Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Deuteronomy 10:1
At that time the LORD said unto me, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first, and come up unto me into the mount, and make thee an ark of wood.
1. Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first ] So Exo 34:1 a, JE.
and come up unto me into the mount ] So probably in the original E; J has, come up in the morning unto Mt Sinai and present thyself to me, etc., followed by a command to keep the Mount free of men and cattle, Exo 34:2-3.
and make thee an ark of wood ] Almost certainly from the original E; see general note above. Ark or chest, so in Assyr. and Arabic, cp. 2Ki 12:9 f., a chest for the temple-offerings, a money box; in Phoen. a coffin or sarcophagus, and so in Gen 50:26. Of wood, in P, Exo 25:10-16, of acacia wood (as below in Deu 10:3) with the dimensions 2 x 1 x 1 cubits, to be overlaid, in and out, with pure gold, with a moulding and rings of gold, and staves of acacia wood likewise overlaid with gold. A great contrast to the very simple statement of D.! Further, according to P, the divine direction is not that Moses shall make the Ark, but that they shall make it.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
These verses are closely connected with the preceding chapter, and state very briefly the results of the intercession of Moses recorded in Deu 9:25-29. The people are reminded that all their blessings and privileges, forfeited by apostasy as soon as bestowed, were only now their own by a new and most unmerited act of grace on the part of God, won from Him by the self-sacrificing mediation of Moses himself Deu 10:10.
Deu 10:1-5. The order for making the ark and tabernacle was evidently given before the apostasy of the people (Exo. 25ff); but the tables were not put in the ark until the completion and dedication of the tabernacle Exo. 40. But here as elsewhere (compare the Deu 9:1 note) Moses connects transactions closely related to each other and to his purpose without regard to the order of occurrence.
Deu 10:6
There Aaron died – i. e., while the people were encamped in Mosera or Moseroth. In Deu 32:50; as well as in Num 20:25 ff Mount Hor is assigned as the place of Aarons death. It is plain then that Moserah was in the neighborhood of Mount Hor. The appointment of Eleazar to minister in place of Aaron, is referred to as a proof of the completeness and fulness of the reconciliation effected between God and the people by Moses. Though Aaron was sentenced to die in the wilderness for his sin at Meribah, yet God provided for the perpetuation of the high priesthood, so that the people would not suffer. Compare Deu 9:20 and note.
Deu 10:8
At that time – i. e., that of the encampment at Sinai, as the words also import in Deu 10:1. Throughout the passage the time of the important events at Sinai is kept in view; it is reverted to as each incident is brought forward by Moses, alluded to sufficiently for his purpose, and dismissed.
Moses is evidently here speaking of the election by God of the tribe of Levi at large, priests and others also, for His own service.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Deu 10:1
Two tables of stone.
The tables of stone-What do they symbolise
These were made before any part of the tabernacle furniture. Their history heralds forth their transcendant importance. No compend of moral truth may pretend to compare with them, for glory and grandeur of origin; for simplicity and completeness of adaptation to mans necessities, or for sublime exhibitions of the Divine perfections. Such an illustrious transcript of the moral attributes of God and His claims upon the supreme adoration of men, and of their obligations to one another, is sought for in vain among the records of human wisdom. Who but Jehovah Himself can reveal the perfections of His own being? Whose right is it to dictate law to the moral universe, if not its Author? But Jehovah exists as the Elohim–the plurality of persons in the essential unity. Has the issuance of these ten words any special reference to this personality? Certainly; the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. All that man knows truly of the Divine perfections, he knows through the teachings of the second person in the Elohim–the Divine Loges, by whom the world was made and without whom was not anything made that was made. It was the voice of the Word, afterwards made flesh–the same Word which said Let there be light, and there was light, that thundered from the summit of the burning mountain these ten words, and afterwards delivered them to Moses along the ranks of angels. This will be evident upon a comparison of a few Scriptures (Psa 68:17-18; Psa 68:20; Eph 4:1-32; Deu 33:2). The entire system of ceremonial observances is evangelical–all relate to the Gospel scheme of salvation. For unto us, says Paul (Heb 4:2) was the Gospel preached, as well as unto them. As to the kind of stone used, we are left even more in the dark than as to the wood, and therefore infer it to be a matter of no consequence. Only this is plain, that they were fragile, being shattered to pieces when thrown from Moses hands. Nor have we anything specific as to their size, unless it be that Moses seems to have carried them down the mount (Exo 32:19), in his own hands, whence we may infer they were not very thick, and they could not have been more than forty-two or three inches long, and twenty-six wide. The first suggestion of a symbolical meaning is durability. Engraving on stone intimates permanency. Job, in his sorrows, exclaims (Job 19:23), Oh, that my words were now written! oh, that they were printed in a book! that they were graven with an iron pen and laid in the rock forever. Then he proceeds to express his faith in the living Redeemer, and his hope in a glorious resurrection: truths these, which he wished to perpetuate forever. The first tables represented the law of God as written in the heart of man at his creation: or, we may say, human race–Adam, with the law created in him. The breaking of the tables sets forth the fall of man and the utter defacement of Gods law and image. The replacement of the tables by Moses, and the rewriting of the law upon them, by the power of the great Redeemer, forcibly illustrates His entire work of restoring man to the full dominion of the holy law, or, in other words, the restoration of the law to its ruling power over him; or may we not say the second Adam, the pattern of all the redeemed. The bringing of man under the power of law, the protection of the law from violence and profanation, and the security of its rightful dominion, is the grand idea herein set forth. All around it is encased within its golden enclosure. The casket indeed is precious, costly, and beautiful, but the jewels it contains are the priceless treasure. In connection, however, with the remarks above, that the ceremonial ordinances are Gospel ordinances, it is important to distinguish them from the legal matter of the old covenant. The ten words and the various applications of their principles throughout the Pentateuch, are quite different from the sacrifices, the lustrations, the incense burnings, the cities of refuge, etc. The former are legal, and whenever separated from the latter become a law of works–the very covenant made with Adam. But the latter, coalescing with and qualifying and pointing out the way of fulfilling the former, transmute the whole into the new covenant, or true Gospel, which was revealed to Adam before his expulsion from Paradise. (George Juntem, D. D.)
The new tables
I. The breaking of the tables. The tables themselves were in every respect most remarkable. Mark, first, that they were the tables of the covenant. God said: These are My commands, keep them, and I am your God, I will be a glory in the midst of you, and a wall of fire round about you; break My commands, disobey My will, there is an infraction of the covenant, and the safety is departed, the glory gone. Sin was the violation of the covenant; sin was the overturning and the breaking to pieces of the covenant. The sin being committed, the transgression having taken place, the covenant was at an end. This is indicated by God in the fact that Moses breaks the tables of the law, because Moses in this matter acts as mediator for God; he is invested with the Divine authority, and ordered to do what he did in that capacity and in Gods name. It is said that he was in great anger, his anger waxed hot; but it was a holy and a justifiable anger, caused by great and elevated zeal for truth and for God, and so no censure is pronounced upon it. This act of breaking the tables resembled figurative actions performed by Hebrew prophets in later times. It is like Jeremiah breaking the bottle, and saying to the elders of the Jews, Even so shall this people and this city be broken. Or when he is commanded to take a girdle, and to go with it to the river Euphrates, and to put it in a damp place until it becomes rotten and worthless: then it is–After that manner you shall be carried captive into Babylon. Ezekiel, in like manner, is ordered to take the goods of his house, his stuff, and to remove it upon his shoulders from one dwelling to another afar off–a figurative action, indicative of the same truth, that there was to be a removal of the people far away. And we have one instance in the New Testament where Pauls girdle is taken: Thus shall the man be bound, it was said by Agabus, that owneth this girdle. It was a customary mode of instruction, ordained on the part of God to be used by His prophets and the teachers of the Hebrew people; and I suppose this act of Moses breaking the tables is the most striking and exemplary instance, as it stands at the head and is apparently the first. The breaking of the tables by Gods mediator signifies to the people on Gods part the abrogation of the covenant, and that, so far as He is concerned, He is not their God any longer, and will hide His face from them. Precisely the same in essence, I think, it is with another memorable instance recorded in the New Testament. When Christ died, when He said upon the Cross, It is finished, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom, and God said, Let us go hence; this is no longer My house; this people is no longer My people. As there had been violation of the covenant by sin, there is repudiation of the covenant on the part of God. Finally, I think it intimates that the covenant upon the same principle should never be renewed, for the tables were broken in pieces. It was not simply in two pieces; they were probably smashed together in Moses hand before they were dashed upon the ground; they were broken into shivers, so that the parts could not be brought together again. It was one offence which occasioned the expulsion from the garden–it is one offence which occasions the breaking of the tables of the covenant; and if there be one transgression in any moral agent, innocence is gone, guilt is come, and justification by the law is henceforth and forever an utter and profound impossibility.
II. The renewing of the tables. I suppose there is a mystery in it–that there is more intended than first meets the eye. Moses, you observe, is commanded to prepare fresh tables, and to come up to the mount with them in his hand. He is represented as doing this according to the Divine commandment; and, that you may understand the mystery and see the point distinctly which I am attempting to open to you, will you mark first the things that preceded the writing of the Ten Commandments again upon the tables which Moses brought. They were these. The sin of the people was forgiven; Moses interceded on their behalf, and God said, I have pardoned them at thy word. Before the law is rewritten God takes the tables out of Moses hand to do that work; He forgives the iniquity of His people; and I suppose that act of indemnity, that forgiveness on the part of God, was in connection with the ulterior and remoter sacrifice to be made for sin by the Son of God, when He should come in the flesh; and when He did come in the flesh He is said to have declared the justice of Deity, in the remission of sin. The Hebrew believers are especially said to have received the redemption of the antecedent ages, the forgiveness of their transgressions which they had committed under the old covenant, when Christ died, and they became established in the everlasting inheritance in consequence of that great truth and principle: and so sin, I think, has ever been remitted of God. God affirms His sovereign right–His right to condemn the guilty, His right to reprieve them according to His own infinite and glorious will. Here is forgiveness of sin and the affirmation of grace. Here is the promise of His presence. Moses said, If Thy presence go not with us, carry us not up hence; God says, My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. You will find this in the chapter which precedes the account of the rewriting of the law by the Divine finger upon the tables of stone. Then there is the showing of Godhead. Moses said, I beseech Thee, show me Thy face; and that remarkable vision in the cleft of the rock, Moses being put into it by God, and God passing by, him, I think the same may be said of it as was said in after ages respecting Isaiahs vision in, the sixth chapter of his prophecy–These things said Moses, when he saw Christs glory and spake of Him. Then there is the proclamation of the Divine name–The Lord, the Lord God, pardoning iniquity, transgression, and sin; and when that announcement is made it is said, Moses bowed down and worshipped. Then, will you mark, here is the forgiveness of sin, affirmation of the Divine grace, promise of the Divine presence, showing of Christs glory, proclamation of that amazing name, antecedently to the rewriting of the tables?–which proves, I think, that the rewriting of the law was not the going back to the old covenant, or making a second trial of that principle in relation to the Israelites, but that it was upon altogether different principles–the principles which are enumerated–free forgiveness, revelation of Christ, His presence in the midst of His people, His name full of mercy and love. And see the effect of this: He writes the law a second time; and upon these principles it is said, Well, go and be obedient. For it strikes me that that is the great truth which comes out in the Gospel revelation and economy–not that we are to obey the law, and then make our appeal to Gods grace and mercy, but that God, manifesting His grace and mercy in a free and overflowing salvation, then says, Let My law be rewritten; go and obey it. Secondly, what was done with the second tables? The commands were unaltered; what was written on the tables was exactly the same; but what was done with the second tables? They were not exalted, like the brazen serpent, upon a pole: they were not used as a banner, floating before the eyes of the people as they advanced to their respective encampments–they were not, as Job desired his words might be, written with an iron pen, and graven upon a rock forever; none of these things was done, and nothing resembling them: they were put into the ark, the chest of which we read so much, and which was, I suppose, the very first article prepared by Moses under the guidance of the Holy Ghost. That chest represented, I think, Christ. The law, never kept by angels, never kept by man in his innocence, nor by man in his restoration, nor by any moral beings in the universe, as the law was kept by Gods own Son; the law, then, was put into the ark. Christ obeyed not only for Himself in person, but as the Surety and Representative of His people; He is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. As I put the finger of faith on His person and on His life, I feel that He obeyed the law and kept the law for me. The law is in Christ fulfilled, and fulfilled for them whose cause He espoused and whose interests He had undertaken. Mark another thing. The lid upon that sacred chest was a plate of pure gold, upon which the blood of the sacrifice was to be sprinkled according to the Divine command. In order to the fulfilment of law, the rendering to law and justice everything that can be required, there are but two things. The first is, perfect obedience. If there be perfect obedience, the law is satisfied; but if the law be broken, the next thing is the penalty; and if the penalty is fulfilled, the law is satisfied and asks no more. Penalty and obedience, the only two things with which the law is conversant. We say that in Christ the penalty was paid: we say that the iniquities of man were transferred to Christ, and that He suffered for him–that we have redemption through His blood. So I come to the blood of Christ for the expiation of my sins, put the finger of faith on His sacrifice, and feel that I am secure. Mark once more: upon this lid was the mercy seat–or, it constituted the mercy seat; and God said to Moses, Come to the Mercy seat, and to all the people, Come to the Mercy seat. Through that every communication was made from them to God, and from God to them; and from that hour to this–or to the clays of Daniel and the captivity–they turned their faces when they prayed towards Gods presence, exalted and enthroned in grace and in mercy there. It betokened the great principle–faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness; answering prayer in the exercise of consummate rectitude and justice, as well as of clemency, condescension, mercy, and grace. One thing more I notice; and that is, that upon either end of this plate of pure gold was the cherubic figure, in reference to which the Apostle Peter says, which things the angels desire to look into, to the intent that to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places may be made manifest by the Church the manifold wisdom of God. I infer, from all I have said, that the renewal of the writing of the tables is not the renewal of the old covenant, but a representation of Gods mercy and grace in Christ Jesus, as antecedent to the law being rewritten, and written upon the hearts and upon the consciences of men. I only note, further, what followed. After the rewriting by Gods own finger Moses came down. How did he come down? With the glory upon his face, so that they could not steadfastly look upon him; and the apostle says it intimated that there were things intended which the Jews had not the capacity at that time to understand. It was not proper that they should know them. The veiling of Moses face intimated the veiling of certain profound principles which were to have a future and after manifestation. Thus in the same way, I think, the breaking of the tables and the renewing of them intimates that the law never would be fulfilled but in Christ, and that it could not be safely enforced upon man–at least, it could produce nothing but condemnation–irrespectively of Christ and the obedience which He has already rendered. But what followed besides? The completion of the tabernacle in all its parts and proportions, the ordination of priests, the crossing the Jordan, the entering into the promised land–of which things we cannot now speak; but it comes out, I think, in most beautiful conclusion, that if these matters preceded the rewriting of the tables, and the tables then written were placed in the peculiar circumstances which the passage represents, and if such things transpired when this was done, then it is not the old covenant of works, but the new covenant of grace, mercy, and salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ; and so the law is a schoolmaster, bringing unto Christ. (J. Stratten.)
The tables of the law
1. In the next verse it is said that Moses made an ark of shittim wood before going up into the mount with the two tables in his hand; whereas, according to the Book of Exodus (Exo 37:1), Bezaleel is said to have made the ark. Those who seek to trace contradictions in the Scriptures, or variety of authorship, of course, point out this discrepancy. The obvious remark that one may be said to do what he directs another to do is probably a sufficient reply to this difficulty.
2. It is not, however, with the ark, but with the tables of the law, we are now concerned.
3. The delivery of the law, on the fiftieth day, according to the Jews, after the Exodus–an event celebrated by the Feast of Pentecost–reminds us of the contrast between the circumstances under which the old and the new law were promulgated. The thick cloud, the darkness, the thunder, the lightning, filled the Israelites with alarm. How very different are the approaches to God in the New Testament! (Heb 12:18-24.) But the same moral law is binding in both; and it is to this fact, Gods condescension in writing a second time the words of the Decalogue, our thoughts are invited in the lesson. Let us consider some reasons for keeping the Ten Commandments; and then, how we are to obey them.
I. Reasons for keeping the commandments.
1. They come from God. This may be said of the whole law, ceremonial and judiciary, as well as moral. But surely there is a difference. Not only were the Ten Commandments promulgated, as a French writer says, avec eclat, and the people warned to prepare for the solemn event (Exo 19:10; Exo 19:15), but they were given directly by God. The first tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven on the tables. The second tables were the work of man, but the writing was still the writing of God (Exo 34:1). They stand above the ceremonial law, as an abridgment of the duties of man, and are of lasting obligation.
2. They agree with the law written in mans heart. They are in full accord with our moral intuitions. The Divine Law was not a brand new code of ethics, but it was necessary, if man was to attain to a supernatural end. Moreover, mans moral sense was liable to be tampered with and impaired, so as at last to give an uncertain judgment: neither was it able to discern clearly always between good and evil; nor did it reach into the sphere of thought and motive. If man had been entirely dependent upon a written law, its promulgation would not have been delayed till the time of Moses. It is altogether a mistake to suppose that the Decalogue made murder, theft, adultery, and the like sinful. It forbade them because they were sinful. It fixed mans moral intuitions so that they could not be dragged down by human passion and selfishness. It made them clearer and more distinct. It clothed them with a new sanction and authority.
3. We find, when we examine the period before the law was given, a sense of the evil of the actions which it forbids. Jacob said, Put away the strange gods that are among you. This is an anticipation of the First Commandment. Perhaps the previous observance of the Sabbath may be gathered from Exo 16:23. So the Sixth Commandment was already in force (Gen 9:6). Sins against purity were abhorred (Gen 34:31; Gen 38:24), showing that the Seventh Commandment was no novelty. Josephs brethren were shocked at being charged with stealing the cup (Gen 44:7). The sin of coveting thy neighbours wife was evidently recognised by Abimelech as a great sin with regard to Sarah (Gen 20:9). All these statements–and there are others before the giving of the law–are witnesses to the moral light which God has given to man, irrespective of external guidance or enactment.
4. The moral law did not make sin to be sin, though it added to its malice; but it clearly revealed the amount of human transgression, which was veiled in a mist before. It was like a clinical thermometer which measures the height of the fever, which might have been unknown before. It reveals the temperature of the patient, and so the seriousness or lightness of the case. By the law, says the apostle, is the knowledge of sin (Rom 3:20).
5. Further, obedience to the moral law of God is necessary for salvation. If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments (Mat 19:16-17). St. Paul declares the same (Rom 13:8-9). Again, Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God (1Co 7:19) St John the same (1Jn 3:22; 1Jn 3:24).
II. How are we to keep the commandments?
1. With the help of Divine grace. The law cast light upon the sinful principle in man, and by his inability to overcome it, aroused the sense of need and longing for a Saviour. Moses gave the law without the Spirit, says a commentator, but Christ gave both. Whilst on the one hand we realise that we can do nothing without grace; on the other, we must remember that we can do everything with it.
2. We have to keep all the commandments. Not nine out of ten. The commandments are not isolated precepts, so that the violation of one does not touch another. They form, if I may say so, an organic body of moral truth, as the Creed an organic body of dogmatic truth. Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all (Jam 2:10).
3. Christians have to read the commandments in the light of the Sermon on the Mount, and so to see how deeply they cut. They not only touch the outward action, but thought and motive.
III. Lessons:
1. To seek by meditation upon the law of God to know how much that law demands of us as Christians.
2. To examine the conscience by the Ten Commandments, so as to discover, by the help of the Holy Spirit, wherein we have broken them–in thought, word, deed, or omission.
3. They are the way of life. (Canon Hutchings, M. A.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER X
Moses is commanded to make a second set of tables, 1, 2.
He makes an ark, prepares the two tables, God writes on them the
ten commandments, and Moses lays them up in the ark, 3-5.
The Israelites journey from Beeroth to Mosera, where Aaron
dies, 6;
and from thence to Gudgodah and Jotbath, 7.
At that time God separated the tribe of Levi for the service of
the sanctuary, 8, 9.
How long Moses stayed the second time in the mount, 10, 11.
What God requires of the Israelites, 12-15.
Their heart must be circumcised, 16.
God’s character and conduct, 17, 18.
They are commanded to love the stranger, 19;
to fear, love, and serve God, 20,
because he had done such great things for them and their fathers,
21, 22.
NOTES ON CHAP. X
Verse 1. Hew thee two tables of stone] See Clarke on Ex 34:1.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
At that time, When God was newly appeased by my intercession. An ark of wood; either a temporary ark for this use, till the other was finished; or the famous ark, as may seem by comparing this with Deu 10:5. It is not evident in what order these things were done, nor is it strange if Moses in this short and general relation neglect the order of time, as being nothing to his present purpose.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1. At that time the Lord said untome, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the firstIt waswhen God had been pacified through the intercessions of Moses withthe people who had so greatly offended Him by the worship of thegolden calf. The obedient leader executed the orders he had receivedas to the preparation both of the hewn stones, and the ark or chestin which those sacred archives were to be laid.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
At that time the Lord said unto me,…. On the fortieth day, mentioned in the preceding chapter, as Aben Ezra, or at the end of forty days, as Jarchi; not of the first forty, for then were given him the first two tables of stone, with the law written on them, which he broke when he came down; but at the end of the second forty days, as some think, when he had fallen before the Lord, and entreated him for the people, and, as a token of his reconciliation to them, gave the following order:
hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first, c. Of the same sort of stone, of the same size and form with those God gave him in the mount the first time he was there, and which he broke in his descent from thence they were the work of God, but these were to be hewed by Moses: the order seems to be given between the request Moses made to see the glory of the Lord, and the proclamation made of it, see
Ex 34:1, and come up unto me into the mount; Mount Sinai; this was certainly the third time of his going up there, and where he continued forty days and nights; but whether he continued there so long the second time may be a matter of question, though he certainly did the third time; see Ex 32:30
and make thee an ark of wood; Jarchi thinks this was not the ark Bezaleel made, but made after, and is that which went out to battle; and some take it to be a temporary ark, made for the present purpose till that was finished; but Aben Ezra is of opinion it is the same that Bezaleel made: and it may be said to be made by Moses, because he was not only ordered to make it, but it was by his orders and the direction he gave to Bezaleel that it was made; and this seems the more probable, because there the tables remained, De 10:5.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
In Deu 10:1-5 Moses briefly relates the success of his earnest intercession. “ At that time,” of his intercession, God commanded him to hew out new tables, and prepare an ark in which to keep them (cf. Exo 34:1.). Here again Moses links together such things as were substantially connected, without strictly confining himself to the chronological order, which was already well known from the historical account, inasmuch as this was not required by the general object of his address. God had already given directions for the preparation of the ark of the covenant, before the apostasy of the nation (Exo 25:10.); but it was not made till after the tabernacle had been built, and the tables were only deposited in the ark when the tabernacle was consecrated (Exo 40:20).
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| God’s Great Kindness to Israel. | B. C. 1451. |
1 At that time the LORD said unto me, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first, and come up unto me into the mount, and make thee an ark of wood. 2 And I will write on the tables the words that were in the first tables which thou brakest, and thou shalt put them in the ark. 3 And I made an ark of shittim wood, and hewed two tables of stone like unto the first, and went up into the mount, having the two tables in mine hand. 4 And he wrote on the tables, according to the first writing, the ten commandments, which the LORD spake unto you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly: and the LORD gave them unto me. 5 And I turned myself and came down from the mount, and put the tables in the ark which I had made; and there they be, as the LORD commanded me. 6 And the children of Israel took their journey from Beeroth of the children of Jaakan to Mosera: there Aaron died, and there he was buried; and Eleazar his son ministered in the priest’s office in his stead. 7 From thence they journeyed unto Gudgodah; and from Gudgodah to Jotbath, a land of rivers of waters. 8 At that time the LORD separated the tribe of Levi, to bear the ark of the covenant of the LORD, to stand before the LORD to minister unto him, and to bless in his name, unto this day. 9 Wherefore Levi hath no part nor inheritance with his brethren; the LORD is his inheritance, according as the LORD thy God promised him. 10 And I stayed in the mount, according to the first time, forty days and forty nights; and the LORD hearkened unto me at that time also, and the LORD would not destroy thee. 11 And the LORD said unto me, Arise, take thy journey before the people, that they may go in and possess the land, which I sware unto their fathers to give unto them.
There were four things in and by which God showed himself reconciled to Israel and made them truly great and happy, and in which God’s goodness took occasion from their badness to make him the more illustrious:–
I. He gave them his law, gave it to them in writing, as a standing pledge of his favour. Though the tables that were first written were broken, because Israel had broken the commandments, and God might justly break the covenant, yet when his anger was turned away the tables were renewed, Deu 10:1; Deu 10:2. Note, God’s putting his law in our reconciliation to God and the best earnest of our happiness in him. Moses is told to hew the tables; for the law prepares the heart by conviction and humiliation for the grace of God, but it is only that grace that then writes the law in it. Moses made an ark of shittim-wood (v. 3), a plain chest, the same, I suppose, in which the tables were afterwards preserved: but Bezaleel is said to make it (Exod. xxxvii. 1), because he afterwards finished it up and overlaid it with gold. Or Moses is said to make it because, when he went up the second time into the mount, he ordered it to be made by Bezaleel against he came down. And it is observable that for this reason the ark was the first thing that God gave orders about, Exod. xxv. 10. And this left an earnest to the congregation that the tables should not miscarry this second time, as they had done the first. God will send his law and gospel to those whose hearts are prepared as arks to receive them. Christ is the ark in which now our salvation is kept safely, that it may not be lost as it was in the first Adam, when he had it in his own hand. Observe, 1. What it was that God wrote on the two tables, the ten commandments (v. 4), or ten words, intimating in how little a compass they were contained: they were not ten volumes, but ten words: it was the same with the first writing, and both the same that he spoke in the mount. The second edition needed no correction nor amendment, nor did what he wrote differ form what he spoke. The written word is as truly the word of God as that which he spoke to his servants the prophets. 2. What care was taken of it. These two tables, thus engraven, were faithfully laid up in the ark. And there they be, said Moses, pointing it is probable towards the sanctuary, v. 5. That good thing which was committed to him he transmitted to them, and left it pure and entire in their hands; now let them look to it at their peril. Thus we may say to the rising generation, “God has entrusted us with Bibles, sabbaths, sacraments, c., as tokens of his presence and favour, and there they be we lodge them with you,” 2Ti 1:13; 2Ti 1:14.
II. He led them forward towards Canaan, though they in their hearts turned back towards Egypt, and he might justly have chosen their delusions, Deu 10:6; Deu 10:7. He brought them to a land of rivers of waters, out of a dry and barren wilderness. Sometimes God supplied their wants by the ordinary course of nature: when that failed, then by miracles; and yet after this, when they were brought into a little distress, we find them distrusting God and murmuring, Num 20:3; Num 20:4.
III. He appointed a standing ministry among them, to deal for them in holy things. At that time when Moses went up a second time to the mount, or soon after, he had orders to separate the tribe of Levi to God, and to his immediate service, they having distinguished themselves by their zeal against the worshippers of the golden calf, Deu 10:8; Deu 10:9. The Kohathites carried the ark; they and the other Levites stood before the Lord, to minister to him in all the offices of the tabernacle; and the priests, who were of that tribe, were to bless the people. This was a standing ordinance, which had now continued almost forty years, even unto this day; and provision was made for the perpetuating of it by the settled maintenance of that tribe, which was such as gave them great encouragement in their work, and no diversion from it. The Lord is his inheritance. Note, A settled ministry is a great blessing to a people, and a special token of God’s favour. And, since the particular priests could not continue by reason of death, God showed his care of the people in securing a succession, which Moses takes notice of here, v. 6. When Aaron died, the priesthood did not die with him, but Eleazar his son ministered in his stead, and took care of the ark, in which the tables of stone, those precious stones, were deposited, that they should suffer no damage; there they be, and he has the custody of them. Under the law, a succession in the ministry was kept up, by an entail of the office on a certain tribe and family. But now, under the gospel, when the effusion of the Spirit is more plentiful and powerful, the succession is kept up by the Spirit’s operation on men’s hearts, qualifying men for, and inclining men to, that work, some in every age, that the name of Israel may not be blotted out.
IV. He accepted Moses as an advocate or intercessor for them, and therefore constituted him their prince and leader (Deu 10:10; Deu 10:11): The Lord hearkened to me and said, Arise, go before the people. It was a mercy to them that they had such a friend, so faithful both to him that appointed him and to those for whom he was appointed. It was fit that he who had saved them from ruin, by his intercession with heaven, should have the conduct and command of them. And herein he was a type of Christ, who, as he ever lives making intercession for us, so he has all power both in heaven and in earth.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
DEUTERONOMY – CHAPTER TEN
Verses 1-5:
In this chapter, Moses does not preserve the chronological order, but rather gives the highlights of the events.
“At that time,” the time of Moses’ return into Mount Sinai, for the period of intercession, Exo 34:1-3, q.v.
In the Exodus account, nothing is said of the “ark” or chest at the time of the second giving of the Law. This Ark was to be the repository for the two tablets of the Law, along with a golden pot of manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded, see Exo 37:1-9; Exo 16:32-34; Heb 9:4. As the Ark and the two tablets of stone containing the Law were so closely related, Moses mentions them together.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
1. At that time the Lord said unto me He had had intercourse with the people for some time, before he returned into the mount with the second tables; and therefore he now begins to relate more fully what he had already mentioned in the inverted order of time, i.e., that he stayed in the mount forty days to make entreaty for them. And this also the repetition in the 10 verse more clearly demonstrates, where he says, that he stayed in the mount “according (393) to the first days.” But, although he there says that he was hearkened to when he interceded in the mount, still he includes the prayers which he had previously offered when he heard of the people’s revolt, and after he had broken the tables and taken away God’s tabernacle, in which he prayed apart to obtain pardon for their sin. What is also here said respecting the ark is not in its proper place; for it was a part of the tabernacle, as we have elsewhere seen. It is, therefore, exacting too much to require that the things which are related together, should be referred to the same instant of time.
(393) See Margin, A.V.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
THE RECAPITULATION OF THE LAW
Deu 5:1 to Deu 26:19 record for us a recapitulation of the Law. The study of this section sets out clearly certain fundamental truths.
The Decalog is repeated with significant variations. Chapter 5, fundamental to all the laws of God is the Decalog. In Exodus, Moses delivered the same as he brought it from the tip of the fingers Divine. In Deuteronomy, the Law is given again. From the first to the tenth commandment, the very language of Exodus is employed, save in the instance of the fourth. Here, the reason assigned to the Jew for keeping the Sabbath, is strangely and significantly changed, namely, from because the Lord in six days made heaven and earth and rested on the seventh day, to Remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm; therefore, the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day (Deu 5:15).
This change is so strange and so unexpected that it arrests immediate attention and demands adequate explanation. Why did God shift the reason for keeping the Sabbath from the finished creation to a completed redemption? The answer is not difficult. In the Divine plan, redemption is a far greater event than creation; the soul of man exceeds the weight of the world; for that matter, of all worlds. The Law was given by Moses, but Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ. The Law was given for Jews; the Gentiles were never in bondage to it, and above all, believing Gentiles are not bound by it. To them, the Law is not a great external or outside force created for practices of restraint. Its spirit is transcribed to their souls rather; they walk at liberty while seeking Divine precepts. This is not to inveigh against the Law. The Law is just, and true and good, but by Law no man has ever been redeemed. It is to exalt Grace, which God hath revealed through Jesus Christ, in whom men have redemption from sin. If I only love my father and mother because the Law commands it, I do not love them at all; if I refrain from making images and bowing down before them because this is the demand of the Law, my heart may yet be as full of idolatry as a heathen temple. Redemption is not by the Law; it is by Grace in Jesus Christ!
The early Church was shortly called upon to settle this question of salvation by Law or Grace, and in the Jerusalem Conference Peter rose up and said unto them,
Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the Word of the Gospel, and believe.
And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as He did unto us;
And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.
Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? (Act 15:7-10).
Later he said, We believe that through the Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ (not by Law) we shall be saved, even as they (Act 15:7-11). Mark you, in that very sentence, Peter, the Apostle, proves his realization of the fact that the Law had failed as a savior and the very Jew himself had hope alone in grace. How strange, then, for men of the Twentieth Century to turn back to Law and proclaim the Law as though it were a redeemer, and protest that men who ignore the Jewish Saturday as the Sabbath will plunge themselves into the pit thereby, when the Law never saved! The keeping of the Sabbath was the one Law that contained in itself no ethical demand. The Law to worship, the Law to honor father and mother, the Law against killing, stealing and covetousnessthese are all questions of right and wrong; but to tithe time by the keeping of the Sabbath was a command solely in the interest of mans physical life. When, therefore, by the pen of inspiration the reason for it was shifted from a finished creation to a finished redemption, the act was lifted at once to a high spiritual level and became a symbol of the day when Christ, risen from the grave, should have completed redemptions plan. That great fortune to mankind fell out on the first day of the week, creating not so much a Christian Sabbath as making forever a memorial day for redemption itself, for the eighth day, or the first day of the week, clearly indicated the new order of things, or the new creation through Christ.
We have no sympathy whatever with secularizing each one of the seven days; but we would have the first day of the week kept in the spirit of rejoicing as redemptions memorial. On that day our Lord rose from the dead; on that day He met his disciples again and again; on that day the brethren at Troas assembled with the Apostles and broke bread; on that day the Christians laid aside their offerings; on that day they met for prayer and breaking of breadthe fellowship of the saints; on that day John was caught up in the spirit and witnessed the marvels recorded in his apocalyptic vision. Oh, what a day! No legal bondage, for what have we to do with holy days, sabbaths and new moons; but salvations memorial, a day of special service to the Son of God, our Saviour, a day for the souls rejoicing in Jesus. Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to every one that believeth.
But as we pass on in the study of this section of Scripture, we find Moses defends the Decalog in character and consequence. He reminds them of the glory out of which the voice spake (Deu 5:24). He reminds them of the obligation in the words themselves (Deu 5:32). He reminds them of the relationship of the possession of the land to obedience of the precepts. He pleads with them as a father, Hear, therefore, O Israel (Deu 6:4). He anticipates the day of prophecy and begs that these words have place in their hearts (Deu 6:6), to be diligently taught to their children (Deu 6:7); bound for a sign upon their hands and frontlets between their eyes, lest they be forgotten (Deu 6:8); written upon the posts of the house and on the gates, where they could not be unobserved (Deu 6:9). Moses knew the relationship of law-keeping to national living. It is doubtful if modernists now have or will ever again entertain the same sacred reverence for Law that characterized the ancients, even the heathen of far-off days.
We cannot forget how Socrates, when he was sentenced to death and, after an imprisonment of thirty days, was to drink the juice of the hemlock, spent his time preparing for the end; friends conceived and executed plans for his escape and earnestly endeavored to prevail upon him to avail himself of the opportunity, but he answered, That would be a crime to violate the law even when the sentence is unjust. I would rather die than do evil. If a heathen philosopher could treat unjust laws with such reverence, Moses was justified in pleading with his people to regard the laws that were true and just and good, and such were the mandates of Deuteronomy.
It is easy enough for one to pick out some one of these precepts and, by detaching it from its context, create the impression that it was foolish or superficial or even utterly unjust; but when one reads the whole Book, he sees the effectual relationship of laws, general and particular, to the life Israel was leading, and for that matter, catches the supreme spiritual significance of the same as they interpret themselves in the light of New Testament teaching. There is not a warning that was not needed, nor an exhortation which, if heeded, would have failed to profit the people. It all came to one conclusion for Israel.
What doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul (Deu 10:12)?
And as there was not a law in the Old Testament but was fitted for the profit of Israel, so there is not a command in the New Testament but looks to the conquest of the Christian soul.
Among these enactments were personal and significant suggestions. They gave dietary and sanitary suggestions (Deuteronomy 14); they established the Sabbatic year (Deuteronomy 13); they fixed the time of the Passover (Deuteronomy 16); they set forth the character of the offerings (Deuteronomy 17); they determined the duties of the Levites (Deuteronomy 18); they gave direction concerning the cities of refuge (Deuteronomy 19); they determined the way of righteous warfare (chap. 20); they established a court of inquest (Deuteronomy 21); they announced the law of brotherhood (Deuteronomy 22); they descended to the minute instances of social life and regulations of the same (Deuteronomy 23); they dealt with the great and difficult question of divorce (Deuteronomy 24); they ended (Deuteronomy 23) in an almost unlimited series of regulations concerning the social life of the people knowing a wilderness experience, including the law of the first fruits (Deuteronomy 26).
It is interesting to study not alone the laws enacted here, but the penalties declared, including the blessings and curses from Ebal to Gerizim. There is about them all an innate righteousness that has been unknown to those purely human codes for which God never assumed responsibility. From the curse against bribery to the curse against brutal murder to this day the sentences are justified in the judgment of the worlds most thoughtful men.
In all they contrast the injustice and inordinately severe punishments often afflicted by godless governments. Plutarch, in writing about Solon, tells us that he repealed the laws of Draco except those concerning murder. Such was the severity of their punishments in proportion to the offense that we are amazed as we read them. If one was convicted of idleness, death was the penalty. If one stole a few apples or potherbs, he must surely die, and by as ignominious a method as did the murderer. And out of that grew the saying of Demades that Draco wrote his laws, not with ink but with blood. And when Draco was asked why such severe penalties, he answered, Small ones deserve it, and I can find no greater for the most heinous. Such were human laws in contrast to these laws Divine.
But a further study of these laws involves a third lesson.
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
CRITICAL NOTES.
Deu. 10:1. That time. The order for the ark was given before the apostasy of the people, cf. Exodus 25, and the tables were put into it after the dedication of the tabernacle. But Moses connects events related to each other for his own purpose without strict chronological order. Hew, cut with an axe, to shape. Tables, blocks or tablets.
Deu. 10:3. Shittim. Acacia tree, Exo. 25:5.
Deu. 10:5. There they be. Another minute but important circumstance, the public mention of which at the time attests the veracity of the sacred historian.
Deu. 10:6. Beeroth. Identical with Benejaakan of Num. 33:31. Mosera and Moseroth (plu.), in the vicinity of mount Hor (Num. 33:31); as Aaron died there, Eleazar ministeredwas installed priest, Exo. 23:25; Exo. 28:1.
Deu. 10:7. Gudgodah. Hor-hagidgad (mount of thunder, Num. 33:32). JotbathJotbathah of Num. 33:33.
Deu. 10:8. That time. Of encampment at Sinai thirty-eight years since. The tribe of Levi separated from other tribes. Stand. Exclusively the business of priests, Num. 6:23. Non-priestly family of Kohath carried the ark, Num. 4:15.
