Two stone tablets received by Moses from God on Mount Sinai; also known as "two tablets of the law" or "two tablets of testimony." Moses was summoned by God to ascend Mount Sinai in order to receive "the tablets of stone and the Torah and the commandments which I have written" (Ex. 24:12). Upon these stone slabs was inscribed "by the finger of God" (Ex. 31:18) the Ten Commandments, "on both their sides; on the one side and on the other ... and the writing was the writing of God" (Ex. 32:15, 16).
When Moses saw the Children of Israel worshiping the Golden Calf, he smashed the two tablets (Ex. 32:19). He was subsequently summoned by God to prepare a second pair, identical to the first, and to ascend to the mountain top, where he would again inscribe the words of the first (Ex. 34:1-4). These two tablets were brought down from the mountain by Moses and eventually deposited in the Ark of the Covenant (Deut. 10:2) that Solomon housed in the First Temple (I Kings 8:1-10), remaining there until the destruction of the Temple by the Babylonians in 586 BCE.
In the talmudic period, the two tablets of the covenant took on symbolic meaning, representing not only the Written Law and all 613
In the late Middle Ages, the two tablets of the covenant came to be used as a Jewish religious symbol. In 19th-century Central and Western Europe, they were often displayed on the exterior of the synagogues, being regarded as a more universal symbol than the Menorah. They continue to adorn Jewish ritual objects, especially synagogue arks, art, and jewelry, often guarded on either side by the lions of Judah and decorated with a shield of David. The tablets are depicted as two connected rectangular slabs with rounded tops and are usually inscribed with the first ten letters of the Hebrew alphabet, Roman numerals, or the first words of each of the commandments.
