Deuteronomy 10:1, commentary and pictures

After the first tablets were broken, the Lord commanded Moses to hew two tables of stone like the first, to come up to Him into the mount, and to make an ark of wood, with the promise that God Himself would write on the second tables the same words that were on the first. Moses made the ark of shittim wood, hewed the two tables like the first, and went up into the mount with them in his hand. God wrote on them according to the first writing the ten commandments which He had spoken from the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly, gave them to Moses, and Moses came down and put them in the ark he had made, where they remained as commanded.

The wooden ark was a sacred chest made in the wilderness to hold the stone tablets of the Decalogue, the law written by God's own hand. It is the ark later carried from Horeb toward Jerusalem during Israel's forty-year pilgrimage and kept in the Tabernacle. The law in the ark represents God Himself, and the ark was the glory and strength of Israel with the token of God's presence resting upon it day and night, and the priests who ministered before it were sacredly consecrated to that holy work.

The ark and the law it contained symbolized God's presence but had no power to protect Israel apart from God. Treating the ark itself as powerful while despising the commandments it held turned worship into formalism, hypocrisy and idolatry. Disobedience separated the people from God so the ark could secure no victory until they repented and forsook sin. At the covenant-renewal ceremony the law was also written on memorial stones so all Israel could read and see the terms on which they would possess Canaan, which the people were to accept with assent to blessings for obedience and curses for neglect.

Because of the sins of Israel and Judah, righteous people hid the ark in a cave before Jerusalem fell to Babylon to keep it from being seized, and it has never been recovered or disturbed but is still in the ark now with indelible writing. God came down from the highest heaven to Mount Sinai to give His people counsel precept by precept, commandment by commandment. The commandments were written the second time by God's own finger and immortalized in the ark, kept there and not entrusted to human safekeeping.

The law thus preserved is the permanent standard of righteousness and the life of those who receive it, recording every departure from God's counsel. It is to be understood and obeyed with His promises repeated again and again and the blessings of obedience and warnings against disobedience and transgression set before people. Departure from its right principles blinds the understanding as to what is truth, while obedience would make character as fine gold and principles as the golden wedge of Ophir, keep its keepers in happiness and peace, bear fruit in sanctified love and beauty of character, and fill the world with holiness and purity. The preserved law calls families who profess that the Lord is at the door and that God's judgments are in the world to obey God's counsel rather than let temporal business overwhelm them.

The tablets were hidden and preserved to justify the obedient and condemn the disobedient, so that those who disobey will receive sentence according to their works. At the final judgment the inscribed tablets will be set before the world as an unanswerable witness against transgressors of God's law. In the last great day the law will appear before the obedient and the disobedient and all the wicked will be convicted, seeing that their actions proceeded from a depraved character, carried on the rebellion begun in the heavenly courts, dishonored their Creator with cruelty and wickedness, and brought about the wretchedness that fills the world. The law is to be brought forth in the great day when sentence will be pronounced against every evil, seducing science produced by the father of lies.