(2) Ye shall perform My judgments, and keep My precepts, and walk in them: I am the Lord your God. And ye shall keep all My commandments, and do them. He that doeth them shall live in them. I am the Lord your God." Whether, then, Egypt and the land of Canaan be the symbol of the world and of deceit, or of sufferings and afflictions; the oracle shows us what must be abstained from, and what, being divine and not worldly, must be observed. And when it is said, "The man that doeth them shall live in them," it declares both the correction of the Hebrews themselves, and the training and advancement of us who are nigh: it declares at once their life and ours. For "those who were dead in sins are quickened together with Christ," by our covenant. For Scripture, by the frequent reiteration of the expression, "I am the Lord your God," shames in such a way as most powerfully to dissuade, by teaching us to follow God who gave the commandments, and gently admonishes us to seek God and endeavour to know Him as far as possible; which is the highest speculation, that which scans the greatest mysteries, the real knowledge, that which becomes irrefragable by reason. This alone is the knowledge of wisdom, from which rectitude of conduct is never disjoined.

(13) While upon the heights of Mount Sinai, Moses received from Jehovah two tablets bearing the characters of the Decalogue traced by the very finger of Israel's God. These tables were fashioned from the divine sapphire, Schethiyâ, which the Most High, after removing from His own throne, had cast into the Abyss to become the foundation and generator of the worlds. This sacred stone, formed of heavenly dew, was sundered by the breath of God, and upon the two parts were drawn in black fire the figures of the Law. These precious inscriptions, aglow with celestial splendor, were delivered by the Lord on the Sabbath day into the hands of Moses, who was able to read the illumined letters from the reverse side because of the transparency of the great jewel. (See The Secret Doctrine in Israel or The Zohar for details of this legend.)