Tablet

A flat, usually rectangular, surface used for writing. Stone tablets, symbolising permanence, were usually engraved with an iron tool. Tablets of moist clay and writing boards of wood or ivory containing a layer of wax were inscribed with a stylus. The term is also used figuratively to refer to the human heart.

Tablets engraved with an iron tool

Job 19:23–24 See also Jeremiah 17:1

I wish that my words were recorded and inscribed in a book, by an iron stylus on lead, or chiseled in stone forever.

The Ten Commandments were inscribed on stone tablets

The tablets were inscribed by God

Deuteronomy 9:9–11 In keeping with ancient Near Eastern practice, the two tablets may have been duplicates of a single covenant document. See also Exodus 24:12, Exodus 31:18; Deuteronomy 4:13, Deuteronomy 5:22

When I went up on the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that the LORD made with you, I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I ate no bread and drank no water. Then the LORD gave me the two stone tablets, inscribed by the finger of God with the exact words that the LORD spoke to you out of the fire on the mountain on the day of the assembly. And at the end of forty days and forty nights, the LORD gave me the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant.

The tablets were broken

Exodus 32:15–19 See also Deuteronomy 9:15–17

Then Moses turned and went down the mountain with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands. They were inscribed on both sides, front and back. The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets. When Joshua heard the sound of the people shouting, he said to Moses, “The sound of war is in the camp.” But Moses replied: “It is neither the cry of victory nor the cry of defeat; I hear the sound of singing!” As Moses approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, he burned with anger and threw the tablets out of his hands, shattering them at the base of the mountain.

New tablets were inscribed by God

Deuteronomy 10:1–4 See also Exodus 34:4, Exodus 34:28–29

At that time the LORD said to me, “Chisel out two stone tablets like the originals, come up to Me on the mountain, and make an ark of wood. And I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke; and you are to place them in the ark.” So I made an ark of acacia wood, chiseled out two stone tablets like the originals, and went up the mountain with the two tablets in my hands. And the LORD wrote on the tablets what had been written previously, the Ten Commandments that He had spoken to you on the mountain out of the fire on the day of the assembly. The LORD gave them to me,

The new tablets were put into the ark

Deuteronomy 10:5 See also 1 Kings 8:9 parallel 2 Chronicles 5:10; Hebrews 9:4

and I went back down the mountain and placed the tablets in the ark I had made, as the LORD had commanded me; and there they have remained.

God's commands were copied onto altar stones

Deuteronomy 27:2–8 See also Joshua 8:30–32

And on the day you cross the Jordan into the land that the LORD your God is giving you, set up large stones and coat them with plaster. Write on them all the words of this law when you have crossed over to enter the land that the LORD your God is giving you, a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has promised you. And when you have crossed the Jordan, you are to set up these stones on Mount Ebal, as I am commanding you today, and you are to coat them with plaster. Moreover, you are to build there an altar to the LORD your God, an altar of stones. You must not use any iron tool on them. You shall build the altar of the LORD your God with uncut stones and offer upon it burnt offerings to the LORD your God. There you are to sacrifice your peace offerings, eating them and rejoicing in the presence of the LORD your God. And you shall write distinctly upon these stones all the words of this law.”

Writing tablets

Tablets of unspecified material

Habakkuk 2:2 See also Isaiah 30:8; Luke 1:63

Then the LORD answered me: “Write down this vision and clearly inscribe it on tablets, so that a herald may run with it.

Other surfaces used for writing

1 Kings 7:36 The bases of the bronze lavers in Solomon's temple were engraved; Isaiah 8:1 Isaiah's inscription is with a pen on a scroll; Ezekiel 4:1 Ezekiel draws a plan of Jerusalem on a clay tablet. This was a common medium for plans in Babylon.

Tablets of the heart

The commands and teachings of Proverbs

Proverbs 3:3 See also Proverbs 6:21, Proverbs 7:3

Never let loving devotion or faithfulness leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart.

The new covenant

Jeremiah 31:33 Under the new covenant God's law will be inward, written on human hearts rather than on tablets of stone. See also Ezekiel 36:26–27; 2 Corinthians 3:3; Hebrews 8:10, Hebrews 10:16

“But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD. I will put My law in their minds and inscribe it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they will be My people.