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Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Deuteronomy 12:1

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These [are] the statutes and judgments, which ye shall observe to do in the land, which the LORD God of thy fathers giveth thee to possess it, all the days that ye live upon the earth.

1. These are the statutes and the judgements ] As in Deu 6:1 but minus the Commandment or Charge (Miwah) because this, the introductory enforcement of the religious principles on which the laws are based, is now finished.

observe to do ] See on Deu 4:6, Deu 5:1.

God of thy fathers ] See on Deu 6:3.

all the days, etc.] Cp. Deu 4:9-10, Deu 31:13.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Moses now passes on to apply Deut. 1226 the leading principles of the Decalogue to the ecclesiastical, civil, and social life of the people. Particulars will be noticed which are unique to the Law as given in Deuteronomy; and even in laws repeated from the earlier books various new circumstances and details are introduced. This is only natural. The Sinaitic legislation was nearly 40 years old and had been given under conditions of time, place, and circumstance different and distant from those now present. Yet the Sinaitic system, far from being set aside or in any way abrogated, is on the contrary throughout presupposed and assumed. Its existence and authority are taken as the starting-point for what is here prescribed, and an accurate acquaintance with it on the part of the people is taken for granted.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Deu 12:1-3

If there arise among you a prophet.

On the criterion of a false miracle

I. The evidence drawn from miracles, in favour of any Divine revelation, rests in general on the testimony of those who saw the miracles performed. But in addition to this, it is important to inquire, whether some consideration may not be at the same time due to the nature and tendency of the doctrines themselves, and whether there may not be in them some internal marks, which, in some cases at least, may enable us to distinguish false miracles from true. That such a criterion was given to the Jews appears plain from the words of the text, according to which, though a miracle should actually be performed, yet if its intention was to teach the doctrine of idolatry, it was not to be considered as a miracle authorised by God.

II. Yet the text does not appear to be confined merely to fictitious miracles of human contrivance, but to extend to real miracles actually performed, either by men permitted so to act, or by the agency of superior intellectual beings, with the permission indeed of God, but not by His authority. Not only no human art or deception, but also no superior, or supernatural power should undermine our faith, or draw us from the allegiance which we owe to God.

III. I cannot dismiss the subject without taking notice of a difficulty which may possibly be thought to attend the foregoing theory. It relates to the assertion that no internal doctrine can be brought in proof of a miracle. For it may be said, that there are certain doctrines conveyed by the help of miracles, which no human reason could ever have discovered; such are, that God on certain conditions will freely forgive sins, and that to the sincere, penitent, and faithful believer in Jesus Christ, He will grant life eternal. The answer is, that though the truth of these things be beyond the reach of the human reason to discover, yet the things themselves are not beyond the reach of the human imagination to conceive. Their truth therefore must depend on the evidence of the miracles which were wrought in their support, and the miracles must first be distinctly proved, before we can give an admission to the doctrines. (W. Pearce, D. D.)

The objection of the Jews to Christianity, as founded on this passage, answered

It has commonly, and with justice, been thought, that the two great pillars on which a revelation from God must stand, are miracles and prophecies. Without these we cannot be assured that any discovery which may have been made in man is really Divine. We must, indeed, inspect the matter of the thing revealed to see whether it be worthy of Him from whom it is said to come; and from its internal evidence our faith will derive great strength; but still in the first instance we look rather to external proofs. But the Jews imagine that they are precluded from judging of Christianity on such grounds as these, since Moses, in this passage, guards them against any such inferences as we are led to draw from the prophecies and miracles on which our religion is founded. He concedes that some prophecies may be uttered, and some miracles be wrought in favour of a false religion; and that, even if that should be the case, the Jews are not to regard any evidences arising from those sources, but to hold fast their religion in opposition to them. First, mark the supposition here made, namely, that God may permit miraculous and prophetic powers to be exercised even in support of a false religion. We are not indeed to imagine that God Himself will work miracles in order to deceive His people and to lead them astray; nor are we to imagine that He will suffer Satan to work them in such an unlimited way as to be a counterbalance to the miracles by which God has confirmed His own religion; but He will, for reasons which we shall presently consider, permit some to be wrought, and some prophecies to come to pass, notwithstanding they are designed to uphold an imposture. The magicians of Pharaoh, we must confess, wrought real miracles. They were permitted to do so much as should give Pharaoh an occasion for hardening his own heart, but not sufficient to show that they could at all come in competition with Moses. In every age there were also false prophets, who endeavoured to draw the people from their allegiance to God; and in the multitude of prophecies that they would utter, it must be naturally supposed that some would be verified in the event. Now then, in the next place, let us notice the injunction given to the Jews notwithstanding this supposition. God commands them not to give heed to that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, even though his predictions should be verified, if his object be to turn them from Him; for that He Himself suffers these illusions to be practised upon them in order that their fidelity to Him may be tried, and their love to Him approved. It may seem strange that God should suffer such stumbling blocks to be cast in the way of His people; but it is not for us to say what Jehovah mayor may not do; we are sure that He tempteth no man, so as to lead him into sin (Jam 1:13), and that the Judge of all the earth will do nothing but what is right. But it is a fact that He thus permitted Job to be tried, in order that he might approve himself a perfect man; and in like manner He tried Abraham, in order that it might appear, whether his regard for Gods authority and his confidence in Gods Word were sufficient to induce him to sacrifice his Isaac, the child of promise (Gen 22:1-2; Gen 22:12). It was for similar ends that God permitted His people to be tried for forty years in the wilderness (Deu 8:2), and in the same way He has tried His Church in every period of the world. It is Gods express design in the whole constitution of our religion to discover the secret bent of mens minds; and whilst to the humble He gives abundant evidence for their conviction, He has left to the proud sufficient difficulties to call forth their latent animosity, and to justify in their own apprehensions their obstinate unbelief (Luk 2:34-35). He gave originally to the Jews, as He has also given to us, sufficient evidence to satisfy any candid mind; and this is all that we have any right to expect. The argument founded on this injunction comes now before us with all the force that can be given to it. A Jew will say, You Christians found your faith on prophecies and on miracles; and admitting that Jesus did work some miracles, and did foretell some events which afterwards came to pass, God permitted it only to try us, and to prove cur fidelity to Him. He has cautioned us beforehand not to be led astray from Him by any such things as these; and therefore, however specious your reasonings appear, we dare not listen to them or regard them. Having thus given to the objection all the force that the most hostile Jew can wish, I now come, in the second place, to offer what we hope will prove a satisfactory answer to it. It cannot but have struck the attentive reader that in this objection there are two things taken for granted; namely, that in calling Jews to Christianity we are calling them from Jehovah; and that our authority for calling them to Christianity is founded on such miracles as an impostor might work, and such prophecies as an impostor might expect to see verified. But in answer to these two points we declare, first, that we do not call them from Jehovah but to Him; and next, that our authority is not founded on such miracles and prophecies as might have issued from an impostor, but such as it was impossible for an impostor to produce; and lastly, that, in calling them to Christ, we have the express command of God Himself.

1. We do not call our Jewish brethren from Jehovah, but to Him. We worship the very same God whom the Jews worship; and we maintain His unity as strongly as any Jew in the universe can maintain it. As for idols of every kind, we abhor them as much as Moses himself abhorred them. Moreover, we consider the law which was written on the two tables of stone as binding upon us, precisely as much as if it were again promulgated by an audible voice from heaven. With respect to the ceremonial law, we do indeed call you from the observance of that; and we have good reason so to do; for you yourselves know that all the essential part of your religion existed before the ceremonial law was given; and that Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, who lived hundreds of years before the ceremonial law was given, were saved simply and entirely by faith in that promised seed, in whom all the nations of the earth are blessed. If you ask, Why then was the ceremonial law given? I answer, To shadow forth your Messiah, and to lead you to Him; and when He should come and fulfil it in all its parts, it was then to cease; and you yourselves know that it was intended by God Himself to cease at that appointed time. If then we call you from the outward observances of the law, it is not from disrespect to that law, but from a conviction that it has been fulfilled and abrogated by the Lord Jesus. We call you only from shadows to the substance. We call you to Christ as uniting in Himself all that the ceremonial law was intended to shadow forth. I am aware that in calling you to worship the Lord Jesus Christ we appear to you to be transferring to Him the honour due to God alone. But if you will look into your own Scriptures you will find that the person who was foretold as your Messiah is no other than God Himself. Receive Him in the character in which the prophet Isaiah foretold His advent, as the Child born, the Son given, the wonderful Counsellor, the mighty God, the Prince of peace. Call Him, as another prophet instructs you, Jehovah our Righteousness, and know that in thus honouring Christ you will honour the Father who sent Him.

2. The next thing which we proposed to show was, that our authority for calling you thus to Christ is not founded on such prophecies or miracles as might have issued from an impostor, but on such as it was impossible for an impostor to produce. Consider the prophecies; they were not some few dark predictions of mysterious import and of doubtful issue, uttered by our Lord Himself; but a continued series of prophecies from the very fall of Adam to the time of Christ; of prophecies comprehending an almost infinite variety of subjects, and those so minute, as to defy all concert either in those who uttered, or those who fulfilled them. Consider the miracles also; these were beyond all comparison greater and more numerous than Moses ever wrought. The whole creation, men, devils, fishes, elements, all obeyed His voice; and at His command the dead arose to life again. But there is one miracle alone which in particular we will mention. Jesus said, I have power to lay down My life, and I have power to take it again; and the former of these He proved by speaking with a loud voice the very instant He gave up the ghost, showing thereby that He did not die in consequence of His nature being exhausted, but by a voluntary surrender of His life into His Fathers hands. And at the appointed time He proved the latter also, notwithstanding all the preparations made to defeat His purpose, all which proved in the issue the strongest testimonies to the truth of His word. We therefore confidently call you to believe in Him, and to embrace the salvation which He offers you in the Gospel. But there is one great argument which we have reserved till now, in order that it may bear upon you with the greater weight.

3. We declare to you, then, in the last place, that in calling you to Christ we have the express command of God Himself. Moses, in chap. 13, bids you, as we have seen, not to listen to any false prophet; but in Deu 18:18-19, he most explicitly declares that a prophet should arise, to whom you should attend. Now I ask you, who is the prophet here spoken of Where was there ever, besides Moses, a prophet that was a Mediator, a Lawgiver, a Ruler, a Deliverer? Was there ever such an one except Jesus? And was not Jesus such an one in all respects? Yes; He has wrought for yell not a mere temporal deliverance like Moses, but a spiritual and eternal deliverance from sin and Satan, death and hell; He has redeemed you, not by power only, but by price also, even the inestimable price of His own blood. When therefore you plead the authority of Moses, we join issue with you, and say, Be consistent. Renounce false prophets, because he bids you; but believe in the true Prophet, whom God, according to His Word, has raised up to you, because He bids you. Let His authority weigh equally with you in both cases; and then we shall not fear, but that you will embrace the salvation offered you in the Gospel, and be the spiritual children, as ye already are the natural descendants of believing Abraham. (C. Simeon, M. A.)

The only pulpit worth having

I. That no instrumentality is of any real service to man, as man, that does not promote in him a right sovereign affection.

1. Every man is under some one dominant affection. Love of–

(1) Pleasure.

(2) Money.

(3) Power.

(4) Knowledge. Mans loves are his sovereign laws.

2. A wrong dominant affection in a man will neutralise the highest services that may be rendered to him.

II. That the only right sovereign affection is supreme love for the supremely good. All goodness streams from God as all light from the sun. Ought He not, then, to be extremely loved?

III. That the only pulpit that is of any real service to man is that which generates and fosters this sovereign affection.

1. It is the pulpit that works into man the conviction that God loves men, though sinners.

2. It is the pulpit that exhibits God as essentially good and benevolent in Himself. (Homilist.)

Danger and security

This passage, by the inspiration of God, touches upon all the possible points of danger in a religious course.

I. What are the points of danger?

1. The first may be described as being somewhat after a philosophical sort. There is nothing rude in the assault, nothing violent or startling, from a merely physical point of view; it is a very delicate encroachment upon religious thought; it is impalpable as a dream. Surely this is harmless: it is more than harmless; it is instructive: it may be a lesson in the deeper philosophy; it may be the beginning of a widening revelation. The mischief is this, that a man who would listen to such a dreamer, or seer of visions, and allow his religion to be affected by the nightmare, would turn the man out of his presence if he attempted to offer him a single idea upon any practical subject under heaven. We are easily beguiled from the religious point. O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you? It would seem as if it were easier to murder the soul than to kill the body. The first point of danger, therefore, is thus clouded in a golden veil; and the man who may be said to be preparing for that danger is dreamy, hazy-minded, speculative, always looking into a mist if, haply, he may find a star; such a gentle, dozing creature, so harmless, and really so very attractive in many qualities of his character.

2. What is the second point of danger? It is not at all philosophical; it may be ranked among the social forces that are constantly operating upon life (verse 6). Social influences are constantly operating upon our faith. The youngest member of the family has been reading a book, and has invited the head of the house to go and listen to some new speaker of theories, speculations, and dreams; the service is so beautiful; the idea is so novel; a great deal of the rush and tumult common to elementary religious life is totally escaped; the intellectual brother–the man supposed to have all the brains of the family–has got a new idea–an idea which in nowise associates itself with historical churches and traditional creeds, but a brand new idea, altogether sparkling and daring, and whosoever professes it will at once take his place in the synagogue of genius; or the darling friend has caught a voice down some byway, and he will have his other self go with him in the evening to hear this speaker of anti-Christian ideas–a man who has undertaken to reconstruct so much of the universe as will allow him to touch it; a person of exquisite mind, of dainty taste, and of quiet latent power. The subtle purpose is to draw men away from the old altar, the old Book, the God of deliverance and beneficence, of mercy and redemption, to another God who will condescend to be measured for a creed, and who is not above sitting for his portrait. Do not follow a multitude to do evil. Do not always be at the string end, led about by those who are of more forceful and energetic will than yourselves. Be sure as to what they are taking you to; have a clear understanding before you begin. You would not allow those persons to interfere with anything practical: when the discussion of commercial questions arises, you stand at the front and say, There I can bear testimony, and there I ought to be heard. Why claim such a solemn responsibility in the settlement of nothing, and allow anybody to settle for you the great questions of religious truth and personal destroy?

3. What is the third point of danger? It is not philosophical; it is not, in the narrow sense of the term, social; it is a point of danger which may be characterised as public sentiment, public opinion–a general turning round, and a wholesale abandonment of old theologies and old forms of worship (verses 12, 13). Some men may have courage to laugh at the dreamer; others may have virtue enough to resist the blandishments of the nearest friend; but who can resist the current or tendency of public opinion?

II. What is the course to be taken under circumstances of danger? Moses had no difficulty about his reply: let us see what it was, and consider whether we can adopt it. And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death (verse 5). The seducer in the family brings upon himself this penalty. Neither shall thine eye pity him neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: but thou shalt surely kill him (verses 8, 9); thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die (verse 10). And as for the city–representative of public opinion–Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, etc. (verses 15-17). That was a drastic course; there is no touch of compromise in that stern provision; there is no line of toleration in that tremendous answer. The same course is to be taken today, as to its spiritual meaning. Physical violence there must be none; the day of physical pains and penalties for spiritual offences has closed; but the great lesson of destruction remains forever. What penalty, then, shall we inflict upon men who seek to destroy our faith? I hesitate not in my reply: Avoid them; pass by them; they would injure your soul. (J. Parker, D. D.)

True tests are unfailing discoverers

Every substance is discoverable by some test, which usually neutralises it, or rather, by uniting with it, forms a new compound. The whole fabric of chemistry rests upon this wonderful principle as one of its cornerstones. Thus if the least fragment of copper be dissolved in acid, and the fluid be then diluted with water until no trace of colour remains, so potent, nevertheless, is the affinity of the well-known fluid called ammonia for the copper, that a single drop of the latter fluid will immediately reveal the presence of the metal by uniting with it and forming a new substance of the loveliest violet colour. Similarly, if a morsel of lead be dissolved in acid, and the acid be then diluted with water, a single drop of a solution of iodide of potassium will turn the whole to a brilliant crocus-yellow. The presence of iron, after the same manner, is discovered by the least drop of tincture of galls, which blackens it upon contact; that of silver by a little solution of common salt, which causes flakes of imitative snow to make their appearance; that of mercury again with iodide of potassium, which turns the fluid containing it to a beautiful red. (Scientific Illustrations.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

CHAPTER XII

All monuments of idolatry in the promised land to be destroyed,

1-3;

and God’s service to be duly performed, 4-7.

The difference between the performance of that service in the

wilderness and in the promised land, 8-11.

The people are to be happy in all their religious observances,

12.

The offerings must be brought to the place which God appoints,

and no blood is to be eaten, 13-16.

The tithe of corn, wine, oil, &c., to be eaten in the place that

God shall choose, 17, 18.

The Levite must not be forsaken, 19.

All clean beasts may be eaten, but the blood must be poured out

before the Lord, and be eaten on no pretence whatever, 29-25.

Of vows, burnt-offerings, &c., 26, 27.

These precepts are to be carefully obeyed, 28.

Cautions against the abominations of the heathen, 29-31.

Nothing to be added to or diminished from the word of God, 32.

NOTES ON CHAP. XII

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

1. These are the statutes andjudgments, which ye shall observeHaving in the precedingchapter inculcated upon the Israelites the general obligation to fearand love God, Moses here enters into a detail of some special dutiesthey were to practise on their obtaining possession of the promisedland.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

These are the statutes and judgments which ye shall observe to do,…. Which are recorded in this and the following chapters; here a new discourse begins, and which perhaps was delivered at another time, and respects things that were to be observed:

in the land which the Lord God of thy fathers giveth thee to possess it; the land of Canaan, often described by this circumlocution, to put them in mind that it was promised to their fathers by their covenant God, was his gift to them, and which they would quickly be in the possession of; and therefore when in it should be careful to observe the statutes and judgments of God constantly:

[even] all the days that ye live upon the earth; or land, the land of Canaan; for though there were some laws binding upon them, live where they would, there were others peculiar to the land of Canaan, which they were to observe as long as they and their posterity lived there; see 1Ki 8:40.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

The laws relating to the worship of the Israelites commence with a command to destroy and annihilate all places and memorials of the Canaanitish worship (Deu 12:2-4), and then lay it down as an established rule, that the Israelites were to worship the Lord their God with sacrifices and gifts, only in the place which He Himself should choose (Deu 12:5-14). On the other hand, in the land of Canaan cattle might be slain for eating and the flesh itself be consumed in any place; though sacrificial meals could only be celebrated in the place of the sanctuary appointed by the Lord (Deu 12:15-19). Moreover, on the extension of the borders of the land, oxen, and sheep, and goats could be slaughtered for food in any place; but the blood was not to be eaten, and consecrated gifts and votive sacrifices were not to be prepared as meals anywhere, except at the altar of the Lord (Deu 12:20-28). Lastly, the Israelites were not to be drawn aside by the Canaanites, to imitate them in their worship (Deu 12:29-31).

Deu 12:1

On the heading in Deu 12:1, see chs. Deu 6:1 and Deu 4:1. “ All the days that ye live ” relates to the more distant clause, “which ye shall observe,” etc. (cf. Deu 4:10).

Deu 12:2-3

Ye shall destroy all the places where the Canaanites worship their gods, upon the high mountains, upon the hills, and under every green tree (cf. Jer 2:20; Jer 3:6; Jer 17:2; 2Ki 16:4; 2Ki 17:10). The choice of mountains and hills for places of worship by most of the heathen nations, had its origin in the wide-spread belief, that men were nearer to the Deity and to heaven there. The green trees are connected with the holy groves, of which the heathen nations were so fond, and the shady gloom of which filled the soul with holy awe at the nearness of the Deity. In the absence of groves, they chose green trees with thick foliage (Eze 6:13; Eze 20:28), such as the vigorous oak, which attains a great age, the evergreen terebinth (Isa 1:29-30; Isa 57:5), and the poplar or osier, which continues green even in the heat of summer (Hos 4:13), and whose deep shade is adapted to dispose the mind to devotion.

Deu 12:3

Beside the place of worship, they were also to destroy all the idols of the Canaanitish worship, as had already been commanded in Deu 7:5, and to blot out even their names, i.e., every trace of their existence (cf. Deu 7:24).

Deu 12:4-5

“ Ye shall not do so to Jehovah your God,” i.e., not build altars and offer sacrifices to Him in any place you choose, but (Deu 12:5.) shall only keep yourselves ( ) to the place “ which He shall choose out of all the tribes to put His name there for His dwelling.” Whereas the heathen seeks and worships his nature-gods, wherever he thinks he can discern in nature any trace of Divinity, the true God has not only revealed His eternal power and Godhead in the works of creation, but His personal being, which unfolds itself to the world in love and holiness, in grace and righteousness, He has made known to man, who was created in His image, in the words and works of salvation; and in these testimonies of His saving presence He has fixed for Himself a name, in which He dwells among His people. This name presents His personality, as comprehended in the word Jehovah, in a visible sign, the tangible pledge of His essential presence. During the journeying of the Israelites this was effected by the pillar of cloud and fire; and after the erection of the tabernacle, by the cloud in the most holy place, above the ark of the covenant, with the cherubim uon it, in which Jehovah had promised to appear to the high priest as the representative of the covenant nation. Through this, the tabernacle, and afterwards Solomon’s temple, which took its place, became the dwelling-place of the name of the Lord. But if the knowledge of the true God rested upon direct manifestations of the divine nature, – and the Lord God had for that very reason made Himself known to His people in words and deeds as their God-then as a matter of course the mode of His worship could not be dependent upon any appointment of men, but must be determined exclusively by God Himself. The place of His worship depended upon the choice which God Himself should make, and which would be made known by the fact that He “put His name,” i.e., actually manifested His own immediate presence, in one definite spot. By the building of the tabernacle, which the Lord Himself prescribed as the true spot for the revelation of His presence among His people, the place where His name was to dwell among the Israelites was already so far determined, that only the particular town or locality among the tribes of Israel where the tabernacle was to be set up after the conquest of Canaan remained to be decided. At the same time, Moses not only speaks of the Lord choosing the place among all the tribes for the erection of His sanctuary, but also of His choosing the place where He would put His name, that He might dwell there ( from , for from ). For the presence of the Lord was not, and was not intended, to be exclusively confined to the tabernacle (or the temple). As God of the whole earth, wherever it might be necessary, for the preservation and promotion of His kingdom, He could make known His presence, and accept the sacrifices of His people in other places, independently of this sanctuary; and there were times when this was really done. The unity of the worship, therefore, which Moses here enjoined, was not to consist in the fact that the people of Israel brought all their sacrificial offerings to the tabernacle, but in their offering them only in the spot where the Lord made His name (that is to say, His presence) known.

What Moses commanded here, was only an explanation and more emphatic repetition of the divine command in Exo 20:23-24 (Deu 12:21 and Deu 12:22); and to understand “the place which Jehovah would choose” as relating exclusively to Jerusalem or the temple-hill, is a perfectly arbitrary assumption. Shiloh, the place where the tabernacle was set up after the conquest of the land (Jos 18:1), and where it stood during the whole of the times of the judges, was also chosen by the Lord (cf. Jer 7:12). It was not till after David had set up a tent for the ark of the covenant upon Zion, in the city of Jerusalem, which he had chosen as the capital of his kingdom, and had erected an altar for sacrifice there (2Sa 6:17; 1Ch 16:1), that the will of the Lord was made known to him by the prophet Gad, that he should build an altar upon the threshing-floor of Araunah, where the angel of the Lord had appeared to him; and through this command the place was fixed for the future temple (2Sa 24:18; 1Ch 21:18). with , to turn in a certain direction, to inquire or to seek. , “to put His name,” i.e., to make known His presence, is still further defined by the following word , as signifying that His presence was to be of permanent duration. It is true that this word is separated by an athnach from the previous clause; but it certainly cannot be connected with ( ye shall seek), not only because of the standing phrase, (“ to cause His name to dwell there,” Deu 12:11; Deu 14:23; Deu 16:2, Deu 16:6, etc.), but also because this connection would give no fitting sense, as the infinitive does not mean “a dwelling-place.”

Deu 12:6-9

Thither they were to take all their sacrificial gifts, and there they were to celebrate their sacrificial meals. The gifts are classified in four pairs: (1) the sacrifices intended for the altar, burnt-offerings and slain-offerings being particularly mentioned as the two principal kinds, with which, according to Num 15:4., meat-offerings and drink-offerings were to be associated; (2) “your tithes and every heave-offering of your hand.” By the tithes we are to understand the tithes of field-produce and cattle, commanded in Lev 27:30-33 and Num 18:21-24, which were to be brought to the sanctuary because they were to be offered to the Lord, as was the case under Hezekiah (2Ch 31:5-7). That the tithes mentioned here should be restricted to vegetable tithes (of corn, new wine, and oil), is neither allowed by the general character of the expression, nor required by the context. For instance, although, according to Deu 12:7 and Deu 12:11, Deu 12:12, as compared with Deu 12:17, a portion of the vegetable tithe was to be applied to the sacrificial meals, there is no ground whatever for supposing that all the sacrifices and consecrated gifts mentioned in Deu 12:6 were offerings of this kind, and either served as sacrificial meals, or had such meals connected with them. Burnt-offerings, for example, were not associated in any way with the sacrificial meals. The difficulty, or as some suppose “the impossibility,” of delivering all the tithes from every part of the land at the place of the sanctuary, does not warrant us in departing from the simple meaning of Moses’ words in the verse before us. The arrangement permitted in Deu 14:24-25, with reference to the so-called second tithe, – viz., that if the sanctuary was too far off, the tithe might be sold at home, and whatever was required for the sacrificial meals might be bought at the place of the sanctuary with the money so obtained, – might possibly have been also adopted in the case of the other tithe. At all events, the fact that no reference is made to such cases as these does not warrant us in assuming the opposite. As the institution of tithes generally did not originate with the law of Moses, but is presupposed as a traditional and well-known custom, – all that is done being to define them more precisely, and regulate the way in which they should be applied, – Moses does not enter here into any details as to the course to be adopted in delivering them, but merely lays down the law that all the gifts intended for the Lord were to be brought to Him at His sanctuary, and connects with this the further injunction that the Israelites were to rejoice there before the Lord, that is to say, were to celebrate their sacrificial meals at the place of His presence which He had chosen. – The gifts, from which the sacrificial meals were prepared, are not particularized here, but are supposed to be already known either form the earlier laws or from tradition. From the earlier laws we learn that the whole of the flesh of the burnt-offerings was to be consumed upon the altar, but that the flesh of the slain-offerings, except in the case of the peace-offerings, was to be applied to the sacrificial meals, with the exception of the fat pieces, and the wave-breast and heave-shoulder. With regard to the tithes, it is stated in Num 18:21-24 that Jehovah had given them to the Levites as their inheritance, and that they were to give the tenth part of them to the priests. In the laws contained in the earlier books, nothing is said about the appropriation of any portion of the tithes to sacrificial meals. Yet in Deuteronomy this is simply assumed as a customary thing, and not introduced as a new commandment, when the law is laid down (in Deu 12:17; Deu 14:22., Deu 26:12.), that they were not to eat the tithe of corn, new wine, and oil within their gates (in the towns of the land), any more than the first-born of oxen and sheep, but only at the place of the sanctuary chosen by the Lord; and that if the distance was too great for the whole to be transported thither, they were to sell the tithes and firstlings at home, and then purchase at the sanctuary whatever might be required for the sacrificial meals. From these instructions it is very apparent that sacrificial meals were associated with the delivery of the tithes and firstlings to the Lord, to which a tenth part of the corn, must, and oil was applied, as well as the flesh of the first-born of edible cattle. This tenth formed the so-called second tithe ( , Tob. 1:7), which is mentioned here for the first time, but not introduced as a new rule or an appendix to the former laws. It is rather taken for granted as a custom founded upon tradition, and brought into harmony with the law relating to the oneness of the sanctuary and worship.

(Note: The arguments employed by De Wette and Vater against this arrangement with regard to the vegetable tithe, which is established beyond all question by the custom of the Jews themselves, have been so fully met by Hengstenberg ( Dissertations, ii. 334ff.), that Riehm has nothing to adduce in reply, except the assertion that in Deut 18, where the revenues of the priests and Levites are given, there is nothing said about the tithe, and the tithe of the tithe, and also that the people would have been overburdened by a second tithe. But, apart from the fact that argumenta e silentio generally do not prove much, the first assertion rests upon the erroneous assumption that in Deut 18 all the revenues of the priests are given separately; whereas Moses confines himself to this general summary of the revenues of the priests and Levites enumerated singly in Num 18, “The firings of Jehovah shall be the inheritance of the tribe of Levi, these they shall eat,” and then urges upon the people in Num 18:3-5 an addition to the revenues already established. The second objection is refuted by history. For if in later times, when the people of Israel had to pay very considerable taxes to the foreign kings under whose rule they were living, they could give a second tenth of the fruits of the ground in addition to the priests’ tithe, as we may see from Tobit 1:7, such a tax could not have been too grievous a burden for the nation in the time of its independence; to say nothing of the fact that this second tenth belonged in great part to the donors themselves, since it was consumed in sacrificial meals, to which only poor and needy persons were invited, and therefore could not be regarded as an actual tax.)

“ The heave-offerings of your hand, ” which are mentioned again in Mal 3:8 along with the tithes, are not to be restricted to the first-fruits, as we may see from Eze 20:40, where the terumoth are mentioned along with the first-fruits. We should rather understand them as being free gifts of love, which were consecrated to the Lord in addition to the legal first-fruits and tithes without being actual sacrifices, and which were then applied to sacrificial meals. – The other gifts were (3) and , sacrifices which were offered partly in consequence of vows and partly of their own free will (see at Lev 23:38, compared with Lev 7:16; Lev 22:21, and Num 15:3; Num 29:39); and lastly (4), “firstlings of your herds and of your flocks,” viz., those commanded in Exo 13:2, Exo 13:12., and Num 18:15.

According to Exo 13:15, the Israelites were to sacrifice the firstlings to the Lord; and according to Num 13:8. they belonged to the holy gifts, which the Lord assigned to the priests for their maintenance, with the more precise instructions in Deu 12:17, Deu 12:18, that the first-born of oxen, sheep, and goats were not to be redeemed, but being holy were to be burned upon the altar in the same manner as the shelamim , and that the flesh was to belong to the priests, like the wave-breast and right leg of the shelamim. These last words, it is true, are not to be understood as signifying that the only portions of the flesh of the firstlings which were to be given to the priest were the wave-breast and heave-leg, and that the remainder of the flesh was to be left to the offerer to be applied to a sacrificial meal (Hengstenberg); but they state most unequivocally that the priest was to apply the flesh to a sacrificial meal, like the wave-breast and heave-leg of all the peace-offerings, which the priest was not even allowed to consume with his own family at home, like ordinary flesh, but to which the instructions given for all the sacrificial meals were applicable, namely, that “ whoever was clean in the priest’s family” might eat of it (Num 18:11), and that the flesh was to be eaten on the day when the sacrifice was offered (Lev 7:15), or at the latest on the following morning, as in the case of the votive offering (Lev 7:16), and that whatever was left was to be burnt. These instructions concerning the flesh of the firstlings to be offered to the Lord no more prohibit the priest from allowing the persons who presented the firstlings to take part in the sacrificial meals, or handing over to them some portion of the flesh which belonged to himself to hold a sacrificial meal, than any other law does; on the contrary, the duty of doing this was made very plain by the fact that the presentation of firstlings is described as in Exo 13:15, in the very first of the general instructions for their sanctification, since even in the patriarchal times the was always connected with a sacrificial meal in which the offerer participated. Consequently it cannot be shown that there is any contradiction between Deuteronomy and the earlier laws with regard to the appropriation of the first-born. The command to bring the firstlings of the sacrificial animal, like all the rest of the sacrifices, to the place of His sanctuary which the Lord would choose, and to hold sacrificial meals there with the tithes of corn, new wine, and oil, and also with the firstlings of the flocks, and herds, is given not merely to the laity of Israel, but to the whole of the people, including the priests and Levites, without the distinction between the tribe of Levi and the other tribes, established in the earlier laws, being even altered, much less abrogated. The Israelites were to bring all their sacrificial gifts to the place of the sanctuary to be chosen by the Lord, and there, not in all their towns, they were to eat their votive and free-will offerings in sacrificial meals. This, and only this, is what Moses commands the people both here in Deu 12:7 and Deu 12:17, Deu 12:18, and also in Deu 14:22. and Deu 15:19.

(Note: If, therefore, the supposed discrepancies between the law of Deuteronomy and that of Exodus and Leviticus concerning the tithes and firstlings vanish into mere appearance when the passages in Deuteronomy are correctly explained, the conclusions to which Riehm comes (pp. 43ff.), – viz., that in Deuteronomy the tithes and firstlings are no longer the property of the priests and Levites, and that all the laws concerning the redemption and sale of them are abrogated there-are groundless assertions, founded upon the unproved and unfounded assumption, that Deuteronomy was intended to contain a repetition of the whole of the earlier law.)

“ Rejoice in all that your hand has acquired.” The phrase (cf. Deu 12:18; Deu 15:10; Deu 23:21; Deu 28:8, Deu 28:20) signifies that to which the hand is stretched out, that which a man undertakes (synonymous with ), and also what a man acquires by his activity: hence Isa 11:14, , what a man appropriates to himself with his hand, or takes possession of. before is dependent upon , and is construed with a double accusative, as in Gen 49:25. The reason for these instructions is given in Deu 12:8, Deu 12:9, namely, that this had not hitherto taken place, but that up to this day every one had done what he thought right, because they had not yet come to the rest and to the inheritance which the Lord was about to give them. The phrase, “ whatsoever is right in his own eyes,” is applied to actions performed according to a man’s own judgment, rather than according to the standard of objective right and the law of God (cf. Jdg 17:6; Jdg 21:25). The reference is probably not so much to open idolatry, which was actually practised, according to Lev 17:7; Num 25:1; Eze 20:16-17; Amo 5:25-26, as to acts of illegality, for which some excuse might be found in the circumstances in which they were placed when wandering through the desert, – such, for example, as the omission of the daily sacrifice when the tabernacle was not set up, and others of a similar kind.

Deu 12:10-14

But when the Israelites had crossed over the Jordan, and dwelt peaceably in Canaan, secured against their enemies round about, these irregularities were not to occur any more; but all the sacrifices were to be offered at the place chosen by the Lord for the dwelling-place of His name, and there the sacrificial meals were to be held with joy before the Lord. “The choice of your vows,” equivalent to your chosen vows, inasmuch as every vow was something special, as the standing phrase (Lev 22:21, and Num 15:3, Num 15:8) distinctly shows. – “Rejoicing before the Lord,” which is the phrase applied in Lev 23:40 to the celebration of the feast of Tabernacles, was to be the distinctive feature of all the sacrificial meals held by the people at the sanctuary, as is repeatedly affirmed (Deu 14:26; Deu 16:11; Deu 26:11; Deu 27:7). This holy joy in the participation of the blessing bestowed by the Lord was to be shared not only by sons and daughters, but also by salve (men-servants and maid-servants), that they too might taste the friendliness of their God, and also by “ the Levite that is in your gates ” (i.e., your towns and hamlets; see at Exo 20:10). This frequently recurring description of the Levites (cf. Deu 12:18; Deu 14:27; Deu 16:11, Deu 16:14; Deu 18:6; Deu 26:12) does not assume that they were homeless, which would be at variance with the allotment of towns for them to dwell in (Num 35); but simply implies what is frequently added in explanation, that the Levites had “no part nor inheritance,” no share of the land as their hereditary property, and in this respect resembled strangers (Deu 14:21, Deu 14:29; Deu 16:11, etc.).

(Note: The explanation given by De Wette, and adopted by Riehm, of the expression, “the Levite that is within thy gates,” is perfectly arbitrary and unfounded: viz., that “the Levites did not live any longer in the towns assigned them by the earlier laws, but were scattered about in the different towns of the other tribes.”)

And the repeated injunction to invite the Levites to the sacrificial meals is not at variance with Num 18:21, where the tithes are assigned to the tribe of Levi for their maintenance. For however ample this revenue may have been according to the law, it was so entirely dependent, upon the honesty and conscientiousness of the people, that the Levites might very easily be brought into a straitened condition, if indifference towards the Lord and His servants should prevail throughout the nation. – In Deu 12:13, Deu 12:14, Moses concludes by once more summing up these instructions in the admonition to beware of offering sacrifices in every place that they might choose, the burnt-offering, as the leading sacrifice, being mentioned instar omnium .

Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament

Relics of Idolatry to Be Destroyed.

B. C. 1451.

1 These are the statutes and judgments, which ye shall observe to do in the land, which the LORD God of thy fathers giveth thee to possess it, all the days that ye live upon the earth. 2 Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree: 3 And ye shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their groves with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place. 4 Ye shall not do so unto the LORD your God.

From those great original truths, That there is a God, and that there is but one God, arise those great fundamental laws, That that God is to be worshipped, and he only, and that therefore we are to have no other God before him: this is the first commandment, and the second is a guard upon it, or a hedge about it. To prevent a revolt to false gods, we are forbidden to worship the true God in such a way and manner as the false gods were worshipped in, and are commanded to observe the instituted ordinances of worship that we may adhere to the proper object of worship. For this reason Moses is very large in his exposition of the second commandment. What is contained in this and the four following chapters mostly refers to that. These are statutes and judgments which they must observe to do (v. 1), 1. In the days of their rest and prosperity, when they should be masters of Canaan. We must not think that our religion is instituted only to be our work in the years of our servitude, our entertainment in the places of our solitude, and our consolation in affliction; no, when we come to possess a good land, still we must keep up the worship of God in Canaan as well as in a wilderness, when we have grown up as well as when we are children, when we are full of business as well as when we have nothing else to do. 2. All the days, as long as you live upon the earth. While we are here in our state of trial, we must continue in our obedience, even to the end, and never leave our duty, nor grow weary of well-doing. Now,

I. They are here charged to abolish and extirpate all those things that the Canaanites had served their idol-gods with, Deu 12:2; Deu 12:3. Here is no mention of idol-temples, which countenances the opinion some have, that the tabernacle Moses reared in the wilderness was the first habitation that ever was made for religious uses, and that from it temples took their rise. But the places that had been used, and were now to be levelled, were enclosures for their worship on mountains and hills (as if the height of the ground would give advantage to the ascent of their devotions), and under green trees, either because pleasant or because awful: whatever makes the mind easy and reverent, contracts and composes it, was thought to befriend devotion. The solemn shade and silence of a grove are still admired by those that are disposed to contemplation. But the advantage which these retirements gave to the Gentiles in the worship of their idols was that they concealed those works of darkness which could not bear the light; and therefore they must all be destroyed, with the altars, pillars, and images, that had been used by the natives in the worship of their gods, so as that the very names of them might be buried in oblivion, and not only not be remembered with respect, but not remembered at all. They must thus consult, 1. The reputation of their land; let it never be said of this holy land that it had been thus polluted, but let all these dunghills be carried away, as things they were ashamed of. 2. The safety of their religion; let none be left remaining, lest profane unthinking people, especially in degenerate ages, should make use of them in the service of the God of Israel. Let these pest-houses be demolished, as things they were afraid of. He begins the statutes that relate to divine worship with this, because there must first be an abhorrence of that which is evil before there can be a steady adherence to that which is good, Rom. xii. 9. The kingdom of God must be set up, both in persons and places, upon the ruins of the devil’s kingdom; for they cannot stand together, nor can there be any communion between Christ and Belial.

II. They are charged not to transfer the rites and usages of idolaters into he worship of God; no, not under colour of beautifying and improving it (v. 4): You shall not do so to the Lord your god, that is, “you must not think to do honour to him by offering sacrifices on mountains and hills, erecting pillars, planting groves, and setting up images; no, you must not indulge a luxurious fancy in your worship, nor think that whatever pleases that will please God: he is above all gods, and will not be worshipped as other gods are.”

Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary

DEUTERONOMY – CHAPTER TWELVE

Verses 1-3:

Moses had taught Israel all the statutes and judgments which God had commanded, chapter 4:5. In the section beginning with this chapter, he restates those laws which Israel was to observe in their Land, throughout all their generations therein.

The beginning point of obedience is the total destruction of all traces of idolatry:

(1) All places of worship upon the mountain peaks.

(2) All places of worship on the hilltops

(3) All places of worship in the forests, the shade of the trees, see Eze 6:6; Eze 6:13.

(4) The altars upon which sacrifices were offered.

(5) The pillars, matstsebah, “a thing set up, a standing pillar,” an obelisk usually containing writings or figures; in this case, concerning the idol god.

(6) The groves, asherah, “shrine,” see Exo 34:13; Deu 7:5.

(7) Graven images, pesilim, cut or hewn images, see Exo 20:4.

Israel was commanded to destroy even the names of the pagan gods from the places where they were inscribed. Every trace of idolatry was to be eradicated from the Land.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist 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.Moses now begins an exposition of the principal laws which must govern the people in their ecclesiastical, civil, and domestic life in Canaan. The religious life of Israel is described first. In this chapter a place for Gods worship is chosen, and the right method pointed out.

Deu. 12:2. Destroy all places of idolatory. Hills and elevated spots they imagined were nearer heaven. Green trees and shades of foilage or wood inspired awe.

Deu. 12:3. Monuments of idolatry destroyed. Altars. piles of turf, or small stones. Pillars, rude blocks of coloured stone used before the art of sculpture was known. Groves, lit. idol, pillars of wood. (cf. Deu. 7:5; Deu. 16:21.) Names, every trace of existence.

Deu. 12:4-5. Not do, as idolators worship in what place and in what way you think fit. God chose the places and in these places alone did He put His name, i.e., manifest his presence. To these appointed places must they resort (seek cf. 2 Chronicles 1-5), to offer gifts and sacrifices. The various kinds of which are given in order to enforce the order that each and every one of them is to be offered at the sanctuary, and nowhere else.

Deu. 12:6. First, two chief altar offerings. Burnt offerings and sacrifices with which meat offerings and drink offerings were united. (Num. 15:4.) Second, tithes and heave offerings types of field produce and cattle (Lev. 27:30-33; Num. 18:21-24), heave offerings, free gifts of love in addition to legal offerings. Third, vows and free will offerings, in consequence of vows or spontaneous impulse. (Lev. 7:16; Lev. 22:1; Num. 15:3; Num. 29:39). Fourth, firstlings of herds and flocks. (cf. Exo. 13:2; Num. 18:5.)

Deu. 12:7. Eat, many injunctions had been allowed to lie in abeyance in their migratory condition, now the whole ritual would be obligatory. The sacrifical feast was to accompany certain offerings, put hand, all undertaken or acquired by activity. (cf. Gen. 3:22; Isa. 11:14.)

Deu. 12:8-9. Reason for these instructions, for up to this time every one had done what he thought right, because they were not in possession of the inheritance.

Deu. 12:10-11. But when settled in the land a certain order and a fixed locality should be determined. Choice vows, lit., the choice of your vows, the vows of your choice, voluntary. (Lev. 22:21; Num. 3:8.)

Deu. 12:12. Rejoice. Joy to be the distinctive feature of all sacrificial meals, to be shared by sons and daughters, and by slaves (menservants and maidservants). No part. Levites at gates, i.e., in towns and hamlets (Exo. 20:10) resembled strangers, and had no share in the land as hereditary property. The repeated injunction to invite the Levites to the sacrificial meals is not at variance with Num. 18:21, where the tithes are assigned to the tribe of Levi for their maintenance.Keil.

Deu. 12:13-14. Moses sums up instructions. They must beware of offering sacrifices in every place they thought fit, especially burnt offering, the chief offering.

Deu. 12:15. In the wilderness animals for food were slain at the door of the tabernacle. (Lev. 17:3 -Ver. 6.) This prohibition, designed to gather them round one centre, and to cut off private idolatrous rites, was now to be relaxed. When the people were scattered they might slay at their houses (gates). Lusteth after, not in a bad sense, but means simply to will or choose. According, in preportion to means and condition. Unclean, as no longer consecrated as sacrifices. The ceremonial distinctions do not apply in such cases, any more than to the roebuck (or gazelle) and hart, animals allowed for food but not for sacrifice.Speak. Com.

Deu. 12:16. Blood forbidden to be eaten (Lev. 17:10) was poured as water upon the earth and sucked in.

Deu. 12:17-19. Sacrificial meals could only be held at the sanctuary. Servants and foreign slaves were to participate with them; the Levites especially were not to be forgotten.

