Ex 31, 18 The two tablets of the commandments

(Ex 31, 18) The two tablets of the commandments

[18] When the LORD had finished speaking to Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave him the two tablets of the commandments, the stone tablets inscribed by God's own finger.

(CCC 700) The finger. "It is by the finger of God that [Jesus] cast out demons" (Lk 11:20). If God's law was written on tablets of stone "by the finger of God," then the "letter from Christ" entrusted to the care of the apostles, is written "with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts" (Ex 31:18; 2 Cor 3:3). (The hymn Veni Creator Spiritus invokes the Holy Spirit as the "finger of the Father's right hand" (LH, Easter Season after Ascension, Hymn at Vespers: Digitus paternae dexterae). (CCC 2056) The word "Decalogue" means literally "ten words" (Rom Ex 34:28; Deut 4:13; 10:4). God revealed these "ten words" to his people on the holy mountain. They were written "with the finger of God" (Ex 31:18; Deut 5:22), unlike the other commandments written by Moses (Cf. Deut 31:9-24). They are pre-eminently the words of God. They are handed on to us in the books of Exodus (Cf. Ex 20:1-17) and Deuteronomy (Cf. Deut 5:6-22). Beginning with the Old Testament, the sacred books refer to the "ten words" (Cf. for example Hos 4:2; Jer 7:9; Ezek 18:5-9), but it is in the New Covenant in Jesus Christ that their full meaning will be revealed. (CCC 2058) The "ten words" sum up and proclaim God's law: "These words the LORD spoke to all your assembly at the mountain out of the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, with a loud voice; and he added no more. And he wrote them upon two tables of stone, and gave them to me" (Deut 5:22). For this reason these two tables are called "the Testimony." In fact, they contain the terms of the covenant concluded between God and his people. These "tables of the Testimony" were to be deposited in "the ark" (Ex 25:16; 31:18; 32:15; 34:29; 40:1-2).