And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.
Tables of stone written with the finger of God - containing the Ten Commandments (Exodus 24:12), called "tables of testimony, because God testified His will in them. The tenor of the language undoubtedly conveys the impression that these permanent records were a work of God's design and execution so special and so proper to Him as not to have been done by the agency of any creature. Some think that the expression implies that letters were then first given to men. But this is an error, for Moses wrote before these tables were given him (Exodus 24:4); and there is reason to believe that written records existed long prior to the Mosaic age (see the note at Exodus 32:16).