출애굽기 34:28의 주석

AND HE WAS THERE WITH THE ETERNAL FORTY DAYS AND FORTY NIGHTS… AND HE WROTE UPON THE TABLETS THE WORDS OF THE COVENANT, THE TEN WORDS. The verse is stating that Moses was on top of the mountain for forty days and forty nights, and he wrote there upon the Tablets. And in the opinion of our Rabbis⁵⁴²Shemoth Rabbah 47:12. the meaning of the verse is that Moses was there with G-d for forty days and forty nights,⁵⁴³From the first of Ellul to the tenth of Tishri, which is the Day of Atonement. during which time He wrote on the Tablets the words of this second covenant. But he had stayed there for another forty days⁵⁴⁴From the nineteenth of Tammuz to the twenty-ninth of Ab. prior to these to pray for all his requests, as is narrated in the section beginning, See, Thou sayest unto me: Bring up this people;⁵⁴⁵Above, 33:12. and with reference to these days it is said in the Book of Deuteronomy, So I fell down before the Eternal the forty days and forty nights that I fell down; because the Eternal had said He would destroy you.⁵⁴⁶Deuteronomy 9:25. Here, however, Scripture did not explain how many days were the duration of this period of supplication and prayer, for it is known that it was from the time he went up to the mountain until he came down to hew the second Tablets.⁵⁴⁷This was on the first day of Ellul (see Ramban above, 33:7). Having hewn the Tablets, he went up to the mountain and stayed until the tenth of Tishri. From this we learn that the forty-day period of prayer preceded it, which brings it to the days between the nineteenth of Tammuz and the twenty-ninth of Ab. But it said that the matter of the second Tablets was like that of the first in every respect — the writing of G-d, and the number of days he stood before G-d, so that he should not think that he had already learned the Torah during the first time, and that therefore it would not be necessary for him to stay there many days.

'ויהי שם עם ה, his third and final 40 day stay there..

לחם לא אכלתי, "I did not eat bread, etc." The reason that the Torah specified that Moses ate neither bread nor drank water was to make us aware that he did absorb nutrients of a different kind. He absorbed spiritual food. We find something of that nature in Psalms 40,9 where David speaks about תורתך בתוך מעי, "Your Torah being in my entrails." Torah is also compared to water in Taanit 7. Had the Torah merely written: "he neither ate not drank," this would have included all kinds of "food."

ויכתוב על הלוחות, G’d Himself inscribed the Tablets. The same words as had been inscribed on the first Tablets were inscribed on the second set. (as per verse 1 of our chapter) The same information is repeated by Moses in Deuteronomy 10,4

ויהי שם עם ה' ארבעים יום....ויכתב על הלוחות את דברי הברית, עשרת הדברים. “He remained there with Hashem for forty days….and He (G’d) wrote on the Tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.” The subject of the word ויכתב is Hashem, for G’d Himself testified (Exodus 34,1 וכתבתי על הלוחות, “I Myself will inscribe on the Tablets, etc.”) The forty days mentioned by Moses here were the last forty days he spent on Mount Sinai. Prior to this he had spent another forty days on the Mountain, devoted entirely to prayer on behalf of the Jewish people, beseeching G’d to forgive the people. He referred to those forty days in Deuteronomy Moses did not spell out how many days he had been on the Mountain on that occasion now as everybody knew, as opposed to the people whom he addressed in Deuteronomy, most of whom had not been alive yet at this time. The reason the Torah, i.e. Moses, emphasized that he spent 40 days on the Mountain even on the last occasion was to remind the people how difficult it had been to obtain atonement for them. He certainly had not needed all that time to learn the Torah, as he had learned that on his previous stay on the Mountain.

He remained there with Ad-noy. Moshe’s body ascended in spirituality until it was capable of surviving on the food of the soul. Thus according to Shemos Rabbah (48) he was nourished by the splendor of the Shechinah. The Ten [Commandments]. The first tablets were inscribed on both sides, containing all the laws of the Torah in all their details, both exoteric and esoteric. The second tablets, by contrast, contained only the Ten Commandments.

V. 28. Vierzig Tage, vom ersten Elul bis zum zehnten Tischri.

'ויהי שם עם ה, “he remained there with the Lord, etc.” this was the third time that Moses spent 40 days on the Mountain. He ascended at dawn on the twenty ninth day of Av, and remained there until dawn of the tenth day of Tishrey, better known as Yom Hakippurim. If you were to ask how Moses could tell day and night from each other, seeing that in the celestial regions day and night are all the same, seeing that we have a verse in Daniel 2,22 ונהורא עמיה שריה, “and light dwells with Him?” We also a verse in Psalms,גם חשך לא יחשיך ממך ולילה כיום יאיר כחשכת אורך :139,12“darkness is not dark for You; night is as light as day.”We need to answer that when G-d taught Moses the written Torah, he knew that it was daytime down on earth. When He taught him the oral Torah, he knew that it was night on earth at that time. Furthermore, when he observed the moon and the stars bowing down to the Lord, he knew that it must be daytime on earth, as these celestial bodies had to perform their duties on earth at night. When he observed the sun paying its respect to G-d, he knew that it was night on earth, as during the daylight hours the sun had to perform its duties on earth.

‘Va’yichtov’ upon the Tablets — this means that G-d wrote, and does not refer back to Moses [mentioned in the preceding phrase, he did neither eat bread, nor drink water], for so He said, and I will write upon the Tablets.⁵⁴⁸Above, Verse 1. Similarly, in the Book of Deuteronomy it says, and I hewed two Tablets of stone like unto the first, and went up into the mount, having the two Tablets in my hand. And He wrote on the Tablets, according to the first writing.⁵⁴⁹Deuteronomy 10:3-4. And since it says according to the first writing, we know that they were written with the finger of G-d.⁵⁵⁰Above, 31:18. Thus the meaning of the expression, and I will write⁵⁴⁸Above, Verse 1. means “with the finger,” and you know [already] the meaning of “finger” from that of “the hand.”⁵⁵¹Ibid., 14:31. See Ramban there.

ויכתוב על הלוחות, ”He wrote on the Tablets;” G-d did the writing, as confirmed in Deuteronomy 10,2: “I shall write on the Tablets,” and in Deuteronomy 10,4 Moses confirms; “He wrote on the Tablets exactly as He had done on the first set of Tablets.”