18 And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.

It might be easy to forget, all of the last seven chapters has been Moses receiving instructions from the Lord back up in Mount Sinai. He had already gone up once to retrieve the law, brought it back down to the Israelites, and was then called back up. Because the Israelites had accepted the first set of instructions, they were to be rewarded with the second. This was not a quick visit to the mountain either. We were told previously that Moses was in mount for 40 days and 40 nights.

From what we’ve already read it is clear that the Lord showed Moses the appearance of the tabernacle and all of its parts in a vision. It also seems that He verbally gave the dimensions and description of it all. Not only this, but in today’s verses we hear that God wrote the same information on two tables of stone with His very finger. Thus, Moses had received the information in triplicate, to ensure that everything would be done correctly.

Unfortunately, even while Moses was receiving the instructions that would allow God to dwell in harmony amongst the Israelites, they were rapidly diverging from the Lord down at the base of the mountain. We will hear about this in detail in the next chapter’s opening verses. This moment seems to be an allegory for all the world, where people are divided between those up at the summit seeking the spiritual and those down in the earth seeking the carnal. Let us keep that dichotomy in mind when we read what transpires when the two are reunited.