Commentary - Deuteronomy 10:1-5

Bird's-eye view

This passage recounts the gracious renewal of the covenant after the catastrophic apostasy with the golden calf. Having shattered the first set of tablets in a righteous display of covenantal judgment, Moses is now commanded by God to prepare a second set. This is not a different covenant, but a gracious restoration of the same one. The key elements are God's initiative, the unchanging nature of His moral law (the Ten Commandments), the role of Moses as mediator, and the crucial provision of the ark of the covenant. The law is restored, but it is immediately placed within the ark, the future location of the mercy seat. This text is a profound illustration of how God's holy law and His atoning mercy are held together. The covenant was broken by the people, but it is reestablished by God in a way that provides for the very sin that broke it.

Moses is recounting this history to the new generation poised to enter the Promised Land. He is reminding them that their existence as a people is entirely dependent on the grace of God, who pardoned their fathers' idolatry and graciously re-established His covenant with them. The law they live under is a gift of this grace. The tablets in the ark are a tangible, abiding testimony to God's faithfulness and His unyielding righteousness. It is a story of utter failure met with sovereign mercy, a foundational theme for Israel and for the Church.

Outline

Context In Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy consists of a series of farewell addresses from Moses to the generation of Israelites who are about to enter Canaan. In chapters 5 through 11, Moses is conducting a historical review, reminding the people of their foundational experiences at Horeb (Sinai). Chapter 9 detailed the rebellion of the golden calf, the people's stiff-necked character, and Moses's desperate intercession on their behalf. This section, the beginning of chapter 10, is the immediate result of that intercession. God's pardon in 9:26-29 is followed by His command to restore the symbols of the covenant here in 10:1. The sequence is crucial: grace and pardon precede the restoration of the law. This historical reminder serves as the basis for Moses's subsequent exhortations to fear Yahweh, walk in His ways, and circumcise their hearts (Deut 10:12ff). Their obedience is to be a grateful response to a God who graciously renewed His covenant with them when they deserved only destruction.

Key Issues

Grace and Government

After the golden calf debacle, the covenant was not merely bent; it was broken. Moses's shattering of the first tablets was not a fit of temper but a formal legal declaration. The contract was void. What we see in this passage is the reissuing of that contract, an act of pure, unmerited grace. But notice that God's grace does not result in lawlessness. Grace does not abolish government. Rather, grace reestablishes government. The very same law is given again. God's standards are not lowered because of our sin. Instead, God, in His mercy, makes a provision for our sin so that we can once again live under His good and perfect law. The command to build the ark before the tablets are even inscribed is central. God commands the construction of the mercy seat's throne before He hands down the law that requires that mercy. This is the logic of the gospel from the beginning.

Verse by Verse Commentary

1 “At that time Yahweh said to me, ‘Carve out for yourself two tablets of stone like the former ones, and come up to Me on the mountain, and make an ark of wood for yourself.

The phrase At that time links this moment directly to Moses's successful intercession for Israel. This is God's response to prayer on behalf of sinners. The command is twofold: prepare new tablets and prepare an ark. Note the difference from the first time. God Himself provided the first tablets; now Moses, the representative of the people, must carve them. There is a human participation in this work of restoration that was absent in the original creation. This is a picture of our sanctification; we work, for it is God who works in us. The command to build an ark of acacia wood is also striking. Before the law is given a second time, God provides for its container. This is not just a box for storage. This is the Ark of the Covenant, the throne of God in their midst, the place where the law will reside under a lid of mercy. God is building the solution into the very fabric of the restoration.

2 And I will write on the tablets the words that were on the former tablets which you shattered, and you shall put them in the ark.’

While Moses carves the stone, God alone does the writing. Man prepares the vessel, but the content is entirely divine. And the content is unchanging. It is the very same words that were on the first set. God's moral character, summarized in the Decalogue, does not fluctuate based on our performance. His standard is absolute. Grace does not mean God shrugs at sin and lowers the bar. Grace means God deals with the sin so that His perfect standard can be reestablished in our lives. The shattering was a righteous verdict on the people's sin. The rewriting is a gracious verdict of pardon and renewal. And the final command here is explicit: the law is to be placed inside the ark. The law of God is to be at the very heart of Israel's life and worship, but it is to be housed in the container of grace.

3 So I made an ark of acacia wood and carved out two tablets of stone like the former ones and went up on the mountain with the two tablets in my hand.

Moses's obedience is immediate and exact. He builds the ark, he carves the stones, and he ascends the mountain. He is functioning as the faithful mediator of the covenant. He brings the blank tablets, the work of his hands, up to God. He does not presume to write anything on them himself. He prepares the slate for the divine inscription. This is a beautiful picture of the Christian life. We are to present ourselves, our lives, as blank slates for God to write His law upon our hearts, not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God.

4 And He wrote on the tablets, like the former writing, the Ten Commandments which Yahweh had spoken to you on the mountain from the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly; and Yahweh gave them to me.

Here we are reminded of the authority and solemnity of this law. The writing is God's own. The content is the Ten Commandments, the bedrock of His covenant. And the context was the terrifying display of divine power at Sinai, from the midst of the fire. Moses emphasizes that Yahweh spoke these words to you, the people, on the day of the assembly. This was a corporate covenant. They all heard the voice, they all trembled, and they all agreed to the terms which they then promptly broke. This is not some abstract law code; it is a personal, historical, covenantal word from God to them. And once again, the law is given to Moses, the mediator, to bring to the people.

5 Then I turned and came down from the mountain and put the tablets in the ark which I had made; and there they are, as Yahweh commanded me.”

The sequence is completed. Moses descends and immediately places the newly inscribed law into the ark he had prepared. The law that condemns is placed in the ark of mercy. It is put in the one place where atonement for breaking it can be made. The final statement, and there they are, is a testimony to God's faithfulness. At the time Moses is speaking these words, decades later, the ark and the tablets are still in their midst. They are an enduring witness. They testify to the people's sin which required a second set. They testify to the unchanging righteousness of God. And they testify to the astonishing grace of God, who did not abandon His people but made a way for His holy law to dwell in the midst of a sinful nation.

Application

This story of the broken and restored tablets is our story. Every Christian is a walking illustration of this principle. By our sin, we have shattered the law of God. We stand guilty, with the just verdict of covenant-breaking upon our heads. We cannot carve new tablets or rewrite the law to suit ourselves. The standard is unchanging.

But God, in His mercy, has provided a Mediator greater than Moses. The Lord Jesus Christ came down from the mountain of God, not with a law written on stone, but with the law written perfectly on His heart. He is our Ark of the Covenant, the place where divine justice and divine mercy meet. In Him, the full demands of the law are satisfied, and in Him, the full pardon for our law-breaking is found. The law that condemns us is, for the believer, now housed within Christ. We relate to the law through our union with Him.

Therefore, grace does not make us lawless. It makes us lawful. God is now, by His Spirit, rewriting His law, not on tablets of stone, but on the tablets of our hearts. Our obedience is not a desperate attempt to build an ark of our own, but a grateful response to the one who has already been built for us. We are called to carve the tablets, which is to say, we are to actively pursue holiness. But we do so knowing that the power to be holy, the inscription of righteousness, comes from God alone, all because of the finished work of our Mediator.