Then Miracle of the Tablets

Dani Roth

“There upon Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of testimony in his hand, tablets written from their two sides: from this side and from that side they were written” (Exod. 32:15).

When Moshe received the Luchot, it specifically mentions that they were written on both sides. Why was this an important feature of the Luchot? Wouldn’t one side be sufficient to communicate God's commands? 

Furthermore, couldn’t Moshe make the inscriptions on both sides himself? If he could inscribe them himself, what's the proof that the Luchot were made by God?

We can answer both questions as follows. Our passuk can mean not that they were “written” on both sides, but rather that they were “legible” from both sides. Meaning, that as the Luchot were made from translucent sapphire, one could see the text from both sides. The key point is that the text was embedded “inside” the Luchot, not scratched upon its surfaces. Something like this could never have been done by man. This shows that God communicated Torah in a miraculous divine manner. 

This theory is supported by the very next pasuk that says that the writing was “The writing of God.” Meaning, this writing was impossible to be created by a human.