Here Moses recounts what is found in Exo 24.12-18; 31.18.

The tables of stone, the tables of the covenant: New Revised Standard Version and all other modern translations use today’s English, “stone tablets” (and see 4.13). The tables of the covenant may be expanded to say “the tablets on which the covenant was written.” If it is natural in the translator’s language, it is good to keep the author’s style, repeating the two phrases, and not collapse the two into one, “the stone tablets on which the covenant had been written.” Bible en français courant uses the expression “the document of the covenant.” For covenant see 4.13. The ten commandments were the terms of the covenant.

I neither ate bread nor drank water: something like “I went without food or water [during those forty days]” or “I didn’t eat or drink a thing” expresses the meaning in a natural form. The reader should understand that Moses willingly did without food or water, not that he was in a situation where food and water were not available.

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Deuteronomy. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2000. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .