The Petra Zone

So, I just got done reading Exodus 34, and there God gives Moses a second set of ten commandments. They are wholly different from the first set given in Exodus 20.

It's quite possible its just too late at night, and I don't wish to ponder this too deeply anymore. But I am curious as to your thoughts.

I have a couple theories, one being that Moses just wrote the first ten on the tablets anyway, and was merely to verbally deliver this second set to the Israelites. The second being that I don't know Hebrew. The second is that maybe Moses wrote the whole lot of commands from Exodus 20 on the tablets, and God broke it down a little bit, and had Moses write down the highlights the second time.

Online searching leads me to misguided and generally poorly thought out atheist sites.

Too simple? Probably.

The first commands were on the stones (the Testimony) with additional commands re: the law in the Book of the Covenent.

In 34, God told Moses to make the tablets, but GOD wrote what was on the first set according to verse 1.

Not that I've given it a huge amount of thought (since I am usually preoccupied with the preceding section admittedly) but I always figured he re-wrote the ten on the tablets in addition to writing these other commands in the law. The ten were an encapsulation of the whole of the law and treaty anyway.

That's kind of what I figured. That there was more written on the tablets than just the big ten, or there was some kind of re-emphasis, and it just wasn't specifically recorded in the Bible what exactly was written. The minutia isn't the point. The commands were the point.

charl wrote:I am usually preoccupied with the preceding section

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