Aligned sentence by sentence
·
Part One · Chapter Sixty-Six — The Tablets of the Law and Divine Inscription
. . , . .
And the tablets are the work of God (Ex 32:16) — the intent is that their existence was natural, not manufactured; for all natural things are called 'the work of the Lord' and 'the work of God.' He said, 'Come, behold the works of the Lord' (Ps 46:9) — for even if this carries that meaning, it has not become widely known, and what has become well-known is what we mentioned: that 'the work of God' is used for natural things. And He said elsewhere, 'and the smoke of the land went up as the smoke of a furnace' (Gen 19:28) — those are the things made from that sulfur; and this is called an act of His, exalted be He, because natural things are His acts, as we have explained. Clearer than this and more widely known is His saying — and a portion has been separated from what people have expounded concerning it. Therefore it is made clear that things that break with the customary are called 'the work of the Lord' and 'the work of God,' and signs and wonders.
. .
And likewise His saying 'the writing of God' (Ex 32:16) has already made clear how it is attributed to Him; and He said 'written by the finger of God' (Ex 31:18); and the expression 'by the finger of God,' as we explained in discussing the equivocality of 'finger,' means that He intends action. One should not imagine that a speaker would say this attribution had a limb involved in it, and one would say 'written passing through such-and-such' — the meaning is that this writing is the act of God, not the act of a human being.
.
As for Onkelos, he went in this matter to a strange interpretation and said 'written by a command of the Lord' — for he made 'finger' a metaphor for inscription; and according to this view concerning 'finger,' and in keeping with this interpretation, he thought it fitting to call by that name this inscription attributed to God, and he found no other option. As for the first interpretation we mentioned — even if it equals this one, since it may be intended to mean that that inscription is an inscription with a limb — in sum there is no difference between them.