Deuteronomy 10:3

Deu 10:3 And I made an ark [of] shittim wood, and hewed two tables of stone like unto the first, and went up into the mount, having the two tables in mine hand.

Ver. 3. And I made an ark.] In its use far beyond that Persian casket embroidered with gold and pearl, which Alexander reserved for Homer’s Iliad.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Deu 10:3. I made an ark — Some of the Jewish doctors conclude from this text that there were two arks, one made by Bezaleel, and this one by Moses, which they fancy was the ark that went before them in their marches and battles. But this notion is confuted by many other passages. All that Moses means by saying, I made an ark, is, that he ordered one to be made, just as the expression, Solomon built the temple, only means that he provided for the building of it, and caused it to be built.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

10:3 acacia wood: This durable desert tree is probably the species Acacia raddiana; it is the only variety that grows large enough in the Negev to produce timber for building.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Which wood is of long continuance.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

And I made an ark of shittim wood--It appears, however, from Exo 37:1, that the ark was not framed till his return from the mount, or most probably, he gave instructions to Bezaleel, the artist employed on the work, before he ascended the mount--that, on his descent, it might be finished, and ready to receive the precious deposit.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 3. Shittim wood] See Clarke on Ex 25:5, and succeeding verses, and on the parallel places in the margin.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

3. So I made an ark of acacia wood] Not now in JE, see above. P, Exo_25:10; Exo_37:1, Beṣal’el made the ark of acacia wood.

acacia wood] planks of shiṭṭim, the plur. of the tree shiṭṭah = shinṭah, Ar. ‘sant,’ a name given to several species of the thorny acacia; in Egypt to ‘A. (mimosa) Nilotica’ (Lane, Ar. Eng. Lex.); and by the Arabs of the Desert of the wanderings of Israel to the ‘A. tortilis’ and ‘A. laeta’ (Hart, Fauna and Flora of Sinai, Petra and W. Araba, 52). More probably the former, an upright tree, 10 or 15 feet high, with a thick trunk and occasionally very numerous (e.g. a grove of acacias, chiefly ‘tortilis,’ ten miles long in the Arabah, id. 31, cp. 8, 12, 92, and found on W. el Ithm, by which Israel probably passed to the Edomite plateau); the ‘A. laeta’ is a tropical tree found only in the Ghor, and there seldom. Both Tristram (Nat. Hist. of the Bible, 298 f.) and Post (Flora, 298 f. and art. ‘Shittah’ in Hastings’ D.B.) identify the Shittah tree with the Seyyâl acacia, but this is never called ‘Sunṭ’ by the Beduin to-day, and indeed is distinguished by them from ‘Sunṭ’ (Hart, op. cit. 52). Doughty mentions an acacia, called by the modern inhabitants of the Arabian peninsula ‘ṭolh,’ the only acacia wood which is not brittle, and is used by the Solubba, or tribe of smiths and carpenters, for saddle-trees and frames and vessels for milk, and also on the Arabian coast for ship-building (Arabia Deserta, i. 280, ii. 91, 678).

and hewed two tables of stone like unto the first] So Exo_34:4 a, JE.

and went up into the mount, with the two tables in mine hand] So substantially Exo_34:4 b, J.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And I made an ark of shittim wood,.... That is, ordered it to be made, and it was made by Bezaleel, and that of shittim wood: so the ark that was put into the holy of holies was made of this wood; see See Gill on Exo 25:10; see Gill on Exo 37:1,

and hewed two tables of stone like unto the first; two marble ones, as the Targum of Jonathan; that is, he ordered them to be hewed, and took care that they should be exactly made as the former were, of which he had perfect knowledge, having received them of the Lord, and brought them with him down the mount:

and went up into the mount, having the two tables in my hand; in order to have the words of the law, the ten commands, written on them, these being only hewn stones, without anything on them: they were very probably marble, of which great quantities were near at hand.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

I made, or gave orders to have one ready against my return. (Calmet)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

3. I made an ark of shittim wood — Better, acacia. It is not improbable that Moses gave directions to Bezaleel, the artist, who with others wrought on the work of the sanctuary, before he went up to the mount. In Exodus 25, and also 35, we find a full description of the ark.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

shittim

i.e. acacia.

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

General Information:

Moses continues to remind the people of Israel about what happened in the past.

the first

This refers to the first set of tablets that Moses had broken. AT: "the tablets I had before" (See: Ellipsis and Ordinal Numbers)

went up the mountain

"went up Mount Sinai"

out of the middle of the fire

It was as if Yahweh were a person standing in the middle of a fire and speaking with a loud voice. See how you translated this in Deuteronomy 9:10.

on the day of the assembly

The abstract noun "assembly" can be expressed as the verb "gather together." See how you translated this in Deuteronomy 9:10. AT: "on the day when you Israelites all came and met together in one place"

translationWords

acacia

Ten Commandments

Yahweh

fire

assembly

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.