Deu. 10:9. Cf. Num. 18:20-24; Deu. 18:1 -Ver. 2.
Deu. 10:10. Moses resumes his address and sums up the results of his in ercession.
Deu. 10:11. This commandment and promise was a testimony that God now was reconciled unto them by the intercession of Moses (Ainsworth).
Deu. 10:12. Now, i.e., Since all that thou hast is thus shown to be of mere grace, without desert of thine own. Require, etc., i.e. understand the spiritual claims of these formal regulations. Fear. Filial fear, pious reverence, existing only with love. Walk. Accept truth, and follow the course prescribed, cf. Gen. 18:19; Psa. 25:4-5; Act. 18:25 -Ver. 26. Serve. The genuine fruit of love, Joh. 14:15; Gal. 5:13; 1Jn. 3:18.
Deu. 10:14. Heaven of heavens imports all included under the name of heaven. Jehovah is not a local God. His claims cannot be limited, of 1Ki. 8:27; Psa. 148:4.
Deu. 10:15. He was not bound to elect Israel, yet did so of His own free will.
Deu. 10:16. Circumcise, therefore be no longer stiffnecked; be not insensible to Gods love, persist no longer in obstinate resistance to God.
Deu. 10:17. The demand for surrender is followed by a description of the nature and acts of Jehovah. He is not a local Deity, and though taking special interest in IsraelHe is God of gods, i.e., the supreme God, the essence of all that is divine, of all power and might, Psa. 136:2. Lord of lords, supreme Ruler of heaven and earth, regardeth, not subject to prejudice, nor perverts justice as human judges, Lev. 19:15; 2Ch. 19:7.
Deu. 10:18-19. He is impartial and uncorruptible, executes, vindicates the rights of the defenceless (orphan and widow) and manifests loving care for the helpless and oppressed (stranger).
Deu. 10:19. Love. AS they had been strangers in Egypt. and knew what it was to need help, they were to love the stranger as God loved him, and relieve his wants, Jas. 2:15-16; 1Jn. 3:10; Deu. 3:17.
Deu. 10:20-22. Fear. Reverence is due to God in act and life on account of what He is and what He has done. He is the ground of confidence and joy (thy praise), inspiring fear and dread by terrible things done for them.
Deu. 10:21 Amongst the mighty acts was one specially to be remembered.
Deu. 10:22. Out of 70 persons, notwithstanding cruelty and oppression, had grown a mighty nation Gen. 46:26; Act. 7:14.
THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF PRAYER.Deu. 10:1-11
Through the intercession of Moses God not only spared Israel, but gave them further pledges of His love.
I. The law was renewed. He wrote on the tables, according to the first writing. (Deu. 10:4.) God refused not a second transcript of his will, but in mercy renewed his covenant with them.
1. The law written with the finger of God. At first a supernatural voice was heard, now a supernatural hand writes and repeats the ten words.
2. The law unaltered. The second edition was like unto the first. It needed no correction, no amendment. What God wrote differed not from what he spoke. The written word is from God and unchangeable, as the spoken word.
3. The law kept in the ark. Put the tables in the ark. (Deu. 10:5.) Thus was it perpetuated and transmitted to us. Unto us are committed the oracles of God. Let us understand, keep, and spread them.
II. The priesthood was established. The institution was forty years old, but provision was made for a standing order, perpetual succession, and settled maintenance.
1. The high priesthood in the person of Eleazar. Aaron died, but his son succeeded him. God will never want men to carry on His work. The robes of office will never soil. Moses stripped Aaron of his garments, and put them upon Eleazar his son.
2. The ordinary priesthood in the tribe of Levi. This tribe was specially chosen for the service of the sanctuary. A settled ministry is the gift of God to the Church. (Eph. 4:11.) The continuation of this ministry and the preservation of religious ordinances, betoken Gods favour. God can remove the candlestick (Rev. 2:4) and punish sin. Hence need of prayer for ministers. Brethren, pray for us.
III. The command to advance was given. Permission to march was gained by prayer. Moses the intercessor must be the leader (Deu. 10:11.) Those are only fit to lead who preserve from ruin. God gives a full and unconditional promise of his presence. There can be no guidance and advance in life without Him. He can stop progress at any time and in any department of life. Hence prayer hinders no journey. I forgot to pray this morning, says Philip Henry, and the chariot wheels drove heavily along. The most prayerful ministers and people are the most prosperous and progressive. Unexpected and marvellous things may be witnessed through prayer. Call unto Me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not.
DISTINGUISHED SERVICE.Deu. 10:8-9
Moses mentions as a special favour that when Aaron died the high priesthood was renewed in the person of Eleazar, and that the Levites were separated to minister in the tabernacle and perpetuate the ordinary priesthood.
I. The Ministry appointed. The tribe of Levi were most zealous for the honour of the Lord when the golden calf was worshipped at Sinai (Exo. 32:26-29). Moses then charged them to consecrate themselves (lit. to fill their hands) to the Lord (Exo. 10:29). Independent of the fact that Moses and Aaron belonged to this tribe, there was, therefore, special reason for its selection.
1. It is honourable service. If it be deemed a preferment to minister to an earthly sovereign, how much more to be servant of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Happy are these Thy servants, which stand continually before Thee. (2Ch. 9:7.)
2. It is holy service, separated and consecrated to the Lord. They had to do with the most holy things, and had to be washed, cleansed, and offered for an offering. (Num. 8:15.) Holy and pure life must be seen in the service of God.
3. It is responsible service. They had to minister. Priests are servants; not Lords over Gods heritage. (1Pe. 5:3.) No toil so responsible and noble as this. Christ himself came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.
4. It is joyful service. To bless His name. Levites sang and played on instruments. Gods service is not irksome but joyous, free, and delightful.
II. The introduction to this ministry. Under the Gospel all believers are called into holy service, and raised to the dignity of sons, kings, and priests. But for the Christian ministry there must be:
1. Divine call. The Lord separated, the Lord spake, not to sanction some human plan, but to reveal his own. No man taketh this honour unto himself, but he that is called of God, as Aaron was.
2. Divine direction. The office is not only created, but its duties minutely specified. To bear the ark, to stand and minister, and to bless the Lord and the people.
3. Divine qualification. Suitable gifts, inward persuasion by the Holy Spirit, and commission to draw nigh. None are meet for holy ministry, but by the grace of God and the sanctification of the Holy Ghost (cf. 2Co. 2:16; Gal. 1:15.)
HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Deu. 10:1-3. Tables. First uttered in fire, written on stone, renewed in mercy, and preserved and portable in the ark. Like the first. Which Moses had broken; to show how we in our nature had broken the law, and could not be saved by the keeping of it. This Christ, our true Moses, repairs again, writing the law not in tables of stone, but in the hearts of believers, and enabling them in some good measure to keep it (Joh. 1:17), walking, as Luther phraseth it, in the heaven of the promise, but in the earth of the law; that in respect of believing, this of obeying.Trapp.
Deu. 10:6. The relation between the ordinances of religion and temporal blessings. The earlier commentators observed the inward connection between the continuation of the high-priesthood and the water brooks. J. Gerhard, for example, observes: God generally associates material blessings with spiritual; as long as the ministry of the Word and the observance of Divine worship flourish among us, God will also provide for our temporal necessities.Keil.
Aarons death and Eleazars succession. I. The common destiny of men. It is appointed unto all men once to die. II. The providence of God in the arrangement of this destiny. All life depends upon God. Aaron died according to a Divine purpose into Mount Hor at the commandment of the Lord, and died there. (Num. 33:38. III. The mercy of God in appointing successors to the office of the dead. Eleazar immediately, authoritatively, and securely took the place of Aaron. This, an evidence of reconciliation, encouraging to faith and humbling to pride. IV. The pledge of perpetuity to the cause of God. Gods servants die, but the work goes on and ever will do. Aarons death.
1. An indication of Divine displeasure.
2. A manifestation of mercy. He was not put to death as a transgressor by fire or plague from heaven; but dies in ease and honour.
3. A significant type. Aaron did not enter Canaan. The Levitical priesthood made nothing perfect. Christ brings in a better hope and an eternal priesthood. (Heb. 7:23-25.) Priests office. Invested with awful solemnity, Divine authority, and heavenly sanctity. Must not be undertaken lightly, unworthily, but in the fear, and for the glory of God, and the interests of men.
Deu. 10:8. Minister service. I. The service of God demands all Levites Every Christian should be a priest, ever ministering in the temple.
1. Burden-bearing. How often Christians murmur about their burdens, as though they were not honoured in being permitted to bear anything for God.
2. Singing. The Levites sang and played on instruments. Sing the song of gratitude and contentment.
3. Studying the law. Search the Scriptures.
4. Attendance on the ordinances of the sanctuary. There is a special blessing for those who worship in Gods house. II. God demands this service in our prime; from twenty and five years old. We must give God the best we have. III. He demands this service when it can be most easily rendered. God did not ask of the Levites, nor does of us, impossibilities. The very young and the old were exempt from the bearing of the heavier burdens. God suits the burden to the back. All He asks is, that we shall do what we can.R. A. Griffin.
Deu. 10:9. Levis inheritance and glory. Not material wealth, such as houses and land. They were not permitted to engage in secular pursuits, but had to employ themselves wholly to Gods service. God has their inheritance in the riches of his grace and the resources of his providence. I am their inheritance, and ye shall give them no possession in Israel. I am their possession. (Eze. 44:28.)
Deu. 10:11. Arise.
1. God has prepared an inheritance for his people. Joy, fruitfulness and power on earth, through faith; rest and heaven hereafter.
2. Gods people should earnestly strive to attain this inheritance. The command to arise supposes neglect, weakness and prostration.
3. God will help His people when they strive to obey Him. He will provide a leader. Take thy journey before the people. He will pledge his word to give success; possess the land, which sware I unto their fathers to give unto them.
HUMAN OBLIGATION TO DIVINE GOODNESS.Deu. 10:12-22
God having expressed His love and care towards them in their selection, having pardoned their apostasy, preserved their priesthood and privileges, He seeks to persuade them to love Him in return. And now Israel (now that thou hast everything without dessert or worthiness, purely from forgiving grace, Keil). What doth the Lord require? Under what obligation art thou put, but to fear and obey him? We give the sketch of the remaining chapter.
I. Divine Requirements. Gods commands are just and reasonable. Mercies received require some return. What shall I render? (Psa. 116:12.)
1. To fear and obey God. Be humble, thankful, and no longer refractory. Cherish reverence for the name and will of God. This fear must awaken love, and this love must prompt to active service.
2. To purify the heart and life (Deu. 10:16). Circumcision was a symbol of purity and consecration to God. Be not insensible, but holy in heart and life. The heart and will must be renewed, and we must abstain from fleshly lusts.
3. To love strangers and practise hospitality (Deu. 10:19). We must defend the weak, be kind to strangers, impartial to all, and compassionate to all.
II. The motives to enforce these Requirements. This duty is enforced from many considerations.
1. Personal advantage should prompt it. For thy good, (Deu. 10:13). Rewards of obedience are abundant in the present life. Our ease, comfort, and happiness are concerned; Godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.
2. The divine nature claims it. Jehovah cannot tolerate pride and stiff neckedness towards Himself or towards other persons. In his nature and moral government we find abundant reasons for loving Him. (a) God is supreme (Deu. 10:14). His authority is not local nor circumscribed. He fills heaven and earth. (b) God is rich in mercy (Deu. 10:15). He chose Israel, not for what He saw in them; of His own free will He delighted in their fathers, and in sovereign mercy He made them above all people. (c) God is all powerful (Deu. 10:17). Men fear powerful monarchs. Gods omnipotence is always exerted to deliver from danger and do good. Hence, reverence due to His great name. (d) God is no respecter of persons. He is just and upright in nature, impartial and incorruptible in His dealings. Appearances deceive Him not; nor does He regard forms, professions and privileges without reality. God accepteth no mans person (Gal. 2:6).
3. Divine goodness deserves it. Constant benefits require constant thanks. Partial gratitude and services are worthless. We must have respect to all the commandments. An honest soul would not conceal any debt he was to God, says Gurnall, but calls upon itself to give an account for all his benefits. The skipping over one note in a lesson may spoil the grace of the music. Unthankfulness for one mercy disparageth our thanks for the rest. Reverence is due to God. (a) For His gracious acts for His people (Deu. 10:21). Terrible deeds were done for Israel, and great things have been shown to us. Only fear the Lord, and serve Him in truth with all your heart; for consider how great things He hath done for you (1Sa. 12:24). (b) For abundant prosperity unto His people (Deu. 10:22). Israels history and increase had been marvellous. From few, they had become many; from a weak, they had become a mighty nation. They were multiplied as the stars of heaven and blessed beyond degree! What then did they owe to God? Why be obstinate and disobedient?
O! to grace how great a debtor,
Daily Im constrained to be.
GODS CLAIMS UPON OUR SERVICE.Deu. 10:12-16
The intercession of Moses secured new blessings. New obedience should therefore be given to God, who bestowed them. The service which God claims is specified in its nature, breadth, and activity.
I The nature of the service claimed. It is summed up and touchingly enforced in few words. What doth the Lord require?
1. Willing service. What require? The word signifies to ask or request. God in the law of Moses commanded many observances and enforced obedience when required; but love and veneration must be voluntary. God does not rule men like suns and stars, nor like brutes; but appeals to reason and consciencesolicits and requests our service. Who then is willing this day? etc. Will ye be my disciples? What an attitude for the Omnipotent and Eternal God to assume towards man! How lovingly and beseechingly does he request our obedience. But to Israel He saith, all day long (i.e., with unwearied patience) I have stretched forth My hands (like a mother calling back her child, in gracious, earnest entreaty) unto a disobedient and gainsaying (refractory, or stubborn) people. (Rom. 10:21.)
2. Practical service. Genuine religion is always practical, not mere feeling and form. It is fear, obedience, and love. (a) To fear the Lord, not with slavish feara fear which hath torment, and is opposed to love (1Jn. 4:18) but a filial reverence. (b) To love Him. Love and fear go together. Reverence in a child begets true affection. When our feelings, our hearts are right we naturally yield to God our profoundest reverence. (c) To serve him. When love fills our hearts, it will express itself in life. We shall instinctively cleave to God and walk in all His ways. We shall fear to offend Him and dread separation from Him. We shall serve God with heart and soul. Our religion will not be in word but in deed. We may suspect our religion, suspect our interest in Christ, if we have no delight in His service, no love for His person. The law must be written in our hearts, as a permanent principle and conserving force of life (Psa. 37:31.) Our service must be spiritual; our obedience free and hearty; and our love fervent and sincere.
Not by the terrors of a slave
Do they perform his will;
But with the noblest powers they have,
His sweet commands fulfil.
II. The ground on which the claim is urged. The appeal for future loyalty is made on several grounds. Let us suggest three.
1. It is rational. What doth the Lord require; anything unreasonable, impossible, or inconsistent? Can God ask less than what is due to him? He does not bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
2. It is enforced by covenant. The Lord thy God. Israel was ever reminded of this relationship and the duties which spring from it. Whatever God was in Himself He was to them; all His perfections were enlisted on their behalf. In the covenant with Christ God regards His people as specially His own and bestows upon them greater blessings. As creatures, as property, God has a right to claim us. But if His children, bought with blood, we should love Him with all our heart. If He has made solemn compacts, pledged Himself and all His resources to help, we should make no reserve whatever, but devote ourselves, body, soul and spirit unto Him.
3. It is due from constant mercies. He brought us into being; dignified us with understanding; sustained and redeemed our life from destruction. For us He has given His word, sent His son and opened heaven. Some return is due and should be rendered to Him. Mercies have been great, constant, and multiplied. Special favours demand special service, as those who keep the largest farms pay the most rent. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God (in providence and grace) that ye present your bodies (i.e. your whole selves) a living sacrifice (in contrast to dead beasts offered under law) holy, acceptable (well pleasing) to God, which is your reasonable (rational) service; i.e. a service befitting a rational being (Rom. 12:1).
III. The needful qualification to render the service. Circumcise the foreskin of your heart (Deu. 10:16).
1. We are naturally sinful. Circumcision teaches that we are impure, and unfit for God and His service. We must mortify our members which are upon earth (Col. 3:5); crucify the affections and lusts of the flesh (Gal. 5:24); renounce act of all sin and selfwill and sever ourselves from sensuality. Circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter (Rom. 2:28-29).
2. The needed qualification is a circumcised heart. True obedience can only spring from a renewed loving heart. When enmity is subdued and affection planted within us, then God gives filial fear, or the spirit of adoption; then service is not task work. Slavery and selfishness pass away, and duty becomes hearty and enthusiastic. When love reigns in the heart, the whole man will be brought under sway. All our powers will be employed in doing the will, and promoting the glory of God. Love is the fulfilling of the law.
HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Deu. 10:12-13. Study the clauses of this requirement. Gods exactions, if we be Christians, are our own free will offerings. What God demands is what thankful hearts should gladly give. First of all to fear Him. Not to be terrified, that is the natural mans religion. Unless taught of God men look upon Him with terror and alarm. Hence religion is a sepulchral and gloomy thing to them. To the Christian all is reverse. He has no alarm; he courts Gods presence and feels that presence to be the inspiration of hope and joy. Next to walk in all his ways. All the ways proceed from one source and terminate in the same again. There are varieties of expression, but one religion. A way of righteousness a way of truth, a way of peace, and a way of pleasantness. All are different paths which God has prescribed for His people; and they that are His people are found walking in them. Walk, not to stand still, in His waysnot your own. Then to love Him. If the fear enjoined were terror, it would be impossible to love. Love is the germ in the heart that blossoms and bursts into all the fragrant fruits demanded by Gods holy law. The law, like the imperious taskmaster, says, Give me fruit, and you cannot; but love softly, progressively, originates and develops all the fruits of the Spirit. The absence of this love is the absence of Christianity. This love, lost in the fall, regained by the cross, is the result of seeing Gods love for us. The measure and extent is all your hearts. Not more than human strength, not less than will fill the heart is required. Think of the equity of the law, and of its greatness. Not cold, calculating preference; but warm, cordial attachmentattachment not blind and unintelligible, but with all the soul. Also to serve him, service in the sense of worship. The word liturgy strictly means service; here service means adore, pray, and praise; worship outwardly, publicly, and privately with all the heart. We learn the essence of all true acceptable worship before God. Not material glory, ritual splendour; but depth of sincerity, intensity of love, the supremacy of God in the heart What is the end of all this? First, God asks this, not for His benefit, but for our good. Is there no benefit in meeting together in the house of God, in unloading the thankful heart in praise? When you give the greatest glory, worship, and homage to God, the reaction of it is showers of blessings, mercies, and privileges upon yourselves. God requires this in His word, in seasons of affliction and prosperity. He requires it that holy effects may be seen, and that men may feel that religion purifies. It is also good for the world. The best evidence that you are Christians is in what you feel, suffer, sacrifice, and do; not as servants obeying for reward, but as sons serving God out of affection.Dr. Cumming.
Deu. 10:13. Keep (shamar) signifies to keep diligently, carefully, faithfully; as watchmen keep the city, soldiers their garrisons, or jailors their prisoners (1Ki. 20:39; Job. 12:12). God would have His people thus to keep His commandments and statutes, and to do this on account of those high acts of favour and grace that He had shewed them; and what is this but to be a holy people, yea, a very holy people unto the Lord.Brooks.
Our duty towards God. ConsiderI. That we have a duty to perform towards God. A duty of
1. Holy fear.
2. Perfect obedience.
3. Love.
4. Willing service. II. That this duty is enforced by many considerations.
1. Obedience to Gods commands will be to our own advantage.
2. We have been especially favoured by God; gratitude should impel us to serve Him.
3. The consequences of enmity to Him are fearful in the highest degree.E. Lockwood.
Deu. 10:12-13; Deu. 10:19. The sum of human duty. Its nature, basis, and motives. cf. What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God (Mic. 6:8).
The reasonableness of Gods law. Many think it stern and severe, and impossible for man to obey. If God required more than man can give, this would be opposed to His word, indicate tyranny in His government, and would free man from blame. But God asks for service, not from angelic powers, but service of a nature adapted to our own. His requirements are clear as noonday, and equal as they can be, and the plea cannot be sustained. O, house of Israel, are not my ways equal? are not your ways unequal? etc. (Eze. 18:29-30).A. Barnes.
GOD NO RESPECTER OF PERSONS.Deu. 10:17
In this sublime description of God we have a brief phrase indicating the impartial, incorruptible, and righteous method of His government. He regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward. He shows no favour, nor is he bribed in judging men. There is no respect of persons with God (Rom. 2:11).
I. In the laws of Moral Government.Natural laws make no discrimination, no distinction in their nature, purpose, and penalties. Nature accepts no bribes and regards no tears in her retributive dealings. There is natural law in the spiritual world, the same kind of procedure as in the natural world. The Jew has no advantage over the Gentile. Though His chosen people, God will not tolerate sin in them any more than in other nations. Men everywhere have the same wants, are subject to the same diseases, and doomed to the same grave. The small and the great are there, and the servant is free as his master. Spiritually there is no difference (in their relation to Gods righteous government), for all have sinned and come short (failed to attain) the glory of God (Rom. 3:22-23).
II. In the method of Salvation.If men are equally guilty, none are deserving, and none are saved by their own good works. He accepteth not the person of princes, nor regardeth the rich more than the poor; for they all are the work of His hands (Job. 34:19). If saved at all, they are saved freely by His grace. Peter could not believe that the gospel must be offered to the Gentiles, and that they stood on the same basis of acceptance as the favoured people. Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons (Act. 10:34).
III. In the accounts of the Judgment Day.This day will vindicate the righteousness of God in the rewards of the just and the punishment of the unjust. Then will the eternal principles of the Divine government be fully asserted and vindicated. There will be one impartial award, the righteous Judge will render to every one according to his deeds (Rom. 2:6-11). For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad (2Co. 6:10).
LOVE TO THE STRANGER.Deu. 10:19
Strangers were in danger of being treated as foreigners and aliens among the Israelites. But many humane laws were enacted and repeated for their benefit. They were not merely to be tolerated, but to be respected, regarded as members of the Commonwealthto be put on perfect equality with the Israelites. There are two reasons given for consideration to strangers.
I. God loves the stranger. Though great and terrible, yet He is kind and affectionate towards the helpless and oppressed. The more defenceless the greater the claim upon His compassion. A father of the fatherless and a judge of the widows is God, in His holy habitation. Kindness to the stranger has been considered such a favourite virtue that the gods have been said to disguise themselves to test human hospitality. The Bible and tradition seem to agree on this matter. Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares (Heb. 13:2). Zeus, the strangers god, suggests another title for Jehovah. The poor committeth himself unto thee; thou art the helper of the fatherless. Psa. 10:14; Psa. 10:17-18; cf. Jer. 49:11; Hos. 14:3.
II. Israelites themselves have been strangers. For ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. Legislation has protected the orphan and the widow, but not always strangers. They have been considered outcasts and foreigners. Israel had been afflicted and distressed. They knew the bitter experience of persecution, and should therefore sympathise with others in the same condition. Our experience should teach us to regard tenderly all reduced to slavery and treated with inhumanity. Thou shalt not oppress a stranger; for ye know the heart (the soul, the feeling) of a stranger (by personal experience), seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt (Exo. 23:9). If Cicero could say whatever concerned humanity was not foreign to himself, what should be our feelings, when we think of the Divine Nature, the pathetic appeals of the Word, and the incarnation of Jesus Christ? The stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself, for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God (Lev. 19:34).
Joves special care
Are strangers, poor and friendless.Odyss.
A NATIONS HONOUR.Deu. 10:20-21
Moses returns to his main subject, and again exhorts to reverence and obedience. God had honoured them, and deserved to be honoured by them. He was worthy in Himself, and worthy on account of what He had done. He is thy praise and He is thy Goda nations honour consists in Gods blessing upon its past history and its present condition.
I. God in its past history. God is in history at all times, over-ruling all events for the accomplishment of His purpose. But few nations were blessed as Israel.
1. In its constant prosperity (Deu. 10:22.) Mighty had been the increase of the people. In number, position, and dignity they were like the stars as heaven.
2. In its continual defence. In their deliverance and history great and terrible things had been done for them. England should remember her deliverances and defence in the destruction of the Invincible Armada, the defeat of Popish plots, and the establishment of the Protestant religion. What one nation in the earth is like Thy people, even like Israel, whom God went to redeem for a people to Himself, and to make Him a name, and to do for you great things and terrible, for Thy land, before Thy people, which Thou redeemedst to Thee from Egypt, from the nations and their Gods? (2Sa. 7:23.)
II. God in its present condition. He must still be our God, as well as our fathers God. He must never be forgotten nor forsaken, but abide with us for ever.
1. As the object of worship. He is thy praise, the object of praise, and regard. We must not worship our great men, nor bow down to our own nets (Heb. 1:1-6). If God be not recognised in public act and private life, our glory will depart.
2. As the ground of dependence. We must put no confidence in the wisdom of our policy, the extent of our empire, the splendour of our arms, and the abundance of our wealth. Righteousness exalteth a nation.
3. As the source of prosperity. Our own skill and wisdom are vain. We can never do without God. He gives increase and success in families, churches, and nations (Act. 5:38-39). To God we owe everything, and should dedicate everything. Well may we think our substance due where we owe ourselves (Bp. Hall). Let us cleave to God, our shield in the past and our hope for the future. Only fear the Lord, and serve Him in truth with all your heart; for consider how great things He hath done for you (1Sa. 12:24).
Without the help of God
All is decay, delusion all,
On which mankind rely:
The firmament itself would fall,
And even Nature die
Beneath annihilations nod,
Without the help of God.W. Hayley.
HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Deu. 10:19. Love the stranger.
1. An expression of Gods nature. God is love.
2. An evidence of superior legislation in Israel.
3. A duty enjoined upon us. It is love; not mere pity, but practical benevolence. Never anything can be amiss, when simpleness and duty tender it (Shakespeare). A kind action is never lost.
Deu. 10:20. Four aspects of obedience. Fear, serve, cleave, and swear. Our allegiance must be public, constant and firm. If we own God as our own God He will ever defend us. Every one that sweareth by Him shall glory.
Deu. 10:21. Thy praise. Thy praised one (Psa. 18:3), or thy praiseworthy one. He is also thy chief glory and praise among all nations, who shall admire thy happiness in such a God (Trapp). The friendship of God a personal honoura constant necessity and an eternal sufficiency. Why be ashamed or afraid of Him? Why not fear Him who can increase or diminish (Deu. 10:22), exalt or humble by His infinite power? Your God is a God of gods, and a Lord of kings (Dan. 2:47).
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 10
Deu. 10:1-5. Tables. God wrote the laws upon stone, and these stones were laid up in the ark of the testimony. But this law He writes now upon the hearts of His people; and Gods will, engraved upon the sensitive and susceptible heart of a Christian, will outlast the Pyramids of Egypt, outlive the stones that came down from Mount Sinai in the hand of Moses, and endure for ever. It is a nobler thing to write the law upon human hearts, and more miraculous, than to write it with His own finger upon the dead and perishing stone.Dr. Cumming.
Deu. 10:6-8. Ministered. A pious lady once amongst a party of gentlemen, by whom the worldly circumstances of ministers were made the topic of conversation, remarks were thrown out of which she could not approve. For some time silent, at last, with a dignified air and a decided tone, she put them all to silence with the words, Well, you may say what you please concerning the situation of ministers, but let me tell you that a minister of the Gospel holds a more honourable office than a minister of state.Whitecross.
Deu. 10:12-13. Love. The centripetal force which keeps all the celestial bodies in harmonious motion, each in its appointed orbit. What would ensue could we imagine the force to be withdrawn?Bowes.
Deu. 10:14-17. A great God. Simonides, the philosopher, being requested to describe God, asked a week to think of it, after that a month, and then a year; but, being still unprepared, he declined the task, declaring that the more he thought of such a Being the less he was able to describe Him. It is said that Sir I. Newton and Dr. S. Clarke never mentioned the name of God without solemn pause. God has two thronesone in the highest heavens, the other in the lowest hearts (Isa. 57:15).
Deu. 10:19. Love the stranger. Mercy hath but its name for misery, and is no other thing than to lay anothers misery to heart (Binning). In aspiring to the throne of power, the angels transgressed and fell; in presuming to come within the oracle of knowledge, man transgressed and fell; but in the pursuit towards the similitude of Gods goodness and love neither man nor spirit ever transgressed or shall transgress (Bacon). How unsuitable is it for us, who live only by kindness (Tit. 3:4-7), to be unkind.Edwards.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
b. HOW TO PREVENT THE THREAT (Deu. 9:1 to Deu. 11:21)
(1) BY A REALISTIC SELF-EVALUATION (Deu. 9:1 to Deu. 10:11)
(Moses rehearses the story of the two tables of stone and the Israelites sin at Sinai. This is done so Israel might see their previous course: rebelliousness, stubbornness, and disobedience.)
Hear, O Israel: thou art to pass over the Jordan this day to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than thyself, cities great and fortified up to heaven, 2 a people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, whom thou knowest, and of whom thou hast heard say, Who can stand before the sons of Anak? 3 Know therefore this day, that Jehovah thy God is he who goeth over before thee as a devouring fire; he will destroy them, and he will bring them down before thee: so shalt thou drive them out, and make them to perish quickly, as Jehovah hath spoken unto thee. 4 Speak not thou in thy heart, after that Jehovah thy God hath thrust them out from before thee, saying, For my righteousness Jehovah hath brought me in to possess this land; whereas for the wickedness of these nations Jehovah doth drive them out from before thee. 5 Not for thy righteousness, or for the unrightness of thy heart, dost thou go in to possess their land; but for the wickedness of these nations Jehovah thy God doth drive them out from before thee, and that he may establish the word which Jehovah sware unto thy fathers to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
6 Know therefore, that Jehovah thy God giveth thee not this good land to possess it for thy righteousness; for thou art a stiffnecked people. 7 Remember, forget thou not, how thou provokedst Jehovah thy God to wrath in the wilderness: from the day that thou wentest forth out of the land of Egypt, until ye came unto this place, ye have been rebellious against Jehovah. 8 Also in Horeb ye provoked Jehovah to wrath, and Jehovah was angry with you to destroy you. 9 When I was gone up into the mount to receive the tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant which Jehovah made with you, then I abode in the mount forty days and forty nights; I did neither eat bread nor drink water. 10 And Jehovah delivered unto me the two tables of stone written with the finger of God; and on them was written according to all the words, which Jehovah spake with you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly, 11 And it came to pass at the end of forty days and forty nights, that Jehovah gave me the two tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant. 12 And Jehovah said unto me, Arise, get thee down quickly from hence; for thy people that thou hast brought forth out of Egypt have corrupted themselves; they are quickly turned aside out of the way which I commanded them; they have made them a molten image. 13 Furthermore Jehovah spake unto me, saying, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people; 14 let me alone, that I may destroy them, and blot out their name from under heaven; and I will make of thee a nation mightier and greater than they, 15 So I turned and came down from the mount, and the mount was burning with fire: and the two tables of the covenant were in my two hands. 16 And I looked, and, behold, ye had sinned against Jehovah your God; ye had made you a molten calf: ye had turned aside quickly out of the way which Jehovah had commanded you. 17 And I took hold of the two tables, and cast them out of my hands, and brake them before your eyes. 18 And I fell down before Jehovah, as at the first, forty days and forty nights; I did neither eat bread nor drink water; because of all your sin which ye sinned, in doing that which was evil in the sight of Jehovah, to provoke him to anger. 19 For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure, wherewith Jehovah was wroth against you to destroy you. But Jehovah hearkened unto me that time also. 20 And Jehovah was very angry with Aaron to destroy him: and I prayed for Aaron also at the same time. 21 And I took your sin, the calf which ye had made, and burnt it with fire, and stamped it, grinding it very small, until it was as fine as dust: and I cast the dust thereof into the brook that descended out of the mount.
22 And at Taberah, and at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah, ye provoked Jehovah to wrath. 23 And when Jehovah sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, Go up and possess the land which I have given you; then ye rebelled against the commandment of Jehovah your God, and ye believed him not, nor harkened to his voice. 24 Ye have been rebellious against Jehovah from the day that I knew you.
25 So I fell down before Jehovah the forty days and forty nights that I fell down, because Jehovah had said he would destroy you. 26 And I prayed unto Jehovah, and said, O Lord Jehovah, destroy not thy people and thine inheritance, that thou hast redeemed through the greatness, that thou has brought forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand. 27 Remember thy servants, Abraham, Issac, and Jacob; look not unto the stubbornness of this people, nor to their wickedness, nor to their sin, 28 lest the land whence thou broughtest us out say, Because Jehovah was not able to bring them into the land which he promised unto them, and because he hated them, he hath brought them out to slay them in the wilderness. 29 Yet they are thy people and thine inheritance, which thou broughtest out by thy great power and by thine outstretched arm.
At that time, Jehovah said unto me, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first, and come up unto me into the mount, and make thee an ark of wood. 2 And I will write on the tables the words that were on the first tables which thou brakest, and thou shalt put them in the ark. 3 So I made an ark of acacia wood, and hewed two tables of stone like unto the first, and went up into the mount, having the two tables in my hand. 4 And he wrote on the tables, according to the first writing, the ten commandments, which Jehovah spake unto you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly: and Jehovah gave them unto me. 5 And I turned and came down from the mount, and put the tables in the ark which I had made; and there they are as Jehovah commanded me. 6 (And the children of Israel journeyed from Beeroth Bene-jaakan to Moserah. There Aaron died, and there he was buried; and Eleazar his son ministered in the priests office in his stead. 7 From thence they journeyed unto Gudgodah; and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, a land of brooks of water. 8 At that time Jehovah set apart the tribe of Levi, to bear the ark of the covenant of Jehovah, to stand before Jehovah to minister unto him, and to bless his name, unto this day. 9 Wherefore Levi hath no portion nor inheritance with his brethren; Jehovah is his inheritance, according as Jehovah thy God spake unto him.) 10 And I stayed in the mount, as at the first time, forty days and forty nights: and Jehovah hearkened unto me that time also; Jehovah would not destroy thee. 11 And Jehovah said unto me, Arise, take thy journey before the people; and they shall go in and possess the land, which I sware unto their fathers to give unto them.
THOUGHT QUESTIONS 9:1-10:11
187.
What is the grand purpose of chapter nine?
188.
What time is involved in the use of the term day in Deu. 9:1?
189.
Our God is a consuming firethis can be understood in at least two ways; how is it used here?
190.
Were not the Israelites more righteous than the Canaanites? If so why not say it is because we are more righteous that God is driving out the inhabitants of the land? Cf. Deu. 9:4-5.
191.
Show how the punishment of the original inhabitants of the land was actually very merciful.
192.
Why call for a remembrance of their sin at Horeb, and in the wilderness?
193.
How was Moses able to remain alive without water for forty days?
194.
Just what corruption or sin was involved at the worship of the golden calf? Is there a lesson in this for today?
195.
Consider Gods proposal to Moses in Deu. 9:14, did God mean what He said? Discuss.
196.
There are two or three periods of forty days, designate them, Why were they necessary? Are there two or three?
197.
Was it wrong for Moses to break the two tables of the covenant? What was Moses attitude
198.
Jehovah was as angry with Aaron as He was with the people, why?
199.
What very commendable quality is found in Moses at this time?
200.
What ultimately happened to the golden calf? Why?
201.
What sins were committed at the following places? (1) Taberah, (2) Massah, (3) Kibroth-hattaavah, (4) Kadesh-barnea.
202.
Name the two arguments used in his prayer for the preservation of Israel.
203.
In what sense was Israel Jehovahs heritage?
204.
Why was it necessary to make an ark? Wasnt the ark made later along with the furniture of the tabernacle?
205.
Who wrote the ten commandments on the tables of stone?
206.
Why introduce the subject matter of Deu. 9:6 through Deu. 9:9?
207.
Where did the Levites live? How were they supported? Read 1Co. 9:13 for present application.
AMPLIFIED TRANSLATION 9:1-10:11
Hear, O Israel; you are to cross the Jordan today, to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than you are, cities great and fortified up to the heavens,
2 A people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, whom you know, and of whom you have heard it said, Who can stand before the sons of Anak?
3 Know therefore this day, that the Lord your God is He Who goes over before you as a devouring fire; He will destroy them and bring them down before you; so you shall dispossess them and make them perish quickly, as the Lord has promised you.
4 Do not say in your (mind and) heart, after the Lord your God has thrust them out before you, It is because of my righteousness that the Lord has brought me in to possess this land, whereas it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is dispossessing them before you.
5 Not for your righteousness, or for the uprightness of your [mind and] heart, do you go to possess their land; but because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord your God is driving them out before you, and that He may fulfill the promise which the Lord swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
6 Know therefore, that the Lord your God does not give you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a hard and stubborn people.
7 (Earnestly) remember, and forget not, how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness; from the day you left the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the Lord.
8 Even in Horeb you provoked the Lord to wrath, and the Lord was so angry with you that He would have destroyed you.
9 When I went up the mountain to receive the tables of stone, the tables of the covenant which the Lord made with you, I remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights; I neither ate food nor drank water.
10 And the Lord delivered to me the two tables of stone written with the finger of God; and on them were all the words which the Lord spoke with you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly.
11 And at the end of forty days and forty nights the Lord gave me the two tables of stone, the tables of the covenant.
12 And the Lord said to me, Arise, go down from here quickly; for your people whom you brought out of Egypt have corrupted themselves; they have quickly turned aside out of the way which I commanded them; they have made themselves a molten image.
13 Furthermore the Lord said to me, I have seen this people, and behold, it is stubborn and hard;
14 Let me alone, that I may destroy them, and blot out their name from under the heavens; and I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.
15 So I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire; and the two tables of the covenant were in my two hands.
16 And I looked, and behold, you had sinned against the Lord your God; you had made you a molten calf; you had turned aside quickly from the way which the Lord had commanded you.
17 I took the two tables, cast them out of my two hands, and broke them before your eyes.
18 Then I fell down before the Lord, as before, forty days and forty nights; I neither ate food, nor drank water, because of all the sin you had committed in doing wickedly in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger.
19 For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure which the Lord held against you, enough to destroy you. But the Lord listened to me that time also.
20 And the Lord was very angry with Aaron, enough to have destroyed him; and I prayed for Aaron also at the same time.
21 And I took your sin, the calf which you had made, and burned it with fire and crushed it, grinding it very small, until it was as fine as dust; and I cast the dust of it into the brook that came down out of the mountain.
22 At Taberah also, and at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah, you provoked the Lord to wrath.
23 Likewise when the Lord sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, Go up and possess the land which I have given you; then you rebelled against the commandment of the Lord your God, and you did not believe Him or trust and rely on Him or obey His voice.
