And the LORD said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel.
Write thou these words - i:e., the ceremonial and judicial injunctions comprehended above (Exodus 34:11-26); while the re-writing of the ten commandments on the newly prepared slabs was done by God Himself (cf. Deuteronomy 10:1-4).
Was there with the Lord - as long as formerly, being sustained for the execution of his special duties by the miraculous power of God. A special cause is assigned for His protracted fast on this second occasion (Deuteronomy 9:18).
He (namely, Yahweh) wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments, х `ªseret (H6235) hadªbaariym (H1697)] - the ten words (cf. Deuteronomy 4:13; Deuteronomy 10:4), not "commandments," which they are never called in the original Scriptures. They are all prohibitory of sin, and hence, called "the ministration of death" (2 Corinthians 3:7). The number of them was ten-denoting completeness, perfection; but the division of the Decalogue into these ten words has been a subject of much discussion. The distribution adopted by Josephus ('Antiquities,' b. 3:, ch. 5:, sec. 5), though Rabbinical superstition prohibited him from recording the very words (b. 2:, ch. 12:, sec. 4) -- namely, that which makes the prohibition of idolatry the first commandment; of images the second; and of covetousness the tenth-was followed by most of the Greek fathers, and universally by the Latin, until Augustine's time, and by all the Reformed churches.
The Talmud, which is followed by the modern Jews, considers what is commonly called the Preface to be the first commandment, and the law against idolatry and image worship as forming conjointly the second. Augustine advocated a different order, making the precepts relative to the worship of one God, and the exclusion of images the first commandment, while the tenth was split into two: the one consisting of the law against coveting a neighbour's wife, and the other comprised everything that is his. This is the division which obtains in the Lutheran and Popish churches.
The arrangement of the Ten Commandments on two tables is universally believed to have been according to their subject-matter-namely, the duties toward God being contained in the one table, those relating to man in the other. Theorisers, however, have not been content with this simple and natural explanation: for some, from Philo down to modern times, have maintained that there was a symmetrical equality between the tables-five commandments in each; and to effect this result, they consider that the precept which inculcates honour to parents was placed on the first table, as parents are the earthly representatives of God. But to place the law which enjoins respect to parents on the same footing with the religious reverence and worship due to God is opposed to the express and repeated declarations of Him who will not divide His honour with any creature.
Others, who conjoin the prohibition against idolatry and image-worship in one law, allege that there were only three commandments in the first table, while there were seven in the second, and that in this order there was a symbolical meaning: three being the number of persons in the Godhead, and seven the covenant number (B„hr, 'Symbolik,' 1:, 115; Kurtz, 3:, pp. 134-136).