…That is, at least not at first….

I know what you’re thinking.  Oh, come on!  Now, this is just too crazy to even imagine!  We all know this story too well.  You can’t tell us that the 10 Commandments weren’t written on stone tablets!  We all saw Charlton Heston receive them as Yahweh spoke the words and etched each commandment into stone!

Are you sure?

Have you ever actually read what happened on Mount Sinai when this moment occurred?  Or, do you just “think” you know the story?  After all, the identical sequence of events is recorded in both Exodus and Deuteronomy.  So, how in the world could it not be perfectly understood by all Bible believers all this time?  Let’s see what scripture actually says about this event, starting in Exodus.

Exo. 20:1–“And Elohim spake all these words, saying….”  Stop right here.  Let’s pay close attention to exactly how the commandments were given.  They were SPOKEN by Elohim, right?  This is no surprise to anyone, as we’ve all understood that Yahweh spoke the words.  Was he speaking only to Moses?  Or, was he speaking to Moses and all of the people?  And shouldn’t we see, within this passage, that each commandment was etched into stone as the words were spoken?

No, we don’t.  Immediately following this introduction, Elohim begins with commandment number one: I am Yahweh, Elohim of you…  The other 9 commandments follow, which you’re all familiar with.  Where are the tablets?  Let’s look at what happens upon the conclusion of commandment number 10.

Exo. 20:18–“And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar off.  ¹⁹ And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not Elohim speak with us, lest we die.”

Did you catch that?  Why did the people say that they wanted Moses ONLY to speak with them?  What were they afraid of if Elohim were to speak with them “lest they die”?  Did the people actually hear Elohim speak while these commandments were given?

And, how were they able to immediately ask a question to Moses as soon as the commandments were spoken?  Wasn’t Moses far away, up on Mount Sinai, listening to Yahweh all by himself while the people were down at the bottom of the mountain because they weren’t permitted to go up with him?  If Moses had not yet set foot on Mount Sinai, and all of the people, INCLUDING MOSES, had just HEARD the 10 commandments, it had to be in such a booming voice that it would have virtually shook the ground that they stood on!  No wonder they did not want to hear another word from Elohim!  They were frightened to their core!  The fact is, Moses was still at the base of the mountain along with all of the people when everyone HEARD the words of the 10 Commandments.  Next verses:

Exo. 20:20–“And Moses said unto the people, Fear not: for Elohim is come to prove you, and that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not.  ²¹ And the people stood afar off, and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where Elohim was.”

In other words, as soon as Moses told them to “fear not”, he turned his back on the people and for the FIRST TIME, he approached the “thick darkness” of Mount  Sinai.  Until this moment, Moses had been standing side-by-side with the people and was nowhere near the mountain, let alone ascended to the top of it.  But even now, Moses did not get a chance to climb up higher and engage with Elohim face to face.  Before he could approach the mountain, Elohim spoke once again from heaven and explained exactly WHY he spoke to all of them DIRECTLY, instead of to Moses alone–

Exo. 20:22–And the Lord said unto Moses, Thus thou shalt say unto the children of Israel, Ye have seen that I have talked with you from heaven.  ²³ Ye shall not make with me gods of silver, neither shall ye make unto you gods of gold.”

Part of the translation gets lost in our modern English, but to make it clear, the words “thou”, “Ye” and “you” are not all first person, singular, spoken only to Moses.  The word “thou” is singular, addressing Moses.  But the other two words “Ye” and “you” are both plural renderings of the word “you”.  When Yahweh again spoke out loud, he told them the reason why was so that they [plural: a.k.a.: all the people] could see that he talked to them from heaven.

But wait.  What about the stone tablets?  Why aren’t they identified in this well-known story?  How did they come into Moses’s possession?  It happens much later, when Yahweh finally instructs Moses, Aaron and a few others to come up to the mountain.  But only Moses was allowed to come close to Elohim as Aaron and the others had to stay a little further down the mountain.

Exo. 24:1–“And he said unto Moses, Come up unto Yahweh, thou, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel; and worship ye afar off.  ² And Moses alone shall come near Yahweh: but they shall not come nigh; neither shall the people go up with him.”

(Admit it.  You thought that the only two people who hiked up Mount Sinai were Moses and Aaron, didn’t you?)

Some amount of time had passed since the day that all of Israel heard Yahweh’s booming voice from Mount Sinai.  Finally, Moses is invited to come up onto the mountain.  Is this the moment that he is given the stone tablets?

Exo. 24:12–“And Yahweh said unto Moses, Come up to me into the mount, and be there: and I will give thee tables of stone, and a law, and commandments which I have written; that thou mayest teach them.”

