What Does Exodus 32:15 Mean?
And Moses turned and went down from the mountain, and the two tablets of the testimony were in his hand. The tablets were written from this side and from that side.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And Moses turned, and went down from the mount, and the two tables of the testimony were in his hand: the tables were written on both their sides; on the one side and on the other were they written.THE KEY
The testimony has no hidden face: what comes down from the mountain is written all the way through.
THE MEANING
You encounter testimony that fills the whole surface; neither face is blank. The word descends from the mountain into your present, carried into the human world.
THE ROOT
הָעֵדֻת
ha-ʿēdût
GROWS FROM
ע־ו־ד
ʿ-w-d
To repeat or affirm; to bear witness.
“Testimony” belongs to the witness and affirming word family, so the tablets stand as a witness that can be encountered again. With both faces inscribed, the stone itself bears that witness in full.
ALSO GROWS
ʿēd: Witness
עֵד
The tablets are called a testimony: they stand as a tangible witness, not merely a set of marks.
heʿid: To testify or bear witness
הֵעִיד
This verb expresses the act of affirming a witness; the inscribed tablets preserve that witness in a lasting form.
כְּתֻבִים
ketuvim
GROWS FROM
כ־ת־ב
k-t-b
To write or inscribe.
“written” in this verse is ketuvim. The writing root makes the testimony a physical inscription, not an evanescent utterance. The repeated phrase “from this and from this” presents the witness as filling the stone, with no blank face.
ALSO GROWS
kātav: To write or inscribe
כָּתַב
This verb names the act that marks the tablets themselves.
mikhtāv: A writing or written document
מִכְתָּב
The root also names the resulting written record, linking the act of inscription to what remains on the stone.
ketav: Writing or script
כְּתָב
The branch points to the marks as a readable form, present on both faces of the tablets.
THE PATTERN
The divine record is presented as writing that fills both faces of its carrier.
And he spread it before me, and it was written on its face and on its back, and there were written in it laments, moaning, and woe.And I see in the right hand of the one who sits upon the throne a scroll written within and on its back, sealed with seven seals.THE THREAD
And the LORD said to Moses, Hew for yourself two tablets of stone like the first ones. I will write upon these tablets the words that were upon the first tablets, which you broke.The same כ־ת־ב (k-t-b), “write or inscribe,” returns when the tablets are made again. The witness carried here is written again after the first tablets break.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us