24 You have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you.
25 So I fell down and lay prostrate before the Lord forty days and nights, for the Lord had said He would destroy you.
26 And I prayed to the Lord, O Lord God, do not destroy Your people and Your heritage, whom You have redeemed through Your greatness, whom You have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand.
27 Remember [earnestly] your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; look not at the stubbornness of this people, or at their wickedness, or at their sin,
28 Lest the land from which You brought us out say, Because the Lord was not able to bring them into the land which He promised them, and because He hated them, He has brought them out to slay them in the wilderness.
29 Yet they are Your people and Your inheritance, whom You brought out by Your mighty power and by Your outstretched arm.
At that time the Lord said to me, Hew two tables of stone like the first, and come up to Me on the mountain, and make an ark of wood.
2 And I will write on the tables the words that were on the first tables which you broke, and you shall put them in the ark.
3 So I [Moses] made an ark of acacia wood, and hewed two tables of stone like the first, and went up the mountain[30] with the two tables of stone in my [one] hand.
[30] One of the many misconceptions of articles and events mentioned in the Bible, which have been innocently perpetuated by artists without adequate knowledge, is that of the size of the two tables of stone on which the ten commandments were written. They were not great combstone-size slabs, but probably small rectangular plates, two of which could easily be carried in one hand. Dr. George L. Robinson brought from the Sinai area a pair of tablets of stone believed comparable to those mentioned here, which he put in his coat pocket. Moses says here I went up the mountain with the two tables of stones in my [one] hand; and he confirms it in Exo. 34:4.
4 And the Lord wrote on the tables, as at the first writing, the ten commandments, which the Lord had spoken to you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly; and the Lord gave them to me.
5 And I turned and came down from the mountain, and put the tables in the ark which I had made; and there they are, as the Lord commanded me.
6 (The Israelites journeyed from the wells of the sons of Jaakan to Moserah. There Aaron died, and there he was buried, and Eleazar his son ministered in the priests office in his stead.
7 From there they journeyed to Gudgodah; then to Jotbathah, a land of brooks [dividing the valley].
8 At that time the Lord set apart the tribe of Levi, to bear the ark of the covenant of the Lord, to stand before the Lord to minister to Him, and to bless in His name, unto this day.
9 Therefore Levi has no part or inheritance with his brethren; the Lord is his inheritance, as the Lord your God promised him.)
10 And I [Moses] stayed on the mountain, as the first time, forty days and nights; and the Lord listened to me at that time also; the Lord would not destroy you.
11 And the Lord said to me, Arise, journey on before the people, that they may go in and possess the land, which I swore to their fathers to give to them.
COMMENT 9:1-10:11
THOU ART TO PASS OVER THE JORDAN THIS DAY (Deu. 9:1)Commenting on the term this day, Clarke states: haiyom, this time; they had come thirtyeight years before this nearly to the verge of the promised land, but were not permitted at that day or time to pass over, because of their rebellion; but this time they shall certainly pass over. This was spoken about the eleventh month of the fortieth year of their journeying, and it was on the first month of the following year they passed over; and during the interim Moses died. Robert Jamieson states, this daymeans this time. The Israelites had reached the confines of the promised land [thirty-eight years before], but were obliged, to their great mortification, to return. But now were they certainly to enter it. No obstacle could prevent their possession . . .
NATIONS GREATER AND MIGHTIER THAN THYSELF, CITIES GREAT AND FORTIFIED UP TO HEAVEN . . . A PEOPLE GREAT AND TALL, THE SONS OF THE ANAKIM (Deu. 9:1-2)See Deu. 1:28, Deu. 7:1 and notes.
GOD IS HE WHO GOETH BEFORE THEE AS A DEVOURING FIRE (Deu. 9:3)They had been warned against idolatry with the reminder, For Jehovah thy God is a devouring fire, a jealous God (Deu. 4:24). But how good it is to have the power of God going before one, overpowering the enemy, as a devastating forest or prairie fire consumes all that is in its path! So was Gods continued promise to an obedient Israel.
SO SHALT THOU DRIVE THEM OUT, AND MAKE THEM TO PERISH QUICKLY (Deu. 9:3)How do we reconcile what is stated here, with the previous promise that God would cast out those nations before thee by little and little, and not at once (Deu. 7:22)? Looking at the whole process, and in view of the time it would take by any natural means for a nation the size of Israel to dispossess the native inhabitants, it was to be quickly. But looking on it from the standpoint of the Israelites, the process would be little by little. Furthermore, the emphasis here is on the fact that these inhabitants should not be allowed to live: . . . you will be able to dispossess them and kill them off quickly (Berkeley).
SPEAK NOT THOU IN THY HEART . . . FOR MY RIGHTEOUSNESS JEHOVAH HATH BROUGHT ME IN . . . WHEREAS FOR THE WICKEDNESS OF THESE NATIONS JEHOVAH DOTH DRIVE THEM OUT (Deu. 9:4)There were two great purposes in Gods bringing Israel into this land.
1. To punish the Canaanite tribes for their gross wickedness.
2. To bring about his eternal purpose of salvation through Christ, promised to the patriarchs (Deu. 4:37, Deu. 10:15). Note Deu. 9:5.
The wickedness of these nations has already been described, and archaeologists have shown that these nations were engrossed in the basest, most degrading kind of idolatry. Their worship often included human sacrifice and sensual rites. See Deu. 12:31, Deu. 18:9-14; Num. 31:15-16; Lev. 18:24-30, etc. The iniquity of the Amorite was full (Gen. 15:16), and it was time now for God to drive them out and bring his chosen seed in. Where, then, was room provided for Israel to boast? Clarkes comment is timely: Thus the Canaanites were cut off, and the Israelites were grafted in; and the Israelites, because of their wickedness were afterwards cut off, and the Gentiles grafted in. Let the latter not be high-minded but fear; if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he spare not thee. [Cf. Rom. 11:17-24]
THOU ART A STIFFNECKED PEOPLE (Deu. 9:6)One of a number of references to Israels perennial disobedience. In just this chapter we have
(a)
Stiffnecked, Deu. 9:6; Deu. 9:13
(b)
rebellious, Deu. 9:7; Deu. 9:23-24
(c)
corrupted themselves, Deu. 9:12
(d)
provoked Jehovah to wrath Deu. 9:7-8; Deu. 9:22
(e)
believed not God, Deu. 9:23
(f)
sinned and were evil, Deu. 9:18
(g)
quickly turned aside, Deu. 9:12
These were not exactly complimentary termsbut every one of them true. Moses could rightfully say, Ye have been rebellious against Jehovah FROM THE DAY THAT I KNEW YOU (Deu. 9:24). Where was Israels room for pride in this? An honest appraisal of their past would have induced humility and contriteness of heart.
I ABODE IN THE MOUNT FORTY DAYS AND FORTY NIGHTS; I DID NEITHER EAT BREAD NOR DRINK WATER (Deu. 9:9)How could Moses have more exactly stated that his was a total fast in Sinai? See also Deu. 9:18, where the second stay in the mount is similarly described, and Exo. 34:28. Jesus fast in the wilderness was for the same length of time, and it is also specified that he did eat nothing in those days, Luk. 4:1-2. They were both, of course, miraculously sustained and strengthened, though this does not mean they were without hunger afterward (Mat. 4:2).
WRITTEN WITH THE FINGER OF GOD (Deu. 9:10)See Deu. 5:22 and notes.
LET ME ALONE, THAT I MAY DESTROY THEM, AND BLOT OUT THEIR NAME FROM UNDER HEAVEN; AND I WILL MAKE OF THEE A NATION MIGHTIER AND GREATER THAN THEY (Deu. 9:14)See Exo. 32:7-14. Moses prayer found favor with God, and changed the course of history! See also Deu. 9:18; Deu. 9:25-29; Deu. 10:10-11. As it was, Moses had two sons, Gershom and Eliezer (Exo. 18:3-4), but no tribe or nation sprang from them.
SO I TURNED AND CAME DOWN FROM THE MOUNT (Deu. 9:15)The student should review these events in Exodus, chapter 31 ff. if he is not already familiar with them.
AND I FELL DOWN BEFORE JEHOVAH, AS AT THE FIRST, FORTY DAYS AND FORTY NIGHTS (Deu. 9:18)See also Deu. 9:25, Deu. 10:10; Exo. 34:28. Moses interceded for the people before he came down from the mountain the first time (Exo. 32:11-13). This intercession is only briefly alluded to in this verse. Afterwards he spent another forty days on the mountain in fasting and prayer to obtain a complete restitution of the Covenant (Exo. 34:28). It is this second forty days, and the intercession of Moses made therein (Cp. Exo. 34:9), that is more particularly brought forward here and in Deu. 9:25-29. (Cook, in Barnes Notes)
AND JEHOVAH WAS VERY ANGRY WITH AARON, TO DESTROY HIM (Deu. 9:20)See Exo. 32:21 ff. Aaron had died several months before Moses present speech. Cf. Num. 33:38 with Deu. 1:3.
AND I TOOK . . . THE CALF . . . GRINDING IT VERY SMALL (Deu. 9:21)Exo. 32:20 states additionally, And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it with fire, and ground it to powder, and strewed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it. Thats what is called, a taste of your own medicine. But the consequences of that sin were much more serious, and three thousand men were immediately slain by the Levites (Exo. 32:25-29).
AND AT TABERAH [Burning. See Num. 11:1-3] . . . MASSAH [tempting or proving. See Exo. 17:1-7, Deu. 6:16 and notes] AND AT KIBROTH-HATTAAVAH] The graves of lust. See Num. 11:4-35 [YE PROVOKED JEHOVAH TO WRATH (Deu. 9:22). AND WHEN JEHOVAH SENT YOU FROM KADESH-BARNEA (Deu. 9:23) [The holy place of Barnea See Numbers, Chaps. 13, 14]. Murmuring, complaining, and rebellion were evident at all four of these places; and with all truthfulness Moses could say, YE HAVE BEEN REBELLIOUS AGAINST JEHOVAH FROM THE DAY I KNEW YOU (Deu. 9:24)Cf. Deu. 9:7from the day that thou wentest forth out of the land of Egypt, until ye came unto this place. What an indictment! And yet, what Israelite could deny it?
SO I FELL DOWN BEFORE JEHOVAH THE FORTY DAYS AND FORTY NLGHTS (Deu. 9:25)Continuing now from Deu. 9:18. See also Deu. 10:10. Moses effectual prayer when Israel, led by Aaron, had corrupted themselves is recorded in Exo. 32:7-14; also Exo. 9:30-35. But Moses references here, are especially to his pleas with God during his second stay in the mount, which was as the first, forty days and forty nights (Deu. 9:18). This account is in Exo. 34:4 ff.
Moses acts were similar during both stays, and (as we saw in discussing the engraving on the stones) it is not always easy to know those acts that were true in one stay and not in another. We know Deu. 10:1 ff. concerns his second stay.
The supplication of a righteous man availeth much in its working, and Moses found favor with God. Note that his prayer for Israels preservation is based on Gods eternal purpose for his people. And surely this was Gods reason for preserving themtheir own righteousness merited only destruction (Deu. 9:4-5).
Gods true leaders are even in prayer for his people; and their motives, like Moses, are altogether disinterested and altruistic. Samuel could say, even to a people bent on doing wrong, Moreover as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against Jehovah in ceasing to pray for you: but I will instruct you in the good and right way (1Sa. 12:23).
AT THAT TIME (Deu. 10:1)Moses second stay in the mount. The Exodus account (Ch. 34) can here be compared.
JEHOVAH SAID . . . I WILL WRITE (Deu. 9:2)See also our previous discussion under Deu. 5:22. The plain statements of this chapter about God writing the ten commandments during Moses second stay in the mount, cannot help but influence our interpretation of Exo. 34:1; Exo. 34:27-28. In the first instance, the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven on the tables (Exo. 32:16). Moses hewed out the second set of tables himself, and if the words here about God writing on the second set are to be understood literally (and we have no difficulty so understanding them), the statement And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments (Exo. 34:28) would refer to God, not Moses.
AND I . . . PUT THE TABLES IN THE ARK (Deu. 9:5). . . the ark of the covenant overlaid round about with gold, wherein was a golden pot holding the manna, and Aarons rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant (Heb. 9:3-4).
AND THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL JOURNEYED . . . etc. (Deu. 9:6-9)A parenthetical statement concerning Aaron and the tribe of Levi. Aarons death and his succession by Eleazer his son is further detailed in Num. 20:22-29 and (especially as it connects with this passage) Num. 33:31-39. Obviously, the statements of our present verses are not intended to be understood as happening at the same time as the giving of the law, for Aaron had only recently died, in the fifth month of their fortieth year out of Egypt. Why, then, are these statements made? They are apparently suggested by the mentioning of the covenant and the Ark (Deu. 9:5), which was borne by the tribe of Levi. And so prominent was the fact that the tables of stone were within the ark, it was known as the ark of the covenant, or the ark of the covenant of Jehovah. The book of Deuteronomy was later carried on the side of the ark (Deu. 31:2 b).
WHEREFORE LEVI HATH NO PORTION NOR INHERITANCE (Deu. 9:9)See also Deu. 12:12, Deu. 14:27-29, Deu. 18:1-8, Num. 18:19-24. The fact that they did not have an inheritance placed them at the mercy of the Israelites for support. Dont miss the application Paul makes of this, 1Co. 9:13-14. Members of this tribe were not property owners. Num. 35:1-8, however, provides that forty-eight cities should be given to the Levites, each surrounded by a pasturage (suburb). These included the six cities of refuge. They were not inheritances as such (the area occupied by the whole forty-eight jointly is estimated to have covered less than sixteen square miles), but provided places for members of this tribe to live. This passage is not inconsistent with Deu. 18:8, which specifies that the Levite may have that which cometh of the sale of his patrimony. See notes under that verse, and remarks under Deu. 12:12.
The threat from within was to be further prevented . . .
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
X.
(1) At that time the Lord said unto me.The forty days of intercession alluded to in the previous chapter followed this command (Exo. 34:28).
Hew thee two tables of stone . . . and make thee an ark.The command to make the ark was given in the former period of forty days (Exo. 25:10); the command to hew the two tables was given after Moses had seen the glory of God (Exodus 33) from the cleft in the rock, but before the forty days spent in intercession. Rashi, the Jewish commentator, thinks there were two arks: one to go out to war, and the other to remain in the tabernacle. But there is no foundation for this statement. There may, of course, have been a temporary receptacle for the tables made by Moses (like the temporary tabernacle mentioned in Exo. 33:7), to receive them until the completion of the ark which Bezaleel was to make. This was not put in hand until after Moses descended with the second pair of tables. (See Exodus 35 &c.)
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
1, 2. At that time After he interceded for the people Moses was directed to prepare two tables of stone like unto the first. Exo 34:1.
Make thee an ark of wood The order to make the ark is given in Exo 25:10. It is evident that Moses does not observe a strict chronological order, for it appears that this direction was given before the apostasy of the people in the making and worship of the golden calf, and before the breaking of the first tables. But the ark was not made till after the tabernacle was built, and the tables were not placed in the ark till the tabernacle was consecrated. Exodus 11:20.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Chapter 10 The Renewing of the Covenant and The Priesthood and the Servants of the Tabernacle.
The covenant having been broken we come now to the renewing of the broken covenant, followed by the renewal of the priesthood and the replacing of the firstborn sons of failed Israel with the Levites who had proved their worth. The first part of the chapter is a miscellany of different activities importantly involved in the renewing of the broken covenant and the provision for its protection once renewed. It includes the renewing of the priesthood and the appointment of the Levites, put together in no particular chronological order in a typical speech approach. The purpose was to indicate that the renewed covenant was finally prepared, sealed, delivered and put under the direct protection of Yahweh with the priesthood renewed and new servants appointed for the Tabernacle. he is concerned with what happened, not the order in which it happened.
These activities had involved the command to cut two tablets of stone like the first which had been broken; the command to make the Ark for the purpose of receiving the covenant so that it was under Yahweh’s watchful eye; the fulfilling of these commands; Moses’ entry into ‘the Mount’ (which was how Mount Sinai was now spoken of); Yahweh rewriting ‘the ten words’ of the covenant; and Moses return to Israel and the placing of the tablets in the Ark. This was then followed by the dedication of Eliezer to minister before it and the appointment of the Levites as its protectors. As a result of these things all would now be secure for the future. It was the factual fulfilment which was important. The chronology of when these things took place was irrelevant.
The total disregard for chronology comes out in that in Deu 10:1 the command to make the ark comes after the entry into the mount while in Deu 10:3 it comes before, and in Deu 10:5 Moses returns from the Mount while in Deu 10:10 he is still there. This is typical of a speech when information from various sources is being briefly amassed because of its content, and commented on, when it is the total picture that matters. This is then followed by an exhortation, which includes a call to prepare their hearts and a description of the greatness of Yahweh.
It will immediately be noted that in Deu 10:1-3 certain extracts from Exo 32:1-4 are included, some cited exactly, and some paraphrased, with additional comments made as Moses now felt appropriate so as to introduce the fact of the Ark. Exo 32:1 reads as follows, with the words cited here in Deuteronomy in italics. ‘ Cut yourself two tablets of stone like to the first, and I will write on the tablets the words which were on the first tablets which you broke — and come up in the morning into Mount Sinai —and he cut two tablets of stone like to the first — and he went up into Mount Sinai — and he took in his hand two tablets of stone.’ (The words in italics are cited exactly in Deuteronomy, but with change of person between he and I in the last phrases).
The Re-establishing of the Covenant ( Deu 10:1-5 ).
We may analyse this in the words of Moses as follows:
a At that time Yahweh said to me, “Cut yourself two tablets of stone like to the first, and come up to Me into the mount, and make yourself an ark of wood (Deu 10:1).
b And I will write on the tablets the words which were on the first tablets which you broke, and you shall put them in the ark (Deu 10:2).
c So I made an ark of acacia wood, and cut two tablets of stone like to the first,
c And I went up into the mount, having the two tablets in my hand (Deu 10:3).
b And He wrote on the tablets, in accordance with the first writing, the ten commandments, which Yahweh spoke to you all in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the gathering, and Yahweh gave them to me (Deu 10:4).
a And I turned and came down from the mount, and put the tablets in the ark which I had made, and there they are as Yahweh commanded me (Deu 10:5).
Note that in ‘a’ he makes two tablets and a wooden chest as Yahweh tells him to, and goes up into the Mount, and in the parallel he comes down from the Mount and puts the tablets in the chest as Yahweh had commanded. In ‘b’ Yahweh says that He will write on the tablets what was on the first tablets, and in the parallel He does so. In ‘c’ he makes the chest and the two tablets, and in the parallel he takes the two tablets which he has made up into the Mount.
Deu 10:1-2
‘ At that time Yahweh said to me, “Cut yourself two tablets of stone like to the first, and come up to me into the mount, and make yourself an ark of wood. And I will write on the tablets the words which were on the first tablets which you broke, and you shall put them in the ark.’
Moses describes how Yahweh told him (at two different times here conjoined to prevent the need for complicated explanations) to cut two tablets of stone (Exo 32:1) and to make an ark (chest) of wood (Exo 25:10). This was so that He might rewrite the ten words on the tablets, and so that Moses might put them in the ark. In response to Moses’ intercession Yahweh was re-establishing the covenant, and was writing it Himself as a personal assurance to both Moses and Israel. Treaties that were made were always put in a sanctuary, often in a chest, in order that they might be watched over by the gods. Here the covenant was to be watched over by the cherubim.
Deu 10:3
‘ So I made an ark of acacia wood, and cut two tablets of stone like to the first, and I went up into the mount, having the two tablets in my hand.’
He then explains that he had done exactly as Yahweh commanded. He had made the Ark (that is, arranged for it to be made by Bezalel while he was in the Mount the second time – Exo 37:1), and had cut the two tablets of stone similar to the first (note the different order from Deu 10:2. There is no attempt at chronological exactness. He did not consider that important. It was what happened, not when it happened, that mattered). Then he had gone up into the Mount with the two tablets in his hand.
The Exodus narrative never explains when exactly the Ark was made or how it fitted in with Moses’ different visits to the Mount, but we may presumably assume that it commenced on Moses coming down from the Mount the first time, which was when he had received the instructions for it.
There were less than ten months from the first arrival at Sinai (Exo 19:1) to the erection of the tabernacle with all the furniture completed (on the first day of the first month of the second year – Exo 40:17) and nearly two months, and possibly more, had passed between the arrival and Moses’ first descent from the Mount. Thus that left less than eight months for all the complicated work involved, including the planning. It must therefore have been begun almost immediately.
This rare mention of the Ark in Deuteronomy stresses how much the speeches concentrate on the entry into the land and the keeping of the covenant. Matters peripheral to these are not dealt with, even though they are clearly known about, for there is little emphasis on cultic matters. But here it was important because he wanted the people to be aware that the tablets were still among them in the Ark. All this would be unlikely in a manufactured speech and confirms that here we have actual speeches by Moses which are the products of the urgency of the moment. To some extent he deliberately had tunnel vision.
Deu 10:4
‘ And he wrote on the tablets, in accordance with the first writing, the ten commandments, which Yahweh spoke to you (ye all) in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the gathering, and Yahweh gave them to me.’
The covenant was to be renewed on exactly the same terms as the first. Yahweh wrote (He may have done it using Moses as His scribe, Exo 34:28 c is ambiguous, but the impression is that the inscribing was done by Yahweh Himself) ‘in accordance with the first writing’ and in accordance with all that Yahweh had spoken from the Mount out of the midst of the fire on the day of the gathering. Yahweh then solemnly handed the finished covenant to Moses to indicate the renewal of the covenant.
We note here how Moses constantly brings ‘the fire’ to mind (Deu 4:12; Deu 4:15; Deu 4:33; Deu 4:36; Deu 5:4-5; Deu 5:22; Deu 5:24; Deu 5:26; Deu 9:10). It was vivid in his mind and probably connected in his mind with his first call at the burning bush, and it emphasised the unique presence of the living God revealed in glorious display, and His glory and holiness.
Deu 10:5
‘ And I turned and came down from the mount, and put the tablets in the ark which I had made, and there they are as Yahweh commanded me.’
Moses had then turned and come down from the Mount and once the Ark was completed (and it was probably the first thing made as it was of such importance) had put the tablets in it, which, as he points out, is where they still were, just as Yahweh had commanded. The covenant had been finally solemnised.
“And there they are as Yahweh commanded me.” This personal note confirms that this information comes direct from Moses.
There is no necessity for Moses to expand here on the whole significance of the Ark. By this time this was well known to them all. His concern here was to demonstrate the final sealing and guarantee of the second covenant. Whether the tablets were put in the Ark immediately on the Ark being made (which could well have been during the forty days while Moses was in the Mount), being then taken out while it was later moved into the tabernacle when that was erected, and then placed in it again (Exo 40:20) we do not know, but they must have been kept somewhere suitable for such sacred objects.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Deu 10:6 And the children of Israel took their journey from Beeroth of the children of Jaakan to Mosera: there Aaron died, and there he was buried; and Eleazar his son ministered in the priest’s office in his stead.
Deu 10:6
Num 20:27-28, “And Moses did as the LORD commanded: and they went up into mount Hor in the sight of all the congregation. And Moses stripped Aaron of his garments, and put them upon Eleazar his son; and Aaron died there in the top of the mount: and Moses and Eleazar came down from the mount.”
Num 33:38, “And Aaron the priest went up into mount Hor at the commandment of the LORD, and died there, in the fortieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the first day of the fifth month.”
Num 33:30-31, “And they departed from Hashmonah, and encamped at Moseroth. And they departed from Moseroth, and pitched in Benejaakan.”
Deu 10:12 And now, Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul,
Deu 10:13 Deu 10:12-13
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
A Further Recital of Wilderness Events
v. 1. At that time, v. 2. And I will write on the tables the words that were in the first tables which thou brakest, and thou shalt put them in the ark. v. 3. And I made an ark of shittim wood, v. 4. And he wrote on the tables, according to the first writing, the Ten Commandments, v. 5. And I turned myself and came down from the mount, and put the tables in the ark which I had made; and there they be, as the Lord commanded me. v. 6. And the children of Israel took their journey, v. 7. From thence they journeyed unto Gudgodah; and from Gudgodah to Jotbath, a land of rivers of waters, v. 8. At that time, v. 9. Wherefore Levi hath no part nor inheritance with his brethren, v. 10. And I stayed in the mount, according to the first time, forty days and forty nights, v. 11. and the Lord said unto me, Arise, take thy journey before the people, as their leader, that they may go in and possess the land which I sware unto their fathers to give unto them.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
RENEWED EXHORTATIONS TO OBEDIENCE.
Deu 10:1-11
Moses‘ intercession and its results.
Deu 10:1
At that time. When Moses thus interceded, God commanded him to prepare two new tables of stone, and to construct an ark in which to keep them (cf. Exo 34:1, etc.). Directions had been given for the construction of the ark before the apostasy of the people, and it was not made till after the tabernacle had been erected, nor were the tables placed in it till the tabernacle had been consecrated (cf. Exo 25:10, etc.; Exo 40:20). But as the things themselves were closely connected, Moses mentions them here together, without regard to chronological order.
Deu 10:6, Deu 10:7
Not only did God, of his grace and in response to the intercession of Moses, give to the people, notwithstanding their apostasy, the ark of the covenant with the new tables of the Law, but he followed this up by instituting the high priesthood; and, when Aaron died, caused it to be continued to his son Eleazar. This Moses reminds the people of by referring to a fact in their past history, viz. their arrival at Mosera, where Aaron died, and Eleazar succeeded him in his office. Beeroth of the children of Jaakan (wells of the sons of Jaakan); the same place as Bene-jaakan (Num 33:31), probably the Horite tribe, called ‘Akan (Gen 36:27), for which, apparently, should be read Jakan, as in 1Ch 1:42. Mosera; Moseroth, plu. of Mosera (Num 33:30). As Aaron died there, Mosera must have been in the vicinity of Mount Her. Gudgodah, Hor-hagidgad (Num 33:32); cave of Gidgad, a place of caves. Jotbath, Jotbathah (Num 33:33), a district abounding in streams, whence probably its name, Jot-bathah, pleasantness, from , to be good, to please. None of these places have been identified. Robinson mentions a Wady el Ghadaghidh, a broad sandy valley diverging from the Wady es Jerafeh, in the desert of Et-Tih, and this has been supposed to indicate the site of Gudgodah; but the difference of the consonants in the two words is such as to render this identification more than doubtful. In the Arabic of the London Polyglott, is represented by, see Arabic word, (Judjuda), which is totally different from Ghadaghidh. All the places, however, must have been in the ‘Arabah, and in the region of Mount Her, or not far distant. That the places mentioned here are the same as those in Numbers cannot be doubted. The two passages, however, relate to different journeys; that in Numbers to the journeying of the Israelites from the wilderness of Sinai to Kadesh, that in Deuteronomy to the march in the fortieth year, when they went from Kadesh to Mount Her.
Deu 10:8, Deu 10:9
Moses, here resuming the form of address, refers to the separation of the tribe of Levi to the holy service.
Deu 10:8
At that time; the time when the covenant was restored at Sinai, not the time when Aaron died. The appointment of the tribe of Levi for service took place in connection with that of Aaron and his sons to the priesthood (Num 3:4). The service to which the tribe of Levi was chosen appertained to the tribe as such, including the priests as well as the non-priestly Levites, though parts of it specially belonged to the one class rather than the other. Thus the bearing of the ark was the special duty of non-priestly Levites, the Kohathites (Num 4:4, etc.; 1Ch 15:15); but was also, on peculiarly solemn occasions, discharged by the priests (Jos 3:6, etc.; Jos 6:6; Jos 8:33; I Kings Jos 8:3, Jos 8:6, etc.). To stand before the Lord to minister unto him was the special function of the priests; but as the service of the Levites was also a sacred service, they too are said to stand to minister before the Lord (Deu 18:7; 1Ch 15:2; 2Ch 23:6; 2Ch 29:4, 2Ch 29:5, 2Ch 29:11, 2Ch 29:12). To bless in his name does not mean, as some propose, to invoke the Name of God, or to praise his Name, but to pronounce a benediction or invoke a blessing on the people in his Name (cf. 2Sa 6:18; 1Ch 16:2). This was the special duty of the priests (cf. Num 6:22-27; Deu 21:5; 1Ch 23:13), but might also be done by others (as by David), and in this benediction the Levites might join (2Ch 25:27).
Deu 10:9
(Cf. Num 18:20-24.)
Deu 10:10, Deu 10:11
Moses here sums up the general result of his intercession. As at the first, he was on the mount the second time forty days and forty nights; and in response to his pleading, the Lord willed not to destroy Israel, and commanded him to resume his place as leader of the people, and conduct them to the Promised Land “This commandment and promise was a testimony that God now was reconciled unto them by the intercession of Moses” (Ainsworth).
Deu 10:12, Deu 10:13
God had showed great favor to Israel; what return did he require? Only what, without any prescription, they were bound to renderfear, love, and obedience (comp. Mic 6:8). To fear the Lord thy God (cf. Deu 6:2, Deu 6:13). To walk in all his ways; to receive his truth, accept his law, and follow the course of conduct which he prescribes (cf. Gen 18:19; Psa 25:4, Psa 25:5; Psa 67:2; Act 18:25, Act 18:26). To love him (cf. Exo 20:6). “Fear with love! Love without fear relaxes; fear without love enslaves, and leads to despair” (J. Gerhard). There is a fear with which love cannot coexista fear which hath torment, and which love casts out as its antagonist (1Jn 4:18); but the fear of God which he requires is that pious reverence which not only can coexist with love to him, but is not where love is not. And to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul. Love prompts to service. Wherever love fills the heart, it seeks expression in acts of service to its object; and where no such expression comes forth, the evidence is wanting of the existence of the emotion in the bosom (cf. Joh 14:15, Joh 14:23; Gal 5:13; 1Jn 3:18). For thy good (cf. Deu 5:29; Deu 6:24). “In serving the Lord the glory redoundeth unto him, the benefit to ourselves; for them that honor him he will honor (1Sa 2:30), and ‘godliness hath the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come’ (1Ti 4:8)” (Ainsworth).
Deu 10:14, Deu 10:15
To love and serve the Lord, Israel was specially bound, because of God’s love to them and choice of them to be his people. He, the Lord and Proprietor of the universe, was free to choose any of the nations he pleased, and needed not the service of any, but of his free grace he chose Israel, in whose fathers he had delight, to love them (cf. Exo 19:5). The heaven and the heaven of heavens; the highest heavens, all that may be called heaven, with all that it contains. Delight (“set his eve upon,” Deu 7:7); literally, cleaved to, was attached to. “Affection, love, choice, the three moments prompting from the innermost impulses to the historical act” (Lange).
Deu 10:16
They were, therefore, to lay aside all insensibility of heart and all obduracy, to acknowledge God’s supremacy, to imitate his beneficence, and to fear and worship him. Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart. As circumcision was the symbol of purification and sign of consecration to God, so the Israelites are enjoined to realize in fact what that rite symbolized, viz. purity of heart and receptivity for the things of God. This is enforced by the consideration that Jehovah the alone God, the Almighty, is mighty and terrible without respect to persons, and at the same time is a righteous Judge, and the Protector of the helpless and destitute.
Deu 10:17
God of gods (Psa 136:2). Not only supreme over all that are called god, but the complex and sum of all that is Divine; the Great Reality, of which the “gods many” of the nations were at the best but the symbols of particular attributes or qualities. Which regardeth not persons; is not partial, as a judge who has respect to the condition and circumstances of parties rather than to the merits of the case (cf. Le Deu 19:15; Act 10:34; Eph 6:9; Jud Eph 1:16). Nor taketh reward; cloth not accept presents as bribes (cf. Deu 16:19; 2Ch 19:7; Job 34:19; Mic 3:11).
Deu 10:18, Deu 10:19
As the impartial and incorruptible Judge, God executes the judgment of the fatherless and widow, vindicates the right of the defenseless (Psa 68:6; Psa 146:9); and as the God of the whole earth, he loveth the stranger, helpless, and it may be oppressed, and giveth him food and raiment. Following him, Israel, as his people, were to be benevolent to the stranger, inasmuch as they themselves had been strangers in Egypt, and knew by experience what it was to be a stranger (cf. Exo 22:20; Le 19:33, 34). They were to love the stranger as God loves him, by relieving his necessities (cf. Jas 2:15, Jas 2:16).
Deu 10:20
Reverting to his main theme, Moses anew exhorts Israel to fear Jehovah their God, and to show true reverence to him by serving him, by cleaving to him, and by swearing in his Name (cf. Deu 4:4; Deu 6:13; Act 11:23). Such reverence was due from Israel to God, because of the great things he had done for them, and those terrible acts by which his mighty power had been displayed on their behalf.
Deu 10:21
He is thy praise, i.e. the Object of thy praise; the Being who had given them abundant cause to praise him, and whom they were bound continually to praise (cf. Psa 22:3; Psa 109:1; Jer 17:14). Terrible things; acts which by their greatness and awful effects inspired fear and dread into those by whom they were witnessed. For thee; literally, with thee, i.e. either in thy view or towards thee, for thy behoof (comp. Deu 1:30; 1Sa 12:7; Zec 7:9; and such an expression as “deal kindly [literally, do kindness] with,” Gen 24:49, etc.).
Deu 10:22
Among other marvelous acts toward Israel, was one done in Israel itself; they, whoso fathers went down to Egypt only seventy in number (Gen 46:26, Gen 46:27), had, notwithstanding the cruel oppression to which they were subjected there, grown to a nation numberless as the stars (cf. Gen 22:17; Deu 1:10; Neh 9:23).
HOMILETICS
Deu 10:1-5, Deu 10:10, Deu 10:11
The results of the intercessory prayer of Moses.
In these verses we have a very brief statement of the results of the pleading of Moses for Israel with God, which can only be duly appreciated when set side by side with the fuller account in Exo 33:1-23; Exo 34:1-35. It is clear, even from the few words here given us, that the Lord’s wrath was turned away, that the covenant and the covenant promise were again renewed. But we must at least indicate the points of detail ere we can gather up the sublime teachings of the whole.
I. THE RESULTS OF THE INTERCESSION OF MOSES.
1. Generally. “The Lord repented,” etc. (Exo 32:14). The passage in Num 23:19 is by no means contrary to this. It means that there is no fickleness nor falseness in the Divine promises, and that the fulfillment of them is not subject to human caprice; which is gloriously true, and in perfect harmony with the before-named words. These do not denote a change in the mind of God, but rather a change in the Divine acts. God’s promises are, in an important sense, conditional, and his threatenings too. If we reject the promise and fail to rely upon it, it will not be fulfilled in our case; so, if we repent and turn from sin, the threatenings will cease to apply to us. The virtual withdrawal of promise or threatening is called “repenting,” not because God changes his will, but because he varies his action. God may plan and effect a change without ever changing a plan.
2. In detail.
(1) There were two manifest tokens of the Divine displeasure.
(a) Exo 33:7; the tabernacle of Moses, where he would hear the causes of the people, and maintain the mediatorship, was removed from within the camp to the outside of it. Still, mercy and judgment were blended, for the pillar of cloud did not forsake them.
(b) Exo 32:34, Exo 32:35; this is very obscure; but it at least means that, though they were forgiven, yet they were chastised. In after times, the Jews were wont to say that never any trouble came upon them without an ounce of the dust of the golden calf in it. The intercession of Moses, though it secured inestimable blessings, yet did not avail to remove all reminders of their sin, or to make things as though it had not been.
(2) Dire threatenings were removed one by one.
(a) They should not be consumed, still, only an angel should go with them (Exo 33:2, Exo 33:3).
(b) The Divine presence should go with them (Exo 32:12-14).
(3) Abounding mercy is vouchsafed. The mercy is gradually brought out more and more fully, as Moses pleads more and more persistently.
(a) Though the tabernacle is out of the camp, yet communication with Jehovah is still maintained (Exo 33:9).
(b) The old promise is renewed (Exo 33:12-14). “Rest!” Rest in God. What less, what more, could they desire?
(c) There was a formal renewal of the covenant (Deu 10:1-5).
(d) Jehovah grants a new disclosure of his glory. The recent exhibition of the frailty of man might well have crushed Moses if he had not been sustained by a new vision of God. And what a vision! What a declaration! Nowhere else on earth had a Name so glorious then been proclaimed (Exo 34:6-9).
(e) The long-continued communion with God illumed the face of Moses (Exo 34:29-35). Was this supernatural or miraculous? Supernatural? Yes. Miraculous? No. We believe intensely in the religion of the face (see Act 6:15; vide a lecture by Joseph Cook, of Boston, on ‘The Solar Light’). Moses was full of the Holy Ghost. The luster without was but the index of the light within. He had gone in unto God to plead for others, and he was rewarded openly, by bringing down from the mount a radiance that told with whom he had been! If our faces were oftener directed towards God in intercessory prayer, they would certainly beam with new light, and men would take knowledge of us that we had been with Jesus.
II. THE LESSONS TAUGHT BY THIS NARRATIVE.
1. We see here the abounding mercy of Godhow slow he is to anger, how ready to forgive. We can imagine, indeed, an objector interposing here, and saying, “Precisely the reverse. The fact of the severity of God’s judgments being abated, removed, and even exchanged for mercy, just in response to the intercession of Moses, seems to make Moses appear more merciful than God.” Perhaps it seems so at first, but it only seems. And even the seeming ceases when we look all round. For was it not the same God whom Israel had offended, who had given them Moses, who taught him to pray, and who sustained his pleading power? So that the lines of judgment and of mercy have a common meeting-point in the same hand. Besides, we must never forget that the Great Father adapts himself in the methods of his teaching to the capacities of the child in learning. And even the severity of the judicial sentence comes out of mercy. When will men learn the profound truth in Psa 62:12? The greatest mercy which can be. shown to a people is to educate them in righteousness. How constantly are men making the mistake of regarding suffering as the grievance rather than sin! as if it were not the sin which is the people’s bane, and the suffering consequent on it which is really their guard, that they may learn to dread the sin which brings such sorrow with it. And if the Great Lord, over and above the merciful threatenings which show the evil of sin in his sight, provides Israel with such an intercessor as Moses, and if by virtue of his pleas will withhold the dreaded stroke, and for the uplifted arm of justice will show the directing and sheltering hand,both the one act and the other are joint illustrations of that glorious Name, the Lord thy God! There is no schism in the manifestation of that Name. The terror and the kindness perfectly accord, and it is only our defective sight which makes them appear inharmonious in hue. The very God who guards Law by the holiest sanctions, has provided also in his government for the efficacy of interceding prayer! “He retaineth not his anger forever, because he delighteth in mercy.”
