Table (2)

Table (לוּחִ, luach, a tablet, whether of stone [as below], wood ["board," Ex 27:8, etc.], or for writing on [Isa 40:8; Habakkuk 8:9; Pr 3:3]) OF THE LAW (only plur. in the phrases "tables of stone" [לֻחת אֶבֶן, Ex 24:12; Ex 31:18; or ל אֵבָנַים, 34:1, 4], and "tables of the covenant" [De 9:9,15] or "of the testimony" [Ex 31:18]), such as those that were given to Moses upon Mount Sinai, being written by the finger of God, and containing the Decalogue, or Ten Commandments of the law, as they are rehearsed in Exodus 20. Many idle questions have been started about these tables; about their matter, their form, their number, who wrote them, and what they contained. The words which intimate that the tables were written by the finger of God, some understand simply and literally; others, of the ministry of an angel; and others explain merely to signify an order of God to Moses to write them. The expression, however, in Scripture always signifies the immediate Divine agency. See Walther, De Duabus Tacbulis Lapideis (Regiom. 1679); Michaelis, De Tab. Faed. Prioribus (Vitemb. 1719).