Exodus 31:18, commentary and pictures

After He finished speaking with Moses on Mount Sinai, God gave him two tables of testimony, tables of stone inscribed with His own finger. They are called the testimony because they contain His Ten Commandments, which are the basis of the covenant between God and Israel and are kept in the ark of the testimony. Unlike truths given through human language, they are wholly divine in authorship, a transcript of God's unchanging character and government, written on stone to show the law is immutable and binding on all to the close of time. At their center stands the Sabbath identifying God as Creator, given as His holy sign and perpetual covenant by which His people know He sanctifies them and show love by keeping all His commandments. What God wrote cannot be erased but is preserved in the heavenly sanctuary, to be brought forth as the unalterable standard of righteousness and rule of judgment by which every life is weighed.

Giving on Mount Sinai

After He had made an end of communing and speaking with Moses upon Mount Sinai, God gave him two tables of testimony, tables of stone written with His own finger. They were the written testimony of His law, given so His people might make no mistake about what He required and might ever bear in mind His claims and obey the truth exactly as it stands. The Sabbath commandment was one of the commandments engraved on them, identifying the seventh-day Sabbath as a holy, perpetual covenant and a forever sign between God and Israel that the Lord sanctifies them, rooted in His six-day creation and seventh-day rest. That Sabbath observance is the special sign distinguishing His people from the world, which parents are to teach their children to obey so they may be numbered among God's people, and the claim that it is no longer binding works against God's own writing to take the world captive.

The gift came finally, after God gave directions for building the tabernacle as a sanctuary for the special manifestation of the divine presence and after He gave special instruction enforcing Sabbath observance, at the end of Moses being in the mount forty days and forty nights. Moses with his minister Joshua was summoned up to meet with God to receive it, after appointing Aaron and Hur assisted by the elders to act in his stead. The glory of the Lord abode upon Mount Sinai like devouring fire in the eyes of Israel, and the cloud covered it six days. Moses could not at once approach and endure the glory, but spent six days putting away common thoughts and feelings, devoting his thoughts to God and sanctifying himself by meditation and prayer to be prepared to converse with his Maker, and on the seventh day God called him out of the midst of the cloud. This guarding of the Sabbath in particular was needed because Israel, compelled to work on the Sabbath as slaves in Egypt, had largely lost Sabbath knowledge, and, once freed to observe unmolested, the people would forget the commandment and the workmen would say the tabernacle work was the Lord's work under His supervision and could be done without observing the Sabbath; therefore the seventh day was distinguished as God's memorial to be kept holy as a sign forever, grounded in His making heaven and earth in six days and resting and being refreshed on the seventh, reinforced through nearly forty years of wandering by withholding manna every seventh day and miraculously preserving the double preparation-day portion.

God handed the tables down from the cloud with His own divine hands, having engraved the Ten Commandments on them with His own finger, the moral law of ten commandments distinct from the ritual or ceremonial law and the full tabernacle instructions, which found fulfillment when type met antitype in Christ's death while the moral law endures as the throne of Jehovah. The charge closing at this giving was given by Jesus Christ enshrouded in the pillowy cloud, speaking to Moses about the importance of the Sabbath for those who claim to be God's denominated people. God Himself came down upon Sinai in glory surrounded by angels after delivering Israel from Egyptian bondage and dividing the Red Sea, and after Israel failed when proved by murmuring and wishing to return to Egypt. He spoke the law of ten commandments with an audible voice in the hearing of all the people, trusting no man and not even angels to teach them, and proclaimed it amid thunder and flame in awful grandeur from Sinai's mount, so that no education can come from a higher source than obedience to all His commandments learned from God Himself and His law rather than from human, unsanctified teachers.

The pattern shown to Moses on the mount is the standard for work in God's service, requiring the exactness, skill, tact, wisdom and perfection shown for the tabernacle in every line of that work. Moses going up to receive the tables left the children of Israel for the time under Aaron's leadership, and those forty days were a short time of test and a crisis of severe temptation to idolatry in which Israel failed by rejecting the leadership and principles entrusted to them. In that crisis Aaron proved an unfaithful general, failing to carry the people through and uniting with them in carrying out their plans, and the Lord declared he would certainly have been slain had not Moses interceded in his behalf. Guardians of youth are to read this history and be afraid, putting their trust in God, walking in trembling fear of offending Him, and learning how to act wisely in an emergency as true shepherds watching for souls as those who must give an account, for as God dealt with His ancient people at Sinai for despising His Word, so He will deal with those today who despise His Word and refuse to humble their proud hearts before His wisdom and righteousness.