2. This mediatorship of Moses is but one illustration of the working of a permanent law, that God wills to be approached by his saints in prayer on behalf of others. It were well if some were to collate the intercessory prayers in the Bible, and the passages which bear on the theme of pleading for others. The Apostle Paul understood the blessedness of intercessory prayer. He himself rose to a glorious height in this sublime act, and yet he declares his own dependence on and appreciation of the prayers of the saints. Nor do we at all understand the priesthood of believers, till we regard this as one of its special privileges, functions, and duties. Let those who “profess and call themselves Christians” see to this. Let them rise to this high and holy service. Let them enter into their closets, fall on their knees, and pour out before God petitions for all. We sometimes ask whether the yearning spirit of intercession is dying out amongst us (Joe 2:16-18).
3. This Divine law, of the power of intercession, has its supreme illustration in a greater than Moses (Heb 7:25), even in him, of whom in so many respects Moses was a type. Human mediation may achieve much, but ah! even the men who plead most with God for others do feel most their need of One to plead for them! There, there, at the Father’s throne, is One who, having given himself a ransom for many, does present his own work as the ground on which the coming sinner may be forgiven, accepted, and saved.
4. There are three things which no intercession, either of saints on earth or of a Savior in heaven, can secure. Why? Because in the nature of things they are impossible, and therefore for them no holy one can intercede.
(1) No intercession can secure men against either the inward smart or physical consequence of committed sin, even though it may have been repented of and forgiven. There is nothing in the freeness of Divine grace to afford the slightest encouragement to men in playing or parleying with sin. “In the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them,” is as irrevocable a law as any other. It is quite true that if the worldling, or the drunkard, or the fornicator, repents, he will obtain mercy; quite true that he will be a child of God, and will be trained for the Father’s house. Butthe enfeebled will, the sapped strength, the deteriorated judgment, the haunted and haunting memory of evil, will abide with him, and will cast their shade over all his remaining days. The bitter taste of committed sin will come up into the soul a thousand times; and though it is true that even that will be sanctified, and will prompt new prayers for restraining and renewing grace, yet, oh, how far more peaceful would life be, if such nausea had not been made an enforced part of its experience! While no penitent need despair of mercy, yet, for all that, he may well dread the sins which, even after forgiveness, will “bite like a serpent, and sting like an adder”!
(2) No intercession can secure pardon for sin which is not repented of and forsaken. Hence, whoever there may be who is valuing the prayers of others on his own behalf (and few, surely, would be so indifferent as to set no value on a father’s, mother’s, brother’s, sister’s prayers), let us remind such a one that, unless he repents of sin, those petitions will avert no sorrow, no judgment, no ruin. No; not even the atonement of Christ was ever intended to save people in sin, but from it. “God commandeth all men everywhere to repent.”
(3) If repentance be delayed, there may come a point beyond which no intercession will avail, because the “day of visitation” is past (see Jer 7:16). There is a limit beyond which not even the vine-dresser dares to ask for further postponement of the sentence (Luk 13:9; see Luk 19:41-44; Rev 2:21). “Now is the accepted time; now is the day of salvation” (cf. Isa 5:3-6). And if after all the blended judgment and mercy in the way of providence; if after all the teachings, prayers, and intercessions as means of grace; if after all the striving of God’s Spirit with men, there is a steady, stout, obstinate resistance to all,then, such is the view of the holy ones on earth and in heaven, such the view of our Great Intercessor, of the evil of sin and the honor of God, that not from one pleader, however powerful or however tender, can there come even one more request for any further arrest or delay of the judgments of God. In the treatment of every sinner, love, justice, mercy, forbearance, will all have played their part, and if, after all the patience of a God and the entreaties of man, impenitent he still remains, all heaven will acquiesce in the justice of the verdicthis blood shall be upon his own head!
Deu 10:12-16
Israel’s duty summed up and touchingly enforced.
The rehearsal and review of Israel’s waywardness, in which the great lawgiver had been reminding the people how much God had had to bear with from them, must have been extremely painful to him, as it was reproachful for them. That part of the review closes with the eleventh verse. And then follows thereon one of the most tender and touching appeals to which the old man could give vent. The two first words of the twelfth verse,” And now,” convey a world of meaning. We think we see the lips of Moses quiver, we hear his voice falter, we note the tear standing in his eye, as, with intensely deep pathos and loving solicitude, he shows Israel how past waywardness on their part, and forbearance and forgiveness on God’s part, gave them an urgent reason why they should seek henceforth to love, not in word only, but in deed and of a truth. There are two lines of thought suggested by this paragraph.
I. HERE IS THE SUM OF ISRAEL‘S LIFE–DUTY NEWLY ENJOINED. This may be set under six heads, which will be but enumerated here.
1. They must cease their rebellious spirit: “be no more stiffnecked.”
2. They must fear the Lord their God.
3. With fear they must blend love.
4. To love and fear they must add loyalty of action, by walking in God’s ways.
5. They must observe alike the commandments or moral precepts, and the statutes or several appointments.
6. And finally, they must guard against all merely surface work: “Circumcise the foreskin of your heart.” Though there were many more rites in Judaism than there are under Christianity, yet a merely ritual service was no more acceptable then than now. This summing up of life’s duty should be compared with that in Mic 6:8.
II. THERE IS A GREAT REASON FOR DISCHARGING THAT DUTY ENFORCED BY TENDER APPEAL. In this appeal, as we venture to call it, there are but few words. But how full of meaning they are! The word “now”nunc, at this time; and as put here it may suggest six queries, each of which contains a most tender reason for future loyalty, which the preacher may well urge with all possible force. We will name the queries one by one.
1. And now, Israel, have you not been thus wayward long enough? Is it not time that you reconsidered the position in which you stand with reference to Jehovah? Look! See where you are! Think how long you have been trying God’s patience and long-suffering!
2. And now, Israel, since God has continued to spare you, since he has forgiven you and not cast you off, since he has consented to bear with you still,will you not renew your vows, with less, indeed, of self-confidence, but with more of penitential loyalty?
3. And now, Israel, think again, “what doth the Lord thy God require of thee?” Is it more than what is reasonable and right? Could he ask less consistently with his righteousness and honor? Are not all his commands wise and right? Is it not an easy yoke to love a God so kind, to fear a God so holy, to obey a God so faithful and true?
4. And now, Israel, look at the fact that all God’s commands are for your good (Mic 6:13)! A perfect obedience would ensure perfect content. All the while you have been rebellious against the Lord, you have been fighting against your own highest interests. God’s honor and your happiness require precisely the same course of life.
5. And now, Israel, do remember this, for consider how great is the Divine condescension in caring for you at all (Mic 6:14): “Lo! the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the Lord’s thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is.” And what, what but infinite love should lead him thus to stoop from his high throne to care for you? It is not for your righteousness, for you are a stiffnecked people. No account can be given of why God should care for you so, save that he loves to do it. Then surely the reason is overwhelmingly strong for your gratitude, loyalty, and love.
6. And now, Israel, seeing these things are so, could you do less for such a God than he asks of you, even if he did not ask it? So rich should be your joy in him, so reverent your fear, so devout your love, that you would with ready mind give God all, even if he did not require all. What he is to you should lead you to be to him all that he would have you be. Such seems to us to be a true expansion of the pathetic plea which this passage contains, which the connection in which it stands necessarily suggests. How much stronger every one of the six points may be made from the evangelic standpoint, the Christian preacher will in a moment see. By as much as the love of God in the great redemption in Christ Jesus is a grander disclosure than his love as revealed in the deliverance from Egypt, by so much should each argument be the more tender and strong. When we read, “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us,” what can the proper response for our hearts be but this, “We love him, because he first loved us”? Such love should constrain us to obey, even if we had no written Law by which obedience was required.
Verse 17-11:1
God no respecter of persons.
Having reminded the people of their duty towards God, the aged lawgiver next shows the people what their God is to them, and draws from thence a new argument for obedience and love towards him. In doing this, however, while there is much which we treat of in other Homilies, there is one special sentence, peculiar to this passage, which is yet made so much use of in the teachings of other parts of the Word of God, that we feel called on to note it as the center point of this paragraph, to show what the truth is which is indicated therein, and the bearing of that truth on the various phases of life and duty. We have in the Word of God no fewer than ten or twelve quotations or uses of this text, each one setting it in some special aspect as a point of doctrine, or drawing therefrom some special inference on a matter of duty. These several allusions, direct or indirect, will suggest the plan of this Homily. The verse thus frequently referred to is the seventeenth. “For the Lord your God regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward.”
I. WHAT DO SUCH WORDS MEAN, AS A STATEMENT OF TRUTH? We might not have seen much in them, if the Holy Ghost had not inspired the sacred writers to quote them so frequently in new and varied lights. Being thus quoted, however, we ought to show by reference to the several quotations, the varied phases of their meaning.
1. God knows no distinctions in his moral government of the nations. This is suggested by the words in this passage. Moses says, in effect, to Israel, “You have been chosen, out of all the nations, to receive a special revelation, and to be made the bearers of a special mission to the world; but do not think that because of that you are at liberty to trifle with the rules of the Divine Law: God will not tolerate sin in you any more than he will in other nations. Think not that he frowns on iniquity on Canaan and regards it more mildly with you. ‘He regardeth not persons.’ And only as you are loyal to him, and faithful in doing the right, will he smile upon you.”
2. God makes no distinction in the basis on which men are accepted in his sight. The Apostle Peter throws quite an unexpected (and we fear to a large extent as unperceived) light on these words in Act 10:34. He is preaching to Cornelius; he is opening the kingdom of heaven to the Gentile. To induce him to do this, he needed the vision of the great sheet let down from heaven. That gave him a new revelation. God’s grace was larger than he had thought for. He had never seen till then the deep meaning of the words in his old legislator’s code. He saw them then, and they shone with glory”Of a truth but in every nation.” As if he had said, “I used to think that because our nation was favored with more light, therefore it stood on another basis fur acceptance and safety. And now I find that the great plan of God’s grace so covers the globe, that in every nation, he who fears God and follows the light is accepted with him!” Men are saved, not according to the measure of light they have received, but according to the use they have made of the light which God has given them.
3. God is exercising over every man a present judgment according to perfect impartiality. The truth just now referred to made so deep an impression upon the Apostle Peter, that he refers to it again in 1Pe 1:17, and would have the thought of the absolute impartiality of God act as a perpetual influence on believers, generating and maintaining a holy fear. There is no favoritism with God. He regards not the person, but the deed; “judging according to every man’s work.”
4. God revealed this attribute of his in the Lord Jesus Christ. For this side-light on the truth, we are indebted to a scribe, an uninspired man, who, possibly indeed in flattery, but we rather think otherwise, intimates that this attribute of impartial equity, which his lawgiver attributed to the Divine Being, was manifest conspicuously in the Lord Jesus Christ. However he may have meant it, he certainly uttered a profound and glorious truth. For who, on earth, ever so clearly showed himself no respecter of persons, as our Divine Lord and Master?
5. Precisely the same feature of God‘s government will mark the final judgment. (Rom 2:11, Rom 2:16) There will be one rule of righteousness, which will be inflexibly adhered to then, and which not even the glorious grace manifested in the gospel will deflect or obscure. Not from the most hidden souls, nor from the most prominent, will any impeachment of the Divine righteousness ever rise up. The great system of mediatorial administration may then reveal a plan of larger grace than ever entered into the heart of man to conceive, but most assuredly there will be no flaw in its equitable impartiality, for “there is no respect of persons with God.” That very impartiality will bring about many startling changes, for “many that are first shall be last, and the last first.”
II. TO WHOM ARE THESE WORDS APPLIED IN SCRIPTURE, AS A DIRECTORY OF DUTY?
1. They are applied to the querulous. This absolute righteousness being revealed as an attribute of God, should teach men to be cautious, who are too ready to pass judgment on the ways of God when they are past finding out. Such is the use to which Elihu applies the doctrine. He did not understand Job’s case, perhaps, any better than Eliphaz, Bildad, or Zophar; but in this point he is undoubtedly correct. We know God is righteous, therefore we must not impeach what he does.
2. They are applied to magistrates and judges (see 2Ch 19:6, 2Ch 19:7). The like equity to that which marks the Supreme Judge should characterize all who have to administer justice in any nation.
3. They are applied by Paul as a guide in religious controversy (Gal 2:6). “God accepteth no man’s person, therefore,” says Paul, “neither might I. Truth with me must be supreme, and even if James, Cephas, or John, who seemed to be pillars, were to utter aught inconsistent with the gospel or grace of God, whosoever they are, it matters not.” The truth, not the person, commands our homage. Well would it have been if in all ages this had been a guiding principle in the controversies of the Church. Well would it be, if it were men’s guide now.
4. The words are applied to individual treatment and judgment of others in the varied relations of private life (Col 3:25). A man, however lordly, or however lowly, will receive from God a reward or penalty according to what he hath done, and not according to his station in life. And we, like God, must apply like moral rules all round, and never justify a bad act because done by a rich man, nor depreciate a good act because done by a poor one.
5. They are applied to masters with regard to their treatment of servants (Eph 6:9). We must not forget that the “servants” here referred to were “slaves.” Neither Jesus Christ nor his apostles, any more than Moses had done, made any open attack on slavery. But by teaching this principle of the equality of men in God’s sight, they dropped a truth which, when it had time to grow, would cause slavery to fall, by uplifting the people to so high a standard of moral virtue that it would no longer be tolerated by them. And even now there is need for the continued reiteration of the same truth, that masters on the one hand may feel their responsibility to God for dealing justly with their servants, and that servants may feel their responsibility for doing justice to their masters.
6. They are applied to Church members, in reference to their treatment of the poorer members (see Jas 2:1-9). Church life is social life gathered round the cross. “Life’s poor distinctions vanish here.” “The rich and the poor meet together, and the Lord is the Maker of them all.” Each one is at liberty to form his own private circle of friendship, according to taste, culture, etc. But in Church life, work, and worship, all ranks meet on one common platform, acknowledging “one Lord, one-faith, one baptism,” and recounting in song one common salvation. The artificial distinctions set up by men are nothing in the eye of God. To reproduce them in the Church is an offence in his sight. If here we have respect of persons, we commit sin, and are convicted of the Law as transgressors.
7. The principle implied in the words is taught by the evangelist in its most impressive form in the cross of Christ. Such, surely, is the conclusion to be drawn from the weighty words of the Apostle Paul, “Wherefore, henceforth know we no man after the flesh” (2Co 5:16). “Wherefore;” because Christ died for all. “Henceforth;” from the time that we understand the world-embracing purpose of his death, do we know no man after the flesh. The little distinctions men make so much of here, all vanish in the light of the cross. We ask not whether men are rich or poor; we ask not their name, nationality, or rank. “Christ died for all.” That stamps on every man’s brow the inscription, “Dear to Christ.” Wherefore he will be dear to us for Christ’s sake, the wide world over, whatever his caste, country, color, or clime. If Christ died for all, we preach to all. So that the very principle which under the old covenant is enforced by Law, is under the new created by love. That selfsame impartiality disclosed from Horeb in the methods of Law, is again revealed from Calvary in the methods of God’s grace. And thus, through Old and New Testaments the appeal is the same, though made first through thunder, and afterwards through tears. “Be ye imitators of God.” Plant your feet firmly on the revealed doctrine of the impartial equity of God. Accepting that, acquiesce with loving submission in the mysteries of his ways, even when they are in the deep waters, and when his footsteps are not known. Then seek in your sphere to follow God in his. Let the judge and magistrate in his decisions, the disputant in his arguments, the private individual in his home sphere, the master in ruling, the servant in obeying, the Church member in his worship and fellowship with his brethren, the evangelist in evangelizing,all remember that as there is no respect of persons with God, there must be none with them. And let all strive to be like God, who in his Law encircles all men with one bond of duty, while in his gospel he holds them all under one dispensation of grace!
HOMILIES BY J. ORR
Deu 10:1-12
Tokens of mercy.
Various pledges of his forgiveness were given by God to the people.
I. THE RENEWAL OF THE TABLES. (Deu 10:1-5.)
1. Reconciliation to God is only possible through return to obedience. God cannot but require that we accept his commands, and make them the rule of our life (Mat 5:19, Mat 5:20; Rom 6:13-23). Such return to obedience is involved in gospel faith (Rom 7:4). “Repent ye” (Mar 1:15).
2. The Law is one and unalterable (Deu 10:4). We must change; God cannot.
3. The Law underlies the mercy-seat (Deu 10:2). A testimony against sins, yet the foundation of the covenant. In redemption, the covenant obligation is not annulled, but fulfilled representatively in the spiritual HeadChrist. In receiving Christ, the Law’s Fulfiller, we bind ourselves to be fulfillers of it also, as no longer servants of sin, but of righteousness (Rom 6:1-23.). Our justification is in him; his Spirit of life is in us (Rom 8:1, Rom 8:2; Heb 10:16).
II. THE SETTLEMENT OF THE MINISTRY OF RELIGION. (Deu 10:6-10.) The renewal of the high priesthood in the person of Eleazar (Deu 10:6); the separation of the tribe of Levi for the service of the sanctuary (Deu 10:8, Deu 10:9). The existence of ordinances is a proof of continued mercy. God punishes unfaithfulness by removing the candlestick out of its place (Rev 2:5). The gospel ministry is Christ’s gift to his Church (Eph 4:11). Means of grace end with the close of the day of grace (Mat 28:20; 2Co 6:1, 2Co 6:2), and the removal of the individual from their midst ends the day of grace to him (Heb 9:27).
III. THE COMMANDMENT TO GO FORWARD. (Deu 10:7, Deu 10:11.) We also are commanded to go forwardto advance to the conquest of the worldto press to heaven. So long as that command stands unrepealed, so long may sinners be assured that the day of grace lasts, and that they are warranted in believing in the mercy of God towards them.J.O.
Deu 10:12, Deu 10:13
The supreme requirement.
With this Moses began (Deu 6:4), and with this he ends. The sum of the Law, and the sum of all his exhortations. It all and always comes back to this (Ecc 12:13): “What doth the Lord require of thee?” etc. We have here:
1. The central requirement.
2. The all-embracing requirement.
3. The indispensable requirement; that for which nothing else can be accepted as a substitute.
4. The requirement of kindness“for thy good.”
5. A reasonable requirement. This love and obedience were due from Israel for God’s mercies to them. As in the gospel, grace precedes, obedience follows. Saved by grace, we are to make such return as is possible by loving and fearing God, and diligently keeping his commands (Luk 7:47; Rom 6:13; Rom 7:6; Eph 2:8-11).J.O.
Deu 10:14-22
The supreme persuasive.
The revelation of God’s character in its double aspect of exalted might and of condescending grace.
I. GOD EXALTED, YET STOOPING. (Deu 10:14-16.) The wonder of revelation:
1. That One so exalted should stoop at all. The wonder is not abated by reflecting that infinite perfection must include infinite mercy with every other attribute. It fills us with amazement to think of the Possessor of heaven and earth stooping to hold friendly converse with his creature, man. The Bible dwells on the thought with astonishment (1Ki 8:27; Psa 8:3, Psa 8:4; Psa 147:3-6; Isa 57:15). Modern science indirectly testifies to the wonder in objecting that, with our enlarged conceptions of the universe, it is impossible to believe that God should feel the special interest in man which the Bible says he does.
2. That One so exalted should stoop so far. God’s depth of condescension seen peculiarly in the gospel.
(1) In sending the Son.
(2) In surrendering him to death.
(3) This for enemies.
(4) In dwelling by the Spirit in imperfectly sanctified hearts (Joh 3:16; Rom 5:6-10; Rom 8:32; 2Co 6:16-18; Gal 5:17).
The persuasiveness of the revelation lies in its blending of majesty with grace.
II. GOD MIGHTY AND EQUITABLE, YET TENDERLY SYMPATHETIC. (Deu 10:17-20.) Another aspect of the Divine greatness, blending with lowliness, which attracts the heart. The combination of great strength with great gentleness; of judicial sternness with humane consideration of those in distress, are sufficiently rare to be always striking. We marvel when, in the hero of a hundred battles, we discover a heart of woman’s tenderness; when in the judge whose strictness on the bench every one remarks, we light on a spring of deep and genuine compassionateness. It is this combination we see in God. A God of gods, a Lord of lords; great, mighty, terrible, sternly just; yet, what might seem incompatible with this, tenderly and touchingly compassionate. His might and equity, so terrible to evil-doers, he throws as a shield around the fatherless, the widow, and the stranger. He executes their judgment. They are his peculiar care. Them, above all others, will he not allow to be wronged (Psa 68:5).
III. GOD OMNIPOTENT, YET HIS OMNIPOTENCE EXERTED IN DEFENDING AND BLESSING HIS CHURCH. (Deu 10:21, Deu 10:22.) Power in itself awakens fear; power known to be engaged in our protection and for our good inspires the highest confidence. Moses recalls to the Israelites, as a reason for fearing and loving God, his acts of power on then behalf, especially his power as exerted in their extraordinary increase. God’s power may be viewed as displayed:
1. In the Church’s redemption (Col 1:13).
2. In the Church’s increase (Act 5:38, Act 5:39).
3. In the Church’s protection from her foes (Mat 16:18; Act 4:24, Act 4:31).
The individual Christian will have reason to rejoice in the same power as exerted in his conversion (Eph 1:19), in his upholding (Jud 1:24), in his protection (Rom 8:35-39), in his ultimate salvation (1Pe 1:5).J.O.
Deu 10:16
Heart circumcision.
I. HEART CIRCUMCISION IN ITS IMPORT.
1. Betokens the existence of natural impurity. The rite of circumcision, as the initiatory rite of the covenant, taught that man, in his natural, unpurified state, is unfit for fellowship with God. “In us, that is, in our flesh, dwells no good thing” (Joh 3:6; Rom 7:18). It was a symbol of the putting away of “the filth of the flesh”a truth now signified in baptism (Col 2:11; 1Pe 3:21).
2. Illustrates the painful nature of the renunciation of fleshly lusts. The operation was sharp, painful, bloody. It vividly set forth at once the necessity of renouncing the lusts of the flesh, and the pain attendant on the act. We are called on to mortify our members which are upon the earth (Col 3:5). The process is described as a crucifying of the flesh, with its affections and lusts (Gal 5:24). The deepest form which this renunciation can assume is the renunciation of the principle of self-will in its entirety, the sharp excision of evil in its root.
3. Implies the grace of the covenant. The reception of God’s grace as exhibited in the covenant is the condition of the possibility of this renunciation. We achieve it, not in our own strength, but through the impartation of a new principle of life. Paul makes it a result of faith in the risen Christ (Co Deu 2:12). The circumcised heart marks the accepted and restored recipient of the grace of Goda child of the spiritual covenant, one born again.
II. HEART CIRCUMCISION IN ITS NECESSITY.
1. As distinguished from outward circumcision. The latter was valueless without the former. Being but a symbol, its sole worth lay in that which it represented. The true Jew was he who was one inwardly, whose circumcision was “that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter” (Rom 2:28, Rom 2:29). The remark applies to baptism. It also is but a symbol, and without the grace which it exhibits, and the inward renewal which it betokens, it is a dead work, a valueless rite, leaving its subject as little a Christian as at first. So with all ceremonies.
2. As a positive qualification for God‘s service. Pure obedience can flow only from a pure heart, a renewed will. It is not a fruit of the flesh. The flesh must he renounced, and a new and spiritual nature begotten in us before we can render it. What is needed is not reformation, but regenerationa new birth, a new creation, a new heart (Joh 3:3; Rom 7:18-25; Rom 8:7; 2Co 5:17; Gal 5:16-25).J.O.
Deu 10:19
Love the stranger.
The precept has numerous applications
I. TO LITERAL STRANGERS. Persons from foreign countries, or from distant parts of our own country, settling in our midst. Why should these be treated so often as intruders, “incomers,” persons to be jealously watched and suspected, instead of being taken by the hand and welcomed?
II. TO THE UNFRIENDED AND HELPLESS. To all whose hearts are lonely, and their lives destitute of the cheer given by the love and sympathy of friends. To the fatherless and the widowstrangers in a very true sense m a world where selfish interests so hugely predominate.
III. TO YOUNG MAN IS GREAT CITIES. Often lost for lack of some one to take a kindly interest in them.
IV. TO STRANGERS TURNING UP IN CHURCHES. Coldness here repels many who might otherwise be won to interest in religion, and secured for Christ. Brotherly and friendly attention, a kind word, the warm shake of a hand, the courteous offer of a pew,how far will they often go? They are, like “good words,” worth much, and cost little.
Show kindness to strangers:
1. Because they peculiarly need it. “The heart of a stranger.”
2. Because God loves them. He will avenge their wrongs. He will reward kindness shown to them (Mat 25:35).
3. We may be placed in similar circumstances. Changes in fortune (Rth 1:19-22).J.O.
Deu 10:20
Religion in brief.
A text made illustrious by our Savior’s use of it. Like Deu 10:12, a summary of duty, but in a form giving prominence to the truth that fear of God works from within outwards. This central religious principle particularizes itself into
I. SERVING HIMor religion in deed. In resistance of all seductions to a counter-service (Mat 4:10). In the faithful and diligent discharge of all duties.
II. CLEAVING TO HIMor religion in heart. Fear and love, rooted in faith, here reveal themselves as an energy of trust and adherence. They dread separation from God as the worst evil. They hold by him for support, for keeping, for strength, for direction.
III. SWEARING BY HIS NAMEor religion in word. This includes religious oaths, but denotes also willingness at any time to make public confession of God.
IV. REJOICING IN HIM. “He is thy praise” (cf. Php 4:4).J.O.
HOMILIES BY D. DAVIES
Deu 10:1-5
The Law deposited in the ark.
The first attempt to convey God’s Law to man in a written form had proved a failure. The human links in the system had snapped. Moses had overrated the people’s loyalty. The people had overrated their own strength of purpose. So far, the Law had been to them a ministration of death. But knowledge grew out of experience.
I. WE SEE THE HUMAN FACTOR IN DIVINE REVELATION. The conceptions that dwell in God’s mind are incomprehensible until they are put into human mold. This introduction of a human element implies limitation, but does not imply error. The prophet becomes the channel through which Divine communications flow; but the prophet needs great subjective preparation to receive the message. He must leave the throng and bustle of men, ascend above the low cares of earth, and spend forty days in communion with heavenly realities, before he is competent to receive the gift of Divine Law. Such absorption of mind in Divine fellowship will make us also susceptible of larger revelation. Obedience likewise to Divine command fits us for this fellowship.
II. WE SEE THE PERMANENCY OF GOD‘S LAW.
1. The words that were written on these second tablets were the same as were written on the firstwere the same as were spoken in the flame. Though man may violate and break his Law, God does not modify nor reduce his claims.
2. They were recorded on stone, on the granite stone of Sinai. There is significance to be found in the material chosen. In many respects stone tablets would involve inconvenience, but the impression to be made on men’s minds was of the first importance, and God does nothing without reason.
3. They were to be preserved in a chest. Thus they would be handed down from age to age as the unchanging will of God.
III. WE SEE THE SUCCINCTNESS OF GOD‘S COMMANDS. These cardinal precepts were but ten, which might easily be laid up in memory, and recited by aid of the fingers. In the absence of writings, this natural aid to memory would be in common use. Yet, though few in number, these ten words were pregnant with meaningwere living seeds of truth, which, planted in the soul, would yield a copious harvest. The two stone tablets may have been ordered to correspond with the two hands, or to embrace man’s twofold relationshipGodward and manward.
IV. THE CONSERVATION OF THE LAW IN THE ARK IS HIGHLY SUGGESTIVE.
1. It is suggestive of mystery. Since the human mind cannot measure the universe, mystery is necessarymystery is wholesome discipline.
2. It is suggestive of protection. The stony tablets needed protection against the ebullitions of Moses’ anger. They needed to be hid to prevent their becoming an object of idolatry.
3. It is suggestive of value. They had both an extrinsic and an intrinsic worth. They would be valued as rare and unique. They ought to have been valued more highly still as the records of God’s will.
4. It is suggestive of the use men should make of them. This hidden deposit is symbolical. As the material temple is the symbol of the human soul, in which God most of all prefers to reside, so the word of God is required to be enshrined within. “Thy word have I hid in mine heart.” The word is the true forerunner, which prepares the way for the entrance of the Living God.D.
Deu 10:6-11
Progress.
Progress is the law of human life. Perfection is reached only by steady advancement.
I. PROGRESS IS MARKED BY DISTINCT STAGES. There are times for action, and times for rest. Neither body nor mind can, in our present state, bear the strain of continuous exertion. There is an advantage in an occasional halt, by which we can review the past, measure our progress, examine our resources, and reconnoiter the future. The soul is many-sided, and advance in knowledge, devout feeling, practical exertion, self-denial, cannot be made at one and the same time. Today we gain clearer perception of heavenly truths; tomorrow we exercise our best affections on abject sufferers; the day following we fight with the enemy with sword and buckler.
“Each morning sees some task begun,
Each evening sees its close.”
II. PROGRESS IS ACCOMPANIED BY CHANGEFUL INCIDENT, PAINFUL AND PLEASANT. At one halting-place Aaron died, and the camp was plunged into bitter mourning; at another halt they came upon streams of refreshing water. Yet all events may minister to the soul’s progress. There are no absolute impediments to the highest progress, “Out of the eater comes forth meat.” “All things work together for good.” The order of experience usually happens, as in this case, viz. first the bitter, then the sweet first loss, then gain. The evening and the morning make one day. “Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.”
III. THERE IS PROGRESS TOO IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF GOD‘S PLANS. At another stage of their pilgrimage, God chose the tribe of Levi to minister unto him in sacred things. Heretofore, the firstborn in each family was claimed by God as his special minister; now a particular tribe is selected on the ground of its zealous exertions in God‘s cause. Character, not the accident of birth, is the basis of God’s approval. In God’s kingdom, he bears the palm who merits it. Higher service is to be accounted the most honorable reward. Promotion to a nearer fellowship with Godthis ought to be our richest joy.
IV. THERE IS PROGRESS SHOWN ALSO IN THE NATURE OF DIVINE AWARDS. It had been considered hitherto that the supreme mark of Jehovah’s favor was the gift of Canaan. Now the people are gradually led to perceive that there is something better than that. One tribe, and that the most signally separated by God for favor, is deprived of participation in the Promised Land. The Levites, like Abraham, though dwelling in the land, shall possess no personal property in fields or vineyards. Their advantage it shall be, to be exempt from the cares and ambitions and jealousies pertaining to landed estate. An inheritance shall be theirs, boundless in extent; satisfying in its nature; inalienable in its tenure; uncorrupting, yea, ennobling, in its effect upon the possessor; uncreated, and therefore undecaying. Their inheritance was God himself. He who has God, has all things. The universe is his.
V. TRUE PROGRESS IS THE RESULT OF COMBINED CONTEMPLATION AND ACTION. In the busy life of our Lord, communion with God and intense activity sweetly blended. To be always on the mount would make us pietists and recluses and mysticshot-house plants. To be always on the field of action will make us narrow, hard, arrogant, self-reliant. Both sides of our nature must grow in ratio, if we are to be full-orbed, attractive Christians. The ferry-boat of the gospel, which is to carry men to the other side, must be rowed with two oarsprayer and labor.
VI. THE PROGRESS OF ONE IS THE PROGRESS OF MANY. A useful principle of emulation appears in human nature. It is painful to be left behind in the race. If we cannot be in the front, we wish to be near it. Every man has a following. We cannot go to heaven or to hell alone. With more or less of persuasiveness, every man is saying, “Come with me!” Is my influence beneficial or baneful?D.
Deu 10:12-22
Knowledge of God the parent of obedient faith.
Every honest view we take of God’s service brings to light fresh features of attractiveness. It is the only right course. It satisfies conscience, reason, affection, desire. Having right dispositions and purposes in life, all larger knowledge of God makes service pleasant; yea, true service ministers to our best life.
I. THE REASONABLENESS OF GOD‘S SERVICE HAY RE DEDUCED FROM THE PERFECTION OF HIS CHARACTER.
1. His supremacy. He is “God of gods.” He stands alone, the sole Creator, but himself uncreated. His claims upon his creatures are absolute, unlimited, and unconditioned.
2. His equity. If, at any time, men suspect any unrighteousness in God, it is because of some obliqueness of vision, or some defect in their mental instrument, or some deficiency of knowledge. No shadow of partiality has ever once been found in him. The favorites of God have been the most chastised.
3. His immense power. He is “mighty and terrible.” A breath of God can create; a breath can destroy. “With the breath of his mouth he will slay the wicked.”
4. His goodness and pity. His goodness is profuse, is distributed with royal generosity, without stint. But his special care is reserved for the helpless. Widows and orphans have exceptional protection and defense. He makes their case his own, and becomes their unseen Patron. Human monarchs lavish their favors upon those who can do them most service; God lavishes his kindness upon the most needy. Want is the passport to his storehouse. Infinite worth belongs to him.
II. THIS REASONABLENESS OF SERVING GOD IS SEEN IN HIS GRACIOUS TREATMENT OF MEN.
1. There was no need, so far as we can discover, that God should be served by men. The heaven was his, and all previous orders of intelligent beings. The earth also was his, and all its various contents. Here was large scope for the display of his perfections. If men were rebellions, he could readily crush the race, and sweep it from the face of the earth. And no other motive for his kindness to men can we discover, than that of generous and irrepressible love.
2. He has made covenant engagements with them. Moses never fails to remind Israel that the God of heaven was their God. With condescending grace, that excites our perpetual surprise, God had chosen them to be recipients of special blessing. He had found “delight in their fathers;” and for the fathers’ sakes had loved the children. We, too, who believe in Christ, “are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” God regards renewed men as his treasure, his portion, his jewels. They are dear to him as “the apple of his eye.” There is no service he will not render for them, “no gift will he withhold.” He has redeemed them with life-blood, and esteems them as unspeakably precious. They are destined to share his society, his possessions, his throne, his image. God has bound himself to us by most solemn compacts, and all his vast resources are pledged to us. It is a covenant made in heaven, and “is ordered in all things and sure.”
III. THIS REASONABLENESS IS SEEN IN THE SELF–ADVANTAGE OF SERVING GOD.
1. It is “for our good.” Every command may not be pleasant to flesh and blood, nor always to appetite and inclination; but obedience is salutary to all the better parts of man’s nature. “In keeping his commandments we have great reward.” There is large present benefit, and there is larger prospective good.
2. It is a credit to us to serve such a God. “He is our praise.” The statesmen and ambassadors and generals of England count it high honor to serve Britain’s queen. How vastly greater the honor to serve the King of kings! We may suffer passing reproach from our attachment to Christ, but reproach is like the early hoar-frost, which the ascending sun will scatter. If men do not perceive the honor, it is because they are blind. “My soul shall make her boast in the Lord.”
3. God‘s past goodness excites our largest hope. God had already done great things for Israel. He had multiplied them in Egypt a thousandfold. Nor had he reached the end of his power nor the end of his intentions. What he had done was only a sample of what he yet meant to do. A world of good is yet in store for each believer. We shall never touch the furthest limits of God’s beneficence. “Eye hath not seen it.” To his faithful servants the invitation is repeated a thousand times over, “Come up higher.”
IV. THIS REASONABLENESS IS SEEN IN THE KIND OF SERVICE REQUIRED. Nothing more is demanded than our thoughtful reason and enlightened conscience approve.
1. Reverence. We have only to know God in order to yield him the reverence of our souls. If we could perceive his inherent majesty, his real excellence, and his unsullied purity, we should (if feeling were right) instinctively yield to him the profoundest reverence of our hearts. Were it not for the corrupting effects of sin, this would be natural.
2. Submission to his superior will. By virtue of his wisdom, he has a right to counsel. By virtue of his relation as Monarch, he has a right to command. By virtue of his supremacy as Creator, he has claims on every part of our nature and on every moment of our time. His will is excellent, benevolent, unerring. To take his will, not ours, for chart and compass is simplest duty, ay, is largest privilege. “Be no more stiffnecked.” A pliable will alone makes a dutiful child.
3. Hearty love. That we can love at all is due to him. The power to cherish love, to receive love, is his gift. Hence, if we love at all, our love belongs to him. If we love in proportion to benefits received, or in proportion to the worth of the object, or in proportion to the love expended on us, then all our love will center in God.
4. Practical service. Genuine love will always seek some channel for its outflow, and service for love’s object is a delight, and is only love in active exercise. It would be a restraint and a pain for love to be silent. She would justly count it bondage to be caged up within the heart. Having feet, it would be a restraint not to walk; how great the honor to be able to walk in God’s paths, in the highways he himself doth take! True service for God is freedom, life, joy, heaven. If we love we must obey.
5. Such service makes us Godlike. God counts it a joy to serve us, though he is under no obligation of law or right so to do. To serve him means that we grow like him. We imitate him first in actions, then in disposition, then in purposes, then in character. Said Moses significantly to Israel, “God loveth the stranger Love ye therefore the stranger.”
Through every hour of every day we may be climbing heavenwards, becoming Godlike. Every duty may become to us an instrument actively molding us into the image of perfection. The obedience that springs from love is a pathway of flowery pleasantness, ascending gradually to the hills of frankincense, and to the presence of God.D.
HOMILIES BY R.M. EDGAR
Deu 10:1-5
The covenant renewed.
The severe intercession of Moses succeeds at last, and he is directed to get two tables like unto the first, and to bring them up to God for his inscription upon them. He was also directed to make an ark for their reception. There was thus provided the tables of the testimony, and a place in which to keep them.
And here we have to notice
I. MAN IS ASKED TO PROVIDE THE TABLES. God loves the co-operation of his people as far as possible. “Fellow-workers with God” is our highest honor. Just as when Christ was raising Lazarus he allowed men to roll away the stone (Joh 11:39-41), so when he would write the Decalogue anew, he directs Moses to provide the tables. This is better than to encourage man’s indolence by God doing all.
In the very same way it is upon “the fleshy tables of the heart” God writes his Law (2Co 3:3). Man, so to speak, provides the material, offers his heart for the sacred inscription, and thus becomes a living epistle, known and read of all men.
II. GOD‘S WILL IS UNCHANGING. The two new tables received the same words as the first which were broken. The second edition of the Decalogue was identical with the first. God’s will may be stereotyped, it is so perfect and changeless. Man may be wayward; but God will not alter his standard to suit man’s low ideal. The Divine plan is to keep before man the unchanging Law, and bring him by easy stages up to it. There is no depreciation of the Divine requirements.
III. THE ARK WAS PRIMARILY INTENDED AS A DEPOSITORY OF THE LAW. This chest of shittim wood, made strong and beautiful, was evidently meant as a “safe,” where this precious deposit, this oracle of God, should be placed. There was nothing so precious in the keeping of Israel. It was their great riches. What advantage had the Jew? “Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.”
