The two tablets of the Testimony were the work of God, written on both sides with the writing of God engraved on them. Moses carried them down from Sinai after his first forty days with God, and when he saw the golden calf and the dancing, his anger burned hot and he cast them from his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. That fit of temper, like his killing of the Egyptian forty years earlier, shows that Moses, though prepared for decades, was not yet finished and that his mind was not fully in sync with God's. His plea to be blotted out of God's book and his request to see God's glory point the same way. During a second forty days in God's presence, recorded in Exodus 34, Moses became more like God through His Spirit. He no longer saw himself as separate from or above stiff-necked Israel, and he understood that the work is God's alone and that God prepares whomever He wills. When he came down again with the tablets in his hand, the skin of his face radiated, so that Israel feared to approach, and he veiled his face when speaking to them. The tablets, then, are the holy words of God's covenant, and Moses was changed by receiving them with God's Spirit and knowing the plan and purpose behind the words.

When Moses cut two new tablets of stone to replace the first ones broken during the Golden Calf incident, he carried them up Mount Sinai at God's command. There the Lord descended in the cloud and proclaimed His name to him. Moses stood holding the newly hewn tablets on which the Ten Commandments would soon be written, and this pictures his righteous disposition toward God. He embraced God's commandments, and his attitude toward righteousness was meek, humble, and ready to learn. Because Moses was so receptive, God preached to him a sermon on His name: merciful, gracious, longsuffering, abounding in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, and punishing sin in measured fashion. Through this Moses understood how a holy God can dwell among a sinful, stiff-necked nation, which is through His name and character rather than the overwhelming glory that sinners cannot endure. Those who follow this pattern learn God's name and character and embrace them as Moses embraced the tablets. They keep His word, do not deny His name, and never deviate from it in unfaithfulness. These are the people God rewards by writing His name on them.