Ten Commandments

Mount Sinai was covered by the cloud for six days, after which Moses went into the midst of the cloud and was "in the mount forty days and forty nights." (Exodus 24:16-18) G-d wrote the Ten Commandments or Aseret ha-D'varim (Ten Statements, or Ten Declarations.) as they are known in the Torah (Aseret ha-Dibrot in Rabbinical texts)) on the tablets with His finger."Ten Commandments" is a mistranslation in Hebrew ten commandments, which would be Aseret ha-Mitzvot. According to a midrash the words of the Ten Commandments were not engraved on the surface, but rather were bored through the full thickness of the stone. The stones in the center part of some letters were not connected to the rest of the tablet, but they did not fall out. And the tablets they could be read exactly the same way from both sides, not backwards from one side, as would be expected. This miraculous writing could only have been accomplished by G-d Himself. It is also possible that the tablet were engraved on both sides with some of the Commandments on one side, others on that reverse. This would allow for the tablets to be smaller than they would be otherwise and, accordingly, less heavy. Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights." (Exodus 24:16-18). Towards the end of this period the children of Israel decided that something must have happened to Moses and they prevailed upon Aaron to make a golden calf. When Moses descended he saw the idol and smashed the tablets in anger. Later G-d instructs Moses to "Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest." (Ex.34:1) "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." (Deuteronomy 10:4) It is not known in what language the Commandments were written as historian tell us Hebrew did not yet exist as a fully-formed language at the time of the Exodus. It may have been proto-Canaanite out of which both the Hebrew language and alphabet emerged. Some say the tablets were engraved in Egyptian hieroglyphics as Moses had been educated in Pharaoh's court. For aesthetic purposes I have used the traditional abbreviated form of the Commandments in a modern font. On the other hand I have I did not use the round-topped tablet shape usually seen. Tablets of that type were typical of those made in the Roman empire. I believe that the second set of tablets would be more roughly hewn.