And this ark not only typified the care taken of the canon, but also it would seem Christ himself, who, as the Ark, kept the Law in its entirety; it was the expression of his own will, and it was the deposit within him. “Think not that I am come, to destroy the Law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill” (Mat 5:17).
IV. SANCTIFIED MEN ARE SIMILARLY TO BE DEPOSITORIES OF GOD‘S HOLY WILL. Those who are regenerated hide God’s Law in their hearts, as Christ says prophetically he did (Psa 40:8). The preservation of the sacred books has been wonderfulbut better is it to have truth settled in the soul and manifested through the life. The blessedness of him who makes God’s Law his meditation day and night is great indeed (Psa 1:2). “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them, and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more” (Heb 10:16, Heb 10:17).
When God’s word and will are so deposited; when human hearts receive, like Lydia’s the truth,then is it carried not only through the wilderness of life, but out into “the undiscovered lands.” The ark of shittim wood, so strong and precious, only faintly images the more precious receptacle of the human heart, rendered by Divine grace strong and true, which accepts of God’s word of promise, and becomes thereby partaker of the Divine nature and escapes the corruption of the world (2Pe 1:4).R.M.E.
Deu 10:6-9
The separation of the sons of Levi.
The tables of stone in the ark had to be committed to special officers. These were the sons cf. Levi. God called them to this, a high and glorious honor surely. They were also to minister unto him and to bless in his Name. To this order of men no mere temporal inheritance was given; God was their inheritance.
I. IT IS SURELY DESIRABLE THAT A SPECIAL ORDER OF MEN SHOULD BE SET APART FOR THE CUSTODY OF THE DIVINE WORD. This was the primary office of the sons of Levi, custodians of the ark of the covenant. In this respect they resemble the Christian ministry, whose great office is to keep and to propagate the Divine Word. In the “division of labor” to which human wisdom brings us, it is surely important that a special class should be charged with the sacred deposit of the Divine Word. Men secularized by business cannot be expected to handle the Word of God with the wisdom and power of those who are set apart for this special purpose.
II. THE SONS OF LEVI WERE ALSO TO BE MINISTERS UNTO GOD. They were directed to stand and officiate. They were the ministers of God. They were his servants, not man’s. We do not now refer to the priestly rites, through which they passed according to the Mosaic Law. These were special and temporary. They typified the priestly office fulfilled by Christ, and, when fulfilled, no longer needed. But the general idea of ministration in God’s presence and for the Lord is surely the very essence of the ministerial office.
III. THE SONS OF LEVI WERE ALSO TO BLESS IN THE NAME OF THE LORD. They were charged to pronounce certain benedictions in God’s Name. And this right is manifestly continued in the Christian Church. The pronouncing of the benediction is surely something more than a mere prayer breathed to heaven for the blessings specialized. Is it not the assurance on the part of God’s officer that the blessings are conveyed to those waiting to receive them (cf. Num 6:24 and 2Co 13:14)?
IV. IT WAS ARRANGED THAT THE LEVITES SHOULD NOT BE SECULARIZED, BUT SHOULD LIVE AT THE ALTAR OF GOD. “Wherefore Levi hath no part nor inheritance with his brethren; the Lord is his inheritance, according as the Lord thy God hath promised him.” This means that this tribe was not to be secularized by worldly anxieties and common cares. The Lord guaranteed their support by arrangements at his altar.
And “ministerial support” should mean no more! It is a Divine expedient to secure a class of men for his service, emancipated from secular cares and troubles. The privilege of studying and enforcing God’s Word is great and glorious. We only ask such support as ministers as will preserve us from corroding cares, and enable us with free spirits to give ourselves to this high business.
It is this only we ask for, the freedom from the secularity which the world demands even when one is most watchful, in business struggles, against it. It is when a believing Church gives the ministry of Christ such emancipation all round that they may expect the ministerial office to be fulfilled with superior power and to command the ablest men.R.M.E.
Deu 10:10-22
New obedience.
Moses, having detailed the success of his intercession in Horeb, and that the threatened doom was averted and the pilgrimage proceeded with, goes on in this passage to analyze the obedience to be rendered. It is all summed up in fearing the Lord, walking in his ways, loving him, serving him with heart and soul, and keeping his commandments. Let us try to grasp the description of new obedience here presented.
I. ISRAEL WAS TO BE A GOD–FEARING PEOPLE. A fine word this, “the fear of God”not indicative of slavish consternation, but of reverential awe. It is the fear which springs from a fitting sense of God’s greatness and majesty. He is too great and too glorious (Deu 10:17) for any of his people to trifle with or to presume upon him, as in the familiarities of ordinary intercourse.
II. AND CONSEQUENTLY ISRAEL WILL SERVE GOD WITH HEART AND SOUL. For when in faith we fear God, we find that “faith worketh by love,” and so we throw ourselves “heart and soul” into his service. We adore his excellencies, and then are “proud to serve him.” His commandments become our songs in the house of our pilgrimage, and we find in keeping them a great reward (Psa 119:54; Psa 19:11).
III. THE NEED OF SPIRITUAL CIRCUMCISION WILL THEN BE FELT. “The circumcision of the foreskin of the heart” can only mean the use of all lawful means to restrain the willfulness and waywardness of the heart. The lusts must be subdued, of which self is the center and selfishness the essence. God has become central and supreme, and so all that interferes in any way with his rights must be “cut off,” no matter how painful the process be. This is the cure for “stiffneckedness.”
IV. THE CARE OF THE FATHERLESS, WIDOW, AND STRANGER, IS FELT TO BE DIVINEST DUTY. God is impartial, he respects not persons. He is just in all his reign. But he is also compassionate, and makes the defenseless and the helpless his special care (Deu 10:17, Deu 10:18).
And in this we feel it our privilege as well as duty to follow him. This is manifested in
1. Orphan societies. Where the widow is considered with the fatherless, and as much of the wrecked home as can be kept together is tried by loving care to be preserved. We are finding more considerate ways every day of ministering to the lonely and the desolate.
2. Hospitality. This means love manifested to a stranger because he is a stranger. There is a speculative hospitality that is poor and mean; and there is a Divine hospitality that asks those who cannot repay the attention, and asks them for the good Lord’s sake.
For if we are redeemed of God, like Israel, we must feel that it is due to God’s kindness to strangers. We were naturally “aliens,” but his love made us friends, and we have entered into his fellowship and joy. It is this felt obligation which sustains the attention to “strangers” which the Lord enjoined.
It is evident that the Jewish religion was intended to be a lovely thing because a thing of love; a matter of broad and genial sympathies and of noble efforts after divinest duties.R.M.E.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
Ver. 1. And make thee an ark of wood This order, given before to Moses, was here repeated on account of the new tables which he was to make to put into the ark. And I made, in the third verse, can only mean, according to a common mode of expression, I ordered to be made.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Deu 10:1-22
1At that time the Lord said unto me, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first, and come up into the mount, and make thee an ark of wood. 2And I will write on the tables the words that were in the first tables which thou brakest, and thou shalt put them in the ark. 3And I made an ark of shittim [acacia] wood, and hewed two tables of stone like unto the first, and went up into the mount, having [and] the two tables in mine hand. 4And he wrote on the tables, according to the first writing, the ten commandments [words] which the Lord spake unto you in the mount, out of the midst of the fire, in [at] the day of the assembly: and the Lord gave them unto me. 5And I turned myself and came down from the mount, and put the tables in the ark which I had made; and there they be, as the Lord commanded me. 6And the children of Israel took their journey from Beeroth [the wells] of the children of Jaakan to Mosera: there Aaron died, and there he was buried; and Eleazar his son ministered in the priests office [became priest] in his stead. 7From thence they journeyed unto Gudgodah; and from Gudgodah to Jotbath, a land of rivers of waters. 8At that time the Lord separated the tribe of Levi, to bear the ark of the covenant of the Lord, to stand before [the face of] the Lord to minister unto him, and to bless in his name, unto this day. 9Wherefore Levi hath no part nor inheritance with his brethren; the Lord [he] is his inheritance, according as the Lord thy God promised him. 10And I stayed [stood] in the mount, according to the first time [as the first days] forty days and forty nights; and the Lord hearkened unto me at that time also, and [omit and] the Lord would not destroy thee. 11And the Lord said unto me, Arise, take thy journey [go to depart] before the people, that they may go in and possess the land which I sware unto their fathers to give unto them. 12And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee but [than only] to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart [with thy whole heart], and with all thy soul. 13To keep the commandments [commandment] of the Lord, and his statutes, which I command thee this day for 14thy good? Behold,1 the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the Lords thy God, the earth also [omit also], with all that therein is. [Still] 15Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he [omit he] chose their seed after them, 16even you above [out of] all people, as it is this day. Circumcise therefore [And so circumcise] the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiff-necked. 17For the Lord your God is God of gods [he is the God of gods] and [the] Lord of lords, a great God [the God, the great] a [the] mighty, and a [the] terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward: 18He doth execute the judgment2 of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving [to give] him food and raiment. 19Love ye therefore [And so love ye] the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. 20Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God; him shalt thou serve, and to him 21shalt thou cleave, and swear by his name. He is thy praise, and he is thy God, that hath done for thee these great and terrible things [deeds] which thine eyes have seen. 22Thy fathers went down into Egypt with three-score and ten persons [with seventy souls]; and now the Lord thy God hath made thee as the stars of heaven for multitude.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. Deu 10:1-5. At that time (Deu 10:1) is generally to be understood of the time at Horeb, which is the fundamental reference in this section (Deu 9:8). This more general interpretation corresponds to the whole method of the discourse, which is not chronological, but rhetorical, and pre-supposes with respect to the more exact chronological sequences the narrative in Exodus. According to this, the time fixed falls before the beginning of the forty days and nights (Exo 34:1) thus before Deu 9:25; Deu 9:18. All that lies between, was briefly hinted in Deu 9:19, since all there depends upon the close of the intercession of Moses, the renewing of the covenant, the new tables of the law, and indeed as the result of the Mosaic intercession. (That with the forty days the time, first below in the camp, at last above on the mount, is intended (Knobel); as a round number (Schultz), is as unnecessary as it is to explain in that time by the intercessory prayer. Keil). The mention of the ark, whose preparation had been commanded, Exo 25:10, indeed before the first tables, declares already according to the actual connection here, the grace to Israel in reference to the erection of the sanctuary, as one enduring and realizing itself in the dwelling of Jehovah with Israel. Thus also in Deu 10:2, with which comp. Exo 34:1. The carrying out of that which was commanded, Exodus 25, and here merely renewed with respect to the ark, Deu 10:3, involves no difficulty, for Exo 37:1 does not exclude the idea that Bezaleel applied himself to the complicated work immediately upon the declaration of Moses. [And if this were not so, the apparent diversities between the account in Exodus and the statement here are all easily and naturally explained upon the supposition that Moses groups events here with reference to the impression he wished to make, and without reference to the order of time in which they occurred. These very differences may be fairly urged as proofs of the Mosaic authorship.A. G.] Deu 10:4. Comp. Deu 9:10. Deu 10:5 as Deu 9:15. And put, sq. (Exo 40:20), parallel to the solemn utterance
Deu 10:3In my two hands).
2. Deu 10:6-11. The notices contained in Deu 10:6 sq. follow here not without design on the part of Moses (comp. Deu 10:9, thy God)the children of Israel in the third person, and while apparently disconnected, are in fact individually and as a whole, especially through the ruling idea, inwoven closely in the connection of this section. The conclusion with the ark (Deu 10:5) leads to the bearers of the ark (Deu 10:8). The purpose, to close with the residence at Horeb introduces the remark as to the removing of the children of Israel (Deu 10:6-7). The result of the intercession of Moses for Aaron, so expressly mentioned in Deu 9:20, could not remain without notice when the renewal of the covenant with the people in consequence of that Mosaic intercession was mentioned. But it is still more significant for the connection, since even Moses did not reach Canaan, when still in the critical moment at Horeb his intercession is such, that it alone appeared for all, for the people and Aaron, that Moses should be able to point to this, that his intercession and mediation at that time maintained an official determining character for the time when he could no more appear for Israel. This is truly deuteronomic. We have seen already in the introduction that Deuteronomy provides for the time when Moses should no longer be with Israel, in that it emphasizes those official activities which are crowded into the one peculiar personality of Moses. If therefore Moses prayer for Aaron had personally this result, that he should not die until the fortieth year of the wandering, at Mosera, so it had officially provided for the enduring high-priesthood, mediating with God for Israel, since at the death of Aaron Eleazar became priest in his stead. The ruling idea in this whole section is the intercession of Moses heard and answered, and indeed in its deeper connection with the second command, which is positively explained for us. If the second command in distinction from the first, relates to the true honoring of Jehovah, the true worship of God, so it is essentially conditioned, indeed given, through the Aaronic priesthood. The symbolical cultus connected with it, is the right way, the calf-worship the apostacy to heathenism. What is not found in the latter is symbolized and really exists in the former; holiness and love, righteousness and the grace of God. It is therefore correct (as already Clericus) when Hengstenberg says: Moses reminds the people that the Lord had remained the same in His grace notwithstanding all their sins. He gave to them the ark of the covenant with the new tables of the law, Deu 10:1-5. In the continuance of His grace He institutes the high-priesthood, etc. The given nexus between this institution and the intercession of Moses, according to which he, speaking as a dying man, indeed as if already dead, to Israel, has only in view the matter about which it treats, the mediation of the people with God after his death, produces this perceptible objective character of the discourse, altogether fitting here, and should not permit any thought of an interpolated gloss by a later hand. [The division of the chapters here is unfortunate. Deu 10:1-11 is closely connected with the 9th chapter. Moses is there guarding the people against self-righteous tendencies. Their blessedness is not due to them. On the contrary, they were characteristically a rebellious people. The favors conferred upon them originally by the grace and sovereign choice of God were forfeited by their sin at Horeb. It was only at Moses intercession, and in the great mercy of God, which endured even when they had been disobedient, that they were now reinstated in these privileges. Then the tables were renewed, the ark of the covenant was provided, and the tables placed in it, the priesthood of Aaron was continued in Eleazar, the Levites were set apart to minister in the tabernacle (an appointment which could scarcely have been passed over here when the transactions at Horeb were dwelt upon), and they were permitted to march onward. So complete was the reconciliation between God and His people, through the intercession of Moses; every allusion is in place, if we regard the speakers purpose. Even the geographical statements and the setting apart of Levi show that there is no gloss.A. G]Beeroth, sq., wells=Bene Jaakan, Num 33:31. A camping-place of one of the Horite tribes mentioned in Gen 36:24, where the wells occur. Mosera, the same as Moseroth, only that is the plural. Since Aaron (Deu 32:50) died upon Mount Hor, Mosera must have been at its foot. Comp. Num 20:22 sq.; Num 33:37-38. Deu 10:7. Gudgodah, the same as Hor Hagidgad, Num 33:32, where are the caves or a narrow pass. Jotbath as in Num 33:33, only that the place, not now geographically known, was there referred to in the second, here in the fortieth year (Hengstenberg, Auth. II., p. 431 sq.). The symbolical character of the whole quotation excludes any possibility of a contradiction to the record in Num. The mention of the rivers of waters seems to designate even the external blessings accompanying the renewed covenant relation. These little traits of a direct local knowledge, and an actual experience in the journeyings, would be without any significance in a mere later gloss. Deu 10:8. At that time, parallel with Deu 10:1, and connecting with Deu 10:5, as the discourse there is of the bearers of the ark. The time the same with Deu 10:1, and it is defined also in Deu 10:10. Thus in no way after Aarons death. As in Deu 10:6 the high-priesthood is expressly brought into prominence, in connection with Aaron and Eleazar, and particularly in this, that it passed from Aaron to his sons, and the family of Aaron is pointed out as the specifically priestly family, so there comes out here unmistakably the one peculiar deuteronomic feature, which permits the one family of the tribe to retire behind the tribe as such (comp. Introd. 4, I. 22). Although Moses has not repeated in Deu 9:17 or Deu 9:21 the narrative in Exo 32:26 sq., still the here-mentioned separation of the tribe of Levi (Num 1:49 sq. (Deu 3:4); Deu 8:6 sq.) pre-supposes it, and at the same time finds its ground in his concise style here. Besides the intercession of Moses, that of the Levites also has preserved Aaron alive. Thus the levitical function of bearing the ark may be regarded as a priestly function, as it actually happened on solemn occasions; and thus also the standing before the Lord can be said of the whole tribe, although it was literally peculiar to the priests (Deu 21:5; Num 6:23 sq). That the distinction between the priests and Levites is not thus destroyed is evident from Deu 10:9, quoted from Num 18:20; Num 18:24, in which chapter the distinction in question is expressly treated. In connection with this character of Levi, important for all Israel (Introd. 4, I. 22), the transition from this tribe to the people as a whole, Deu 10:10, is in the highest degree fitting. Resuming the thought of Deu 9:18; Deuteronomy 19, 25. So truly is the intercession and its answer the soul of this section. With the renewing of the covenant connects itself anew the reference to the covenant-land (Schultz). Hence the command to Moses, Deu 10:11. Arise up, see Deu 9:12. (Num 10:2). Moses should go before the people upon the further journeyings, as their leader, secure their removal, and guide them in the way.
3. Deu 10:12-22. In a similar apostrophe to that in Deu 6:4; Deu 9:1, after such an apostacy and upon the basis of such a forgiveness, follow now, Deu 10:12, the earnest exhortations. The interrogative form is more pathetic than if it was a simple requisition. God demands only that which Israel must freely of itself concede. Comp. Deu 5:26; Deu 6:2; Deu 6:13; Deu 6:24. Fear the beginning, to walk, sq., this is the progress, and love (Deu 6:5) as it reveals itself in the most inward and the most entire service of God (Deu 6:13) is the completion. Connected with fear and love through the the service of God with all the heart and with all the soul, is added as is entirely fitting to the second command. As the walk is subordinated to the fear, so the keeping the commandments, Deu 10:13, appears to be subordinated to the serving of God. (Comp. upon Deu 4:2; Deu 6:24.) As Deu 10:12 appeals to the self-consideration, so Deu 10:14 to the direct immediate beholding. Behold, the heaven of heavens, rhetorical, to the highest heaven of all, what may be called heaven. (1Ki 8:27; Psa 148:4; Psa 68:33). This high and lofty one, who needs nothing, since all belongs to Him, to whom all therefore, even according to such mere general relations are under obligation, has still, Deu 10:15, entered into special relations with the patriarchs, and with them only, Deu 7:7; Deu 7:6. Inclination, love, choice, the three stages from the innermost impulse, to the historic act, Deu 8:18. Hence the claim upon Israel, Deu 10:16, especially of a priestly consecration to Jehovah (Deu 7:6) for a distinction from all nations. In any case circumcision has this distinguishing character (comp. Lange, Genesis, p. 424 sq). Then, too, it is involved in the act in question, and the time appointed for it; that the sanctification represented through it, concerns the human nature in its source and origin, thereupon from childhood, and hence the genuine deuteronomic extension and application of the symbol to the heart claimed as the seat and source of the natural life; and thereupon he passes to Israel the peculiarly stiff-necked, (Deu 9:6; Deu 9:13; Deu 9:27), Lev 26:41. That which is here a demand, elsewhere appears intelligibly as a gift of God, a grace, Deu 30:6. A similar relation to that between conversion and the new-birth. No more, viz., and especially as at Horeb. Therefore in assigning the reasons (Deu 10:17) he lays hold at first upon this. God of gods, Exo 32:1; Exo 32:4; Exo 32:23; i.e., not merely the highest God, and Lord over them all, who should be so named and honored, but he who with them can alone be intended, of whom they are at best particular representations, symbols, images, (Exo 20:4) who himself is their complex and total idea. A fitting explanation of the name Elohim. Then further, as a general foundation on which the required change of nature on the part of Israel rests, he holds up before Israel the exalted nature of Jehovah raised above all heathen religions; a great God, sq. It corresponds with this, that His choice of Israel indicates no partiality which regardeth not persons, Lev 19:15; Gen 32:20; Gen 19:21 (Deuter. Deu 1:17). His predilection for them is not the particularism of a national God, made by men. As Israel cannot withstand his fearful almighty power and greatness, so neither can he take any false refuge in His love, which as especially manifest to him, will at the same time reveal itself to be holy and righteous (Gen 18:25). Impartial, He is also incorruptible. Reward, perhaps, with a retrospect to Exo 32:2-3; Exo 32:24. Comp. Mic 3:11. Deu 10:18 carries out this judicial majesty of Jehovah still more definitely, preparatory to Deu 10:19. Fatherless and Widow, not barely as for the most part overlooked by human unrighteousness, or indeed downtrodden, but because without help among men, and assigned to God, they appear as the objects of His compassionate love, which therefore was immediately and expressly said also with regard to the stranger. (Comp. Deu 1:16). The warning, Deu 10:19, to love the stranger, is drawn as a direct result from the foregoing. Ye cannot indeed do otherwise if ye are circumcised in heart, etc. (according to Deu 10:16), for consecrated as priests to Jehovah, ye must imitate Him, especially as ye know from your own bitter experience the lot of strangers. (Exo 22:21 sq.). A wonderful passage in this connection. Although power over all is first asserted of God (Deu 10:14; Deu 10:17) and His love beyond Israel manifested only in the gifts of food and raiment, while for Israel it is revealed in an altogether peculiar way, (Deu 10:14), still Israel has already the problem, as much as is in its power, ethically to introduce that doctrine, God has so loved the world. The warning is neither formally nor essentially an offshoot from the course of thought, Knobel, but rather a nearly New Testament (1Jn 3:10; 1Jn 3:17) foresight into the divine nature, which was now again summed up as Jehovah thy God, for the worship as it lies in the second command. Fear before, the beginning (Deu 10:12) which includes all, as Deu 4:10. Then the service. Comp. upon Deu 10:12. Then to this the true cleaving (upon Deu 4:4) instead of love. Lastly the confession of the mouth (comp. upon Deu 6:13) and indeed Deu 10:21 without , in a method which, as if uttering the contents of the name Jehovah, rises solemnly above the common day of the ordinary life with its to swear, up to the throne of Jehovah, Psa 22:3. Thy praise explained through, that hath done for [lit. with] thee, sq. Exo 15:2 sq.; Psalms 106. Thy God illustrates Deu 10:22. Comp. Gen 46:26-27; Exo 1:5; Deu 1:10, and upon Deu 7:7.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. That the two tables of the law were twice written, and that in Deuteronomy the second writing finds such an emphatic mention, may truly be symbolical for the repetition which the earlier law-giving has received in this book, (Intro., 1). The distinction between the second and the first tables here treated of, is that while the latter, with the entire law given at Sinai, is both as to its contents and form, the work of God, the deuteronomic law-giving, as the second tables of the covenant, bears designedly the form of Moses. This time the tables are his work, are hewn by him, although the contents of Deuteronomy are according to all that the Lord commanded, e.g., Deu 1:3 sq. Schultz rightly reminds us that the mediatorial activity of Moses was necessary for the people, but is acknowledged by the Lord; the Mosaic hewing of the tables holds inwardly the same character as his intercession. We may say that as the mediatorial activity of Christ is one priestly and royal, so that of Moses is a prophetico-priestly.
2. The mediating office and work of Moses appears already with the earlier law-giving. (Introduction, 1). it is , Exo 32:15, with reference to the first tables. But it is not without significance that Moses says, in this chap., Deu 10:3, of the second tables, , after he had said, Deu 9:15, of the first, . If in the first law-giving the mediating activity of Moses appears more prominently with reference to God, God has so ordained, so now its aspect with reference to the people is made availing, that Israel, humanity, needs a mediation before God. This necessity was therefore also expressed through the priesthood. Comp. Exegetical explanations. Correspondingly, the first and second forty days and nights upon the mount.
3. One may ask whether this agency of Moses in the second tables, and the deuteronomic law-giving with them, designates a lower or a higher stage of the covenant? Should we look upon the human corruption which made the second tables necessary; or should we regard this, that at least this was the law in the hearts of men, that the human heart became its table, it would appear, in the first case, a lower stage, but in the last a higher, and one full of promise. But in any case it will be better to say, that deuteronomy, as the second tables, is an advance, truly, in the way in which God, through His condescension, makes us great. Psa 18:35. (Ubicunque enim majestatem Dei, ibi et humilitatem ejus descriptam videbis, Isa 57:15, Bechai).
4. It is a fine remark of Schultz, that the miracle of the second tables is as certainly greater than that of the first, as that the divine entering into human activity is always more wonderful, although not easily made apparent, than the purely creative work. We thereby gain an apologetic rule or measure for the outwardly unmiraculous, but inwardly more richly miraculous time of the present economy of the Holy Spirit. The miracle of redemption greater than that of the creation, and that of sanctification greater still (Joh 14:12). The more human the love of God, the more wonderful is it, even than His omnipotence. From the wells (Deu 10:6) to the streams of water (Deu 10:7).
5. This description of Jehovah, Deu 10:14; Deu 10:17as truly the name Elohimlets the universalism shine through the background, in which the motives for obedience are set, which the particularism in the choice and leading of Israel from Genesis on, does not deny. Comp. Exeget. and Doct. upon Deu 1:6 to Deu 4:40, Deu 4:8.
6. [Bib. Com.: Circumcision was designed to set forth the truth which lies at the very basis of revealed religion, that man is by nature very far gone from original righteousness, and in a state of enmity to God. The peremptory requirement of circumcision as the sacrament of admission to the privileges of the chosen people, denoted that this opposition must be taken away ere man could enter into covenant with God. The peculiar nature of the rite confirms this view of its meaning. Now Moses fitly follows this command with circumcise your heart, i.e., take away, lay aside that obduracy and perverseness towards God, which is essential to your covenant, standing and privileges, Deu 30:10; Lev 26:41; Jer 4:4; Eze 44:9; Act 7:51.A. G.].
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Deu 10:1-2. The historical and typical in the second tables of the covenant, in their distinction from the first, in their similarity, and their occasion and cause (Deu 10:2). Wurt. Bib. See here the type of our lost or broken strength, and of its renewing and completion through the Holy Spirit, who writes the ten commandments upon our hearts with His own finger, that we may war against lust, and regulate our lives in obedience to them. Jer 31:33. Deu 10:3; Deu 10:5. The importance of the ark for these tables of the law. With the renewed covenant, as it is now continually renewed upon the intercession and out of the mercy of God, especially in Christ, it can never be true, as it was with the first covenant, that the cover of the ark should conceal the tables. Deu 10:6-7. They go from strength to strength, every one appeareth before God in Zion, Psa 84:7. Aaron is dead and buried, but Eleazar, i.e., God helps; is priest in His room. Yes, how gloriously God helps the meek, Psa 149:4, since Christ also was dead, but is risen, and sits at the right hand of God, and intercedes for His people (Rom 8:34).Richter: Aaron died many years after that sin, in a different place, from other causes, and in local and temporal circumstances full of honor. God moreover leads His people by steps from the wells to the waters. The geographical notices are thus gracious proofs, as on the contrary in Deu 9:22, witnesses of sins and anger.Cramer: The word of God remains forever, and must be preached and preserved through men. Isa 40:8; Mat 28:19. Deu 10:8. The priestly tribe of Levi, a type for all Israel, indeed for the whole world: 1) the great problem to bear henceforth the name of the Lord; 2) the solemn duty of service before His face; 3) the blessed fruits, to be a blessing to all the world. Deu 10:9. The joyful world and self-denial of a priestly man, joyful because the Lord is his inheritance. Tub. Bib.: God is the believers portion, Psa 73:26; Rom 8:17. Who will compute His glory and riches? A great consolation for the pious and true preacher, Mat 19:29. Deu 10:11. Richter: If Moses goes again before Israel to the land of promise, He gives the flock their shepherd. Baumgarten: With this he puts his seal upon all.
Deu 10:12. Cramer: The law commands nothing which nature does not require, and which all experience does not prove to be most useful and desirable. Berl. Bib.: Reverential fear belongs to His supreme authority and highest majesty, Mal 1:6. It is as the door into the palace of the great king. J. Gerhard: Fear with love; love without fear grows slack, fear without love makes slaves, and fills with distrust. Berl. Bib.: In all his ways; chiefly three, of His commandments, Psa 119:1; of faith in Christ, Joh 14:6, and of love, 1Co 12:31; 1Co 13:1.
Deu 10:13. Berl. Bib.: For thy good, not that the Lord has need of thee or of thine. This obedience to the commands of God in true love, embraces ourselves also, and what can truly be easier than love thyself even. Deu 10:14-15. The God of Israel, the Lord of heaven and earth, a lover of Israel. How heaven and earth meet in God: in love. Deu 10:16. The circumcision of the heart not first a New Testament demand, (Rom 2:29; Col 2:11), as stiff-neckedness is not merely an Old Testament sin. Deu 10:17-18. What makes God the proper Judge of the world? His majesty, His righteousness, His mercy. Tub. Bib.: Even in the Old Testament the way to God was open to those not Israelites. Luther: Thus the Lord loves the stranger. Who will now rely upon his home or paternal inheritance, although it is not to be despised! But if one must wander in exile and in foreign lands, let him not doubt, or be less trustful than if he were at home and in his fathers house. Deu 10:19. Baumgarten: Jehovah has proved to Israel, that He has no respect to any mere external distinction and glory, since He Himself has mercy upon the forsaken stranger in Egypt, and upon the sinner in the wilderness. Deu 10:22. The great with the small, the many out of the few, that is the way of God.
Footnotes:
[1][Deu 10:14. Lo, to Jehovah thy God, the heavens, etc.A. G.]
[2][Deu 10:18. Doing judgment, and loving, the participle in both cases.A. G.]
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
DISCOURSE: 200
THE REPLACING OF THE TWO TABLES OF THE COVENANT
Deu 10:1-2. At that time the Lord said unto me, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first, and come up unto me into the mount, and make thee an ark of wood: and I will write on the tables the words that were in the first tables which thou brakest, and thou shalt put them in the ark.
THOSE to whom the modes of communication which are common in eastern countries are but little known, feel a jealousy respecting every thing that is figurative and emblematical. But even in the New Testament there is much that is hidden under figures. The whole life of our blessed Saviour is justly considered as an example: but it is rarely considered that in all its principal events it was also emblematical of what is spiritually experienced in the heart of the believer: the circumcision of Christ representing the circumcision of our hearts; the baptism, also, and the crucifixion, and the resurrection of Christ, marking our death unto sin, and our new birth unto righteousness. If then in the New Testament, where truth is exhibited so plainly, there are many things revealed in shadows, we may well expect to find much that is figurative in the Old Testament, where the whole system of religion was veiled under types and figures. The circumstances before us, we do not hesitate to say, have a hidden meaning, which, when brought forth, will be highly instructive. But in exploring the mysteries that are hid under these shadows, there is need of the utmost sobriety, that we impose not on Scripture any other sense than that which God himself designed it to convey. However some may gratify themselves with exercising their ingenuity on the sacred writings, and please themselves with their own fanciful interpretations of Gods blessed word, I dare not proceed in that unhallowed course: I would put off my shoes, when I come upon this holy ground; and be content to leave untouched what I do not understand, and what God has not enabled me to explain, with a good hope at least that I express only the mind of his Spirit. With this reverential awe upon my mind, I will endeavour, as God shall help me, to set before you what I conceive to be contained in the passage which we have just read. In it we notice,
I.
The breaking of the two tables of the law
God, after he had published by an audible voice the law of the Ten Commandments, wrote them upon two tables of stone, and gave them to Moses upon Mount Horeb, that they might serve as a memorial of what all who entered into covenant with him were bound to perform. But when Moses, on descending from the mount, found that the whole people of Israel were worshipping the golden calf, he was filled with righteous indignation, and brake the two tables in pieces before their eyes [Note: Deu 9:10; Deu 9:15-17.]. Now this action of his imported,
1.
That the covenant which God had made with them was utterly dissolved
[Repeatedly are the two tables called the tables of the covenant [Note: Deu 9:9; Deu 9:11; Deu 9:15.]; because they contained the terms on which the Israelites were ultimately to find acceptance before God. But their idolatry was a direct violation of the very first precept of the decalogue, or rather an utter subversion of the whole: and as they had thus broken the covenant on their part, Moses by breaking the two tables declared it to be annulled on Gods part. God now disclaimed all connexion with them; and by calling them thy people, that is, Moses people, he disowned them for his; and threatened to blot out their name from under heaven. All this was intimated, I say, by Moses, in this significant action. A similar mode of expressing the same idea was adopted by Jehovah in the days of the Prophet Zechariah. He took two staves, one to represent the tribes of Judah and Benjamin; and the other, the ten tribes. These he brake, the one after the other, in order to shew that as they were disjoined from each other, so they should henceforth be separated from him also, and that his covenant with them both was dissolved [Note: Zec 11:7; Zec 11:10; Zec 11:14.]. Thus far then, we apprehend, the import of this expressive action is clear.
The further light which I shall endeavour to throw upon it, though not so clear to a superficial observer, will to a well-instructed mind approve itself to be both just and important.]
It further imports then,
2.
That that mode of covenanting with God was from that time for ever closed
[This, I grant, does not at first sight appear; though it may be inferred from the very circumstance of the same law being afterwards given in a different way. This mode of conveying such instruction repeatedly occurs in the Holy Scriptures. The Prophet Jeremiah tells the Jews that God would make a new covenant with them; from whence St. Paul infers that the covenant under which they lived, was old, and ready to vanish away [Note: Jer 31:31 with Heb 8:13.]. The Prophet Haggai speaks of God shaking once more the heavens and the earth: and this St. Paul interprets as an utter removal of the Jewish dispensation, that the things which could not be shaken, the Christian dispensation, might remain [Note: Hag 2:6 with Heb 12:26-27.]. Now if these apparently incidental words conveyed so much, what must have been intended by that action, an action which, in point of singularity, yields not to any within the whole compass of the sacred records?
But is this view of the subject confirmed by any further evidence? I answer, Yes; it is agreeable to the whole scope of the inspired volume. Throughout the New Testament we have this truth continually and most forcibly inculcated, that the law, having been once broken, can never justify: that, whilst under it, we are, and ever must be, under a curse: and therefore we must be dead to it, and renounce all hope of acceptance by it. And the breaking of the tables before their eyes was in effect like the driving of our first parents out of Paradise, and the preventing of their return to it by the menaces of a flaming sword. The tree of life which was to them in their state of innocence a pledge of eternal life, was no longer such when they had fallen: and therefore God in mercy prohibited their access to it, in order that they might be shut up to that way of reconciliation which God had provided for them in the promised seed. And thus did Moses by this significant action cut off from the Jews all hope of return to God by that covenant which they had broken, and shut them up to that other, and better, covenant, which God was about to shadow forth to them.]
But the chief mystery lies in,
II.
The manner in which they were replaced
Moses, having by his intercession obtained forgiveness for the people, was ordered to prepare tables of stone similar to those which he had broken, and to carry them up to the mount, that God might write upon them with his own finger a fresh copy of the law. He was ordered also to make an ark, in which to deposit the tables when so inscribed. Now what was the scope and intent of these directions? Truly they were of pre-eminent importance, and were intended to convey the most valuable instruction. Mark,
1.
The renewing of the tables which had been broken
[This intimated that God was reconciled towards them, and was still willing to take them as his people, and to give himself to them as their God. The very first words of the Law thus given said to them, I am the Lord thy God. So that on this part of the subject it is unnecessary to dwell.]
2.
The putting of them, when so renewed, into an ark
[Christ is that ark into which the law was put. To him it was committed, in order that he might fulfil it for us. He was made under the law for this express end [Note: Gal 4:4-5.]: and he has fulfilled it in all its parts; enduring all its penalties, and obeying all its precepts [Note: Gal 3:13-14; Php 2:8.]. This he was appointed of God to do: the law was put into his heart on purpose that he might do it [Note: Psa 40:8.]: and having done it, he is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth [Note: Rom 10:4.]. Hence we are enabled to view the law without fear, and to hear it without trembling. Now we can contemplate its utmost requirements, and see that it has been satisfied in its highest demands. We can now even found our hopes upon it; not as obeyed by us; but as obeyed by our surety and substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ; by whose obedience it has been more magnified than it has ever been dishonoured by our disobedience. It is no longer now a ministration of death and condemnation [Note: 2Co 3:7; 2Co 3:9.], but a source of life to those who plead the sacrifice and obedience of Jesus Christ. In this view the law itself, no less than the prophets, bears, testimony to Christ [Note: Rom 3:21-22.], and declares that, through his righteousness, God can be a just God, and yet a Saviour [Note: Isa 45:21.], just, and yet the justifier of all them that believe [Note: Rom 3:26.]. This is the great mystery which the angels so much admire, and which they are ever endeavouring to look into [Note: Carefully compare Exo 25:17-20 with 1Pe 1:12.].
If it appear strange that so much should be intimated in so small a matter, let us only consider what we know assuredly to have been intimated in an occurrence equally insignificant, which took place at the very same time. When Moses came down with these tables in his hand, his face shined so bright that the people were unable to approach him; and he was constrained to put a vail upon his face in order that they might have access to him to hear his instructions [Note: Exo 34:29-35.]. This denoted their incapacity to comprehend the law, till Christ should come to remove the veil from their hearts [Note: 2Co 3:13-16.]. And precisely in the same manner the putting of the law into the ark denoted the incapacity of man to receive it at it is in itself, and the necessity of viewing it only as fulfilled in Christ. Through the law itself which denounces such curses [Note: Gal 2:19.], and through the body of Christ which sustained those curses [Note: Rom 7:4.], we must be dead to the law, and have no hope whatever towards God but in the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ [Note: Gal 2:15-16; Php 3:9.], who, in consequence of obeying its precepts and enduring its penalties, is to be called by every child of man, The Lord our Righteousness.]
3.
The preparing the tables on which the law was written
[The first tables were prepared by God himself: but, when they were broken, and to be renewed, Moses was ordered to prepare the tables, and carry them up to the mount, that they might there have the law inscribed upon them by God himself. Commentators have suggested that this was intended to intimate, that though God alone could write the law on the heart, means were to be used for that end by people for themselves, and by ministers in their behalf. But I rather gather from it a deeper and more important lesson, namely, that notwithstanding the law was fulfilled for us by Christ, we must seek to have it inscribed on our stony hearts; and that, if we go up with them to the mount of God from time to time for that end, God will write his law there. I the rather believe this to be the true meaning, because our deadness to the law as a covenant of works is continually associated with a delight in it as a rule of life [Note: See Gal 2:19 and Rom 7:4 before cited.]; and because the writing of the law upon our hearts is the great distinguishing promise of the New Covenant [Note: Jer 31:31-33 with Heb 8:8-10.]. In this view the direction respecting the tables is very instructive, seeing that it unites what can never be separated, a hope in Christ as the only Saviour of the world, and a purifying of the heart as he is pure [Note: 1Jn 3:3.].]
Improvement
1.
