What did god use to write on the stone tablets

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The majority of Christians think of the Ten Commandments as being inscribed on tablets of grey stone. However, rabbinical Judaism as found in the Talmud and Mishnah teaches that the tablets of the law were made of sapphire.[1] This was done to point to God’s creation in the heavens and to His throne. The Talmud and Mishnah are far from being authoritative and even blasphemous in several respects, especially when teaching on Yeshua (Jesus). Nevertheless, that does not mean that everything taught in rabbinical Jewish tradition is inaccurate. Ancient tradition is especially useful in understanding what the Jewish people held to on scores of topics. Scripture itself corroborates much of what the tradition has to say regarding the sapphire Ten Commandments.

and they saw the God of Israel. There was under his feet as it were a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness. Exodus 24:10 (ESV)

Moses and the rest of Israel’s leadership were given the profound privilege of seeing God. God appeared in the person of the Son as He expresses God’s image to man (cf. John 1:18; 14:9). Under God’s feet was something that appeared to be sapphire. The Hebrew cappiyr (pronounced sap-peer’) can either be translated as a sapphire or lapis lazuli. It is from this pavement that God carved out the tablets upon which He wrote the law as recorded in Exodus 24:12:

The LORD said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain and wait there, that I may give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction.”

The stone from which the tablets were fashioned almost certainly refers to that which appeared to be sapphire only two verses earlier. The sapphire is the only type of stone mentioned in the context. It would be a leap to conclude that the tablets were made from any type of stone other than that which was recorded. Unfortunately, many do not even consider the sapphire tablets an option because they have been unconsciously influenced by western images of the Ten Commandments. No doubt that the Charleton Heston film alone has cemented certain imagery into the culture (a fine movie in any respect).

It is even a distinct possibility that the tablets were carved from God’s throne. Consider Ezekiel 1:26:

Above the expanse over their heads was something like a throne, resembling a sapphire stone. Above the shape of the throne was a figure of human appearance.

The figure upon this throne was the likeness of the glory of YHWH (Ezek. 1:28). Like the appearance of God to the elders of Israel, this too was God in the person of the Son. These two accounts of God appearing are of such a similarity that it is reasonable to conclude that the sapphire foundation and the sapphire throne are one in the same. Not only were the tablets written on by God, but they were themselves a work of God (Ex. 32:16). They were then of supernatural origin. The tablets coming from God’s throne is consistent with both the narrative and the foundational importance of God’s law.

Even today it is evident that the color blue is important to both observant Jews and secular Israel. The color was intended to remind the Israelites to observe God’s law. Numbers 15:37-39:

The LORD said to Moses, “Speak to the people of Israel, and tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to put a cord of blue on the tassel of each corner. And it shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the LORD, to do them, not to follow after your own heart and your own eyes, which you are inclined to whore after.

With the idea of tablets of sapphire in mind, it becomes obvious why a cord of blue would make the wearer mindful of the law. It makes all the more sense that Isaiah would foresee Israel being blessed with a foundation of sapphires (Is. 54:11).

Why does the Torah enjoin us regarding techelet? Because techelet resembles sapphire, and the Tablets were made of sapphire, to tell you that as long as Bnei Yisrael gaze upon this techelet they are reminded of what is inscribed on the Tablets and observe the commandments, therefore it is written, ‘And you shall see it [the techelet string] and remember all of the commandments of G-d and you shall do them.’

– Mishnat Rabbi Eliezer, Chap. 14

[1] Obadiah Bertinoro on Mishnah, Avot 5:6. Cf. Babylonian Talmud, Nedarim 38a. Note the value of the pieces of the broken tablets.

After Moses broke the first tablets of stone that the Lord gave him on Mount Sinai, God commanded him to cut out two tablets of stone (like the first ones) and present himself to Him at the top of Mount Sinai—again (Exodus 34:1-2). Skeptics claim the Bible teaches in Exodus 34 that Moses wrote on this second pair of tablets, whereas in Deuteronomy 10 it says that God is the One Who wrote on these tablets. Based upon this “difference,” they allege that a blatant contradiction exists. A closer examination of these passages, however, reveals that they are not contradictory, but rather complimentary and consistent with each other.

We readily admit that Deuteronomy 10 teaches that God was the One Who wrote on the second pair of tablets. Verses 1-4 of that chapter say:

At that time the Lord said to me (Moses), “Hew for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and come up to Me on the mountain and make yourself an ark of wood. And I [God] will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke; and you shall put them in the ark.” So I [Moses] made an ark of acacia wood, hewed two tablets of stone like the first, and went up the mountain, having the two tablets in my hand. And He (God) wrote on the tablets according to the first writing, the Ten Commandments, which the Lord had spoken to you in the mountain from the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly; and the Lord gave them to me (Deuteronomy 10:1-4, emp. and parenthetical items added).

This passage teaches that Moses hewed the tablets out of rock, but that God was the One Who wrote on them. Skeptics agree.

The controversial passage found in Exodus 34 states: “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘ Write these words, for according to the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.’ So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread nor drank water. And He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments” (34:27-28). Based upon this passage, critics of the Bible’s inerrancy suggest that Moses, not God, wrote on the second pair of tablets. Thus they conclude that Exodus 34 and Deuteronomy 10 contradict one another.

Admittedly, at first glance it seems these verses teach: (1) that Moses was commanded to write the words on the second pair of tablets; and (2) the recorded fact that after he was commanded to do so, he (Moses) actually “wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant.” But what may seem to be the correct interpretation of a passage is sometimes not the case, especially when the context of the passage is ignored. The words that God instructed Moses to write were “ these words,” which He spoke in the preceding verses (i.e., 34:10-26—the ceremonial and judicial injunctions, not the ten “words” of Exodus 20:2-17). The rewriting of the Ten Commandments on the newly prepared slabs was done by God’s own hand. God specifically stated in the first verse of Exodus 34 that He (not Moses) would write the same words that had been written on the first tablets of stone that Moses broke. In verse 28 of that chapter, we have it on record that God did what He said He would do in verse one (cf. Deuteronomy 10:2-4). The only thing verse 27 teaches is that Moses wrote the list of regulations given in verses 10-26. That these regulations were not the Ten Commandments is obvious in that there are not even ten of them listed (Coffman, 1985, p. 474).

Contrary to what skeptics allege, Exodus 34 and Deuteronomy 10 are not contradictory. Moses was not acting under divine direction to physically write the Decalogue on the second pair of tablets. Rather, as Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown recognized in their commentary on Deuteronomy, “God Himself…made the inscription a second time with His own hand, to testify the importance He attached to the Ten Commandments” (1997).

REFERENCES

Coffman, James Burton (1985), Commentary on Exodus (Abilene, TX: ACU Press).

Jamieson, Robert, et al. (1997), Jamieson, Faussett, Brown Bible Commentary (Electronic Database: Biblesoft).

Published May 26, 2004

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