Deu. 12:20. These rules were to be in force when God would enlarge their border. If too far off (Deu. 12:21) to come, the allowance in Deu. 12:15-16, is repeated, and the reason of it given. Be sure, (Deu. 12:23) lit., be strong, steadfast, determined to resist temptation to eat blooda temptation to which they were specially exposed, probably.

Deu. 12:23-24. The law relating to blood as in Deu. 12:16.

Deu. 12:26. Holy things, tithes, etc., as in Deu. 12:17; not tithes for Levites, but special gifts of thankfulness and piety to be presented as peace offerings at the sanctuary. Vow. (Gen. 28:20.)

Deu. 12:27. The flesh and blood of burnt offerings were to be put upon the altar. (Lev. 1:5-9.) The blood of sacrifices in the ritual of the peace offering was poured out. (Lev. 3:2; Lev. 3:8; Lev. 3:13.) Eat. (Lev. 7:11.)

Deu. 12:28. The closing admonition in expansion of Deu. 12:25. (cf. Deu. 11:21.)

Deu. 12:29-32. A reference to the beginning (Deu. 12:2), and a warning against Canaanitish idolatry. Heed. Be not ensnared by the worship of the local deities, the neglect of which was thought would bring misfortune, (cf. 2Ki. 17:26.) The fire. The heathens prepare all kinds of abominations for their gods which Jehovah hates. They even burn their children to their idols. (Leviticus 18; Jer. 32:35.) Observe. This verse is best taken as an intermediate link, closing what goes before, and introductory to what follows.Keil.

THE LAWS OF DIVINE WORSHIP.Deu. 12:1-32

Having thus rehearsed the Decalogue and enforced its leading principles, Moses now passes on to apply those principles to the ecclesiastical, civil, and social life of the people. Fourteen chapters are thus occupied. Many particulars are peculiar to the law given in Deuteronomy. The Sinaitic legislation was nearly forty years old, and had been given under conditions of time, place, and circumstances very different. Canaan was in sight, the legislator Himself was about to be withdrawn, and in the ripeness of his wisdom he now completes his work by enlarging, explaining, modifying and supplementing under Divine guidance the code which he promulgated in earlier days. Moses fitly begins with regulations pertaining to the worship of the Israelites during their settled life in Canaan (cf. Speak. Com.). Taking the whole chapter, we get the following outline

I. Worship as a protest to heathen idolatry. The invasion of Canaan was a new period in lifea period of true service and purified character.

1. Idolatry was not to be imitated (Deu. 12:29-31). They must shun superstitions, and take heed not to be ensnared by their prevalence and popularity.

2. Idolatry was to be destroyed (Deu. 12:2-4). Its monuments to be overturned, and its places swept away that God might come down and dwell among them.

II. Worship localised in its position (Deu. 12:4-5). God would select a spot to which Israel must resort, institute a worship which should appeal to the senses, and teach the truth that where His people meet there He dwells. (1Ki. 8:29; 2Ch. 7:12.)

III. Worship joyful in its nature (Deu. 12:7). There was enough in Israels past and present history to make them joyful. It is Gods will that we should serve Him with gladness, and never cover His. altar with tears. (Mal. 2:13.) Religion should never be a task or drudgery, but a pleasure. God commands those who worship Him to be joyful. Neither be ye sorry, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.

IV. Worship Divine in its regulations. God only knows and prescribes what is acceptable to Him. We must not follow custom, nor devise for ourselves. In papal ceremonies and the worship of images we have ingenuity graven by art and mans device (Act. 17:29)a show of wisdom in will worship (worship arbitrarily invented, devised by self-will, not by God, and which has a reputation of wisdom.) (Col. 2:23.)

V. Worship obligatory in its ritual. There was room for vows, free-will offerings and voluntary efforts; yet the worship was binding upon all. The command was peremptory. Households and tribes must come to the appointed place (Deu. 12:6). They must bring the kind of offerings specified, and no other. It is our duty to recognise God as our protector (Deu. 12:10) and proprietor. Our attendance in His house should not be matter of form or custom, but of conscience.

Return, my senses, range no more abroad;
He only finds his bliss who seeks for God.Parnell.

THE CHOSEN PLACE.Deu. 12:4-6

The name of the place is not mentioned by Moses. Different places were chosen in after times, Mizpeh, Shiloh and Jerusalem. This studied silence was maintained partly lest the Canaanites, within whose territory it lay, might have concentrated their forces to frustrate all hopes of obtaining it; partly lest the desire of possessing a place of such importance might have become a cause of strife or rivalry amongst the Hebrew tribes, as about the appointment to the priesthood. (Numbers 16.)Jamieson

I. An assertion of Gods right to every place. All the earth belongs to God. He has perfect right to appropriate any spot. The Lord hath chosen Zion; He hath desired it for His habitation. Now spiritual incense may be offered in every place. (Mal. 1:11.) There has been divine order and gradual revelation in the worship of God; but the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father. The heart, spirit and truth are required more than place. (Joh. 4:21-24.)

II. A Dwelling place for God. To put His name there. Gods name is in every place, where He specially reveals Himself (cf. 1Ki. 8:29), and which is therefore His habitation or dwelling place. The God of heaven will indeed dwell with men upon earth. God is specially present in His housea place distinguished by His presencedetached from secular pursuits, and attended by true worshippersthe most solemn and attractive place on earth. How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. (Gen. 28:17.)

III. An aid to unity. To this chosen place all the tribes were to repair several times a year. The meeting would thus counteract local interests, tribal jealousies, and feuds. Like the Grecian games the festivals would cultivate national feeling and act as a bond of union. They were not merely commemorations of great events, but occasions for the reunion of friends, the enjoyments of hospitality and interchange of kindness. They opened the heart to joy and gave a welcome to the stranger and the fatherless. The Christian Church is a unity of many people, the centre of friendships and joys. Jerusalem is builded (the well built one) as a city that is compact together (in unity), whither the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, unto the testimony of Israel (i.e., a law or custom to Israel, or a testimony to Israels covenant). (Psa. 120:3-4.)

IV. A preservative of purity. That there should be one national centre for the religion of the people was obviously essential to the great ends of the whole dispensation. Had fanciful varieties of worship such as Polytheism delighted in been tolerated, the Israelites would soon have lapsed into idolatry, and the deposit of the true faith and knowledge of God would have been, humanly speaking hopelessly lost. (Speak. Com.) This holy ground, sanctified by God s presence and consecrated to His service, demands purity of motive, heart and life. Feigned holiness is a double evil, says St. Jerome. Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in His holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart, etc. (Psa. 24:3-5.)

Look to thy actions well,
For churches either are our heaven or hell.

(Geo. Herbert.)

THE BLESSINGS OF PUBLIC WORSHIP.Deu. 12:5-6

It is advantageous individually and socially to meet together in religious worship.

I. It is a necessity of our moral nature. As social beings we crave for the society of our fellowmen; as religious creatures we depend upon God and seek His presence. Worship is needful to satisfy our instincts and heartsto develope our nature and dispositions.

II. It is a bond of Christian fellowship. In this hallowed spot dearest friends meet and mingle into bliss. Here is delight with the excellent of the earth, sympathy and sweet converse with God and His people. Public prayer and praise have a sensible tendency to unite men together and to cherish and enlarge their generous affections.

III. It is an advantage to the nation. The national assembly to Israel was an immense advantage. But for public worship the greater part of mankind would have no instructionno religion at all. This diffuses knowledge among the people, unites different classes of society and preserves real godliness in the nation.

IV. It is a duty of Divine appointment. Thither shalt thou come, bring burnt offerings and eat The apostle reproved those who deserted public worship. Not forsaking the assembly of ourselves together, as the manner of some is. (Heb. 10:25.), We are not to forget the command of God, nor dispute the practice of apostolic churches and Christian communities in every age. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God.

THE FUTURE INHERITANCE.Deu. 12:9-10

Canaan is here described in a way adapted to the condition of Israel and may typify the future portion of the believer.

I. The description given.

1. A rest; the rest. This is the scene of combat, not of rest. At the end of the journey, will be peace, quietness and assurance for ever. My chief conception of heaven is perfect rest, said Robert Hall.

2. An inheritance not gained by hereditary succession, merit, or human friendship; but prepared for the saints in lightan inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and fadeth not away.

3. A gift. The Lord your God giveth youa pure, munificent, and unparalled gift in Christ Jesus. Denoting great love, freeness and blessing.

4. A dwelling. So that ye dwell in safety. Beautiful in situation, secure in possessions, it stands securely high, indissolubly sure. The metropolis of the universe, the abode of saints, the palace of angels, and the residence of the Great King.

O ye blest scenes of permanent delight!
Full without measure! Lasting beyond bound!
A perpetuity of bliss, is bliss.
Could you, so rich in rapture, fear an end,
That ghastly thought would drink up all your joy,
And quite imparadise the realms of light.

II. The relation to this inheritance indicated. Ye are not as yet come to the rest. Gods people are seeking it and will attain it. Many come near but do not enter it. Hence all should take warning, be encouraged, and strive to enter it. It is the best of all blessings, said David Stoner, to die well, and get safely home to heaven. Arise ye and depart, for this is not your rest.

HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS

Deu. 12:1.

1. The duty. Observe to do. Weighty and most important.

2. Method of performing it. (a) Considerately observe. (b) Continually all the days ye live upon earth. A sense of duty pursues us ever. It is omnipresent like the Deity.J. Webster.

The path of duty is the way to glory.

Tennyson.

Deu. 12:2-3. Destruction of idolatry. A divine command. A prudent policy. A good example. We easily fall into idolatry; for we are inclined thereunto by nature, and coming to us by inheritance, it seems pleasant.Luther.

Deu. 12:5.

1. The place. The heathen sought and worshipped gods of nature wherever they could discern any trace of Divinity.

2. The name. The name indicates the manifestation of his presence in the place; presents his personality, as comprehended in the word Jehovah, in a visible sign, the tangible sign of his essential presence. (Keil.)

3. The seeking. Not merely turn in a certain direction; but to inquire for something. Hence come to Gods house for a purpose, in anxiety to fulfil that purpose. Not to seek entertainment, for it is not a place of amusement (Eze. 33:22); nor to attend with worldlimindedness; for it is not the house of merchandise (Luk. 19:45-46). We must not profane it by sinful indulgence and Satans service (Jas. 1:21). Attend with serious consideration, constant watchfulness and deep concern to obtain Gods blessing.

Deu. 12:7; Deu. 12:12. Joyful Worship. This joy springs

1. From Divine goodness, past and present.

2. Great numbers, households and tribes.
3. Reciprocal feeling, warm hearts will create joy in prayer and praise and vibrate like chords in harmony. There is a place for song as well as meditation in the sanctuary. Thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God.

Deu. 12:9. Not come to the rest. No more are any of us indeed, till we come to that rest which remaineth for the people of God. (Heb. 4:3; Heb. 4:8-10). The ark was transportive till settled in Solomons temple; so till we come to heaven are we in continual unrest.(Trapp). Learn:

1. The insufficiency of earthly bliss; both to the believer and unbeliever.
2. The nature of heavenly bliss. Complete, perpetual and certain. Causes of evil and distress removed, and communications of glory beyond description.

THE SACREDNESS OF BLOOD.Deu. 12:16; Deu. 12:20-23

The prohibition to use blood is most distinct and often repeated, and that for many reasons.

I. Blood sacred as an article of food. In Pagan and uncivilised nations it was the custom to eat flesh whilst quivering with life and to drink blood mixed with wine, as a right of idolatrous worship. (cf. 1Sa. 14:32; Eze. 33:25; Acts 15.) But when animal food was granted to man it was forbidden to eat flesh with its soul, its blood. (Gen. 9:4.) The body may become food, but the blood, the life of the body which is the gift of God must be treated with reverence and reserved for Him.

II. Blood sacred as an emblem of life. Blood is the seat, the source of life. It contains the vital principle of all animal life, For it is the life of all flesh, (Deu. 12:14). Man is man only by virtue of his blood, and nature is chiefly admirable as supplying its ingredients.(Grindon.) Blood is distinguished from all other constituents of the human body. It is the fountain of life, the first to live and last to die, and the primary seat of the animal soul; it lives and is nourished of itself, and by no other part of the human body.(Harvey.) When the blood is shed the life is gone. Hence, man or beast guilty of this act must be put to death. Blood of your lives will I require. (Gen. 9:5; Exo. 21:12-28.)

Murder may pass unpunishd for a time,
But tardy justice will oertake the crime.Dryden.

III. Blood sacred as an element of expiation. As the blood was identical with the life and represented the soul of the victim, God appointed it as a substitute for the sinners life. Thus the life of the sacrifice was an atonement for the life of the offerer. It was an established rabbinical maxim that there is no expiation except by blood, a principle recognised in Heb. 9:22 without shedding of blood there is no remission. Let us be thankful that Christ died, and shed His precious blood for usblood which cleanseth from all sin and which speaketh better things than that of Abel. Never count the blood of the covenant, by which we are sanctified and saved an unholy (or common) thing (Heb. 10:29) and thus insult God and lose your soul!

DIRECTIONS IN THE CHOICE OF ANIMAL FOOD.Deu. 12:15-16; Deu. 12:20-26

The instructions concerning food were given to the Israelites in a way most convenient and generally understood at the time. God separated His people from others and all their laws reminded them of His covenant. Even laws of diet and regulations in the choice of food were given to teach dependence and enforce obedience.

I. Food in its benevolent design. Life requires for its maintenance constant supplies of food. Creatures may fast long, but can never dispense with food altogether. We may therefore learn the goodness of God in caring for the body, in providing sufficient and wholesome food, and in the enjoyment and strength which it gives. Since food is necessary we are taught to labour and pray for its continuance. Give us this day our daily bread. In legislating for our lower nature God teaches what is wholesome and unwholesomesuggests His greater care for our higher wants, food for mind, heart and soul, and reminds us of the care which should exercise over body and soul.

II. Food in its ceremonial use. In the garden of Eden vegetables were given to man (Gen. 1:29). Animal food was granted first to Noah (Gen. 9:25). In patriarchal times food consisted of flesh of animals tame and wild, as well as cereals. In the wilderness supplies came from heaven. In the promised land special rules were given as to kind of animals to be used. (Leviticus 11, Deuteronomy 14.) The Israelites were not to eat animals which were unclean, which were offered to idols (Exo. 34:15); and which had been torn by wild beasts (Lev. 22:8 cf. Eze. 4:14). All animals for food had formerly to be killed at the door of the tabernacle (Lev. 16:1-8), but in view of entrance into the land the prohibition is relaxed. More liberty was given, but the blood of the animal was prohibited to prevent ferocity in men towards lower creatures and profanation of a sacred element. The separation of animals into clean and unclean would remind Israel of their separation from the nations. They were not to join in convivals feasts and social banquets of idolaters. Their ordinary meals must be chosen with care and eaten in gratitude. We must be temperate, orderly and obedient in the government of the table, and exercise control over appetites and desires. Touch nothing unclean, regard the sanctity of life and let thanks giving be offered with daily food. (1Ti. 4:4-5.) Whether, therefore, ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.

HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS

Deu. 12:16. The prohibition of blood. To elucidate this ordinance, I shallI. Confirm the fact here stated. God had from the beginning appointed the blood of animals to be offered by man as an atonement for his soul. This appears throughout all the Mosaic history and the New Testament II. Consider the prohibition as founded on it. It was most salutary as tending

1. To excite reverence for sacrifices.
2. To bring continually to remembrance the way of salvation.
3. To direct attention to the great sacrifice.C. Simeon, M.A.

Deu. 12:20-26. Laws of diet.

1. Founded upon Gods will.
2. Related to the health of the people. Most of animals forbidden are unclean and unwholesomeothers injurious in warm countries. To please the appetite is often prejudicial to health.
3. Designed to promote religions sanctity. We must be separate from all uncleanness; in religious worship and in the common acts of life. Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things; for in all these the nations are defiled, which I cast out before you.

Heres neither want of appetite no mouths;
Pray heaven we be not scant of meat or mirth.Shakespeare.

THE LEVITE.Deu. 12:19

This frequently recurring description of the Levites (cf. Deu. 12:18, Deu. 14:27; Deu. 16:11; Deu. 16:14; Deu. 18:6; Deu. 26:12), does not assume that they were homeless, which would be at variance with the allotment of towns for them to dwell in (Numbers 35); but simply implies what is frequently added in explanation that the Levites had no part nor inheritance, no share of the land as their hereditary property, and in this respect resembled strangers (Deu. 14:21; Deu. 14:29; Deu. 16:11). And the repeated injunction to invite the Levites to the sacrificial meals is not at variance with Num. 18:21, where the tithes are assigned to the tribe of Levi for their maintenance. For, however ample this revenue may have been according to the law, it was so entirely dependent upon the honesty and conscientiousness of the people that the Levites might very easily be brought into a straitened condition, if indifference toward the Lord and his servants should prevail throughout the nation.Keil.

I. The Levites, servants of the people. They were appointed to teach and officiate for Israel before God and thus prevent the anger of God from coming upon the people (cf. Num. 8:18-22.) They were given to the people and depended upon their help and generosity, designed to train them for service and not absolve them from duty. In heathen countries the priestly caste was hereditary, wealthy, and held much of the land (cf. Gen. 47:2), but the Levites had no landed property, were servants of God and the people. Behold I have taken your brethren the Levites from among the children of Israel; to you they are given as a gift for the Lord, to do the service of the tabernacle of the congregation (Num. 17:6).

II. The Levites, servants of God. God claimed them as the first-born, separated and cleansed them. They were dedicated to him as Israels representatives in holy work. They had no worldly portion in houses and land. The avenues to wealth and power were closed to them. God alone was their inheritance in the riches of His grace and the resources of His providence.

WARNING AGAINST SNARES.Deu. 12:29-32

During the sojourn in Egypt Israel became familiar with the customs of idolatry. From this idolatry they were scarcely weaned. Since the forms of licentiousness were worse in the land which they were to inherit, there was need of caution. Forewarned, forearmed.

I. The need of warning. In circumstances most favourable and secure there is need of watchfulness and prayer.

1. The dangers were great. Take heedEvils might be vivid, abominable, and cruel, but familiarity would weaken resistance and ensnare. The vices of a companion and of society may be gross and palpable to others, yet (says Shakespeare) a friendly eye cannot see such faults.

2. The attractions were strong. Idol worship was ancient and prevalent. Fashions are often popular and attractive. Do at Rome what Rome does is the rule of many. But conscience must be regarded, and the command of God obeyed.

3. The foe was conquered, not subdued. Sins may revive, and habits not broken may regain their dominion and tyranny. Men may cease to swear and forsake intemperate ways, and yet be afterwards ensnared. Pity for the enemy, and dependence upon resolves, must not throw us off our guard.

II. The consequences of neglecting the warning. There must be no curiosity, no parley, but constant regard to the word of God.

1. Neglect would offend God. Idolatry was hateful to God, and if guilty we lose His favour and protection. We must hate what He hates, and assimilate our tastes and habits to His. We shall never err, if we observe to do His commandments.

2. Neglect would bring ruin upon themselves. Idolatry had been the overthrow of Pharaoh, and the destruction of surrounding nations. It will bring utter ruin to individuals and nations who persist in it. Israel sadly fell by neglecting this caution. (Jer. 32:35; Eze. 23:37.) They followed vanity and became vain, and went after the heathen that were round about them, concerning whom the Lord had charged them, that they should not do like them. (2Ki. 17:15.)

HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS

Deu. 12:25. Not eat. Who can ever think any commandment of God to be light or little, when this of not eating the blood is charged with so much strictness? The minutula of the law, as well as the magnalia, must be carefully heeded and practised.Trapp.

Deu. 12:29. Cut off nations. God in the history of nations.

1. Appointing their lot. (Jos. 23:4).

2. Robbed of their inheritance. God shall cut off the nations.
3. Succeeding to their possessions. Thou succeedest them.

4. Secure in their dwelling and dwellest in the land. The life of a nation, says Dr. Arnold, is to me as distinct as that of an individual. The Lord is governor among the nations. (Psa. 22:28; 1Ch. 16:31.)

Deu. 12:31. Idolatry.

1. Abominable to God.
2. Cruel to humanity.
3. Easily fallen into. We are inclined thereunto by nature, and coming to us by inheritance, it seems pleasant.Luther.

Deu. 12:31.

1. The command a rule of duty. Observe to do it.
2. A complete rule of duty. Thou shalt not add, nor diminish. Add by pretending to have received similar divine revelations and persuading men to believe them, as Mahomet and others; diminish, by taking from them, denying them to be from God, and acting contrary to them. From these words it is evident that the Jews were not to add any other rites of worship of their own devising, or from the idolatrous customs of those countries, nor omit any of those which God had commanded them to use, For if they had used any of the Gentile ceremonies, whereby they honoured their gods, it would easily have introduced the worship of the gods themselves; and if they had omitted any of the rites which God had ordained, some other would have easily stepped into their room which were used by idolators.Wilson.

ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 12

Deu. 12:1-4. Destroy. This is a very important law: in this world, unhappily, names are often things; for whenever a party wish to get power, a party holding erroneous doctrines, the first thing they do is to establish titles; and when they have got titles, they soon follow them up by asserting realities. And therefore it is very wisely provided here that not only should the scenes, the altars, and the groves, all be overturned, as having been desecrated by practices that were abominable in the sight of a holy God, but that even the very names that might remind of that superstition that had passed away should be expunged from their vocabularies, and not mentioned even in their conversation.Dr. Cumming.

Deu. 12:5-7. Place. When we remember what the policy and practice of all the kings of Israel was, viz., to draw off their subjects from the place where God set His name and to deter them from going to Judah and Jerusalem, by means of the calves of Bethel and of Dan it is not possible that Deuteronomy, requiring every Israelite to bring his sacrifice to the place which the Lord should choose to set His name there, should ever have been accepted as genuine and inspired if its genuineness and inspiration had not been incontrovertible (Bp. Wordsworth). It is a wise, a salutary, and a laudable provision of the Churchs discipline, that she sets apart, and consecrates, by solemn religious rites to Gods glory, the places which she intends for His worship; and by outward signs of decency, and reverence of majesty and holiness, impresses them with an appropriate character which, whilst it redounds to the honour of God, operates also with no mean or trivial influence on the minds of His people. A certain sense of holy pleasure is diffused over the pious and meditative mind, as soon as the feet cross the threshold which separates the house of God from common places. We feel that we are on holy ground; and a still small voice within, as we draw near to worship God in the beauty of holiness, it is good for us to be here.Bp. Mant.

Deu. 12:17-18; Deuteronomy 20 –

26. Eat. Some people have a foolish way of not minding or pretending not to mind what they eat. For my part, I mind very studiously; for I look upon it, that he who does not mind this, will hardly mind anything else. (Dr. Johnson.) Moderation is absolutely required in the lower things of life, especially in that of eating. Healthone of the greatest blessings of lifedepends upon it; so also the happy flow of spirits, without which life is at least a perfect blank.E. Davies.

Deu. 12:26. Vows.

Unheeded vows may heedfully be broken;
And he wants wit, that wants resolved will,
To learn his wit to exchange the bad for better.Shakespeare.

Deu. 12:30-32. Take heed. There is a story which tells of a bell suspended on a rock dangerous to navigation. The waves of the ocean beating upon it caused it to make a noise to keep off the approaching mariner. It is said that at one time some pirates destroyed the bell to prevent the warning. Not long after, these very pirates struck upon the rock and were lost. How many hush the voice of warning at the point of danger, and founder upon the rock of temptation and are lost for ever.McCosh.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

LESSON NINE Deu. 12:1-28

B. THE LAW (the Statutes and Ordinances) (Deu. 12:1 to Deu. 26:19)

1. ONE SANCTUARY (Deu. 12:1-28)

These are the statutes and the ordinances which ye shall observe to do in the land which Jehovah, the God of thy fathers, hath given thee to possess it, all the days that ye live upon the earth. 2 Ye shall surely destroy all the places wherein the nations that ye shall dispossess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree: 3 and ye shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and burn their Asherim with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods; and ye shall destroy their name out of that place. 4 Ye shall not do so unto Jehovah your God. 5 But unto the place which Jehovah your God shall choose out of all your tribes, to put his name there, even unto his habitation shall ye seek, and thither thou shalt come; 6 and thither ye shall bring your burnt-offerings, and your sacrifices, and your tithes, and the heave-offering of your hand, and your vows, and your freewill-offerings, and the firstlings of your herd and of your flock: 7 and there ye shall eat before Jehovah your God, and ye shall rejoice in all that ye put your hand unto, ye and your households, wherein Jehovah thy God hath blessed thee. 8 Ye shall not do after all the things that we do here this day, every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes; 9 for ye are not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance, which Jehovah thy God giveth thee. 10 But when ye go over the Jordan, and dwell in the land which Jehovah your God causeth you to inherit, and he giveth you rest from all your enemies round about, so that ye dwell in safety; 11 then it shall come to pass that to the place which Jehovah your God shall choose, to cause his name to dwell there, thither shall ye bring all that I command you: your burnt-offerings, and your sacrifices, your tithes, and the heave-offering of your hand, and all your choice vows ye vow unto Jehovah. 12 And ye shall rejoice before Jehovah your God, ye, and your sons, and your daughters, and your men-servants, and your maidservants, and the Levite that is within your gates, forasmuch as he hath no portion nor inheritance with you, 13 Take heed to thyself that thou offer not thy burnt-offerings in every place that thou seest; 14 but in the place which Jehovah shall choose in one of thy tribes, there thou shalt offer thy burnt-offerings, and there thou shalt do all that I command thee.
15 Notwithstanding, thou mayest kill and eat flesh within all thy gates, after all the desire of thy soul, according to the blessings of Jehovah thy God which he hath given thee; the unclean and the clean may eat thereof, as of the gazelle, and as of the hart. 16 Only ye shall not eat the blood; thou shalt pour it out upon the earth as water. 17 Thou mayest not eat within thy gates the tithe of thy grain, or of thy new wine, or of thine oil, or the firstlings of thy herd or of thy flock, nor any of thy vows which thou vowest, nor thy freewill-offerings, nor the heave-offering of thy hand; 18 But thou shalt eat them before Jehovah thy God in the place which Jehovah thy God shall choose, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy man-servant, and thy maidservant, and the Levite that is within thy gates: and thou shalt rejoice before Jehovah thy God in all that thou puttest thy hand unto. 19 Take heed to thyself that thou forsake not the Levite as long as thou livest in thy land.
20 When Jehovah thy God shall enlarge thy border, as he hath promised thee, and thou shalt say, I will eat flesh, because thy soul desireth to eat flesh; thou mayest eat flesh, after all the desire of thy soul. 21 If the place which Jehovah thy God shall choose, to put his name there, be too far from thee, then thou shalt kill of thy herd and of thy flock, which Jehovah hath given thee, as I have commanded thee; and thou mayest eat within thy gates, after all the desire of thy soul. 22 Even as the gazelle and as the hart is eaten, so thou shalt eat thereof: the unclean and the clean may eat thereof alike. 23 Only be sure that thou eat not the blood: for the blood is the life; and thou shalt not eat the life with the flesh. 24 Thou shalt not eat it; thou shalt pour it out upon the earth as water. 25 Thou shalt not eat it; that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee, when thou shalt do that which is right in the eyes of Jehovah. 26 Only thy holy things which thou hast, and thy vows, thou shalt take, and go unto the place which Jehovah shall choose: 27 and thou shalt offer thy burnt offerings, the flesh and the blood, upon the altar of Jehovah thy God; and the blood of thy sacrifices shall be poured out upon the altar of Jehovah thy God; and thou shalt eat the flesh. 28 Observe and hear all these words which I command thee, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee forever, when thou doest that which is good and right in the eyes of Jehovah thy God.

THOUGHT QUESTIONS 12:128

226.

Wouldnt it have been enough to simply worship the Lord in sincerity and truth and not to fight other religions? Why all the negative action?

227.

What advantage was there in one place of worship?

228.

Notice the laxity suggested in Deu. 12:8, or is this the thought of the verse?

229.

What could be slaughtered at home?

230.

What attitude was to prevail when offerings were made?

231.

What was never to be eaten?

232.

How could a Levite be forsaken?

233.

Did God permit meat eating? (cf. Deu. 12:20) What of some present-day prohibitions of flesh eating?

234.

What new rule for slaughtering animals is given Deu. 12:21?

235.

How we need to believe Gods will is both good and right, Cf. Deu. 12:28. What will help us understand this?

AMPLIFIED TRANSLATION 12:128

These are the statutes and ordinances which you shall be watchful to do in the land, which the Lord, God of your fathers, gives you to possess all the day you live on the earth.
2 You shall surely destroy all the places where the nations you dispossess served their gods, upon the high mountains and the hills and under every green tree;
3 You shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and burn their Asherim with fire; you shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy their name out of that place.
4 You shall not behave so toward the Lord your God.
5 But you shall seek the place which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put His name and make His dwelling-place, and there shall you come;
6 And there you shall bring your burnt offerings, and your sacrifices, your tithes, and the offering of your hands and your vows, and your freewill offerings, and the firstlings of your herd and of your flock;
7 And there you shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice in all to which you put your hand, you and your households, in which the Lord your God has blessed you.
8 You [31]shall not do according to all we do here [in the camp] this day, every man doing whatever looks right in his own eyes.

[31] It has been too much overlooked that the Law of Moses had a prophetic side. It was given to him and to Israel when they were not in a position to keep it [fully]. It was the law of the land which God would give them. In many ways its observance depended on the completion of the conquest of the land, and upon the quietness of the times in which they lived. This prophetic aspect was certainly not unrecognized by the Jews, or they would not (for example) have neglected to dwell in booths at the Feast of Tabernacles from the time of Joshua to Nehemiah. See Neh. 8:17. (Ellicotts Commentary.)

9 For you have not yet come to the rest and to the inheritance which the Lord your God gives you.
10 But when you go over the Jordan and dwell in the land which the Lord your God causes you to inherit, and He gives you rest from all your enemies round about, so that you dwell in safety,
11 Then there shall be a place which the Lord your God shall choose to cause His name [and His presence] to dwell there; to it you shall bring all that I command you; your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, and what the hand presents [as a first gift from the fruits of the ground], and all your choicest offerings which you vow to the Lord.
12 And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your sons and your daughters, and your menservants and your maidservants, and the Levite that is within your towns; since he has no part or inheritance with you.
13 Be watchful not to offer your burnt offerings in every place you see;
14 But in the place which the Lord shall choose in one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall do all I command you.
15 However, you may kill and eat flesh in any of your towns, whenever you desire, according to the provision for the support of life with which the Lord your God has blessed you; those [ceremonially] unclean and the clean may eat of it, as of the gazelle and the hart.
16 Only you shall not eat the blood; you shall pour it upon the ground as water.
17 You may not eat within your towns the tithe of your grain or of your new wine or of your oil or the firstlings of your herd or flock, or anything you have vowed, or your freewill offerings, or the offerings fom your hand [of garden products].
18 But you shall eat them before the Lord your God in the place which the Lord your God shall choose, you and your son and your (laughter, your manservant and your maidservant, and the Levite that is within your towns; and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God in all that you undertake.
19 Take heed not to forsake or neglect the Levite [Gods minister] as long as you live in your land.
20 When the Lord your God enlarges your territory, as He promised you, and you say, I will eat flesh, because you crave flesh, you may eat flesh, whenever you desire.
21 If the place where the Lord your God has chosen to put His name [and presence] is too far from you, then you shall kill from your herd or flock which the Lord has given you, as I [Moses] have commanded you; eat in your towns as much as you desire.
22 Just as the roebuck and the hart is eaten, so you may eat of it [but not offer it]; the unclean and the clean alike may eat of it.
23 Only be sure that you do not eat the blood; for the blood is the life; and you may not eat the life with the flesh.
24 You shall not eat it; you shall pour it out on the earth like water.
25 You shall not eat it; that all may go well with you and with your children after you, when you do what is right in the sight of the Lord.
26 Only your holy things which you have [to offer], and what you have vowed, you shall take, and go to the place [before the sanctuary] which the Lord shall choose,
27 And offer your burnt offerings, the flesh and the blood, upon the altar of the Lord your God; and the blood of your sacrifices shall be poured out on the altar of the Lord your God, and you may eat the flesh.
28 Be watchful and obey all these words which I command you, that it may go well with you and with your children after you for ever, when you do what is good and right in the sight of the Lord your God.

COMMENT 12:128

Note here, that in anticipation of their stay in Canaan, God demands that Israel have one central sanctuaryhis offerings are to be made in one place, and other offering places are to be destroyed (Deu. 12:1-14). Then, in Deu. 12:15-18 note that flesh, but not the blood nor consecrated things, could be eaten at home.

THE NATIONS . . . SERVED THEIR GODS, UPON THE HIGH MOUNTAINS, AND UPON THE HILLS, AND UNDER EVERY GREEN TREE (Deu. 12:2)Cf. Isa. 57:5; Isa. 57:7; Jer. 2:20; Jer. 3:6; Jer. 17:1-2; Hos. 4:13; 2Ki. 16:4; 2Ki. 17:10. The heathen had their places of worship on lofty elevations, probably because they imagined they were thus nearer to the object of their worship; and they sought also the shade of woods, or thick-foliaged trees (Eze. 6:13), under which to perform their rites, as tending to inspire awe, and as in keeping with the mysterious character of their rites. (Pulpit Commentary)

AND YE SHALL BREAK DOWN THEIR ALTARS . . . etc. (Deu. 12:3)Cf. Deu. 7:5 and notes. The destructive process was to be complete and total: AND YE SHALL DESTROY THEIR NAME OUT OF THAT PLACE. No vestige or reminder of idolatry and the carnal rites that accompanied such worship were to remain in the land. As we have already seen in the names Baal-peor and Beth-peor (Deu. 3:29, Deu. 4:3; Deu. 4:46), the names traceable to the idolatry of the land were everywhere in Canaan. A check with a concordance will show many names with the prefix Baalexisting in the land when Israel conquered it. Clarke mentions that these names were no doubt at first graven on the stones, and carved on the trees, and then applied to the surrounding districts. In various instances the names of whole mountains, valleys, and districts were borrowed from the gods worshipped there.

YE SHALL NOT DO SO UNTO JEHOVAH (Deu. 12:4)i.e., he is not to be worshipped (formally) in any place you might deem convenient (Deu. 12:2) and certainly not in the manner the heathen do (Deu. 12:3).

BUT UNTO THE PLACE WHICH JEHOVAH YOUR GOD SHALL CHOOSE . . . (Deu. 12:5 ff)A particular place for the general rendezvous of all the tribes would be chosen by God himself; and the choice of one common place for the solemn rites of religion was an act of divine wisdom, for the security of true religion; it was admirably calculated to prevent the corruption which would otherwise have crept in from their frequenting groves and high hillsto preserve uniformity of worship, and keep alive their faith in Him to whom all their sacrifices pointed. The place was successively Mizpeh [or Mizpah, A.S.V., in Judah, near Gilgal; Jdg. 20:1; Jdg. 20:5; 1Sa. 7:5-9. Not to be confused with the Mizpah in Genesis, which was east of the Jordan], Shiloh [Jos. 18:1; Jdg. 18:31; Jdg. 21:19; 1Sa. 1:3], and especially Jerusalem [conquered by David, 2Sa. 5:4-10, 1Ch. 11:4-9]; but in all the references made to it by Moses, the name is never mentioned . . . We can only conjecture at the reason for this silence. The above quote is taken from Robert Jamieson, who continues, and this studied silence was maintained partly lest the Canaanites within whose territories it lay might have concentrated their forces to frustrate all hopes of obtaining it; partly lest the desire of possessing a place of such importance might have become a cause of strife or rivalry amongst the Hebrew tribes, as about the appointment to the priesthood (Numbers 16).

TO PUT HIS NAME THERE (Deu. 12:5)i.e., the place God would designate as his special place of worshipeventually Jerusalem. See 1Ki. 8:27-29; also 2Ch. 7:11-12; 2Ch. 7:15-16. Back in Exo. 20:24 it was specified that an altar was to be built and sacrifices to be made in every place where I record my name . . .i.e. any place where he specially manifests himself as present. The temple at Jerusalem was in later times known as the place of the name of Jehovah (Is. Deu. 18:7), the dwelling place of his glory (Psa. 26:8) The reference here, therefore, is quite general, and applies to any place where, by the Divine appointment, the tabernacle might be set up and the worship of Jehovah instituted.

THERE YE SHALL EAT (Deu. 12:7)This statement, and the similar ones later in the chapter, are not incompatible with Num. 18:18, which specifies that the flesh of the sacrifices was to be given to the priest. An explanation is found in the Pulpit Commentary thus: The animal belonged originally to the offerer; when he brought it before the Lord part of it was consumed on the altar, part of it was assigned to the priest, and the rest, as a matter of course, remained with himself. The law in Numbers, addressed to the priest, intimates what he might claim as his portion; the law in Deuteronomy, where the people are addressed, directs them how to use the portion that remained with them. It may be added that, even supposing that all the flesh was given to the priest, yet, as it had to be consumed on the day in which the sacrifice was offered, and as every clean person in the house might partake of it, it is almost certain that the offerer would, as a matter of course, share in the meal, as was usual in the case of sacrificed meals. McGarvey adds concerning both Deu. 12:6-7, Here they are told to eat, but they are not told which they shall eat of the various offerings mentioned. We know, however, from other legislation, that they were not to eat of the burnt offerings, which were totally consumed on the altar. They were not to eat of the heave-offering, which was to be consumed by the priest and his family; and, if the law in Numbers had been already given, they were not to eat of the firstlings. But other legislation gave them the right to eat of the tithes, of the free-will offerings, and of the offerings in fulfillment of vows. When, then, they were told to bring all these offerings to the place that God would choose, and to eat there, they were necessarily restricted in their eating to these three classes of offerings, the others having been forbidden.

THE LEVITE . . . FORASMUCH AS HE HATH NO PORTION NOR INHERITANCE WITH YOU (Deu. 12:12)See also Deu. 12:18-19, Deu. 26:11-13; Deu. 14:27, Deu. 10:9 and notes, and elsewhere in this chapter. Remarking on the statement about the Levites in Deu. 12:19, Clarke says, These had no inheritance, and were to live by the sanctuary: if therefore the offerings were withheld by which the Levites were supported, they of course must perish. Those who have devoted themselves to the service of God in ministering to the salvation of the souls of men, should certainly be furnished at least with all the necessaries of life. Those who withhold this from them sin against their own mercies, and that ordinance of God by which a ministry is established for the salvation of souls.

OFFER NOT THY BURNT OFFERINGS IN EVERY PLACE THAT THOU SEEST (Deu. 12:13)which was, of course, exactly what the heathens did in their idolatrous worship (Deu. 12:2). The period of Judges provides a grim commentary on the breaking of this command, for there, again and again Israel did every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes (Deu. 12:8, Cf. Jdg. 17:6; Jdg. 21:25)always to their degradation and shame. And even thought they had no king in those days, the law of God had been given, and if it had been taught as it should have been (Deu. 6:6-9) it would not have taken the brute force and legislation of a king to enforce it.

Mackintosh here gives us another of his many excellent remarks. Concerning the centralized worship so clearly demanded in this chapter, he says, Here was the one grand and all-important point. It was the dwelling-place of Jehovah which was dear to the heart of every true Israelite. Restless self-will might desire to run hither and thither, the poor vagrant heart might long for some change, but, for the heart that loved God, any change from the place of His presence, the place where He had recorded His blessed name, could only be a change for the worse. The truly devout worshipper could find satisfaction and delight, blessing and rest, only in the place of the divine presence; and this, on the double ground,the authority of His precious word and the powerful attractions of His presence. Such an one could never think of going anywhere else. Whither could he go? There was but one altar, one habitation, one Godthat was the place for every right-minded, every true-hearted Israelite. To think of any other place of worship would, in his judgment, be not only a departure from the word of Jehovah, but from His holy habitation.

THOU MAYEST KILL AND EAT FLESH WITHIN ALL THY GATES (Deu. 12:15)(also Deu. 12:6; Deu. 12:17-18), They were to beware of offering sacrifice in any place that might seem to them best; their offerings were to be presented only in that place which God should choose. But this did not imply that they were not to kill and eat in their own abodes whatever they desired for food, But . . .

YE SHALL NOT EAT THE BLOOD (Deu. 12:16; Deu. 12:23-24). See also Gen. 9:4; Lev. 7:26; Lev. 17:10-14; Act. 15:19-20; Act. 15:28-29. Note the reason given: it contains the life. It is the life stream of the human body. No part of the body can live without this red fluid. It carries oxygen and food to every part of the body, fights disease, and helps the body get rid of wastes. Modern medicine would only Amen the statement of this verse, but witness the practice of bloodletting (the process of drawing blood from the body in treatment of disease) which surgeon-barbers practiced for so many yearsa practice which usually only weakened the body. (Polycythemia, a disease in which the blood cells grow too rapidly, is one of the few maladies that is today treated by bloodletting).

The fact that the life is in the blood cannot, of course be separated from the grand plan of the redemption of the world through the Saviour. Shedding his blood in the sacrifice of himself, he gave his perfect life for our sinful ones.

THOU MAYEST NOT EAT WITHIN THY GATES THE TITHE OF THY GRAIN, etc. (Deu. 12:17)This was not to say they could not also partake of such items when they brought them in as offerings (Note Deu. 12:6-7; Deu. 12:18; Deu. 12:26) but they were not to do so within thy gates.

These are the offerings which they would be most tempted to partake of at their homes; and this accounts for the repetition. It seems from this that, while not commanded to eat of the firstlings, they were permitted to do so [See Deu. 15:19-23. The case, then, is like that of the tithes, which though given to the Levites, the giver was permitted to have one feast from them with the Levites, at the time of delivering them to the latter. This provision is not contradictory to the one that gave the firstlings to the priests, but an addition to it by which the offered was permitted to have one feast with the priests who received them . . .

It provided only for a single meal out of the tithe before it was left for the Lords ministrythe priests and Levites . . . [And here McGarvey refers to a custom of his day that, with the details altered, still exists among many churches]. There is a custom in modern times, though not known in the established churches of the Old World, which illustrates the sacred feasts of Deuteronomy. The members of a congregation often gather at the house of the minister, bringing with them various articles of food to supply his storeroom for months to come; yet the whole company remains to have a feast with the family out of what has been brought. The feast adds a charm to the occasion, and increases the good will of both the givers and the receiver. Such was the evident intention of the feast given on the occasion of delivering the tithe to the Levites (McGarvey Authorship, pp. 102, 103, 64, 67).

FORSAKE NOT THE LEVITE (Deu. 12:19)See also Deu. 12:12, notes; Deu. 14:27. As we have already seen, the Levites had no property as a tribe, though they did have towns allotted to them among the different tribes. (Numbers 35)forty-eight cities with their suburbs (pasture-lands), including the six cities of refuge. Thus they were dispersed throughout the land and are described as within the gates of the rest of the people.

Dependent as they were upon Israel for support, what could they do if it was withheld? All depended on the conscientiousness of the individual tithe-payer. It is easy to see that an income of this sort was in the highest degree precarious, and that in times of religious declension, the body of the Levites would be reduced to great straits. These facts sufficiently account for the reiterated injunctions not to forsake the Levite. but to include him in every festive gathering. Three reasons for his liberal support: 1. His calling deprived him of the usual means of livelihood. 2. His office was one of service for the people. 3. His relation to the altar made neglect shown to him a dishonour done to God. (J. Orr, in Pulpit Com.).

Pauls application to the Christian ministry (1Co. 9:6-14) is obvious. The principle is, that if a man gives his life to a particular pursuit, is it asking too much if he derives a decent living from that work, and from the people served in that work? Some ministers (as Paul) may be able to resort to some kind of secular labor with relative ease and little hindrance to their ministry, especially when a wife and children are not being supported by their income. But how often today it is true that a minister has so devoted himself to study, prayer, and the ministry of the word (cf. Act. 6:4) that he is virtually unable to support himself and his family except by this means. And what if the volunteer and generous support of the church fails? Frequently, it means embarrassment, humiliation, and a lowering of his office in the eyes of the community, It is honorable for anyone to labor, working with his hands the thing that is good, but how much more honorable when those who deserve the support of the Israel of God, his church, receive those material things necessary to live respectfully in a community. Are you ignorant of the fact that those who minister sacred things take part of the sacred food of the Temple for their own use, and those who attend the altar have their share of what is placed on the altar? On the same principle the Lord has ordered that those who proclaim the Gospel should receive their livelihood from those who accept the Gospel (1Co. 9:13-14, J.B. Phillips). Forsake not the Levite,nor his present-day counterpart!

