Moses ascended the mount in Sinai's desert twice to receive the Lord's commandments. (See Ex. 31:18 and Ex. 34:1.)
In his October 1963 general conference address, Elder William J. Critchlow Jr., an Assistant to the Twelve, said: "Through Moses the Lord attempted to set up the house of Israel soon after their liberation from Egyptian bondage as a kingdom of priests of [theT holy patriarchal order. He sent Moses down from the Mount with tables of stone upon which were inscribed principles of salvation, but seeing the people engaged in idol worship, Moses dashed the tablets to the ground, breaking them into fragments."Again, the Lord called Moses up on the Mount, and there He rewrote with His finger on tables which Moses had prepared the Ten Commandments; but He deleted this time the salvation principles which necessitated priesthood of the holy patriarchal order, denying thereby His children the Melchizedek Priesthood. Later He removed Moses, who held the Melchizedek Priesthood, thus leaving Israel with only a Lesser Priesthood, called the Aaronic Priesthood, after Aaron upon whom it was conferred. (Inspired Version Ex. 34:1-2; D&C 84:17-25.) From that time on until the Savior's ministry on earth, this was generally the prevailing authority of God on the earth."
Elder James E. Talmage of the Council of the Twelve wrote in The Vitality of Mormonism: "The Lord mercifully suspended the fulness of the Gospel requirements, which, because of violation, would have been a means of condemnation; and the law of carnal commandments, generalized as the Mosaic Code, was given instead - as a schoolmaster, whose rigid insistence and compelling restraint, whose rod of correction would, in the course of centuries, prepare the covenant though recreant people for the re-establishment of the Gospel - as was effected through the personal ministry of the Redeemer." (See Gal. 3:23-26.)
