'He made also ten tables, and placed them in the temple, five on the right hand,[19] and five on the left' (2 Chron 4:8).
Some, if not all of these tables, so far as I can see, were they on which the burnt-offering was to be cut in pieces, in order to its burning.
These tables were made of stone, of hewn stones, on which this work was done (Eze 40:40-43). Now, since the burnt-offering was a figure of the body of Christ, the tables on which this sacrifice was slain must needs, I think, be a type of the heart, the stony heart, of the Jews. For had they not had hearts hard as an adamant, they could not have done that thing.
Upon these tables, therefore, was the death of Christ contrived, and this horrid murder acted; even upon these tables of stone. In that they are called tables of hewn stone, it may be to show that all this cruelty was acted under smooth pretences, for hewn stones are smooth. The tables were finely wrought with tools, even as the heart of the Jews were with hypocrisy. But alas, they were stone still; that is, hard and cruel; else they could not have been an anvil for Satan to forge such horrid barbarism upon. The tables were in number the same with the lavers, and were set by them to show what are the fruits of being devoted to the law, as the Jews were, in opposition to Christ and his holy gospel. There flows nothing but hardness and a stony heart from thence. This was showed in its first writing; it was writ on tables of stone, figures of the heart of man; and on the same tables, or hearts, was the death of Jesus Christ compassed.
One would think that the meekness, gentleness, or good deeds of Jesus Christ might have procured in them some relentings when they were about to take away his life; but alas, their hearts were tables of stone! What feeling or compassion can a stone be sensible of? Here were stony hearts, stony thoughts, stony counsels, stony contrivances, a stony law, and stony hands; and what could be expected hence but barbarous cruelty indeed? 'If I ask you,' said Christ, 'ye will not answer me, nor let me go' (Luke 22:68).
In that these stony tables were placed about the temple, it supposeth that they were temple-men, priests, scribes, rulers, lawyers, &c., that were to be the chief on whose hearts this murder was to be designed, and by them enacted to their own damnation without repentance.
XL. Of the instruments wherewith this sacrifice was slain, and of the four tables they were laid on in the Temple.
The instruments that were laid upon the tables in the temple were not instruments of music, but those with which the burnt-offering was slain. 'And the four tables were of hewn stone for the burnt-offering: whereupon also they laid the instruments wherewith they slew the burnt-offering and the sacrifice' (Eze 40:42,43).
Here we are to take notice that the tables are the same, and some of them of which we spake before. That the instruments with which they slew the sacrifice were laid upon these tables. The instruments with which they slew the sacrifices, what were they but a bloody axe, bloody knives, bloody hooks, and bloody hands? For these we need no proof; matter of fact declares it. But what were those instruments a type of?
Answ. Doubtless they were a type of our sins. They were the bloody axe, the knife, and bloody hands that shed his precious blood. They were the meritorious ones, without which he could not have died. When I say ours, I mean the sins of the world. Though, then, the hearts of the Jews were the immediate contrivers, yet they were our sins that were the bloody tools or instruments which slew the Son of God. 'He was wounded for our transgressions, he died for our sins' (Isa 53; 1 Cor 15; Gal 1).