5574 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 Jer 17:1

The Ten Commandments were inscribed on stone tablets

The tablets were inscribed by God Dt 9:9-11 In keeping with ancient Near Eastern practice, the two tablets may have been duplicates of a single covenant document. See also Ex 24:12; Ex 31:18; Dt 4:13; Dt 5:22

The tablets were broken Ex 32:15-19 See also Dt 9:15-17

New tablets were inscribed by God Dt 10:1-4 See also Ex 34:4,28-29

The new tablets were put into the ark Dt 10:5 See also 1Ki 8:9 pp 2Ch 5:10; Heb 9:4

God’s commands were copied onto altar stones Dt 27:2-8 See also Jos 8:30-32

Writing tablets

Tablets of unspecified material Hab 2:2 See also Isa 30:8; Lk 1:63

Other surfaces used for writing 1Ki 7:36 The bases of the bronze lavers in Solomon’s temple were engraved; Isa 8:1 Isaiah’s inscription is with a pen on a scroll; Eze 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 Pr 3:3 See also Pr 6:21; Pr 7:3

The new covenant Jer 31:33 Under the new covenant God’s law will be inward, written on human hearts rather than on tablets of stone. See also Eze 36:26-27; 2Co 3:3; Heb 8:10; Heb 10:16

See also