at Exodus 21:1-36; also 'Suic. Thesau').]
Verse 5. There they be, as the Lord commanded me. Here is another minute but important circumstance, the public mention of which at the time attests the veracity of the sacred historian.