The second set of tablets in (Exodus 34:1-35) carries a weight the first set never had. These were carved by human hands, not divine ones. But the Targum Jonathan adds something to the covenant renewal that the Hebrew Bible never imagined.
When God passed before Moses on Mount Sinai, the Targum renders the thirteen attributes of mercy with legal precision. God is "merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and nigh in mercies, abounding to exercise compassion and truth." He keeps "mercy and bounty for thousands of generations," and pardons "them who convert unto the law." But the Targum adds a warning: God holds "not guiltless in the great day of judgment those who will not convert."
Moses seized this moment to beg that the Shekinah (the Divine Presence) return to travel among Israel. "Change us not to become an alien people," he pleaded. God's response in the Targum is astonishing. He promised that from Moses would come "a multitude of the righteous." And then He made a prophecy found nowhere in the Hebrew text: "In the time when they go into captivity by the rivers of Bavel, I will bring them up from thence, and make them dwell from within the river Sambation."
The Sambation is the legendary river that rages with stones six days a week and rests on Shabbat (the Sabbath). The Targum embeds this mythic geography directly into the covenant at Sinai, promising a future redemption that would reach even the lost tribes trapped beyond that impossible river.
When Moses descended carrying the new tablets, "the visage of his face shone with the splendour which had come upon him from the brightness of the glory of the Lord's Shekinah." Aaron and the people were terrified to approach him. Moses had to veil his face whenever he spoke to the people, removing it only when he entered God's presence to receive further commands.
The Targum also inserts a food law with unusual specificity. "You are not allowed to boil or to eat flesh and milk mixed together," it says, warning that violation would cause God's displeasure to kindle and "the fruit of your trees, with the grapes in their branches and their leaves, be laid waste together." Mixing meat and milk would curse the harvest.