Westminster Theological Journal 22 (1960) 133-46. Copyright © 1960 by Westminster Theological Seminary. Cited with permission.THE TWO TABLES OF THE COVENANT MEREDITH G. KLINE“AND he declared unto you his covenant, which he com-manded you to perform, even ten commandments; and he wrote them upon two tables of stone" (Deut. 4:13).It has been commonly assumed that each of the stone tables contained but a part of the total revelation proclaimed by the voice of God out of the fiery theophany on Sinai. Only the subordinate question of the dividing point between the "first and second tables" has occasioned disagreement.1 A re-examination of the biblical data, however, particularly in the light of extra-biblical parallels, suggests a radically new interpretation of the formal nature of the two stone tables, the importance of which will be found to lie primarily in the fresh perspective it lends to our understanding of the divine oracle engraved upon them.Attention has been frequently directed in recent years to the remarkable resemblance between God's covenant with Israel and the suzerainty type of international treaty found in the ancient Near East.2 Similarities have been discovered in the areas of the documents, the ceremonies of ratification, the modes of administration, and, most basically of course, 1 The perashiyoth (pericopes marked in the Hebrew text) apparently reflect the opinion that the "second table" begins with the fourth com-mandment. (Here and elsewhere in this article the designation of specificcommandments is based on the common Protestant enumeration.) The dominant opinion has been that the "second table" opens with the fifth commandment, but Jews usually count the fifth commandment as thelast in the "first table", filial reverence being regarded as a religious duty. 2 See G. E. Mendenhall, "Covenant Forms in Israelite Tradition", The Biblical Archaeologist, XVII (1954) 3, pp. 50-76. D. J. Wiseman had previously read a paper on some of the parallels to the Society for OldTestament Studies (Jan. 1948). The most adequate documentation for the suzerainty treaty, particularly in its classic form, comes from the New Hittite Empire of the second millennium B.C., but there are referencesto such international treaties in the late third millennium B.C., and the suzerainty type continues to be attested in its essential form during the early first millennium B.C.133134 WESTMINSTER THEOLOGICAL JOURNALthe suzerain-servant relationship itself. On the biblical side the resemblance is most apparent in the accounts of the theocratic covenant as instituted through the mediatorship of Moses at Sinai and as later renewed under both Moses and Joshua. Of most interest for the subject of this article is the fact that the pattern of the suzerainty treaty can be traced in miniature in the revelation written on the two tables by the finger of God."I am the Lord thy God", the opening words of the Sinaitic proclamation (Exod. 20:2a), correspond to the preamble of the suzerainty treaties, which identified the suzerain and that in terms calculated to inspire awe and fear. For example, the treaty of Mursilis with his vassal Duppi-Tessub of Amurru begins: "These are the words of the Sun Mursilis, the great king, the king of the Hatti land, the valiant, the favorite of the Storm-god, the son of Suppiluliumas, etc."3 Such treaties continued in an "I-thou" style with an historical prologue, surveying the great king's previous relations with, and espe-cially his benefactions to, the vassal king. In the treaty just referred to, Mursilis reminds Duppi-Tessub of the vassal status of his father and grandfather, of their loyalty and enjoyment of Mursilis' just oversight, and climactically there is narrated how Mursilis, true to his promise to Duppi-Tessub's father, secured the dynastic succession for Duppi-Tessub, sick and ailing though he was. In the Bible the historical prologue is found in the further words of the Lord: "which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage" (Exod. 20:2b). This element in the covenant document was clearly designed to inspire confidence and gratitude in the vassal and thereby to dispose him to attend to the covenant obligations, which constitute the third element in both Exodus 20 and the international treaties.There are many interesting parallels to specific biblical requirements among the treaty stipulations; but to mention only the most prominent, the fundamental demand is always for thorough commitment to the suzerain to the exclusion of all alien alliances.4 Thus, Mursilis insists: "But you, Duppi- 3 Translation of A. Goetze in ed. James B. Pritchard: Ancient Near Eastern Texts, Princeton, 1950, p. 203. Cf. V. Korosec, HethitischeStaatsvertraege, Leipzig, 1931, pp. 36 ff. 4 Cf. further, Korosec, op. cit., pp. 66 ff.; D. J. Wiseman, The Vassal-Treaties of Esarhaddon, London, 1958, pp. 23 ff.; Mendenhall, op. cit., p. 59.THE TWO TABLES OF THE COVENANT 135Tessub, remain loyal toward the king of the Hatti land, the Hatti land, my sons (and) my grandsons forever.... Do not turn your eyes to anyone else!"5 And Yahweh commands his servant: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" (Exod. 20:3; cf. 4, 5). Stylistically, the apodictic form of the decalogue apparently finds its only parallel in the treaties, which contain categorical imperatives and prohibitions and a conditional type of formulation equivalent to the apodictic curse (cf. Deut. 27:15-26), both being directly oriented to covenant oaths and sanctions. The legislation in the extant legal codes, on the other hand, is uniformly of the casuistic type.Two other standard features of the classic suzerainty treaty were the invocation of the gods of the suzerain and (in the Hittite sphere) of the vassal as witnesses of the oath and the pronouncing of imprecations and benedictions, which the oath deities were to execute according to the vassal's deserts.Obviously in the case of God's covenant with Israel there could be no thought of a realistic invocation of a third party as divine witness.6 Indeed, it is implicit in the third word of the decalogue that all Israel's oaths must be sworn by the name of Yahweh (Exod. 20:7). The immediate contextual application of this commandment is that the Israelite must remain true to the oath he was about to take at Sinai in accordance with the standard procedure in ceremonies of covenant ratification (cf. Exod. 24).