The word TABLETS as it was before the change to TABLES in the Bible.
Below is an exert from an 1894 book written by J. Hartmann called “God and Sin in the Appetites” Tables has been marked in this exert from the book.
15. Bible Sins and Punishments.–Let us examine the great biblical sins as recorded, and try to discover how much humanity or civilization they exhibit. Thus, Exodus XXXV, 2, 3, “Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be to you a holy day, a sabbath of rest to the Lord: whosoever doeth work therein shall be put to death. Ye shall kindle no fire throughout your habitation upon the sabbath day.” If this sabbath law was ever put into practice, and evidently it was, nothing more savage or barbarous is to be found in the history of any nation. Imagine a man being put to death, or stoned to death, for not resting on the Sabbath? These and similar laws have given Christian law-makers an excuse and a license to make laws equally severe, in ancient and modern times. “ The first Christian emperor made a law by which seduction was punished with death; if the female gave her own consent she also was punished with death; if the parents endeavored to screen the criminals they were banished, and their estates were confiscated; the slaves who might be accessory were burnt alive, or forced to swallow molten lead ; the very offspring of an illegal love were involved in the consequences of the sentence” (Gibbon’s Decline and Fall,” vol. ii, page 210). Burning at the stake for slight differences of opinion and to establish Christian dogmas and creeds is of only recent occurrence, as is also hanging for sheep-stealing in England. Kindling a fire on the Sabbath is accounted a sin even to this day among orthodox Jews, but evidently the compilers, or editors, or composers of the law, including Jehovalı, had no geographical knowledge, for such a law is adapted for only warm climates; were people in cold climates to obey it, they would be very likely to freeze to death.
No part of scriptural literature has elicited so much admiration, wonder, and veneration from the Christian world as the Ten Commandments. It is even claimed that they form the basis of all laws. The Decalogue, like all other Jewish literature, was collected, compiled, and edited, and the name of some ancient worthy, as Moses, Joshua, David, or Solomon, given as its author. Modern scholars are very doubtful that Moses was the originator of the Decalogue, and it is moreover declared that the doctrine is not Mosaic at all. Critics of almost every school seem to have arrived at the conclusion that portions of the Decalogue, the precepts of probity especially, were of a pre-Mosaic origin; but that is mere conjecture. We are not particularly concerned when the Pentateuch was written or by whom, or whether it is pre- or post-exilic. Students and critics ask, “Did the whole text of the Decalogue (Ex. xx, 2-17) stand upon the tablets of stone ?” The Ten Commandments, or the ten precepts, are of two kinds. On the first table we find five precepts of piety ; on the second table five precepts of probity. The five precepts of probity we claim to be of a pre-Mosaic origin. Those on the first table, containing the five precepts of piety, are chiefly concerning God : Thou shalt have no other God; make no graven images, nor bow down to them, etc. The second table contains the five precepts of probity: Honor thy father and mother; thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not commit adultery, nor steal, nor bear false witness, etc. The second tablet (Ex. xxxiv, 12, 16, et seq.) contains ten precepts with considerable variation, some serving explanatory purposes. In Deuteronomy (v. 7-21), we have a repetition of the Decalogue more or less modified. Here the precepts of piety are mainly directed to maintaining Jehovali’s supremacy over rival gods.
It is further urged that Moses could not have prohibited the worship of images, for subsequent history shows us a descendant of Moses officiating as a priest in the idolatrous sanctuary of Dan. It is very doubtful whether the five precepts of piety were in existence prior to Ezra’s return to Jerusalem, or Neliemial’s governorship (446-444 B.C.), or the precepts of probity as we finì them embodied in what became under Ezra and Nehemiah the Magna Charter of Judaism. Some writers maintain that there are distinct indications that these tablets were not put together until after the return of the tribes of Israel from exile under their respective leaders. These contradictory statements as to who wrote the Commandments—whether God, Moses, or the collectors of the numerous fragments which make the collection that enter into the composition of the Bible—are not surprising. Exodus xxxiv, 1, says: “ And the Lord said unto Moses, “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.” (27) “And the Lord said unto Moses, Write thou these words : for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel. (28) And he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights, he did neither eat bread nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.” Exodus xxxi, 18 : “ And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon Mount Sinai, two tablets of testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God.” Compare Tablets I, Ex. xx, Tablets II, Ex. xxxiv, and Deut. v. Read these tablets carefully, compare the words, then exercise your own common sense and reason, and draw your own conclusion.