Let us be thankful that the law is given to us in this mitigated form
[The law is the same as ever: not a jot or tittle of it was altered, or ever can be: it is as immutable as God himself [Note: Mat 5:17-18.]. But as given on Mount Sinai, it was a fiery law; and so terrible, that the people could not endure it; and even Moses himself said, I exceedingly fear and quake [Note: Heb 12:19-21.]. But in the ark, Christ Jesus, its terrors are abated: yea, to those who believe in him, it has no terror at all: its demands are satisfied in their behalf, and its penalties sustained: and, on it, as fulfilled in him, they found their claims of everlasting life [Note: Isa 45:24.]. It must never be forgotten, that the mercy-seat was of the same dimensions with the ark; and to all who are in Christ Jesus does the mercy of God extend [Note: Exo 25:10; Exo 25:21-22. Mark the promise in ver. 22.]. If we look to the law as fulfilled in and by the Lord Jesus Christ, we have nothing to fear: we are no longer under the law, but under grace [Note: Rom 6:14.]: and there is no condemnation to us [Note: Rom 8:1.]. Only let us rely on him as having effected every thing for us [Note: Rom 8:34.], and all that he possesses shall be ours [Note: 1Co 3:21-23.].]
2.
Let us seek to have it visibly written upon our hearts
[None but God can write it there: our stony hearts are harder than adamant. Nevertheless, if we go up to God in the holy mount, he will take away from us the heart of stone, and give us a heart of flesh [Note: Eze 36:26.]: and then on the fleshly tables of our heart will he write his perfect law [Note: 2Co 3:2-3.]. O blessed privilege! Beloved Brethren, let us covet it, and seek it night and day. Only think, what a change will take place in you when this is wrought! What a lustre will be diffused over your very countenance [Note: Exo 34:29-30.]! Yes verily, all who then behold you shall take knowledge of you that you have been with Jesus, and confess, that God is with you of a truth. Despair not, any of you: though ye have turned from God to the basest idolatry, yet has your great Advocate and Intercessor prevailed for you to remove the curses of the broken law, and to restore you to the favour of your offended God. Bring me up, says God, your hearts of stone, and I will so inscribe my law upon them, that ye shall never more depart from me, nor will I ever more depart from you [Note: Jer 32:38-41.]. Brethren, obey the call without delay: lose not a single hour. Hasten into the presence of your God; and there abide with him, till he has granted your request. So shall ye be Gods people, and he shall be your God, for ever and ever [Note: Jer 32:38-41.].]
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
CONTENTS
In the continuation of Moses’ Sermon, the man of GOD, in this chapter, makes a beautiful digression from complaining, as in the former chapter, of Israel’s rebellion, to remark in this the unmerited examples of the LORD’S mercy. He points out some evidences of it in restoring the tables; continuing the priesthood; separating the tribe of Levi; and regarding Moses’ intercession for them. He takes occasion, from all these things, in the close of the chapter to exhort them to obedience.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
The Test of National Prosperity
Deu 10:12
The Old Testament is concerned with tribes and nations rather than with individuals. The Law of Moses deals with Israel collectively as a whole. The prophets utter their burdens of doom not against evil persons, but against wicked kingdoms like Babylon, and Moab, and Egypt, and their great messages of hope and warning and consolation are addressed to Judah or Jerusalem rather than any single Jew. In this sense it is true that no Scripture is merely of private interpretation. Redemption includes the race, or else it could not embrace the individual. The Gospel claims all mankind just as definitely as it appeals to you and me.
I. Recently Englishmen have been stirred up to discuss with new eagerness the problem of our national prosperity. Are we really prosperous? How can we safeguard and develop our mercantile success? What is the secret of its continuance and its expansion? The air is thick with controversy over such questions as these. Yet the answers given are confined for the most part to material considerations. At such a time we need more than ever to remind ourselves how the Bible tests and measures prosperity. If the Old Testament applies to individuals as well as to nations, the New Testament is true for nations as well as for individuals. A nation’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which it possesseth, nor in the extent of the empire which it rules. What shall it profit a nation if it gain the whole world and lose its own soul.
II. Let us be very certain that personal vices, however common and popular they become, can never be transmuted into public virtues. The same conduct which ruins an individual will in the long run wreck & state. To oppress and plunder the poor is equally accursed, whether it be perpetrated by a crowned tyrant, or carried out quietly under legal forms by a trust or a syndicate, a trade corporation or a vested interest.
III. The seal of a people’s unity is a sense of the Divine calling and election. It remains true in England, as it was in Israel, that a covenant with God is the one sure ground of all covenants between man and man. National sincerity and veracity are bred in a people in proportion as they recognize the judgments and the mercies of the God of truth. National loyalty depends at last on common faithfulness to our immortal and invisible King.
T. H. Darlow, The Upward Galling, p. 220.
God’s Requirements
Deu 10:12
The vastness of God’s requirements makes the despair of the morning of the Christian life, but it is the sure hope of its noon. Had He required less, this life could not be eternal. ‘It is a prejudicial but too common error among Christians,’ said Pascal, in a letter to Madame Perier, ‘and even among those who make a profession of piety, to believe that there is a measure of perfection sufficient for safety, beyond which it is not necessary to aspire. It is an absolute evil to stop at any such point, and we shall assuredly fall below it if we aim not to advance higher and higher.’
References. X. 12. H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Sunday Lessons for Daily Life, p. 76. X. 14-16. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vi. No. 303. X. 16. J. Keble, Sermons for Christmas to Epiphany, p. 193. XI. 10-12. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. ii. p. 58. XI. 12. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiii. p. 728. XI. 18. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 2580. XI. 19. T. Arnold, Sermons, vol. iii. p. 131. XI. 21. G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 326. XI. 26-28. J. S. Boone, Sermons, p. 155. XII. 8, 9. Sermons for Ascension Day to Trinity Sunday, p. 53.
Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson
Educated Towards Spirituality
Deuteronomy 10-11
How to introduce the spiritual element into all this instruction of an external and formal kind was the difficulty even of inspiration. We have felt all along that the speeches and instructions delivered to Israel meant, as to their purpose and issue, something that was not expressed. We now come to find an indication of that which is intensely spiritual. The method of its introduction is so it may be said, with reverence infinitely skilled. Great prizes of land were offered, wonderful donations of milk and honey and harvest, and as for springs and fountains of water, they were to rise in perennial fulness and beauty. What wonder if considerable eagerness should mark the spirit of the men to whom such promises were delivered? Who would not be eager for land flowing with milk and honey, green all the year round because of the abounding waters, smiling with fruitfulness because of the blessing of God? But this could never be enough: the promises cannot end in themselves; when they have been uttered they quiver with an unexpressed meaning. To bring that meaning under the attention so as to secure the confidence of the people God will set aside a tribe that is to have no land. That was a subtle revelation of ulterior design. Out of that arrangement was to come the inspiration that foretold the passing away of the heavens and the dissolution of the earth and the destruction of all things material as no longer worth holding. All things have beginnings. The greatest literature traces itself back to its alphabet. Levi is set forth as a spiritual symbol. “Levi hath no part nor inheritance with his brethren.” Is he then poor? Read the answer in chapter Deu 10:9 “The Lord is his inheritance, according as the Lord thy God promised him.” That was the lot of Levi. Is not that an anticipation of the words which make all other instruction mean “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you”? It was well to have some men who had no land, no golden harvest, no storehouses rich with grain. They were the schoolmasters of the time the great spiritual philosophers and teachers, not knowing themselves what they typified, still being there, the mystery of life, a symbol of the sublime doctrine that men shall not live by bread alone. Out of these incidental lines of history gathers a great apocalypse of progress. The one tribe will presently absorb the other tribe, and at the last we shall all be kings and priests unto God; and if globes were offered to us, constellations and whole firmaments of glory, instead of nearness to the divine presence, we should scorn the mean donation. To that height we have to grow; to that issue all things will come that yield themselves to the movement of the divine purpose.
We have read all the arrangements made for the ceremonial worship of Israel: what was the meaning of it? Here we come again upon the same thought of ultimate spirituality. Moses now, in the latter time, begins to reveal secrets. He gave Israel long space in which to kill animals and offer them by fire: he utterly wearied out the people by such impotent ritual, and when they themselves began to turn their very weariness into a kind of religious hope that surely something brighter would presently be revealed, Moses spake these words: “And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee?” That is the question. What does it all mean? Thou hast slain thousands of bullocks and rams and sheep and goats, “what doth the Lord thy God require of thee” what has he been meaning all this time, “but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, to keep the commandments of the Lord, and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good?” ( Deu 10:12-13 ). That was the divine intention from the very beginning. God does not disclose his purpose all at once, but out of consideration for our capacities and our opportunities and our necessities he leads us one step at a time, as the wise teacher leads the young scholar. What wise teacher thrusts a whole library upon the dawning mind of childhood? A picture, a toy, a tempting prize, a handful to be going on with, and all the rest covered by a genial smile: so the young scholar passes from page to page until the genius of the revelation seizes him, and life becomes a sacred Pentecost. Such words spoken to Israel at first would have been lost. There is a time for revelation; as certainly as for man, so certainly for God, there is a time to speak, there is a time to be silent. It is a sublime addition to our knowledge to realise the divine purpose, that all letters, words, buildings, books, mean life, union with God, absorption into God. Preachers and books and pulpits and altars and buildings are of use at the time, for the time most useful, in many cases indispensable; but the issue of it all is perfect union with the Father of our spirits, knowing him from within, a perfect correspondence of our nature with his nature and his purpose; not a word spoken, a look exchanged, nor an attitude but becomes a sacrifice. This thought supplies a standard by which to measure progress. Where are we? To what have we attained? What is our stature today? Are we still among the beggarly elements? Do we still cry out for a kind of teaching that is infantile and that ought to be from our age altogether profitless? Or do we sigh to see the finer lines and hear the lower tones and enter into the mystery of silent worship so highly strung in all holy sensibilities that even a word jars upon us and is out of place under circumstances so charged with the divine presence?
Still keeping by this same line of thought, notice how the promises were adapted to the mental condition of Israel. What promises could Israel understand? Only promises of the most substantial kind. Moses addresses himself to this necessity with infinite skill: “Thy fathers went down into Egypt with threescore and ten persons; and now the Lord thy God hath made thee as the stars of heaven for multitude” ( Deu 10:22 ). Israel cared nothing for thoughts: Israel cared for children: Israel knew not the poetry and the divinity of things: Israel understood acres, land upon land far-stretching, and harvests larger than any garners ever built. This being the mental condition of Israel, give Israel troops of children, thousands upon thousands outnumbering the stars, a tumultuous throng, too vast for the space of the wilderness; as for harvests, let them grow upon the rocks, let the very stones burst into golden grain, for Israel is a great child and can understand only things that can be handled: let him have such things, more and more; God means them to be altar-steps leading upward, onward, into the place where there is no need of the sun or of the moon, no death, no night; Israel has a long journey to go, and he must be well housed and harvested on the road, or he will give way and fail before the time set for the fulness of the divine revelation. The same thought is expressed in many ways. It is given in chapter Deu 11:11-12 “But the land, whither ye go to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven: a land which the Lord thy God careth for: the eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year.” What a child was Israel; what an infant of days; keep speaking to him much about prosperity and wealth and harvests and the rain of heaven, and you can lead Israel as you please, like a hungry beast following an offered bait which is withdrawn that he may be led and be caused to submit to a higher will. This also supplies a standard of progress. Do we care for the sanctuary because of its God or because of its conventional respectability? To what end besiege we the altar of Heaven, to pray or to profit?
Still preserving the marvellous consistency of the whole economy, we cannot fail to notice how beautifully the sacrifices were adapted to the religious condition of the people. This explains the sacrifices indeed. What was the religious condition of the people? Hardly religious at all. It was an infantile condition; it was a condition in which appeal could only lie with effect along the line of vision. So God will institute a worship accordingly: he will say to Israel, Bring beasts in great numbers, and kill them upon the altar; take censers, put fire thereon; spare nothing of your herds and flocks and corn and wine; have a continual burnt offering, and add to the continual burnt offering other offerings great in number and in value. Israel must be kept busy; leisure will be destruction. There must be seven Sabbaths in the week, and seven of those seven must be specialised by fast or festival or sacred observance. Give Israel no time to rest. When he has brought one bullock, send him for another; when he has killed a ram, call for a thousand more; this will be instructive to him. We must weary him to a higher aspiration; to begin this aspiration would be to beat the air, or to speak an unknown language, or to propound a series of spiritual impossibilities. Men must be trained according to their capacity and their quality. The whole ceremonial system of Moses constitutes in itself in its wisdom so rich, its marvellous adaptation to the character and temper of the times, an unanswerable argument for the inspiration of the Bible. It was the economy for the times. It could not be replaced, even imaginatively, to advantage, by the keenest wit of the brightest reader. It might be a profitable engagement now and then to try to amend the masonry of the Bible. Take out whole blocks of institutions, observances, and ceremonies, and put into the vacancies something better; let it be confessedly better in quality, but taken out of a further time and brought back to the early age. At once there is a sense of incoherence, unfitness, dissonance; the right thing is not in the right place; history is outraged; the genius of progress is misinterpreted. So with the Christian Scriptures. Take out, for example, the sermon upon the mount, and put into its place instructions regarding the building of the tabernacle. Men could not tolerate the alteration. The soul cannot thus go back. We have seen how wonderful a thing it was to write a New Testament: when the resources of language had been exhausted, when the sublimest poetry had been uttered, when the grandest altar had been built, it required a Son of God at once to begin the New Testament: begun by a feebler hand, the ages would have cast out the violence and the insult. The distributions of matter in the Bible are made by a divine hand; the very placing of the materials is itself an argument not, indeed, to the man who comes upon the Bible with effrontery and self-idolatry, beginning where he pleases, and moving up and down the sacred record with erratic will and taste, but to the man who makes the law his study, night and day, seeing how it looks in star-light, then how it bears the blaze of noonday, how it takes upon itself the fevers of the summer, and how amid the chills of winter it still thrills with forecasts of mercy. Only they ought to pronounce upon the Bible who have read it, and only they have read the Bible who have read it all, until it has swallowed up all manner of books and has become transformed into the very life of the soul.
So far the line has been consistent from its beginning, what wonder, then, if it culminate in one splendid word? That word is introduced here and there. For example, in chapter Deu 10:12 , the word occurs; in chapter Deu 11:1 , it is repeated. What is that culminating word? How long it has been kept back! Now that it is set down we see it and acknowledge it; it comes at the right time, and is put in the right place: “To love him.” Then again in chapter Deu 11:1 “Therefore thou shalt love the Lord thy God.” Moses is almost a Christian, even in the historical sense of the term, and it is well that his name should be linked for ever with the name of the Lamb. Jesus uses no higher word than “love.” Paul thought he would pronounce it aright by repeating it often, and repetition is sometimes the only proper pronunciation: the word must be spoken so frequently as to fall into a refrain and attach itself to all the noblest speech of life. “Master, which is the great commandment?” And Jesus answered, “Thou shalt love.” Here we have Moses and the Lamb. It ought to be easy to love God: we are akin to him; damn ourselves as we may, we are still his workmanship, his lost ones. We wrong our own souls in turning away from God: we commit suicide in renouncing worship; we are not surrendering something outside of us, we are putting the knife of destruction into our own soul. We have once more a standard of progress. We are in relation to this word love! Love means passion, fire, sacrifice, self-oblivion, daily, eternal worship. Who then can be saved? The word love does not destroy other elements which enter into the mystery of true worship. Moses says, “What doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all his ways… and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, to keep the commandments of the Lord?” The word love is found in this company. Recite the names that you may the more clearly understand the society of love. “Fear,” “walk,” “serve,” “keep,” it is in that society that love shines like the queenliest of the stars. Love is not a mere sentiment, a quality that evaporates in sighing or that fades into invisibleness by mystic contemplation; love calls fear, walking, serving, keeping, to its side, and they all together, in happy harmonic co-operation, constitute the divine life and the divine sonship of the soul. We, too, have mystery; we have miracles; we have ceremonies; we have tabernacles and temples; what is the meaning of them all? They cannot end in themselves; read the riddle; tell us in some short word which may be kept in a child’s memory the meaning of all the cumbrous machinery the gorgeous ritual of the olden time, and even the simpler worship of the passing day. What is the meaning of prayer, and faith, and gift, and service, and outward profession? Would we learn the word? We find it in the Old Testament and in the New Moses speaks it, Christ speaks it, Paul speaks it, John speaks it, they are all trying to say it “Love.” Love keeps nothing back; love is cruel as fire in the testing of qualities; love is genial as Heaven in the blessing of goodness. Though we have all knowledge, all prophecy, and are marvels in gifts of eloquence, and though we give our goods to feed the poor and our body to be burned, and outrun ancient Israel in costly and continuous ceremony, if we have not love pure, simple, childlike, beautiful love our music is noise, and our sacrifice is vanity.
Prayer
Thou wilt not show us thy glory now. Thou hast promised to show us thy goodness, and to make it pass before us: this thou art doing day by day; all things show the mercy of God. As for ourselves, goodness and mercy have followed us all the days of our life. We know this: our life speaks to this truth strongly and lovingly; therefore, we fear no evil: we smile upon the threatened darkness: the valley of the shadow of death is part of the way home. We have no real fear, no intense terror of heart; we are subject to passing dreads and alarms and foolish excitements, but all these do not touch the soul seated in the solemnity of an eternal covenant. Thou wilt accomplish all things; thou wilt not fail to bring on the topstone; having spent the ages in building the temple, the pinnacle shall not be wanting. Thou didst see the end from the beginning, and almightiness cannot fail. We stand in this security as within the munition of rocks; the wind cannot overturn our retreat; the tempest wastes its fury upon that stone; we are shut in by the hand of God. Help us to see the great beyond, not to be too curious about it, but to use it as an allurement, a silent persuasion, a mighty compulsion towards stronger work, nobler purpose, larger prayer; thus the heavens shall help the earth; the sun shall be our light all day, and above it shall there be a brightness which the soul can understand. We bless thee for a sense of sin forgiven. Continue thy daily pardon. We feel as if we must be pardoned every moment, for since we have been pardoned and our eyes have been enlightened, we see more clearly, and we discern more critically: the things which once wore no face of offence now burn before us as if filled with all horribleness and as if carrying all shame. We would be pure as God is pure, perfect with the perfectness of God; but this end who can attain except through long ages, by the way of the Cross, by the ministry of blood, by the mighty power of the Holy Ghost? But our hope is in God: we shall yet be perfected; we shall stand before him without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, without a tear of shame in the eyes, without a flutter of misgiving or fear in the uplifted hands. The Lord have us in his holy keeping; the Lord build for us a pavilion in which our souls may daily trust; and when the end comes may we find it but a beginning; when the shadow falls may it be the background of many an unsuspected star; and when we stand before thee may we have on the robe of Christ be clothed with him, not having on our own righteousness, which is of the law, but the righteousness of Christ, the purity of the Cross.
If this prayer may be answered now we shall not know but that we are already in heaven. Amen.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
(See the Deuteronomy Book Comments for Introductory content and Homiletic suggestions).
XII
FIRST AND SECOND ORATION, PART I
Deu 1:6-11:32
FIRST ORATION
The occasion is great and awe inspiring. Death is just ahead of the speaker, about one month off, and yet the old man stands before us in the vigor of youth. He does not die from decay of either mental or physical power but simply because God is going to take him. He has carried these people in his heart eighty years and has borne them in fact for forty marvelous years of eventful history; has suffered unspeakably in their behalf, and now is burdened with the spirit of prophecy which unfolds to his eagle eye their disastrous future for thousands of years, brightened for a time by the coming of the Prophet, like himself but infinitely greater, and the prospect of their final restoration. He starts out with a reference to Horeb where they entered into covenant relations with God, and where he himself sat, with the chiefs of the tribes, of thousands, of hundreds, of tens, to hear all minor causes, appealing to him only in great matters. The qualifications of these judges are set forth in Exo 18:21 , and “they were able men such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness,” and here, as “wise men, well-known chiefs of the tribes, full of understanding.” He rehearses his original charge to these judges: they must fairly hear all cases, must judge righteously, must be impartial, must fear no face of man, must remember that the judgment is Jehovah’s. The object of the reference is to show that they left Sinai thoroughly organized and equipped; left there in numbers more than the stars shown to Abraham and with their leader praying, “The Lord of your fathers make you a thousand times as many more as ye are, and bless you as he hath promised you.”
They left there at God’s command to go at once to take possession of their long promised country. But alas, on account of their sins they lost thirty-seven days in getting to Kadesh-barnea and then with the imperative command ringing in their ears, the Lord said as before, “Come and take possession”; they again are delayed forty days in order to get a report from spies, and after that report and an awful breach of the covenant they lost thirty-eight years more of weary wandering, then when again assembled at Kadesh-barnea sinned again and caused Moses himself to sin, and so debarred him from the Promised Land. Then, through unbelief in God, through fear of man, through presumption toward God, through fleshly lusts, they had utterly failed to enter in.
Moreover, they had lied in attributing their attitude of rebellion to parental concern for their children, which God rebuked by showing that he could lead those helpless children into the Promised Land without the loss of one, while the bones of the parents whitened in the wilderness. And now, though at Kadesh-barnea again, when entrance was no more than stepping over a line drawn in the sand, they must turn down toward the Red Sea, and by a long, weary and circuitous march approach the country on the other side; a path must compass Mountain Seir, skirt Edom, Moab, and Ammon and bring them into deadly conflict with Sihon, king of the Amorites, Og, king of Bashan, and all the hosts of Midian. That circuitous march was marked by some great sins and made memorable by some great deliverances. Aaron died at Mountain Hor. Moses is about to die, without passing over into the Promised Land.
Now, this oration, having thus briefly reviewed the legislation, makes that survey the basis of his exhortation by way of application. Learn from this model, O preachers, how to revive the lost art of exhortation. That used to be the custom for men that were called to exhort who could not preach. They could not preach a sermon but they could sit down and listen to a preacher preach and then move people mightily by exhortation. I have heard men, ignorant as they were in books, give exhortations that would make the stars sparkle.
Dr. Burleson preached a sermon at Huntsville and at the close of the sermon J. W. D. Creath got up and commenced by slapping his thigh and you could have heard him a hundred yards. He said, “The spirit of God is here, and the devil is fighting hard.” The people were converted by the hundreds and the biggest man was Sam Houston. A Negro boy on the outside was convicted of sin and came to the front, not understanding but feeling the power of God, he knelt at Sam Houston’s feet saying, “Massa Houston, save me.” Sam Houston said to the boy, “Ask the clergy, I am just a poor lost sinner myself.” We bad Deacon Pruitt; he never preached but Judge Baylor never held a meeting but he got Brother Pruitt to help him. He always wanted him to exhort after he preached. Moses determined to exhort these people, and in order to exhort them, he takes up the survery. They keep forgetting the times of his exhortation. The points are stated thus:
(1) Hearken unto God’s word and do it.
(2) Do not add to his law nor diminish it. “Heaven and earth,” says our Lord, “must pass away, but my word shall not pass away.”
(3) Be warned by your own history. History teaches lessons and imposes obligations. Preachers especially should be students of history in order to understand God’s government over nations and the way of his providence.
(4) In view of its impression on other nations obedience will be your highest wisdom. They will thereby recognize your relations with Jehovah and marvel at your prosperity and fear your power.
(5) Do not forget. Teach this law diligently to your children.
(6) Remember that you yourselves and your nation alone heard God’s own awful voice pronounce your Decalogue and that you have his autograph copy preserved as a witness.
(7) Remember that when you heard his voice you saw no likeness of him and beware that you make no graven image of anything that is in heaven above, nor earth below; do not fall down and worship it. We should all become iconoclasts, breakers of images. “Icon,” the image; “Iconoclast,” the breaker of images.
(8) Remember that Jehovah is a jealous God and will look upon sin with no degree of allowance, and be sure that he will find out your sins and be sure that he will punish your sins. Don’t you become so sweetly sentimental that you will think it impolite to say the word “hell.” Let us remember the awful words of our Lord, greater than Moses, who said, “Fear him that is able to destroy both soul and body in hell,” who said, “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” So this is the first exhortation of Moses.
SECOND ORATION, PART I
The scripture of this part is Deu 4:44 , to the end of the eleventh chapter. Like the first oration, the second has an introduction giving the time, place, and circumstances of delivery. The closing: paragraph of Deu 4 gives this introduction in verses Deu 4:44-49 . There is nothing in it calling for additional comment beyond the fact that it marks an interval of undetermined time between the two Orations.
This part of the oration consists of a rehearsal of the whole Decalogue, stated in an offhand, oratorical form, without attempting the exact verbal quotations, and of an exposition of the first table, that is, the four commandments embodying our relation to God) and then an earnest exhortation by way of application. Note the verbal differences between this offhand rehearsal of the Decalogue by Moses and the Exodus record of it as spoken in the very words of Jehovah himself, and written by him on tablets of stone. From Revised Version, read Exo 20:2-17 , and then read the corresponding Commandments in the same version from Deu 5:6-21 . You must consider the Exodus form as the true original, and the Deuteronomy form as a substantial restatement by a public speaker, and note that Deu 5:15 , is not an attempt to quote the Fourth Commandment as originally given, but merely a passing exhortation, assigning an additional motive for remembering the sabbath day. The reader will also note that Romanists combine the first and the second according to our division, to make their first, and then divide our tenth to make their ninth and tenth. This does not affect the matter, only the numbering of the parts.
I asked you to read the Decalogue in Exodus and Deuteronomy alternately because enemies of the Bible have made so much of the fact that there is not an exact verbal agreement, and hence they have denied the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures. The reply to it is that the divine original in God’s own handwriting is the Commandments as they were delivered; second, in this case there is an inspired substantial restatement of the original in oratorical form and this restatement is just as much inspired as the original. Remember the sabbath because God rested on that day and it is prophetic, in an indirect way, of the New Testament sabbath. As God rested from creation when he had finished the work and the day commemorated an historical fact, so Jesus, having accomplished the great redemption (so that the Jewish sabbath is nailed to the cross of Christ), rested from his work and there remaineth a sabbath-keeping to the people of God. Jesus entered into this rest, as God did his.
Here I pause to commend, first, the exposition of the Decalogue in the Catechism of the Presbyterian Confession of Faith. This catechetical exposition has been taught to more children than perhaps any other in the world. Let us always commend the Presbyterians for their fidelity in family instruction, and always confess and lament Baptist delinquency on this line until we repent and do better. Second, it now gratifies me to be able to commend a Baptist exposition of the Decalogue, which, in my judgment, is the best in all literature. Not very long ago, a venerable man, soon to pass away, was helped upon the platform and introduced at the Southern Baptist Convention, and he received the Chautauqua salute. It was George Dana Boardman of missionary fame. He is the author of University Lectures on the Ten Commandments. The lectures were delivered before the students of Pennsylvania University, and the book was issued by the American Baptist Publication Society. Study it carefully and assimilate it into your very life. On the Fourth Commandment, perhaps without immodesty, I may ask you to read the three sermons on the sabbath in my first published volume of sermons.
My reason for speaking of these books is that Moses himself is now to devote eight chapters to an exposition of the Decalogue in the oration under consideration. You will make special note that Moses emphasizes the fact that the Decalogue was the only part of the covenant actually voiced by Jehovah, and that this divine autograph was then filed away in the ark as an eternal witness. The fact is also emphasized that no other people had even heard God’s voice or possessed his autograph. Thousands of the younger generation now addressed by Moses were present that awful day when Sinai smoked and trembled and was crested with fire, and the loud and ever louder trumpet smote their ears as no other trumpet will smite the ears of men until the great judgment day. They might well recall their terror when from the fires of Sinai this awful penetrating voice solemnly pronounced in thunder tones those Commandments one after another. They themselves could recall how they begged not to hear that voice any more and implored Moses to hear for them as mediator and to repeat to them in human voice any other words of God. I have already sought to impress you that Deuteronomy is an exposition of the law rather than a giving of the law. The orator and expositor not only shows that these Commandments of God are exceedingly broad, but he attempts to show their depths and reveal their heights, yea, to lay bare their very heart and spirit.
This heart and spirit he finds in the word “love.” “Hear, O Israel, Jehovah our God is one Jehovah, and thou shalt love Jehovah thy God with all thy soul, with all thy might.” He compresses the first four Commandments into “Thou shalt love Jehovah,” as later in this book he compresses the last six into “Love thy neighbour as thyself.” When our Lord answers the question, “Which is the first commandment of the law?” He quotes Deuteronomy in his answer: “This is the first and great commandment, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and all thy mind, and all thy strength, and the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
And as the second is impossible without the first, a New Testament writer may well say, “All the law is fulfilled in this: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” And another says, “Love is the fulfilling of the law.” Or as Paul to Timothy declares its widest scope, “Now the end of the commandment is love, out of a pure heart, out of a good conscience, out of faith unfeigned.” In one word then, that grandest thing in the world, LOVE, Moses expounds the Decalogue. On this matter he founds his exhortation thus:
(1) “Thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes, and thou shalt write them on the posts of thine house, and on thy gates.” What a course of family instruction! What a theme of family conversation! What a safeguard at home, at the gate, at the door, at the hearth, at the bed! As the Jew awoke in the morning, the Law greeted him; as he passed the door, it saluted him; as he passed through the gate, it hailed him; in all his walking beyond the gate it accompanied him. It governed the words of his tongue; it remained between his eyes to regulate sight; it dwelt in his heart to regulate emotion; and remained in his mind to prescribe and proscribe thought, purpose and scheme. Its hand of authority touched the scales and yardstick and restrained within its bounds all his business. His fruit, his grain, his flock, and all other treasures acknowledged its supremacy. It provoked the questions of children by its object lessons and supplied the answers to the questions.
(2) When prosperity comes with its fulness of blessings) do not forget God, (Deu 6:10-15 ).
(3) When adversity and trial overtake you do not tempt God as you tempted him at Massah, saying, “Is God among us?” (Deu 6:16 ). Just here the psalmist says, “My feet had well nigh slipped, for I was envious of the prosperity of the wicked and said, In vain have I washed my hands in innocency and compassed thine altars, O Lord of Hosts.” How often have we been bitter in heart and counted God our adversary and ourselves the target of his arrows and lightning.
(4) “Remember that the destruction of the Canaanites is essential to your fidelity to this law. They will corrupt you if you spare them. You shall not pity them, for the measure of their iniquity is full.” You are God’s sheriff executing his will, not yours, mercilessly as a pestilence, a cyclone, an earthquake, or a flood, indiscriminatingly obey his will. Make no covenant with these doomed and incorrigible nations. Do not intermarry with them. Covet none of their possessions devoted to God’s curse. Ah, if only Achan later had remembered this and had not brought defeat upon his people and ruin to himself and house!
(5) Remember the bearing of this law on Self:
(a) When walls crumble before you and the sun and moon stand still to complete your victory, beware lest you attribute your victories to your own strength.
(b) Or to your numbers.
(c) And especially beware of self-righteousness. All your history avouches you to be a stiff-necked and rebellious people. There was no good in your origin. “A Syrian ready to perish was your father.” At the Red Sea, at the waters of Marah, when you thirsted, when you hungered, in all the wilderness, and at Kadesh-barnea, through the cunning of Balaam even until now you have sinned and kept sinning, and will continue to sin, existing as monuments of grace and mercy. Who are you, to be puffed up with conceit and pride of selfrighteousness?
(6) Consider how reasonable all of Jehovah’s commandments are: “And now, Israel, what doth Jehovah thy God require of thee but to fear Jehovah thy God, to walk in all his ways and to love him, and to serve Jehovah thy God with all thy soul, with all thy heart, to keep the commandments of Jehovah and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good?” (Deu 10:12 ).
A later prophet shall re-echo the thought: “He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth Jehovah require of thee but to do justly and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with thy God.”
(7) Finally, blessings crown your obedience and curses follow your disobedience. The inexorable alternative is set forth before you. Obey and live; disobey and die. And ye yourselves, over yonder, shall stand on opposing mountains while this law is read in a valley between, and those on Gerizirn shall call out the blessings, and those on Ebal shall pronounce the curses. And you will in one loud Bounding voice say, “Amen, so let it be.”
QUESTIONS
1. What briefly the occasion of the first oration?
2. What the substance, appeal and application of the first oration?
3. What lost art here referred to, and what examples of this art cited?
4. What the several points of his exhortation?
5. Where do you find introduction to the second oration and what the time, place and circumstances of its delivery?
6. Of what does Part 2 of the second oration consist?
7. What are the verbal differences between the Exodus form and the Deuteronomy form of the Decalogue and how account for them?
8. Which is the true, original form?
9. What of Moses’ statement here of the Fourth Commandment?
10. How do the Romanists number the commandments?
11. What charge is sometimes brought against the Bible because of these verbal differences and the reply thereto?
12. What books on the Ten Commandments commended?
13. What facts in connection with the giving of the Ten Commandments especially emphasized by Moses?
14. What was Moses’ summary of the Ten Commandments and what Christ’s use of it?
15. Kame the points of his exhortation.
16. How was the importance of teaching the law emphasized?
17. What exhortation relating to prosperity?
18. What one relating to adversity?
19. What charge concerning the Canaanites, and why?
20. What the bearing of this Law on self?
21. How does he show the reasonableness of God’s law?
22. What alternative set before them, and what prophecy concerning blessings and curses here given by Moses?
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Deu 10:1 At that time the LORD said unto me, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first, and come up unto me into the mount, and make thee an ark of wood.
Ver. 1. Like unto the first. ] Which Moses had broken; to show how we in our nature had broken the law, and could not be saved by the keeping of it. This Christ, our true Moses, repairs again, writing the law, not in tables of stone, but in the heart of believers, and enabling them in some good measure to keep it, Joh 1:17 walking, as Luther phraseth it, in the heaven of the promise, but in the earth of the law; that in respect of believing, this of obeying.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Deu 10:1-5
1At that time the LORD said to me, ‘Cut out for yourself two tablets of stone like the former ones, and come up to Me on the mountain, and make an ark of wood for yourself. 2’And I will write on the tablets the words that were on the former tablets which you shattered, and you shall put them in the ark.’ 3So I made an ark of acacia wood and cut out two tablets of stone like the former ones, and went up on the mountain with the two tablets in my hand. 4And He wrote on the tablets, like the former writing, the Ten Commandments which the LORD had spoken to you on the mountain from the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly; and the LORD gave them to me. 5Then I turned and came down from the mountain, and put the tablets in the ark which I had made; and there they are, as the LORD commanded me.
Deu 10:1 the mountain This refers to Mt. Horeb/Mt. Sinai. See Special Topic: Location of Mt Sinai .
Moses is to prepare for his second encounter with YHWH:
1. cut out for yourself two tablets of stone – BDB 820, KB 949, Qal IMPERATIVE, cf. Exo 34:1; Exo 34:4
2. come up to Me – BDB 748, KB 828, Qal IMPERATIVE
3. make an ark – BDB 793, KB 889, Qal PERFECT, cf. Exo 25:10
The Hittite Treaties also required two copies of the agreements. One was given to the lesser king to read every year and the other placed in the temple of the greater king’s god. See Introduction to the book, VII.
ark of wood for yourself Exo 37:1 says Bezalel made the Ark of the Covenant. Rashi says details of the ark were not even given until Moses came down the second time from Mt. Sinai. Therefore, Moses must have made a crude ark first and then later Bezalel made another more elaborate one (cf. Exo 25:10-22). This first ark, made quickly by Moses, held only the Ten Commandments (cf. 1Ki 8:9). The later one contained: the Ten Commandments, a sample of manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded . For a good brief discussion see Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel, vol. 2, pp. 292-303.
Deu 10:2 I will write YHWH wrote the law, Deu 10:4 and Exo 34:1. However, Exo 34:27 speaks of Moses writing. Possibly God wrote the Ten Commandments, but Moses wrote the descriptive and declarative material, which explained and applied it. It was not Moses’ mentality nor his cultural influence, but God who originated the Law. God used cultural examples and forms that Moses would have been familiar with. In many ways the form of the Law is similar to Babylonian law, but the content is different.
in the ark This depositing of special documents before the god is characteristic of the Near East. Compare Egyptian Book of the Dead (in a box under Thot’s feet) and the Hittite Suzerain Treaties of the second millennium B.C. See Introduction to the book,VII.
Deu 10:3 acacia wood This was a hard, brownish-orange wood (BDB 1008) that grows in the desert. It was a common small desert tree (cf. Isa 41:19). This wood is associated with all of the furniture of the tabernacle. It occurs only here outside the book of Exodus.
Deu 10:4 the Ten Commandments This is literally the ten words (BDB 796 CONSTRUCT BDB 182). These basic characteristic, foundational laws are very brief and stated in general principles. They mandate an intimate, exclusive relationship with YHWH (cf. Deu 10:20), which is reflected in exclusive worship and obedience, which in turn mandates an appropriate commiserate relationship with other covenant members (and also non-members, cf. Deu 10:17-19). Knowing YHWH impacts all of life and its priorities!
on the mountain from the midst of the fire This refers to God’s presence on Mt. Horeb/Sinai, recorded in Exo 19:16-20. His presence is described as a consuming fire on the mountain (cf. Exo 24:17). This phrase if used several times Deuteronomy (cf. Deu 4:12; Deu 4:15; Deu 4:33; Deu 4:36; Deu 5:4; Deu 5:24; Deu 5:26).
The fire (BDB 77, see Special Topic: Fire ) was a symbol of YHWH’s glorious presence:
1. a torch in Gen 15:17
2. the burning bush in Exo 3:2
3. fire on Mt. Horeb, Exo 19:18; Deu 4:11-12; Deu 4:15; Deu 4:33; Deu 4:36
4. the Shekinah pillar of fire in Exo 13:21-22; Exo 14:24; Num 9:15-16; Num 14:14; Psa 78:14
5. coals of fire in Ezekiel’s vision of YHWH’s portable throne chariot in Eze 1:13; Eze 10:2
The Ten Commandments are repeatedly said to have been spoken from the midst of the fire (cf. Deu 4:12; Deu 4:15; Deu 4:33; Deu 5:4; Deu 5:22; Deu 5:24; Deu 5:26; Deu 9:10; Deu 10:4). The commandments were personal, covenantal revelations from YHWH, not the mind of Moses.
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
the LORD = Jehovah. App-4.
said. See note on Deu 2:9,
ark. First used of Joseph’s coffin (Gen 50:26); used of money-box (2Ki 12:9). Not the ark of the covenant made later, but a temporary box.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Chapter 10
In chapter ten He continues of their failures during the wilderness experiences. And he’s reminding them of the failure at the time when God had given to him the law on the two tables of stone. And how that when he came down from the mountain that the people had made this golden calf and were worshipping it and how the tables of stone were broken. And so he was commanded by the Lord to take two more tables of stone. And for another forty days and forty nights in fasting without water or bread there on the mount before God.