IF THE PLACE WHICH JEHOVAH THY GOD SHALL CHOOSE . . . BE TOO FAR FROM THEE, etc. (Deu. 12:21, see also Deu. 14:22-27)In Lev. 17:3 ff. it is specified that every animal designed for food, whether ox, goat, or lamb, was during the abode in the wilderness ordered to be slain as a peace offering at the door of the tabernacle, Its blood was to be sprinkled, and its fat burnt upon the altar by the priest, The encampment, being then round about the altar, made this practice (probably commanded to prevent idolatry) easy and practical. But on their arrival in Canaan the obligation to slay at the tabernacle was to be dispensed with, and the people left at liberty to prepare their meat in their own homes, if necessary.

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

XII.

(1) These are the statutes and judgments.The word Mitzvahcommandment, or dutyis not used here. Particular institutions and requirements are now before us.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

2. Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, etc. The Hebrew word translated places ( makom) is almost the exact equivalent of the modern mukam or makam. In speaking of the tenacity with which old religious customs have been kept up, C. Clermont Gann-vean ( Survey of Western Palestine, p. 324) says: “Not only have the fellaheen, as Robinson conjectured, preserved by the erection of their Mussulman kubbehs and their fetichism for certain large, isolated trees the site and the souvenirs of the hill sanctuaries and shady groves which were marked out for the execration of the Israelites on their entry into the Promised Land, but they pay them almost the same veneration as did the Canaanites whose descendants they are. These makoms, as Deuteronomy calls them, which Manasseh rebuilt and against which the prophets in vain exhausted their invectives, are word for word, thing for thing, the Arabic makams, whose little white-topped cupolas are dotted so picturesquely over the mountainous horizon of central Judea.”

Which ye shall possess Better rendered, whom you are dispossessing.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Deu 12:5 But unto the place which the LORD your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put his name there, even unto his habitation shall ye seek, and thither thou shalt come:
Deu 12:5 “But unto the place which the LORD your God shall choose” – Comments – The children of Israel did not know where the place was at this time. It would be another five hundred years, during the time of King Solomon, before the Lord would clearly say that Jerusalem was the place that God had chosen (2Ch 7:12). Although God chose the earthly Jerusalem during the period of the Old Testament, He will further fulfil this promise by preparing a place for the Church in heaven (Joh 14:1-2).
2Ch 7:12, “And the LORD appeared to Solomon by night, and said unto him, I have heard thy prayer, and have chosen this place to myself for an house of sacrifice .”
Joh 14:1-2, “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you .”
Deu 12:9 For ye are not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance, which the LORD your God giveth you.
Deu 12:10 But when ye go over Jordan, and dwell in the land which the LORD your God giveth you to inherit, and when he giveth you rest from all your enemies round about, so that ye dwell in safety;
Deu 12:9-10 Comments Israel’s Promise of Rest – Deu 12:9-10 alludes to the rest that Israel never fully obtained, according to Heb 4:8, “For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day.”
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

Concerning the Place of Worship and Sacrifices
v. 1. These are the statutes and judgments which ye shall observe to do in the land which the Lord God of thy fathers giveth thee to possess it, all the days that ye live upon the earth, Deu 4:10. The ordinances now following are intended to govern the ecclesiastical and the civil life of Israel in the land of Canaan.
v. 2. Ye shall utterly destroy all the places wherein the nations which ye shall possess, whose land they would make their own by conquest, served their gods, upon the high mountains and upon the hills, for the idea was that the worshipers were nearer to the Deity at these places, and under every green tree, for the heathen loved groves, whose mysterious shadows furnished them the religious thrill which they felt to be essential;
v. 3. and ye shall overthrow, tear down, their altars, upon which the sacrifices of idolatry were made, and break their pillars, the statues of their idols, and burn their groves with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images, demolish the pictures carved from wood, of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place, the very names which reminded them of the former idolatrous practices should be abolished.
v. 4. Ye shall not do so unto the Lord, your God, that is, not select any place that pleased their fancy for His worship.
v. 5. But unto the place which the Lord, your God, shall choose out of all your tribes to put His name there, even unto His habitation shall ye seek, and thither thou shalt come, the Sanctuary where He would reveal His presence in the midst of His people;
v. 6. and thither ye shall bring your burnt offerings, and your sacrifices, and your tithes, and heave-offerings of your hand, and your vows, and your free-will offerings, and the firstlings of your herds and of your flocks, as it had been prescribed by the Lord in Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers, Lev 17:8; Exo 10:25; Num 15:3;
v. 7. and there ye shall eat before the Lord, your God, especially the sacrificial meals connected with peace-offerings, and ye shall rejoice in all that ye put your hand unto, Lev 23:40, ye and your households, wherein the Lord, thy God, hath blessed thee. “The author takes for granted here that his hearers were familiar with what had been said by him in the earlier parts of his work, and what had become a usage among them, and does not repeat it. ”
v. 8. Ye shall not do after all the things that we do here this day, for in the wilderness the regularity of an ordered existence was impossible, for which reason many of the most sacred rites, such as that of circumcision, were not practiced, every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes, he acted according to his individual understanding of the Law, applying it to the extent he thought possible in the conditions under which he lived.
v. 9. For Ye are not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance, to the Land of Promise, where they would be able to live in peace and security, which the Lord, your God, giveth you. The Lord implied that He expected every Israelite to follow the objective rule of the divine Law just as soon as the people would occupy their inheritance in Canaan.
v. 10. But when ye go over Jordan, and dwell in the land which the Lord, your God, giveth you to inherit, and when he giveth you rest from all your enemies round about, so that ye dwell in safety,
v. 11. then there shall be a place which the Lord, your God, shall choose to cause His name to dwell there; thither shall ye bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings, and your sacrifices, your tithes, and the heave-offerings of your hand, and all your choice vows which ye vow unto the Lord; because the offerings which were made to the Lord as the result of vows were distinguished for excellence;
v. 12. and ye shall rejoice before the Lord, your God, ye, and your sons, and your daughters, and your men-servants, and your maid-servants, and the Levite that is within your gates, who was to be invited to such sacrificial meals, forasmuch as he hath no part nor in heritance with you, Deu 10:9; Deu 14:29.
v. 13. take heed to thyself that thou offer not thy burnt offerings in every place that thou seest, which might just happen to strike the worshiper’s fancy;
v. 14. but in the place which the Lord shall choose in one of thy tribes, there thou shalt offer thy burnt offerings, and there thou shalt do all that I command thee, everything connected with the cultus, with the external worship of Jehovah.
v. 15. Notwithstanding thou mayest kill and eat flesh in all thy gates, whatsoever thy soul lusteth after, or, wherever they might choose, according to the blessing of the Lord, thy God, which He hath given thee, as His rich bounty has provided; the unclean and the clean may eat thereof, as of the roebuck and as of the hart. This precept superseded and annulled the ordinance which had been observed in the wilderness, where all animals that were to be slaughtered had to be brought to the door of the Tabernacle, Lev 17:3-6.
v. 16. Only ye shall not eat the blood; ye shall pour it upon the earth as water. Cf Gen 9:4; Lev 7:26; Lev 17:10. The Lord thus changed the provisions of the Civil or Ceremonial Law to suit the needs and circumstances, whereas the ordinances of the Moral Law are in force for all time.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

EXPOSITION
ANNOUNCEMENT OF PARTICULAR LAWS.
CHAPTERS 12-26. Moses, having in his first address cast a glance at the events which had transpired between Sinai and the plains of Moab, and in his second recapitulated what had happened at Sinai, repeated the Decalogue, and urgently counseled the people to be obedient to the Divine commandment, and steadfast in their adherence to Jehovah as their God and King; proceeds now to set forth certain laws which it specially behooved them to observe. These are for the most part the same as those already recorded in the previous books; but a few are new, and are to be found only here. No special order or plan of exposition is here observed; the speaker uses that freedom of discourse which was fitting in a popular address. One or two historical narratives are interpolated; but the address as a whole is hortatory, and is designed to direct to the proper regulation of the ecclesiastical, social, and domestic life of the Israelites when they should be settled in Canaan.
Deu 12:1-32. PLACES AND MONUMENTS OF IDOLATRY TO BE DESTROYED; JEHOVAH TO BE WORSHIPPED IN THE ONE PLACE WHICH HE SHALL CHOOSE; INSTRUCTIONS AS TO THE USE OF FLESH FOR FOOD; AND CAUTIONS AGAINST BEING ENSNARED INTO FOLLOWING THE HEATHEN IN THEIR MANNER OF SERVICE.
Deu 12:1
These are the statutes and judgments (cf. Deu 4:1; Deu 6:1). Moses, as the servant of God, had taught Israel statutes and rights, as God had commanded him (Deu 4:5); and now he recapitulates the principal of these for their guidance in the way of obedience. These they were to observe all the days of their life upon the land that was to be given them; the land was the Lord’s, and there, as long as they possessed it, the Law of the Lord was to be paramount.
Deu 12:2, Deu 12:3
In order to this, Israel was, as soon as the land was possessed, to destroy all the objects and means of idolatrous worship in the land. Upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree (cf. Isa 57:7; Jer 2:20; Jer 3:6; Jer 17:2; Hos 4:13; 2Ki 16:4; 2Ki 17:10). The heathen had their places of worship on lofty elevations, probably because they imagined they were thus nearer to the object of their worship; and they sought also the shade of woods or thick-foliaged trees (Eze 6:13), under which to perform their rites, as tending to inspire awe, and as in keeping with the mysterious character of their rites. These places of heathen worship in Canaan the Israelites were utterly to destroy, along with the images of their deities and other objects of idolatrous worship. Burn their groves; their asherahs, idol-pillars of wood (cf. Deu 7:5).
Deu 12:4-6
The heathen placed their altars and offered their worship wherever they thought fit, according to their notions of the deity and his service; but Israel was not to do so unto Jehovah their God: he himself would choose the places where he was to be worshipped, and there alone might they come with offering and service. As the revealed Godthe God whose being and perfections had been made known, not by a vague revelation of him in nature merely, but expressly by his putting or recording his Name historically and locally among men (cf. Exo 20:24)so should there be a definite place chosen and appointed by him where he would come to receive the worship of his people, where he would record his Name, and where he would be known for a Refuge and a Helper to all who put their trust in him (Psa 48:3; Psa 76:1, etc.; Dan 9:18). The Name of God is God himself as revealed; and he puts his Name on any place where he specially manifests himself as present (cf. 1Ki 8:29), and which is consequently to be regarded as his habitation or dwelling-place. Hence the temple at Jerusalem was in later times known as the place of the Name of Jehovah (Isa 18:7), the dwelling-place of his glory (Psa 26:8). But he is the God of the whole earth, and therefore, wherever he is pleased to reveal himself, in whatever place he makes his Name to be known, there he is to be worshipped. There is no reference in this passage to the temple at Jerusalem specially, as some have supposed; what is here enjoined is only a practical application of the Divine promise, that in all places where God would record his Name, there he would come to bless his people (Exo 20:24). The reference here, therefore, is quite general, and applies to any place where, by the Divine appointment, the tabernacle might be set up and the worship of Jehovah instituted. Unto his habitation shall ye seek. To seek to any place means, primarily, to resort to it, to frequent it (cf. 2Ch 1:5), but with the implied purpose of inquiring there for something, as for responses or oracles, when the place resorted to was that in which God had put his Name.
Deu 12:6
To the appointed place all their sacrificial gifts and offerings were to be brought, and there they were to keep their holy feasts. The gifts are classified in groups.
1. Burnt offerings and sacrifices, the two principal kinds of altar offerings, with which meal offerings and drink offerings were united (Num 15:4, etc.).
2. Tithes and heave offerings (cf. Le 27:30-33; Num 18:21-24). The heave offerings are described as of your hand, either because offered by the offerer’s own hand, or to indicate such gifts as were made off-hand (so to speak), voluntary offerings made in addition to the legal offerings from an immediate impulse of grateful emotion.
3. Vows and freewill offerings, sacrifices which were offered in consequence of vows or of spontaneous impulse (cf. Le Deu 7:16; Deu 22:21; Deu 23:1-25 :38; Num 15:3; Num 29:39).
4. Firstlings of their herds and of their flocks (cf. Exo 13:2, Exo 13:12, etc.; Num 18:15, etc.).
Deu 12:7
And there ye shall eat before the Lord. The injunction here and in Deu 12:17, respecting the eating by the offerer of the firstlings of his flocks and herds, appears to be inconsistent with the injunction in Num 18:18. There it seems as if the whole of the flesh was to be given to the priest. “And the flesh of them shall be thine [the priest’s], as the wave breast and as the right shoulder are thine.” This may be taken to mean that just as the wave breast and the right shoulder are the perquisites of the priests in the case of other offerings, as e.g. the peace offering, so in the case of the firstling offering the whole flesh shall be the priest’s; and thus taken, the passage presents an unquestionable discrepancy to that in Deuteronomy. But probably the passage is not to be so taken. The particle translated “as” (.) not infrequently occurs in the sense of “according to, after the manner of,” implying conformity to some rule or model (Gen 44:2; Exo 21:9; Exo 39:8; Le Exo 5:10; Num 8:4; Num 9:3; Num 29:18; Ps 7:18; Zec 2:10 [6], etc.). The passage, therefore, may be rendered thus: And the flesh of them shalt thou take after the manner (or according to the rule), of the wave breast, etc; i.e. not the whole of it, but only these parts. So the LXX. seem to have taken the passage: . Of some of the offerings the whole was received by the priest, as in the case of the sin offering and trespass offering (Le Deu 6:25, etc.; Deu 7:1, etc.); while of others only certain portions, viz. the wave breast and the heave shoulder, were given to him, as in the case of the peace offering (Le 7:28, etc.). The purport of the law in Num 18:18 is that, in respect of the firstling offering, the allotment to the priest shall be after the same manner as in the peace offering. There is thus no discrepancy between the two passages. The animal belonged originally to the offerer; when he brought it before the Lord part of it was consumed on the altar, part of it was assigned to the priest, and the rest, as a matter of course, remained with himself. The law in Numbers, addressed to the priest, intimates what he might claim as his portion; the law in Deuteronomy, where the people are addressed, directs them how to use the portion that remained with them. It may be added that, even supposing that all the flesh was given to the priest, yet, as it had to be consumed on the day in which the sacrifice was offered, and as every clean person in the house might partake of it, it is almost certain that the offerer would, as a matter of course, share in the meal, as was usual in the case of sacrificial meals. Rejoice in all that ye put your hand unto; enjoy whatever your hand may gain, whatever you may earn, all the good which the Lord may give you (cf. verse 18; Deu 15:10; Deu 23:20; Deu 28:8, Deu 28:20). The phrase is peculiar to Deuteronomy; but comp. Gen 3:22; Isa 11:14.
Deu 12:8-10
In the wilderness, while leading a nomadic life, no certain place could be appointed to them for the observance of sacred rites; each man did in that matter as suited his own convenience. But after they were settled in Canaan it should no longer be so; a certain order and fixed locality should be determined for their worship and service; when they had passed over Jordan the Lord would give them rest from all their enemies, and then all irregularity and arbitrariness in the matter of worship must cease, and all their gifts arid offerings must be brought to the place which Jehovah their God should choose. Ye dwell in safety; rather, dwell securely, not only safe from assault, but without fear or anxiety (cf. Jdg 8:11; Jdg 18:7).
Deu 12:11
All your choice vows; i.e. all the vows of your choice, all that ye choose to make; the vow was purely voluntary; it became obligatory only after it was made.
Deu 12:12
Of their offerings they should make a festive meal for themselves and their household; and of this the Levite who might happen at the time to be resident among them was to partake. Rejoice before the Lord. This phrase occurs frequently in this book (Deu 14:26; Deu 16:11, Deu 16:14; Deu 26:11; Deu 27:7); elsewhere it appears only onceLev 23:40, where it is used with reference to the Feast of Tabernacles, Moses now enjoins this festivity to be observed in connection with all the sacrificial meals. The Levite that is within your gates. The Levites had no share in the land as the property of their tribe; but they had towns allotted to them among the different tribes (Num 35:1-34.), so that in this way they were dispersed through the nation. Hence, perhaps, they are described as “within the gates” of the rest of the people. Or, as the Levites seem to have itinerated in the discharge of various offices among the people, the phrase may designate them as on this account occasionally resident among others in their community; just as “the stranger that is within thy gates” means the person of some other nation who for the time being was resident in any of the towns of Israel.
Deu 12:13-16
They were to beware of offering sacrifice in any place that might seem to them best; their offerings were to be presented only in that place which God should choose. But this did not imply that they were not to kill and eat in their own abodes whatever they desired for food, according to the blessing of Jehovah their God. Only they were to abstain from eating of blood (cf. Gen 9:4; Le 7:26); that they were to pour on the earth as if it were water. Burnt offering; this is named instar omnium, as the principal offering. Whatsoever thy soul lusteth after. To “lust,” in old English, means simply to will, choose, desire; it is the same word as “list,” or, as it is sometimes spelt, “lest,” and does not, as now, imply anything evil. As of the roebuck, and as of the hart; probably the gazelle and fallow deer. As these were animals that could not be offered in sacrifice, the distinction between clean and unclean, on the part of the eaters, did not come into consideration.
Deu 12:17-19
(Cf. Deu 12:6, Deu 12:7, Deu 12:12.) Thou mayest not eat; literally, thou art not able to eat; i.e. there is a legal inability to this. So the verb to be able () is frequently used (cf. Gen 43:1-34; Num 9:6; Deu 16:5; Deu 17:15, etc.).
Deu 12:20
When the Lord thy God shall enlarge thy border. These laws were to continue in force even when God should, according to his promise (Gen 15:18; Exo 23:27-31), extend the boundaries of their land.
Deu 12:21-23
If the place.; be too far from thee; this supplies the reason for the alteration of the law in Le Deu 17:3. Only be sure; literally, only be strong; i.e. be firm and resolute, steadfastly resisting the temptation to eat it. The blood is the life (cf. Gen 9:4; Le Gen 11:1; Gen 17:11). The word used is nephesh (). By this word the Hebrews designated the animal life-principle in men and in beasts; and as without this the body was a mere inert mass, the word came to be used for “life” generally. Of this life the blood was believed to be the seat, and was regarded as the symbol, so that to shed blood was tantamount to the taking away of life. As the blood, moreover, was the life, in it was supposed to lie the propitiatory powerthe power, when shed, of atoning for sin, as the giving of life for life. The prohibition of eating it doubtless had respect to this. It was not merely to prevent ferocity in men towards the lower animals (as Rosenmller suggests) that the eating of blood was interdicted, but specially because there was in this a sort of profanation, a putting to a common use of what appertained to a sacred rite.
Deu 12:26, Deu 12:27
The holy things; i.e. the offerings prescribed by the Law; “hallowed things” (Num 18:8; cf. Le Num 21:22). Which thou hast; literally, which are to thee; i.e. which are binding on thee. Thy burnt offerings, the flesh and the blood; i.e. the flesh and the blood of the burnt offerings which were to be laid upon the altar (Le Deu 1:5-9). The blood of thy sacrifices (zebachim) shall be poured out upon the altar. This refers to the ritual of the shelamim, or peace offering (Le Deu 3:2, Deu 3:8, Deu 3:13). The word zebach () is never used in the Pentateuch of an atoning sacrifice (Oehler, ‘Theology of the Old Testament,’ 2.2); it is used only of such offerings as furnished a sacrificial meal; hence it is added here, and thou shalt eat the flesh.
Deu 12:29, Deu 12:30
Here the speaker reverts to the admonition with which he began this part of his address (Deu 12:2); and warns the people against having any intercourse with the Canaanites in their idolatrous practices. That thou enquire not after their gods. It was a general belief among the heathen that to ignore or neglect the deities of a country was sure to bring calamity (cf. 2Ki 17:26); hence the need of cautioning the Israelites against inquiring after the gods of the Canaanites when they should be settled in their land,
Deu 12:31
For even their sons and their daughters have they burnt in the fire to their gods. Elsewhere the phrase used is “make to pass through the fire “(Deu 18:10), or simply “make to pass through to Molech” (Le Deu 18:21; Jer 32:35). This has led some to maintain that the ceremony described was merely a februation, a lustration by fire, and not an actual burning alive of these victims; but there can be no doubt that both among the Ammonites and the Phoenicians, and indeed wherever the worship of Baal or Molech was followed, the offering of children in sacrifice by burning prevailed.
Deu 12:32
The admonition in this verse is best regarded as forming an intermediate link between this chapter and the following, “closing what goes before and introductory to what follows” (Keil).
HOMILETICS
Deu 12:1-32
Regulations for Divine worship: specific rules embodying permanent principles.
With this twelfth chapter an entirely new set of instructions begins. Up to this point the exhortations have been for the most part moral: now they are positive. Hitherto the precepts have been, speaking generally, concerning duties which God commanded because they were right; but from this point they concern duties which became right because God had commanded them. Of all specific directions which Moses gave to Israel, none could possibly be more important than those which had to do with the Divine worship. A true, wise, spiritual worship, established and maintained, would do very much to ensure Israel’s weal in every other respect; while if corruption was admitted and tolerated here, its ill effects would soon be seen through the length and breadth of their land. In dealing homiletically with this chapter, we must take it as a whole. To sever it into paragraphs would be to conceal its unity; taking it, however, as one, we shall see how very far more than is generally supposed, the observance of God’s worship among the Hebrews was based on everlasting principles both as to its matter and its manner; and that while there was much ritual in external forms, yet Judaism was not ritualistic in any sense which would imply the efficacy of ritual by itself to bring about spiritual results. Let us enumerate the principles which here are embodied in the directions for the worship of God. The forms in which the principles are expressed may change; the principles themselves, never!
I. HEBREW WORSHIP WAS TO BE IN ALL RESPECTS A PROTEST AGAINST SURROUNDING IDOLATRY. (Deu 12:2, Deu 12:3, Deu 12:29-31.) They were not only to carry out a policy of destruction, in sweeping from the land every vestige of ancient heathen worship (see Homily on Deu 7:1-11), but were to avoid everything like imitation of it. Theirs was a new nationality, a new deliverance, a new faith, and it must be a new kind of worship, corresponding in its purity to the holiness of Jehovah, and in its intelligence to that knowledge of him which they were expected to cultivate in themselves and hand down to others. And so now, if there are corrupt forms of worship, such as Rome’s pagan ceremonies baptized with the Christian name, the worship of God’s true Church must needs be a protest against it, and a contention for “the simplicity which is in Christ.”
II. IT WAS TO BE ACCORDING TO DIVINE DIRECTION. They might not consult their own religious sentiments, as the heathen did, in choosing e.g. the tops of the hills for worship, because they thought so to get nearer God. Israel must consult revelation, and follow it. So with the Church of God now. True, we have not such minute rites enjoined as Israel had, for we need them not now. But in our New Testament writings all needful instructions are given for those who would worship the Father in spirit and in truth.
III. THE DINIE RULES WERE TO BE PRECISELY ADHERED TO. They might not be swerved from, either by addition or diminution (Deu 12:32). This is indeed but an extension of principle No. 2; but it requires in oar day to be noticed separately; since many will admit, generally, that worship must be according to Scripture, who nevertheless also maintain that the Church may direct as to forms of worship. But we cannot forget two facts: one, that at the close of the New Testament there is a like caution and prohibition to that given here; another, that the entire course of Church history shows us that men know not where to stop when they once diverge from “the Book,” and that departures therefrom little by little, even under Church authority, do ultimately land men in the complicated and superstitious ceremonial of the Church of Rome.
IV. THERE WAS TO BE (after they were settled in Palestine) ONE PLACE WHICH GOD CHOOSE TO PUT HIS NAME THERE. And this place where God would meet with his people is called, in the beautiful Hebrew phrase, God’s rest (Deu 12:5), “his habitation” (of. Psa 132:13, Psa 132:14). Thus would God, in his condescending love, launch a new thought into the world, in a form in which the people could understand it; viz. that God’s home is with his believing worshippers. It was necessary, for a while, to associate that truth with one special place, until “the fullness of times” should come, when One should sayJoh 4:20-24; Mat 18:20; and when Christians should learn that they are the home of God (1Co 3:16; Eph 2:22).
V. TO THIS PLACE THE TRIBES WERE TO COME AND WORSHIP TOGETHER. Thus the unity of God’s redeemed people in him, would be continually before their eyes. Though the times in the year were not many when the people were thus to meet as one nation and commonwealth, yet they were frequent enough to ensure their thoughts turning thereto, either by retrospection or anticipation, from one year’s end to another. Here is the germ seed of the doctrine of the unity of God’s Church. Many tribes, one redeemed people. And is it not precisely this principle which is brought out in the New Testament, only in far grander form? (see Rev 7:1-17.; Eph 2:1-22.; Joh 17:1-26.; Rom 12:1-21.). Is not the Christian unity a union of many tribes and tongues in one deliverance, and one Deliverer?
VI. THE FORMS OF ISRAEL‘S WORSHIP WERE TO BE SUFFICIENTLY VARIED TO REFLECT THE CHANGING ASPECTS AND CIRCUMSTANCES OF LIFE. These forms are sevenfold. In each case, however, an offering was brought to God. It might be typical, symbolic, eucharistic, dedicatory, or votive. (For specific treatment of each kind, see Kurtz, and Kalisch, in loc.) There were:
1. Burnt offering.
2. Sacrifices.
3. Tithes (Deu 26:12).
4. Heave offerings. “Quae sponte dabatur Deo” (Buxtorf).
5. Vows (Psa 76:11).
6. Free-will offerings (1Ch 29:17; Deu 16:10).
7. Firstlings of herds and flocks (Exo 13:12; Nell. 10:35-37; Pro 3:9; Psa 66:13-16).
How varied! There were sacrifices of atonement and of consecration; offerings of consecration and thanksgiving. Each changing scene of life was to call forth its act of devotion to God.
VII. IT WAS TO BE A FAMILY AND HOUSEHOLD WORSHIP. (Mat 18:18.) Not the head of the house only, but the children, yea, even the little ones had their recognized place in the house of God (Mat 18:12). And the slaves too! The stranger and the sojourner might also come. The religion of the family was a keystone of Israel‘s national life; and it will be a very serious thing for any nation, if family religion comes to be slighted or ignored, never let us rob the children of their rightful place in Christian ordinances and in the house of God.
VIII. IT WAS TO BE A JOYFUL WORSHIP. Mat 18:12, “Ye shall rejoice before the Lord your God.” The pagan worship never was or could be a glad one. The heathens feared their gods, dreaded them, sought to propitiate them, but as for being glad in them because of any loving care on the part of their gods towards them, they knew nothing at all about any such blessing. But Israel did. They worshipped Jehovah, a redeeming God, who had manifested his Name to them. Hence such psalms as the twenty-third and the one hundred and third, could be prepared for their gladsome worship and song. Much more may we “Rejoice in the Lord.”
IX. ISRAEL‘S WORSHIP WAS TO BE SUPPORTED BY THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE PEOPLE. (Mat 18:19; and see Deu 18:1-8.) Thus were the people at large from the first to be educated “in giving to God,” and in maintaining, at their own cost, the worship and ordinances of God, so as to hand them down intact and untainted to their children and their children’s children. How clearly is this principle reproduced in the New Testament! (see 1Co 9:9-14). Though there is far less detail, yet it is not supposed that less will be done, but rather more; such verses as 2Co 8:7-9, how much they imply and suppose! Surely it would be well if our Churches everywhere recognized the nine principles of Divine worship which we find laid down by Moses. It may fairly be made a question whether even the purest Church is found recognizing them all; and yet, which one of the nine is repealed or even modified under the gospel? Of necessity, forms have changed. But so long as we need the ordinances of Christian worship at all, so long must we assert and maintain all that we find inculcated here: simplicity versus false ceremonialism; exact loyalty to Divine direction; recognizing the Church as “the rest” of God, where the tribes are many, but the commonwealth one; letting the worship reflect life’s varied moods; letting it be a joyous family worship, maintained and supported by our contributions and our prayers.
HOMILIES BY J. ORR
Deu 12:1-5
Destruction of monuments of idolatry.
Israel’s entrance into Canaan was the entrance of true knowledge, of pure forms of religion, of cleansed morals. The worship of Jehovah was the very antithesis of that of which these altars, pillars, and graven images, were the polluted memorials. “What did the grove conceal? Lustbloodimposture. What sounds shook the lane? Alternate screams of anguish and the laughter of mad votaries. What was the priest? The teacher of every vice of which his god. was the patron and example. What were the worshippers? The victims of every woe which superstition and sensuality can gender, and which cruelty can cherish.” (Isaac Taylor). Why should the last trace of these hateful worships not be removed from the land of God’s abode? (see on Deu 7:1-6). These commands had
I. A GROUND IN RELIGIOUS FEELING. Even the dumb memorials of iniquity will excite in pure minds feelings of horror and revulsion. It is positive pain to look upon them. The only sentiments which these monuments of a dark polytheismsuggestive of every species of wickedness, and steeped in foulness through the cruel and lustful rites once associated with themcould awaken in the minds of devout worshippers of Jehovah were those of inexpressible abhorrence. The sooner they were swept away the better. Healthy moral instincts will lead us to hate “even the garment spotted by the flesh” (Jud Deu 1:23).
II. A GROUND IN PRUDENCE. It removed from Israel’s midst what would obviously have proved a snare. Prone of their own motion to idolatry, how certainly would the people have been drawn into it had idol sanctuaries, idol altars, idol groves stood to tempt them at every corner, met their gaze on every hill-summit. A wise legislation will aim at the removal of temptations. The business of legislation, as has been well said, is to make it as easy as possible for the people to choose virtue, and as difficult as possible to choose vice.
III. A GROUND IN POLICY. The design of Moses, to gather the life and religion of the people round a central sanctuary, would plainly have been frustrated had innumerable sacred places of repute, associated with the old idolatry, been allowed to remain unshorn of their honors. On the same principle, missionaries, in order to prevent relapses into idolatry, have often found it needful to get their converts to collect their idols, and unitedly to destroy themburning them, it may be, or flinging them into some river.J.O.
Deu 12:6-29
The central sanctuary.
There are difficulties connected with this law from which conclusions have been drawn adverse to the Mosaic authorship of Deuteronomy. These arise:
1. From the lack of evidence that the law was in force in the days of the judges and earlier kings.
2. From the practice of judges, kings, prophets, and other good men in offering sacrifices elsewhere than at the prescribed center.
3. From the mention of other sanctuaries in the history (e.g. Jos 24:26; 1Sa 7:1-17 :26, LXX.). But:
1. Verse 10 shows that it was not contemplated that the law should come into perfect operation till the land was settled, and till a place for a fixed center had been definitely chosen. In point of fact, the unsettled state of matters lasted till the reign of David (2Sa 7:1). Accordingly, in 1Ki 3:2, it is not urged that, the law did not exist, or that it was not known, but the excuse is advanced for irregularities that “there was no house built unto the Name of the Lord until those days” (cf. 1Ki 8:29; 1Ki 9:9; 2Ch 6:5, 2Ch 6:6).
2. While the law lays down the general rule, it is not denied that circumstances might arise, in which under proper Divine authority, exceptional sacrifices might be offered. This fully explains the cases of Gideon (Jdg 6:18, Jdg 6:26), of Manoah (Jdg 13:16), of David (2Sa 24:18), of Solomon (1Ki 3:4, 1Ki 3:5), of Elijah (1Ki 18:31).
3. Even while the tabernacle was at Shiloh, the ark, for reasons unknown to us, was moved from place to placea circumstance which accounts for sacrifices being offered at the spots where, for the time being, it was located (Jdg 21:2). We may infer the presence of the ark in Jdg 20:26 and on various other occasions.
4. It is not fair to plead, as contradictory of the law, the falling back on local sanctuaries in periods of great national and religious disorganization, as when the land was possessed by enemies (Jdg 6:1-7), or when the ark was in captivity (1Sa 6:1) or separated from the tabernacle (2Sa 6:11); much less the prevailing neglect of this law in times of acknowledged backsliding and declension. In particular, the period following the rejection of Eli and his sons (1Sa 2:30-35) was one of unusual complications, during which, indeed, Samuel’s own person would seem to have been the chief religious center of the nation.
5. It may further be remarked that the worship at local sanctuaries, having once taken root, justified perhaps by the exigencies of the time, it would be no easy matter to uproot it again, and a modified toleration would have to be accorded. Whatever difficulties inhere in the view of the early existence of this law, it will be found, we believe, that equal or greater difficulties emerge on any other reading of the history. This law was
I. AN ASSERTION OF THE PRINCIPLE THAT GOD‘S WORSHIP MUST BE ASSOCIATED WITH HIS PRESENCE. (Jdg 20:5-11.) The sanctuary was constituted by God having “put his Name” there. Under the New Testament the worship of the Father “in spirit and in truth” is liberated from special sacred places (Joh 4:24), but the principle holds good that his being “in the midst” of his people is essential to worship being acceptable (Mat 18:20).
II. AN IMPORTANT MEANS OF KEEPING ALIVE THE SENSE OF NATIONAL UNITY. The union of the tribes was far from being close. Tribe feeling was often stronger than national feeling. A powerful counteractive to the local interests, and to the jealousies, rivalries, and feuds which tended to divide the nation, was found in the central sanctuary, and in the festivals therewith connected. Like the Olympic games in Greece, the sanctuary festivals formed a bond of unity for the entire people, helped them to realize their national distinctness, and awakened in them lofty and patriotic aspirations. In the Christian Church, everything is valuable which helps to develop the sense of catholicity.
III. A MEANS, FURTHER, OF INFUSING WARMTH AND VITALITY INTO RELIGIOUS SERVICES. In religion, as in other matters, we need to avail ourselves of social influences. We need public as well as private worship. The self-wrapt man grows cold. There is a time for outward demonstration, not less than for internal meditation. Sharing our gladness with others, it is multiplied to ourselves a hundred-fold. The importance, in this view of them, of the sanctuary festivals, was very great. They were, from the nature of the case, “events,” matters to be looked forward to with interest, and long to be remembered after they had taken place. They involved preparations, and often long journeys. Everything about themthe journey in company with neighbors, the season of the year, the friendly greetings, the exhilaration of the scene as they neared the sanctuary, the varied and solemn services at the sanctuary itselfwas fitted in a singular degree to exalt, awe, quicken, and impress their minds. Such influences, even in gospel times, are not to be despised.
IV. A COUNTERACTIVE TO IDOLATRY. It; put something in place of that which was taken away. It provided counter-attractions. Negation is not an effective instrument of reform. If we remove with one hand, we must give with the other. Our methods must be positive.J.O.
Deu 12:5-9
Public worship.
A necessity of our spiritual life. Prompted by a community of privileges, interests, feelings, hopes, duties, temptations, aspirations; “One Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph 4:3-7). It is required in it
I. THAT GOD BE PRESENT WITH HIS PEOPLE. We meet in his Name. His presence is promised (Mat 18:20). Without that presence sought and obtained, worship is in vain.
II. THAT IT BE PURE AND SCRIPTURAL. Not “will-worship” (Col 2:23); not corrupted by the ingrafting upon it of heathen superstitions. Christianity has often been thus corrupted. The papal mariolatry and worship of images, with the wholesale importation into Christianity of rites and ceremonies drawn from paganism, is a glaring instance. God forbids any mixture of the old worship with the new. The very names of the gods of the Canaanites were to be destroyed (Deu 12:3). Worldliness, not less than superstition, may intrude itself into worship, and destroy its purity (Joh 2:13-17; Jas 2:2, Jas 2:3).
III. THAT IT BE ORDERLY. (Deu 12:8.) Paul pleads for order in the Christian Church (1Co 11:1-34; 1Co 12:1-31.).
IV. THAT IT GIVE EXPRESSION TO THE VARIED WANTS OF THE RELIGIOUS NATURE. (Deu 12:6, Deu 12:7.) The prescribed sacrifices constituted a complex medium for the expression of the complex life and aspirations of the nation. It is to be noted that, save on days specially devoted to the remembrance of sins, a predominatingly joyful tone pervaded the services. This tone of joy should characterize yet more decidedly the services of Christians, coming before the Lord, as they are commanded to do, “to offer up spiritual sacrifices” (Php 4:4; Col 3:16; 1Pe 2:5).
V. THAT IT BE ASSOCIATED WITH REMEMBRANCE OF THE POOR. (Deu 12:7, Deu 12:12, Deu 12:18; Deu 16:11, Deu 16:14.) One of the first effects of Christ’s love in a heart should be to open it up in sympathy and kindness to all in need (Act 2:45; Act 4:34, Act 4:35; Rom 15:25; 1Co 12:26; 2Co 8:9.).J.O.
Deu 12:15, Deu 12:16, Deu 12:20-26
The Divine regulation of food.
All animals for food had formerly to be killed at the door of the tabernacle (Le Deu 16:1-8). Probably the rule was not strictly observed (Deu 12:8), but in view of the occupation of the land, the prohibition is relaxed. Note
I. OUR BIGHTS IN THE USE OF FOOD TAKE THEIR ORIGIN FROM GOD. This is taught in the account of creation (Gen 1:29, Gen 1:30), in the grant of flesh to Noah (Gen 9:3, Gen 9:4), in the Levitical restrictions on animal food (Lev 11:1-47.), and in passages like the present.
II. OUR MANNER OF THE USE OF FOOD OUGHT TO BE GLORIFYING TO GOD. “Eating and drinking” is to be to God’s glory (1Co 10:31).
1. God’s gift to be recognized in food. A motive for thankfulness.
2. God’s blessing to be sought upon it. The example of Christ in this respect is noteworthy (Mat 14:19, etc.).
3. Self-restraint is to be exercised in the partaking of it. The blood was not to be eaten.J.O.
Deu 12:19
The Levite.
The dues of the Levites consisted mainly of the tithes. The value of this legal provision has been frequently exaggerated. The mistake has lain in comparing it with the average of income over the whole nation, instead of with the incomes of the wealthier and middle classes. Comparing it with these, it will be found to have been liberal, but not excessive, even supposing it to have been conscientiously paid. This, however, it would seldom be. No tribunal existed to enforce payment. All depended on the conscientiousness of the individual tithe-payer. It is easy to see that an income of this sort was in the highest degree precarious, and that in times of religious declension, the body of the Levites would be reduced to great straits. These facts sufficiently account for the reiterated injunctions not to forsake the Levite, but to include him in every festive gathering. Three reasons for his liberal support:
1. His calling deprived him of the usual means of livelihood.
2. His office was one of service for the people.
3. His relation to the altar made neglect shown to him a dishonor done to God.
Paul applies, in 1Co 9:13, 1Co 9:14, to the gospel ministry.J.O.
Deu 12:29-32
Unworthy inquiries.
We have here
I. BALEFUL SUPERSTITION. The ground of these inquiries about the gods of the place was a lurking belief in their reality. There was a superstitious feeling that the woods, hills, streams, etc; must have their deities, whom it would be well to propitiate and worship. The country as a whole, and special districts of it, had gods, and, Jehovah notwithstanding, the superstitious part of the community stood in dread of them. Superstitions are hard to eradicate. We have examples in the survival of the belief in witches, fairies, charms, omens, lucky and unlucky days, etc; among ourselves. Till a recent period, it was the custom in parts of the Scottish Highlands to sacrifice bulls to local saints. And the practice of burying a live cock for the cure of epilepsy is said to survive till the present hour. Born of ignorance, and acting as a check on all enlightenment and progress, superstition is the parent of innumerable evils, besides debasing and enslaving mind and conscience. Its influence should be combated by every legitimate means.
II. PRURIENT CURIOSITY. The superstitious motive did not act alone. This itching desire to hear about the gods of the place, and how the nations served them, was symptomatic of a prurient disposition. There was, unfortunately, too much in the way in which these nations had “served their gods” to excite and interest the passions of the dissolute. It is a dangerous token when those who ought to know better begin to manifest a prurient curiosity about what is evil. It leads to prying into matters which had better remain hidden, to inquiries at persons whose very society is dangerous, to the reading of obscene books, the visiting of bad places, the keeping of immoral company, etc. At the bottom of such inquiries there is invariably a secret sympathy, which is bound, as time advances, to yield fruit in evil practices.
III. SERVILE IMITATION. The idolatry of the Israelites was signalized by a strange want of originality. They invented no gods of their own. They were content to be imitators. The nations before them had gods. The nations around them had gods. They wanted to be like the rest, and have gods toohence their inquiries. A curious illustration of the force of the principle of imitation. It is one of the ruling principles in human nature. Imitation is easier than invention. The tendency invariably is to “follow the crowd.” It matters nothing that it is “to do evil.” The fashion of the time and place must be observed. There are people who would almost rather die than be out of the fashion. Yet what a weakness is this, and how opposed to all true and right manhood! “Be not conformed to the world” (Rom 12:2).J.O.
HOMILIES BY R.M. EDGAR
Deu 12:1-3
The invasion a religious one.
The Israelites were instructed to exterminate the Canaanites in consequence of their sins, as we have already seen; but in this passage we have strict injunctions given to destroy the places of worship which the Canaanites had used, “upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree,” etc. They were, in fact, to be iconoclasts, and they were to leave no vestige remaining of the Canaanitish worship.
I. IT WAS THUS MADE EVIDENT THAT THE INVASION WAS RELIGIOUS IN ITS CHARACTER. Palestine, as we have already seen, was not a country of exceptional natural advantages. It was a good training school for a spiritual people. When the Lord, then, sent his emancipated people in to carry out such a program as the destruction of the Canaanitish worship, it was evident to all that religion lay at the basis of the invasion. It was no tribal feud, but a contest for religious supremacy. As Abraham, their forefather, came to Canaan to be the exponent and founder of a new religion, so the descendants are required to expound the religion still more forcibly by putting clown all traces of the heathen worship.
II. THE MULTIPLICITY OF CANAANITISH PLACES OF WORSHIP REALLY EXPRESSED THE POLYTHEISM OF THE PEOPLE. The Canaanites believed in the “gods of the hills,” and “gods of the valleys,” and “gods of the grove.” Hence they erected altars with melancholy frequency over the land. It was not a sense of the omnipresence of a Supreme Being, but a belief in a multiplicity of gods, which led to such multiplicity of places of worship. The land was polluted with idols. Every green tree was supposed to overshadow a god. Altars, pillars, and groves sheltered and surrounded graven images. The desecration was all-prevailing.
III. THE POWER OF ASSOCIATION NECESSITATED THE COMPLETE DESTRUCTION OF THESE SIGNS OF IDOLATRY. If polytheism expressed itself so universally, then association would assert in the Israelitish mind a corresponding power, and lead weak minds to the idea that an idol was surely something in the world, when it secured such recognition. No wise leader could allow such temptations to remain before his people. Hence the Israelites are instructed to spare no trace of the old worship. Intolerance may be a duty in pure self-defense. It was a duty in this case divinely ordained.
IV. CURIOSITY IS NOT TO BE LEFT ANYTHING TO FEED UPON. For there is a prurient curiosity which only leads to sin. All humoring of this is evil. When a soul insists on tasting the fruit of forbidden trees, as a matter of curiosity, he only repeats the act of our first parents in Eden. No possible good can come of it. Much curiosity is indulged only to the deterioration of soul and body. Now, this would have been a danger with the Israelites. The worship of the Canaanites was so sensual and horrible, that the less known about it the better. Hence the command to destroy every vestige of it. It would be well for Christians more frequently to restrain their curiosity than they do. In many cases it would be well if every vestige of sinful practices were destroyed, instead of being preserved to satisfy an “idle curiosity.”
V. THE WHOLESALE DESTRUCTION OF THE PARAPHERNALIA OF IDOLATRY WOULD BE THE BEST OF ALL DEMONSTRATIONS OF THE NOTHINGNESS OF THE IDOLS. For if these gods of Canaan had any power, they might be expected to vindicate their majesty against these spoilers. But Israel never suffered anything from the destruction of the idolatry. The only danger arose from the destruction not being as complete in some cases as God intended it should be. And it is important to have the impotence of God’s foes made matter of demonstration. Sooner or later this is the case.
VI. THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST HAS ALSO ITS INTOLERANT, AS WELL AS ITS TOLERANT, SIDE. In a sermon on Mat 12:30, “He that is not with me is against me,” Vinet, the greatest of the moral analysts, has expounded L‘intolerance de l‘Evangile, just as in a companion sermon on Luk 9:50, “He that is not against us is for us,” he expounds La tolerance. It is well to realize that religion is not an easy-going matter, making things pleasant all round, but something requiring stern and uncompromising conduct oftentimes. We may suffer as much by an unenlightened latitudinarianism as by an unenlightened attachment to non-essentials in use and wont.R.M.E.
Deu 12:4-14
Centralization in worship.
It is quite unnecessary that we should here enter upon the criticism which has been raging upon this important passage, as indicating something post-Mosaic. The directions in Exodus do not necessarily imply a multiplicity of altars at the same time, but rather successive alterations of locality in conformity with the requirements of the pilgrimage. Besides, the genius of the Jewish worship implied the centralization of it in contrast to the multiplicity of places arising out of polytheism. The idea of a central altar is implied in the erection of the tabernacle at Sinai, and all the legislation which gathers round it. We believe, therefore, that Moses, in here formulating the centralization in worship, was merely making plainer what had already been implied.
I. CENTRALIZATION IN WORSHIP SEEMS A CONVENIENT STEPPING–STONE FROM THE DANGERS OF POLYTHEISM TO UNIVERSAL SPIRITUAL WORSHIP. Abraham, in setting up the new worship in Canaan, had erected altars at the different places where God appeared unto him. His fine intellect realized that it was the One God he worshipped at the different places. His descendants also, in their pilgrimage to Palestine, realized that it was the One God who called upon them out of the cloudy pillar to halt from time to time, and to erect his altar, and whom they there worshipped; and they would also feel that this direction about a single central altar was but the necessary corollary to the entire legislation. The ideal of worship, to which the Old Testament dispensation pointed, was, “when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him” (Joh 4:23); meanwhile it was most important to have the Divine unity publicly recognized and expressed by a central altar. At this they were to aim when settled beyond the Jordan.
II. THE CENTRAL ALTAR IS TO GATHER ROUND IT JOYFUL WORSHIPPERS. (Verses 6, 7.) Burnt offering, sacrifice, heave offering, etc; were to reach their climax in the eating before the Lord the peace offering, and in the joy which springs from fellowship. This is the purpose of all worship. If joy be not reached, then the worshippers are living below their privileges.
III. ALLOWANCE IS MADE FOR THE EXIGENCIES OF THE MARCH AND OF WAR. Means of grace have to be extemporized often in times of battle and marches, and men must do what is right in their own eyes, in a way that would not be lawful in times of settled avocations and of peace. Moses is instructed, therefore, to remind them of the freedom they necessarily practice in the unsettled condition, which must be relinquished when they settle down beyond the Jordan (verses 8, 9).
IV. GOD RESERVES THE RIGHT OF CHOOSING THE CENTRAL PLACE OF WORSHIP. (Verses 10-14.) This prevents all license in such an important matter. It is not what they think advisable, but what God directs, that they are in the locality of worship to follow. This reservation is surely most significant. It indicates that in worship, which is the payment of due homage unto God, his will and wisdom are to be regarded as supreme. The right God holds in his hand of indicating whether he is to be worshipped in one place or everywhere.
V. GOD REVEALED THE CENTRAL PLACE IN DUE SEASON. A good deal of the current criticism seems to overlook the distinction between the principle of centralization in worship and the place where it was to be observed. The principle was stated long before the place was indicated. It was centuries before Jerusalem became the recognized center of the Jewish religion. Had the name been indicated earlier, it would have prevented the natural development of the ritual in Canaan. It is not necessary to suppose that Moses had any definite idea of the central place when he uttered on the banks of the Jordan the will of God. God can express his will through historical developments, just as he can through natural developments. “The nature of things” may be justly regarded as the expression of the Divine mind; and so may a historical procession. Meanwhile, it is well for us to rejoice in the freedom and universality of spiritual worship to which we have come. Now the true worshippers, emancipated from the cumbrous ritual through its fulfillment in Christ, can “worship the Father in spirit and in truth” in every place.R.M.E.
Deu 12:15-19
Private worship not the substitute for public.
While the central altar was ordained for the reception of the sacrifices and the place for the love-feasts of God’s people, they were also allowed to slay and eat flesh meat at home. It must, of course, consist of the flesh of clean animals, and the blood must be carefully poured out unto the Lord; but, after these precautions, it was perfectly possible for the Jew to live luxuriously at home. In these circumstances he might say that the flesh killed carefully at home tasted as sweet as any peace offering enjoyed at the tabernacle, and that he would not trouble himself about the journey to the central altar. Such a conclusion the Lord expressly forbids. How, in such circumstances, will the Levites be sustained? Such private luxury must not be substituted for the public peace offering and the Levitical support connected with the ritual.
I. THERE IS A GREAT TEMPTATION WITH LUKEWARM PEOPLE TO MAKE PRIVATE WORSHIP DO DUTY FOR PUBLIC. It is insinuated that the Bible can be as well studied, and prayer as faithfully observed, and praise as joyfully rendered, amid the sanctities of home as in any congregation. But the fact is that the private worship is a sorry substitute for the public. Not to speak of the promise,” The Lord loveth the gates of Zion better than all the dwellings of Jacob,” there is in the public congregation a power of sympathy, solemnity, and attention which is missed elsewhere. The private services, when separated from the public, fail to reach the professed ideal, and religious feebleness is the usual result.
II. PRIVATE CELEBRATIONS OF PUBLIC SOLEMNITIES ARE MOST PROPERLY FORBIDDEN. The Jew might have excused himself from journeying to the central altar by resolving on the solemnities at home. “I can share the tithes, and firstlings, and vows, and freewill offerings, and heave offerings with my neighbors, and not bother taking them to the tabernacle.” And so men can still abstain from membership in Church organizations under the plea of private baptisms and private “tables;” but all this presumption is an abomination unto the Lord.
III. IT DENIES TO THE PUBLIC MINISTERS OF GOD THEIR DUE RIGHTS. For Levitical support, so carefully guarded in the commandment here, is surely equivalent to “ministerial support” still. The ministry of the Word means an order of men set apart from the secularities of life to give themselves unto prayer and to the ministry of the Word (Act 6:4). If it is highly expedient, as well as divinely ordained, that such an order should exist, then it is a serious responsibility on the part of any private person to refuse to acknowledge this Divine ordinance and its attendant rights. The pitifulness of the excuse, moreover, in refusing ministerial support because of private scruples, must strike the most superficial judge.
IV. THE LORD LEAVES THE LEVITE AS A CHARGE UPON THE GENEROSITY OF THE PEOPLE. The Levite was to be as a guest within the gates of the Jew (Deu 12:18). All the rights of hospitality, so to speak, were to be his. Moreover, it was to be an unending charge. “Take heed to thyself that thou forsake not the Levite as long as thou livest upon the earth.” Thus an order of men are left upon the generosity of the people, to have their share as long as the world lasts. So is it with the Christian ministry. Public services, the public organizations of the Church, are all to be continued till the end of time, and hence the ministry will continue. Nor will its support severely tax the loyal Christian people. We see how intimately the interests of God’s servants are bound, up with proper views about private and public worship. If these are judiciously disseminated, there is no fear of the Lord’s servants being neglected. God’s rights in the ordering of his worship must be first vindicated and recognized, and then-his servants’ rights will follow.R.M.E.
Deu 12:20-28
The sanctity of blood.
The central altar was for the reception of the blood. And while the Jews remained in pilgrimage, every time they killed an animal out of their flocks or herds for family use they carried the blood to the tabernacle, that it might be duly disposed of by the priest. In case of the roebucks and harts, their blood was not sacrificial; it was therefore ordained that it should be poured out on the earth, and carefully and solemnly covered up. When they were settled in the land of Canaan, they were too far from the central altar to carry the blood of every animal out of the herd or flock which was slain to the appointed place. Hence they were allowed to deal with the domestic animals as with the products of the chase (Deu 12:22). It is to this fact of the sanctity of blood that we would now direct attention.
I. THE HEATHEN NATIONS WERE ACCUSTOMED TO MAKE DRINK OFFERINGS OF BLOOD. David refers to the fact when he says, “Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another god: their drink offerings of blood will I not offer, nor take up their names into my lips” (Psa 16:4). These drink offerings of blood arose, doubtless, out of the bloodthirstiness of the heathen themselves. Men of blood thought their god delighted in blood shedding as they did; it was human passion projected into the religious domain.
II. GOD SO DIRECTED HIS WORSHIPPERS ABOUT THE DISPOSAL OF THE BLOOD THAT THEY COULD NOT REGARD IT IN ANY OTHER LIGHT THAN AS A MOST SACRED THING. It was to be carefully carried to his altar and disposed of by the officiating priests, or, if this was not possible, it was solemnly poured into the earth, and covered carefully from all profane uses. On no account was it to be eaten: this would have profaned it.
III. THE REASON ASSIGNED WAS THAT THE LIFE WAS IN THE BLOOD. “Life” is the gift of God, the mysterious something which escapes our observation in analysis, which baffles our productive powers, and which works such wonders in the world of nature. As God’s gift, it is to be holy in our eyes, and disposed of as he sees best.
IV. THE VICARIOUSNESS OF SUFFERING GAVE IT ADDITIONAL SANCTITY. For shed blood meant life sacrificed to sustain other life. Our bodies depend upon vicarious suffering for their sustenance. Sacrifice underlies the constitution of the world. It was meet, then, that this principle should be recognized and sanctified in the sight of men.
V. BLOOD HAD ITS RELIGIOUS FUNCTION, NOT A PHYSICAL FUNCTION, TO DISCHARGE IN THE MOSAIC ECONOMY. The God of Israel did not delight in blood, as the gods of the heathen were supposed to do. He singled it out for a religious use. It was to be the material of a holy act, wherever shed. This was undoubtedly to keep it so out of the sphere of physical elements that it could symbolize fully “the blood of Jesus Christ,” by which the world is to be saved.R.M.E.
HOMILIES BY D. DAVIES
Deu 12:1-4
The doom of idolatry.
The reverse side of blessing is a curse. The abuse of the best things is the worst. In the ratio in which any institution has capacity to benefit, has it capacity to injure. The sun can quicken life or kill. The temple is a stepping-stone to heaven or a snare of hell.
I. BOTH NATURE AND ART HAVE BEEN PROSTITUTED TO BASEST USES. If men cannot find God in themselves, they cannot find him in material nature. Some “look through nature up to nature’s God.” Some look through nature to darkness, sensuality, and despair.
II. THE BEAUTIFUL MUST BE SACRIFICED TO MORAL NECESSITIES. Esthetics must yield to ethics. Our moral exigencies are paramount. The voice of taste is the voice of a charmer. The voice of conscience is the voice of a king. If the creations of art are inimical to the interests of righteousness, they must be destroyed. Eternal life is beyond all price. Whatever keeps man from the living God is doomed.
III. TRUE LIFE HAS A DESTRUCTIVE SIDE. The growth of a plant involves the death of the seed. The life of the body is sustained by manifold death. Eternal life comes by the death of the Son of God. The inner life of piety is quickened by the death of self. True love to God is the hatred of his foes. Jesus Christ “came to destroy the works of the devil.”D.
Deu 12:5-28
Characteristic signs of Jehovah’s worship.
All the religious institutions of Moses were bulwarks against the idolatry of the period, and were admirably suited to the intellectual and moral condition of the people. The worship of the true God was characterized by
I. A SINGLE, GOD–SELECTED SHRINE. As the heathen had gods many, they had plurality of temples, altars, and shrines. The single, central temple of Jehovah promoted at least two worthy objects.
1. It kept alive in the people‘s memory the unity of God. In that age, so addicted to idolatry, this was of the first importance. Intellectual belief in the one God would not, in itself, go for much; yet it would be the foundation for reverence, love, and loyalty.
2. It promoted most vitally the unity of the nation. In the absence of representative institutions and periodic literature, the common worship of the people at a central shrine was the most active factor in national unity. On this largely, as an instrument, the strength and safety of the nation depended. In the absence of this cementing element, the tribes would speedily have become factionsdistinct entitieslike the Canaanites who had preceded them.
II. GOD‘S WORSHIP WAS CHARACTERIZED BY PROFUSE AND VARIOUS OFFERINGS. Every event in the life of the Hebrews to be connected with God, and to be associated with religion. Earth was to be joined to heaven by vital arteries of intercommunication. Thus the favor and benediction of God would be enjoyed in every circumstance of daily existence, and a joyous sense of God’s fatherhood be kept alive. The arrangement would check avarice and earthly-mindedness. It would make conscience tenderly alive to sin, and promote in a thousand ways practical righteousness.
III. GOD‘S WORSHIP WAS A DELIGHTFUL OCCUPATION. “Ye shall eat before the Lord and shall rejoice.” In observing the rites of idolatry, the Canaanites practiced wanton self-mutilations. They stained the altars with their own blood. They made their children to pass through the fire. This was the invention of the diabolic spirit. But in God’s temple is the sunshine of joy, the light of his face. For man’s hunger he prepares a “feast of fat things,” fat things “full of marrow,” “wines on the lees well refined.” At prodigious cost to himself, he has supplied the “bread of life,” and living water from deep wells of salvation. And his gracious voice greets every comer thus, “Eat, O friends yea, drink abundantly”
IV. GOD‘S WORSHIP HALLOWS ALL RELATIONSHIPS AND BRIGHTENS ALL PURSUITS. In the temple, men became conscious of a Divine presence, and felt within the stirrings of a new life. Religion developed their better nature. It made them acquainted with new relationships, and opened their eyes to the value of old ones. It created new and more generous emotions. Fountains of kindly feeling were unsealed within them, and sweet waters of practical kindness flowed out to the poor and the stranger. A new light beautified all toil, and they rejoiced in all they put their hand unto. Those who had been the ministrants of this fresh life and joythe Leviteswere to have a special place in their sympathy and regard. Sacred ties of generous affection were to knit them in one brotherhood.
V. THE WORSHIP OF GOD SANCTIFIES THE COMMON MEAL, The recognition of God and his claims allows us to enjoy all the provision of God with thankfulness and content. Every meal reminds us of God, and leads to fellowship with him. Each meal becomes a minor sacrament, and all food is consecrated to highest use. In this state of mind, excess of every kind becomes impossible, and the amplest enjoyment is not incompatible with vigorous piety.
VI. THE WORSHIP OF GOD TEACHES THE SUPERIOR WORTH OF HUMAN LIFE. All the requirements of the Levitical Law set forth the sacredness of life. Highest sanctions surrounded all life. The lives of inferior animals were generously cared for. But when the life of men was to be sustained, and sustained in richest vigor, the lives of animals were to be sacrificed. Yet even while this was done, the minds of men were to be impressed with a sense of the value of life; hence the blood of victims was to be poured upon the earth. As in redemption, so in daily sustentation, we are taught the costly price at which our life is procured. So high a value has God set upon man, that large sacrifices of herds and flocks are daily made for his behalf.
VII. CEREMONIAL LAWS POSSESSED AN ELASTICITY TO SUIT MEN‘S ACTUAL NEEDS. Every moral law had an innate power and value, which never allowed a concession. To infringe a moral law, even the least, became a personal loss. But ritual law possessed a value only as the type and memorial of better things. Righteousness is of higher value than human convenience, but ritual is the servant of expediency. The showbread was for the priests; yet David, in his hunger, might eat thereof and not sin. During the exigencies of desert life, circumcision was often deferred, the Passovers were irregularly observed, and to a large extent the Hebrews became “a law unto themselves.” “If the Law of the Spirit of life” be within us, we shall discern when ritual may be profitably used and when it may be suspended.
VIII. THE WORSHIP OF GOD WAS FRUITFUL IN BLESSING. The design of God in every particular was solely the good of families, that “it may be well with thee, and with thy children.” We do well to write this with a diamond pen on memory and heart, that God’s claims and man’s advantage are identical. The plan of human life is laid on the lines of righteousness, and along these lines alone is the road to immortal bliss. We cannot add to or take from the commands of God, without injury to ourselves and dishonor to him.D.
Deu 12:29-32
The subtle ensnarements of idolatry.
A spirit of vain curiosity is to be repressed at its beginning. So weak is human nature, and so subtle is the working of sin, that prying curiosity into evil customs works practical mischief. Human life, to be a success, must be a perpetual battle with moral evil. We cannot afford to parley with the enemy nor give him a single advantage. Incessant watchfulness is our safety.
I. IDOLATRY HAS GREAT FASCINATIONS FOR MAN‘S SENSUOUS NATURE. There is in all men a yearning for visible signs of God. “Show us some sign!” is the natural demand of the human mind. Even Moses had passionately asked, “I beseech thee, show me thy glory.” Satan employs a thousand wily artifices to corrupt the spiritual impulses of the heart. Speciously, idolatry asks to be tolerated as a symbol, and then detains our faith as if it were the substantial object.
II. IDOLATRY IS THE FRUITFUL PARENT OF VICE AND CRUELTY. We can never deal with forms of idolatry as if they were mere intellectual vagaries. The worship of material images has always been associated with sensuality, obscenity, and vice. It deteriorates human nature, hardens sensibility, and clips the wing of aspiration. When the seed has grown to the mature tree, human victims are demanded as oblations. “The children were compelled to pass through the fire.” Atrocious cruelty is the last effect.
III. IDOLATRY IS HATEFUL IN GOD‘S ESTEEM. It is impossible for us to err if we make the supreme God our model. To the extent that we know God, we must endeavor to assimilate our tastes to his, to love what he loves and to hate what he hates. Idolatry, in any form (whether of graven image, or material wealth, or human friend) is overt treason against God. If we cannot see the inherent wickedness of idolatry, it should be enough for us to know that it is an abomination before God, “a smoke in his eyes; a stench in his nostrils.”
IV. IDOLATRY IS A SOURCE OF NATIONAL AND INDIVIDUAL RUIN. In that early period of human history, the spirit of idolatry must have been rampant. It was the curse of the age. Although the Hebrews had seen the practical effects of idolatry in Egypt; although they had themselves been the executors of God’s vengeance against idolatry in Canaan; nevertheless the tendencies to idolatry were, humanly speaking, irresistible. It had been the source of Pharaoh’s overthrow. It had been the occasion of a great slaughter among the Hebrews under the peaks of Sinai. It was the parent of the vices and crimes that prevailed among the Amorites. Idolatry is doomed by an eternal decree, and if men persist in identifying themselves with it, they are doomed also. Let us be well guarded against so insidious an evil!D.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary

Supplementary Exposition of the Third to the Tenth Command
Deuteronomy 12-26
The Third Command. (Deuteronomy 12-14)
Deu 12:1-31
1These are the statutes and judgments which ye shall observe [keep] to do in the land which the Lord God of thy fathers giveth thee to possess it, all the days that ye live upon the earth. 2Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, wherein the nations [Gentiles] which ye shall possess [expel from the possession]1 served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree: 3And ye shall overthrow [tear down, raze] their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their groves [their pillars of wood] with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place. 4Ye shall not do so unto the Lord your God. 5But unto the place which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put his name there,2 even unto his habitation shall ye seek, [keep, inquire] and thither thou shalt come: 6And thither ye shall bring your burnt-offerings, [whole offerings] and your sacrifices, and your tithes, and heave-offerings of your hand, and your vows, and your free-will offerings, and the firstlings of your herds, and of your flocks: 7And there ye shall eat before the Lord your God, and ye shall rejoice in all that ye put your hands unto, ye and your households, wherein the Lord thy God hath blessed thee. 8Ye shall not do after all [according to all what, i.e., just as] the things that we do [are doing] here this day, every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes. 9For ye are not as yet 10come to the rest and to the inheritance which the Lord your God giveth you. But [Still] when ye go over Jordan, and dwell in the land which the Lord your God giveth you to inherit, and when he giveth you rest from all your enemies round about, so that [and] ye dwell in safety: 11Then there shall be [And it come to pass,] a place which the Lord your God shall choose to cause his name to dwell there; thither shall ye bring all that I command you; your burnt-offerings, and your sacrifices, your tithes, and the heave-offering of your hand, and all your choice vows3 which ye vow unto the Lord: 12And ye shall rejoice before the Lord your God, ye, and your sons, and your daughters, and your men-servants, and your maid-servants, and the Levite that is within your gates; forasmuch as he hath no [for not to him belongs] part nor inheritance with you. 13Take heed to thyself that thou offer not thy burnt-offerings in every place that thou seest: 14But in the place which the Lord shall choose in one of thy tribes, there thou shalt offer thy burnt-offerings, and there 15thou shalt do all that I command thee. Notwithstanding, thou mayest kill and eat flesh in all thy gates, whatsoever thy soul lusteth after [Only in all thy soul desireth thou, etc.] according to the blessing of the Lord thy God which he hath given thee:4 the unclean and the clean may eat thereof, as of [om. of] the roe-buck [antelope] and as of the hart. 16Only ye shall not eat the blood; ye shall pour it upon the earth-as water. 17Thou mayest not eat within thy gates the tithe of thy corn, or of thy wine, or of thy oil, or the firstlings of thy herds or of thy flock, nor any of thy vows which thou vowest, nor thy free-will-offerings, or heave-offering of thine hand: 18But thou must eat them before [the face of] the Lord thy God in the place which the Lord thy God shall choose, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy man-servant, and thy maid-servant, and the Levite that is within thy gates: and thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God in all that thou puttest thine hands unto. 19Take heed to thyself that thou forsake not the Levite as long as thou livest [all thy days] upon the earth. 20When the Lord thy God shall enlarge thy border, as he hath promised thee, and thou shalt say, I will eat flesh, because thy soul longeth to eat flesh, thou mayest eat flesh, whatsoever thy soul lusteth5 after [in all the desire of thy soul]. 21If the place which the Lord thy God hath chosen to put his name there be too far from thee, then thou shalt kill of thy herd and of thy flock, which the Lord hath given thee, as I have commanded thee, and thou shalt eat in thy gates whatsoever thy soul lusteth after. 22Even as the roe-buck and the hart is eaten, so thou shalt eat them: the unclean and the clean shall eat of them alike [in like manner]. 23Only be sure [strong, firm] that thou eat not the blood: for the blood is the life [soul]: and thou mayest not eat the life [soul] with the flesh. 24Thou shalt not eat it; thou shalt pour it upon the earth as water. 25Thou shalt not eat it; that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee, when thou shalt do that which is [om. that which is] right in the sight of the Lord. 26Only thy holy things which thou hast, and thy vows, thou shalt take, and go unto the place which the Lord shall choose: 27And thou shalt offer [prepare, make] thy burnt-offerings, the flesh and the blood, upon the altar of the Lord thy God: and the blood of thy sacrifices shall be poured out upon the altar of the Lord thy God, and thou shalt eat the flesh. 28Observe and hear all these words which I command thee, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee for ever, when thou doest that which is good and right in the sight of the Lord thy God. 29When the Lord thy God shall cut off the nations from before thee, whither thou goest to possess them, and thou succeedest [dost possess] them, and dwellest in their land; 30Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them [cleavest not after them] after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou inquire [seek, search] not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve [accustomed to serve] their gods? even so will I do likewise. 31Thou shalt not do so unto the Lord thy God; for every abomination to [of] the Lord which he hateth have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. Deu 12:1-14. The connection with the foregoing (Deu 11:32) as Deu 6:1. Deu 12:1 serves as a title to introduce what follows. Comp. Deu 4:5; Deu 4:10; Deu 5:29. We feel that we have reached a new topic, hence the absence of the , as Deu 6:4. Deu 12:2 refers back substantially to what was said upon the first command, with this difference, that the places of the false worship of God are here prominent, and thus the connection with the second command is made apparent. Utterly destroy, i.e., destroy utterly and entirely as places of the cultus (Knobel), mountains, especially high mountains, but also hills in which they believed themselves nearer the heavenly powers, as upon the natural altars of the earth. Green trees are at the same time leafy, as this lies in the radical signification of the word , and is rejected erroneously by Schultz. They represent the oaks with their dense shade, (Eze 6:13; Eze 20:28). It is not truly the vivid fulness of color, but the mysterious rustling of the foliage which comes into view here, as in the high places it is the all-overpowering elements of air and light. Upon Deu 12:3 comp. Deu 7:5; Deu 7:25. The destruction of theirnames, i.e., that the places of the cultus should no longer be named after the idols previously honored in them, shows already, since it brings out the connection of the places with the idol images, and thus connects it with the second command, that Moses now passes over to the third command, that chap. 12 treats of the name of Jehovah, before which all other names of the deities mast retire (Act 4:12). Comp. Deu 7:24. Hence Deu 12:4 (Deu 12:31) introductory: Since you cannot rest in the places and names of a false cultus, you should not especially take examples from them of the true worship of God. For as Jehovah is the one only in opposition to these many, so also the place of His only name should be freed from all subjective arbitrariness (Intro., 4, 1. 23). Deu 12:5. Which Jehovah shall choose. The manner and method how all will-worship reveals itself in opposition to this choice of Jehovah, is fixed by that choice, whether it is effected in some extraordinary way, or by the mere arrangement of circumstances. It is enough that he will select and define the place, and indeed one place, as the addition, out of all your tribes, shows, (the unity of all in the Lord) and thus certainly with reference to Lev 17:3 sq., namely, to the oneness of the tabernacle. But at the same time the mention of the name of Jehovah in the destination of the place in question, touches upon the more general and indefinite passage, Exo 20:24, which however for the usual arrangement of things must be more closely limited by and . Upon the name comp. Deu 5:11. The heathen deity abides in nature, Jehovah, on the contrary, is Spirit, manifest in word and deed, which personal revelation embraces and constitutes His name, by which He calls Himself among His people, which He makes for and in His people. To put there, i.e., to take, order, to settle it there; for that which is customary (the discourse indeed is of the usual cultus), without any allusion to extraordinary cases (Exodus 20), but also without excluding them. To his habitation to settle, dwell. The infinitive separated by the accent from the foregoing, although it may define it more closely (Exo 25:8; Exo 29:44 sq.) and in Deu 12:11, stands for . But just precisely on account of this latter (and is to permit to dwell), the connection with pointed out by the accents is to be preferred. resumes in an abbreviated form the at the beginning. Understanding the infinitive thus substantively of the place, which represents the dwelling of Jehovah or of His name, with a clear reference to the Shechinah since the erection of the tabernacle, over which the pillar of cloud tarried or dwelt, when Israel rested in the march, it is neither Jerusalem nor the temple which is the dwelling in view, (Knobel) but the infinitive rather leaves the locality undetermined, provided only that some one permanent position is kept in view. [The fixing of one place is not, as Schroeder intimates, entirely new. It is implied in Exo 20:24, and was actually observed during the wanderings in the desert, Lev 17:1 sq. It is precisely in accordance with the object in Deuteronomy, which regards the future of Israel, and especially when scattered through the land of promise, that this revelation should be insisted upon with so much definiteness and stringency. The command does not conflict with the worship of God in those places in which the worshippers had express divine authority. As e.g., the offerings of Gideon, Manoah, David.Wordsworth well asks: If Deuteronomy is not the work of Moses, how is it possible that it could have been received when all the kings of Israel, and often those of Judah, were living in violation of this command? If it had been a forgery, they would surely have exposed it.A. G.]. (Deu 11:12), the idea of something urgent lies in the root, perhaps with reference to the difficulties (out of all the tribes) when the people dwelt scattered in Canaan: to seek, to search after, to turn ones self thither, to keep, abide there, as directed for the ordinary cultus, public and individual, hence shall ye seek, and thou shalt come, ye and thou. Deu 12:6. Brings up the altar instituted with the tabernacle (Exo 29:44; Exo 20:24). [As to the difficulties in bringing the offerings from the distance, they are partly met by the provision in Num 14:24-25, and partly by the mere statement of the fact that the distance at the greatest was less than a hundred miles; so that what was required was nothing impossible. Moreover, we must bear in mind here the whole spirit of the law. God always required mercy and not sacrifice. Obviously the sick, and those detained by any special providences, would be regarded as fulfilling the law, if they brought their offerings at other than the stated times. They could not present it at any but the chosen place, but they might reserve it until they could bring it there. The time is not fixed, except at the three great feasts. And even then there must have been exceptions provided for, in the spirit if not in the letter, of the law.A. G.] Bring, generally, under the presumption that whatever concerns the time, procedure, etc., was already known from the law and customs (comp. chap, 16). The offerings as a whole are embraced in the number seven. Beginning with the burnt-offering and sacrifices as the principal (Lev 17:8; Exo 10:25; Num 15:3). Comp. Lev 1:3 sq. , especially praise and thank-offerings, Lev 3:7; Lev 3:12; Num 15:4 sq. (perfect concession and joy of salvation, ). Upon the tithe comp. Introd. 4, I. 19. [These supposed discrepancies (Wordsworth) are evidences of the unity of plan of the Pentateuch. The author takes for granted here that his hearers were familiar with what had been said by him in the earlier parts of his work, and what had become a usage among them (as the sacred feast, Deu 12:17-18), and does not repeat it, but proceeds at once to speak of the tithes he had in view. Distingue tempora et concordabis Scripturas is a sound maxim.A. G.] Heave what the hand takes up as a free gift to Jehovah from the fruits of the ground, besides the tithes and the first-born. Vows and free-will [gifts] offerings, Lev 7:16. Upon the first-born comp. Exodus 13; Numbers 18 (and upon Deu 15:19). Deu 12:7. Thus sacred and joyful meals (Exo 18:12). All that you put your hand unto.Concrete (comp. Isa 11:14) for every thing which they could put their hand to, which was proper and due to them. The gains, acquisitions (Knobel, Keil) made through the hand cannot well be alluded to here, since it is precisely with reference to these that the blessing of God is spoken of. Since Moses includes himself, Deu 12:8, he cannot refer here to unlawful courses, but intends those procedures namely, in opposition to the oneness of the sanctuary, perhaps still more particularly what concerns the meals, as Deu 12:9 expressly excuses these on the ground that the wanderers had not yet come to their rest. Upon Deu 12:10 comp. Exo 34:23-24. Upon Deu 12:11 comp. Deu 12:5-6. placed first here for the emphasis. a comprehensive term, as they must then be selected or chosen. On the other hand, Deu 12:12 more in detail than Deu 12:7 (Exo 20:10; Deu 5:14; comp. Deu 10:9. See Introd. 4, I. 21). The wives as evidently included are not mentioned (Knobel). Deu 12:13-14. A final inculcation of the oneness of the sanctuary, with regard to the burnt-offering, as instar omnium.
2. Deu 12:15-31. Deu 12:15. A remission from the strictness of the law, Lev 17:3 sq., out of regard to the scattered condition of Israel in Canaan. comp. Deu 5:18. According to the necessity for the support of life, for which the permission to eat flesh was granted (Gen 1:29; Gen 9:3), and according to their desire. It is not the sacrificial meal which is here treated (Lev 7:20). The (levitically) unclean, sq.[As the roe-buck, gazelle, and the hart, which were clean for food, but not for sacrifices. Wordsworth.A. G.] The sacrificial victims could not be offered there, although they were clean (Lev 17:13). But although the sacrificial character was taken away from the slaying, there remains still (Deu 12:16) a reference to the sacrifice, in regard to the blood, Lev 17:10 sq. This medium of atonement should be poured out as water, and return simply to the earth, from which God had called the animals in the creation. If it did not return to God on the altar in the way of the sacrifices, it must return to Him in this way (Deu 12:27). Since Moses returns again to Deu 12:5-6; Deu 12:11, he makes clear and prominent, as in Deu 12:13-14, the burnt-offering; and in Deu 12:15, the simple killing in distinction from the sacrificial killing; here, Deu 12:17, the tithe, etc.; both because one in this regard might soonest think himself at liberty, and because of the sacrificial meals, which indeed in every third year (Deu 14:28 sq.) could be held at home and upon the tithes. Comp. further, the Introd. 4, I. 19, especially also in regard to the first-born, and upon Deu 15:19 sq. Deu 12:18. Comp. Deu 12:7; Deu 12:12; Deu 12:19; Introd. 4, I. 21. All thy daysthy whole lifeupon the earth (lit. upon thy land), in which, viz., he had no part,urged here as a motive. The repetition of the permission, Deu 12:15, only emphasizes so much the more what in other cases is the rule, through that exception. At the same time, however, it ratifies and confirms the promised (Exo 23:27 sq.) enlargement of the borders (Deu 11:24; Deu 1:7). Deu 12:20. Comp. Deu 12:15. Deu 12:21. From theean example, as the position of the thou designates the individual case. A more subjective clause parallel to the more objective Deu 12:20. For the rest comp. Deu 12:5. As I have commanded thee.The permissive command, Deu 12:15. Deu 12:22 looks back to Deu 12:15. Alikenot together, but the one as well as the other. Deu 12:23. Comp. Deu 12:16. The ground or basis of the prohibition is that the blood, the bearer of the soul life, the soul quickening the flesh, is substantially the soul, as Lev 17:14; Lev 17:11. The emphatic arrangement of the sentence is made more emphatic still by the repetition of the not. Deu 12:24-25, as supported by the promising prospect of prosperity. Comp. Deu 4:40; Deu 5:26; Deu 6:18. Upon Deu 12:26 comp. Deu 12:6; Deu 12:11; Deu 12:17 (Lev 22:3; Num 18:8). After the general expression, the vows are specially mentioned, on account of the apparent freedom in regard to them (Num 15:3; Num 15:8). Deu 12:27. (Lev 1:3 sq.; Deu 3:2 sq.) Shall be poured outnamely, by the priests, and at the same time explanatory for the preparatory steps [our version renders thou shall offer, lit.: thou shalt make, which Schroeder renders: prepare, or make thy preparationA. G.], so far as they belonged to the offerer. All the details are presupposed from the earlier law-giving; hence to pour out is as to sprinkle around, and = . The former expression is given as the more general in Deu 12:24; Deu 12:16; the latter through the at the beginning of this verse, which usually specifies the direction or destination whither. Comp. farther Lev 7:14 sq. Deu 12:28 is a resumption of the preliminary conclusion in Deu 12:25. It should be observed, kept especially by the hearing. The good and right in the sight of the Lord thy God, as already in Deu 12:25, in opposition to Deu 12:8. Deu 12:29. A new sentence parallel to Deu 12:20. Comp. Deu 11:23. The discourse at its close returns to the beginning. Deu 12:30. imp. Niph. from , to follow after, while , Deu 7:25, imp. Niph. from , to ensnare. The after them after that () makes a vivid impression in its connection. Before thee.How foolish, after they were destroyed before thee, that thou shouldst still go after them! Moreover, comp. Deu 12:5. Even so will I donamely, to Jehovah, as Deu 12:31 shows. Thus a transfer of the cultus of the land to Jehovah. Comp. further Deu 12:4; Deu 7:25; Lev 18:25. [Bib. Com.: This caution is based upon the notion generally entertained in the ancient heathen world that each country had its own tutelary deities, whom it would be perilous to neglect, 1Ki 20:23; 2Ki 17:26. Hence even in conquered districts the worship of the local deities was wont to be scrupulously maintained. But Israel was to shun such superstitions.A. G.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. The one place, of the one sanctuary, of the one Jehovah, is the theme of the chapter. The one Jehovah, protests against the gods of Canaan, His one sanctuary, is opposed to the numerous heathen sanctuaries. This negation shows the connection with the first two commandsin particular with the second command. It follows from this negation that Jehovah, who in this second command has spoken as a Spirit, who in His word, especially in the ten words, has taught His people, now when the discourse (Deu 12:5) comes positively to treat of the place of His name, it makes the destination of the place dependent upon His choice, i.e., upon His command as revealed in word or deed. This is the side which the one place of the sanctuary has towards God; the objective side, at the same time, of the now to be explained third command. But this also has its subjective side, as we have repeatedly heard that Israel should swear by the name of Jehovah; this is the confession to Jehovah in every way. And thus the oneness of the place of the sanctuary wins its significance for the nationality of Israel; it characteristically comprises the same in this confession to Jehovah. One religiously, it remains politically one. Out of all your tribes Jehovah has chosen His place, thus also for all; and by so much the more fruitfully, since the piety of the individual (comp. the Psalms) could be efficient at the one place of the sanctuary, improving and quickening for the whole people. (On the extraordinary sacrificial places, comp. Introd. 4.)
2. Joy before Jehovah, which is so repeatedly uttered, should be the animating disposition of meals at the sanctuary. The inculcated unity of the place of the sanctuary was thus right humanly commended. Thus there enters into the collective ceremonial requirements a dispositionindeed an evangelical featurewhich eclipses the face of the legal. That is truly, genuinely deuteronomic; but it is something else as truly. Lev 23:40 speaks of the joy before the Lord at the feast of tabernaclesthus whenever one thinks of the wilderness as past. Is not that truly the stand-point of Deuteronomy in its constant look into Canaan and its sure rest? The eating at the place of the sanctuary becomes at the same time the eating before Jehovahtherefore in the best sense; but at the same time the exalted joy appears as a common joy, thus in reference to our neighbor. The two tables of the law appear behind it. Still remarks Baumgarten: The union of the godly and worldly, the spiritual and natural, which the popular life even elsewhere in heathen antiquity and the Christian middle ages, manifoldly seeks and in some measure finds, since the places of the cultus are at the same time centres of trade and commerce; religious times are also days of popular joy and pleasure; this union is never so original and pure as in Israel, because in it Jehovah the holy God has placed and managed all natural and worldly things from the beginning; and although the actual result even here appears defective and clouded, still it presents itself as the pure, clear glass of this present and much sought unity.
3. The discourse speaks again and again of rest. So Jos 21:44; Jos 22:4 (Deu 18:1). So 2Sa 7:1; 2Sa 7:10-11. So 1Ch 22:9; 1Ki 5:4; 1Ki 5:18. This ever appears in connection with the tabernacle, or the ark of the covenant, or the temple. Gods rest is the rest of the people. What is still further said in Hebrews 4 is drawn from the very depth of the idea. Comp. further Gen 49:10 and 1Pe 1:4.
4. Men and maid servants (Deu 12:7) were included in the family life of the Israelites, and recognized and received in the most general human pleasures, the eating and the joy, and consecrated through the connection with Jehovah and the sanctuary. The religious thought is all penetrating salt in Israel. That the Levite was included, as it promoted the sanctification of the family life, especially the eating and the joy, so it corresponds with the deuteronomic reference to Canaan, in which Levi had no part nor inheritance.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
The threefold unity: one God, one sanctuary, the one place of the same, in its importance for the moral, ecclesiastical, political unity of Israel. What the religion of the fathers has to do with the national life (England, America). Deu 12:1 sq. Luther: He commands all. The people could not proceed in the worship after their own mind or will, however holy and good they were,all that is ruled by the word. If man cannot live without the word, as to the body, the outward form, how much less in the work of God and in the Spirit. God wills, then, our conscience should be certain that our service is well-pleasing to Him.Lange: Our welfare and our duty must ever stand together.
Deu 12:2. Cramer: When God comes, the devil must depart.
Deu 12:4. Starke: This also is idolatry, to serve and honor God otherwise than He has commanded.
Deu 12:5. Berl. Bib.: Christ, is in all the congregations gathered in His name, and this is the place which God has chosen, and whither we may bring our prayers and thank-offerings, Mat 18:19.Starke: Be diligent to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, Eph 4:3. Deu 12:7. Richter: If God would not have any joyless, gloomy, complaining, sad believer under the Old Testament, how much less under the gracious light of the New Test.! Php 3:1; Php 4:4. Joy before, in, the Lord, the harmonizing principle of the divine life. It unites the inward oppositions and glorifies all that is external. The food is sanctified, family life becomes festal, and all is illuminated with the divine blessing.
Deu 12:8. Liberty has its limitations as to time and circumstancesespecially by the law of God. Berl. Bib.: The soul, in the eternal law, judges as God judges; for it sees through the eye of God. That is the highest freedom. Deu 12:9-10. Lange: We look for the perfect rest, first in the life beyond. Deu 12:12. Friedlib: So God takes care for poor servants also. As the house in the church, so the servants of the church belong to the household.
Deu 12:13. Starke: Woe to those who say, lo, here is Christ, or lo, there, Mat 24:26; Php 3:2. Deu 12:14. Berl. Bib.: This passage represents Christ, to whom His people should adhere, as the one whom the Father has chosen, and in whom the name of His majesty and glory dwells.
Deu 12:16-23. The significance and hence the prohibition of blood. As to the first table: God is alone the Author of all life; as to the second table: a sacred awe, reverence for life should be preserved with regard to every man; as to both commands, it was thus a means of atonement, and pointing to the sacrifice of Christ, who requires the participation of His blood, Joh 6:53 sq.
Deu 12:19. Starke: Teachers in church and school should have continual support, 1Co 9:13-14; 1Ti 5:18.
Deu 12:21 sq. To these men widely removed the permission of enjoyment is also enlarged, but by so much the more should they keep to the word of God, that the use may not become misuse, and that the pain may not succeed the pleasure.
Deu 12:29 sq.: There is a false conservatism in the Church as in the State (exemplified in the Romish missions and the Church of England).
Footnotes:
[1][Deu 12:2. Which ye are driving them out, and so possessing. It is not to inherit, as the margin.A. G.].
[2][Deu 12:5. The Vulg. connects this clause with what follows, to put His name and dwell there, and so essentially the Sept. Our version accords with the accents, and is better.A. G.].
[3][Deu 12:11. Margin, lit., all the choice of your vows.A. G.].
[4][Deu 12:15. Our version transposes the clauses in this verse needlessly, although without materially affecting the sense.A. G].
[5][Deu 12:20. Our word lusteth has acquired a technical and bad sense, and is too strong here and in Deu 12:15 above, and 21 below.A. G.].
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

CONTENTS
This chapter differs in some degree from what went before. It is certainly the continuation of Moses’ Sermon, but is not so much in a way of exhortation as in precept. He here directs to the observance of certain duties which the LORD had appointed to be regarded in Canaan; such as the throwing down all the idolatrous monuments the people should find in the land; appointing a certain spot to be peculiarly dedicated to the service of the LORD; cautiously abstaining from the use of blood in their sacrifices; and eating them, holy things in the precise place which the LORD had commanded; together with observing due attention to the person of the Levite; and being so exceedingly tenacious of their attachment to the GOD of their Fathers, as not even to enquire after the mode of worship which the idolaters of Canaan followed.
Deu 12:1
Sweet thought arising out of this verse, that our religion founded in JESUS the chief corner stone, is of daily obligation and of never ceasing importance. If JESUS be the statute of my soul this day, so is he tomorrow, and so will he be forever. Heb 13:8 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

The Friendship of Christ (a University Sermon)
Deu 12:13 ; Rev 3:20

Your college days are preeminently days when you open the doors of your hearts and let new friends in. In these years you are generous, and ready to hear a knock, and to respond to it.
I. Never has the history of any human life been truly and fully related. I fancy that if such a thing could be, the record would be mainly of those who at different stages and periods have come into it. Many of them have come and gone, but some have remained. To let another human being into your life means far more than you can possibly imagine now. Let us consider what a true friendship means and how blessed it is.
( a ) First of all, there is in a true friendship a complete and joyous frankness. We go about disguised. Most of our intercourse with fellow-beings is altogether on the surface. In a true friendship all that we have dealt with in the outer court we take as ended. There the veils are torn; we are heart to heart.
( b ) A true friendship means also sympathy and tenderness. In its high estate it fears nothing from life or even from death. The friends who are together in the class-room today are going out to their encounter with the world, and in that one may succeed and the other may fail. But it is not upon the hazards of fortune that a true friendship turns. A true friendship is to be for solace and for cheer in all the relations and passages of life and death.
( c ) Also a true friendship is an education in trust, in magnanimity. Great friendships are not to be broken on mere suspicion. They are not even to be broken by fault, for all of us err. There is something in a high friendship which survives all that, and if life is a lesson in magnanimity, we shall learn it best from the dearest and noblest of our friends. This friendship cannot be broken by death.
II. But as Emerson says, true friendship demands a religious treatment. We are not to strike links of friendship with cheap persons where no friendship is. We are not to offer our burnt offerings in every place we see.
III. Whoever comes or goes, there is one Friend who continually knocks at the door of our hearts, and His friendship is all-sufficing. There are many who even in the crowd are lonely and loveless. It was for them that Christ died. It is their love that Christ is seeking. Remember that no one who has let Christ into his life ever repented of it.
IV. There is no such great mystery about conversion. You know already what it is to let some human being enter into your life. Everything is changed by it more or less. What could be better, happier, wiser for you than to open the door to this Seeker, this Knocker, this Beseecher? Let him in. Say to Him, say it to Him now in the silence of your souls, Come in Thou Blessed of the Lord: why standest Thou without?
W. Robertson Nicoll, The British Weekly, vol. xlv. p. 353.
Deu 12:13 . Exposition of this verse in Mark Rutherford’s Revolution in Tanner’s Lane, chap. XXIV.
References. XIII. 1-3. F. D. Maurice, Patriarchs and Lawgivers of the Old Testament, p. 274. XIII. 11. J. M. Neale, Sermons Preached in Sackville College Chapel, vol. iv. p. 29. XIV. 21. R. F. Horton, The Hidden God, p. 65. C. J. Vaughan, Memorials of Harrow Sundays, p. 138. XV. 11. J. Keble, Miscellaneous Sermons, p. 41. J. M. Neale, Sermons on the Prophets, vol. ii. p. 218. XV. 15. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxiv. No. 1406. XVI. 1. C. S. Robinson, Simon Peter, p. 53. E. White, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxv. p. 120. XII. 2. H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Sunday Lessons, vol. i. p. 416.
Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson

Life In a New Land
Deu 12

This chapter opens a new section of the Mosaic legislation. Up to this time we have had copious and urgent discourses by Moses upon the law, its principles, and its purposes more or less abstract and philosophical discourses; now we come into practical instruction and exhortation. The people are about to move into new circumstances and to sustain new relations, and Moses condescends to particularise, and seeks by almost tedious detail to impress upon the mind of Israel what is right, what is good, and what is expected of the people of God. The children of Israel could understand no other language. They were amongst the youngest nations of time. In studying their history we study beginnings, first lessons, and the proper methods of preaching to infantile minds namely, methods of command, authority, illustration, and sparkling narrative. The people of Israel were called upon to illustrate in their own conduct the laws which God had pronounced from Sinai. The noticeable thing is that, although the circumstances were new and the land a strange land, no change takes place in the moral substance of the law. The law is one, the same in heaven as upon earth, the same in the dawn of earthly time as in the eventide of the terrestrial dispensation. Till heaven and earth pass not one jot or tittle of the law can be destroyed. It is in the very substance of the divine nature: it is the mystery of the personality whose name is God; it is the secret of eternal righteousness. But there are adaptations, accommodations, methods of addressing the life to unexpected or unusual or temporary conditions; in all these matters Moses is specially detailed, critical, and exact in his statements, sometimes dwelling upon what to us may appear trifles. But there are no trifles in moral education: every monition has a purpose, every hint is the beginning of a revelation. Let us follow Israel into new lands and circumstances, and mark the operation of law.
The first thing Israel had to do appears to be a work of violence. All idols were to be destroyed: “Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree: and ye shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their groves with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place” ( Deu 12:2-3 ). Israel could understand no other language. This is not the language of today; but the thing inculcated upon Israel is the lesson for the present time: words change, but duties remain. Violence was the only method that could commend itself to infantile Israel. The hand was the reasoner; the breaking hammer was the instrument of logic in days so remote and so unfavoured. Forgetting this, how many people misunderstand instructions given to the ancient Church; they speak of the violence of those instructions, the bloodthirstiness even of him who gave the instructions to Israel. Hostile critics select such expressions and hold them up as if in mid-air, that the sunlight may get well round about them; and attention is called to the barbarity, the brutality, the revolting violence of so-called divine commandments. It is false reasoning on the part of the hostile critic. We must think ourselves back to the exact period of time and the particular circumstances at which and under which the instructions were delivered. But all the words of violence have dropped away. “Destroy,” “overthrow,” “burn,” “hew down,” are words which are not found in the instructions given to Christian evangelists. Has the law then passed away? Not a jot or tittle of it. Is there still to be a work of this kind accomplished in heathen nations? That is the very work that must first be done. This is the work that is aimed at by the humblest and meekest teacher who shoulders the Gospel yoke and proceeds to Christianise the nations. Now we destroy by reasoning, and that is a far more terrible destruction than the supposed annihilation that can be wrought by manual violence. You cannot conquer an enemy by the arm, the rod, or the weapon of war; you subdue him, overpower him, or impose some momentary restraint upon him; fear of you takes possession of his heart, and he sues for peace because he is afraid. That is not conquest; there is nothing eternal in such an issue. How, then, to destroy an enemy? By converting him by changing his motive, by penetrating into his most secret life, and accomplishing the mystery of regeneration in his affections. That mystery accomplished, the conquest is complete and everlasting; the work of destruction has been accomplished; burning and hewing down, and all actions indicative of mere violence have disappeared. Enemies are killed, false altars are burned, and graven images are hewn down, not manually but morally, not by some overpowering force of assault, but by the very men themselves who, having seen the hollowness of their gods, have deposed them from their sovereignty. So with all the other instructions with which the Bible is charged. Attention must not be fixed upon the letter, often apparently so hot, angry, and even vindictive; we must get to the inner man, and there we shall find that God has all the while intended but one thing, namely, to establish the throne of righteousness, and to purge the firmament of every cloud that could obscure the brightness and beauty of his presence. It is but a perfunctory and unprofitable criticism that fastens upon outward circumstances, framings and settings of divine intentions; the true criticism is to penetrate to those intentions themselves, and history, observation, and experience concur in the solemn and grateful testimony that in every instance the intention of God has been a purpose of salvation.
But it was not enough to destroy. The negative word was to be succeeded by a positive service: “But unto the place which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put his name there, even unto his habitation shall ye seek, and. thither thou shalt come: and thither ye shall bring your burnt offerings, and your sacrifices, and your tithes, and heave offerings of your hand, and your vows, and your freewill offerings, and the firstlings of your herds and of your flocks: and there ye shall eat before the Lord your God, and ye shall rejoice in all that ye put your hand unto, ye and your households, wherein the Lord thy God hath blessed thee” ( Deu 12:5-7 ). It would delight many reformers to confine themselves to a merely negative work, because they delight in criticism; their ability lies along that narrow line; they can see faults, they can detect discrepancies and inconsistencies, and with great fluency they can expose sophism of the subtlest kind, and with indignation they can expose outrages of a moral sort; but the great work of Christianising the lands is first negative, and then positive. Israel must be faithful to his own God if he would completely destroy the graven images of the heathen nations; Israel must go to the right sanctuary if he would pull down the noblest refuge of heathenism; Christians must keep up their personal Christianity if they are to become great ministers, missionaries, lecturers, and teachers. Men belonging to such high classes must never forget their own devotions, their own deep reading; they must maintain long periods of silence. If they are always talking, what wonder if their talk should become suddenly and completely commonplace and tasteless, without savour, or accent, or unction? They must contrast their great thunder-bursts of appeal by prolonged silence in solitary places. They will preach as they have prayed: their public invectives, encouragements, criticisms, and expositions will take tone from their private and secret communings with Heaven. The reason that we sink into commonplace and outgrow our power is that we have been talking too much. Whole days of silence should punctuate the history of the week long hours of solitude, until there comes upon the soul a desire to see a fellow-creature, a public assembly, a kind of hunger in the soul for social contact, presence, and influence. The Bible is full of teaching regarding the uses of solitude. Israel must keep up his own religion; go to the place chosen by the Lord, bring his burnt offerings, and his sacrifices, his tithes, and heave offerings, and vows, and freewill offerings, and the firstlings of his herds and of his flocks, and eat before the Lord his God; and then go forth Heaven-nourished, Heaven-inspired, to burn false altars and grind into powder the graven images of heathen ignorance. Have faith in men who live in God.
Amidst all this assault, denunciation, and sacred fury there was to run a line of perfect self-control: “Ye shall not do after all the things that we do here this day, every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes” ( Deu 12:8 ). Individuality has limits. Where are there any individualities? We know nothing about them in the great Christian society; individuality has undergone distinct modification: we belong to one another; we are parts of a complicated but sentient and indestructible body; we are branches in a living vine; the individual will is destroyed by the beneficent presence of a social responsibility. There was to be personal watchfulness: hence we read in the thirteenth verse, “Take heed to thyself;” and in the nineteenth verse again, “Take heed to thyself;” and in the thirtieth verse, “Take heed to thyself.” That is where individuality comes in, every man watching himself. The Apostle Paul could use no higher form of words in charging the young soldiers of the cross: said he to one and another, Take heed unto thyself; and again, speaking to the Church, he said, Let every man examine himself. Where are there instructions binding upon us in the direction of social criticism the examination of other people, and keeping guard over the consistency of our brethren? We are admonished to look after them along another line to see that they want nothing that is for their good, to care for them, to put our strength at the disposal of their weakness; but there is no responsibility thrown upon us in the matter of watching other people in any critical or suspecting sense. Each man must look to himself: his head may be right whilst his heart is a thousand miles away from the path prescribed by God; his head and his heart may be comparatively consistent, and yet appetite, passion, desire, may be set on fire of hell. Every man must watch himself at his weakest point, and must suspect himself where other people least suspect him. No attempt, therefore, is made to do away with individual responsibility; that will grow in proportion as there is personal watchfulness, personal severity with our own judgment, heart, and conduct. Let a man try himself as by fire. He who beats himself, to use the apostolic expression, “in the eyes,” that he may the less see the faults of other people, is in least danger of becoming a castaway. If all public criticism and all social contempt could be turned in towards individual uses, there would be an outgoing from the self-suspected and self-disciplined heart of a stream of beneficence and charity and Christian hope towards all the prodigals of the world.
Now there will be an act of marvellous condescension: there will be a tone of mercy amid all this outflow of legislation; the burden will not be made heavier than Israel can bear. Read Deu 12:21 “If the place which the Lord thy God hath chosen to put his name there be too far from thee, then “And here comes the divine condescension, the concession of Heaven to the limitations of earth. Calvary is in the Old Testament The condescending, saving Cross is in the books of the law. Love was never absent from the inspired record. If the place be too far; if there be local difficulty; if there be a weight to carry too heavy for thy poor strength, God will meet thee: he will make thy weakness the basis of a new negotiation; instead of standing away upon the hills of eternity and frightening little earth by all the thunder of infinity, he will come down and see what can be done, measuring, adjusting, and arranging, so as to suit human weakness. When there was no eye to pity; when there was no arm to save, his own eye pitied and his own arm brought salvation. Grace and truth go together; pity follows law; the iron statute is bedewed with tears: God is love. Nor is God concerned only about the living: he is concerned about those who have yet to appear in life. So we read in the twenty-eighth verse, “Observe and hear all these words which I command thee, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee for ever, when thou doest that which is good and right in the sight of the Lord thy God.” God is concerned for posterity. We may mock the suggestion, and put foolish questions concerning the generations yet to come, but the Book of God is as careful about the child unborn as about the old pilgrim born into the higher spaces. God does not insulate himself by the little present; he contemplates the end from the beginning. All souls are his. He also puts it into our care to regard the welfare of our successors. There is a sense in which we all have a posterity some in a narrower, some in a larger sense; but we all have a succession: we are influencing to-morrow by our spirit and action today. How mad are they and how guilty of the cruellest murder who go on indulging every desire, sating every appetite, satisfying every wish, forgetting that they are involving the yet unborn in pain, weakness, incapacity, and dooming them to life-long Suffering and distress. Here is the greatness of the Bible, the noble condescension of God, the infinite solicitude of the eternal Father. His speech runs to this effect: take care: not only are you involved, but your child and child’s child, for generation upon generation: your drunkenness will reappear in the disease of ages yet to come; your bad conduct will repeat itself in a long succession of evil-minded men; your behaviour appears at present to be agreeable, to have some aspects that might be called delightful, but things are not what they seem: actions do not end in themselves: every bad thought you think takes out some spark of vitality from your brain robs you, depletes you, leaves you nearer lunacy; be careful: have some regard for those who have to succeed you; learn from those who went before you how evil a thing it is to have sown bad seed, and by what you have learned from them conduct yourself aright; if you are true, wise, pure, generous, well-conducted altogether, generations will arise to bless you; if you take care of the poor, if any of your succession should be doomed to poverty, with what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you and them again; blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy; with what judgment ye judge ye shall be judged. Life is one: touch it where we may, we send a thrill, a vibration, along all the vital lines. The law is twofold: sow evil, and reap evil; sow good, and reap good. This is no partial law, dealing with penalty and shame only: it is an impartial righteousness, dealing with reward and glory, and promising delight vast and tender as the heaven of God.
Selected Note

The consequences of parental wrong-doing fall on the offspring, as we plainly see in the case of the drunkard; the laws of heredity have been carefully studied during late years with many remarkable results.
The belief in the transmission of penalty to offspring was in ancient times very widely extended, as may be illustrated by the following extract from the laws of Menu, the most ancient lawgiver of the Hindoos:
Prayer

Almighty God, our eyes are fixed upon the Cross of Christ. God forbid that we should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. We crucified him; we mocked him; we cast all taunting condemnation into his teeth. We do not discharge ourselves of the tremendous responsibility: we hang down our heads in mourning and shame and self-reproach which burns to agony, knowing that we murdered the Son of God. We crucify the Son of God afresh, and every day we put him to an open shame. The white robe of his holiness is not safe in our keeping; the purity of heaven we stain even by our highest thoughts. Do thou have mercy upon us day by day, ever being more merciful than before, because our sin is aggravated by time, and we sin today more deeply than we could sin yesterday. God be merciful unto us sinners! Only thy mercy can reach our estate: the best of us is a lost, dead man. But we have read thy word, and we have heard it uttered by lips of sympathy, and it is a word which comes into our life like an angel from heaven, the very angel of the divine presence; the angel of the covenant, the all-present and all-directing spirit that has ruled the destinies of the race. We bless thee for words we can understand simple words, notes of music, speeches of love. When our pain burns most acutely, then thy Gospel is most to us; in our fatness and prosperity and abounding strength we forget God, and look upon ourselves with approbation and delight; but when we see one glimpse of our real self the evil one within us, charged with the poison of malice, disfigured by the passions of hell, helpless because of self-destruction then rises the Cross upon our vision, the very beauty and glory of God. We bless thee for thy day, sanctifying all the week; for thy Book, giving life to all books that are good, and drawing them back to itself to have all their beauty renewed; for all friendships that lift us higher in the scale of thought and being; for all hopes that drive the darkness away and plant flowers upon the tomb; for all the lights which outshine the stars and give us hope of a day yet to come; these are thy mercies; these are thy benefits; these are thy appeals to our souls; and our souls would answer them in rising gladness, because they are gifts ineffable and everlasting. Give us the quietness of the sanctuary in our own soul; breathe the peace of heaven upon us, everyone; give release from anxiety, from tormenting memory, from foreboding fear; and in one moment of vision of better things and heavenly gladness we shall bury a lifetime of sorrow, and recover ourselves, and claim the future with all the conscious ease of strength divinely sustained. Let thy mercy be our inner day; let thy love in Christ Jesus be our secret thought; let the whole priesthood of the Saviour be to us as bread on which the soul may feed, and wine sacramental, the drinking of which shall be as the utterance of an oath. Amen.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

(See the Deuteronomy Book Comments for Introductory content and Homiletic suggestions).
XIII
SECOND GREAT ORATION, PART 2
Deuteronomy 12-26

This section is on the second part of the second great oration of Moses, as embodied in Deuteronomy 12-26 inclusive, of the book of Deuteronomy. If you have carefully read all this section, it will be easier for me to emphasize in the brief limits of this chapter the most salient points and easier for you to grasp and retain them. By the grouping of correlated matters under specific heads, the important distinction between many statutes and the constitutional principle from which they are logically derived will become manifest. A constitution is a relatively brief document of great principles, but legislative enactments developing and enlarging them become a library, which continually enlarges, as new conditions require new statement and application.
Yet again you must note that while one discussion arranges in order many statutes, it necessarily leaves out much of the homiletical value of each special statute. Each one of them may be made a text for a profitable sermon. Indeed these fifteen chapters constitute a gold mine of texts for the attentive preacher.
First of all, it should be noted that Moses is speaking here to the whole people as a national unit and concerning the future national life in the Promised Land which they are about to occupy. He carefully puts before them the national ideal of a people belonging to Jehovah separated from other nations and devoted to a special mission. Because addressing the whole people he recalls the history and law in Genesis, Exodus, and Numbers much more particularly than the special legislation of Leviticus relating mainly to the official duties of a single tribe.
Secondly, when he touches the tribe of Levi in Deuteronomy, it is as a part of the nation rather than about their specific duties as priests and Levites. On this account Deuteronomy is called the people’s code and Leviticus the priest’s code. This fact will help us much to understand tithing in Deuteronomy when compared with tithing in the preceding books. Note carefully this point.
While it is difficult to classify satisfactorily such a multitude of topics and laws, we may profitably group the whole section under the following heads:
I. Unity in the Place of National Worship, Deu 12:5

In their pilgrimage history the cloud and the ark, shifting from place to place according to the exigency of travel, designated day by day the central place of worship. But the people are here admonished that when they conquer the land and become a settled people, God himself will designate one fixed locality as the center of national unity and one permanent place of national worship. In Joshua, Judges, Ruth, and I Samuel, when we get to those books, we shall find only a temporary central place, and occasionally, more than one at the same time, the land not yet all conquered, the people not yet all settled, but in David’s time everything prescribed about the central place of worship is fulfilled, Jerusalem is the place thenceforward throughout their history until Jesus, that prophet like unto Moses, comes and says to the woman of Samaria, “Believe me, the hour cometh when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem shall ye worship the Father. Ye worship that which ye know not; we worship that which we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in Spirit and Truth.”
To this place, that is, the central place of worship, three times a year must the tribes come in national assembly to keep the great festivals of the Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles, and as a nation they must observe the great day of atonement. In this connection observe particularly that the tithing in Deuteronomy, to which we have before referred, is not the first tithe of the other books, which was the Lord’s inheritance and devoted to the general support of the great festivals, in which indeed the Levites share as a part of the people. Hence the Levites’ share of this tithe does not correspond to their title to the whole of the first tithe, and hence the third year’s provision in Deuteronomy for the poor is unlike any provision of the first tithe. If you have that point fixed in your minds, you are able to answer one of the gravest objections ever brought against Deuteronomy, that is, that it contradicts, on the question of tithes, what had been previously said in other books.
The marvelous effect of this one fixed place of national worship, and of these great festivals, on national unity, on the preservation of a pure worship, appears in all their subsequent history and becomes the theme of psalm, song, and elegy. When we get over into the Psalms and the Lamentations of Jeremiah, we will see backward references to this central place of worship. It is in the light of this law that we discover the sin in the later migration of the Danites and their setting up a new place of worship (Jdg 18 , particularly verses Jdg 18:27-31 ); the sin of Jeroboam (1Ki 12:26-33 ); the sin of the Samaritans later, and the sin of a temple in Egypt. That is the first thought, the unity in national worship. For an account of the Samaritan Temple see Josephus, “Antiquities,” Book XI, chapter 8, and for the Egyptian Temple see “Antiquities,” Book XIII, chapter 3.
2. Unity in the Object of Worship

The second thought in this oration is unity in the object of worship, the exclusive worship of Jehovah. Under this head the section prescribes the death penalty on the following:
(1) The false prophet, who however attested by signs and wonders, shall seek to divert the people to the worship of some other god.
(2) Any member of a family, however near and dear the tie of kindred, who sought to induce the rest of the family to turn away from the worship of Jehovah to worship another god, that member of the family had to die.
(3) Any city that turned aside as a municipality to other worship, that city must be placed under the ban and blotted out. If you have been much of a student of classic literature, you must have noticed how each city stresses the worship of some particular patron divinity, as Minerva at Athens, Diana in the City of Ephesus and Venus at Corinth. Now, this law teaches that any city, in its municipal life, turning aside from the worship of Jehovah to worship a false god for local advantage shall be blotted off the face of the map. The underlying principle here is of immense importance in our times. Cities are tempted continually to sacrifice the paramount spiritual and moral interests of the community in order to promote material interests. So in their annual fairs which bring local advantage in commercial affairs, they lose sight of God and handicap what is commendable in these enterprises by overloading them with poisonous and corrupting attachments, and count any man an enemy to his home place, however much he may approve the good, if he protest against the bad. See the striking examples and illustrations in the cases at Philippi and Ephesus (Act 16:19 ).
(4) To show more emphatically that Jehovah alone is God and must be worshiped, the death penalty was assessed on any necromancer, soothsayer or wizard who sought by illicit ways to understand and interpret the future. To Jehovah alone must the people come to know secret things. What he chose to reveal was for them and their children. What he withheld must remain hidden. All prurient curiosity into Jehovah’s domain of revelation must be rebuked; all seeking unto the dead, all fortunetelling and divinations were mortal sins and punishable by death in every case.
(5) All persons guilty of crimes against nature; the nature of the subject forbids me to specify. They were such outrageous violations of the dignity of man made in God’s image, and indicated such disregard for Jehovah that capital punishment alone would meet the requirements of the case.
(6) Every breaker of the covenant must be put to death. If any had knowledge that another had violated the covenant, it became his duty to investigate the case and bring the attention of the magistrates to it. There is a reference to that in the letter to the Hebrews, where it is said, “He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: of how much sorer punishment, think ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God [offense against the Father], and hath counted the blood of the everlasting covenant an unholy thing [sin against the Son], and hath done despite unto the Spirit of Grace [sin against the Holy Spirit, and an unpardonable sin]?” (Heb 10:28-29 ).
(7) To impress still more this thought of the exclusive worship of Jehovah: There must be no borrowing from other religions in bewailing the dead; Jehovah’s law alone was the one exclusive standard. The custom of cutting themselves, and disfiguring themselves in the days of their mourning as practiced in other religions, finds here a positive prohibition. I stop to say, Oh, what a pity that so soon after apostolic times, in the great apostasy which Paul predicted and which took place in the Roman Catholic development, there was borrowing old robes of every religion in the world.
3. All Administrations of Law Subject to Jehovah

Whether ceremonial law, moral or civil and criminal law, all administration of law was subject to Jehovah. The government was a theocracy pure and simple, no matter whether it remained a republic or became a kingdom, as it did in the days of Saul, it was a theocracy, God was the only real King and governed all officers himself, whether executive, judicial, or religious.
(1) They were representatives of Jehovah and must first of all consider his honor, justice, and mercy. This fact determined the prescribed character and qualifications of every prince, ruler, elder, judge, sheriff and scribe. These officers must be God-fearing men, hating covetousness, impartial and fearing not the face of any man.
(2) They must in judging hear all evidence fairly.
(3) They must not convict except upon adequate testimony.
(4) It took two good witnesses to prove any point.
(5) They must justify the innocent and condemn the guilty without any regard for age, sex, social position, or financial position. Even and exact justice must be administered to all.
(6) Decision when given must be enforced speedily.
(7) If the case was too hard for them, they must appeal to Jehovah and no other for light. A provision was made by which Jehovah would give the right answer in every such case of appeal. What a pity we have not that kind of a supreme court!
(8) The conduct of all their wars must be under the laws prescribed by Jehovah. War must not be declared against any nation except upon his direction. Their later history furnishes many examples of referring the declaration of war to Jehovah, and it furnishes many examples of disaster befalling them when they went to war in their own wisdom and strength. The regulations touching war covered all material points, such as sanitary measures in camp, treatment of prisoners, conducting sieges, and sparing fruit trees when besieging a city. The boasted progress of modern civilization falls far short of the Mosaic code in ameliorating the sufferings and horrors of war. A great Federal general of the War Between the States well said, in view of his own practice in conducting it, “War is hell!”
(9) On account of this subordination to Jehovah, note the remarkable paragraph Deu 21:1-9 , touching civic responsibility in a case of murder where the offender is unknown. In my prohibition speech in the last prohibition contest in Waco, I used that paragraph as a principle upon which prohibition is based. If you will look at the passage in your Bible and mark it, you will notice that the case is this: A man is found murdered and it is not known who killed him; the nearest city thereto is determined by measurement and must purge itself of responsibility for the crime. The municipal officers in that city must come in the presence of that dead body, hold up their hands before God and swear that they are innocent of the blood.
In my speech I recalled the case of the County Attorney of Tarrant County who was shot down on the streets of Fort Worth, his murderer also being killed; nobody could be held directly responsible for the murder. I said, “Suppose the mayor, the city council, and all the other city officers had been required to place their hands on that dead body and swear that no negligence on their part was resposnible for that murder. They could not have taken the oath. Every one would have been convicted, because they were responsible for the conditions that not only made that particular murder possible, but made murder in some cases certain.”
(10) The numerous statutes concerning charities, mercy, and humanity constrain the people to imitate Jehovah himself in dealing with the poor and with the unfortunate. Indeed some of the most beautiful and pathetic of these laws relating to treatment of the lower creatures embody principles capable of application in a wider range of higher things. They reprobate all cruelty and the infliction of all unnecessary suffering as hateful to Jehovah, for example: “Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn”; and “Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother’s milk.”
Once in Waco a young man whom I had known when he was a little fellow came to me bringing a letter purporting to be from his father, commending this young man to me and asking me to help him in any way I could. When he next came and asked me to endorse a paper for thirty dollars, I endorsed it. When it matured, I had to pay it. I wrote to the father about it and he replied that his son had forged that letter, and that is was only one case out of many. That son had broken him up. The boy was arrested on a similar case at Corsicana and sent to the penitentiary. When it was suggested that I testify against him, I would not, because of this scripture, “Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk.” The only way I could help to convict that boy would be to submit his father’s testimony to prove that he was a forger.
(11) In like manner all laws regulating business, such as weights and measures. Once I called upon a man whose name I will not give, and asked him why, when he bought goods, he weighed on one scale and when he sold goods he sold by another. He said. “They are all right.” I said, “No, sir, you have loaded the one you sell by and whoever buys from you does not get full weight.” All laws touching business, such as weights and measures, the restraints on exacting pledges for debt, the withholding of wages for day laborers which they have fairly earned, the limitations on usury and the like are but expressions of divine mercy and justice and tended to build up an honest and righteous people, not forgetful of mercy.
(12) The social laws concerning marriage, slavery, parental power over children, while far from the highest expression of God’s will, do yet in every particular prohibit many current evils freely practiced in other nations. Our Lord himself explains that on account of their hardness of heart and low order of development imperfect laws were suffered. “The people but recently were a nation of slaves, with much more of the slave spirit remaining. It cannot be denied that even the civil and criminal codes on these points were far superior to the codes of other nations. The sanctity of human life, the sanctity of the home, and the sanctity of the family are marvelously safeguarded in these laws. And wherever this code touched an evil custom, it never approved the evil but limited the power and scope of the evil, as far as the unprepared people were able to bear it.
(13) Restrictions on entering the covenant, Deu 23:1-7 , constitute a paragraph very few people understand. This applied to proselytes from other nations. The body politic must not be corrupted by alien additions that could not be easily assimilated. On that line our own nation is gravely troubled by loose naturalization laws that permit the scum and offscourings of other nations to be absorbed into our national life and so fearfully endanger the perpetuity of free institutions and make our great cities cesspools of iniquity. An orator once prayed, “O that an ocean of fire rolled between us and Europe!” The Pacific Slope seems also praying ,”O that an ocean of fire rolled between us and the Orient!”
(14) The governing Jehovah idea appears in an emphatic way in the paragraph Deu 24:1-11 , where by an offering of a basket of firstfruits the Israelite must confess Jehovah’s absolute ownership over his products and his own unworthy derivation. The oration concludes with his general result: “Thou hast avouched Jehovah this day to be thy God, and that thou wouldest walk in his ways and keep his statutes, and his commandments, and his ordinances, and hearken unto his voice: and Jehovah hath avouched thee this day to be a people for his own possession, as he hath promised thee, and that thou shouldest keep all his commandments, etc.”
QUESTIONS

1. What the importance of grouping correlated matters under specific needs and what is a constitution?
2. What the homiletic value of these fifteen chapters?
3. What two things especially noted concerning the second part of Oration Two?
4. Under what three heads does the author group all the material of these fifteen chapters?
5. Under the first head, when was the central place of worship to be established; when, where and by whom actually established; how long continued?
6. How often and at what festivals must the nation assemble at this central place of worship?
7. What bearing has this fact on the tithing question of Deuteronomy?
8. What the marvelous effects of this one fixed place of national worship?
9. Give examples of the violation of this law, and what their particular sin?
10. Under the second head, what cases of violation called for capital punishment?
11. What underlying principle governing the cities is of great importance in our times? Illustrate.
12. What reference to the covenant breaker in the New Testament, and what the threefold sin therein described?
13. Which of these prohibitions are Romanists most guilty of violating?
14. Under the third head (1) What must be the qualifications of all officers? (2) What their several duties? (3) If the case was too hard for them what were they to do? What the provision for Jehovah’s answer? (4) What prescriptions concerning war? (5) How determine civic responsibility in the case of murder where the murderer was unknown? Present day application and illustrate. (6) What laws relating to the poor and to lower animals? (7) What laws regulating business? (8) What social laws? (9) What the restrictions on entering the covenant and the present day application? (10) How does the governing Jehovah idea appear emphatically
15. How does the oration conclude?
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

Deu 12:1 These [are] the statutes and judgments, which ye shall observe to do in the land, which the LORD God of thy fathers giveth thee to possess it, all the days that ye live upon the earth.
Ver. 1. These are the statutes. ] Here Moses begins to comment upon the second commandment of the law. See Trapp on “ Deu 6:1 “
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Deu 12:1-7
1These are the statutes and the judgments which you shall carefully observe in the land which the LORD, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess as long as you live on the earth. 2You shall utterly destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess serve their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree. 3You shall tear down their altars and smash their sacred pillars and burn their Asherim with fire, and you shall cut down the engraved images of their gods and obliterate their name from that place. 4You shall not act like this toward the LORD your God. 5But you shall seek the LORD at the place which the LORD your God will choose from all your tribes, to establish His name there for His dwelling, and there you shall come. 6There you shall bring your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the contribution of your hand, your votive offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock. 7There also you and your households shall eat before the LORD your God, and rejoice in all your undertakings in which the Lord your God has blessed you.
Deu 12:1 the statutes and judgments See Special Topic: Terms for God’s Revelation .
you shall carefully observe This is a combination of a VERB, keep watch (BDB 1036, KB 1581, Qal IMPERFECT) and a Qal INFINITIVE CONSTRUCT, (BDB 793, KB 889). This is a recurrent theme (e.g., Exo 23:13; Exo 23:21; Exo 34:11-12; Lev 18:4-5; Lev 18:26; Lev 18:30; Deu 4:6; Deu 4:9; Deu 4:15; Deu 4:23; Deu 4:40; and many more especially in Deuteronomy and Wisdom Literature).
which the LORD, the God of your fathers, has given you The VERB shows completed action (BDB 678, KB 733, Qal PERFECT), yet the events are future. It is a Hebrew way of showing certainty (i.e., Prophetic Perfect). This is a recurrent theme in Deuteronomy (cf. Deu 1:8; Deu 1:20-21; Deu 1:25; Deu 1:35-36; Deu 1:39; Deu 2:29; Deu 3:18; Deu 3:20; Deu 4:1; Deu 4:21; Deu 4:38; Deu 4:40; Deu 5:16; Deu 5:31; Deu 6:10; Deu 6:23; Deu 7:13; Deu 7:16; Deu 8:10; Deu 9:6; Deu 9:23; Deu 10:11; Deu 11:9; Deu 11:17; Deu 11:21; Deu 11:31; Deu 12:1; Deu 12:9; Deu 15:4; Deu 17:14; Deu 18:9; Deu 19:1-2; Deu 19:8; Deu 19:14; Deu 21:23; Deu 24:4; Deu 25:15; Deu 25:19; Deu 26:1-3; Deu 26:6; Deu 26:9-10; Deu 26:15; Deu 27:3; Deu 28:8; Deu 28:11; Deu 28:52; Deu 31:7; Deu 32:49; Deu 34:4). It shows YHWH’s gracious choice and provision for Israel.
to possess The VERB (BDB 439, KB 441, Qal INFINITIVE CONSTRUCT) is a recurrent promise. See Special Topic: POSSESS THE LAND .
on the earth On the earth is another way of saying in the Land (cf. Deu 12:19). As long as the Israelites kept God’s commandments, they could live in the Promised Land. See note at Deu 4:40.
This verse has two different words for land:
1. in the land – BDB 75
2. on the earth – BDB 9
They both refer to the whole earth or to the land of Canaan. They are usually synonyms (cf. Deu 4:38-40; Deu 11:8-9; Deu 12:1; Deu 26:2; Deu 26:15). See Special Topic: Land, Country, Earth.
Deu 12:2 utterly destroy all the places Utterly destroy comes from a Hebrew word that means cause to perish (BDB 1, KB 2, Piel INFINITIVE ABSOLUTE and Piel IMPERFECT, which show intensity, cf. Deu 12:3; Num 33:52[twice]; 2Ki 21:3). God was admonishing the Israelites to destroy the pagan altars so as not to become a part of their fertility worship (cf. Exo 23:24; Exo 34:13).
on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree These are the locations of local Ba’al and Asherah altars where fertility rites were practiced (cf. Jer 2:20; Jer 3:2; Jer 3:6; Jer 17:2; Isa 57:5; Isa 57:7; Hos 4:13).
Deu 12:3 sacred pillars See Special Topic below.
SPECIAL TOPIC: ISRAEL’S MANDATED RESPONSE TO CANAANITE FERTILITY WORSHIP
Deu 12:5 the place which the LORD your God shall choose God chose (BDB 103, KB 119, Qal IMPERFECT, cf. Deu 12:11; Deu 12:14; Deu 12:18; Deu 12:21; Deu 12:26; Deu 14:23-25; Deu 15:20; Deu 16:2; Deu 16:6; Deu 16:11; Deu 16:15; Deu 17:8; Deu 17:10; Deu 18:6; Deu 26:2; Deu 31:11) the worship site (cf. Exo 20:24).
The tabernacle (ark) traveled with Israel:
1. Gilgal, Jos 4:19; Jos 10:6; Jos 10:15
2. Shechem, Jos 8:33
3. Shiloh, Jos 18:1; Jdg 18:31; 1Sa 1:3
4. Bethel, (possible) Jdg 20:18; Jdg 20:26-28; Jdg 21:2
5. Kiriath-jearim, ark, 1Sa 6:21; 1Sa 7:1-2 (priests at Nob, cf. 1 Samuel 21-22)
6. Jerusalem
a. David captures the citadel of Jebus (cf. 2Sa 5:1-10)
b. David brings the ark to Jerusalem (cf. 2 Samuel 6)
c David purchases the site of the temple (2Sa 24:15-25; 2Ch 3:1)
Many modern scholars have tried to assert that Deuteronomy was written late to accommodate Hezekiah and Josiah’s reforms of centralizing Israel’s worship. However, Deuteronomy does not name Jerusalem as the specific site that YHWH will choose. In context the theological contrast is between:
1. the local Ba’al shrines and the one shrine of Israel
2. the monotheism of Israel versus the polytheism of Canaan (and the rest of the ancient Near East)
NASBto establish His name there for His dwelling
NKJVto put His name for His habitation
NRSVas his habitation to put his name there
TEVwhere the people are to come into his presence
NJBthere to set his name and give it a home
The translation of this verse is influenced by Deu 12:11. Deu 12:5 has for his dwelling (BDB 1015), while Deu 12:11 has to make dwell (BDB 1014, KB 1496, Piel INFINITIVE CONSTRUCT). In meaning they are very similar and have no theological difference or connotation.
The Jews substituted God’s name for God’s presence. This is a direct reference to the Tabernacle in the early days.
SPECIAL TOPIC: THE NAME of YHWH
Deu 12:6 This verse lists several kinds of offerings:
1. burnt offerings This meant wholly burnt offerings (BDB 750 II). This was a way of showing total, complete dedication to God. It was a voluntary sacrifice (cf. Leviticus 1).
2. sacrifices This refers to partially burnt, partially consumed offering (BDB 257). These were sin offerings, peace offerings, thanksgiving offerings, etc. These were any offerings which had blood involved (cf. Leviticus 7).
3. tithes The tithe was Israel’s way of supporting the priests, who were given no land inheritance. There seem to be three tithes (BDB 798):
a. for the central sanctuary
b. for the local Levites, with the possibility of a
c. every three years for the local poor (Lev 27:30-33; Num 18:21-22)
4. contributions of your hand This is the Hebrew word for heave-offerings (BDB 929, cf. Lev 7:32). This refers to a sacrifice where some part of the animal is lifted off for the priests to eat.
5. votive offerings This (BDB 623) is an example of a conditional vow to God, I’ll do this, if You will do that. This is the Jews keeping their part of the vow (Lev 7:16-18).
6. freewill offerings This (BDB 621) refers to an offering in thanks or praise from one who was overwhelmed with the goodness of God (cf. Lev 22:18 ff).
7. first-born This (BDB 114) is a reference to the Death Angel going through Egypt killing the first born of cattle and mankind. In light of this event all the first born of cattle and humans belonged uniquely to God (cf. Exodus 13; Lev 27:26-27)!
Deu 12:7 you and your household shall eat before the LORD This refers to a fellowship meal, which is a theological precursor of both Passover and Eucharist (cf. Deu 12:12; Deu 12:18; Deu 14:26; Rev 3:20). God’s people were created to rejoice (BDB 970, KB 1333, Qal PERFECT) with Him in the physicalness of creation and the intimacy of worship (cf. Lev 23:40; Num 10:10; Deu 12:7; Deu 12:12; Deu 12:18; Deu 14:26; Deu 16:11; Deu 26:11; Deu 27:7; Deu 28:47).
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

statutes and judgments. See note on Deu 4:1.
the LORD. Hebrew. Jehovah. App-4.
God. Hebrew. Elohim. App-4.
earth = ground. Hebrew. ‘adamah.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Chapter 12
In chapter twelve he gives the conditions whereby they should enjoy the blessings within the land.
First of all they are to utterly destroy all of the places, where there the people that inhabited the land worshipped. They were to destroy all of the groves, all of the high places, all of the altars, all of the gods that they served. Everything was to be utterly obliterated so that they would not have any curiosity or memory of their gods at all.
Overthrow their altars, break their pillars, burn their groves with fire; cut down the graven images, and destroy the names of them out of the place. [Ye shall do] You shall not do so unto the LORD your God. But unto the place which the LORD God shall choose out of all the tribes to put his name, there shall his habitation shall ye seek, and thither thou shalt come ( Deu 12:3-5 ):
Now God says when you come into the land then I’m gonna appoint a place for you to come to worship. And you are not to just worship me any place in the land. You are not to worship me on the hilltops and in the groves or so forth. Now of course, the Greeks always took the hills and they always worshipped God on the tops of the hills, the acropolises, the outcroppings and those high places within the cities was always where those Greek temples were built. And so it was a common custom in ancient religious systems to build altars on the top of mountains, places of worship or to plant groves and to worship in these groves.
But the worship of their gods was always a very licentious type of a worship based around the sexual reproduction abilities because the mystery of life and the creation of life in reproduction was something that was always an awe and a wonder and a mystery to them, which of course it is a very beautiful mystery. They were closer to than we are. They were closer to birth and closer to life in many ways than we are and to them it was an awe and it was a wonder.
And thus, they worshipped the reproduction principles and the capacities of reproduction and their worship of their gods often involved relationships and the design for reproduction and so forth. It was just a part of the whole corrupt system of worship in their corruption of God. Making God like a creature and like unto man, which thing actually is done by the Mormons, in a sense, their god is as a man coming to earth with one of his celestial wives and reproducing in a human manner, the first people and so forth. And even as the Mormons themselves will be gods and go out then and reproduce, so that there’s a similarity there.
Now I will choose a place when you come into the land. You’re not to just worship God anywhere.
And thither shall you bring your burnt offerings, tithes, and freewill offerings [and so forth]. You shall not do after all of the things that we do here this day, every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes. For ye are not as yet come to the rest to the inheritance, that the LORD your God gives you ( Deu 12:6 , Deu 12:8-9 ).
Now right now you worship God, every man just does what he should feel but you haven’t yet come into the rest of the inheritance.
But when you go over Jordan, to dwell in the land which God is gonna give you to inherit, and he gives you rest, your enemies round about, and you’re dwelling safely; Then there shall be a place which the LORD your God shall choose to cause his name to dwell there; and thither you thither shall you bring all that I command you… : And ye shall rejoice before the LORD your God ( Deu 12:10-12 ),
Now God wants you to rejoice before Him. I feel sorry for those churches where the people feel inhibited to worship or rejoice in the Lord. Where their worship is so solemn that there isn’t real rejoicing in your heart. I love to just have that neat kind of hilarity that we can have in rejoicing in the Lord as we thank God and praise God for His goodness. And God wanted the people just to rejoice in Him. He wants you to rejoice in Him. But He was going to establish a place.
Now the place, first of all, was in Bethany but then later they moved it to Jerusalem. And this is the place that God chose and there the temple was finally built, the place that was chosen by God in the land where the people were to come and to worship God.
Now take heed that you don’t offer burnt offerings to God in every place that you see ( Deu 12:13 ):
In other words, they weren’t to be offered anywhere in all the land but there at the place that was appointed by God. Now, you may kill and eat meat wherever you live. You get hungry for meat, go ahead and eat it, have a feast. But most of the time they would offer what they ate to God as a peace offering. And having offered unto God as a peace offering, then they would get the lamb or the ox or whatever would be offered to God as the sacrifice, a peace offering, but in the peace offering you got it back. You offered it to God, they took and burnt the fat and so forth unto God as a sweet smelling savor and all the meat barbecue kind of smell going up and you, though, got to eat the meat. You’d sit down and eat with God, just have a great time and fellowshipping with God. God ate part of it. It was sacrificed and went up in the smoke and burnt offering to God and knows you’re sitting down and the idea was eating with God, communing with God.
So most of the time you’re gonna go ahead and have a lamb for dinner. Great. You take that lamb down to the priest, let him offer the sacrifice to God and then you go ahead and roast the thing and you’re eating with God. And so, you have the conscienceness of fellowshipping with God whenever you ate meat. The idea that I’m eating with God, I’m fellowshipping with God, I’m communing with God in the eating processes. And it was a very beautiful thing.
Now, when they’re gonna be in the land and they’re gonna be scattered all over the land, they won’t be able to bring the ox all the way down every time they want to eat meat. You can’t go all the way to Jerusalem. So eat it in your cities. You can go ahead but don’t offer it as a sacrifice to God. You’re not to make a burnt offering of it, only when you come to Jerusalem was it to be offered in as a burnt offering. So when you come to Jerusalem, then you would go through offering it unto the Lord and then eating of it.
However, they were never to eat the blood; but they were to pour it out on the earth as water ( Deu 12:16 ).
And this was to be a perpetual thing with them, for the life of the flesh is in the blood and they were thus to thoroughly bleed all of the meat before they would eat it. And so, he tells them the kind of animals that they can eat within their gates, anything that their hearts desire of the clean animals.
But thou must eat them before the LORD thy God in the place which the LORD thy God ( Deu 12:18 )
If you offer them as an offering, freewill offering, peace offering, then you’ve gotta eat it in the specified place that God has commanded.
Thou shalt rejoice before the LORD [again he tells you that] in all that you put your hands unto. And when the LORD thy God shall enlarge thy border, as he has promised, and you shall say, I will eat flesh, because my soul longs to eat flesh; you may eat flesh, wherever your soul desires after it ( Deu 12:18 , Deu 12:20 ).
Only again be sure you don’t eat the blood, for the blood is the life and you may not eat the life of the flesh.
Now observe and hear all these words which I command thee, that it may go well with thee… Take heed to thyself that you’re not snared by following [after the gods of the land that you’re going into to possess] ( Deu 12:28 , Deu 12:30 ).
What a trap, the worship of these gods became to the people.
The curiosity that you might say, How did these nations serve their gods? ( Deu 12:30 )
Now God says, “I don’t want you to even be curious about it. Just utterly destroy it and don’t wonder curiously “Well, how did they worship”. You know, there is a strange curiosity that some people have concerning some of the religious systems. “Well, how did they worship?” and, and it’s dangerous to inquire into spiritism, spiritualism and all to just find out what they do. It’s a bad curiosity, it’s a dangerous curiosity; it can become a snare to you.
Thou shalt not do unto the LORD thy God: for every abomination unto the LORD, which he hates, have they done ( Deu 12:31 );
They’ve done every abominable, hateful thing. Everything that God hates they’ve done unto their gods.
For they have even burned their sons and daughters in fire unto their gods ( Deu 12:31 ).
A human sacrifice, infant sacrifice was very common. Burning their children in the fire; heating their little gods until they were glowing hot and then putting their children in the outstretched arms of the little iron idols and letting them just fry to death as they worshipped their gods. God said, “Every abominable thing that I hate they’ve done in the worship of their gods. You’re not to do it. You’re not even to be curious.”
Now, everything that I command you, observe it: thou shalt not add to it, or diminish from it ( Deu 12:32 )
Now over and over God warns us about adding to or taking away from that which he has commanded.
“
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary

Having thus repeated the great words of the Law and called the people to obedience, Moses now proceeded to deal with the statutes and judgments, and, first, the statutes.
In dealing with these he commenced with the true place of worship. He solemnly charged them what their attitude toward false places of worship must be when they entered the land. They were to be utterly destroyed without pity and without sparing.
Moses then put into striking contrast their attitude toward the true place of worship, commencing with the words, “Ye shall not do so unto Jehovah your God.” To the place of His appointment they were earnestly to seek.
Then he proceeded to emphasize this more particularly. The attendance of the people at the center of worship to be appointed in the land was obligatory. During the wilderness period there had evidently been some laxity in this matter; for he said, “Ye shall not do after all the things which ye do here this day, every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes.” This evidently referred to matters of worship and they were thus solemnly charged that in the land there must be regular attendance at the place of the divine appointment.
No worship in the home was to be taken as a substitute for public worship. Nevertheless, certain provisions were made for those who might live at a distance.
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible

Deu 12:8-9
Moses warns the Israelites here in the text that it would be a great mistake if they supposed themselves more at their ease and liberty when they were in Canaan than when they were in the wilderness. He mentions it as one of the advantages of Canaan that they would there be able to live by a stricter and more exact rule than they could possibly do in the desert. In the same way, our Saviour, inviting us to the blessings of the Gospel, describes them as a yoke and a burden, easy, indeed, and light, yet still a yoke and a burden.
I. We see, then, that both the law and the Gospel consider it a great blessing to be kept under strict rules. This way of thinking is by no means the way of the world. People in general like nothing so much as having their own choice in all things. We see this: (1) in the eagerness of children to get out of the state of childhood; (2) in our unwillingness to take advice, even from the wisest; (3) in our unwillingness to let God choose for us, and our impatience under the burdens He lays upon us.
II. To have this thought of being overruled and guided at every step firmly fixed within us will prove the greatest of all blessings both as to our rest in this world and our inheritance in that which is to come. It helps us greatly in the performance of our duty, because, in truth, it leaves us nothing else to do. It prepares and trains us for everlasting happiness in heaven. For the very secret of our enjoyment there will be that God’s will shall be ours. It shows the high and noble uses to which we may turn all our worst disappointments. They are so many lessons in God’s school, each intended to make us more perfect in that Divine art of having the same will that He has.
Plain Sermons by Contributors to “Tracts for the Times” vol. ii., p. 104 (see also Keble, Sermons for the Christian Year: Ascension Day to Trinity Sunday, p. 53).
References: Deu 12:9.-Parker, vol. v., p. 9. Deu 12:10.-Ibid., p. 10. Deut 12.-Ibid., p. 220.
Fuente: The Sermon Bible

8. The Place of Worship
CHAPTER 12
1. The overthrow of false worship (Deu 12:1-4)
2. The true place of worship (Deu 12:5-14)
3. Concerning eating and the blood (Deu 12:15-28)
4. Warning against the abominations of idolatry (Deu 12:29-32)
The law, and love as the fulfilment of that law, was the main subject of the words of Moses up to the close of the eleventh chapter. The chapters which follow also contain expositions of the different statutes, as well as exhortations to obedience and warnings against departure from Jehovah. How significant that worship occupies the prominent place! A false worship must be completely extirpated, for it would lead their hearts away from the one Jehovah. All images and pillars were to be destroyed. True worship is ever linked with obedience to and love for Jehovah. False worship is apostasy.
The one place is mentioned repeatedly, the place, which Jehovah has appointed for worship (verses 5, 11, 14, 18, 21 and 26). What disobedience if they left that one place and turned somewhere else to worship! The subsequent history of Gods ancient people teaches the awful results of such a course. We have in the New Testament also commandments to worship. Our worship is in spirit and in truth. It is not connected with an earthly place, an earthly altar, but we worship in the power of the Spirit in heaven itself, where our forerunner is. But Christendom has a false worship which apes after the ritualistic Jewish worship. In that worship we find also images, holy places, etc., and that is in the sight of God as great an abomination as the Canaanite worship, which Israel found in the promised land.
We do not touch here again upon the eating of flesh, the sanctity of the blood, etc. All this we have had in Leviticus to which we refer the reader. Nor do we enter into the alleged contradictions, which the modern day infidels, in the camp of Christendom, claim exist here. It is but blindness (we fear often wilful blindness), which can bring such criticism and accusations against the Word of God.
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)

the statutes: Deu 4:1, Deu 4:2, Deu 4:5, Deu 4:45, Deu 6:1, Deu 6:2
all the days: Deu 12:19, Deu 4:19, 1Ki 8:40, Job 7:1, Psa 104:33, Psa 146:2
Reciprocal: Lev 14:34 – When Lev 26:46 – the statutes Num 15:2 – General Deu 5:31 – General Deu 19:1 – hath cut Deu 26:16 – This day
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Subdivision 2. (Deu 12:1-32; Deu 13:1-18; Deu 14:1-29; Deu 15:1-23; Deu 16:1-22; Deu 17:1-20; Deu 18:1-22; Deu 19:1-21; Deu 20:1-20; Deu 21:1-23; Deu 22:1-30; Deu 23:1-25; Deu 24:1-22; Deu 25:1-19; Deu 26:1-19.)
Application to the various relationships in which men stand to God or the world around them.
The essence of the law, then, is whole-hearted love to God, who has revealed Himself in such a way as to be fully entitled to it. He who was of old their Creator is now their Redeemer; and the law comes to them laden with the mercies of life which man so keenly appreciates, (if not, alas! as mercies,) and with the memories of broken bonds to enhance their appreciation.
But the love of God of necessity implies the desire of moral assimilation to Him; and thus the law becomes a means to this. In His commandments we learn Himself, -not, indeed, as Christ reveals Him, for there was yet, and in this sense, a wail over His face, -but in such measure as was at present possible. In the practical application of the “ten words,” we find still more than in the tables themselves, that the law made nothing perfect, and that such and such allowances had to be made in view of the hardness of their hearts, as the Lord declares. (Mat 19:8.) Spite of this, the imitation of God Himself is plainly what the law requires. (Deu 10:18-19.)
1. We have now the illustration of this in special commandments which amplify and apply the law to the special relationships of life, and in an orderly way, beginning once more with the first table though, of course, not with the first commandment which has been already dwelt upon and emphasized. The first section is thus marked out as applying to the first table, -to duties Godward.
(1) And of these the first subsection gives one whose importance must be apparent by the way it is insisted on. It is emphasized too as imposed of the Lord’s own will. He would choose one place out of all their tribes to put His name, and there they were to bring their gifts and offerings. There was to be one centre of gathering for all Israel: it is no question of what exceptionally God might. Himself command, as in the case of Gideon (Jdg 6:26), or of Manoah (13: 16), or of a prophet like Samuel (1Sa 7:9; 1Sa 10:8), -things which merely show that God was necessarily above His own law, and which might be argued as much to set aside the distinctive priesthood in Aaron’s family, as the one place of sacrifice. How should a law for Israel as a whole take notice of such rare exceptions? In fact, to none of these places were the people to come, nor did they. Shiloh first after the conquest of the land, and then Jerusalem, were the chosen centres. Between the two was a time of ruin, in which, it is said, irrespective of law, “every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” (Jdg 21:25.) In such a time God acted in His goodness, outside the established order.
These ordinances are expressly given for the land, and are in character often supplementary to those given at Sinai. (Deu 29:1.) This accounts for much of the seeming contradiction, out of which infidelity has sought to make capital in her own behalf. To these cavils there have been replies in abundance, and they need not be repeated here, where we have but too little room for what is directly for edification. For souls to be nourished up in the positive teaching of the Word of God is also the best preserver from the questionings of unbelief, so easy to multiply, and whose factories pay such poor wages to the workman.
Here as a first necessity in order to maintain that pure worship of God which their existence as a nation in the midst of surrounding idolatry was to conserve, He once more insists upon the absolute extirpation of idolatry out of the land. All signs, every memorial of it, they were to destroy: the very names of the false gods were to be forgotten. Heathenism had possessed itself of the land: hills, groves, everywhere had been associated with the pollutions of impure and cruel rites. From all these, Israel’s eyes were to be called away to their one place chosen of God, where, without visible image or similitude, among all the creatures of His hand, Jehovah dwelt. There they were to bring all their offerings, and, filled with the blessing of the Lord, to eat and rejoice before Him, -themselves and their households.
A precious thing is this ability to rejoice before God. It is all power, all security for holiness, -the “joy of the Lord is your strength.” (Neh 8:10.) Israel attached by the heart to this light- and heat-giving centre, their whole life was to revolve around it in the orbit of obedience, no more seeking release than the earth would of the sun. Here, then, God fixes the centre for them, -His sanctuary the heart of the land, from which should pulse and return the vivifying streams to every part. For He will be no man’s debtor: of His own only can we give Him and he who gives to Him indeed, enriches himself by giving. Has He hunger that shall be fed with Israel’s offerings? Has He need that He ordains them to satisfy? Yes: the need of love for its object. He is Love. His “delights are with the sons of men.”
In a lesser sense they are taught to make all taking of life a “sacrifice” to the Lord, the word being used here with regard to what is at any time used for food, the blood being poured upon the ground as the life which belongs to God. It is the application of the principle of Lev 17:1-16 (which in its full detail was only possible in the camp in the wilderness) to the land at large. Here, as there, the sacredness of life was to be realized, and their own life to be constantly lifted into spiritual meaning, and brought near to God. Each common meal was to have, as far as this could be given to it, the character of a peace-offering: it was to be enjoyed in communion with God.
Care for the Levite is also insisted on, for if we are with God, He is master of the table at which He sits, and His pensioners become ours. Finally, the extension of the boundaries of the land beyond their present assignment is distinctly contemplated and provided for.
The uses of this provision of one only centre of gathering in the land for a people exposed and prone to yield to the seductions of an idolatry which had connected itself with every part of the scene around them, are evident enough in turning their eyes away from these, removing as far as possible the old associations, so powerful as they prove themselves, and bringing the whole people together under one manifest allegiance. This one sanctuary, with its Levite guard, and the awful Presence which abode there, was a security against the introduction of man’s will which for a people such as Israel nothing else could give. For her own purposes, and with evident wisdom, Rome has sought to imitate this. All she has lacked is that divine presence with her, which she has recognized indeed as necessary, and has not failed to claim. Metropolitanism in spiritual things has never been transferred from Jerusalem, though Jerusalem for centuries has been set aside from what was her glory, -what will again be this, -that she was the city of God. The city of God for Christianity is heavenly” Jerusalem which is above, which is our mother.” (Gal 4:26.) The dwelling-place of God on earth is the Church which is formed by the Holy Ghost of living stones, which Peter himself has with prophetic significance been made to announce to us. (1Pe 2:5.) Practically, the presence of the Lord is with any “two or three gathered to” His “name.” (Mat 18:20.) Unity now is spiritual, not local. To put it better, the centre of gathering is One hid in heaven, whose “name” alone unites us upon earth. But thank God we are not thus at distance from our centre ever: wherever we gather to His name He is.
(2) As the first subsection has thus to do with the maintenance of the sovereignty of the one true God, the second naturally treats of those who should turn aside to follow other gods. And here the closing verses of the twelfth chapter seem clearly the beginning of the subject of the thirteenth. The prohibition a all thought of such service, or of mixing it in any way with the service of Jehovah, which they were jealously to adhere to without addition or diminution, leads on to the treatment of seducers in the shape of false prophets, or among kindred and bosom friends, and then where even a whole city might have gone astray.
In the first place, there was to be no borrowing from the worship of false gods, much less going after themselves. A false god implies necessarily what is false and evil morally for were not man’s conscience defiled, he could not be away from God. The apostle’s history of the development of idolatry (Rom 1:1-32) is a true picture of every case, and the gods men take to themselves are a faithful picture of the lusts which call for them. It follows as a thing of course that their service gratifies these and develops them, remorse of conscience coming in, however, and claiming frightful penalties, until men offer the fruit of their bodies for the sin of their souls, passion and fear holding them alternately in bondage. God’s will as proclaimed by His commandments is the only path of light and freedom: they were not to add or take away from it.
Secondly, they were to learn the supremacy of the moral in what might claim to be miracle, and thus decisive witness of what it was wrought to attest. This is a most important principle even now, when from Romanism to Mormonism and to Spiritualism, the supernatural is appealed to as establishing any thing as truth. Not so does the Word of God use it. Confirm the truth it may awaken attention to it, it will: sound the alarm-bell in the conscience, summon response from the heart but that which compels belief is the manifest truth, -truth which is always pure, always holy, always witnesses for God within the soul. “By their fruits shall ye know them,” says the Lord as to the false prophets. No jugglery can bring forth grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles.
God may, it is plainly stated, allow a sign to come to pass as predicted. The “wicked one” of the last days comes with “all power and signs and lying wonders,” things that shall take captive with strong delusion those that have “not received the love of the truth, that they might be saved.” (2Th 2:1-17) There is a moral order in all this, and no cause for marvel that they that love lies, and will have them, should find that what they have embraced for truth has been a lie. Those that are of the truth hear the truth -Christ’s voice, -none others. This is the unalterable and holy law of God’s holy government: “there is a way that seemeth right unto a man, and the end thereof are the ways of death.”
How deep this sends home to us the question, so necessary and so healthful as it is, where, and what are we? How well it assures us that if in any thing we deal untruly with our souls, we can make no covenant with the deceit we have invited -deceit will deceive all round! How well may the voice of Truth cry to the sons of men: “All they that hate Me love death”! (Pro 8:36.)
This does not displace the miracle, as some would have it, from its place of witness. It only fixes its place, and refuses to make a servant master; assures us that we everywhere have need of open eyes and conscience, lest we become the poor slaves of superstition that millions are, and from which our vaunted civilization in no wise delivers us.
This second warning is against deception; but “Adam was not deceived,” yet was seduced. The wife gave) to her husband, and with open eyes he fell. The third section here warns against this seduction. If it come from thy brother, the son of thy mother, or from the wife of thy bosom, or the friend who is as thine own soul, still the seducer to false gods must perish, and thou thyself have the responsibility of this, thy hand must be first upon him. This supposes public trial and full proof, of course, -sufficient witness, without which no life could be taken in Israel. The thing so proved, nothing remained but judgment: the judgment that fell upon Canaan and her gods must fall upon him who would bring back the gods and so the Canaan. It was God’s judgment -amply just as God’s must be; just, if ever judgment is just; and the smiting of a love which could not suffer the blight and canker to come upon His people whom He had saved from Egypt and brought home to Himself. Christianity does not smite thus, not because it is not just, but because Christianity is the spirit of grace in a world which has rejected Christ, and in which no divine throne any longer exists as it existed in Israel. But the judgment is reserved only for the time that is surely coming, upon all who refuse still the grace. The tenderest lips that have ever spoken shall pronounce it, the hearts of saints shall say their amen to it, and the consciences of those condemned shall own its justice in that day.
The last case provided for is where a whole city is gone astray from God, in which case it comes under the ban, and is to be destroyed utterly, never to be rebuilt. Thus only could the mercy of God go forth in blessing once more for the land.
(3) We have now three things put together which seem to have little connection with one another or with the topic of consecration to God upon which the first commandment is here directly based. We have indeed to remember that (as has been already said) only illustrations are given us of principles much wider in application. Yet we shall find surely here, as always, that divine wisdom has ordered every thing, and that the illustrations are really such as this supposes. If we take from the passage the typical, that is, the prophetic, spiritual meaning, then indeed we may expect the meagreness which must result from such spoliation; but this will be our own fault entirely, and we do not so propose to treat the blessed Word of God. The New Testament must light up the Old; and in this we deal no more untruly with it than the light does when it floods a landscape with the day. For us the day is come, and we are children of it.
(a) Whatever may be the value of what follows, it is plain that it is based upon a wondrous place that Israel had, their being sons to Jehovah their God. This was their special place among the nations: they had, as the apostle says, “the adoption.” It did not involve for them, what it does for us now their being children of God as new-born of the Spirit, although where faith was truly in the heart, there of course was new birth at any time. If we read this, then, in the light of God’s desire for them, we may and must bring it in. By and by, it will be in fact accomplished as to the whole nation.
“Life,” and that in its full sense, a life which the children of God have, gives evidently its fullness to the meaning here. Death is not to have power over the sons of God. “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” It would be to dishonor Him, therefore, to make cuttings in the flesh for the dead, -ineffaceable marks of grief for that which touched not the true life, and which the hand of God was to remove forever. Except we take in this thought of life, who could refuse to own the power of that under which in fact all would be? Death brings things here to an end, and the more their value, the greater ruin accomplished. It is not to be endured, then, the notion that the Pentateuch is Sadducean, although only by the gospel indeed are life and incorruption fully brought to light. There is darkness, but to faith not impenetrable, as, in fact, we know it was not unpenetrated.
Israel must not disfigure themselves. They were wholly God’s, and not to mutilate what He claimed for Himself. So a mere asceticism is a mere dishonor to Him whose we are, and to whom to give one’s life is to make it full, perfect, exuberant. “Thou wilt show me the path of life,” says the Psalmist, and then adds at once, “in Thy presence fullness of joy; at Thy right hand, pleasures for evermore.” If it be answered to this, “Yes, but in heaven,” Deuteronomy has enriched us already with the thought of “days of heaven upon the earth.”
(b) It need not surprise us now that we find immediately upon this the insistence once more upon distinction of food, and that Israel shall only partake of what God pronounces clean. Food is the sustenance of life, and spiritually it is fully true that as the food is so the life must be. Christ is thus our Life itself, and the Bread of life. Strength cannot be ours without food, or without proper food; and if we only receive of Christ, it is He who says, “He that eateth Me, shall even live by Me.”
Though the distinctions here insisted on have passed away as letter, as spirit they remain as things imperatively to be maintained. Would that we were careful always as to what we fed upon, and realized more fully that what we assimilate we are assimilated to. But in art, in literature, even for the Christian, genius is permitted to gild vice, and beauty of style to adorn error, until virtue in a rough garb is disdained, and evil in a fine coat welcomed. This has been in measure true at all times, never perhaps more, however, than in the present day; and therefore the commandment here never needed enforcement more.
The lists of clean and unclean are shorter and more concise than in Lev 11:1-47, with some differences also, of which we can at present unhappily give no account. All has been said already that we are able to say, in the notes upon Leviticus.
(c) In the third part of this chapter, the practical life of the Israelite is put in connection with the Sanctuary-Presence. An immense point it is that is here insisted on, although the reality is only faintly imaged in the legal statute.
The tithe spoken of is one of the supplementary laws of Deuteronomy, a second tithe, not the first, which belonged to God alone: while this was consumed, at the sanctuary, by the person whose land was tithed, with his household, and the Levite, never to be forgotten. He thus comes up to own before God His mercies and enjoy them with God.
The life is characterized by dependence -faith: and faith has its one object and need in God Himself. The psalms emphasize this need of God, the personal God, for the soul. “My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?” (Psa 42:2.) The eighty-fourth psalm celebrates the blessedness of those who dwell in God’s house, whose life is one perpetual praise and the blessedness next to that, of him in whose heart are the “ways” that lead there, who goes from strength to strength, though through the vale of weeping, making it a well, and the rain of heavenly refreshment filling the pools.
What is faith indeed without the God in whom it is? what divine life that draws not up to its source and centre? The journeys of the Israelite to Zion year by year, with their eating and drinking, and joy before Him, do indeed but feebly express the truth here: yet they shadow, and remind us of it.
(4) Of this joy in God the practical life is the outflow: on this we do not need to dwell, it is so manifest. Completely in place is it, therefore, that now we find every third year this tithe consumed at home, shared with the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow. Not simply given to them, but shared with them; -a deeper thing. Christ does not give merely, that we may carry it away from Him; He shares. This is fellowship. We are called to joy in His joy, who came here to sorrow in our sorrow: “I will drink the wine new with you,” He says, “in My Father’s kingdom.”
This is only the first illustration, however, of the mercy to be shown to the needy in Israel, the witness of His mercy who was Israel’s God. We find beyond this two other cases of need.
First, the debtor, to whom the seventh -the Sabbatic -year brought “release” as to his debt. The comparison with Exo 23:11, where the same word as used for “release” here is applied to the land, -the letting it rest, -assures us plainly that this was not an absolute remission of all debt, but a temporary one during the time of the land-rest, which might hinder payment. This, which did not of course affect the foreigner, shows the reason of his exemption. God would have no poor among His people, although such there would always be, left to test and draw out the mercy of their brethren, who were to make them practically to cease by their care for them. (Comp. v. 4 with v. 11.) Nor need they fear to suffer by this liberty; for so they would be blessed in all they put their hand to. How tender a witness this sabbatic year to the bounty of His hand who supported all!
The other case is that of a person who through want might have been compelled to become a bondman: for him also the seventh year of his service was to bring release; nor was he to be sent empty away, but furnished liberally. They were to remember the bond-service in Egypt, and their redemption. Yet love might rather choose continued service; and we know Whose love is pictured here.
This enforcement of mercy to the poor was the more needed because the law had promises of earthly blessing to him who kept it, which self-righteousness might abuse to justify another treatment. And for this reason the Lord,s story of Lazarus and the rich man would come home to covetous Pharisees. In this, the poor man -one in utter destitution -is taken to Abraham’s bosom, and the rich man shut out. But this is not legal right, but salvation, a very different thing, in the line of which comes the exhortation here in Deuteronomy to remember Egypt and their own redemption. To them all, and always, God,s blessings were but mercy; and the lesson of the law was not learnt by those in ignorance of this.
(5) The first section ends now with the repetition of that which is all through a governing thought -the going up to the sanctuary. The life which is of God must be lived with Him, of which these goings up are an imperfect yet real expression. In accordance with the number of this subsection, we have the occasions insisted on on which they went up, which naturally typify the ways that lead up. Blessed indeed he in whose heart they are!
(a) First, however, and as introductory to these, we have a supplementary note -in this, quite in the style of Deuteronomy -as to the first-born of the herd and flock. They were not to be worked, nor used by man for his own profit, but to be the Lord’s entirely, and eaten when they went up to the sanctuary, except there were some blemish; in which case, though not fit to be taken up, they were still to be eaten, as a portion from God in the family.
As supplementary to the former law (Num 18:1-32), it is, no doubt, the priest who is to eat this in the way stated. Nor does it seem possible that even such a modification should be intended as that the people should share with the priests, as some have thought: nothing like this is said. As a supplement to what was well known, there would be no misunderstanding of what, if it stood alone, would naturally be otherwise taken than now we take it. In fact, the Jews seem to have had no question.
Nationally, there was no separate going up to Jerusalem to present the firstlings, yet the fulfillment of the law required them to go up. It is thus a suited introduction to that of the three feasts following. The first-born belonged to God, as having been spared in Egypt, and to eat it before God speaks for us of realizing that relationship to God which is founded upon birth and redemption. Israel had this double position, -are for the earth, as the Church is for heaven, God’s first-born; and when they truly take it, it will be as born to God -newborn, as we, -a new birth, which implies the bringing home to Him, though the knowledge of redemption be the actual call. Perfectly in its place, then, is this introductory note as to the first-born. They must eat it at the sanctuary, therefore, -that is, if without blemish; if blemished, it was not a fit presentation of what God,s work and gift must be; and thus it lost its place, and became mere ordinary food.
(b) We now come to the three feasts which actually brought Israel to the sanctuary. The first of these was the passover, in which, as seen here, the feast of unleavened bread is merged. Redemption is the prominent thought, though the putting away of leaven surely accompanies it. Unleavened bread is the “bread of affliction,” -the soul’s self-humiliation because of the remembrance of the bondage out of which the mercy of God has delivered; for us, indeed, how shameful an one! a sorrow which is to be the subduing of pride forever, and thus, morally, our deliverance.
Here is the first direct call to the sanctuary, though new birth underlies it, as we know. In the knowledge of redemption it is that the new life comes to itself, and so to God. In its second-first place in this series, the passover-feast is found in perfect order, as all is order here.
(c) The feast of weeks, or Pentecost, comes next to the passover, -a type, as we well know, of the gift of the Spirit, but which is characterized here by its effects -the fruit produced, of which a free-will offering is presented to God according to the measure of the blessing realized.
Upon this as bringing to God there is no need to dwell at length. The Spirit of God is He by whom we draw nigh, and the Spirit in us will not acquiesce in distance. He is the Spirit of adoption whereby we cry, “Abba, Father;” and it is good to notice, as connected with the type, the voluntary offering, and the joy before God, in which those who have special need are specially remembered and made to share. Such are the characteristics, indeed, of the work of the Spirit.
(d) Lastly, we have now the feast of tabernacles. This, as we have already seen, speaks of the perfected blessing, when, the harvest of the earth and the vintage of wrath being past, Israel, in the enjoyment of the land, shall remember all wilderness-experience as past forever, and the long joy wide-spread and unchecked shall reach on to eternal day. For us also, in a higher sphere, there are “pleasures at God’s right hand for evermore.”
This completes the picture. The perpetuity of blessing means God’s unbroken delight in the work of His hands forever -God with us, we with Him, abidingly. Thus the three feasts that call Israel up to God do not speak of temporary or intermitting fellowship. That would be injurious to God as to man. “Emmanuel” -“God with us” can be of no mere temporary significance.
2. (1) We pass now from the first table of the law to the second -from duties Godward to duties manward; in the first section, finding connection between the two by means of the fifth commandment, under which the duties to rulers naturally come, especially in Israel, where, as we have seen, the idea of the family, the natural order, underlies the whole national constitution. Authority here, as it is derived from God, represents Him, as it is plain: a principle which the apostle applies for the Christian in a most sweeping way (Rom 13:1-14), and which is seen clearly in Scripture -“Calling those gods to whom the word of God came,” (the judges in Israel, that is, who had divine commission,) -a phrase which the Lord seals with the emphatic assurance, “Scripture cannot be broken” (Joh 10:35.)
Those who would put the fifth commandment into the first table may find here their strongest argument, as confirmatory of which they urge the special commandments as to idolatry which follow in this place. One would think this view, however, to be self-evidently wrong, the numerical stamp also justifying fully the common division, as we have seen. The fifth commandment does indeed by this means only stand as the first of the second table -the representative of the first in the second, and this most perfectly.
The duties of rulers also are implied in the duties to them, and come under the same head here.
(a) We have, first, the institution of civil authority, that righteousness may be maintained throughout the land: judges everywhere, with a court for the settlement of difficult cases at the sanctuary, taking the place of the appeal hitherto to Moses himself; a king viewed as in the future in God’s thought for them, and the choice of one provided for.
The judges sat in the gates of the cities, because every one going out or coming in was to be under their eye; and justice thus, as it was to be open-eyed, and toward all, would come under the eyes of all, as able to bear the light. There was to be no respect of persons, no taking of gift. Righteousness in Israel was to be the basis of every thing, the condition of life and of inheritance.
But in the maintenance of this, the claim of God was first, and thus the commandments as to idolatry follow this immediately. There was to be no toleration in such cases at all, but sharp excision by the sword of justice, the government being exercised by God openly among them, and the worship of other gods manifest rebellion. Church and state were here really one, and ecclesiastical penalties also civil ones. This is, of course, no justification of such a course in entirely different conditions under another dispensation. The kingdom of God is now “not of this world;” Christ’s people reign not, but are patient sufferers; their weapons spiritual, and not carnal; and grace to be manifested by them while God in His grace forbears toward men.
In these cases, the law required sufficient witness, and of such sort as would be willing to put their hands to the confirmation of it: the witnesses must first execute the sentence of the judge.
In matters too difficult to settle by the ordinary procedure, the sanctuary became the place of final appeal, where the priest’s voice could re-inforce that of the judge; and this appeal was ultimate. A sentence so given none could resist without rebellion.
A king is contemplated in due time, when they should desire, in this, to be like the nations round about. But when the people make this very plea in Samuel’s time (1Sa 8:5), it is taken, not by him only, but by the Lord also, as the rejection of Him as their King. From this, it has been urged that this passage in Deuteronomy must have been the insertion of a later time. But why? Granted that it was failure on the people’s part, (and that is clear,) it is surely not clear that God could not foresee this, nor that, foreseeing, He might not provide for it. Certainly, a desire to be like the Gentiles, in one of those things that mainly distinguished them from the Gentiles, could not indicate a right appreciation of their blessings. And yet the wisdom and grace of God are only the more, not the less, conspicuous in this provision. True, of Saul it was said, “I gave thee a king in Mine anger, and took him away in My wrath.” (Hos 13:11.) But this only brings out God’s real choice -David, “the beloved,” type of One who is indeed that, and in whom a King is found who reigns forever. He is the One of whom the king that Deuteronomy announces is the shadow. Brought forth when priesthood has failed in Eli, and prophet in Samuel, the true king is God’s resource for Israel and the earth. For neither priesthood nor prophecy alone will set right the earth, or bring in the time when it shall be filled with the glory of the Lord. He must come to whom the throne belongs, and who shall bring back judgment to righteousness; He in whom Prophet, Priest, and King are one, -a threefold cord that never shall be broken.
Here it is but the type, the mere human king, needing to be reminded of his dependence upon God, and liable to trust in horses and chariots, and to yield himself to the lusts which enslave the greatest. In Solomon, the wisest of kings, is found the failure which is here anticipated. He is but the shadow. The reins of absolute empire are reserved for One who alone can hold them aright.
(b) The rights of priests and Levites follow, -the ministers of Jehovah, ministering in His name: identified with Him, not in rule, but in that which attests rather His heart than, as before, His righteousness. To them the people were in turn to minister a recognized portion, they having none with the other tribes in the land.
There was also a special privilege accorded to these, wherever there was a longing desire in the heart to dwell near the sanctuary, there was no fixed location which would prevent the accomplishment of this. Such an one could come and minister among his brethren who stood there before Jehovah, and was to find his portion among these. A precious witness for us of how God delights in and welcomes the approach of one who, as a worshiper, would draw nigh, and abide in His presence. Oh for more of this longing of heart among us, -the importunate faith of one to whom God must say, Be it unto thee even as thou wilt!
(c) As the judge or the king represents God characteristically in His righteousness, and the Levite-priest represents Him in His love, the prophet now gives utterance to His voice as the Living One. Through the Urim and Thummim of the priest He could be sought indeed and would respond, as we know; but the prophet waited not for inquiry. God’s word abode in him as a fire that must break out, urging him on in spite of fears and hesitation of nature and opposition of the evil around. It was the voice of holiness that spake to the conscience also, bringing all into the light because God is light. Hence the prophet was the man of God in days of reproach and apostasy, and the voice of revival wherever there were hearts yet to be reached.
Alas! the heart that drew away from God, and shunned Him, drew only the nearer, by this, to the living and active enemy of God and the very needs which should have drawn him as of necessity to Him who could satisfy them, put him then the more completely in the power of the dark and dreadful apostasy in heavenly spheres. Thus the word as to the true prophet here is prefaced by the prohibition of all divination, witchcraft, necromancy, and recurrence to the supernatural apart from God, -if apart, then in sure and deadly opposition.
The one need in seeking God is the remembrance of the holiness of His presence, -the need of truth, therefore, in the inward parts. Where it was not openly another god that was sought, the false way revealed itself by its essential unholiness, and never more clearly than where apparently purification was insisted on. For this purification was but a mockery of it, cruel and terrible as it might be in its demands. Thus the list of forbidden things begins here with the “making son or daughter to pass through the fire,” a form of expression by which is intended that giving the “fruit of the body for the sin of the soul” which has been practiced among most heathen nations in their sore perplexity away from God.*
{*Comp. 2Ki 16:3 -“he made pass through” -with 2Ch 28:3 -“he burnt.” That there were lighter modes of passing through the fire, however, is not to be denied; and they have survived in various parts of Christendom, as in the midsummer fires of St. John’s Eve, in some places in England.}
Following this, we have “all the words which the language contained for the different modes of exploring the future and discovering the will of God” (Keil) practiced by the heathen, brought together under one general condemnation. Nor are we past the need of reviewing them, so constantly does the power of evil work through the need and corruption of man to the same results, -modified only and disguised by the manners of the age, but which in no wise affects their inner meaning. Spiritualism, clairvoyance, and theosophy today have only freshened our apprehension of what has been in some shape always at work, although now energetically working in proportion as the end approaches, and the enfeebled power of Christianity allows them to appear with boldness.*
{* 1. We have in this list, first, qosem, the “diviner,” which seems the general term, including all the rest.
2. Meonen, in the common version, the “observer of times,” predicting lucky or unlucky days from the observation of the heavens, is, in the R.V., the “augur” in general. The Septuagint and the Syriac versions differ from these and from each other: the former giving kledonizomenos -“presaging from chance words;” the latter, “fascinating with the eyes,” from which Pember conjectures perhaps a mesmerist, but which might refer as well to the power of the “evil eye.” Neither of the last seem likely, however, here, nor does the derivation seem certain, whether it be part of the verb to “eye,” (as 1Sa 18:9,) or of the verb to “cover” -“one who covers,” or uses secret arts, which on the whole seems to give the simplest meaning.
3. Menachesh, in both versions, “enchanter.” Pember well says, “The word is connected with nachash, a ‘serpent,’ and is usually explained to mean a ‘hisser,’ or ‘whisperer’ and then ‘a mutterer of enchantments.’ But the use of the verb, of which it is the Piel participle, seems to point in a different direction. In Gen 30:1-43, Laban entreats Jacob to stay with him; ‘for,’ says he, ‘I divine [or, more literally, perceive by observation,] that the Lord hath blessed me for thy sake.’ And again, when, to the pleading of Benhadad’s servants, Ahab replied, ‘Is he yet alive? he is my brother,’ we are told that the men ‘divined,’ ‘took an omen,’ from what he had said. Hence the verb seems to have been used primarily of drawing an inference from rapid observation, and then of divining. From the first meaning comes nachash, a ‘serpent,’ on account of its quick intelligence; from the second, menachesh, an ‘augur’ -one who divines by observing signs and tokens, such as the singing and flight of birds, aerial phenomena, and other sights and sounds.” (Earth’s Earliest Ages, p. 156.)
4. Mecashsheph, constantly rendered, in the Septuagint, pharmakos -“one who uses drugs,” seems to be the enchanter proper, working through natural things endued, by magical formulae or prayers, with supernatural power.
5. Chover, literally, “binding” as with a spell; “charmer” in the common version.
6. Shoel obh -“one who consults a familiar spirit.” The obh was in the person, as Lev 20:27 literally reads, although it is also applied to the person himself in whom it is, and this generally. It means, primarily, “a (skin) bottle” (Job 32:19), apparently from its dilatability, and its transference to the possessed person has been supposed to be either from the swelling of the body of which Virgil speaks (Aeneid, 6: 46, etc.) with the demoniac inspiration, or from the ventriloquism attending, to which the rendering of the Septuagint refers it. From the demoniac, the term was transferred to the demon.
7. Yidoni -the wise one in unlawful wisdom, the wizard.
8. The necromancer -the seeker to the dead.}
All who do these things are declared emphatically to be an abomination to Jehovah; not merely the things are such, but the people who do them. Christianity has not changed this, nor can subtly disguised names hinder divine judgment.
If the professing people of God turn to such things, it is not because God has refused them the joy and blessing of direct communication of His mind: it is because they have turned their back on Him. He would not even wait for the people to call on Him, but would come near to them Himself in the Prophet that He would raise up like unto Moses, and whom they were to hear; and of him who did not hear the Prophet it would be required.
It should be as certain that Christ is the only complete fulfillment of this as, on the other hand, that every prophet raised up was a partial anticipatory fulfillment. The threefold form of headship in Israel -King, Priest, and Prophet -we have here complete, and of each we must say exactly the same thing. Christ it is alone to whom they all looked forward, and without him, any fulfillment would be trivial and unworthy. Yet the terms of what is said show plainly that others are contemplated, as steps not unneeded by which we reach Him -certainly to Israel gracious helps by which in the meanwhile faith might be sustained and need ministered to.
It may be said by those who deny the lesser application, that neither king nor priest here are prophesied of in any direct way, while the prophet is: and this is true; yet the three offices are brought together surely for a purpose, each one to be filled by Christ at last, and each emphasizing one main attribute of Jehovah as Supreme Head in Israel, -righteousness, love, holiness, -as we have seen.
There is a reason also to be found for what is said of the prophet being more strictly predictive. For while the continuance of the priesthood and of the judgeship was provided for, and the king also when the time should come, the prophetic office was neither elective nor successional, but depended upon the mere good pleasure of God. Hence the promise, “God will raise up.” A distinction of the prophet it is that even in Israel he existed only by the direct call and qualification of God only. Each one was therefore very distinctly the “man of God” in his day; and the “testimony of Jesus,” which the “spirit of prophecy” was, was preserved from the corruption by which priest and king were overcome.
Thus the prophet marked the activity of the living God in behalf of His people, and throughout reign after reign of the later kings of Israel, the existence of the prophet is the one ray of light -the link still existing between God and the people who drew not near to God: in this way like Moses, although not of the full stature of Moses, no doubt, a fulfillment of what is here, though not the fulfillment; which easily reconciles the last saving of this book with such minor accomplishments, while it justifies the faith which even in Israel looked forward to “that Prophet” in whom, blessed be God, He has drawn nigh to us.
Christ has come: the Word of God is complete; -no new revelation need be or can be added to it. Yet in a minor sense the voice of prophecy should be found among us. The apostle, in writing to the Corinthians, after bidding them “desire spiritual gifts,” adds as the chief of all, “but rather that ye may prophesy;” his reason for the preference, “he that prophesieth speaketh unto men to edification and exhortation and comfort.” “Love edifieth;” and, he writes, “ye may all prophesy, one by one, that all may learn and all may be comforted.” We see that he is not thinking of uttering predictions, which is what so many think to be all the business of a prophet, but of that speaking from God and for God which he can do best who has not necessarily most knowledge or most utterance, but most communion with Him, and who most stands in His presence, waiting for His word. The Church of God has much need of such men as these today.
(2) The subsection following now confirms the previous one by its clear reference to the sixth commandment, -the salvation-ordinance, as we have already called it, of the life that is. On account of its clearness, there will be little for us to say about it. It falls naturally into three parts, which are indicated by the divisions of the chapters in our common version.
(a) Of these, the first respects the individual life, and divides again in three parts, as is quite plain. First, it is enjoined on them to carry out in the land into which God is bringing them the law of the cities of refuge, by dividing it into three portions, with roads prepared in each, and a central city as an asylum. for the man-slayer innocently such, that the land may not be stained with innocent blood. Also if their borders should be extended, according to the promise made conditional upon obedience, then they were to mark off three cities more. This repetition of the number 3 cannot be without meaning, as indeed these cities had a notable significance for Israel themselves, as we have seen. Surely in them was the very secret of their future told out, and how God shall manifest Himself for them at last. In the meanwhile, by this provision human life is made known as the object of God’s care, and cherished. The extension of the land waits their future possession of it.
Secondly, the law against the removal of landmarks comes in here, no doubt, as generally seen, because the land was their life, as sustaining it. They were to be a nation of husbandmen, each for himself cultivating the soil of that good land, -a much-needed lesson of what God would have His people to be spiritually now. Here is our wealth and sustenance indeed; and “much food” -would that we did believe it! -“in the tillage of the poor.”
Thirdly, life is guarded by a retributive law of false witness, -a law under which the world that crucified Christ is crucified to the Christian. That precious life itself could not be preserved, and yet by being given up abides for us and becomes fruitful.
(b) The subject next taken up is war, and here we have again three parts; first, Israel themselves being regarded; then their enemies; then the land itself in which they might be.
As to Israel themselves, they were to rely upon God as with them. We are to remember that this supposes that they too are with God, and therefore their going out and coming in according to His word. Then their enemies would be indeed God’s enemies, and resistance would-be resistance to Himself. Had they indeed abode in His covenant, how evident would this have been to all the world! and with what irresistible might would they have been clothed!
God then being thus with them, there was to be no craven fear in their hearts: he who was afraid might stay at home. God’s host must be, not conscripts, but volunteers. Then, too, if a man had built a new house and not lived in it, if he had planted a vineyard and not eaten of it, if he had betrothed a wife and not taken her, there was to be no sundering a man from what he was in pursuit of no bringing home-sickness into the battle-field.
As to the enemy, a besieged town was always to have the offer of peace by submission. If it resisted, it suffered the penalty of resisting God, not man merely; but the non-combatants were to be spared. The Canaanites, as under the divine curse, are excepted from this. As to the land, the fruit-trees were not to be cut down, but left to minister to the support of life.
(c) Thirdly, we have the expiation of an uncertain murder. Yet is it an expiation? There is certainly no mention of blood poured out, still less presented to God. In the land, at any distance from the sanctuary, it could not, of course, be put upon the altar. But the murderer is not found; and if he were, for him there could be no atonement; the elders who represent the city profess innocence, not assume guilt: atonement in this way, therefore, it would seem as if there could hardly be.
On the other hand, the heifer unbroken to the yoke reminds us irresistibly of the red heifer of purification for sin (Num 19:1-22), and as plainly seems to speak of Christ; and here vicarious penalty seems to be shown forth, even to some who dispute it elsewhere. Through all this, the broken neck of the victim strangely unites the deed which has to be cleansed away with that which cleanses it, -as if it were Christ murdered and yet dying to put away the crime, though the law of the city of refuge assures us that it cannot be put away.
The man was murdered -murder attaches somewhere: Christ too was the Victim of an enmity with which men “hated,” He says, “both Me and My Father.” (Joh 15:24.) Yet, again, at the cross He cries, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Here we have what at least approaches the mystery of the case before us: there were those of whom the one thing must be said; there were those also of whom grace could say the other. Thus the nation can be spared, though shut out in the meanwhile from their inheritance, as he was whom the city of refuge sheltered, but who could not return home till the death of the high-priest (see Num 35:1-34). There is governmental penalty, though not death. and when the years of chastisement have run out, then it will be said of Jerusalem, “She hath received of the Lord’s hand double for all her sins” (40: 2.) The “uneared, unsown land” indeed (how like Israel’s for so long!) testifying to this. But then, at last, there Will be a generation who, as to the guilt of Christ’s death, can plead, with these elders of the city, that they “have not shed this blood, nor have” their “eyes seen it,” the “perennial stream” of God’s abiding love having carried it away forever.
How wonderful is this picture! how all parts unite to give expression to it when the key is once in our hands! even as all contrary-seeming things shall unite to accomplish His purpose at the last.
(3) The third subsection speaks of marriage and the family, in evident connection with the seventh commandment, although there are laws to follow which would seem as plainly so or more, if we had regard to them apart from their context. But the order of the decalogue can be traced as far as the end of the twenty-second chapter, the illustrations, however, becoming continually briefer, as, in fact, less needed. The internal connection also becomes continually more difficult, -which does not mean, however, that it is loose or wanting.
(a) The first part treats of marriage with a captive taken in war, -a distinct permission, of course, of marriage with a Gentile, where there was not the hindrance of such a ban as rested upon Canaan.
Here, as we know by our Lord,s words, in the law of marriage, we find, more than any where, the failure of the law. The hardness of man’s heart forbad, until grace should come, the full restraint of absolute righteousness. Polygamy and divorce, as practiced among the nations round, could only be modified by partial curbing of the will and prevention of mere lawlessness. It was reserved for Christianity to restore woman to her original place in creation by the side of man.
Yet here, where most of all (and that is surely the reason why the commandment takes the peculiar form it does,) the woman was in the hand and power of the man, he was fenced round with prohibition. She must be given the wife’s place, allowed a month for natural sorrow over the separation from her kindred, perhaps to test also somewhat the reality of the affection that has sprung up in him. If the tie is formed, she can never be enslaved again; and should she be divorced, is free to go whither she please.
Thus it would seem that what is emphasized is the government of the will -the putting restraint upon desire, so that at least it shall not be lawless; and this, with regard to a captive, the legitimate property of the conqueror according to the customs everywhere else prevailing, is a witness to the character of Him who ruled in Israel, which we must estimate, not by the full light of Christianity now come, but as contrasted with what was around. Thus seen, it becomes indeed the dawning of the day.
We have now the recognition of polygamy as a fact, but a provision against one of its many evils. If a man had two wives, and children by both, the one loved, the other hated; and if the first-born were the son of the hated; in this case, the first-born was not to be displaced from his rights as such because of the father’s preference for the mother of the later-born. In the case of Jacob, this might seem to have occurred, -Reuben gave place to Joseph, the son of the beloved Rachel; but then, as we know from Jacob’s own words, it was Reuben’s sin that forfeited the inheritance. (Gen 49:4.) This, however, might single out this case for special legislation.
“Here too we have in God’s ways another remarkable type; for, having first chosen Israel, He afterward (as we know, because of their sin,) was pleased to take the Gentiles to Himself. The Jews refused the testimony; and as for the Gentiles, it is said that they will hear. Nevertheless, here He gives a beautiful provision, to show that He has not done with that which shall come forth as the first-born son of the apparently hated one -of her He had first. On the contrary, this is the very one for whom the rights of the inheritance will be preserved when repentance will be wrought in their hearts. Thus it is evident that the godly remnant of the latter day will have its rights reserved, according to His own precious word in this chapter.” (Lectures Introductory to the Pentateuch, by Wm. Kelly, p. 492.)
(b) But in contrast with this, we have the end of the disobedient son, given up at last by father and mother into the hands of the elders, by whose sentence he is stoned to death. The application is easy to the end of final disobedience on the part of those in Israel put in the place but not having the spirit of sons, as well as to those outwardly but not in heart sons among the Gentiles.
(c) In connection with this, we have an unspeakably solemn yet precious word. If a man had committed a sin worthy of death, and were put to death, and he were hung upon a tree, his body was not to remain all night upon the tree, but to be buried, that the land might not be defiled, “for he that is hanged,” it is said, “is accursed of God.”
This is literally “a curse of God,” which the apostle in Galatians takes as having the same meaning, for while he quotes it as “accursed” (Gal 3:13), he argues from this that Christ was “made a curse for us.” The Septuagint, Syriac, and Vulgate similarly render it “accursed;” but the Jews, since the second century of our era, have mostly decided for a different meaning, viz., “an injury, insult, mockery to God,” a meaning possible to the language, no doubt, but used in a very obvious interest, which cannot commend it to us. How Jews of old understood it we may see by the Septuagint. And the typical application as given in the New Testament puts the whole subject in a light by which it is illumined.
It should be noted that hanging, or crucifixion, -the Jews used the same word for either -was not a mode of putting to death by the law of Moses. It came after death, to express peculiar enormity, and put a special brand upon the one so treated. As “lifting up from the earth” (Joh 3:14; Joh 12:32), it expressed rejection from among men; as lifting up toward heaven, it might well challenge heaven’s approval of that rejection, and thus imply the “curse of God” upon the sinner. We can in this way understand better the apostle’s appeal to this passage in Deuteronomy, and distinguish the two elements of the cross,death and curse, -the forsaking of God, which we have already had before us in the ritual of the sin-offering. (Lev 4:1-35.)
We see also why the body of one hanging on a tree could not be permitted to remain there. The burial was not in this case an end of penalty. Rather it expressed the defiling character of sin and the abhorrence with which God beheld it. It was to be put out of sight and away, buried not with honor, but in the grave of a criminal; and here we see at once the significance of the change in the Lord’s case. His grave was appointed with the wicked; but this could not be suffered to take effect: He was with the rich in His death. Joseph’s tomb was the only fitting receptacle for its brief sojourn there, of the body of the Holy One who could not see corruption -His providential justification until resurrection should justify Him openly.
(4) The last three commandments of the decalogue, more briefly illustrated than the former ones, are found together in the fourth subsection. At first sight indeed, this is not evident: one would say that each commandment would, here as elsewhere, claim a subsection to itself. But the twenty-third chapter, which speaks of Israel as the congregation of Jehovah, has thus the plain character of a fifth part; and when we come to look more closely, we gain sufficient assurance of the correctness of this grouping.
We have first to ask, however, are these commandments really represented in the three parts of this subsection? This has been denied, though certainly we should look for some regular treatment of these, such as we find in the case of previous ones. No doubt our anticipations of what ought to be are often astray; but the twenty-second chapter begins with what is plainly an expansion of the eighth commandment, as vv. 13-21 speak of false witness, and the rest of the chapter applies the tenth. So much should be plain; and only vv. 5-12 can remain at all doubtful. These give the laws as to the confusion of sex, as in a man wearing a woman’s garment, as to not taking the mother-bird with its brood, as to putting a battlement around the flat top of the house, the prohibition of certain mixtures as of seeds or of materials of a garment, and finally of putting fringes on a garment. These have been all by Schrder (in Lange’s Commentary) reduced under the fourth commandment of the second table, though in some cases it would seem in a somewhat artificial manner.
But we must note now that we have in these three parts an evident reference to the first three laws of the second table, and each in its place. Thus v. 7 repeats the promise of the fifth commandment, and in a parallel case. Secondly, the false witness in the case mentioned would if it succeeded involve murder, the breach of the sixth; while the seventh and tenth come so plainly together in the third part, as to need no insisting on. Here, then, we have the relation of these three parts to one another clearly marked out. While as to their coming together under a fourth head, the beginning of the first part clearly must do so; the cases of violation of nature, as in the confusion of sexes, would do the same, as in the fourth section of the expanded second table of the decalogue in Exo 21:1-36; Exo 22:1-31; Exo 23:1-33 (p. 211); and the first law of this section gives the last case supposed in the third part of what is here before us.
Although there may be more or less difficulty in some of the details, yet the spirit of the eighth commandment -that is, the fourth of the second table -seems to run through the whole of this: the prohibition of plunder and theft, with that which connects with it, the lack of tenderness and mercy toward others. How near the fourth and last of these commandments come to one another needs not to be insisted on. Let us go through the chapter briefly now.
How much beyond the mere letter is to be read in the commandments is plain in the tenderness of the opening words. To fulfill the commandment not to steal, you must not consent to the destruction or loss of any thing that is your neighbor’s. It must be cared for, guarded, and kept for him.
The disguise as to sex would plainly serve all kinds of fraudful and dishonest purpose, whilst it falsified the stamp which God has put upon nature, and mutilated, so to speak, the coin of His realm. The taking the mother-bird, held by her affection to her young, was shameful advantage used of natural instincts, and a violation of honor to parents in this reproduction of motherly love in the lower creatures. The repetition of the promise here is very striking. It shows how sensitive will be the really obedient heart, and how God has in nature encompassed us with remembrances as well as tests of our condition. The law as to the battlements for the flat roofs of houses is simple enough as a rebuke of that thoughtlessness which is really hardness of heart. The three laws which follow as much resemble one another as they differ from what goes before. As prohibitions of mixture they come naturally enough under the first head here. The interpretation of the unequal yoke” is plainly given in 2Co 6:14. Christ’s yoke cannot be borne by the unclean -the unbeliever, -and for the believer there is no other. The garment of woolen and linen speaks similarly of mixed habits; while the sowing seed represents the necessity of keeping the truth unmixed. Failure in all these points involves a real robbery, not only of God, but of one’s neighbor: we owe both to Christians and the men of the world the maintenance of our Christian simplicity and singleness of life and testimony. The last thing here, the tassels upon the garment, which we have had in Num 15:38, reminds us that this is to be true natural development -the development of the new nature, not artificial, for the word speaks primarily of flower-buds. How beautifully again does the spiritual meaning declare the perfection of the Word of God!
As to the ninth commandment we have but one case supposed, and that how shameful an one! What a heart is man’s! -that is to say, ours! Schultz, as quoted in Lange, remarks that “Moses must have held a different view of unions in the face of great aversion from that prevalent among us.”
The exemplification of the tenth commandment for our purpose needs no remark.
(5) The methodical exposition of the “ten words” is thus complete; but there are yet three chapters more before the close is reached of the commandments, which now at first sight seem to be given without order or internal connection for the most part. Of course we know this cannot be, and that we only need more carefully to search it out. The most precious things often lie deepest; and our rule with Scripture is to believe in order to see -the opposite of the world’s rule, but which will always have experience to confirm it.
If the three chapters following stand for real divisions, then with the four previous ones we shall have seven subsections in this second section -the second table of the law complete. That the first four parts should close one division of this is quite in accordance with what we have seen to be the rule in a septenary series. In this case, we may expect the final three to form a whole, and the connection to be deeper, more spiritual and inward, than in the former case. And this seems indeed to be so.
The twenty-third chapter is in fact a fifth part, and, as already said, we have in it Israel as the congregation of Jehovah, the moral results of His place with them. Let us examine it.
(a) First, then, we have the assembly in its refusal of all discordant elements; and here the exclusion of the unsexed male is based on the need of maintaining the integrity of the creature. Mutilation was a reproach to God; and thus the whole spirit of asceticism is condemned and excluded both for Israel and for us today. The word for “bastard,” -“one born of corruption” -only occurs once beside in Zec 9:6, is explained by the Rabbins, and received by commentators in general as meaning “one born of incest or adultery.” Typically, one corruptly born is not the mere child of nature; but rather one corruptly introduced among the people of God. “Baptismal regeneration,” as the ritualist holds it, is such a birth; and the Moabite and the Ammonite following here emphasizes this thought, though it be true that they are not distinctly reprobated for their birth, but for their enmity to the true people of God and their employment of Balaam to curse. But even thus does the false professor, like an Ammonite or a Moabite, show his birth today. The Edomite is the simple natural man, and for him there is more hope, and the Egyptian is classed with him, though only in the third generation (dead and risen with Christ) could they enter the congregation of the Lord.
(b) In the next place, we have Israel going forth to war, and here men might plead the work in hand for lack of care as to minor things; but not so thinks God. The most scrupulous purity is insisted on: for is not God with them their strength? What is all their human might if, because of their ways, He is unable to manifest Himself for them? Very simple is the lesson, incontrovertible the argument here; and yet have His people learnt it?
(c) Next, Israel’s home must be the refuge of the oppressed. True, slavery as yet was not banished from her midst, -perfection, we must ever remember, the Word itself asserts, could not be by the law, -yet it was greatly guarded and limited, so as to be another thing from that absolute subjection to the will of another which was every where recognized as lawful among the nations around. If, then, one of these human chattels broke its bands and fled, Israel was to be for such a secure asylum. In this way the enmity of the nations might be roused against them: this little people, nevertheless, were to extend their arms to the distressed whatever the consequences. According to the beauteous figure so often used, He under the shelter of whose wings they had come to rest could not destroy that confidence. Let it be a poor slave, he must yet be sheltered from the kings of the earth: there was one sanctuary of refuge for the oppressed; and it was in the bosom of the God of Israel.
The sanctuary -and such was all Israel compared with the world outlying -must indeed first of all be the place of freedom, in order that it may be the place of holiness; and this freedom must be found with God for it to be real and sanctifying: the heart is brought to Him. Hence, the enfranchisement of the slave comes in its right place here, and its connection is seen with what follows, and which for us has much fuller meaning, that there is to be no harlotry among the people of God. In plain, intentional antagonism to Israel,s sanctification, the harlot is called here kedeshah, “consecrated,” as indeed the heathen consecrated themselves in this abominable manner to the service of their gods. May not we, too, easily cover with a well-seeming name what is merely the straying of the heart from God? Here let us note also, though it be simple, that the gain of such prostitution with which we would vindicate it to ourselves, or compensate the Lord, is only abomination to Him.
(d) The need of the poor is next considered; and as, on the one hand, liberality to them had been enjoined, so to take usury from them is forbidden. The stranger, from whom it was allowed to take it, probably borrowed for purposes of trade, but Israel were not themselves intended to be a commercial people, and certainly not to thrive upon the necessities of their brethren.
(e) Fifthly, relationship to God seems to be illustrated in a double way. First, the vow illustrates the freedom and yet the seriousness of this relation; while the other case reminds us of God’s real ownership of the land, and of a bounty which would banish scarcity and hunger from it, yet respecting the rights of possession which He has given, and so allowing no lack to him whose fields were thus called to witness to the plenteous hand which has the fullness of the earth in it, and every good and perfect gift.
(6) In the last subsection, we have Israel as the congregation of the Lord, in the dignity of that relationship. Schrder gives as a heading to the whole three chapters -“The perfection of Israel;” but this is so little true of the twenty-fourth chapter that it might be entitled, rather, “The imperfection of Israel.” As to the law, we know well that, in fact, there was not perfection under it; and the present subsection, strictly according to the numerical stamp upon it, speaks plainly of the evil, while also showing the limit set to it by God. Every part of the chapter seems to be in conformity with this. It has, like the last chapter, five divisions, its close being also naturally similar.
(a) The first commandment here has very plainly the character of a toleration of what could not be yet entirely done away, with a restraint upon it in the meantime, however. And of this the Lord’s own words directly assure us. The numerical place seems even to affirm the unity which divorce sets aside; and this agrees with the law itself which treats the divorced woman as in some sense “defiled” by another marriage, and the broken bond in that case as incapable of being renewed.
The law of the “new wife,” as supplementary to this, is a tender provision honoring the marriage tie, and bidding the man cherish the wife he has taken. What could be more expressive of the mind of the lawgiver, or adapted for its purpose than such an injunction as this?
(b) In the next place we have two laws also, of which the first is again a concession with a limit. A creditor might take a pledge of his poor neighbor, but not the hand-mill which ground his corn from day to day: it would be taking a man’s life as pledge. The greed that would actually steal a man was to be punished with death.
(c) And they were to take care not to bring the plague of leprosy upon them, as even Miriam had done in the wilderness. This was the typical punishment, as we know, involving banishment from God Himself; and directly announced here as His infliction. In this, Israel lost what was his most precious and peculiar privilege.
(d) The fourth part contains again two laws, once more contemplating the poor, whether as debtor or as creditor. In the first place, the pledge is again limited: the creditor must not intrude upon the debtor’s house for it; and if it be something which he can spare but for the day, it must be returned by nightfall. On the other hand, the laborer,s hire must not be kept back, lest he cry to the Lord about it, and the Lord visit it as sin.
(e) Next we have the perversion of judgment forbidden, -again two laws. First, the father must not suffer death for the children, nor the children for the fathers: a common thing among the nations round about. Secondly, there must be no oppression of the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow: their own Redeemer out of the oppression of Egypt bade them observe this.
These commandments close with the injunction to leave the gleanings of the olive and the vineyard for the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, the cultivation of an opposite spirit to that of the oppressor, -the ready giver scarcely can be that, -and they are again reminded of their bondage in Egypt that they may show mercy to the poor.
(7) Thus much is said or implied of evil in Israel, which can as yet have only partial remedy. Still this is not, of course, to intimate any failure on God’s part, -any less than perfect mastery of the evil at the last. God is strong, though patient, and provoked indeed every day. And now this seventh sub-section, though it cannot, of course, after what we have seen, speak of any present perfection, yet prophesies, as one may say, of it. As the third of these closing chapters, it hints, as it were, at resurrection, and brings them to an end in peaceful confidence in God with its series of six -the mastery number, which in subjection to the seven of the section speaks of what, being final, is perfect. God will show fully the entire supremacy which He had all through.
(a) First of all here, there was to be no excessive punishment; and that punishment would be excessive that made a brother to seem vile. This, in its application to Israel or to the Church, may tell us of the care which in all chastening. He has for His people. They are to be preserved for honor, not cast away as refuse, “salted with fire,” in the gracious sense of that.
(b) The next commandment seems to come in very strangely; and the spiritual sense as given by the apostle alone explains it. Wordsworth rightly dwells upon the use he makes of it “not only as showing that the law has a spiritual sense, in which it is still binding upon all, but as giving us the key by which we may unlock the casket and take out of it its treasures.” Gosman objects to this that it “opens wide the door to a very loose and fanciful exposition.” No doubt this is to be dreaded, but the remedy is not to reject the principle, but guard rigidly the application. And when he further urges that the “apostle seems to use the words rather as illustrative of the truth he was teaching than assigning to them a figurative and spiritual sense,” he surely is himself taking very loosely what the apostle says. We have only to look at it to see that, as plainly and definitely as can be, he asserts the very opposite: “Who goeth a warfare at any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the fruit of the flock? Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same? For it is written in the law of Moses, ‘Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn.’ Doth God take care for oxen? or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes no doubt this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope.” (1Co 9:7-10.)
Language could scarcely be plainer; and it does justify us in believing that a spiritual sense governs all here. Even our imperfect outline certainly has proved it to be so; and here if the apostle has interpreted this for us of the laborer in the Word, the numerical stamp is accordingly 2, the number of service.
What is the real connection with the preceding verses may be still in question. The ministry of the Word is that by which judgment is wrought in the conscience, and even outward chastenings produce their fruit in blessing. The reference to the threshing-floor seems to confirm this as the connection. It is by the patient labor of the spiritual workman that the grain is sifted from the chaff and the product of the seed sown laid up in the store at last. In God’s mastery of the evil, -in the victory of the good over it, could this be omitted? would it not have necessary place?
(c) Next follows the law which has so prominent a part in the story of Ruth. If a man die, and leave no issue, his nearest of kin was to marry his wife, and raise up seed to his brother, and the first-born son of this union was to succeed to the inheritance. In the story of Ruth we find a clear and beautiful type of the resurrection of Israel by means of the Kinsman-Redeemer, when the law, the nearest of kin, cannot take this place. The proof must be reserved until we come to Ruth, but the numerical place of the section is clear as a resurrection type, and in relation to the whole character of this part, as showing the resources that are in God Himself. But here also the spiritual meaning must come in for this, no strange or unwelcome thing to him who realizes the true dignity and glory of the law.
(d) But the failure contemplated as possible comes evidently under a separate head, and is, indeed, according to Ruth still, the failure of the law, -an ever-needed lesson, coming as clearly also into its right place. The law is really the next of kin to man; but he is dead, and it cannot raise him from the dead.
(e) But the fifth part shows that if the law be helpless as a saviour, righteousness is yet maintained, -a just weight and measure, and this is what assuredly grace does: “sin shall not have dominion over you, because ye are not under the law, but under grace.” Simple enough this for us; but how beautifully is it put together, just when, under the guidance of the spiritual meaning, we consider that connection of one part with another, which while we take merely the letter, seems to be so perplexing and without a clue. Now we have only one thing more, entirely different from all the rest, and yet how perfectly in place!
(f) Sixthly and last, they are bidden not to forget Amalek, their wilderness-foe, and pointed onward to the time when, full rest in the land attained, and all enemies subdued, Amalek shall be blotted out from remembrance forever. A blessed time! when the lusts of the flesh shall no more have to be thought of at all, -their remembrance come practically to an end, -internal conflict passed away forever! Sweet note of triumph from the silver trumpets, sounding only for the gathering of assembly for the time to come, -no pilgrimage, no alarm! Sweet prophet art thou, Moses! for the greater Prophet than thyself is speaking through thee now!
3. We have now one closing section in which for a moment we see the Israelite in possession of the inheritance, and rich with the blessing of God, returning to God in confession and worship. This is the proper effect of the blessing, which else would not be that. It is the sign of the Spirit’s work, of distance put away, of God and man once more together. It is the token of the satisfied heart, full with a spring of joy which needs must overflow. It is what Israel should have been as the people of the living God; it is what they shall be in the glorious time to come. It is what the Church of God, indwelt of the Spirit, should be, -shall be -in a higher sphere, and in a more wondrous relation; what it, too, has but little been, although, thank God, many in every age have learnt this and much more, -for the “Abba, Father” is not yet in this book of Deuteronomy: it waits for Him who is able to declare the Father’s name.
(1) The confession is very simple; yet, Christians as we are, we may learn much from it. The first thing that is owned is the faithfulness of God in the fulfillment of His word. It is one in the land who speaks in the consciousness of what lie has. He is not hoping what will be; he is realizing what is. The Lord sware to give us this land: we have it; we are in it. Such is already the privilege of the child of God, whose worship is even now, not merely at the sanctuary, as the Israelite’s was, but who has “boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus.” How we dishonor the One who has so wrought for us if we take the place of one longing to draw nigh, instead of in fact drawing near: “let us draw near,” says the apostle, “with
full assurance of faith.” For us it is faith, of course. The Israelite, one may say, could not doubt: but that makes him only the more impressive as a type for us. Neither can we doubt, if it be simply God’s Word and Christ’s work that are before us, and we are not arguing from what we have been or what we are. The sanctuary has been opened for us by blood shed for sinners, for all sinners: we may, if we will, draw nigh; what more do we need for drawing nigh?
But then also there are fruits of the land; not of their labors either, let us remember. When Israel came into possession of Canaan, it was to enjoy great and goodly cities which they built not, houses full of all good things which they filled not, wells digged which they digged not, vineyards and olive trees which they planted not. (Deu 6:10-11.) And so with the fruits of the land into which even now we are called to enter, -rich enjoyment, wondrous experiences, precious realizations, belong to us there, but faith must precede and bring us in where alone they can be ours. They cannot bring us in: we must have entered in by faith, in order to have them.
Having so entered, our apprehension of what we were will only fill our hearts the more with praise for what grace has done for us. “A Syrian ready to perish was my father; and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous.” Then comes the bondage in Egypt, and how they were delivered: the types for us of a more glorious deliverance. The mere confession of this is praise; and we owe it to Him to confess with unhesitating simplicity, Christ has saved us. Is there presumption in this? No, it is His due. We have done nothing, except, indeed, incurred the penalty which Christ has borne in His own body on the tree. And the faith which gives Him the glory of this salvation is that which works in us also by the love which we have believed in. The first-fruits of this land are indeed His offerings: “sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving,” which bring us to Him as priests to offer them.
(2) “And thou shalt rejoice in every good thing which the Lord thy God hath given unto thee.” Yes, He has given us nothing from the enjoyment of which He would keep us back. We cannot too frankly accept or too fully enjoy the blessings that are ours in Christ Jesus. This joy opens the heart, not shuts it up in selfishness and indifference: “thou shalt rejoice, -thou, and the Levite, and the stranger that is among you.” This is, therefore, now what follows, account being to be rendered to God of those tithes of the third year which we have already had before us, and which are destined for the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow. (Deu 14:28-29.) The dependence of the second table of the law upon the first it is not necessary again to insist upon.
(3) Thereupon the seal of God is openly put upon this people which is His: -“Thou hast avouched this day the Lord to be thy God, to walk in His ways, . . . and the Lord hath avouched thee to be His peculiar people, and to make thee high above all nations that He hath made, . . . and that thou mayest be a holy people unto the Lord thy God, as He hath spoken.”
“God is not ashamed to be called their God.” Alas, as yet for them this glory of theirs has been but a passing vision. And why? Because they had but too faithfully repeated the history of the generation of the wilderness, and it had yet to be said of all this blessing, “they could not enter in because of unbelief.”
Fuente: Grant’s Numerical Bible Notes and Commentary

