Exodus 31:18

And He gave Moses, etc. There is no antecedent and subsequent [i.e., chronological order] [invariably] in the Torah. The incident of the [golden] calf precedes the commandment to construct the sanctuary by many days. It was on the seventeenth of Tammuz when the tablets were broken, and on Yom Hakippurim when the Holy One, Blessed Be He, was conciliated by Israel. And the next day they [i.e., Israel] began to donate to the Mishkan, which was erected on the first of Nissan.

And He gave to Mosheh, when He had finished to speak with him in Mount Sinai, the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of sapphire-stone from the throne of glory, weighing forty sein, inscribed by the finger of the Lord.

AND HE GAVE UNTO MOSES. This is connected with the end-part of the verse, where the word “G-d” is mentioned, thus meaning: “and G-d gave unto Moses.” Just as Scripture mentioned concerning G-d’s communicating with Moses, And G-d spoke all these words, and with reference to the work of the Tablets of Law and the writing thereon it says, And the Tablets were the work of G-d, and the writing was the writing of G-d, so also it says concerning the giving, and G-d gave to Moses.

ויתן אל משה ככלותו, after the Torah described all the spiritual accomplishments which should have resulted from the many days Moses had spent on the mountain with G’d, the Torah now has to explain why all these spiritual accomplishments G’d had envisaged did not in fact materialise so that it became necessary to build a Tabernacle, etc., in order to achieve these spiritual accomplishments via a different route. The Torah explains that the cause of this detour in the spiritual ascent of the people was the abuse they had made of the freedom of choice. They, who had been about to receive the set of Tablets made and written by G’d Himself at the end of Moses’ stay on Mount Sinai for forty days, who were all to personify the ideal of being priests, and a holy nation, rebelled, corrupted themselves, as testified in Exodus 33,6 when they divested themselves of the signs of the covenant G’d had made with them, removing the garments emblazoned with the blood of that covenant.

שני לוחות העדות, the ones of which we heard in Exodus 24,12 where G’d had told Moses prior to his ascending the mountain: “I will give you there the Tablets of stone, etc.” Before G’d had a chance to give the people the written Torah they already began with the golden calf episode so that G’d had to tell Moses to precipitously descend from the mountain warning him that his people had become corrupt. (32,7)