THIS MIGHT SURPRISE YOU
The answer
On both sides. Moses comes down "carrying the two tablets of the covenant in his hands, tablets that were written on both sides, written on the front and on the back" (Exodus 32:15). The next verse adds that "the writing was the writing of God" (Exodus 32:16). The New Oxford Annotated Bible, a study Bible, notes that the usual pictures show all ten on one side.
Why it’s interesting
The rounded tops are not in the text either. The New Oxford Annotated Bible says that shape comes from a Roman writing tablet with two hinged panels, called a diptych. It also takes the two tablets to be two copies of the same text, not five commandments on each.
Scholarly consensus
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