Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Deuteronomy 10:18
He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment.
18. fatherless, widow, and stranger ] i.e. the foreigner sojourning in Israel. See on Deu 24:17. The three are combined there and in Deu 24:19-21, also in Exo 22:21-22.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Deu 10:12; Deu 10:18
What doth the Lord thy God require of thee.
The true life of man
The true life of man is the life of practical conformity to Divine claims. All is summed up and expressed here.
I. Loving reverence.
1. Fear of not acting worthily of the object of love.
2. Fear of offending the object of love.
II. Practical obedience.
1. God has ways, that is methods of action–
(1) In material nature. Acquaintance with these is what is called science.
(2) In moral mind. Acquaintance with these is the highest knowledge. Embodied in the life of Christ.
2. To walk in Gods ways is–
(1) The only righteous walk.
(2) The only secure walk.
(3) The only elevating walk.
III. Hearty service.
1. Perfect freedom.
2. Sunny cheerfulness.
3. Thorough completeness. All the powers fully employed. (Homilist.)
Educated towards spirituality
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. This thought supplies a standard by which to measure progress. What are we? To what have we attained? 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 (Deu 10:22; Deu 11:11-12). 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. 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 Deu 10:12, the word occurs; in 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. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Exhortation to serve the Lord
Who obeys this command? A part of my hearers obey it in some degree. They esteem God above every other object. They consider His glory as their highest interest, and communion with Him as their supreme happiness. It is their greatest grief that their treacherous hearts are so prone to wander from Him. Their most fervent desires pant after Him. And when in a favoured hour they find Him whom their soul loveth, they hold Him fast and will not let Him go. I have no reproaches for these. But are all such? Would to God all were. But there is no service without love. Love is the fulfilling of the law. Supreme love to God will certainly produce self-denial for His sake. It will habitually avoid everything which He has forbidden, and obey, not a part, but all He commands. Supreme love will seek communion with its object more than any worldly pleasure. It will pant after Him and after greater conformity to Him; it will seek His glory as the highest interest; it will renounce the world and idols and cultivate a heavenly mind. Unless we have that which will produce all these effects, we have no supreme love to God; and if we have no supreme love, we have no love at all; and if we have no love, as there is no neutral state, we are His enemies. It was God that made you what you are, and put you into a world which He had richly furnished for your use. Have you nothing to do with Him, or He with you? Do you imagine that He created you and raised you so much above the brutes, and put you into a world on which He had expended so much labour, that you might wander from Him in the regions of darkness? that you might seek your happiness out of Him, and live in rebellion against Him? that you might spend your life only in preparing to live in this transitory state? or that you might live only to eat and drink? As God is true, He sent you into His world for the same end that a master sends a servant into his vineyard–to labour for Him. He has sent you into the field abundantly furnished with powers and means to serve Him, and has strictly commanded you to use these talents in His service. Say not that He is too far above you to be apprehended. He has brought Himself down, and spread Himself out before you in His works and word, and it is only to unbelief that He is invisible. Having sent you into His vineyard, He looks after you to see whether you are faithful or not. Has He nothing to do with you? His eyes are upon you every moment–upon the very bottom of your heart. Did your Creator turn you loose into the world, to run wild in pursuit of your own imaginations, without law or restraint, intending to look no further after you, but to throw you out from His care? Woe to you if He had done this; though this, I fear, you have often wished. But He did no such thing. His intention was still to follow you with His care, as beloved creatures, whom His own hands had formed–to exercise government over you–to establish eternal communion with you–to lead your desires up to Him–to fill you with His own sublime happiness, and to make you a part of an harmonious, blessed, and glorious kingdom. To accomplish these ends He put you under law–a law admirably calculated to unite you to Him and to consummate your happiness. The unreasonable will complain of anything, and murmurs have filled the world because this law requires the heart. But were it otherwise–were God to relinquish His claims on the heart and compound for outward service only, would it be better then? Could they be happy here, could they be happy in heaven, without a holy heart? They had better never been born than be excused from loving God. Should God give up His law, still they are wretches to eternity without love to Him. The law enjoins nothing but what in the nature of things is essential to happiness. From this moment you must either renounce your Bible, or understand that God accounts you rebels for not loving and serving Him with all the heart and soul. He admits no excuse. Your plea that you cannot, is only pleading guilty. A heart that refuses to love the Creator and Redeemer of the world, is the very thing for which God condemns you–is the vilest rebel in the universe. (E. Griffin, D. D.)
Gods requirements
Gods exactions, if we be Christians, are our own free-will offerings. What God demands is what thankful hearts should gladly give.
1. 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 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.
2. 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.
3. 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 cold, calculating preference; but warm, cordial attachment–attachment not blind and unintelligible, but with all the soul.
4. 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.
5. 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. (J. Cumming, D. D.)
An imperative demand
Yea, and what does the Lord require of us?