CONDITIONS OF BLESSING
PLACES OF WORSHIP (Deuteronomy 12)
In Canaan, what were the Israelites to destroy and how thoroughly was the work to be done (Deu 12:1-3)? What contrast were they to place between themselves and the heathen in public worship (Deu 12:4-7)? Did this apply to the same extent in the wilderness, and if not, why not (Deu 12:8-14)? What exception was made as to their private and domestic affairs (Deu 12:15-16)? What were they not at liberty to eat in their own homes (Deu 12:17-19)? Against what snare were they to be on their guard (Deu 12:29-32)?
In explanation of the foregoing it should be observed that no mention is made of heathen temples in Canaan at this time, and doubtless none were in existence. The places chosen for worship were the mountain tops, or groves, in order to direct attention toward heaven and secure retirement.
Note that while God promises to choose a place for the worship of Himself in the land, yet He does not divulge it in advance. Was this to prevent the Canaanites from concentrating their opposition there, or to prevent a course of strife among the Israelites themselves?
Notice from verse 12 that while the males only were commanded to appear before God at the annual feasts (i.e., at Jerusalem), yet the women were at liberty to accompany them.
The heathen believed in local deities who expected their dues from all who came to inhabit the country they protected.
This explains the caution in the closing verses of the chapter.
FALSE PROPHETS (Deuteronomy 13)
How were they to regard the teachings of false prophets (Deu 13:1-3)? How were they to deal with the prophets themselves (Deu 13:5)? Did it make any difference even if the wonders of the prophet had a show of reality? Does God ever permit such wonders to be done by false prophets, and if so, for what purpose? How are Gods people to be preserved from such temptations (Deu 13:4)? Compare Isa 7:19-20 and 1Jn 4:1-6. The student will see the bearing of this upon the false teachings of the present day, such as Theosophy, the New Age, Spiritualism, Christian Science, and anything else, no matter how fair it appears, that is not in accord with the Gospel (see Gal 1:8).
In the case of these false teachers should it make any difference if they were friends or relations (Deu 13:6-11)? Suppose a whole city should have been led away into idolatry thus, what then (Deu 13:12-16)? Might this action be taken hastily, or only after investigation?
The Jews appeal to this chapter as justifying their crucifixion of Jesus Christ, but it is replied that to Him gave all the prophets witness. He had all the characteristics of the true prophet and was the fulfillment of all that had been written in the scriptures concerning the Coming One. Moreover so far from alienating the people from Jehovah and His worship, He honored Him by observing His worship, and the purpose of His life was to fulfill the law and the prophets and put away the reproach of sin.
DIETARY MATTERS (Deuteronomy 14)
This chapter is taken up chiefly with dietary matters, but before they are touched upon what prohibition is laid in Deu 14:1-2 and for what cause? It was an idolatrous practice on certain occasions (1Ki 18:28; Jer 16:6; Jer 41:5), to make cuttings on the face and other parts of the body with the finger nails or sharp instruments. To make a large bare space between the eyebrows was another such custom in honor of the dead (see Leviticus 19). These usages were degrading and inconsistent with the people of God (1Th 4:13).
Coming to the dietary matters, the student must be referred to what was said in earlier lessons, particularly in Leviticus.
No misunderstanding of Deu 14:21 should be allowed as though what was not good enough in the physical sense for the Jew might do for the Gentile. The explanation has been shown previously, that it was for ceremonial and spiritual reasons.
THE SABBATIC YEAR (Deuteronomy 15)
The subject of this chapter has been dealt with in Exodus and Leviticus (see marginal references), but a few features call for particular notice.
The first matter is release from debt in the Sabbatic year (Deu 15:1-11). What is every creditor obliged to do, and why (Deu 15:2)? It is not necessary to suppose that this was an absolute discharge of the debt, but a suspension of payment for the period named; and this, because in that period there was a suspension of agricultural labor which might have made it a hardship to pay a debt. We have seen that the underlying idea of the Sabbatic year was to impress all with the fact that they held their property from God and that supreme gratitude was due to Him.
From whom might such civil rights and privileges be withheld (Deu 15:3)? What further qualifying thought is in verse 4? This seems to mean that in the case of well-to-do Israelites debts might be collected even in the Sabbatic year. But some think the words should be: In order that there may be no poor among you, which would preclude any exception.
What promise does God renew unto Israel (Deu 15:6)? Remember that this is to be literally fulfilled unto Israel in that day when, obedient and penitent, they shall return unto God and Jesus as their Messiah.
Read carefully Deu 15:7-11, and observe the detail with which God as the theocratic King of His people would watch over their welfare. The foregoing law of release might prevent some covetous Hebrew from lending to the poor, hence the warning and the promise.
The second matter is release from slavery. For the former treatment see Leviticus 25. What provision is made for enabling such an one to regain his original status in society (Deu 15:13-14)? For the ceremony of the awl boring, also see Leviticus 25. The meaning of verse 18 seems to be that such a servant is entitled to double wages because his service was more advantageous on the ground that he was serving without wages and for a length of time, while hired servants were commonly engaged only by the year.
THE FEASTS (Deuteronomy 16)
There is nothing in this chapter calling for particular attention. Students will find the feasts treated in Exodus and Leviticus where they are first mentioned. See the marginal references in your Bibles for these places.
QUESTIONS
1. Why were groves or mountains chosen by the heathen as places of worship?
2. Why presumably did not God reveal His intended place of worship?
3. Have you examined the New Testament references in this lesson?
4. What argument offsets the present Jewish appeal to chapter 13?
5. How would you explain Deu 14:21?
6. Does Deu 15:2 contemplate an absolute discharge of debt?
7. When will the promise of Deu 15:6 be fulfilled?
8. Give the probable meaning of Deu 15:18.
9. Are you observing the marginal references in your Bible?
Fuente: James Gray’s Concise Bible Commentary

Deu 12:1. These are the statutes Moses, being still deeply impressed with a sense of the great danger his nation would be in of falling into idolatrous practices, after their settlement in the promised land, in the neighbourhood of so many superstitious nations, begins here a new exhortation to them, reminding them of the laws provided against it, as the indispensable conditions of their happy and peaceful enjoyment of that fruitful country.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Deu 12:5. The place which the Lord shall choose. No place is here named; for the Lord was content, and most significantly, to dwell in the tent. He sojourned in the desert; and afterwards removed his abode to Gilgal, to Shiloh, to Nob, and to Jerusalem, which he chose by the falling of fire from heaven. 1Ch 21:26. In all these places he recorded his name; and the people usually looked towards his holy place when they called on his name.
Deu 12:17. Thou mayest not eat the tithe of thy corn. The tithe was assigned to the levites, out of which they gave a tenth part to the priests. Num 18:21. Yet one part of the tithe was consumed in the sacred festivals, in which the worshipper participated. Tob 1:7.
REFLECTIONS.
Having already spoken of the commands to destroy the Canaanites, let us fix our eye on the place so frequently mentioned in this book, which God would choose for the residence of his ark and of his glory. Heaven most assuredly is the city and habitation of the Most High: there his temple and altar abide for ever. Carnal Israel being a figure of Gods spiritual Israel, it was requisite that their worship should bear a resemblance to the heavenly glory. Hence they must have but one altar, but one highpriest, but one sanctuary. This restriction did not extend to the devotional exercises of prayer and praise, and public instruction; for these purposes synagogues were erected in every city. But the christian church, having their altar and their Saviour in heaven, and being a nation of priests, may everywhere offer up the sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving, and everywhere worship the Father in spirit and in truth.
Though the patriarchal liberty of sacrificing in any place was now removed; yet Israel acquired advantages by the change, which more than compensated for its loss. By bringing all their victims to one altar, care would be taken that no corruptions, no deviations should tarnish the glory of the ritual code, and render the service displeasing to God. No vestige of idolatry, no superstitious practices would be allowed to degrade the altar of JEHOVAH. By approaching him three times a year in his chosen residence, and between the more laborious periods of agricultural toil, they would be preserved from idleness, and all its consequences; for the Jews were never distinguished as a commercial people. They would derive superior instruction, for the liberty of prophesying and teaching was fully allowed. They would in fine become acquainted with all the great and good men of every tribe, and be united by the bonds of sacred and national affection.
This injunction to present oblations and victims only in one place, is not however to be understood as restrictive of the Almighty on special occasions. Few dispositions in religion have a worse effect than to be narrow and uncharitable in our views. The Lord accepted the sacrifice of Gideon. Judges 6. The levites offered kine on a stone in Bethshemesh, which was a complicated breach of the law. 1 Samuel 6. Samuel also offered a sucking lamb in Mizpeh. 1 Samuel 7. David at the threshingfloor of Araunah, and Elijah on mount Cannel, indulged the same liberty, and with the divine approbation. 2 Samuel 24 :1 Kings 18. It follows of course, that the church of Christ, a blessed and fruitful mother, is not to be too straitlaced with the cords of discipline. In revivals of religion, and on extraordinary occasions, God often works in an extraordinary way. But while we invariably adhere to the doctrine of Christ, let us abide as near as possible by the apostolic discipline of the church. From the divine laws, and the diligent worship of the Israelites, christians may learn how assiduous they should be to improve the abundant means of grace they have always at hand. They who are most constant in the courts of the Lord, are generally found to have the sincerest love for his cause.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Deuteronomy 12
We now enter upon a new section of our marvellous book. The discourses contained in the first eleven chapters having established the all-important principle of obedience, we now come to the practical application of the principle to the habits and ways of the people when settled in possession of the land “These are the statutes and judgements which ye shall observe to do in the land which the Lord God of thy fathers giveth thee to possess it, all the days that ye live upon the earth”
It is of the utmost moral importance that the heart and conscience should be brought into their true attitude in reference to divine authority, irrespective altogether of any question as to details. These will find their due place when once the heart is taught to bow down, in complete and absolute submission, to the supreme authority of the word of God.
Now, as we have seen in our studies on the first eleven chapters, the law-giver labours, most earnestly and faithfully, to lead the heart of Israel into this all-essential condition. He felt, to speak after the manner of men, it was of no use entering upon practical details until the grand foundation principle of all morality was fully established in the very deepest depths of the soul. The principle is this – let us Christians apply our hearts to it – It is man’s bounden duty to bow implicitly to the authority of the word of God. It matters not, in the smallest degree, what that word may enjoin, or whether we can see the reason of this, that or the other institution. The one grand, all-important and conclusive point is this, Has God spoken? If He has, that is quite enough. There is no room, no need for any further question.
Until this point is fully established, or rather until the heart is brought directly under its full moral force, we are not in a condition to enter upon details. If self-will be allowed to operate, if blind reason be permitted to speak, the heart will send up its endless questionings; as each divine institution is laid before us, some fresh difficulty will present itself as a stumbling-block in the path of simple obedience.
“What!” it may be said, “Are we not to use our reason? If not, to what end was it given?” To this we have a twofold reply. In the first place, our reason is not as it was when God gave it We have to remember that sin has come in; man is a fallen creature, his reason, his judgement, his understanding, his whole moral being is a complete wreck; and moreover, it was the neglect of the word of God that caused all this wreck and ruin.
And, then, in the second place, we must bear in mind that if reason were in a sound condition, it would prove its soundness by bowing to the word of God. But it is not sound; it is blind and utterly perverted; it is not to be trusted for a moment, in things spiritual, divine or heavenly.
If this simple fact were thoroughly understood, it would settle a thousand questions and remove a thousand difficulties. It is reason that makes all the infidels. The devil whispers into man’s ear, “You are endowed with reason; why not use it? It was given to be used, used in everything; you ought not to give your assent to anything which your reason cannot grasp. It is your chartered right, as a man, to submit everything to the test of your reason; it is only for a fool or an idiot to receive, in blind credulity, all that is set before him.”
What is our answer to such wily and dangerous suggestions? A very simple and conclusive one, namely this. The word of God is above and beyond reason altogether; it is as far above reason as God is above the creature, or heaven above earth Hence, when God speaks, all reasonings must be cast down If it be merely man’s word, man’s opinion, man’s judgement, then verily reason may exert its powers; or rather, to speak more correctly, we must judge what is said by the only perfect standard, the word of God. But if reason be set to work on the word of God, the soul must inevitably be plunged in the thick darkness of infidelity from which the descent to the awful blackness of atheism is but too easy.
In a word, then, we have to remember, yea, to cherish in the very deepest depths of our moral being, that the only safe ground for the soul is divinely wrought faith in the paramount authority, divine majesty, and all-sufficiency of the word of God. This was the ground which Moses occupied in dealing with the heart and conscience of Israel. His one grand object was to lead the people into the attitude of profound, unqualified subjection to divine authority. Without this all was useless. If every statute, every judgement, every precept, every institution were to be submitted to the action of human reason, then farewell to divine authority, farewell to scripture, farewell to certainty, farewell to peace. But, on the other hand, when the soul is led by God’s Spirit into the delightful attitude of absolute and unquestioning submission to the authority of God’s word, then every one of His judgements, every one of His commandments, every sentence of His blessed Book is received as coming direct from Himself; and the most simple ordinance or institution, stands invested with all the importance which His authority is fitted to impart. We may not be able to understand the full meaning or exact bearing of each statute and -judgement; that is not the question; it is sufficient for us to know that it comes from God; He has spoken; this is conclusive. Till this great principle is grasped, or rather till it takes full possession of the soul, nothing is done; but when it is fully understood and submitted to, the solid foundation is laid of all true morality.
The foregoing line of thought will enable the reader to seize the connection between the chapter which now lies open before us, and the preceding section of this book; and not only will it do this, but we trust it will also help him to understand the special place and bearing of the opening verses of chapter 12.
“Ye shall utterly destroy all the places wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree. And ye shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their groves with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place.” (Vers. 2, 3)
The land was Jehovah’s; they were to hold as tenants under Him, and therefore their very first duty on entering upon possession, was to demolish every trace of the old idolatry. This was absolutely indispensable It might, according to human reason, seem to be very intolerant to act in this way towards other people’s religion. We reply, without any hesitation, Yes, it was intolerant, for how could the one only true and living God be otherwise than intolerant of all false gods and false worships. To suppose, for moment, that He could permit the worship of idols in His land, would be to suppose that He could deny Himself, which were simply blasphemy.
Let us not be misunderstood It is not that God does not bear with the world, in His long-suffering mercy. It seems hardly needful to state this, with the history of well-nigh six thousand years of divine forbearance before our eyes. Blessed for ever be His holy Name, He has borne with the world most marvellously, from the days of Noah, and He still bears with it, though stained with the guilt of crucifying His beloved Son.
All this is vain, but it leaves wholly untouched the great principle laid down in our chapter. Israel had to learn that they were about to take possession of the Lord’s land, and that, as His tenants, their first and indispensable duty was to obliterate every trace of idolatry. To them there was to be but “the one God.’ His Name was called upon them. They were His people, and He could not permit them to have fellowship with demons. “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God; and him only shalt thou serve.”
This might, in the judgement of the uncircumcised nations around, seem very intolerant, very narrow, very bigoted. They indeed might boast of their freedom, and glory in the broad platform. of their worship which admitted “gods many and lords many.” It might, according to their thinking, argue greater breadth of mind to let every one think for himself in matters of religion, and choose his own object of worship, and his own mode of worshipping also. Or, still further, it might give evidence of a more advanced condition of civilisation, greater polish and refinement to erect, as in Rome, a pantheon in which all the gods of Heathendom might find a place. “What did it matter about the form of a man’s religion, or the object of his worship, provided he himself were sincere? All would be sure to come right in the end; the great point for all was to attend to material progress, to help on national prosperity as the surest means of securing individual interests. Of course, it is all right for every man to have some religion, but as to the form of that religion it is immaterial. The great question is what you are yourself, not what your religion is.”
All this, we can well conceive, would admirably suit the carnal mind, and be very popular amongst the uncircumcised nations. But as for Israel, they had to remember that one commanding sentence, “The Lord thy God is one God.” And again, “Thou shalt have none other gods before me;” This was to be their religion; the platform of their worship was to be as wide and as narrow as the one true and living God, their Creator and Redeemer. That, assuredly, was broad enough for every true worshipper, every member of the circumcised assembly, all whose high and holy privilege it was to belong to the Israel of God. They were not to concern themselves with the opinions or observations of the uncircumcised nations around. What were they worth? Not the weight of a feather. What could they know about the claims of the God of Israel upon His circumcised people? Just nothing. Were they competent to decide as to the proper breadth of Israel’s platform? Clearly not; they were wholly ignorant of the subject. Hence their thoughts, reasonings, arguments and objections were perfectly worthless, not to be listened to for a moment. It was Israel’s one simple, bounden duty to bow down to the supreme and absolute authority of the word of God; and that word insisted upon the complete abolition of every trace of idolatry from that goodly land which they were privileged to hold as tenants under Him.
But not only was it incumbent upon Israel to abolish all the places in which the heathen had worshipped their gods; this they were solemnly bound to do, most surely; but there was more than this. The heart might readily conceive the thought of doing away with idolatry, in the various places, and setting up the altar of the true God instead. This might seem to be the right course to adopt. But God thought differently. “Ye shall not do so unto the Lord your God. But unto the place which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes, to put his name there, even unto his habitation shall ye seek, and thither thou shalt come; and thither ye shall bring your burnt offerings, and your sacrifices, and your tithes, and heave offerings of your hand, and your vows, and your freewill offerings, and the firstlings of your herds and of your flocks; and there ye shall eat before the Lord your God; and ye shall rejoice in all that ye put your hand unto, ye and your households, wherein the Lord thy God hath blessed thee.”
Here a great cardinal truth is unfolded to the congregation of Israel. They were to have one place of worship – a place chosen of God and not of man. His habitation – the place of His presence was to be Israel’s grand centre; thither they were to come with their sacrifices and their offerings, and there they were to offer their worship, and find their common joy.
Does this seem exclusive? Of course it was exclusive; how else could it be? If God was pleased to select a spot in which He would take up His abode in the midst of His redeemed people, surely they were, of necessity, shut up to that spot as their place of worship. This was divine exclusiveness, and every pious soul would delight in it. Every true lover of Jehovah would say, with all his heart, “Lord, I have loved the habitation of thy house, and the place where thine honour dwelleth.” And, again, “How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! My soul longeth; yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God… . Blessed are they that dwell in thy house; they will be still praising thee…. A day in Thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.” (Psalms 26: 84.)
Here was the one grand and all-important point. It was the dwelling-place of Jehovah which was dear to the heart of every true Israelite. Restless self-will might desire to run hither and thither; the poor vagrant heart might long for some change; but, for the heart that loved God, any change from the place of His presence, the place where He had recorded His blessed Name, could only be a change for the worse. The truly devout worshipper could find satisfaction and delight, blessing and rest only in the place of the divine presence; and this, on the double ground, the authority of His precious word, and the powerful attractions of His presence. Such an one could never think of going anywhere else. Whither could he go? There was but one altar, one habitation, one God, that was the place for every right-minded, every true-hearted Israelite. To think of any other place of worship would, in his judgement, be not only a departure from the word of Jehovah, but from His holy habitation.
This great principle is largely insisted upon throughout the whole of our chapter. Moses reminds the people that from the moment they entered Jehovah’s land, there was to be an end to all the irregularity and self-will that had characterised them in the plains of Moab or in the wilderness. “Ye shall not do after all the things that we do here this day, every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes. For ye are not as yet come to the rest, and to the inheritance, which the Lord your God giveth you. But when ye go over Jordan, and dwell in the land which the Lord your God giveth you to inherit, and when he giveth you rest from all your enemies round about, so that ye dwell in safety; then there shall be a place which the Lord your God shall choose, to cause his name to dwell there; thither shall ye bring all that I command you…. Take heed to thyself that thou offer not thy burnt-offerings in every place that thou seest; but in the place which the Lord shall choose in one of thy tribes, there thou shalt offer thy burnt offerings, and there thou shalt do all that I command thee.” (Vers. 4-14.) Thus, not only in the object, but also in the place and mode of Israel’s worship, they were absolutely shut up! to the commandment of Jehovah. Self pleasing, self-choosing, self-will was to have an end, in reference to the worship of God, the moment they crossed the river of death, and, as a redeemed people planted their foot on their divinely given inheritance. Once there, in the enjoyment of Jehovah’s land, and the rest which the land afforded, obedience to His word was to be their reasonable, their intelligent service. Things might be allowed to pass in the wilderness which could not be tolerated in Canaan. The higher the range of privilege, the higher the responsibility and the standard of action.
Now, it may be that our broad thinkers, and those who contend for freedom of will and freedom of action, for the right of private judgement in matters of religion, for liberality of mind and catholicity of spirit, will be ready to pronounce all this, which has been engaging our attention, extremely narrow, and wholly unsuited to our enlightened age, and to men of intelligence and education.
What is our answer to all who adopt this form of speech? A very simple and conclusive one; it is this, Has not God a right to prescribe the mode in which His people should worship Him? Had He not a perfect right to fix the place where He would meet His people Israel? Surely we must either deny His existence, or admit His absolute and unquestionable right to set forth His will as to how, when and where His people should approach Him. Will any one, however educated and enlightened, deny this? Is it a proof of high culture, refinement, breadth of mind or catholicity of spirit, to deny God His rights.
If then God has a right to command, is it narrowness or bigotry for His people to obey? This is just the point. It is, in our judgement, as simple as anything can be. We are thoroughly convinced that the only true breadth of mind, largeness of heart and catholicity of spirit, is to obey the commandments of God. Hence, when Israel were commanded to go to one place and there offer their sacrifices, it most assuredly was neither bigotry nor narrowness on their part to go thither, and to refuse, with holy decision, to go anywhere else. Uncircumcised Gentiles might go where they pleased; the Israel of God were to go only to the place of His appointment.
And oh! what an unspeakable privilege for all who loved God and loved one another to assemble themselves at the place where He recorded His Name! And what touching grace shines in the fact of His desiring to gather His people round Himself, from time to time! Did that fact infringe their personal rights and domestic privileges? Nay, it enhanced them immensely. God, in His infinite goodness, took care of this. It was His delight to minister to the joy and blessing of His people, privately, socially and publicly. Hence we read, “When the Lord thy God shall enlarge thy border, as he hath promised thee, and thou shalt say, I will eat flesh, because thy soul longeth to eat flesh, thou mayest eat flesh, whatsoever thy soul lusteth after. If the place which the Lord thy God hath chosen to put his name there be too far from thee, then thou shalt kill of thy herd and of thy flock, which the Lord hath given thee, as I have commanded thee, and thou shalt eat in thy gates whatsoever thy soul lusteth after, even as the roebuck and the hart is eaten, so thou shalt eat them; the unclean and the clean shall eat of them alike.”
Here we have, most surely, a broad margin afforded by the goodness and tender mercy of God, for the fullest range of personal and family enjoyment. The only restriction was in reference to the blood. “Only be sure that thou eat not the blood; for The blood is the life; and thou mayest not eat the life with the flesh, Thou shalt not eat it; thou shalt pour it upon the earth as water. Thou shalt not eat it; that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee, when thou shalt do that which is right in the sight of the Lord.”
This was a great cardinal principle under the law, to which reference has been made in our “Notes on Leviticus.” How far Israel understood it is not the question; they were to obey that it might go well with them, and with their children after them. They were to own, in this matter, the sovereign rights of God.
Having made this exception, in reference to personal and family habits, the law-giver returns to the all-important subject of their public worship. “Only thy holy things which thou hast, and thy vows, thou shalt take, and go unto the place which the Lord shall choose; and thou shalt offer thy burnt offerings, the flesh and the blood, upon the altar of the Lord thy God; and the blood of thy sacrifices shall be poured out upon the altar of the Lord thy God, and thou shalt eat the flesh.” (Vers. 26, 27.) If reason, or self-will were permitted to speak, it might say, “Why must we all go to this one place? Can we not have an altar at home? Or, at least, an altar in each principal town, or in the centre of each tribe?” The conclusive answer is, “God has commanded otherwise; this is enough for every true Israelite. Even though we may not be able, by reason of our ignorance, to see the why or the wherefore, simple obedience is our obvious and bounden duty. It may be, moreover, that, as we cheerfully tread the path of obedience, light will break in upon our souls as to the reason, and we shall find abundant blessing in doing that which is well-pleasing to the Lord our God.”
Yes; reader, this is the proper method of answering all the reasonings and questionings of the carnal mind which is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. Light is sure to break in upon our souls, as we tread, with a lowly mind, the sacred path of obedience; and, not only so, but untold blessing will flow into the heart in that conscious nearness to God which is only known to those who lovingly keep His most precious commandments. Are we called upon to explain to carnal objectors and infidels our reasons for doing this or that? Most certainly not; that is no part of our business; it would be time and labour lost, inasmuch as objectors and reasoners are wholly incapable of understanding or appreciating our reasons.
For example, in the matter now under our consideration, could a carnal mind, an unbeliever, a mere child of nature, understand why Israel’s twelve tribes were commanded to worship at one altar – to gather in one place – to cluster round one centre? Not in the smallest degree. The grand moral reason of such a lovely institution lies far away beyond his ken.
But to the spiritual mind all is as plain as it is beautiful. Jehovah would gather His beloved people around Himself, from time to time, that they might rejoice together before Him and that He might have His own peculiar joy in them.
Was not this something most precious? Assuredly it was to all who really loved the Lord.
No doubt, if the heart were cold and careless toward God, it would matter little about the place of worship; all places would be alike. But we may set it down as a fixed principle that every loyal loving heart from Dan to Beersheba would rejoice to flock to the place where Jehovah had recorded His Name, and where He had appointed to meet His people. “I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go unto the house of the Lord. Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem [God’s centre for Israel]. Jerusalem is builded as a city that is compact together; whither the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, unto the testimony of Israel, to give thanks unto the name of the Lord. For there – and nowhere else – “are set thrones of judgement, the thrones of the house of David. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem; they shall prosper that love thee. Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces. For my brethren and companions’ sakes, I will now say, Peace be within thee. Because of the house of the Lord our God I will seek thy good.” (Ps. 102.)
Here we have the lovely breathings of a heart that loved the habitation of the God of Israel – His blessed centre – the gathering-place of Israel’s twelve tribes – that hallowed spot which was associated in the mind of every true Israelite with all that was bright and joyous in connection with the worship of Jehovah and the communion of His people.
We shall have occasion to refer to this most delightful theme again, when we come to study Deuteronomy 16, and shall draw this section to a close by quoting for the reader the last paragraph of the chapter before us.
“When the Lord thy God shall cut off the nations from before thee, whither thou goest to possess them, and thou succeedest them, and dwellest in their land; take heed to thyself, that thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou inquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise. Thou shalt not do so unto the Lord thy God; for every abomination to the Lord, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods. What thing soever I command you, observe to do it; thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it.” (Vers. 29-32.)
The precious word of God was to form a sacred enclosure round about His people, within which they might enjoy His presence, and delight themselves in the abundance of His mercy and loving-kindness; and wherein, they were to be entirely apart from all that was offensive to Him whose presence was to be, at once, their glory, their joy and their grand moral safeguard from every snare and every abomination.
Alas! alas! they did not abide within that enclosure; they speedily broke down the walls thereof, and wandered away from the holy commandment of God. They did the very things they were told not to do, and they have had to reap the terrible consequences. But more of this and of their future by-and-by.
Fuente: Mackintosh’s Notes on the Pentateuch

