60. That the stone tablets on which the law was written were called the Tablets of the Covenant, and that because of them the Ark was called the Ark of the Covenant, the law itself being the covenant, see Numbers 10:33; Deuteronomy 4:13, 23, 5:2-3, 9:9; Joshua 3:11; 1 Kings 8:19, 21; Revelation 11:19. And many other places.

The law was called a covenant because a covenant symbolizes conjunction. We are accordingly told regarding the Lord that He would be “as a covenant to the people” (Isaiah 42:6, 49:8). He is called, too, “the Messenger of the covenant” (Malachi 3:1), and His blood “the blood of the covenant” (Matthew 26:28, Zechariah 9:11, Exodus 24:4-10). That is why the Word is called the Old Covenant and New Covenant.

Covenants are also made as testaments of love, friendship, and fellowship, thus for the sake of conjunction.

Like "say," the word "speak" refers to thoughts and feelings moving from our more internal spiritual levels to our more external ones -- and ultimately from the Lord, who is in a sense the most internal spiritual level of all. This is generally called "influx" and "perception" in the Writings, meaning they are thoughts and feelings that flow in in a complete way from the Lord, rather than being things we have to think about and figure out. On a number of occasions "speak" and "say" are used together; in these cases "speak" refers more to intellectual instruction in matters of thought and "say" refers more to feelings and affections that flow in directly.