1. Reverence–But to fear the Lord thy God.
2. Obedience To walk in all His ways. To go when He tells us, and to take the way He has prepared for us. Matthew Henry says, It ought to be the care of every one of us to follow the Lord fully. We must, in a course of obedience to Gods will, and service to His honour, follow Him universally, without dividing; uprightly, without dissembling; cheerfully, without disputing; and constantly, without declining: and this is following Him fully.
3. Love–And to love Him. This exhortation comes in beautifully to prevent the possibility of reverence becoming a terror, and obedience servility.
4. Service–And to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul. Conviction, principle, truth, sentiment, and emotion find their level in service, as the waters of the river do in the sea. Life, of every kind, is energy from within towards an outward object.
5. Diligence–To keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good. (T. Davies.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Execute the judgment, i.e. plead their cause, and give them right against their more potent adversaries, and therefore he expects you should do so too.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow,…. Who have none to help them, and whose patron and defender he is, and will do them justice himself, and take care that it is done them by others, or avenge their injuries, for he is a Father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widow, in his holy habitation; Ps 68:5
and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment; one that is in a foreign country, at a distance from his native land, and destitute of friends; such God in his providence takes care of, and expresses his love and kindness to, by giving them the necessaries of life, food, and raiment.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
As such, Jehovah does justice to the defenceless (orphan and widow), and exercises a loving care towards the stranger in his oppression. For this reason the Israelites were not to close their hearts egotistically against the stranger (cf. Exo 22:20). This would show whether they possessed any love to God, and had circumcised their hearts (cf. 1Jo 3:10, 1Jo 3:17).
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
(18) And loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment.An inclusive expression. The whole substance of Jacob our father was included in the prayer for this. If God will . . . give me bread to eat and raiment to put on (Rashi).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Ver. 18. He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow See Exo 22:22. God may be said to execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, not only by taking them under the especial care of his providence, but by implanting compassion in the human breast; which, as his voice, calls upon men to protect the orphan, to assist the widow, to relieve the distressed. See Jam 1:27. The laws of hospitality are wisely and strongly inculcated in the sacred writings. The providence of God, which extends to all, is peculiarly attentive to strangers; to such as are either driven unjustly from their own country, or who travel, for good reasons, into other countries. Neither proselytes of justice, nor those of the gate, are here meant; but strangers in general, according to the utmost latitude of the word; and the motives, by which this regard to strangers is enforced upon the children of Israel, are certainly the strongest and most affecting possible. The wisest and best men among the heathens considered love to strangers as one of the characteristics of divinity. The , god of strangers, was the peculiar attribute of Jupiter, their supreme deity, benign to mankind, and the patron of universal benevolence. Hence, among other laws of Charondas, mentioned by Stobaeus, this is one, “to receive every stranger with kindness and humanity, and send them away in peace, in reverence to Jupiter, the god of strangers, who is as a god to all in common, and a narrow inspector of those who obey or violate the laws of hospitality.” To the same purpose are many beautiful sentiments in Homer; as where Eumaeus says to Ulysses, disguised as a beggar,
It never was our guise To slight the poor, or aught humane despise; For Jove unfolds the hospitable door, ‘Tis Jove that sends the stranger and the poor. See Odyss. 14: ver. 65-69 and Mr. Pope’s note.
There is a remarkable letter of the emperor Julian, preserved by Sozomen in his Eccles. Hist. and in Julian’s works, in which he speaks in the most honourable terms of the excellence and superiority of the Christian hospitality.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
This is a most charming precept, and comes home to the heart of every poor Gentile who was once afar off, and indeed a stranger to GOD and CHRIST; but is now no more a stranger and foreigner, but a fellow – citizen with the saints, and of the household of GOD. Eph 2:19-20 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
fatherless, &c. Compare Psa 68:5; Psa 146:9. Figure of speech Synecdoche (of Species), App-6, put for all the afflicted.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
doth: Psa 68:5, Psa 103:6, Psa 146:9, Isa 1:17, Jer 49:11, Hos 14:3
loveth: Psa 145:9, Mat 5:45, Act 14:17
Reciprocal: Exo 22:22 – General Lev 19:33 – And if Lev 25:35 – a stranger Deu 1:16 – the stranger Deu 13:14 – General Deu 27:19 – General Deu 32:4 – all his 2Ch 19:7 – respect of persons Job 29:12 – the fatherless Psa 10:14 – helper Psa 82:3 – Defend Psa 99:4 – executest Pro 15:25 – but Jer 22:3 – do no violence Zec 7:9 – saying 1Ti 5:3 – widows Heb 13:2 – not
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Deu 10:18. The judgment of the fatherless He is so far from disregarding those who are unbefriended, that he regards them the more on that account, takes their case under his special cognizance, and is particularly displeased with those who injure and oppress them. Nay, he executes their judgment, pleads their cause, and maintains their right against their potent adversaries, and therefore he expects that you should do so too. Even the compassion which he has implanted in the human breast for the oppressed and destitute, and which is his voice to men, calling upon them to protect the orphan, to assist the widow, and to relieve the necessitous, is one evidence, among many others, that he espouses their cause.