In Exodus 19 Moses records the grand, majestic, and awesome scene of the Lord God descending on Mount Sinai. It was then in Exodus 20 that God spoke the Ten Commandments to the Israelites. These are the Ten Commandments that later Moses did smash.
It says in Exodus 20: 18-21,
“Now all the people witnessed the thunderings, the lightning flashes, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they trembled and stood afar off. Then they said to Moses, “You speak with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.” And Moses said to the people, “Do not fear; for God has come to test you, and that His fear may be before you, so that you may not sin.” So the people stood afar off, but Moses drew near the thick darkness where God was.”
So Moses went up to Mount Sinai to receive instructions from the Lord regarding both civil and religious matters. At the end of his time on the mountain, Moses was given the stone tablets that God had hewn and had written the Ten Commandments on with His own hand (Exodus 31:18, Exodus 32:16). Why did Moses then Smash them?
Two copies of the Ten Commandments were given to Moses (Exodus 31:18). The first was God’s copy and the other was ours. God did not need to keep His copy in heaven because it reflected His own character. He gave both copies to Moses to take to the Israelites. One represented who God was, and the other signified who the Israelites could become if they chose to do so with the Lord’s help.
Moses had been up on the mountain for forty days and nights (Exodus 24:18). As the Israelites waited they said to one another and to Aaron, “Come, make us gods that shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him” (Exodus 32:1).
Thus, the Israelites melted their jewellery and shaped themselves a golden calf. They then made their own sacrifices, danced, sang, and engaged in such revelry that Joshua (the servant of Moses who had waited part way up the Mountain) thought it sounded like war (Exodus 32: 6,17). The Israelites worshipped this image they had made with their own hands and said that it had been responsible for their escape from slavery, it would be their helper from now on (Exodus 32:4).
It brought the Israelites into the realm of the disgusting and shameful. Many Bible scholars suggest that the worship of the golden calf was likely associated with human sacrifices. Moreover, in Exodus 32:25 it says, “when Moses saw that the people were naked; (for Aaron had made them naked unto their shame among their enemies)” (KJV). This nakedness was typical of drunken orgies.
The golden calf was the antithesis of how God is. The golden calf was dead; God is living. The golden calf was made with things that equated with man’s glory (jewellery); God has His own glory. The golden calf and anything associated with its worship needed to be thought of and made by its worshippers. God, on the other hand, is the Creator. He comes up with the ideas and is able to fashion what is necessary for His worship. Exodus 32:16 says, “Now the tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God engraved on the tablets.” No human was necessary for that. The golden calf required the blood of man, their shame, and their debasement. God gives the blood of the Lamb of God, ennoblement, and His glory.
I believe that is why, as God handed the Ten Commandments to Moses, He reiterated the nature and purpose of the Sabbath commandment. In Exodus 31: 13-17 God says,
“Speak also to the children of Israel, saying: ‘Surely My Sabbaths you shall keep, for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the LORD who sanctifies you. You shall keep the Sabbath, therefore, for it is holy to you. Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death; for whoever does any work on it, that person shall be cut off from among his people. Work shall be done for six days, but the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. Therefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever; for in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed.’ ”
God does not repeat any of the other Ten Commandments except the fourth. He specifically reiterates the importance of the seventh-day Sabbath because it eliminates the need for human striving and causes us to rest in God and be refreshed. The seventh-day Sabbath is a sign that God alone can sanctify us – rescue us from the slavery of sin and be our helper in keeping the Ten Commandments and anything else we need help with.
Moses was warned by God of the Israelites’ idolatry before he descended the mountain and saw what they were doing. He knew what they were doing before he chose to smash the Ten Commandments. The decision to smash those precious stones was not a rash one. It was done with righteous indignation.
Moses had come from the heights of the mountain where God had been and came to the very bottom where humanity had fallen. What a contrast!
With righteous indignation, Moses threw the Ten Commandments to the ground, smashing both stones—the one representing God and the other representing humanity.
What happened at the foot of Mount Sinai illustrated what had happened at the fall of man. Whilst Adam and Eve had not succumbed to worshipping a golden calf and engaged in its despicable forms of worship, they had sought to gain a better existence through their own works. They had broken the law of God by eating from the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil. As a consequence, not only did Adam and Eve’s hearts and lives become broken, but God’s heart and life became broken as well.
If we imagine the Ten Commandments smashed into tiny shards around the feet of Moses, we get a small object lesson of just how hurt God’s heart is by our rejection. It also helps us to visualise what our rebellion does to our own hearts.
Humanity’s continued ‘brokenness’ has been seen throughout Earth’s history. However, it was not until the Garden of Gethsemane, when Jesus was sweating blood as He wrestled over His imminent self-sacrifice, that the ‘brokenness’ of God started to be revealed.
As Christ hung on the cross and then died, “The mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, … [was] revealed to His saints”. (Colossians 1:26)
The broken law in the Garden of Eden, at the foot of Mount Sinai, and throughout all of this world’s history made it necessary to reveal a broken God on the cross of Calvary.
When Moses stood with the smashed Ten Commandments around his feet, he represented Christ as he said, ‘Blot me out of Your book’ (Exodus 32:32). When the Ten Commandments of God are removed from our lives, God is removed from our lives.
We may feel that we have liberty when we sin, but we don’t. When sin comes into our lives, we become slaves to it. This, in turn, effects God.
While God could have used His liberty to annihilate us, He chose to take responsibility for and bear the consequences of our poor choice. God allowed Himself to become bound by the consequences of sin: death. This is the revelation of God’s self-sacrificing character.
When we do something wrong, we love mercy. When someone does something wrong to us, we love justice. We did what was wrong, and God gave us mercy, and He took the justice.
In those hours that followed Christ’s sacrifice—as He was ‘blotted out’—how Satan must have celebrated in triumph. The complete revelation of the Ten Commandments, seen in the character of Christ, had seemingly perished! Smashed to pieces! But Satan’s sense of victory was short-lived.
As Paul says, “And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins” (1Corinthians 15:17). As Jesus rose, like the sun bursting forth in the dark hours of Sunday morning, He rose with “healing in His wings” (Malachi 4:2).
Just as the Ten Commandments were written a second time and given to Moses (Exodus 34:1), so was the law restored in humanity as Christ rose whole. It was never to be smashed again.
Christ’s death and resurrection deliver us (if we so choose) from the deadly outcome of being separated from God, and it makes salvation and lawkeeping possible. This is what fixes broken humanity and this broken world.
It says in Ephesians 2:8-9 “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast”. Then Romans 2:13 states: “For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified”.
As we (through prayer, Bible study, and a daily choice to surrender to His will) seek out Christ, who is the embodiment of the Ten Commandments, He replaces our surrendered lives with His surrendered life. He replaces our life of lawlessness with His life of lawkeeping. The smashed Ten Commandments are replaced with ones that will never break.
We cannot rescue ourselves from our life of slavery to sin, nor can we really help ourselves with anything worthwhile. We are liable to smash all that is truly important and helpful and replace it with ‘golden calves’ that degrade and entrap us. However, when we trust in Christ’s ability to be our deliverer, we will rest, be refreshed, and be transformed into His likeness.
In the story of Exodus, the first two tables were cut by God. The second two were cut and brought to God by Moses (Exodus 34:1). There is a spiritual parallel to this reality.
When God first created humans, He placed His character, the law, automatically in their hearts. Once the law was broken, they needed to willingly bring their hearts to Him for Him to write His character, His law, upon them. Will you willingly bring your heart to have His character of love written upon it?
This is God’s promise: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgements and do them” (Ezekiel 36:26-27).