Meaning of Testimony

The two tables are called the tables of the testimony because they contain God's testimony in the Ten Commandments, and the chest Moses was required to make expressly to hold them is for that reason called the ark of the testimony, the ark of God's testament, and the ark of the covenant, because the Ten Commandments were the basis of the covenant made between God and Israel. The ark was made like a chest of acacia wood, precious wood, overlaid within and without with pure gold and ornamented with crowns of gold around the top, with its cover the mercy-seat of solid gold bearing a cherub of pure solid gold fixed at each end, their faces turned toward each other and looking reverentially downward toward the mercy-seat, with one wing of each stretched forth on high and the other covering their forms in token of reverence and humility. Those cherubim represent all the heavenly angels looking with interest and reverence to the law of God deposited in the ark, for the earthly ark holding the tables in the inner apartment of the tabernacle was the pattern of the true ark in heaven where the law of God is deposited in the heavenly sanctuary with living angels standing beside it. The final giving of the Decalogue, called the testimony, engraved on two tables of stone by the hand of Divine Majesty, came after God gave directions for building a sanctuary for the special manifestation of the divine presence and gave further instructions in regard to the Sabbath. Moses with his minister Joshua was summoned to meet with God on Mount Sinai to receive it after appointing Aaron and Hur assisted by the elders to act in his stead, the glory of the Lord abode upon Mount Sinai like devouring fire in the eyes of Israel with the cloud covering it six days, Moses spent six days putting away common thoughts and feelings and sanctifying himself by meditation and prayer to be prepared to converse with his Maker and endure His glory, then God called him out of the midst of the cloud on the seventh day, and he was in the mount forty days and forty nights.

The tables hold the moral law of ten commandments, the Decalogue, the original moral law engraved in stone, distinct from the political regulations given to Moses in secret council with Jehovah which contain important lessons for every age but are not the universally obligatory law written by the finger of God to the close of time. God Himself came down upon Sinai in glory surrounded by angels after delivering Israel from Egypt and dividing the Red Sea and after Israel failed when proved and murmured and wished to return to Egypt, and spoke the law of ten commandments with an audible voice in the hearing of all the people and of assembled Israel, trusting no man and not even angels to teach them. He then wrote the commandments with His own holy finger upon tables of stone and proclaimed His holy law from Mount Sinai and engraved the precepts of the Decalogue, because Israel had confused ideas of God's law from witnessing Egyptian idolatry, were prone to forget and readily led astray, to leave them without excuse and to remove all possibility of mingling tradition with His holy precepts or confusing His requirements with the practices of men. Engraving on stone would not have been necessary if man had kept the law of God as given to Adam after his fall, preserved by Noah in the ark, and observed by Abraham, but Abraham's descendants failed to keep the covenant of which circumcision was the token by staying separate and perfect and free from idolatry, instead mingling with the nations, going into idolatry, and going down into Egypt.

He did not leave His people with the engraved precepts alone but guarded them with definite judgments, laws, and statutes dictated to Moses in the mount, spoken from His mouth and written by Moses in a book, which are the principles of the ten commandments simplified into minute duties toward one another and toward the stranger, given so that erring man prone to transgress would be drawn back to obedience of the moral law in duty to God and to one another and led to strict obedience without error. That ritual or ceremonial law and those judgments found fulfillment when type met antitype at Christ's death when the typical sacrifices ceased, while the moral law contained in the ten commandments, enforced by the prophets, was not taken away or revoked in any part, but stands fast as the faithful witness in heaven, immutable and holding its claims upon man in all ages. The system enjoined upon the Hebrews was not repealed or relaxed by the One who originated it, but was to be more fully carried out and more extended as salvation through Christ alone was more fully brought to light in the Christian age, and the two stone tablets bearing the Ten Commandments remain in the ark in heaven's Most Holy Place with their wording unchanged, the Sabbath commandment still identifying the seventh day as the Lord's Sabbath and enjoining its observance as not a burden except when transgressed. The moral law existed from the beginning of the world, first written not on stone but on the hearts of all people when they came from the Creator's hands, then formed in letters by God's finger, and though those letters are now greatly defaced by sin they cannot be wholly blotted out while people retain any consciousness of good and evil. Every part of it stays in force on all mankind in all ages because it depends not on time or place or other changeable circumstances but on the nature of God and the nature of man and their unchangeable relation to each other, and Christ came not to destroy it but to fulfill it by establishing it in its fullness against human glosses, bringing what was dark and obscure into full and clear view, declaring the true and full import of every part, and showing the length and breadth, the entire extent, and the height and depth, the inconceivable purity and spirituality of every commandment in all its branches.

