Commentaire sur L’Exode 32:16

מעשה אלהים המה [THE TABLETS WERE] THE WORK OF GOD — This means what it literally implies: God Himself (Hebrew: in His glory) made them. Another explanation (taking מעשה in the sense of “occupation”) is: Just as a man says to his fellow, “All that Mr. So-and-so occupies himself with is only with such-and-such a work”, so is the delight of the Holy One, blessed be He, confined to the Torah alone (cf. Proverbs 8:31 the whole of which chapter is taken as a description of God’s relation to the Torah) (Midrash Tanchuma, Ki Tisa 16).

AND THE TABLETS WERE THE WORK OF G-D. It would have been proper for Scripture to mention everything connected with the work of the Tablets of the Law in the verse, And He gave unto Moses [… the two Tablets of the Testimony],³⁵³Above, 31:18. as He said [there], written with the finger of G-d.³⁵³Above, 31:18. It is, however, mentioned here in order to tell of their high distinction [that they were the work of G-d], thus stating that despite all this Moses did not hesitate to break them, because he was angered upon seeing that evil sight and he could not restrain himself from breaking them. Or the matter may be as our Rabbis have mentioned,³⁵⁴Shemoth Rabbah 46:1. that the writing vanished from the Tablets as he approached the border [of the camp] where the calf was, the place of defilement and transgression.

מעשה אלוקים המה, Moses did not carve out these Tablets as opposed to the second set of Tablets which G’d told him to carve out himself (34,1.)

והלוחות מעשה אלוקים המה, “the Tablets had been made by G’d.” Nachmanides writes that it would have been more appropriate to describe the details of these Tablets in 31,18 where we first hear about them, and where we have been told that they had been written with a “finger” of G’d. The reason that this was written at this juncture was to impress upon us that in spite of the Tablets being G’d’s personal handiwork, Moses did not let this stop him from smashing them as he was so upset when he saw what was going on in the camp. An alternate reason for why Moses smashed the Tablets, a thought expressed by our sages, is that when Moses realized that the letters on the Tablets had already flown away, so that the sanctity of the Tablets had departed, he took this as a signal to also smash the body which had hosted the letters while the people were a holy people. He would not demean the work of G’d to be brought within the boundaries of a camp which had become totally defiled.

והלחות מעשה אלו-הים המה, “and the tablets were G’d’s handiwork.” The reference is not to G’d’s “manually” having made the Tablets, but that they came into existence at a verbal directive of G’d just as the world came into existence by verbal directives of G’d, i.e. בדבר ה’ שמים נעשו, “by the word of the Lord the heavens were made” (Psalms 33,6). A similar expression is used in Genesis 2,4: ביום עשות ה’ אלו-הים ארץ ושמים, “on the day the Lord G’d made earth and heaven.”

והלוחות מעשה אלוקים המה, “the raw material that the Tablets consisted of was of Divine manufacture.” This is pointed out here in order to impress the reader of the magnitude of losing such a gift made by G-d’s own hands.

חרות — The expressions חרת (which occurs only here in Scriptures) and חרט have the same meaning, both of them signifying engraving; entailler in old French

חרות, just like חרוט or חרוש, engraved.