THERE THEY ARE!  I KNEW THERE WERE STONE TABLETS!

It just doesn’t seem possible that this story has been so misunderstood for so many years.  Maybe the book of Deuteronomy explains it better, where Moses might have gotten the stone tablets exactly the way it was depicted in the movies.  What does it say?

Deut. 5:1–“And Moses called all Israel, and said unto them, Hear, O Israel, the statutes and judgments which I speak in your ears this day, that ye may learn them, and keep, and do them.  ² Yahweh our Elohim made a covenant with us in Horeb.  ³ Yahweh made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day.  ⁴ YAHWEH TALKED WITH YOU FACE TO FACE in the mount out of the midst of the fire,  ⁵ (I stood between Yahweh and you at that time, to shew you the word of Yahweh: for ye were afraid by reason of the fire, and WENT NOT UP INTO THE MOUNT), saying,

Immediately begins another rendering of the 10 Commandments and once again, it involved Yahweh speaking the words, not writing the words.  When do the stone tablets show up in Deuteronomy?

Deut. 5:22–“These words Yahweh spake unto all your assembly in the mount out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice: and he added no more. And he wrote them in two tables of stone, and delivered them unto me.  [Don’t get too excited.  This did not happen at the exact same time the words were spoken, as you’ll see in a moment.]  ²³ And it came to pass, when ye heard the voice out of the midst of the darkness, (for the mountain did burn with fire,) that ye came near unto me [Moses], even all the heads of your tribes, and your elders;  ²⁴ And ye said, Behold, Yahweh our Elohim hath shewed us his glory and his greatness, and we have heard his voice out of the midst of the fire: we have seen this day that Elohim doth talk with man, and he liveth.  ²⁵ Now therefore why should we die? for this great fire will consume us: if we hear the voice of the Yahweh our Elohim any more, then we shall die.”

It says right there in verse 22 that Moses was given two tables of stone.  But the most important fact is that the people all heard the voice of Yahweh from Mount Sinai, not just Moses.  Keep in mind that Moses didn’t transcribe these events in real time.  He wrote them down later.  But he was very clear in Deuteronomy exactly WHEN he got the stone tablets, which he described four chapters later.

Deut. 9:11–“ And it came to pass at the end of forty days and forty nights, that Yahweh gave me the two tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant.”

WHAT?  This makes it even clearer of how many days it took until the spoken words of Yahweh were finally presented in written form and given to Moses.  FORTY DAYS?  That’s right.  From the time that Yahweh thundered his commandments from Mount Sinai and heard by Moses and 100% OF ALL THE PEOPLE, a full 40 days elapsed until those same words were given to Moses in written form.  The spoken commandments and the written commandments did not happen as one concurrent event.  They were separated by over a month.

One other thing (this is just to blow your mind).  The stone tablets were not the size that you’ve seen in the movies either.  You know what I mean–Moses carries one heavy tablet in his right arm and the other tablet in his left arm as he strolls down the mountain.  That’s not quite accurate.  Remember, when Moses comes down the mountain for the first time, he discovered that the Isaelites had already corrupted themselves.  This angered Moses so much that he threw the stone tablets to the ground, shattering them.  Later, he returns to Mount Sinai to get two replacement tablets, as described here.

Deut. 10:1–“At that time Yahweh said unto me, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first, and come up unto me into the mount, and make thee an ark of wood.  ² And I will write on the tables the words that were in the first tables which thou brakest, and thou shalt put them in the ark.  ³ And I made an ark of shittim wood, and hewed two tables of stone like unto the first, and went up into the mount, HAVING THE TWO TABLES IN MINE HAND.

The two tablets of stone were so tiny that Moses could carry them both in one hand.  It’s not an oversight that Moses forgot to write “in my arms”.  He didn’t write it that way because the two tablets combined were probably no larger than a modern I-Phone.  One could easily carry a pair of I-Phones in one hand.

Now, if you wonder whether this could be remotely possible, keep in mind that nowhere in scripture does it say that Yahweh only wrote…on one side of each tablet, does it?  If it were possible that the text of the 10 Commandments were written on each side of these tablets, that would give room to etch all ten of them in a very small space.

Okay, you say, I’ll grant you that would be possible, but now I’m really grasping at straws and I’m trying to read something into scripture that’s not even there.

Yep, you got me on that one.  Then again, there is this:

Exo. 32:15–“And Moses turned, and went down from the mount, and the two tables of the testimony were in his hand: the tables were written on both their sides; on the one side and on the other were they written.  ¹⁶ And the tables were the work of Elohim, and the writing was the writing of Elohim, graven upon the tables.”

Well, maybe you didn’t get me.