The law rests on two principles, love for God which embraces the first four commandments defining duty to God, and love for one's neighbor which embraces the last six defining duty to fellow man and to other people, containing the whole duty of humanity and the foundation principles of the duty of God's subjects. These principles were stated more explicitly after the fall and expressed in particular precepts to clarify human duties, protect life, and preserve God's law from being forgotten. The ten commandments are summed up in love to God and love to one's neighbor, and other commands in Scripture amplify and specify what is already contained in them, including the special requirement for eternal life made known to the lawyer of loving God with all heart and soul and mind and strength and loving neighbor as self, with duty in the Christian age not limited but more especially defined and simply expressed. Reverence for the Sabbath engraved on the first table of stone leads to keeping the first three commandments toward God and the last six revealing duty to fellow man, for observance of the Lord's Sabbath is the sign of obedience to all His commandments and the Sabbath sign is the covenant between God and man, the golden clasp uniting man to God in supreme obedience and reverence and uniting man to his fellow man.

Divine Authorship and Permanence

God Himself spoke the precepts and wrote them with His own finger and hand on tables of stone. Unlike the rest of the Bible, where God-given truths are expressed in human language as a union of the divine and the human, the tables are wholly divine in authorship, of divine and not human composition. They are a transcript of God's character and eternal unchanging character, clearly revealing His will, His mind, His requirements, and the principles and laws of His kingdom and government, made known for Israel and for all nations and tongues. At the judgment the tables of stone, kept hidden until that day, will be presented as the standard of righteousness, and obedience to that perfect law is the prerequisite of salvation, leaving no excuse for sin and determining life or death.

Writing on stone signifies that the law is immutable, never to be erased, blotted out, destroyed, changed or abolished, but to endure forever like the principles of God's government. It is still binding on all men to the close of time in all ages and countries, not optional or non-binding, and allegiance to God is shown by obedience and not mere profession. It is not the handwriting against humanity that was removed at Christ's death; the sacrificial ordinances that prefigured Christ's death ended when type met antitype, but the Sabbath of the fourth commandment was not changed and remains binding forever. The tablets are preserved by God in the ark beside His presence and will be produced unchanged at the great judgment as testimony against disregard of His commandments and idolatrous worship of a counterfeit Sabbath. Nothing in them says the Sabbath was abolished or transferred to the first day of the week, and the fourth commandment remains unchanged and is shown with special glory, so that honoring another day instead of the day God sanctified is transgression.

Engraving became necessary because Israel had confused ideas of God's law from witnessing Egyptian idolatry, were prone to forget and misunderstand, and were readily led astray. God therefore spoke the ten commandments with an audible voice in the hearing of all the people, trusting no man and not even angels to teach them, and then wrote them Himself on stone to make His requirements clear, to leave them without excuse, and to remove all possibility of mingling tradition with His holy precepts or confusing His requirements with the practices of men. It would not have been necessary if man had kept the law as given to Adam after his fall, preserved by Noah in the ark, and observed by Abraham. But Abraham's descendants failed the covenant of which circumcision was the token by failing to stay separate and perfect and free from idolatry, mingling with the nations, going into idolatry, and going down into Egypt, after Israel had already failed when proved and murmured and wished to return to Egypt. He therefore guarded the engraved ten precepts with definite judgments, laws, statutes and directions dictated to Moses in the mount and written by Moses in a book, which simplify the principles of the ten commandments into minute duties toward one another and toward the stranger, to draw erring man prone to transgress back to strict obedience without error in duty to God and neighbor. Placing His holy law in lasting form was highly essential so it would never be lost to man but ever kept prominently before the world, for had it been obeyed the wickedness now seen in the world would never have existed.

