A Little History
The popular name in this, as in so many instances, is not that of Scripture. There we have
the "TEN WORDS." Ex.34:28; Deut. 4:13, 10:4; the "COVENANT," Ex., Deut.; 1Kings 8:21;
2Chron. 6:11, etc., or, very often as the solemn at testation of the divine will, the
"TESTIMONY." Ex. 25:16; 21; 31:18, etc. The circumstances in which the Ten great
Words were first given to the people surrounded them with an awe which attached to no
other precept. In the midst of the cloud and the darkness and the flashing lightning and
the fiery smoke and the thunder like the voice of atrum pet, Moses was called to Mount
Sinai to receive the law without which the people would cease to be a holy nation. Ex. 19:20.
Here, as elsewhere, Scripture unites two facts which men separate. God, and not
man, was speaking to the Israelites in those terrors, and yet, in the language of later
inspired teachers, other instrumentality was not excluded. No other words were proclaimed
in the like manner. And the record was as exceptional as the original
revelation. Of no other words could it be said that they were written as these were written,
engraved on the Tables of Stone, not as originating in man's contrivance or sagacity, but by the
power of the Eternal Spirit, by the "finger of God." Ex. 31:18, 32:16
Smith's Bible Dictonary
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