Le Deutéronome 9:17 Commentaire : Chizkuni, Da'at Zekenim, Ramban & Or HaChaim

ואשברם לעיניכם, “I smashed them in front of your eyes.” I did this in order not to make you guilty of transgressing the law written thereon. It was written on them that you are not to have other deities, and you had made a golden calf for yourselves.!”.

ואשליכם מעל שתי ידי, “I cast them out of my two hands;” this is what Kohelet 3,5 had in mind when he wrote: עת להשליך אבנים, “there is an appropriate time for throwing stones.” (instead of gathering them in)” He referred to the first set of Tablets. When he continued with: עת כנוס אבנים, “an appropriate time for gathering in stones,” he referred to the second set of Tablets.

AND I TOOK HOLD OF THE TWO TABLETS. This is also meant to be part of the chastisements. He is saying: “your sin was greater than could be borne,¹³⁸See Genesis 4:13. to the point that when I saw you being merry before the calf I could not restrain [my anger] and I broke the Tablets.” He had to mention this because he wanted them to realize the significance of the second Tablets, as he will explain [in the section that follows]. Possibly he is alluding further to the favor he did them when he endangered his own life by breaking the Tablets of G-d for their sake, as our Rabbis have said:¹³⁹Shemoth Rabbah 46:1. “It is better that you [Israel] be judged like an [unchaste] unmarried woman and not like an [adulterous] wife.”¹⁴⁰The Tablets represented the testimony of Israel’s “marriage” to G-d. Under such circumstances the sin of the golden calf would have brought a severe punishment upon Israel, like that of an adulterous wife. By risking his life in breaking the Tablets, Moses turned their status into that of an “unmarried person” and thus lessened their punishment. The second Tablets re-established the original bond between G-d and Israel.