The law was pronounced in awful grandeur from Sinai's mount directly from the voice of God, so no education can come from a higher source. The highest education that can be given to man is obedience to all of God's commandments, learned not from human unsanctified teachers but from God Himself and from God's law, and every truly sanctified soul living the Word will be educated and taught of God in this way. Jehovah Himself engraved His ten commandments on tables of stone so that all inhabitants of the earth might understand His eternal and unchangeable character, and these wonderful revelations must be laid hold of by teachers who desire to advance in learning and proficiency, with heart and mind brought into harmony with God in obedience in order to understand the divine requirements they contain. God condescended to speak with His own voice and to write with His own hand the living oracles, instinct with life and luminous with truth, committed to men as a perfect guide, making His requirements so explicit and so very plain that none need err. He constantly seeks thereby to draw men close under His protection so Satan cannot practice his cruel deceptive power upon them, for Satan is ever at work to pervert what God has spoken, to blind the mind and darken the understanding and thus lead men into sin, and is so ready to catch away the mind and divert the affections from the Lord's promises and requirements that greater diligence is needed to fix them in the mind and impress them upon the heart.

Sabbath Sign and Covenant

After He had finished speaking with Moses on Mount Sinai, God gave him two tables of testimony of stone written with His own finger, and the Sabbath commandment was one of the commandments engraved on them with full divine authority as a perpetual covenant and forever sign rooted in six-day creation and seventh-day rest. The Sabbath stands engraved on the first table of stone, at the center identifying God as Creator, and keeping it is keeping the law and expresses obedience to all the commandments. The Sabbath blessed and sanctified at creation and instituted in Eden when the foundations of the earth were laid recalls His making heaven and earth in six days and His rest, blessing, sanctifying, and being refreshed on the seventh day. The claim that the Sabbath commandment is no longer binding is Satan's working to take the world captive against God's own writing.

The seventh-day Sabbath is God's holy sign between Him and His people and Israel throughout their generations forever, a perpetual and everlasting covenant and memorial by which they acknowledge He alone is God and know that He sanctifies them. Keeping it as God's rest day acknowledges Him before the churches and the world as Creator, and human numbers, honor, or attempted changes to God's law cannot make another day holy or give it heaven's seal. It is the covenant between God and man, the golden clasp uniting man to God in supreme obedience and reverence and uniting man to fellow man in duty, with love to Him shown by keeping all His commandments. Reverence for the Sabbath leads to keeping the first three commandments toward God and the last six revealing duty to fellow man. Parents are therefore to teach their children to obey the Sabbath commandment so they may be numbered among God's people, and eternal security is given to everyone who strives in the right way on right principles.

Sabbath observance is the great test that distinguishes those who keep the commandments of God from those who transgress His law, marking the obedient party distinct from the disobedient and unholy party and drawing a plain line between him that serves God and him that serves Him not. It is the sign of obedience to all His commandments, identifying those who bear God's sign and who stand under Christ's banner as commandment-keepers apart from transgressors and unbelievers. Its observance belongs to the work of restoring God's moral image in humanity, with these truths made prominent as the breach in His law is repaired. It is the foundation on which God's people stand securely when Satan uses deception and counterfeit miracles in the final conflict, rather than miracles which Satan can counterfeit.

The word forever confirms the Sabbath and law cannot be changed by human numbers, honor, attempted changes, inventions, or transgression, for God honors the Sabbath as His everlasting covenant which does not change. The seventh day is the memorial of creation and the Sabbath, not the first day or an ordinary workday, and Sunday has no sanctification placed in it at all. Replacing it with a spurious Sunday Sabbath or an ordinary workday defies the Lawgiver, turns people away from God and the city of God, and brings a penalty for breaking His law. The devil makes Sunday a power to intimidate people not to keep the very day God gave them to keep. Those who knowingly violate the Sabbath are warned that they will be cut off from God's people, with transgression bringing condemnation in the judgment, penalty and death, while keeping it holy brings blessing, cheerfulness, large success, life to the receiver, and preservation in trial.

Preserved for Final Judgment

What God wrote on the two tables of testimony could not be blotted out, erased or destroyed. The tables held the ten commandments inscribed by God himself, and for that reason they are called the tables of the testimony. Moses was required to place them inside the ark, a chest of acacia wood overlaid within and without with gold, with a mercy-seat of solid gold and cherubim with faces toward each other looking reverentially downward upon the law. The ark was made expressly as a depository to contain them, and therefore is called the ark of the testimony, the ark of God's testament and the ark of the covenant, because the ten commandments were the basis of the covenant made between God and Israel. Its value and sacredness came only from the presence of those divine precepts within it as a receptacle.

The earthly ark and the inner apartment of the tabernacle were the pattern of the true ark in heaven, where the law of God is deposited in the heavenly sanctuary with living angels standing beside it looking with interest and reverence toward it. That heavenly ark was later brought into the most holy place of the temple as a sacred reminder of the wilderness experience. The tablets are preserved by God and kept hidden from humanity, now lying in the ark in their hiding place in the heavenly sanctuary. When God's temple in heaven is opened they will be produced and brought forth at God's appointed time as a testimony against disregard of His commandments and idolatrous worship of a counterfeit Sabbath. Jesus shut the door of the holy place and opened the door of the most holy place in 1844, bringing the ark and the law into view as present truth, which enemies of present truth oppose by seeking to open the door He shut and close the door He opened.

Their unveiling will be a triumphant time for all who have been faithful and true, and a convincing testimony to the truth and binding claims of God's law. The tables stand as the unalterable standard of righteousness, the rule of judgment and unanswerable witness against transgression, by which every person, character, deed, business transaction and principle is compared, weighed and decided. The law is a transcript of God's character and His own righteousness, brief, comprehensive and authoritative, clearly revealing His will, the requirements He makes of His people and the laws of His kingdom made known for all nations and tongues. Obedience to that perfect law is the prerequisite of salvation and leaves no excuse for sin, bringing life, happiness, peace, noble character, holiness, purity, sanctified love and beauty of character, while transgression brings death, horror and despair.

At the end the stone tablets appear in the sky held in a hand, folded together then opened, with the precepts of the Decalogue traced as with fire so plain that all inhabitants of the earth can read them. Their display arouses memory, sweeps superstition and heresy from every mind, and fixes every man's choice of whom to serve and worship after opportunity to compare character and to repent and reform is past. Those who trampled the requirements, set aside its precepts to secure worldly favor, taught others to transgress and tried to compel God's people to profane His Sabbath are condemned by that same law and see with awful distinctness that they are without excuse. The wicked will then recognize that their deeds arose from a depraved character and furthered rebellion against God, and that the law they disobeyed was their life.

The heavenly tables bear the same unchanged wording spoken on the mount in solemn grandeur amid flashing lightnings, rolling thunder, thunder and flame, appointing six days for labor and the seventh day as the Sabbath of the Lord. Nothing in them abolishes the Sabbath or transfers it to the first day of the week. The fourth commandment stands living among the ten holy precepts with brighter light upon it than the other nine and a halo of glory around it, because it alone points out who the living God is, the Maker of heaven and earth, dating from creation. Keeping it would have preserved the world from idolatry, infidelity and atheism, but the man of sin trampled it thinking to change times and laws from the seventh to the first day, calling forth the third angel's message to repair the breach and warn the world to keep the commandments. In vision the heavenly temple on Mount Zion, a temple supported by seven pillars of transparent gold set with glorious pearls, also shows tables bearing the names of the 144,000 engraved in letters of gold.

History Warning and Obedience

The giving came after the directions for building the tabernacle and after enforced Sabbath observance, because Israel compelled to work on the Sabbath as slaves in Egypt had largely lost knowledge of the Sabbath. Freed from bondage where taskmasters had forced Sabbath labor into freedom where they could observe all precepts unmolested, they were given the commandments in awful grandeur on Mount Sinai to guard His Sabbath in particular. He knew the people would forget the Sabbath commandment and the workmen would say the tabernacle work was the Lord's work under His supervision and could be done without observing the Sabbath. Therefore the seventh day was distinguished as God's memorial to be kept holy to the Lord as a sign between Him and Israel forever, grounded in His making heaven and earth in six days and resting and being refreshed on the seventh day, so the people may know that He is the Lord who sanctifies them. The law on two stone tablets written by God's own finger included that Sabbath command, which the Israelites were reminded to keep during their wilderness journey, and keeping it faithfully reminded them that God was their Creator and Redeemer and that He sanctified them. It was reinforced through nearly forty years of wandering by withholding manna every seventh day and miraculously preserving the double portion gathered on the preparation day, and it guarded them from idolatry while kept in the proper spirit.

While God was writing down His law during the forty days Moses was in the mount to be committed to His covenant people, Satan at the very foot of Sinai was carrying forward the work of overthrowing God's law begun in heaven, exciting doubt, apostasy and rebellion. He led Israel to deny loyalty to Jehovah and demand gods of gold, and when Moses came from the awful presence of the divine glory with the precepts they had pledged to obey, Israel was in open defiance of its commands, bowing in adoration before a golden image. By leading Israel to this daring insult and blasphemy, Satan planned to cause their ruin and divorce from God and destruction, and thus secure the extinction of the seed of Abraham, the seed of promise that was to preserve the knowledge of the living God and through whom the true Seed was to come to conquer Satan. The two stone tables of testimony written by God's own finger were a lasting witness to His claims to keep Israel from forgetting what He had commanded, yet Israel stood amid visible glory and soon disbelieved and worshiped a calf, where faithfulness to revealed word would have kept them from apostasy. Breaking the tablets signified that Israel had broken its covenant with God and that God had broken covenant with them.

To break both tables is to violate the whole law by unholy zeal, acting in unsanctified human way instead of God's way, failing to deny self and restrain uprising passion, and mingling strange fire with offerings through unadvised speech and actions. Such breaking dishonors God, brings truth into disrepute, causes God's work to be misjudged and reproached, works against God's honor and salvation of souls, and furnishes arguments against the truth.

The moment after speaking with Moses on Mount Sinai when God gave two stone tablets bearing the testimony written by His own finger places the Sabbath command as the special sign distinguishing God's people from the world, so parents are to teach children to obey it that they may be numbered among God's people. The commandments so written were entrusted to Israel and are now committed to care with solemn duty to proclaim God's law including the seventh-day Sabbath commandment. The close of that instruction made observance of His commandments make Israel a distinct people denominated of God, separate from the world, with the Sabbath the distinguishing sign between God and Israel throughout generations forever that they may know the Lord sanctifies them. The seventh-day Sabbath as God's memorial of creation and sign of authority belongs to all God's commandments, keeping it identifies bearers of God's sign, and its observance belongs to restoring God's moral image, so these truths are to be made prominent in repairing the breach in His law. Its claims as binding and enduring are to be openly upheld and taught, including in sanitariums, with truth presented so it enlightens rather than offends.

Exodus 31:12-18 with Exodus 20 gives the great test question, the clean pure testing truth that means life to the receiver. Its verity and confirmation are to be established with heaviest evidences and brought to the front, especially in Washington and in large public gatherings such as camp-meetings and tent efforts in or near large cities, with abundance of ministerial help so workers are not overwearied. It must not be set aside for excitement over minor jot-and-tittle matters that give the trumpet uncertain sound and open the door to questioning and division of sentiment.

God gave the two tables of testimony of stone written with His own finger so His people might make no mistake about what He required, especially which day to observe as Sabbath, and these written tables were preserved so they would ever bear in mind God's claims and obey truth exactly as it stands. This Sabbath-keeping in obedience to the tables is genuine sanctification. The law written on stone with His own finger is a transcript of God's character clearly revealing His will and requirements and the principles that are the laws of His kingdom for all nations and tongues, and at the judgment the tables kept hidden until that day will be presented as the standard of righteousness. Obedience to God's perfect law is the prerequisite of salvation, its principles leave no excuse for sin and determine whether people receive life or death. These tablets contained the holy law including the Sabbath commandment, and obedience to that law deepens understanding of genuine medical missionary work.

Observance of the Lord's Sabbath gives eternal security to everyone striving in the right way on right principles, for it is the sign of obedience to all His commandments. The Sabbath blessed and sanctified at creation is a sign between God and His people throughout generations forever that He is the Lord who sanctifies them, and God will fulfill His word when agents show love by keeping all commandments. Reverence for the Sabbath engraved on the first table leads to keeping the first three commandments toward God and the last six revealing duty to fellow man, for the Sabbath sign is the covenant, the golden clasp uniting man to God in supreme obedience and reverence and uniting man to fellow man. The law was pronounced in awful grandeur from Sinai's Mount directly from God's voice, so no education can come from a higher source. The highest education is obedience to all God's commandments, learned not from human unsanctified teachers but from God Himself and from God's law, and every truly sanctified soul living the Word will be educated and taught of God in this way.

Further points

The closing charge on Sinai joins the Sabbath instruction to the handing over of the tables to show the sacred authority of God's testimony and law. That testimony is holy and must be guarded as holy, kept distinct and reverenced rather than treated as ordinary. It must not be mixed with common or unsuitable material that would lower its sacred character.