Who gave Moses the 10 commandments?

The Ten Commandments were announced by God from Mount Sinai in the desert of Arabia. They were given to the children of Israel in view of their going into the land, promised by God to Abraham and his heirs long before. One of the great glories of the children of Israel was “the giving of the law” (Rom. 9:4), which has been entwined in their history from that day to this. Amid the dense darkness of superstition and idolatry, that cast its horrible gloom on the surrounding nations, the light of God and His claims shone brightly in the favoured land of Israel.

It was truly a day of days in the history of the world, now over 3,500 years ago, when Moses was commanded by God to ascend Mount Sinai, that forbidding peak in the desert of Arabia. The whole Mount smoked like a furnace. The LORD descended in fire upon it. The earth trembled under His mighty footstep. The trumpet sounded long, growing louder and louder. In their terror the Israelites besought that “the word should not be spoken to them any more” (Heb. 12:19). Even Moses confessed, “I exceedingly fear and quake” (Heb. 12:21). Such were the sublime and awe-inspiring circumstances attending the giving of the Law.

After the provision of water from the smitten rock at Rephidim, Amalek came out in power to oppose the people's progress, and was defeated. To Sinai then Israel came, no further opposition being offered to their advance. There they heard what was new to them, God speaking to them directly out of the fire. God then declared, directly from Himself, the covenant which He commanded them to perform, even the ten commandments (Deut. 4:12-13). Fitting it was that they should have direct from His mouth those ten words (Deut. 10:4). He thus talked with them face to face (Deut. 5:4). After that He communicated to Moses in the mount His will to dwell among them: "Let them make Me a sanctuary: that I may dwell among them" (Ex. 25:8).

This law covenant is now stated. It was given three times. First orally here, when God spake all these words. Then in Exodus 31 Moses received the tables of stone, "written with the finger of God," the same finger which later wrote on earth in the sand (John 8). The first tables were broken and Moses was commanded to hew two tables of stone upon which Jehovah again wrote the Ten Commandments (Ex. 34:1). This law was given to Israel exclusively, which is seen in the opening word. The voice of God spoke these words so that the people heard Him speak. In what sense the law was given by the ministration of angels (Acts 7:53; Gal, 3:19, Heb. 2:2) is not revealed here. Our Lord has divided the Ten Commandments into two sections. The first three go together and speak of duties towards God and the seven which follow of duties towards our fellowmen. And He who gave this law expounded the law and filled it full when He appeared on earth in humiliation. And after He lived that holy life on earth He went to the cross and the curse of the law rested upon Him (Gal. 3:13). The law given in these commandments shows man's condition. Most of the commandments are negative, "thou shalt not." It is a prohibition of the will and natural tendency of man. Man is a sinner, and the law was given to make a full demonstration of it. Read Rom. 5:12-14, 20; 7:6-13; Gal. 3:19-29. May we fully understand that this law cannot give righteousness nor life and that it is not in force as the rule for the Christian in order to receive blessing from God. We are not under that law but under grace. But grace teaches us to live righteously, soberly and godly in this present evil age. The righteous requirements of the law are fulfilled in us, who walk according to the Spirit.

God's instructions to Moses being complete, He then gave to him two tables of stone on which were written with the finger of God the ten commandments for Israel.

Confronted with the majestic display of God's holiness, the people tremble (Ex. 19:16). Moses himself (as Hebrews 12:21 reminds us) was so fearful of the sight that he said, “I am exceedingly afraid and trembling.” Then God pronounces the ten basic commandments on which the moral law is founded.

This occasion was one of the utmost importance, not only for the children of Israel, but in the history of the whole world. It was marked by great happenings. Moses, the leader of the children of Israel, was told to ascend to the top of Mount Sinai, where he would meet God. We read, “There were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled … and Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the LORD descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly” (Ex. 19:16, 18). God’s own fingers wrote the Ten Commandments upon tables of stone, as a standard of life in relation to God, and to each other, whilst finally the lesson stretched out to the whole world, as we read, “Now we know that what things soever the law says, it says to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and ALL THE WORLD may become guilty before God” (Rom. 3:19).

The children of Israel having accepted the covenant of law, Moses went up into Mount Sinai to receive the ten words in a written form, as a permanent standard of reference. Jehovah undertook to write with His finger on two tables of stone those words which He had commanded through the lips of Moses. Moses, accordingly, went up into the divine presence, and disappeared from sight in the cloud that enveloped the mount. He was there with God, fasting for forty days and forty nights, to receive from Him the “law of commandments contained in ordinances” that the people had undertaken to fulfil under the penalty of death for disobedience.

Those of you who were present here, last Lord's Day evening, will remember that we followed Moses up to the mount, where he spent his first forty days receiving from God the ten commandments, the law, the claims of God upon man, written down on the tables of stone. And when Moses came down, you remember what was the condition of affairs below. All was ruin. Everything was hopeless.

The Lord spoke out of the midst of the fire. Israel saw no form, but they heard His voice (v.12). God declared His covenant and accompanied it by writing the ten commandments on two tables of stone (v.13). At the same time He commanded Moses to teach Israel His statutes and judgments, not only for the wilderness journey, but in view of their crossing into the land of Canaan (v.14). The passing of forty years in the wilderness made no difference as to Israel's responsibility to keep the law, and keep it consistently in the land of Canaan.

Alas! beloved, it was all simple that they ought to have obeyed His voice and kept His covenant; but on the other hand, had they known themselves better, they would have dreaded to promise as to what they would do. God then gives them the law from Mount Sinai — the ten commandments; His whole manner changing as He does it, for it was a fiery law He was giving. Alas! it was not a law under which they could stand. But they needed it, and God saw their need, to test their condition, that they might see where they were. And Moses goes up into the mount, in order to receive from the Lord those same commandments written on tables of stone, that they might be kept abidingly amongst them.