Inquiry: Traditionally, the Ten Commandments are known as the commandments stated in Exodus 20:1-17. In Exodus 34:1-2, Moses is told to get another set of tablets to rewrite what was on the first tablets. In Exodus 34:10-26, Moses was told a number [ten] of things of what to and not to do. In Exodus 34:27-28, God tells Moses to write the words he told him on those very tablets and name them the Ten Commandments. These aren’t the same commandments in Exodus 20. Is there a contradiction?
Response: It is important to note who is writing what, and where it is being written. Moses was to cut the stones and bring them to the LORD. The LORD, not Moses would write on the tablets of stone (Exodus 34:1). And, we are told what He woudl write on them, “…the words that were on the first…”
Exodus 34:28 tells us that “He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.” He is God (Exodus 34:1; Deuteronomy 10:2-4). What did He write? The same thing that was on the first tablets, the Ten Commandments.
What about this other list of laws in Exodus 34:10-26? They were not written on the tablets, and it was Moses, not the LORD who wrote them. Where did he write them? Moses wrote the book of the Law, the whole Law, not just the Ten Commandments (Deuteronomy 17:18; 31:9). After he funished writing the Law, it was given to the Levites, and they were commanded:
Take this Book of the Law, and put it beside the ark of the coveantn of the LORD your God... (Deuteronomy 31:26)
The Ten Commandments were recorded on the tablets of stone by the finger of God and put into the ark (Deuteronomy 10:5). The Book of the Law which Moses wrote was placed next to the ark (Deuteronomy 31:26)
There is no contradiction.
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