And God wrote on the tables, according to the first writing, the ten commandments [verse four] in the mount in the midst of the fire; and the LORD gave them unto me ( Deu 10:4 ).
And so how that the Lord led them. And then in verse twelve; the question,
And now, Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require of thee ( Deu 10:12 ),
This is a question that every one of us should be concerned with: What does God require of me? As soon as I conclude in my mind that God does exist, and let me suggest that it’s much easier to believe that God exists than to not believe that God exists. I don’t know how many of you saw that sunrise this morning; oh, it was absolutely glorious. I don’t see how anybody could look at that sunrise and not believe that God exists. When you start thinking of the whole process of the universe and you start thinking of the processes of life, it’s much easier to believe that God exists than not to believe that God exists.
So, when you come to the conclusion that God exists and that conclusion is easily derived at when you look at man and you realize all of the intricacies that make up just the first cell of man and you see our capacities, you realize that God exists because no one but God could create an instrument such as our body except one who has all wisdom and all knowledge; an omniscient God.
Now if God created me He must have created me for a purpose. Therefore, what does God require of me? I don’t believe that God would have just created man and just said, “Here you are and now you’re on your own”. That having been created by God I have certain obligations and responsibilities to my Creator. What are they?
Hear, O Israel, this is what the LORD require of you, to reverence the LORD thy God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul. To keep the commandments of the LORD, and his statutes, which I command you this day for thy good? ( Deu 10:12-13 )
Well, that’s pretty heavy. What does God require? That you reverence Him, that you walk in all of His ways, that you love Him and serve Him with all your heart and all your soul. You say, “Well, I failed in that. What now?” That you keep all of His commandments, you walk in all of His ways, that you reverence Him. We haven’t done it.
As the Bible said, “We’ve all sinned and come short of the glory of God”( Rom 3:23 ). Does that mean that it’s all over, there is no hope for me? No. God has an alternate plan because man was not able to fulfill God’s requirement and this is God’s ideal requirement, this is how God would have you to live and God would have every man to live. And let me suggest if every man lived according to this requirement we’d have one fantastic, beautiful world. If every man was walking in the ways of God, loving God, loving each other as they love themselves and walking in full harmony of God, what a fabulous world this could be. But man failed. And rather than reverencing God, man so often blasphemes God. Rather than loving and serving, man is rebelling against Him. And we also fail to walk in all of His ways and to love and serve Him as we should. So does that mean we’re lost, there’s no hope? No.
In the New Testament they came to Jesus with a question “What must we do to do the works of God?” Same idea: “What does God require of us?” “What must we do to do the works of God?” And Jesus said, “This is the work of God: that you believe on him whom he hath sent”( Joh 6:29 ). Praise the Lord, I can do that. Though I failed in the ideal requirement, yet I can now fulfill the actual requirement of God. What does God actually require of me tonight? That I believe in His Son Jesus Christ. All right, I can handle that. Now to me it’s fabulous that that’s what God requires of me. That I just believe in the provisions that He has made for my sin by sending His Son. “Believe in him whom he hath sent”.
Now, as I believe in Jesus Christ, I receive a new dynamic for life. For Christ comes in and begins to indwell me, and as he comes in and indwells me, He, by his indwelling power and presence begins to give me the strength, the ability to live according to God’s divine ideal. He gives me now the strength to walk in the ways of righteousness. He gives me now the love that I need for God. He begins to work now in me doing for me what I couldn’t do for myself.
You see, God hasn’t really given up on the divine ideal but now He, through Christ, is giving me the capacity to fulfill the divine ideal, but I have fulfilled God’s requirement for me the moment I believed in Jesus Christ. The moment I committed my life to Him, I fulfilled God’s requirement for me. So we look at God’s ideal requirement in the Old Testament and we realize that we’ve all failed so we come to the New Testament and we find that we can all handle God’s actual requirement for us tonight just to believe on Him whom He has sent.
Now he reminds them,
Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the LORD’s thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is ( Deu 10:14 ).
Everything belongs to God. Look at the universe, it all is His. The heaven of heavens belongs to God. That’s the whole universe out there with its billions of galaxies. We read in the Psalms, “The earth is the LORD and the fullness thereof and all they that dwell therein here is declared that the earth also, with all that therein is”( Psa 24:1 ). Everything that’s in this whole thing actually belongs to God. But Satan has usurped that which belongs to God and has taken control of it. But Jesus came to redeem it back to God and paid the price of redemption so that one day very soon, very, very soon God is gonna lay claim to that which Jesus purchased almost two thousand years ago. Soon it’s gonna be God’s again.
Technically it is now, Jesus already paid the price but Satan is still usurping the authority and the power ruling over the world. But before long Jesus is gonna come and set one foot upon the land and one foot upon the sea and declare “that the kingdoms of this world have now become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ”( Rev 11:15 ). And He’s gonna take His power and He’s going to rule and then you’ll see the world that God intended when He created it.
People get awfully confused today because they look around at the world that they see today and they think, “Well, how can a God of love create this mess? How can a God of love allow the Cambodian situation, the starving children? How can a God of love allow children to be born deformed?” Right now the world is in rebellion against God. You don’t see the world that God intended, God wants, God plans. You see the world that is suffering, the fruit of its rebellion. But one of these days Jesus is coming to establish God’s kingdom and He’s gonna rule over the earth and in that day you’ll see the world that God intended: a world that is without sickness, a world that is without suffering, a world that is without pain, a world that is without any deformities. There will be no blind, no lame, no deaf, no dumb. You’ll see the world God intended. I can hardly wait.
You know people, when you start talking about, you know, the end of the world as we know the end of the world is going to be, not really you know, the big gigantic atomic holocaust and that’s the end of the world and there’s just this radioactive cloud hovering over it and that’s all. That isn’t what we’re looking for as Christians at all. We’re looking for the end of the Komanis-wait a minute you may not want to clap, and the Carters. Thank you. And all of men who have attempted to rule over men and have failed.
We’re looking for a King to come who will reign in righteousness over the earth and will establish a true righteousness over the earth. And men will live together in peace and “they will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks and they’ll study war no more” ( Mic 4:3 ). And men will live together in righteousness, in peace. And there will not be a hungry person on the face of the earth when men divert his military budgets to agricultural development. And that’s exactly what the prophet says is gonna happen. A world without greed, a world where the strong do not oppress the weak, where the rich do not oppress the poor, but we’re all love and experience the joy, the presence of God dwelling with men. What’s so bad about that?
I’ll tell you what to me would be a doomsday message would be to say, “Brethren, brace yourself. You gotta go on in this mess, there’s no way out”. That to me would be a doomsday prophet. But declare that this mess is soon coming to an end is not a doomsday message at all, it’s a message of glory, it’s a message of hope and that’s the message that I have to bare to you from God’s word. Thank God that we’re coming soon to the end of the chaos that man has created upon the earth and we’re gonna see the establishment of God’s righteous kingdom. “The heaven of heavens of God the earth is Lord, everything that is in it” and he’s gonna lay claim to it very soon.
Only the LORD had a delight in your fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you. Therefore, you’ve been stiffnecked, [you’ve been rebellious, but now he declares] circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart ( Deu 10:15-16 ).
Now the right of circumcision was given to Abraham and it was intended as a spiritual thing. The idea was that you were cutting off the flesh life. You weren’t to live after the flesh; you were to live after the spirit. And it was the mark of a people who were to be a spiritual people or people who were spiritually orientated and spiritually minded in contrast to the natural man of the world who is always materialistically minded and mindful of his physical material needs. God’s people weren’t to be a people dominated by the materialistic things, by the fleshly things. They were to be a people that were dominated by spiritual things and the sign of that spiritual covenant with God was circumcision.
Now, they kept the covenant in a physical way but not in a spiritual way. And Paul brings out the whole inconsistency of the ritual apart from the reality. And it’s possible for people today to have certain religious rituals but not have any reality of a relationship with God, going through the rituals, going through the motions. And that was the church of Ephesus, they were still going through the motions but they didn’t have the emotion. Jesus said, “You’ve left your first love”( Rev 2:4 ).
And it’s very possible today for people to be in the same state as the children of Israel, in which they were depending upon the outward ritual when in reality, God was interested in the inward work that’s in the heart. And so He said, “circumcise therefore the flesh of your heart”. And Paul picks this up in Romans the second chapter and says, “The true circumcision is not of the flesh but of the heart”.
My heart alienated from a life of the flesh, my heart no longer longing after the things of the flesh but a heart that is now after God. And as David, “as the deer panteth after the water brooks so panteth my soul after thee O God” ( Psa 42:1 ). My soul thirsteth for Thee as in a dry and a parched land. Oh, that’s the kind of people God is looking for; those who are spiritually-minded, spiritually oriented, who are thirsting after God in their heart and in their life and wanting to live a spiritual life that is dedicated unto Him.
So the encouragement towards the spiritual life.
For the LORD your God is a God of gods, he is the LORD of lords, a great God mighty, and awesome ( Deu 10:17 ).
The word terrible is an archaic word as far as our language goes. It means awesome.
which regards not person, nor takes reward ( Deu 10:17 ).
The word terrible has had a change of meaning through usage in the English language since the King James translation. And so the word you would better translate it “awesome”. We think of terrible, as, you know something that is tragic, horrible, grotesque. Right? But it’s archaic. So “awesome” God.
Now love therefore the stranger and reverence the LORD thy God; him shalt thou serve, to him shalt thou cleave, and swear by his name. He is thy praise, he is thy God, he has done for thee these great and awesome things, which your eyes have seen ( Deu 10:19-21 ).
So the encouragement to reverence God, serve God, praise God, love God, turn your lives over to God.
“
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
In recounting the story of the writing of the Law the second time, Moses distinctly affirmed that these tables too were written by God Himself. This was the culminating word in all he had said to them concerning their unfaithfulness. Side by side with their failure had been the manifestation of the pity and forbearance of God. They were therefore now being called upon to enter the land in spite of their own unrighteousness because of the compassion of God and His set determination to carry forward His larger purposes through them.
In a passage of great beauty, thrilling with earnestness, Moses made a statement summarizing the truth concerning the requirements of God as His people entered the land. The whole revealed the fact that everything depended on their relationship to Him. They were to fear Him, that is reverence; to walk in His ways, that is obedience; to love Him, that is worship; to serve Him, that is cooperation; to keep His commandments, that is fidelity.
In order to encourage them in such attitudes and activities, he made two great declarations concerning God. The first (verses Deu 10:1416) concerned their relationship to Him. He is a great God, possessing all. He is a God of love, having delighted in their fathers and choosing their seed. In consequence of these facts they were called on to maintain the attitude of separation, in the words, “Circumcise . . . the foreskin of your heart.”
The second (verses Deu 10:1719) declared anew the greatness of God as the Ruler of all things and of His love as it expresses itself in just dealing with the needy and the stranger. These convictions were to create their attitude toward strangers. They were to love them. Finally He made his appeal to them to fear, serve, cleave I to, and swear by Jehovah their God.
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
What the Lord Requires of Us
Deu 10:1-22
The second writing of the Law reminds us of the work wrought in us by the Holy Spirit. When first we hear the Law, we are condemned; but when we have repented and believed, God writes it on the fleshly tablets of our hearts, Heb 8:10. Together with this deepening love and delight in Gods Law, we enter into the spiritual equivalent of Levis calling, standing to minister, and blessing in Gods name.
Every word of the magnificent parable from Deu 10:12 deserves careful pondering. Let us learn what God requires and then ask Him to create such things in us. As Augustine puts it: Give what thou commandest, and then command what thou wilt. But we must be willing to enter into the inner significance of the initial Jewish rite, which; is also taught in baptism, Rom 2:26-29; Col 2:11-12. The separation of Calvarys Cross leads to the filling of Pentecost!
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
Hew: Deu 10:4, Exo 34:1, Exo 34:2, Exo 34:4
make thee: Deu 10:3, Exo 25:10-15, Heb 9:4
Reciprocal: Exo 32:16 – General Deu 4:13 – he wrote Jos 18:11 – between the children Eze 20:19 – walk 2Co 3:7 – written
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Deu 10:6. Mosera: there Aaron died. In Num 20:28; Num 33:38-39, we read that Aaron died in mount Hor, which was seven days journey from Moseroth. This place is full of difficulties. Why are Aaron and Levi mentioned here at all? Because they were the guardians of the ark, and of the tables mentioned above; and because the Lord had pardoned Aaron. The difficulty respecting the place of Aarons death is thus accounted for by somethat Israel, intimidated by the advantages king Arad had gained over them, Numbers 21., made a retrograde movement towards Egypt, and came twice to the same place, which is not improbable. Consequently, they understand mount Hor to be situate in the district of Mosera. Others distinguish Beroth-bene-Jaakan from Bene-Jaakan, and Mosera from Moseroth, because Moseroth-bene-Maakan is Kadesh, the thirty second encampment; but Bene-Jaakan was the twenty seventh encampment. Num 33:31. Therefore from this place they came to Mosera, or mount Hor, where Aaron died. So far Pooles Synopsis of the critics. But Kennicott, confident of a defect in the Hebrew copy, follows the Samaritan pentateuch, which clears up all the difficulty. He translates the passage as under. And the children of Israel journeyed from Moseroth, and pitched in Bene-Jaakan: from thence they journeyed, and pitched in Hagidgad: from thence they journeyed, and pitched in Jothathah, a land of rivers of water: from thence they journeyed, and pitched in Ebronah: from thence they journeyed, and pitched in Ezion-Gaber: from thence they journeyed, and pitched in the wilderness of Zin, which is Kadesh: from thence they journeyed, and pitched in mount Hor, and there Aaron died. Thus the whole is harmonized to entire satisfaction.
Deu 10:8. The Lord separated the tribe of Levi. The service of the sanctuary would be better done by a select order of men. The firstborn of all Israel would have been too numerous for the work, and they could not have been spared from their duties at home. This smallest tribe was a figure of the church, which is a royal priesthood.
REFLECTIONS.
Moses having spoken freely of Israels sin; proceeds now to treat of their restoration. He marks the great mercy of God in restoring the broken tables of the law. Fallen man, haughty in mind, and actuated by a daring spirit of independence and self-love, opposes the restraints of passion, and refuses submission to any authority less than divine. Hence the penal statutes of all christian nations should be modelled after the divine code, that the wicked may fear a greater punishment than the magistrate can inflict.
But this most singular circumstance of both the tables lying broken on the ground, and profanely thrown aside, though written with the finger of God, should remind us how we have profanely trampled all the ten words of heaven under our feet, and caused the fire of Gods anger so to burn as ought to cause the sinner exceedingly to fear and quake. And let us never cease to mourn for past folly, and pray the Lord to renew and restore to us a fair copy of his law, by writing it on our hearts.
The tables being restored, Moses marks next, that Aaron and Levi were restored, for all Israel by the revolt of the calf had forfeited their covenant. Unless we have a ministry provided to nourish and feed our souls with wholesome food, we can neither abide in Christ, nor retain the law. They who by negligence slight the ordinances of God, slight the author of the ordinances; and he is jealous of his glory and of his peoples affections.
The legislator of Israel having rehearsed the leading transactions of the desert, and filled his soul, while speaking, with the grandeur and glory of the moral, the civil, and ceremonial code, sums up the whole in the sublimest language and most impressive applications. And now Israel, what doth the Lord. require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, and to love him with all thy heart and soul. Scorning a mere ceremonial service, a congregational purity, he directs that all obedience should proceed from love; that circumcision should be that of the heart, Rom 2:28; and that the elders should execute judgment and afford protection to the widow, the orphan and the stranger. In a word, that obedience should in every view be spiritual and holy. His mind, in a moment, seems to be filled with the end of the law; to transport itself to evangelical times, and to associate with Christ when expounding this law on the mount to the multitudes. Let all men aim at love, which is the end of the commandments; and let ministers especially, after unfolding the purity of the precept, lead the sinner to the hope set before him; and enforce compliance by the grandeur of God. Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens are the Lords, the earth and all its fulness.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Deuteronomy 10
“At that time the Lord said unto me, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first, and come up unto me into the mount, and make thee an ark of wood: and I will write on the tables the words that were in the first tables which thou brokest, and thou shalt put them in the ark. And I made an ark of shittim wood, and hewed two tables of stone like unto the first, and went up into the mount, having the two tables in mine hand. And he wrote on the tables, according to the first writing, the ten commandments, which the Lord spake unto you in the mount out of the midst of the fire, in the day of the assembly: and the Lord gave them unto me. And I turned myself and came down from the mount, and put the tables in the ark which I had made? and there they be, as the Lord commanded me.” (Vers. 1-5.)
The beloved and revered servant of God seemed never to weary of rehearsing in the ears of the people, the interesting, momentous and significant sentences of the past. To him they were ever fresh, ever precious. His heart delighted in them. They could never lose their charm in his eyes; he found in them an exhaustless treasury for his own heart, and a mighty moral lever wherewith to move the heart of Israel.
We are constantly reminded, in these powerful and deeply affecting addresses, of the inspired apostle’s words to his beloved Philippians, “To write the same things to you, to me is not grievous, but for you it is safe. “The poor restless, fickle, vagrant heart might long for some new theme; but the faithful apostle found his deep and unfailing delight in unfolding and dwelling upon those precious subjects which clustered, in rich luxuriance, around the Person and the cross of his adorable Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. He had found in Christ all he needed, for time and eternity. The glory of His Person had completely eclipsed all the glories of earth and of nature. He could say, “What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord; for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ.” (Phil. 3: 7, 8.)
This is the language of a true Christian, of one who had found a perfectly absorbing and commanding object in Christ. What could the world offer to such an one? What could it do for him? Did he want its riches, its honours, its distinctions, its pleasures? He counted them all as dung. How was this? Because he had found Christ. He had seen an object in Him which so riveted his heart that to win Him, and know more of Him, and be found in Him was the one ruling desire of his soul. If any one had talked to Paul about something new, what would have been his answer? If any one had suggested to him the thought of getting on in the world or of seeking to make money, what would have been his reply? simply this, ” I have found my ALL in Christ; I want no more. I have found in Him ‘unsearchable riches’ – ‘durable riches and righteousness.’ In Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. What do I want of this world’s riches, its wisdom or its learning? These things all pass away like the vapours of the morning; and even while they last, are wholly inadequate to satisfy the desires and aspirations of an immortal spirit. Christ is an eternal object, heaven’s centre, the delight of the heart of God; He shall satisfy me throughout the countless ages of that bright eternity which is before me; and surely if He can satisfy me for ever, He can satisfy me now. Shall I turn to the wretched rubbish of this world, its pursuits, its pleasures, its amusements, its theatres, its concerts, its riches or its honours to supplement my portion in Christ? God forbid! All such things would be simply an intolerable nuisance to me. Christ is my all, and in all, now and for ever!”
Such, we may well believe, would have been the distinctly pronounced reply of the blessed apostle; such was the distinct reply of his whole life; and such, beloved Christian reader, should be ours also. How truly deplorable, how deeply humbling to find a Christian turning to the world for enjoyment, recreation or pastime! It simply proves that he has not found a satisfying portion in Christ. We may set it down as a fixed principle that the heart which is filled with Christ has no room for ought beside. It is not a question of the right or the wrong of things; the heart does not want them, would not have them; it has found its present and everlasting portion and rest in that blessed One that fills the heart of God, and will fill the vast universe with the beams of His glory, throughout the everlasting ages.
We have been led into the foregoing line of thought in connection with the interesting fact of Moses’ unwearied rehearsal of all the grand events in Israel’s marvellous history from Egypt to the borders of the promised land. To him they furnished a perpetual feast; and he not only found his own deep personal delight in dwelling upon them, but he also felt the immense importance of unfolding them before the whole congregation. To him, most surely, it was not grievous, but for them it was safe. How delightful for him, and how good and needful for them, to dwell upon the facts connected with the two sets of tables – the first set smashed to atoms, at the foot of the mountain and the second set enclosed in the ark.
What human language could possibly unfold the deep significance and moral weight of such facts as these? Those broken tables! How impressive! How pregnant with wholesome instruction for the people. How powerfully suggestive! Will any one presume to say that we have here a mere barren repetition of the facts recorded in Exodus? Certainly no one who reverently believes in the divine inspiration of the Pentateuch.
No, reader, the tenth of Deuteronomy fills a niche and does a work entirely its own. In it the lawgiver holds up to the hearts of the people past scenes and circumstances in such a way as to rivet them upon the very tablets of the soul. He allows them to hear the conversation between Jehovah and himself; he tells them what took place during those mysterious forty days upon that cloud-capped mountain. He lets them hear Jehovah’s reference to the broken tables – the apt and forcible expression of the utter worthlessness of man’s covenant. For why were those tables broken? Because they had shamefully failed. Those shattered fragments told the humiliating the of their hopeless ruin on the ground of the law. All was gone. Such was the obvious meaning of the fact. It was striking, impressive, unmistakable. Like a broken pillar over a grave which tells, at a glance, that the prop and stay of the family lies mouldering beneath. There is no need of any inscription, for no human language could speak with such eloquence to the heart as that most expressive emblem. So the broken tables were calculated to convey to the heart of Israel the tremendous fact that, so far as their covenant was concerned, they were utterly ruined, hopelessly undone; they were complete bankrupts on the score of righteousness.
But then, that second set of tables, what of them? Thank God, they told a different tale altogether. They were not broken. God took care of them. “I turned myself and came down from the mount, and put the tables in the ark which I had made; and there they be, as the Lord commanded me.”
Blessed fact! “There they be.” Yes, covered up in that ark which spoke of Christ, that blessed One who magnified the law and made it honourable, who established every jot and tittle of it, to the glory of God and the everlasting blessing of His people. Thus, while the broken fragments of the first tables told the sad and humbling tale of Israel’s utter failure and ruin, the second tables, shut up intact in the ark set forth the glorious truth that Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile.
We do not, of course, mean to say that Israel understood the deep meaning and far-reaching application of those wonderful facts which Moses rehearsed in their ears. As a nation, they certainly did not then, though, through-the sovereign mercy of God, they will, by-and-by. Individuals may, and doubtless did enter into somewhat of their significance. This is not now the question. It is for us to see and make our own of the precious truth set forth in those two sets of tables, namely, the failure of everything in the hands of man, and the eternal stability of God’s covenant of grace, ratified by the blood of Christ, and to be displayed in all its glorious results, in the kingdom, by-and-by, when the Son of David shall reign from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth; when the seed of Abraham shall possess, according to the divine gift, the land of promise; and when all the nations of the earth shall rejoice under the beneficent reign of the Prince of peace.
Bright and glorious prospect for the now desolate land of Israel, and this groaning earth of ours! The King of righteousness and peace will then have it all His own way. All evil will be put down with a powerful hand. There will be no weakness in that government. No rebel tongue will be permitted to prate, in accents of insolent sedition, against the decrees and enactments thereof. No rude and senseless demagogue will be allowed to disturb the peace of the people, or to insult the majesty of the throne. Every abuse will be put down, every disturbing element will be neutralised, every stumbling-block will be removed, and every root of bitterness eradicated. The poor and the needy shall be well looked after; yea, all shall be divinely attended to; toil, sorrow, poverty and desolation shall be unknown; the wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. “Behold a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgement. And a man shall be as an hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.”
Reader, what glorious scenes are yet to be enacted in this poor sin-stricken, Satan-enslaved, sorrowful world of ours! How refreshing to think of them! What a relief to the heart amid all the mental misery, the moral degradation, and physical wretchedness exhibited around us, on every side! Thank God, the day is rapidly approaching when the prince of this world shall be hurled from his throne and consigned to the bottomless pit, and the Prince of heaven, the glorious Emmanuel shall stretch forth His blessed sceptre over the wide universe of God, and heaven and earth shall bask in the sunlight of His royal countenance. Well may we cry out, O Lord, hasten the time!
“And the children of Israel took their journey from Beeroth of the children of Jaakan to Mosera; there Aaron died, and there he was buried; and Eleazar his son ministered in the priest’s office in his stead. From thence they journeyed unto Gudgodah; and from Gudgodah to Jotbath, a land of rivers of waters. At that time the Lord separated the tribe of Levi, to bear the ark of the covenant, to stand before the Lord to minister unto him, and to bless in his name, unto this day. Wherefore Levi hath no part nor inheritance with his brethren; the Lord is his inheritance, according as the Lord thy God promised him.”
The reader must not allow his mind to be disturbed by any question of historical sequence in the foregoing passage. It is simply a parenthesis in which the lawgiver groups together, in a very striking and forcible manner, circumstances culled, with holy skill, from the history of the people, illustrative, at once, of the government and grace of God. The death of Aaron exhibits the former; the election and elevation of Levi, presents the latter. Both are placed together not with a view to chronology, but for the grand moral end which was ever present to the mind of the lawgiver – an end which lies far away beyond the range of infidel reason, but which commends itself to the heart and understanding of the devout student of scripture.
How utterly contemptible are the quibbles of the infidel when looked at in the brilliant light of divine inspiration! How miserable the condition of a mind which can occupy itself with chronological hair splittings in order, if possible, to find a flaw in the divine Volume, instead of grasping the real aim and object of the inspired writer!
But why does Moses bring in, in this parenthetical and apparently abrupt manner, those two special events in Israel’s history? Simply to move the heart of the people toward the one grand point of obedience. To this end he culls and groups according to the wisdom given unto him. Do we expect to find in this divinely taught servant of God the petty preciseness of a mere copyist? Infidels may affect to do so; but true Christians know better. A mere scribe could copy events in their chronological order; a true prophet will bring those events to bear, in a moral way, upon the heart and conscience. Thus, while the poor deluded infidel is groping amid the shadows of his own creation, the pious student delights himself in the moral glories of that peerless Volume which stands like a rock, against which the waves of infidel thought dash themselves with contemptible impotency.
We do not attempt to dwell upon the circumstances referred to in the above parenthesis; they have been gone into elsewhere, and therefore we only feel it needful, in this place, to point out to the reader what we may venture to call the Deuteronomic bearing of the facts – the use which the lawgiver makes of them to strengthen the foundation of his final appeal to the heart and conscience of the people, to give pungency and power to his exhortation, as he urged upon them the absolute necessity of unqualified obedience to the statutes and judgements of their covenant God. Such was his reason for referring to the solemn fact of the death of Aaron. They were to remember that, notwithstanding Aaron’s high position as the high priest of Israel, yet he was stripped of his robes and deprived of his life for disobedience to the word of Jehovah. How important, then, that they should take heed to themselves! The government of God was not to be trifled with, and the very fact of Aaron’s elevation only rendered it all the more needful that his sin should be dealt with, in order that others might fear.
And then they were to remember the Lord’s dealings with Levi in which grace shines with such marvellous lustre. The fierce, cruel, self-willed Levi was taken up from the depths of his moral ruin and brought nigh to God, “to bear the ark of the covenant of the Lord, to stand before the Lord, to minister unto him, and to bless in his name.
But why should this account of Levi be coupled with the death of Aaron? Simply to set forth the blessed consequences of obedience. If the death of Aaron displayed the awful result of disobedience, the elevation of Levi illustrates the precious fruit of obedience. Hear what the prophet Malachi says on this point. “And ye shall know that I have sent this commandment unto you, that my covenant might be with Levi, saith the Lord of hosts. My covenant was with him of life and peace; and I gave them to him for the fear wherewith he feared me, and was afraid before my name. The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips; he walked with me in peace and equity, and did turn many away from iniquity.” Mal. 2: 4-6.
This is a very remarkable passage, and throws much light upon the subject now before us. It tells us distinctly that Jehovah gave His covenant of life and peace to Levi “for the fear wherewith he feared” Him on the terrible occasion of the golden calf which Aaron (himself a Levite of the very highest order) made. Why was Aaron judged? Because of his rebellion at the waters of Meribah. (Num. 20: 24.) Why was Levi blessed? Because of his reverent obedience at the foot of mount Horeb. (Ex. 32.) Why are both grouped together in Deuteronomy 10? In order to impress upon the heart and conscience of the congregation the urgent necessity of implicit obedience to the commandments of their covenant God. How perfect is scripture in all its parts! How beautifully it hangs together! And how plain it is to the devout reader that the lovely book of Deuteronomy has its own divine niche to fill, its own distinctive work to do, its own appointed sphere, scope and object! How manifest it is that the fifth division of the Pentateuch is neither a contradiction nor a repetition, but a divine application of its divinely inspired predecessors! And, finally, we cannot help adding – how convincing the evidence that infidel writers know neither what they say nor whereof they affirm, when they dare to insult the Oracles of God – yea, that they greatly err, not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God!* At verse 10 of our chapter, Moses returns to the subject of his discourse. “And I stayed in the mount, according to the first time, forty days and forty nights; and the Lord hearkened unto me at that time also, and the Lord would not destroy thee. And the Lord said unto me, Arise, take thy journey before the people, that they may go in and possess the land which I sware unto their fathers to give unto them.”
{*We have, in human writings, numerous examples of the same thing that infidels object to in Deuteronomy 10: 6-9. Suppose a man is anxious to call the attention of the English nation to some great principle of political economy, or some matter of national importance; he does not hesitate to select facts however widely separated on the page of history, and group them together in order to illustrate his subject. Do infidels object to this? No; not when found in the writings of men. It is only when it occurs in scripture, because they hate the word of God, and cannot bear the idea that He should give to His creatures a book-revelation of His mind. Blessed be His Name, He has given it notwithstanding, and we have it in all its infinite preciousness, and divine authority, for the comfort of our hearts, and the guidance of our path, amid all the darkness and confusion of this scene through which we are passing home to glory.}
Jehovah would accomplish His promise to the fathers, spite of every hindrance. He would put Israel in full possession of the land concerning which He had sworn to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give it to their seed for an everlasting inheritance.
“And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all His ways, and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul. To keep the commandments of the Lord, and his statutes, which I command thee this day, for thy good.” It was all for their real good, their deep, full blessing to walk in the way of the divine commandments. The path of whole-hearted obedience is the only path of true happiness; and blessed be God, this path can always be trodden by those who love the Lord.
This is an unspeakable comfort, at all times. God has given us His precious word, the perfect revelation of His mind; and He has given as what Israel had not, even His Holy Spirit to dwell in our hearts whereby we can understand and appreciate His word. Hence our obligations are vastly higher than were Israel’s. We are bound to a life of obedience by every argument that could be brought to bear on the heart and understanding.
And surely it is for our good to be obedient. There is indeed “great reward” in keeping the commandments of our loving Father. Every thought of Him and of His gracious ways, every reference to His marvellous dealings with us – His loving ministry, His tender care, His thoughtful love – all should bind our hearts in affectionate devotion to Him, and quicken our steps in treading the path of loving obedience to Him. Wherever we turn our eyes we are met by the most powerful evidences of His claim upon our heart’s affections and upon all the energies of our ransomed being. And, blessed be His Name, the more fully we are enabled by His grace to respond to His most precious claims, the brighter and happier our path must he. There is nothing in all this world more deeply blessed than the path and portion of an obedient soul. “Great peace have they that love thy law, and nothing shall offend them.” The lowly disciple, who finds his meat and his drink in doing the will of his beloved Lord and Master, possesses a peace which the world can neither give nor take away. True, he may be misunderstood and misinterpreted; he may be dubbed narrow and bigoted, and such-like; but none-of these things move him. One approving smile from his Lord is more than ample recompense for all the reproach that men can heap upon him. He knows how to estimate at their proper worth the thoughts of men; they are to him as the chaff which the wind driveth away. The deep utterance of his heart, as he moves steadily along the sacred path of obedience, is
“Let me my feebleness recline
On that eternal love of Thine,
And human thoughts forget;
Child-like attend what Thou wilt say
Go forth and serve Thee while ’tis day,
Nor leave Thy sweet retreat.”
In the closing verses, of our chapter, the lawgiver seems to rise higher and higher in his presentation of moral motives for obedience, and to come closer and closer to the hearts of the people. “Behold,” he says, “the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the Lord’s thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is. Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day.” What a marvellous privilege to be chosen and loved by the Possessor of heaven and earth! What an honour to be called to serve and obey Him! Surely nothing in all this world could be higher or better. To be identified and associated with the Most High God, to have His Name called upon them, to be His peculiar people, His special possession, the people of His choice, to be set apart from all the nations of the earth to be the servants of Jehovah and His witnesses. What, we may ask, could exceed this, except it be that to which the church of God, and the individual believer are called?
Assuredly, our privileges are higher, inasmuch as we know God in a higher, deeper, nearer, more intimate manner than the nation of Israel ever did. We know Him as the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, and as our God and Father. We have the Holy Ghost dwelling in us, shedding abroad the love of God in our hearts, and leading us to cry, Abba, Father. All this is far beyond anything that God’s earthly people ever knew or could know; and, inasmuch as our privileges are higher, His claims upon our hearty and unreserved obedience are also higher. Every appeal to the heart of Israel should come home, with augmented force to our hearts, beloved Christian reader; every exhortation addressed to them should speak, far more powerfully to us. We occupy the very highest ground on which any creature could stand. Neither the seed of Abraham on earth, nor the angels of God in heaven could say what we can say, or know what we know. We are linked and eternally associated with the risen and glorified Son of God. We can adopt as our own the wondrous language of? John 4.17, and say, “As he is so are we in this world.” What can exceed this, as to privilege and dignity? Surely nothing save to be, in body, soul and spirit, conformed to His adorable image, as we shall be, ere long, through the abounding grace of God.
Well then let us ever bear in mind – yea, let us have it deep, deep, down in our hearts, that according to our privileges are our obligations. Let us not refuse the wholesome word ” obligation” as though it had a legal ring about it. Far from it; it would be utterly impossible to conceive anything further removed from all thought of legality than the obligations which flow out of the Christian’s position. It is a very serious mistake to be continually raising the cry of “Legal! Legal!” whenever the holy responsibilities of our position are pressed upon us. We believe that every truly pious Christian will delight in all the appeals and exhortations which the Holy Ghost addresses to us as to our obligations, seeing they are all grounded upon privileges conferred upon us by the sovereign grace of God, through the precious blood of Christ, and made good to us by the mighty ministry of the Holy Ghost.
But let us hearken still further to the stirring appeals of Moses. They are truly profitable for us, with all our higher light, knowledge and privilege.
“Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart and be no more stiff-necked. For the Lord your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward. He doth execute the judgement of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment.”
Here Moses speaks not merely of God’s doings and dealings and ways, but of Himself, of what He is. He is high over all, the great, the mighty and the terrible. But He has a heart for the widow and the fatherless – those helpless objects deprived of all earthly and natural props, the poor bereaved and broken-hearted widow, and the desolate orphan. God thinks of, and cares for such, in a very special way; they have a claim upon His loving heart and mighty hand. ” A Father of the fatherless, and a Judge of the widow is God in his holy habitation.” “She that is a widow indeed and desolate trusteth in God, and continueth in supplications and prayers night and day.” “Leave thy fatherless children, I will preserve them alive; and let thy widows trust in me.”
What a rich provision is here for widows and orphans! How wondrous God’s care of such! How many widows are much better off than when they had their husbands! How many orphans are better cared and provided for than when they had their parents! God looks after them! This is enough. Thousands of husbands and thousands of parents are worse by far than none; but God never fails those who are cast upon Him. He is ever true to His own Name, whatever relationship He takes. Let all widows and orphans remember this for their comfort and encouragement.
And then the poor stranger! He is not forgotten. “He loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment.” How precious is this! Our God cares for all those who are bereft of earthly props, human hopes, and creature confidences. All such have a special claim upon Him to which He will, most surely, respond according to all the love of His heart. The widow, the fatherless and the stranger are the special objects of His tender care, and as such have but to look to Him, and draw upon His exhaustless resources in all their varied need.
But then He must be known in order to be trusted. “They that know thy name will put their trust in thee; for thou, Lord, hast not forsaken them that seek thee.” Those who do not know God would vastly prefer an insurance policy or a government annuity to His promise. But the true believer finds in that promise the unfailing stay of his heart, because he knows, and trusts, and loves the Promiser. He delights in the thought of being absolutely shut up to God, wholly dependent upon Him. He would not, for worlds, be in any other position. The very thing which would almost drive an unbeliever out of his senses is to the Christian – the man of faith, the very deepest joy of his heart. The language of such an one will ever be, “My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him. He only is my rock.” Blessed position! Precious portion! May the reader know it as a divine reality, a living power, in his heart, by the mighty ministry of the Holy Ghost! Then will he be able to sit loose to earthly things. He will be able to tell the world that he is independent of it, having found all he wants, for time and eternity, in the living God and His Christ.
“Thou, O Christ, art all I want;
More than all in Thee I find.”
But let us specially note the provision which God makes for the stranger. It is very simple – “food and raiment.” This is enough for a true stranger, as the blessed apostle says to his son Timothy, “We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment, let us be therewith content.”
Christian reader, let as ponder this. What a cure for restless ambition is here! What an antidote against covetousness! What a blessed deliverance from the feverish excitement of commercial life, the grasping spirit of the age in which our lot is cast! If we were only content with the divinely appointed provision for the stranger, what a different tale we should have to tell! How calm and even would be the current of our daily life! How simple our habits and tastes! How unworldly our spirit and style! What moral elevation above the self-indulgence and luxury so prevalent amongst professing Christians! We should simply eat and drink to the glory of God, and to keep the body in proper working order. To go beyond this, either in eating or drinking, is to indulge in “fleshly lusts which war against the soul.”
Alas! alas! how much of this there is, specially in reference to drink! It is perfectly appalling to think of the consumption of intoxicating drink amongst professing Christians. It is our thorough conviction that the devil has succeeded in ruining the testimony of hundreds, and in causing them to make shipwreck of faith and a good conscience, by the use of stimulants. Thousands ruin their fortunes, ruin their families, ruin their health, ruin their souls through the senseless, vile and cursed desire for stimulants.
We are not going to preach a crusade against stimulants or narcotics. The wrong is not in the things themselves but in our inordinate and sinful use of them. It not infrequently happens that persons who fall under the horrible dominion of drink seek to lay the blame on their medical adviser; but surely no proper medical man would ever advise his patient to indulge in the use of stimulants. He may prescribe the use of “a little wine, for the stomach’s sake and frequent infirmities,” and he has the very highest authority for so doing; but why should this lead any one to become a drunkard? Each one is responsible to walk in the fear of God in reference to both eating and drinking. If a doctor prescribes a little nourishing food for his patient, is he to be blamed if that patient becomes a glutton? Surely not; the evil is not in the doctor’s prescription, or in the stimulant, or in the nourishment, but in the wretched lust of the heart.
