Exodus 31:17

for… earth verbatimas Exodus 20:11.

rested desisted (from work), or kept sabbath: see on Exodus 20:8.

was refreshed lit. took breath, a strong anthropomorphism: elsewhere used only of men, Exodus 23:12; 2 Samuel 16:14 †.

18a. communing speaking. See on Exodus 25:22.

tables of the testimony i.e. of the Decalogue (see on Exodus 25:16). So Exodus 32:15; Exodus 34:29 †.

18b. tables of stone as Exodus 24:12 (E), where see the note. E's narrative in Exodus 24:12-15 a must have been followed by a statement that Moses, after remaining some time on the mountain (Exodus 32:1), received from God the tables of stone, of which these and the following words are the close. The intermediate part has been replaced by the narrative of P (Exodus 24:15 a).

written with the finger of God hence Deuteronomy 9:10. The practice of inscribing laws on tables of metal or stone was very general in antiquity: Rome, Athens, Crete, Carthage, Palmyra, Babylonia, all supply examples; it would be no cause for surprise, if the original of some of the laws contained in the -Book of the Covenant" were to be brought to light by excavation in Palestine. That the tables on which the Decalogue was written are said to have been inscribed by -the finger of God" (cf. Exodus 34:1) is an expression (Di.) of the sanctity and venerable antiquity attributed to them.