Tablets of Stone

According to traditional teachings of Judaism in the Talmud, the stones were made of blue sapphire as a symbolic reminder of the sky, the heavens, and ultimately of God's throne.

Many Torah scholars, however, have opined that the biblical sapir was, in fact, lapis lazuli (see Exodus 24:10, lapis lazuli is a possible alternate rendering of "sapphire" the stone pavement under God's feet when the intention to craft the tablets of the covenant is disclosed Exodus 24:12).

Thomas Römer argued in 2015 that “clearly… the tablets of the law are a substitute for something else.”[3] He holds that “the original Ark contained a statue [i.e. a cult image] of Yhwh”,[4]: 4  which he specifically identifies as “two betyles (sacred stones), or two cult image statues symbolizing Yhwh and his female companion Ashera or a statue representing Yhwh alone.”[3] In recent centuries, the tablets have been popularly described and depicted as round-topped rectangles, but this has little basis in religious tradition.

Depictions of round-topped tablets appear in the Middle Ages, following in size and shape contemporary hinged writing-tablets for taking notes (with a stylus pressing on a layer of wax on the insides).

For Michelangelo (1475–1564) and Andrea Mantegna (1431–1506) they still have sharp corners (see gallery), and are about the size found in rabbinic tradition.