[107] This fact will shed light upon those texts which introduce the agency of angels in the giving of the law. Acts 7:38, 53; Gal. 3:19; Heb. 2:2.
[108] Ex. 32; 33.
[109] Ex. 34; Deut. 9.
[110] Ex. 34:21.
[111] The idea has been suggested by some from this verse that it was Moses and not God who wrote the second tables. This view is thought to be strengthened by the previous verse: “Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel.” But it is to be observed that the words upon the tables of stone were the ten commandments; while the words here referred to were those which God spoke to Moses during this interview of forty days, beginning with verse 10 and extending to verse 27. That the pronoun he in verse 28 might properly enough refer to Moses, if positive testimony did not forbid such reference, is readily admitted. That it is necessary to attend to the connection in deciding the antecedents of pronouns, is strikingly illustrated in 2 Sam. 24:1, where the pronoun he would naturally refer to the Lord, thus making God the one who moved David to number Israel. Yet the connection shows that this was not the case; for the anger of the Lord was kindled by the act; and 1 Chron. 21:1, positively declares that he who thus moved David was Satan. For positive testimony that it was God and not Moses who wrote upon the second tables, see Ex. 34:1; Deut. 10:1-5. These texts carefully discriminate between the work of Moses and the work of God, assigning the preparation of the tables, the carrying of them up to the mount and the bringing of them down from the mount, to Moses, but expressly assigning the writing on the tables to God himself.
[112] Ex. 34:1, 28; Deut. 4:12, 13; 5:22.
[113] Ex. 24:12.
[114] Deut. 33:2. That angels are sometimes called saints or holy ones, see Dan. 8:13-16. That angels were present with God at Sinai, see Ps. 68:17.
[115] Deut. 10:4, 5; Ex. 25:10-22.
[116] 1 John 3:4, 5.