Charles Ellicott Commentary Deuteronomy 10

At that time the Lord said unto me. —The forty days of intercession alluded to in the previous chapter followed this command (Exodus 34:28).

Hew thee two tables of stone ... and make thee an ark. —The command to make the ark was given in the former period of forty days (Exodus 25:10); the command to hew the two tables was given after Moses had seen the glory of God (Exodus 33:0) from the cleft in the rock, but before the forty days spent in intercession. Rashi, the Jewish commentator, thinks there were two arks: one to go out to war, and the other to remain in the tabernacle.

But there is no foundation for this statement. There may, of course, have been a temporary receptacle for the tables made by Moses (like the temporary tabernacle mentioned in Exodus 33:7), to receive them until the completion of the ark which Bezaleel was to make. This was not begun until after Moses descended with the second pair of tables (see Exodus 35:0 and following).

And I will write on the tables. —It is a common error to suppose that Moses wrote the Law the second time. The mistake arises from the change of person in Exodus 34:28, where the same pronoun “he” refers first to Moses, and then to Jehovah. But there is no doubt as to the fact or its spiritual meaning. The tables of stone represent the fleshy tables of the heart, as St. Paul teaches us in 2 Corinthians 3:3. The first pair of tables were like the heart of Adam, which came fresh from the hand of his Maker, with the word of the Law written on them.

But this perished by the fall, beneath the mountain of the Law. The humanity which ascended to receive the Spirit for us was prepared by the Mediator on earth. The second man receives the new covenant, not the letter, but the Spirit, which puts God’s laws in men’s minds, and writes them in their hearts, making them God’s temple. Thus the ark and the tabernacle which received the Law are a figure of God’s human temple, and of the renewed heart of man.

According to the first writing, the ten commandments. —The words written on the second tablets were the same which had been written on the first.

In the day of the assembly. —Or, in New Testament language, “the day of the Church.” The Pentecost of the Old Testament was the day when the letter was given; the Pentecost of the New Testament was the day of the Spirit that giveth life. Each of these aspects of God’s covenant produced a Church after its kind.

I ... put the tables in the ark which I (had) made; and there they be. —Or, and they were there, or they continued there. According to the narrative in Exodus, the ark in which the tables ultimately remained was made afterwards. The English reader must not be misled by the word “had” in “I had made.” There is no pluperfect in Hebrew. The time of an action is determined not so much by the form of the verb as by its relation to the context. “I put the tables in the ark which I made, and they remained there,” is the literal sense. “I made” may very well mean “I caused to be made,” and refers to the ark which Bezaleel constructed under Moses’ directions.

For these verses, which are among the most difficult in Deuteronomy, see a separate Excursus. The difficulty is twofold. First, the account of Israel’s marches around the time of Aaron’s death is given in a different form here from what we have in Numbers 20:21, 33. Second, there is the further question of why Aaron’s death should be recorded here. It appears to have taken place before Moses began the delivery of the discourses in Deuteronomy. It is separated by thirty-nine years from the incidents Moses is recapitulating in this passage.

The Jewish commentator Rashi gives a very curious tale to account for the allusion to Aaron’s death here. But though his theory is mythical, he seems to grasp the main point: that Israel re-visited, during their journey around the land of Edom, four places where they had previously encamped. Among these was Mosera (or Moseroth), the district in which Mount Hor, where Aaron died, was situated. This is not impossible; in fact, it is highly probable and would partly account for the statement in Numbers 21:4, that the soul of the people was much discouraged because of the way. It was around this time that the fiery serpents came.

If the connection of these verses with the train of thought in Moses’ mind is spiritual, the difficulty may be solved. The death of the priest of Israel, whose first representative was Aaron, is spiritually identical to the destruction of the first pair of tablets, the death of the first Adam, and the death of all mankind in the person of our representative, the Lord Jesus Christ.

After that death He ariseth as another priest, made not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life. Thus the incident is connected with what goes before. The separation of the tribe of Levi to bear the ark of the covenant of the LORD, that is, “to bear the burden of the Law,” is the same thing in another form. It deprives them of an earthly inheritance, just as He whose representatives they were gave Himself an offering and sacrifice to God; and His life is taken from the earth.

Further, the names of the places themselves have a spiritual significance in this aspect. From certain “wells of water”—the wells of the children of Jaakan (crookedness)—the people of God journey to the scene of the high priest’s death. From there to Hor-hagidgad, or Gudgodah, the mount of the “troop,” or “band” (Sinai is the mount of the “congregation” in the Old Testament, Zion in the New), and then to a land of rivers of water. It is only another way of relating how from the wells of the Law we pass to the rivers of living water opened by the Gospel. But we must pass by way of the cross of Christ.