Here, we are persuaded, lies the root of the evil; and the remedy is found in that precious grace of God which while it bringeth salvation unto all men, teacheth those who are saved “to live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world.” And be it remembered that ” to live soberly” means a great deal more than temperance in eating and drinking; it means this most surely, but it takes in also the whole range of inward self-government – the government of the thoughts, the government of the temper, the government of the tongue. The grace that saves us not only tells us how to live, but teaches how to do it, and if we follow its teachings we shall be well content with God’s provision for the stranger.
It is, at once, interesting and edifying to notice the way in which Moses sets the divine example before the people as their model. Jehovah “loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment. Love ye therefore the stranger; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.” This is very touching. They were not only to keep before their eyes the divine model, but also to remember their own past history and experience, in order that their hearts might be drawn out in sympathy and compassion toward the poor homeless stranger. It was the bounden duty and high privilege of the Israel of God to place themselves in the circumstances and enter into the feelings of others. They were to be the moral representatives of that blessed One whose people they were, and whose Name was called upon them. They were to imitate Him in meeting the wants and gladdening the hearts of the fatherless, the widow, and the stranger. And if God’s earthly people were called to this lovely course of action, how much more are we who are “blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus.” May we abide more in His presence, and drink more into His Spirit, that so we may more faithfully reflect His moral glories upon all with whom we come in contact!
The closing lines of our chapter give us a very fine summing up of the practical teaching which has been engaging our attention. “Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God; him shalt thou serve, and to him shalt thou cleave, and swear by his name. He is thy praise, and he is thy God, that hath done for thee these great and terrible things, which thine eyes have seen. Thy fathers went down into Egypt with threescore and ten persons; and now the Lord hath made thee as the stars of heaven for multitude.” Vers. 20-22.
How thoroughly bracing is all this to the moral being! This binding of the heart to the Lord Himself by means of all that He is and all His wondrous actings and gracious ways, is unspeakably precious. It is, we may truly say, the secret spring of all true devotedness. God grant that the writer and the reader may abidingly realise its motive power!
Fuente: Mackintosh’s Notes on the Pentateuch
Deu 9:7 b Deu 10:11 (or Deu 10:9). Narrative of the legislation on Mount Horeb; for the purpose apparently of illustrating Deu 9:7 a. This historical survey suddenly thrust into a hortatory context closely resembles Deuteronomy 1-3, and is thought by Horst and Bertholet to be by the same author. They agree with Steuernagel (who, however, says its closest affinities are with Deuteronomy 5) in holding it to be an interpolation here. But surely the history in this section is didactic and therefore hortatory. Deu 10:6 f. is, however, evidently an editorial addition. The narrative in Deu 9:7 b, ff. follows JE (Exo 24:12 f; Exo 32:10; Exo 32:15; Exo 32:19; Exo 34:1).
Deu 10:1-3. Follows Exo 34:1 f., Exo 34:4 (JE), adding the allusion to the Ark, which, according to Exo 37:1-10 (P), was made by Bezalela proof that D is independent of P and at times even of JE.
Deu 9:6 f. A fragment of a lost itinerary, perhaps from E (Num 33:31-33 (P)). These verses are obviously an interpolation.
Deu 9:6. there: i.e. at Moserah; according to the fuller account in Num 20:22-29 (P) Aaron died on Mount Hor. The Levitical priesthood characteristic of D (see Deu 17:9; Deu 17:18, etc.) is here implied. If with Dillmann and Driver we refer Deu 9:6 f. to E and Deu 9:8 f. to JE we have evidence of the existence of the Levitical and even of the Aaronic (see Deu 9:6) priesthood about 800 B.C. The duties imposed upon the Levites in Deu 9:8 belong exclusively to the Aaronites in P (see Num 4:1 f; Num 3:10; Num 6:23). The words unto this day prove that the writer knew nothing of the Priestly Code or of Ezekiel 40-48.
Deu 9:9. The Levites are to be supported out of the Temple gifts (see Deu 12:12, Deu 14:27; Deu 14:29, and especially Deu 18:1 f.; cf. Jos 13:14; Jos 13:33). They are often commended to the practical sympathy of Israel, but more especially the disestablished Levites (the Levites) of the local sanctuaries (Deu 18:1-8*).
Deu 9:10 (render, And I, even I, had stayed) summarises Deu 9:18 f., Deu 9:11 concluding the Horeb narrative, though it is doubtful whether Deu 9:10 f. belongs to what precedes (Dillmann, Driver) or to what follows (Bertholet). Perhaps it should be omitted.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
THE SECOND GIVING OF THE LAW
(vs.1-11)
While Moses had spoken of events later than the giving of the law insist on the moral lessons of Israel’s disobedience through the wilderness (ch.9:22-23), he returned in verse 25 to his intercession for Israel at the time of the giving of the law. Now he recalls God’s instructions to hew two more tablets of stone (v.1), and bring them to the mountain of God. But He adds, “and make yourself an ark of wood.” God would write the commandments again on these stones, which Moses must put in the ark (v.2).
The ark was not mentioned at the first giving of the law, and the tablets were broken. But the ark speaks of Christ, the only One in whom the law is safe from the danger of breakage. So that this second giving of the law did not put Israel under absolute law, but rather involved the mediatorship of Christ as between the people and the law There was grace in this from God, and yet Israel was not put under grace, for this can only be now that Christ has suffered for sins and been raised again (Rom 6:5-14). But when the tablets were put in the ark, this signified that Israel was under law, but law tempered with mercy.
Moses therefore obeyed the Lord in making the ark and hewing the tablets of stone, taking them up the mountain (v.3). When the Lord had written on these, Moses brought them down and put them into the ark (vs.4-5). This answers to the words of the Lord Jesus in Psa 40:8, “Your law is within My heart.” The only place the law is safe from abuse is in the heart of the Lord Jesus.
Verses 6-9 form a parenthesis in speaking of Israel’s journeys after this, for it was long after this that Aaron died, but it appears that Moses is indicating God’s answer to Moses’ prayer in the death of Aaron and the succession of Eleazar to the priesthood. Also, since Eleazar is a type of Christ in resurrection, there is connected with this the abundant blessing of the Spirit of God, as is symbolized in Jotbathah (v.7), meaning “a well with much water,” showing that God answered Moses’ prayer beyond all that Moses asked or thought.
Connected with this, though it had actually occurred long before, was the separation of the tribe of Levi to bear the ark of the covenant and to minister before the Lord, having no inheritance with the other tribes (vs.8-9). This is recorded in Num 8:9-26 at the beginning of the wilderness history, but Moses speaks of it here to connect Levitical service with the priesthood of Eleazar, the type of Christ in resurrection. For us today, the Levitical service in which every believer is to engage, is directly connected with Christ as the High Priest in resurrection, the Source of all direction and all power for such service.
As on the first occasion of the giving of the law, so on the second occasion, Moses remained in the mountain forty days and forty nights, and his intercession for Israel availed to avert God’s judgment (v.10). Rather than destroying Israel, God gave Moses orders to proceed on the journey to the land of Canaan (v.11).
WHAT GOD REQUIRED OF ISRAEL
(vs.12-22)
How perfectly right it was of God to require of Israel to fear Him, to walk in all His ways, to love Him, to serve Him with all their heart and all their soul, to keep His commandments and His statutes (vs.12-13). Yet, in considering carefully each of these things, could Israel possibly be confident of obeying them? In fact, from the very outset, God’s legal requirements as regards Israel were doomed to fail, for people will never do what is required of them. Thus law requires, but the grace of God provides.
Moses proceeds to show how the Lord had perfect title to Israel’s obedience, for heaven and earth belong to God (v.14). Yet more, God had shown true delight in the fathers of Israel, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, choosing them and their descendants above all other nations (v.15).
Therefore he tells them to circumcise the foreskin of their heart, that is, cut off the selfish, fleshly desires of their heart; and “be stiff-necked no longer” (v.16). Being stiff-necked refers to the stubbornness of wanting our own way. But would Israel be corrected by being told this? Sadly, no! Only the New Testament shows the way of proper correction.
“For the Lord your God is a God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality nor takes a bribe” (v.17). How important that we, as well as Israel, should meditate well on these arresting statements. Whatever people may call “gods,” all of these are totally subservient to the one living God, or whoever may be “lords,” having authority in some small realm, they are themselves under the supreme authority in some small realm, they are themselves under the supreme authority of the one Lord of the universe. A similar expression to this is used of the Lord Jesus in Rev 19:16, “King of kings and Lord of lords.”
This great God of Israel who shows no partiality nor takes a bribe, is shown rather to administer justice for the fatherless and widow and shows love toward strangers (v.18). How totally in contrast to this are the great majority of rulers in the world today! Law courts too frequently show sad disregard for justice. The poor will commonly suffer gross injustice while the wealthy use their money to pervert judicial action in their own favor. Believers may well be deeply thankful for a God who is perfectly just and faithful.
Because God loves strangers as well as Israel, then Israel is told to love the stranger, for they were at one time strangers in the land of Egypt (v.19). They should therefore understand the feelings of a stranger. Showing kindness to strangers would be consistent with their fearing the Lord and serving Him, as well as taking oaths in His name (v.20). Taking oaths was consistent with their being under law, but the Lord Jesus changed this in saying, “But I say to you, do not swear at all, neither by heaven, for it is God’s throne; nor by the earth, for it is His footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. No shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black” (Mat 5:34-36).
The Lord God was to be their object because of who He is and what He has done (v.21), which included His multiplying Israel from 70 persons to well over 2,000,000. this was in fact far more than the number of stars they could see in the heavens.
Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible
God renewed the broken covenant with Israel because of Moses’ intercession, not because Israel deserved it. Moses made the ark (Deu 10:3) in the sense that he directed Bezalel to make it (cf. Exo 25:10; Exo 37:1). "Ark" was a common English word for box, chest, or basket in seventeenth-century England, and most modern English translations still use this old word. Other evidences of God’s grace were His appointment of another high priest when Aaron died (Deu 10:6) and His provision of water in the wilderness (Deu 10:7). Moserah (Deu 10:6; Num 33:31) may be another name for Mt. Hor (Num 33:38), the district in which Mt. Hor stood, or Moserah may not be a place name at all but a common noun (Heb. mosera, "chastisement") indicating the reason for Aaron’s death rather than the site. [Note: See R. K. Harrison, Introduction to the Old Testament, p. 511.] God also set apart the tribe of Levi as priests even though the nation had failed in its calling as a kingdom of priests (Deu 10:8-9). Furthermore He permitted the disobedient people to proceed on to the Promised Land (Deu 10:11). Again the order of events is logical rather than chronological.
Excessive self-reliance (ch. 8) and self-importance (Deu 9:1 to Deu 10:11) would erode Israel’s proper concept of God. The people would regard God as less than He was. This is a violation of the third commandment (Deu 5:11) that aims at keeping man’s view of God’s reputation (name) consistent with His character.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
ISRAELS ELECTION, AND MOTIVES FOR FAITHFULNESS
Deu 9:1-29; Deu 10:1-22; Deu 11:1-32
THE remaining chapters of this special introduction to the statement of the actual laws beginning with chapter 12 contain also an earnest insistence upon other motives why Israel should remain true to the covenant of Yahweh. They are urged to this, not only because life both spiritual and physical depended upon it, as was shown in the trials of the wilderness, but they are also to lay it to heart that in the conquests which assuredly await them, it will be Yahweh alone to whom they will owe them. The spies had declared, and the people had accepted their report, that these peoples were far mightier than they, and that no one could stand before the children of Anak. But the victory over them would show that Yahweh had been among them like a consuming fire, before which the Canaanite power would wither as brushwood in the flame.
Under these circumstances the thought would obviously lie near that, as they had been defeated and driven back in their first attempt upon Canaan because of their unrighteousness and unbelief, so they would conquer now because of their righteousness and obedience. But this thought is sternly repressed. The fundamental doctrine which is here insisted on is that Israels consciousness of being the people of God must at the same time be a consciousness of complete dependence upon Him. If His gifts were ultimately to be the reward of human righteousness, then obviously that feeling of complete dependence could not be established. They are to move so completely in the shadow of God that they are to see in their successes only the carrying out of the Divine purposes. Instead of feeling fiercely contemptuous of the Canaanites they destroy, because they stand on a moral and spiritual height which gives them a right to triumph, the Israelites are to feel that, while it is for wickedness that the Canaanite people are to be punished, they themselves had not been free from wickedness of an aggravated kind. Their different treatment, therefore, rests upon the fact that they are to be Yahwehs chosen instruments. In the patriarchs he chose them to become the means, the vehicle, by which salvation and blessing were to be brought to all nations. While, therefore, the evil that comes upon the peoples they are to conquer is deserved, the good they themselves are to receive is equally undeserved. That which alone accounts for the difference is the faithfulness of God to the promises He made for the sake of His purposes. He needs an instrument through which to bless mankind. He has chosen Israel for this purpose, partly doubtless because of some qualities, not necessarily spiritual or moral, which they have come to have, and partly because of their historical position in the world. These taken together make them at this precise moment in the history of the worlds development the fittest instruments to carry out the Divine purpose of love to mankind. And they are elected, made to enter into more constant and intimate communion with God than other nations, on that account. In the words of Rothe, “God chooses or elects at each historical moment from the totality of the sinful race of mankind that nation by whose enrollment among the positive forces which are to develop the kingdom of God the greatest possible advance towards the complete realization of it may be attained, under the historical circumstances of that moment.” Whether that completely covers the individual election of St. Paul, as Rothe thinks, or not, it certainly precisely expresses the national election of the Old Testament, and exhausts the meaning of our passage. Israelite particularism had universality of the highest kind as its background, and here the latter comes most insistently to its rights.
It was not only the election of Israel to be a peculiar people which depended upon the wise and loving purpose of God; the providences which befell them also had that as their source. To fit them for their mission, and to give them a place wherein they could develop the germs of higher faith and nobler morality which they had received, Yahweh gave them victory over those greater nations, and planted them in their place. This, and this only, was the reason of their success; and with scathing irony the author of Deuteronomy stamps under his feet {Deu 9:7 ff.} any claim to superior righteousness on their part. He points back to their continuous rebellions during the forty years in the wilderness. From the beginning to the end of their journey towards the Promised Land, they are told, they have been rebellious and stiff-necked and unprofitable. They have broken their covenant with their God. They have caused Moses to break the tables of stone containing the fundamental conditions of the covenant, because their conduct had made it plain that they had not seriously bound themselves to it. But the mercy of God had been with them. Notwithstanding their sin, Yahweh had been turned to mercy by the prayer of Moses (Deu 9:25 ff.), and had repented of His design to destroy them. A new covenant was entered into, with them (chapter 10) by means of the second tables, which contained the same commands as were engraven on the first. The renewal, moreover, was ratified by the separation of the tribe of Levi {Deu 10:8 ff.} to be the specially priestly tribe, “to bear the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, to stand before the Lord to minister unto Him and to bless in His name.” From beginning to end it was always Yahweh, and again Yahweh, who had chosen and loved and cared for them. It was He who had forgiven and strengthened them; but always for reasons which reached far beyond, or even excluded, any merit on their part.
The grounds of Moses successful, intercession for them {Deu 9:25 ff.} are notable in this connection. They have no reference at all to the needs, or hopes, or expectations of the people. These are all brushed aside, as being of no moment after such unfaithfulness as theirs had been. The great object before his mind is represented to be Yahwehs glory. If this stiff-necked people perish, then the greatness of God will be obscured and His purposes will be misunderstood. Men will certainly think, either that Yahweh, Israels God, attempted to do what He was not able to do, or that He was wroth with His people, and drew them out into the wilderness to slay them there. It is Gods purpose with them, Gods purpose for the world through them, which alone gives them importance. Were it not for that, they would be as little worth saving as they have deserved to be saved. For his people, and, we may be sure, for himself, Moses recognizes no true worth save in so far as he or they were useful in carrying out Divine purposes of good to the world. Nor is the absence of any plea on Israels behalf, that it is miserable or unhappy, due merely to a desire to keep the rebellious people in the background for the moment, and to appeal only to the Divine self-love for a pardon which would, on the merits of the case, be refused. It is the God of the whole earth, before whom “the inhabitants of the earth are as grasshoppers,” who is appealed to; a God removed far above the petty motives of self-interested men, and set upon the one great purpose of establishing a kingdom of God upon the earth into which all nations might come. If His glory is appealed to, that is only because it is the glory of the highest good both for the individual and for the world. If fear lest doubt should be cast upon His power is put forward as a reason for His having mercy, that is because to doubt His power is to doubt the supremacy of goodness. If the Divine promise to the patriarchs is set forth here, it is because that promise was the assurance of the Divine interest in and Divine love of the world.
Under such circumstances it would need a very narrow-hearted literalism, such as only very “liberal” theologians and critics could favor, to reduce this appeal to a mere attempt to flatter Yahweh into good-humor. It really embodies all that can be said in justification of our looking for answers to prayer at all; and rightly understood it limits the field of the answer as strictly as the expressed or implied limitations of the New Testament, viz. that effectual prayer can only be for things according to the will of God. Moreover it expresses an entirely natural attitude towards God. Before Him, the sum of all perfections, the loving and omniscient and omnipresent God, what is man that he should assert himself in any wise? When the height and the depth, the sublimity and the comprehensiveness of the Divine purpose is considered, how can a man do aught save fall upon his face in utter self-forgetfulness, immeasurably better even than self-contempt? The best and holiest of mankind have always felt this most; and the habit of measuring their attainments by the faithfulness and knowledge, the virtue and power which is in God, has impressed some of the greatest minds and purest souls with such humility, that to men without insight it has seemed mere affectation. But the pity, the condescension, the love of Christ has so brought God down into our human life, that we are apt at times to lose our awe of God as seen in Him. Were we children of the spirit we should not fall into that sin. We cannot, consequently, be too frequently or too sharply recalled to the more austere and remote standpoint of the Old Testament. For many even of the most pious it would be well if they could receive and keep a more just impression of their own worthlessness and nullity before God.
In the section from the twelfth verse of chapter 10 {Deu 10:12} to the end of chapter 11 the hortatory introduction is summed up in a final review of all the motives to and the results of obedience and love to God. The fundamental exhortation as to love to God is once more repeated; only here fear is joined with love and precedes it; but the necessity of love to God is expanded and dwelt upon, as at the beginning, with a zeal that never wearies. The Deuteronomist illustrates and enforces it with old reasons and new, always speaking with the same pleading and heartfelt earnestness. He does not fear the tedium of repetition, nor the accusation of moving in a narrow round of ideas. Evidently in the evil time when he wrote this love towards God had come to be his own support and his consolation; and it had been revealed to him as the source of a power, a sweetness, and a righteousness which could alone bring the nation into communion with God. In affecting words resembling very closely the noble exhortation in Mic 6:1-16, “He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth Yahweh require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” he teaches much the same doctrine as his contemporary: “And now, Israel, what doth Yahweh thy God require of thee, but to fear Yahweh thy God, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve Yahweh thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, to keep the commandments of Yahweh and His statutes which I command thee this day for thy good?” {Deu 10:12}
In spirit these passages seem identical; but it is held by many writers on the Old Testament that they are not so that they represent, in fact, opposite poles of the faith and life of Israel. Micah is supposed by Duhm, for instance, to mean by his threefold demand that justice between man and man, love and kindliness and mercy towards others, and humble intercourse with God are, in distinction from sacrifice, true religion, and undefiled. Robertson Smith also considers that these verses in Micah contain a repudiation of sacrifice. In Deuteronomy, on the contrary, fear and love of God and walking in His ways are placed first, but they are joined with a demand for the heartfelt service of God and the keeping of His statutes as about to be set forth. Now these certainly include ritual and sacrifice. The one passage, written by a prophet, excludes sacrifice as binding and acceptable service of God; the other, written perhaps by a priest, certainly by a man upon whom no prophetic lessons of the past had been lost, includes it. To use the words of Robertson Smith in discussing the requisites of forgiveness in the Old Testament, “According to the prophets Yahweh asks only a penitent heart and desires no sacrifice; according to the ritual law, He desires a penitent heart approaching Him in certain sacrificial sacraments.” The author of Deuteronomy teaches the second view; the author of Micah, chapter 6, who is probably his contemporary, teaches the former. How is such divergence accounted for? The answer generally made is that Deuteronomy was the product of a close alliance between priests and prophets. A common hatred of Manassehs idolatry and a common oppression had brought them together as never perhaps before. With one heart and mind they wrought in secret for the better day which they saw approaching, and Deuteronomy was a reissue of the ancient Mosaic law adapted to the prophetic teaching. It represented a compromise between, or an amalgamation of, two entirely distinct positions.
But even on this view it would follow that from the time of Josiah, when Deuteronomy was accepted as the completest expression of the will of God, the doctrine that ritual and sacrifice as well as penitence were essential things in true religion was known, and not only known but accepted as the orthodox opinion. Putting aside, then, the question whether sacrifice was acknowledged by the prophets before this or not, they must have accepted it from this point onward, unless they denied to Deuteronomy the authority which it claimed and which the nation conceded to it. Jeremiah clearly must have assented to it, for his style and his thought have been so closely molded on this book that some have thought he may have been its author. In any case he did not repudiate its authority; and all the prophets who followed him must have known of this view, and also that it had been sanctioned by that book which was made the first Jewish Bible.
We have here, at all events, the keynote of the supremacy of moral duty over Divine commands concerning ritual which distinguishes the prophetic teaching in Micah and elsewhere, joined with the enforcement of ritual observances. But there are few purely prophetic passages which raise the higher demand so high as it is raised here.
To love and fear God are anew declared to be mans supreme duties, and the author presses these home by arguments of various kinds. Again he returns to the election of Israel by Yahweh, without merit of theirs; and to bring home to them how much this means, the Deuteronomist exhibits the greatness of their God, His might, His justice, and His mercy, which, great as it is to His chosen people, is not confined to them, but extends to the stranger also. This most gracious One they are to serve by deeds, to Him they are to cleave, and they are to swear by Him only, that is, they are solemnly to acknowledge Him to be their God in return for His undeserved favor. For their very existence as a nation is a wonder of His power, since they were only a handful when they went down to Egypt, and now were “as the stars of heaven for multitude.”
Then once more, in chapter 11, he repeats his one haunting thought that love is to be the source of all worthy fulfillment of the law; and he endeavors to shed abroad this love to God in their hearts by reminding them once more of all the marvels of their deliverance from Egypt, and of their wilderness journey. Their God had delivered them first, then chastised them for their sins, and had trained them for the new life that awaited them in the land promised to their fathers.
Even in the security of the land they were to find themselves not less dependent upon God than before. Rather their dependence would be more striking and more impressive than in Egypt. As we have seen repeatedly, this inspired writer belonged in many respects to the childhood of the world, and the people he addressed were primitive in their ideas. Yet his thoughts of God in their highest flight were so essentially true and deep, that even today we can go back upon them for edification and inspiration. But here we have an appeal based upon a distinction which today should have almost entirely lost its meaning. The Deuteronomist yields quite simply and unreservedly to the feeling that the regular, unvarying processes of nature are less Divine, or at least are less immediately significant of the Divine presence, than those which cannot be foreseen, which vary, and which defy human analysis. For he here contrasts Egypt and Canaan, in both of which he represents Israel as having been engaged in agricultural pursuits, and speaks as if in the former all depended upon human industry and ingenuity, and might be counted upon irrespective of moral conduct, while in the latter all would depend upon Divine favor and a right attitude towards God. It is quite true that in preceding chapters he has been teaching that, even for worldly material success, the higher life is necessary, that man nowhere lives by bread alone; and that we may assuredly assume is his deepest, his ultimate thought. But he has a practical end in view at this moment. He wishes to persuade his people, and he appeals to what both he and they felt, though in the last resort it might hardly perhaps be justified. In Egypt, he says, your agricultural success was certain if only you were industrious. The great river, of which the land itself is the gift, came down in flood year after year, and you had only to store and to guide its waters to ensure you a certain return for your labor. You had not to look to uncertain rains, but could by diligence always secure a sufficiency of the life-giving element, In Canaan it will not be so. It “drinketh water only of the rain of heaven.” Gods eye has to be upon it continually to keep it fertile, and the sense of dependence upon Him will force itself upon you more constantly and powerfully in consequence. They could hope to prosper only if they never forgot, never put away His exhortations out of their sight. Otherwise, he says, the life-giving showers will not fall in their due season. Your land will not yield its fruits, and “ye shall perish quickly off the good land which Yahweh giveth you.”
Now what are we to say of this appeal? There can be no doubt that the Divine omnipotence was really, in the Deuteronomists view as well as in ours, as irresistible in Egypt as in Canaan. Fundamentally, no doubt, life or death, prosperity or adversity, were as much in the hand of God in the one case as in the other; and the Deuteronomist, at least, had no doubt that rebellion against God could and would destroy Egypts prosperity as much as Canaans. But he felt that somehow there was a tenderer and more intimate communion of love between Yahweh and His people under the one set of circumstances than under the other. We are not entitled to impute to him a questionable distinction which modern minds are apt to make, viz. that where long experience has taught men to regard the course of providence as fixed, there the sphere of prayer for material benefit ends, and that only in the region where the Divine action in nature seems to us more spontaneous and less capable of being foreseen, can prayer be heartily, because hopefully, made. But the feeling that suggests that was certainly in his mind. He felt the difference between the fixed conditions of life in Egypt and the more variable conditions in Canaan, to be much the same as the difference between the circumstances of a son receiving a fixed yearly allowance from his father, in an independent and perhaps distant home, and those of a son in his fathers house, who receives his portion day by day as the result and evidence of an ever-present affection. Both are equally dependent upon the fathers love, and both should theoretically be equally filled with loving gratitude. But as a fact, the latter would be more likely to be so, and would be held more guilty if he were not so. Upon that actual fact the Deuteronomist takes his stand. As they were now to enter into Yahwehs land, His chosen dwelling-place, he sees in the different material conditions of the new country that which should make the union between Yahweh and His people more intimate and more secure, and He presses home upon them the greater shame of ingratitude, if under such circumstances they should forget God and His laws.
Finally {Deu 11:22-25} he promises them the victorious extension of their dominion if they will love Yahweh and keep His laws. From Lebanon to the southern wilderness, from the Euphrates to the western sea, they should rule, if they would cleave unto their God. At no time was this promise fulfilled save in the days of David and Solomon. For only then had Lebanon and the wilderness, the Euphrates and the sea, been the boundaries of Israel. This must, then, be regarded as the time of Israels greatest faithfulness. But it is striking that it is in Josiahs day, after the adoption of Deuteronomy as the national law, that we meet with a conscious effort to realize this condition of things once more. There would seem to be little doubt that the good king took an equally literal view of what the book commanded and of what it promised. He inaugurated a period of complete external compliance with the law, and like the young and inexperienced man he was, he regarded that as the fulfillment of its requirements, and looked for a similar instantaneous fulfillment of the promises, Bit by bit he had absorbed the ancient territory of the Northern Kingdom; and in the decay of the Assyrian power he saw the opportunity for the enlargement of his dominion to the limit here defined. He consequently went out against Pharaoh Necho in the full confidence that he would be victorious. But if the Divine promise and its conditions were taken up too superficially by him, Divine providence soon and terribly corrected the error. The defeat and death of Josiah revealed that the reformation had not been real and deep enough, and that the nation was not faithful enough to make such triumph possible. Indeed, so far as we can see, the time for any true fulfillment of Israels calling in that fashion had then passed by. The harvest was past, and Israel was not saved, and could not now be saved, for it was in its deepest heart unfaithful.
It may be questioned by some, of course, whether an Israel faithful even in the highest degree could at any time have kept possession of so wide a dominion in the face of the great empires of Assyria and Egypt. These were rich, and had a far larger command both of territory and men: how then could the Israelites ever have maintained themselves in face of them? But the question is how to measure the power of the higher ideas they held. It is not force but truth that rules the world; and absolutely no limit can be set to the possibilities which open out to a free, morally robust, and faithful people, who have become possessed of higher, spiritual ideas than the peoples that surround them. Even in this skeptical modern day the transformation as regards physical strength which takes place when certain classes of Hindus become either Mohammedans or Christians is so startling and so rapid that it appears almost a miracle. As regards courage, too, it is even more rapid and equally remarkable. The great majority of the struggles of nations are fought out on the level of mere physical force and for material ends, and the strongest and richest wins: but whenever a people possessed of higher ideas and absolutely faithful to them does appear, the opposing power, however great it may be in wealth and numbers, is whirled away in fragments as by a tornado, or it dissolves like ice before the sun. What Israel might have been, therefore, had it been penetrated by the principles of the higher religion, and been passionately true to it, can in no way be judged by that which it actually was. Among the untried possibilities which it was too unfaithful to realize, the possession of such an empire as Deuteronomy promises would seem to be one of the least.
Our chapter sums up what precedes with the declaration on the part of Yahweh, “See, I am setting before you this day a blessing and a curse,” according as they might obey or disobey the Divine command. It is stated, in short, that the whole future of the people is to be determined by their attitude to Yahweh and the commands He has given them. In these two words “blessing” and “curse,” as Dillmann observes, He sets before them the greatness of the decision they are called upon to make. Just as at the end of chapter 3 the vision of Yahwehs stretched-out hand, which has strewn the world with the wrecks and fragments of destroyed nations, is relied on to prepare the people for contemplating their own calling, so here the: gain or loss which would follow their decision is solemnly set before them. By Dillmann and others it is supposed that Deu 11:29 and Deu 11:31, which instruct the people to “lay the blessing upon, Mount Gerizim and the curse upon Mount Ebal,” have been transferred by the later editor from chapter 27, where they would come in very fittingly after Deu 27:3. But whether that be so or not, they are evidently so far in place here that they add to the solemnity with which the fate of the nation in the future is insisted upon. Their “choice is brief and yet endless”; it can be made in a moment, but in its consequence it will endure.
But here a difficulty arises. Dr. Driver in his “Introduction” says of this hortatory section of our book that its teaching is that “duties are not to be performed from secondary motives, such as fear or dread of consequences; they are to be the spontaneous outcome of a heart from which every taint of worldliness has been removed, and which is penetrated by an all-absorbing sense of personal devotion to God.” Yet in these later chapters we have had little else but appeals to the gratitude and hopes and fears of Israel. Chapters 8 to 11 are wholly taken up with incitements to love and obey God, because He has been immeasurably good to them, never letting their ingratitude overcome His loving-kindness; because they are wholly dependent upon Him for prosperity and the fertility of their land; and because evil will come upon them if they do not. That would seem to be the opposite of what Driver has declared to be the informing spirit and the fundamental teaching of Deuteronomy.
Yet his view is the true one. Even if the Deuteronomist had added these lower motives to attract and gain over those who were not so open to the higher, that would not deprive him of the glory of having set forth disinterested love as the really impelling power in true religion. We are not required to lower our esteem of that achievement, even if, like the reasonable and wise teacher he is, he boldly uses every motive that actually influences men, whether it should do so or not, to win them to the higher life. But it is not necessary to suppose that he does so. His demand is that men shall love Yahweh their God with all their heart and strength, and to win them to that he sets forth what their God has revealed Himself to be. Men cannot love one whom they do not know: they cannot love one who has not proved himself lovable to them. As his whole effort is to get men to love God, and show their love by obedience to His expressed will, the Deuteronomist brings to mind all His loving thoughts and acts towards them, and so continually keeps his appeal at the highest level. He does not ask men to serve God because it will be profitable to them, but because they love God: and he endeavors to make them love God by reciting all His love and friendliness and patience to His people, and by pointing out the evil which His love is seeking to ward off. The plea is not the ignoble one that they must serve Yahweh for what they can gain by it, but that they should love Yahweh for His love and graciousness, and that out of this love continual obedience should flow as a necessary result. That is his central position; and if he points out the necessary results of a refusal to turn to God in this way he does not thereby set forth slavish fear or calculating prudence as in themselves religious motives. They are only natural and reasonable means of turning men to view the other side. He uses them to bring the people to a pause, during which he may win them by the love of God. That is always the true appeal; and Christianity when it is at its finest can do nothing but follow in this path. Having before his mind the results of evil conduct, he does urge men to escape from the wrath that may rest upon them. But the only means so to escape is to yield to the love of God. No self-restraint dictated by fear of consequences, no turning from evil because of the lions that are seen in the path, satisfies the demand of either Old Testament or New Testament religion. Both raise the truly religious life above that into the region of self-devoting love; and they both deny spiritual validity to all acts, however good they may be in themselves, which do not follow love as its free and uncalculating expression. Yet they both deal with men as rational beings who can estimate the results of their acts, and warn them of the death which must be the end of every other way of supposed salvation. In this manner they keep the path between extremes, ignoring neither the inner heart of religion nor winding themselves too high for sinful men.
How hard it is to keep to this reasonable but spiritual view is seen by popular aberrations both within and without the Church. At times in the history of the Church Christian teachers have allowed their minds to be so dominated by the terror of judgment that judgment has seemed to the world to be the sole burden of their message. As a reaction from that again, other teachers have arisen who put forward the love of God in such a one-sided way as to empty it of all its severe but glorious sublimity; as if, like Mohammed, they believed God was minded mainly “to make religion easy” unto men. Outside the Church the same discord prevails. Some secular writers praise those religions which declare that a mans fate is decided at the judgment by the balance of merit over demerit in his acts; while others mock at any judgment, and commit themselves with a light heart to the half-amused tolerance of the Divine good nature. But the teaching which combines both elements can alone sustain and bear up a worthy spiritual life. To rely upon terror only, is to ignore the very essence of true religion and the better elements in the nature of man; for that will not be dominated by fear alone. To think of the Divine love as a lazy, self-indulgent laxity, is to degrade the Divine nature, and to forget that the possibility of wrath is bound up in all love that is worthy of the name.
One other point is worthy of remark. In these chapters, which deal with the history of Gods chosen people in their relations with Him, there come out the very elements which distinguish the personal religion of St. Paul. The beginning and end of it all is the free grace of God. God elected His people that they might be His instrument for blessing the world, not because of any goodness in them, for they were perverse and rebellious, but because He had so determined and had promised to the fathers. He had delivered them from the bondage of Egypt by His mighty power, and dwelt among them thenceforth as among no other people. He gave them a land to dwell in, and there as in His own house He watched and tended them, and strove to lead them upwards to the height of their calling as the people of God by demanding of them faith and love. It is a very enlightening remark of Robertson Smiths that the deliverance out of Egypt was to Israel in the Old Testament what conversion is to the individual Christian according to the New Testament. Taking that as our starting-point, we see that the thought of Deuteronomy is precisely the thought of Romans. It is said, and truly enough, that the Pauline theology was a direct transcript of Pauls own experience; but we see from this that he did not need to form the moulds for his own fundamental thoughts. Long before him the author of Deuteronomy had formed these, and they must have been familiar to every instructed Jew. But the recognition of this is not a loss but a gain. If St. Paul had founded a theory of the universal action of God upon the soul only on the grounds of his own very peculiar experience, it might be argued that the basis of his teaching had been too personal to permit us to feel sure that his view was really as exhaustive as he thought. We see, however, that what he experienced the Deuteronomist had long before traced in the history of his people; and most probably he would not have traced it with so firm a hand had he not himself had experience of a similar kind in his personal relations with God. This method of conceiving the relation of God to the higher life of man, therefore, is stated by the Scriptures as normal. The free grace of God is the source and the sustainer of all spiritual life, whether in individuals or communities. Ultimately, behind all the successful or unsuccessful efforts of the human heart and will, we are taught to see the great Giver, waiting to be gracious, willing that all men should be saved, but acting with the strangest reserves and limitations, choosing Israel among the nations, and even within Israel choosing the Israel in whom alone the promises can be realized. Made to serve by human sin, He waits upon the caprices of the wills He has created. He does not force them; but with compassionate patience He builds up His Holy Temple of such living stones as offer themselves, and “without haste as without rest” prepares for the consummation of His work in the redemption of a people that shall be all prophets, a kingdom of priests, a holy nation unto whom all nations shall join themselves when they see that God is in them of a truth. That is the Old Testament conception of the source, and guarantee, and goal of all spiritual life in the world, and St. Pauls view is merely a more mature and definite form of the same thing. And wherever spiritual life has manifested itself with unusual power, the same consciousness of utter unworthiness on the part of man, and entire dependence upon the grace and favor of God, has also manifested itself. The intellectual difficulties connected with this view, great as they are, have never suppressed it; the pride of man and his faith in himself have not been able permanently to obscure it. The greater men are, the more entirely do they dread any approach to that self-exaltation which puts away as unnecessary the Divine hand stretched out to them. As Dean Church points out, “not Hebrew prophets only, but the heathen poets of Greece looked with peculiar and profound alarm upon the haughty self-sufficiency of men.” Nothing can, they think, ward off evil from the man who makes the mistake of supposing, even when carrying out the Divine will, that he needs only his own strength of brain and will and arm to succeed, that he is accountable to no one for the character which he permits success to build up within him.
Even the agnostic of today, as represented by Professor Huxley, cannot do without some modicum of “grace” in his conception of mans relation to the powers of nature, though to admit this is to run a rift of inconsistency through his whole system of thought. “Suppose,” he says in his “Lay Sermons,” “it were perfectly certain that the life and future of every one of us would, one day or other, depend on his winning or losing a game at chessThe chessboard is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, just, patient. But we know to our cost that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance. To the man who plays well the highest stakes are paid with that overflowing generosity with which the strong shows delight in strength, and one who plays ill is checkmated without haste, but without remorse. My metaphor will remind you of the famous picture in which the Evil One is depicted playing a game of chess with man for his soul. Substitute for the mocking fiend in that picture a calm, strong angel, playing, as we say, for love, and who would rather lose than win, and I should accept it as the image of human life.” Even in a world without God, therefore, the facts of life suggest “justice,” “patience,” “generosity,” and a pity which “would rather lose than win.” With all the inexorable rigor and hardness of mans lot there is mingled something that suggests “grace” in the power that rules the world; and from the Deuteronomist to St. Paul, from Augustine to Calvin and Professor Huxley, the resolutely thorough thinkers have found, in the last analysis, these two elements, the rigor of law and the election of grace, working together in the molding of mankind.
The statement of these facts in Deuteronomy is as thorough as any that succeeded it. The rigor of law could not be more precisely and pathetically declared than in this insistence on the blessing or the curse which must inevitably follow right choice or wrong. But the tenderness of grace could not be more attractively displayed than in this picture of Yahwehs dealings with Israel. Love never faileth here, no more than elsewhere. It persists, notwithstanding stiff-necked rebellion, and in spite of coarse materialism of nature. Even a childish fickleness, more utterly trying than any other-weakness or defect, cannot wear it out. But inexorable blessing or curse is blended with it, and helps to work out the final result for Israel and mankind. That is the manner of the government of God, according to the Scriptures. History in its long course as known to us now confirms the view; and the author of Deuteronomy, in thus blending love and law together in the end of this great exhortation, has rested the obligation to obedience on a foundation which cannot be moved.