Deuteronomy 9:15

9:15 So I turned and went down the mountain while it ¹  was blazing with fire; the two tablets of the covenant were in my hands.

Exodus 31:18

31:18 He gave Moses two tablets of testimony when he had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, tablets of stone written by the finger of God. ² 

Exodus 34:28

34:28 So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; ³  he did not eat bread, and he did not drink water. He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten commandments. ⁴ 

Jeremiah 31:31-32

31:31 “Indeed, a time is coming,” says the Lord, ⁵  “when I will make a new covenant ⁶  with the people of Israel and Judah. ⁷  31:32 It will not be like the old ⁸  covenant that I made with their ancestors ⁹  when I delivered them ¹⁰  from Egypt. For they violated that covenant, even though I was like a faithful husband to them,” ¹¹  says the Lord. ¹² 

Galatians 4:24

4:24 These things may be treated as an allegory, ¹³  for these women represent two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai bearing children for slavery; this is Hagar.

¹ tn Heb “the mountain.” The translation uses a pronoun for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

² sn The expression “the finger of God” has come up before in the book, in the plagues (Exod 8:15) to express that it was a demonstration of the power and authority of God. So here too the commandments given to Moses on stone tablets came from God. It too is a bold anthropomorphism; to attribute such a material action to Yahweh would have been thought provoking to say the least. But by using “God” and by stating it in an obviously figurative way, balance is maintained. Since no one writes with one finger, the expression simply says that the Law came directly from God.

³ tn These too are adverbial in relation to the main clause, telling how long Moses was with Yahweh on the mountain.

⁴ tn Heb “the ten words,” though “commandments” is traditional.

⁵ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

⁶ tn Or “a renewed covenant” (also in vv. 22-23).

⁷ tn Heb “the house of Israel and the house of Judah.”

⁸ tn The word “old” is not in the text but is implicit in the use of the word “new.” It is supplied in the translation for greater clarity.

⁹ tn Heb “fathers.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “when I took them by the hand and led them out.”

¹¹ tn Or “I was their master.” See the study note on 3:14.

¹² tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

¹³ tn Grk “which things are spoken about allegorically.” Paul is not saying the OT account is an allegory, but rather that he is constructing an allegory based on the OT account.