The Two Tables of the Covenant

“AND he declared unto you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even ten commandments; and he wrote them upon two tables of stone" (Deut. 4:13). It has been commonly assumed that each of the stone tables contained but a part of the total revelation proclaimed by the voice of God out of the fiery theophany on Sinai. Only the subordinate question of the dividing point between the "first and second tables" has occasioned disagreement. A reexamination of the biblical data, however, particularly in the light of extra-biblical parallels, suggests a radically new interpretation of the formal nature of the two stone tables, the importance of which will be found to lie primarily in the fresh perspective it lends to our understanding of the divine oracle engraved upon them. Attention has been frequently directed in recent years to the remarkable resemblance between God's covenant with Israel and the suzerainty type of international treaty found in the ancient Near East. Similarities have been discovered in the areas of the documents, the ceremonies of ratification, the modes of administration, and, most basically of course,