Deu 12:1-28. The Law of One Sanctuary.The local sanctuaries (originally Canaanite) with everything belonging to them, are to be destroyed, and all sacrifices are to be offered at the place which Yahweh should choose. Yet (Deu 12:15 f.) animals intended for food alone may be killed and eaten locally. Though the name Jerusalem does not occur in D, it is fairly evident that no other place can be intended by the place which Yahweh . . . shall choose, etc., though A. Duff holds that the Deut. code originated in the Northern Kingdom before its fall, and that it aimed at making Shechem the one worship centre for both kingdoms (see his OT Theology, ii. 24ff.). Jer. and Dt. have so much in common (see Introd.) that one may be used to interpret the other. In Jer 7:4-9; Jer 31:6-12 Zion is distinctly mentioned as the one sanctuary. In P and related writings (Ezek., Ch., etc.) centralisation of worship at Jerusalem is assumed as undisputed. If Shechem were intended it is strange that no hint of this occurs in any extant document. Besides, there is evidence to show that D was not written until after the fall of the Northern Kingdom in Deu 7:22 B.C. (see Introd.).
Deu 12:5. place: the Heb. word (maqom), as the cognate Arabic one, means a sacred place. Dt. does not use the word bamah, high place.
Deu 12:6. The sacred gifts (pp. 98100) to be brought to the one sanctuary are the following (note the translation): (a) Whole-offerings, oloth (Gen 8:20, Leviticus 1*); lit. that which goes (wholly) up (to Yahweh); burnt offerings (EV) is misleading since other offerings were in part burnt. The idea of pure worship is best seen in this species of sacrifice, since the whole was offered up to Yahweh in the form of sacrificial smoke. (b) Partial offerings (EV sacrifices). The Heb. word (zebaim) usually denotes animal sacrifices in general, in P as contrasted with the cereal (meal) offerings (see Numbers 28); but in Deu 12:6; Deu 12:11; Deu 12:27, etc., it represents shelamim (Leviticus 3*), compensation offerings (EV wrongly peace offerings), part of which was offered to Yahweh, the rest being reserved for the social meal (Deu 12:7). The latter Heb. term occurs in Dt. but once. Deu 27:7, which is dependent on Exo 20:24 (E). (c) Tithes (Lev 27:30, Num 18:21-24*). (d) Contributions (EV, heave offerings of your hand (see on Exo 25:2 (P)). (e) Votive offerings, and (f) voluntary offerings, i.e. such as were given in addition to the legal requirements with (e) or without (f) a preceding vow (Deu 23:21-23). Neither sin nor guilt (trespass) offerings are mentioned; sacrifice in D has a joyous character.
Deu 12:11. your choice vows: better, your chosen votive offerings, i.e, what you choose to vow.
Deu 12:12. the Levite: Deu 10:8.within your gates: i.e. in cities other than Jerusalem (see Deu 12:15).
Deu 12:15 f. is probably a marginal summary of Deu 12:20-25 and should be omitted.
Deu 12:15. the unclean and the clean: i.e. ceremonially so (1Sa 20:26); the law concerning sacrificial was more rigid than that concerning ordinary food.
Deu 12:17 continues Deu 12:14, but restores partial offerings (EV sacrifice).
Deu 12:20-22. This concession was due to the suppression of the local sanctuaries: animal food (formerly partaken of at sacrificial meals only) could under the Deuteronomic law be eaten at Jerusalem alone. Animals killed and eaten locally came now under the category of food and not sacrifice, the regulation being less stringent (Deu 14:4 ff.).
Deu 12:23-25. The prohibition of blood (because containing the soul not life is common to many peoples (see Gen 9:4*, Lev 3:17, and cf. Frazer, Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, pp. 239251).
Deu 12:26. Holy things . . . and . . . vows = obligatory and voluntary altar gifts.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

ONE CENTER OF WORSHIP
(vs.1-28)
To prepare for proper worship in the land, Israel must utterly destroy those in which the nations before them served their idols. This was commonly done in high places, in mountains and hills and in lovely wooded areas (v.2-3), just as many people today tell us they need no gathering of saints to the name of the Lord Jesus in order to worship, but feel closer to God when they are outside enjoying the beauties of nature. But this kind of worship was to be totally destroyed by Israel, by breaking down their pillars, burning their wooden images and cutting down their carved images. No vestige of these things was to be left, for Israel was not to adopt any such thing as part of their worship (v.4).
They had no choice even as regards where they were to worship. Rather, God had decided this matter and Israel was to seek only the place God had chosen (v.5). When they entered the land, God would leave no doubt as to where that center of worship was. Their worship in that place would require “burnt offerings, your sacrifices of your tithes, freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks.” Notice that all of these things speak of Christ in some way, and emphatically Christ crucified. This must always be the prominent theme of worship. Worshiping the beauties of nature is an insult to God, for nature is under God’s curse because of sin. Worshiping Christian worshiping the One who has borne the curse of our guilt on Calvary.
On such a basis too they were privileged to eat before the Lord and rejoice in the blessing the Lord had given them (v.2). The Lord expects this spirit of thankfulness and rejoicing before Him when people have been blessed, rather than an attitude of each person independently doing what is right in his own eyes (v.8). This too frequently happens when people are prosperous. If they have difficulties and hardship, usually people are drawn more together, to help one another.
Israel was yet traveling when Moses spoke, but when the Lord would settle them in the land beyond Jordan, then He would designate the place where His name would abide (vs.9-l1). To that place they were to bring their burnt offerings, sacrifices, tithes, heave offerings and all choice offerings, and all choice offerings, and in that center they were to rejoice before the Lord, together with their families, their servants and the Levite who resided in the area, since the Levites did not have a distinct inheritance (v.12). For us today, Christ and Him crucified is the Center of our worship, not a geographical location, but a living Person.
Only God’s choice was to be allowed as a place of worship for Israel (v.13). We know from later history that Jerusalem was that center, its name meaning “the foundation of peace.” In the New Testament the center for the Church of God is not a physical location, but Christ in resurrection is the Center, as He Himself declares, “For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them”
(Mat 18:20). Thus, it is opposing Scripture to be gathered to a denominational name or to gather to a certain doctrine or doctrines. God has chosen His Son to be the only allowable Center. May we deeply value this and show our appreciation in gathering to Him alone, apart from the party names or party doctrines so popular today.
However, when animals were not offered as sacrifices, it was permissible for Israel to slaughter these at their homes and eat the meat. In this case even those who were unclean could eat (v.15). Thus the Lord Jesus received sinners and eat with them (Luk 15:2). But He ate the Passover only with His disciples (Luk 22:14). Scripture does not forbid a believer to eat a common meal with an unbeliever (1Co 10:27), but it does forbid any yoke with an unbeliever (1Co 6:14). But in any case, the blood of the animal was never to be eaten (v.16).
Verse 17 insists that none of those things that were offered to God were to be eaten “within your gates,” that is, in their home circumstances: they were to be given a marked distinction and eaten only in the place the Lord would choose. Thus their worship was to be totally sanctified from their ordinary home life, and their entire family and servants were included in this, when they could rejoice exclusively before the Lord (v.18).
Neither must they forsake the Levite, for Levites were servants to the priests and had no specified inheritance because they were God’s servants to care for the spiritual needs of the people (v.19).
Verses 20-22 reiterate the permission of God for Israel to eat meat in their homes, so long as the animal was not offered as a sacrifice to God, but with the restriction added as to eating no blood (vs.23-25). The repetition of such things was necessary in order that Israel might take to heart the truth of the Word of God.
The holy things, all that were to be offered to God, were to be taken to God’s center of worship. There they were to be offered to God, with the blood of the animals poured out on the altar, while the offerers were permitted to eat the meat (v.27). These were peace offerings of which they were allowed to eat after God was given His portion, the fat, the entrails and kidneys (Lev 3:3-5); and the high priest and his sons also being given the breast and the thigh (Lev 7:31-32).
This section is ended by another pressing insistence from God that Israel should obey what He commands, that they and their children might reap favorable benefits from this (v.28).
WARNINGS AGAINST FALSE WORSHIP
(vs.29-32)
In view of Israel’s being planted in their land by God’s dispossessing their enemies, Moses strongly warns them of the danger of Satan’s temptation to snare Israel into adopting and following the false gods of the land (vs.29-30). Israel might foolishly think that their enemies had prospered because of their particular worship, just as today some Christians think the ungodly prosper because of their attractive forms of professed worship and adopt such forms that are actually idolatrous.
People may think this only another way of really serving God (v.31), as though Confucianism, Buddhism, Mohammedanism, Shintoism, Mormonism, Christian Science, etc. are only alternative styles of worshiping the same God. but all of these are absolutely false and opposed to the worship of God as revealed in His beloved Son Jesus Christ. Such religions can sink into such a low state that people dare to even burn their children in the fire as sacrifices to their gods. Though some of these do not go that far literally today, yet by teaching unholy doctrines to their children, they are virtually sacrificing them to the flames of hell!
The only real protection we have from such evil is in obedience to the Word of God (v.32). How vital it is that we should take to heart the words of this verse: “Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it: you shall not add to it nor take away from it.” This verse is found in the history of Scripture. In that history there is no slightest error. It provides all that is necessary for us to know as regards what is past, and nothing must be taken from it. Another similar warning is found in the poetry of Scripture (Pro 30:5-6); and another in the prophecy of Scripture (Rev 22:18-19). Whether in its history, poetry or prophecy, the Word of God is absolute and full in its truth. We must not dare to add to it nor subtract from it, but treat it with utmost reverence.
Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible

12:1 These [are] the statutes and judgments, which ye shall observe to do in the land, which the LORD God {a} of thy fathers giveth thee to possess it, all the days that ye live upon the earth.
(a) By which they are admonished to seek no other God.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

1. Laws arising from the first commandment 12:1-31
The first commandment is, "You shall have no other gods before me" (Deu 5:7). The legislation that follows deals with worshipping Yahweh exclusively.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

The central sanctuary 12:1-14
When Israel entered the land the people were to destroy all the places and objects used in pagan worship by the Canaanites (Deu 12:2-4). Pagan peoples generally have felt that worshipping on elevated sites brings them into closer contact with their gods than is the case when they worship in low-lying places, unless those places had been the sites of supernatural events. The Canaanites typically visualized their gods as being above them.
"’Places’ (hammeqomot) is a quasi-technical term referring to sites thought to be holy because of a special visitation by deity. These were usually in groves of trees (representing fertility) and on high hills, esteemed by the very height to be in closer proximity to the gods. In contrast to such ’places’ would be the ’place’ where the Lord must be worshipped. Seven times (Deu 12:5; Deu 12:11; Deu 12:13-14; Deu 12:18; Deu 12:21; Deu 12:26) this single place (maqom) is mentioned in this passage in which the exclusiveness of the Lord is emphasized." [Note: Merrill, Deuteronomy, p. 220.]
"The centralization requirement must also be understood in terms of Deuteronomy’s nature as a suzerainty treaty. Such treaties prohibited the vassal’s engaging in any independent diplomacy with a foreign power other than the covenant suzerain. In particular, the vassal must not pay tribute to any other lord. Similarly, all the requirements and prohibitions of Deuteronomy 12 were calculated to secure for the Lord all Israel’s tributary sacrifice and offering. Israel must not pay any sacrificial tribute to other gods, for such an impossible attempt to serve two masters would be rebellion against the great commandment of God’s covenant." [Note: Kline, "Deuteronomy," p. 171.]
Israel was only to worship Yahweh at the one central sanctuary that He had appointed, the tabernacle, and later the temple (Deu 12:5-14).
"The emphasis is not upon one place so much as it is upon the place the Lord chooses. . . . The central activity of Israel’s life, the worship of the Lord, is fully shaped and determined by the Lord." [Note: Miller, pp. 131-32.]
This law governed public worship. Israelites could, of course, pray to God anywhere. This restriction distinguished Yahweh worship from Canaanite worship that was polytheistic and pantheistic. Later in Israel’s history the people broke this law and worshipped God at various "high places." The "high places" were sites of pagan worship or places modeled after them (1Ki 14:23; 1Ki 15:14; 1Ki 22:43; et al.).
"The contrast with Canaanite worship, with its multitude of temples and open-air shrines (Deu 12:2), is enormous. It is a very common pattern for conquerors and invaders of a country to take over old shrines for their own forms of worship . . ." [Note: David F. Payne, Deuteronomy, p. 79.]
The tabernacle was to be the place of Israel’s national worship because God’s name was there (Deu 12:5). That is, God manifested His immediate presence there as nowhere else in Israel. When the Israelites came to the tabernacle, they came to God. The Israelites erected the tabernacle first in the land at Gilgal (Jos 4:19; Jos 5:10; Jos 9:6; et al.). [Note: See Daniel I. Block, "The Joy of Worship: The Mosaic Invitation to the Presence of God (Deuteronomy 12:1-14)," Bibliotheca Sacra 162:646 (April-June 2005):131-49.]
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

LAWS OF SACRIFICE
Deu 12:1-32.
IT is a characteristic of all the earlier codes of law-the Book of the Covenant, the Deuteronomic Code, and the Law of Holiness-that at the head of the series of laws which they contain there should be a law of sacrifice. Probably, too, each of the three had, as first section of all, the Decalogue. The Book of the Covenant and Deuteronomy undeniably have it so, and the earlier element which forms the basis of Lev 17:1-16; Lev 18:1-30; Lev 19:1-37; Lev 20:1-27; Lev 21:1-24; Lev 22:1-33; Lev 23:1-44; Lev 24:1-23; Lev 25:1-55; Lev 26:1-46, not improbably had originally the same form. If so, we may assume that the order of the precepts has in a measure been determined by the order of the commandments. On this account the laws for the cultus would naturally come first. For just as the first commandment is, “Thou shalt have no other god before Me,” and the second forbids all idolatrous images, so the laws begin with provisions meant in the main to ward off idolatry. Israels great calling was to receive and to spread the truth concerning God. That was the center of the sacred deposit of Divine and revealed truth committed to that nation; and it is most instructive to see how, not only in historical statements, but even in the form in which early Israelite legislation is handed down to us, the Decalogue dominates all the details of it. It formulated in as concrete a shape as was possible the Divine demand that Israelites should love God and their neighbor, and therefore the legislative provisions and statutes begin with ordinances dealing with sacrifice.
To us in modern times it may seem almost bathos to connect such an antecedent with such a consequent; but it seems so, only because we have difficulty in apprehending the meaning and importance of sacrifice in primitive religion. For sacrifice had in Israel a meaning and importance of its own, and a present value at every period, which in no way depended upon its typical or prophetic value as pointing forward to the sacrifice of Christ. It supplied the religious needs of men even apart from the clearness of their knowledge about its ultimate purpose. Sacrifice, especially in its simplest meaning, was in heathenism absolutely essential as a means of approach to God. To come before a great man without a gift was in ancient days an outrage. It was therefore inevitable that men should approach their gods in the same manner. Sacrificial gifts expressed the dependents joy in a gracious lord, and also the homage and reverence due from a subject to a king. Further, as all good things were regarded as the gifts of the gods to their worshippers, the sacrifices conveyed thanks for good gifts received, and joined the gods and their worshippers by a common participation in the Divine gift which connected them as eaters at the same table. But sacrifices had a higher reach of expression even than that. As they were brought to the gods they were the symbols of the self-devotion of the offerer to the service of his god; and where there was need of propitiation because of offence consciously given, or offence felt by the deity for unknown reasons, these gifts took on in some measure a reconciling or propitiatory quality.
Now the Old Testament sacrifices had in them, unquestionably, all these elements: but as Yahweh was high above all heathen deities in moral character, they also took on a depth and intensity of meaning which they could never have on the soil of heathen religious conceptions. Along this line of sacrificial ritual, therefore, all the spiritual emotions of Israel flowed; and to hold that sacrifice had no real place in the religion of Yahweh would be almost equivalent to saying that neither love, nor penitence, nor prayer, had any real place in it either. All these found utterance in sacrifice and along with it; and it has yet to be shown that they had any regular and acceptable utterance otherwise. To regulate sacrifice and keep it pure must, therefore, have been one chief means of guarding against the degradation of Yahweh to the level of the gods of the heathen.
But there is another and very important reason for it. Both in the days when Moses parted from his people, and also in the time of Manasseh, the people stood confronted by very special danger just at this point.
At the earlier period they were about to enter upon intimate contact with the Canaanites, their superiors in culture and in all the arts of civilized life, but corrupted to the core. Further, the Canaanite corruption was focused in their religious rites and worship, and evil could not fail to follow if the people suffered themselves to be drawn into any participation in it. For if Professor Robertson Smith be right, the central point of ancient sacrifice was the communion between the god and his worshippers in the sacrificial feast. They became of one kin with each other and with the god, and this close relationship made the communication of spiritual and moral infection almost a certainty.
In Manassehs day again it was natural that legislation on the same subject, and warnings of even a more solemn kind, should be repeated. A prophetic lawgiver writing at that date had before him, not only the possibility of evil, but actual experience of it. The laws and warnings of the earlier code had been defied and neglected. The faith of the chosen people had been miserably perverted by contact with the Canaanites; the whole history of prophecy had been a struggle against corrupt and insincere worship; and now the monstrous sacrifices to Moloch and the invasion of Assyrian idolatry had degraded Yahweh and destroyed His people, so that scarce any hope of recovery remained. In bracing himself for one more struggle with this desperate corruption, the Deuteronomist naturally repeated in deeper tones the Mosaic warnings. The command utterly to uproot and trample under foot the symbols and instruments of Canaanite worship, he brings, from the less prominent place it occupies in the Book of the Covenant, to the first place in his own code. To break with that and all other forms of idolatry, utterly and decisively, had come to be the first condition of any upward movement. The degrading and defiling bondage to idolatry into which his people had fallen must end. With trumpet tongue he calls upon them to break down the Canaanite altars, dash in pieces their obelisks, and burn their Asherim with fire.
To some moderns it may seem that such excessive energy might, with better effect, have been expended upon the denunciation of moral evils, such as cruelty and lust and oppression, rather than of idolatry. We have grown so accustomed to the distinctions drawn by the Church of Rome, and in later times by the neo-classicists, between worshipping God through an image or a picture, or in any natural object or natural force, and the actual worship of the image or picture or natural object itself, that we have sophisticated our minds. But the author of Deuteronomy knew by bitter experience that such subtle, and, in great part, sophistical distinctions had no application to his people and his time. Their worst immoralities were, he knew well, rooted in their idol-worship. For idolatry in any form binds all that is highest in man to the sphere of nature, i.e., of moral indifference. Just as a conception of God which rigorously separated Him from nature, which made His will the supreme impelling force in the world, and which conceived His essential attributes to be entirely ethical, was the fountain of the higher life in Israel, so a lapse into idolatry of any kind was the negation of it all. No doubt some moral life would have remained in Israel, even if the lapse had become universal. But, even at its best, this natural morality of self-preservation has no future and no goal. It does not lead the van of human progress; it merely comes after, to ratify the results of it. Only when social morality is taken up into a wider sphere than its own, -only when it is conceived as the path by which man can co-operate with a sublime purpose lying beyond himself, -can it maintain itself as the inspiration of human life, impelling to progress and guiding it. Now, so far as history teaches, this energy of moral life has been attained only where the conception of God which makes moral perfection to be His essential nature has been accepted and cherished. But no natural religion can rise to that; hence idolatry must always be destructive of ethical religion. It must destroy faith in the moral character of God.
Further, it must destroy the moral character of man. In the last resort all idolaters are equally acceptable to their god, if only they bring the prescribed gifts and accurately perform the prescribed ceremonies. The lewd and the chaste, the cruel and the merciful, the revengeful and the forgiving, are all equally accepted when they sacrifice. Non-moral or positively immoral gods can care nothing about such differences. Of this fact and its results no man acquainted with the history of Israel could doubt. The main zeal of the prophets was at all times directed against those who were steeped in moral evil, but were zealous in all that concerned sacrifice, and against the amazing folly of a people who thought to bind the living God to their cause and their interests by mere bribes, in the shape of thousands of bullocks and ten thousand rivers of oil. This conception was bound up essentially with idolatry. But the evil of it was intensified in the Semitic idolatries with which Israel specially defiled itself. Their cruelty and obscenity were unspeakable. Now by Israels idolatry Yahweh was made to appear tolerant of Moloch and Baal, as if they were equals. Every quality which the Mosaic revelation had set forth as essential to the character of Yahweh-His purity, His mercy, His truth-was outraged by the society which His worshippers in Manassehs days had thrust upon Him. No reform, then, had the least chance of stability till the axe was laid at the root of this wade-spreading up as tree.
Deuteronomy, therefore, grapples first and grapples thoroughly with the evil, and strikes it a blow from which it was never to recover. The inspired writer repeats with new energy the old decrees of utter destruction against the Canaanite sanctuaries; for though these were for the most part no longer in Canaanite hands, the High Places still existed; and the principle of that old prohibition was more clamant for recognition and realization than it had ever been in the history of Israel before.
Then he goes on to proclaim the new law, that no sacrifice should any longer be offered save at the one central sanctuary chosen by Yahweh. There is no such provision in the Book of the Covenant, and there is no hint in the legislation of Deuteronomy that its author knew of the Tabernacle and its sole right as a place of sacrifice. From beginning to end of the code he never mentions the Tabernacle nor the sacrifices there; and in the very terms in which he permits the slaughter of animals for food in Deu 12:15-16, and Deu 12:20-25, though he obviously repeals a custom which has been embodied in the Priestly Code as a law, {Lev 17:3 ff.} he makes no reference to that passage. Consequently this at least may be said, that he may quite conceivably have been ignorant of Lev 17:3 ft. In ignorance of it, he might write as he has done; and if not ignorant, it would be much more natural to refer to it. When we add to this negative testimony the positive testimony of Deu 12:8 and Deu 12:13, which we have already discussed in Chapter 1, there would seem to be little room for doubt that the priestly law on this subject was not before the writer of Deuteronomy. Consequently we are justified in regarding this as the first written law actually promulgated on this subject. Hezekiah had attempted the same reform; but he had, so far as we know, neither published nor referred to any law commanding it, and his work was entirely undone. The Deuteronomist, more convinced than he that this step was absolutely necessary to complete the Mosaic legislation on idolatry, and filled with the same inspiration of the Almighty, completed it; and though a reaction followed Josiahs enforcement of this law also, its existence saved the life of the nation. Its principles kept the nation holy, i.e., separate to their God, during the Exile, and at the return they were dominant in the formation of the “congregation.”
Certainly there is no lack of earnestness in the way in which these principles are urged. With that love of repetition which is a distinguishing mark of this writer, he expresses the commandment first positively, then negatively. Then he brings in the consequential alteration in the law regarding the slaughtering of animals for food. Again he returns to the command, explaining, enlarging, insisting, and concludes with a reiteration of the permission to slaughter. Efforts, of course, have been made to show that this repetition is due to the amalgamation here of no fewer than seven separate documents! But little heed need be given to such fantastic attempts. It is, once for all, a habit of this writers mind to shrink from no monotony of this kind. There is not one important idea in his book which he does not repeat again and again; and where repetition is so constant a feature, and where the language and thought is so consistent as it is here, it is worse than useless to assert separate documents. The writers earnestness is sufficient explanation. He saw plainly that, so long as the provincial High Places existed and were popular, it would be impossible to secure purity of worship. The heathen conceptions of the Canaanites clung about their ancient sanctuaries, and, like the mists from a fever swamp, infected everything that came near. Inspection sufficiently minute and constant to be of use was impracticable; there remained nothing but to decree their abandonment. When the whole worship of the people was centered at Jerusalem, corruption of the idolatrous kind would, it was hoped, be impossible. There, a pious king could watch over it; there, the Temple priesthood had attained to worthier ideas in regard to sacrifice and the fulfillment of the law than the priests elsewhere. Josiah accordingly rigorously enforced this new law.
Such a change, aimed solely at religious ends, did not stop there. Is many ways it affected the social life of the people; in Deu 12:15-16, and Deu 12:20, Deu 12:24, the author meets one hardship connected with the new law, by allowing men to slay for food at a distance from the altar. According to ancient custom, no flesh could be eaten by any Israelite, save when the fat and the blood had been presented at the altar. During the wilderness journey there would be little difficulty regarding this. In the desert very little meat is eaten; and so long as life was nomadic there would be no hardship in demanding that: those who wished to make sacrificial feasts should wander towards the central place of worship rather than from it. It has been disputed whether there was in those days a tabernacle such as the Priestly Code describes; but there certainly was, according to the earliest documents, a tent in which Yahweh revealed Himself and gave responses. As we have seen, there must have been sacrifice in connection with it; and though worship at other places where Yahweh had made His name to be remembered was permitted, this sanctuary in the camp must have had a certain preeminence. A tendency, but according to the words of Deuteronomy nothing stronger than a tendency, must have shown itself to make this the main place of worship.
When the people crossed the Jordan into the land promised to the fathers, and had abandoned the nomadic life, great difficulty must have arisen. For those at a distance from the place where the Tabernacle was set up, the eating of meat and the enjoyment of sacrificial feasts would, by this ancient customary law, have been rendered impossible, if the attendance at one sanctuary had been obligatory. Only if men could come to local sanctuaries, each in his own neighborhood, could the religious character of the festivals at which meat was eaten be preserved. The nature of mens occupations, now that they had become settled agriculturists, and the dangers from the Canaanites so long as they were not entirely subdued and absorbed, alike forbade such long and frequent journeys to a central sanctuary. The conquest must consequently at once have checked any tendency to centralization that may have existed; and there is reason to believe that the acceptance of the Canaanite High Places as sanctuaries of Yahweh was in great part caused by the demands of this ancient law concerning the “zebbach.” In any case it must have helped to overcome any scruples that may have existed. But when the Tabernacle and Ark were brought to Zion, and still more when the Temple was built, the centripetal tendency, never altogether dead, must have revived. For there was peace throughout the land and beyond it. No danger from the Canaanites existed; and the political centralization which Solomon aimed at, and actually carried out, as well as the superior magnificence of the Solomonic Temple and its priests, must have attracted to Jerusalem the thoughts and the reverence of the whole people. What Deuteronomy now makes law may have then first arisen as a demand of the Jerusalem priests. At all events, the very existence of the Temple must have been a menace to the High Places; and we may be sure that among the motives which led the ten tribes to reject the Davidic house, jealousy for the local sanctuaries must have been prominent.
But the separation of the ten tribes would only strengthen the claim of the Temple on Zion to be for Judah the one true place of worship. The territory ruled from Jerusalem was now so small that resort to the central sanctuary was comparatively easy. The glorious memories of the Davidic and Solomonic time would center round Jerusalem. Any local sanctuaries would be entirely dwarfed and overshadowed by the splendor and the, at least comparative, purity of the worship there. Priests of local altars too must inevitably have sunk in the popular estimation, and even in their own, to a secondary and subordinate position, as compared with the carefully organized and strictly graded Jerusalem priests. Even without a positive command, therefore, the people of Judah must have been gradually growing into the habit of seeking Yahweh at Jerusalem on all more solemn religious occasions; and though the High Places might exist, their repute in the Southern Kingdom must have been decreasing. Of course if a command was given in the Mosaic time which had been neglected, the tendencies here traced must have been stronger and more definite than we have depicted them. When the prophetic teachings of Isaiah which proclaimed Jerusalem to be “Ariel,” the “sacrificial hearth,” or “the hearth of God,” were so wondrously confirmed by the destruction of Sennacheribs host before the city, the unique position of Zion must have been secured; and after that only those who were set upon idolatry can have had much interest in the High Places. Hezekiahs effort to abolish these latter is quite intelligible in these circumstances; and we may feel assured that, as Wellhausen says, “The Jewish royal temple had early overshadowed the other sanctuaries, and in the course of the seventh century they were extinct or verging on extinction.”
Along with this there must have grown, up a measure of laxity in regard to the provision that all slaughtering for food should take place at the sanctuary. Many would doubtless go to Zion, many would continue to resort to the High Places, and a number, from a mere halting between two opinions, would probably take their “zebhachim” to neither. Consequently the law before us would by no means be so revolutionary as Duhm, for instance, pictures it. He says: “I do not know if in the whole history of the world a law can be pointed to which was so fitted to change a whole people in its innermost nature and in its outward appearance, at one stroke, as this was. The Catholic Church even has never by all her laws succeeded in anything in the least like it.” But we have seen evidence of a very strong and continuous pressure to this point, at least in Judah. History during centuries had justified and intensified it; so that in all probability the true worshippers of Yahweh found in the new law not so much a revolution as a ratification of their already ancient practice. To idolaters, of course, its adoption must have meant a cessation of their idolatry; but the change in the people and in their life would, though extensive, be only such as any ordinary reform would produce. Duhm overlooks altogether the very small territory which the law affected. A long days walk would bring men from Jericho, from Hebron, from the borders of the Philistine country, and from Shechem and Samaria to Jerusalem. If Deuteronomy made a revolution, it must have been confined within the modest limits of substituting a whole for a half-days journey to the Sanctuary.
Moreover it is a mistake to say that sacrifice at one central sanctuary “took religion away from the people,” as Duhm says. If spiritual religion be meant, it ultimately brought religion more vitally home to them. For when the priestly system was fully carried out, the demands of household religion were met, as the post-exilic Psalms show, by the adoption of the practice of household prayer without reference to sacrifice, and finally by the institution of the synagogue. A more spiritual method of approach to God was substituted for a less spiritual in the remote places and in the homes of the people. And the public worship even gained. It became deeper, and more penetrated with a sense of the necessity of deliverance from sin. It is true, of course, that in the end Pharisaic legalism perverted the new forms of worship, as heathen externalism had perverted the old. But in neither case was the perversion a necessity. In both it was simply a manifestation of the materialistic tendency which dogs the footsteps of even the most spiritual religion, when it has to realize itself in the life of man. It is enough for the justification of the whole movement led by Josiah to say that it held the Judaean exiles together; that it kept alive in their hearts, as nothing else did, their faith in God and in their future; and that on their return it gave them the form which their institutions could most profitably take. Further, under the forms of religious and social life which this movement generated, the true, heartfelt piety which the prophets so mourned the want of became more common than ever it had been before.
The establishment of the central altar as the only one was the main object of this law; but there is much to be learned from the very terms in which this is expressed. They breathe the same love for man and sympathy with the poor which forms one of the most attractive characteristics of our book. The gracious bonds of family affection, the kindly feeling that should unite masters and servants, the helpfulness which ought to distinguish the conduct of the rich to the poor, and above all the cheerful enjoyment of the results of honest labor, are to be preserved and sanctified even in the ritual of sacrifice. “Thou shalt rejoice before Yahweh in all that thou puttest thine hand unto,” is here the motto, if we may so speak, of religious service. That, indeed, is to be made the opportunity for the discharge of all humane and brotherly duties; and the religious life is at its highest when the worshipper rejoices himself, and shares and sheds abroad his joy upon others. The love of God is here most intimately blended with love of the brethren. Masters and servants, slaves and free, the high and the low, are to be reminded of their equal standing in the sight of God, by their common participation in the sacrificial meals; and the poorest are to be permitted an equal enjoyment of the luxuries of the rich in these solemn approaches to Yahweh. The Deuteronomist here reaches the highest stage of religious life, in that he shows himself in nowise afraid of human joy. As we have seen, he knows the value of austerity in religion. He is well enough aware that war against evil is not made with rose-water. But then he is equally far from the extreme of suspecting all affection not directly turned to God, of regarding natural gladness as a ruinous snare to the soul. This finely balanced, this just attitude to all aspects of life, is a most notable thing at this epoch in the history of the world, and considering the circumstances of the time it is little short of a marvel. It is true, of course, that the religion of Israel was always finely human. It could run into excesses, and was marked by many imperfections; but asceticism, the doctrine which holds pain and self-denial to be in themselves good, when it did intrude into Israel, always came from without. Nevertheless the heartiness and thoroughness with which all gracious human feelings and all kindly human relations are here taken up into religion is remarkable, even in the Old Testament. More, perhaps, than anything else in this book, it shows the sweetening and wholesome effect of demanding supreme love to God as mans first duty. “If any man come to Me and hate not his father and mother,” says Christ, “he cannot be My disciple,” {Luk 14:26} and many purblind critics have found this to be a hard saying. But all who know men know, that when God in Christ is made so much the supreme object of love that even the most sacred human obligations seem to be disregarded in comparison, the human affection so thrust into the background is only made richer far than it otherwise could be.
THE RELATION OF OLD TESTAMENT SACRIFICE TO CHRISTIANITY
BUT it may be asked, What is the relation of this Divinely sanctioned ritual law of sacrifice to our religion in its present phase? To that question various answers are being returned, and indeed it may be said that on this point almost all the main differences of Christians turn. The Church of Rome maintains in essence the sacerdotal view of the later Old Testament times, though in a spiritualized Christian shape, and to this the High Anglican view is a more or less pronounced return. The Protestant Churches, on the other hand, regard priests and sacrifices as anachronisms since the death of Christ. In that, for the most part, they regard the significance of sacrifice as being summed up and completed; and the present dispensation is for them the realization in embryo of that which Old Testament saints looked forward to-a people of God, every true member of which is both priest and prophet, i.e., has free and unrestricted access to God, and is authorized and required to speak in His name. The interest of Protestant Christians, therefore, in priesthood and sacrifice in the Old Testament sense, though very great and enduring, has no connection with the continuation of sacrifice. They look upon the Old Testament ritual as wholly obsolete now. It was simply a stage in the religious development of the chosen people, and as such it has no claim to be continued among Christians.
By a curious allegorical process, however, some devout Protestants keep alive their interest in Old Testament ritual by finding in it an elaborate symbolism covering the whole field of evangelical theology. But this revivification of the old law is too arbitrary and subjective, as well as too improbable, to have an abiding place in Christianity. It is, moreover, useless for the guidance of life; for all that is thus ingeniously put into the Levitical ordinances is found more clearly and directly expressed elsewhere. The amount of religious symbolism in the earlier stages of Israelite religion is small, and very simple and direct. Even in the most elaborate parts of the Levitical legislation, e.g., in the directions regarding the Tabernacle, the purposely allegorical element is kept within comparatively narrow limits; and we may boldly say that the mind which delights in finding spiritual mysteries in every detail of the sacrificial ritual is Rabbinical rather than Christian. On the other hand we need not enter upon a discussion of the view held by “Modern” or Broad Church theologians and by Unitarians, that sacrifice was merely a heathen form taken over into Mosaism, that it had no special significance there, and that the ideas connected with it have absolutely no place in enlightened Christian theology: The Christianity which attaches no sacrificial signification to the death of Christ has, so far as I know, never shown itself to be a type of religion able to create a future, and it is only with types of Christianity that do and can live we have to do. Our question here therefore is limited to this, Which of the two types of view, the Roman Catholic or the Protestant, is truest to the Old Testament teaching?
Externally, perhaps, the evidence seems to favor the Roman Catholic position; for the prophets either directly say, or imply, that sacrifice shall be restored with new purity and power in the Messianic time. This is so patent a fact that it led Edward Irving to say that it was the Old Testament economy that should abide, and that of the New Testament which should pass away. But the inner progress and development of Old Testament religion is quite as decisively on the other side. As we have seen, Old Testament piety had at the beginning almost no recognized expression save in connection with sacrifice, and the Exile first trained the people to faithfulness to God without it, sowing the seed of a religious life largely separate from the sacrificial ritual. Then the ordinance demanding sacrifice at one central altar, which, though introduced by Deuteronomy, was made the exclusive law only by the post-exilic community, furthered the growth of these germs, so that they produced the synagogue system. This completed the severance of the ordinary daily religion of the bulk of the people from sacrificial ritual, so far as that was attained within the limits of Judaism, and prepared the way for Pauline Christianity, in which all allegiance to ritual Judaism is cast off. Now, as between the external and internal evidence, there can be little doubt that the latter has by far the greater weight, especially as the external evidence can, perfectly well, be read in a different sense. The Old Testament promises that sacrifice should be restored may be held to have been fulfilled by the sacrificial death of Christ, which completed and filled up all that had gone before. In that case the evidence that sacrifice and ritual are now obsolete for Christians is left standing alone, and the Protestant view is justified.
And the case for this view is strengthened immeasurably by observing that the modern sacerdotalism has taken up as essential what was the main vice of sacrificial worship in the old economy. That was, as we have seen, the tendency to rest on the mere performance of the external rite, without reference to the disposition of the heart or even to conduct. Rivers of oil and hecatombs of victims were thought sufficient to meet all possible demands on Gods part, and against this the polemic of the prophets is unceasing. Now in almost all modern sacerdotalism the doctrine of the efficacy of sacraments duly administered, apart from right dispositions in either him who administers them or in him who receives them, has been affirmed. It is not now, as it was in the “old time,” an evil tendency which had to be assiduously fought against, but which could not be overcome. It is openly incorporated in the orthodox teaching and is distinctly provided for in the ideal of Christian worship. That marks a considerable falling away from the prophetic ideal: it can hardly be regarded as the appointed end of that great religious movement which the prophets dominated and directed for so long. The teaching of Deuteronomy certainly is, that wherever mere external acts are supposed to have power to secure entrance into the spiritual world of life and peace, there the character of God is misconceived and religion degraded. What it demands is the inward and spiritual allegiance of faithful men to God. What it depicts as the essence of religious life is a set of the whole nature Godward, as deep and irresistible as the set of the tides-
“Such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam.”
Under no sacerdotal system can that view be unreservedly accepted, and therein lies the condemnation of every such system. So far as it is allowed to prevail, the force of the prophetic polemic has to be ignored or evaded, and in greater or less degree the same spiritual decay which the prophets mourned over in Israel must appear.
But it is not only where trust in the mere opus operatum is theoretically justified that it makes its baleful presence felt. It may surreptitiously creep in where the door is theoretically shut against it. The tendency is very deep-seated in human nature; and many evangelical preachers, who repudiate all sacramentarianism, and throw the full emphasis of Christian religious life upon grace and faith, yet bring back again in subtler shape that very thing which they have rejected. For example, instead of the reception of the sacrament at the hands of ordained ministers, a mans acceptance with God is sometimes made to depend upon a declaration of belief that Christ has died for him, or that he has been redeemed and saved by Christ. Wherever such statements are forced upon men, there is a tendency to assume that a decisive step in the spiritual life is taken by the mere utterance of them. The motives which actuate the utterer are taken for granted; the existence of such a set of the spiritual nature to God as Deuteronomy demands is supposed to be proved by the mere spoken words; and men who cannot or will not say such things glibly are unchurched without mercy. What is that but the opus operatum in its most offensive shape? But in whatever shape it appears, the Deuteronomic demand for love to God, with the heart and soul and strength, as essential to all true spiritual service and sacrifice, condemns it. Love to God and love to men are the main things in true religion. All else is subordinate and secondary. Sacrifice and ritual without these are dead forms. That is the Deuteronomic teaching, and by it, once for all, the true relation of the cultus to the life is fixed.
Nevertheless the priestly and sacrificial system of the Old Testament has even for Christians a present importance, for it is an adumbration of that which was to be done in the death of Christ. It has an unspeakable value, when rightly used, as an object-lesson in the elements which are essential to a right approach to a Holy God on the part of sinful men. Even in heathenism there were such foreshadowings; and nothing is more fitted to exalt our views of the Divine wisdom than to trace, as we can now do, the ways in which mans seekings after God, even beyond the bounds of the chosen people, took forms that were afterwards absorbed and justified in the redeeming work of our Blessed Lord. For example, Professor Robertson Smith says of certain ancient heathen piacular sacrifices, “The dreadful sacrifice is performed, not with savage joy, but with awful sorrow, and in the mystic sacrifices the deity himself suffers with and for the sins of his people and lives again in their new life.” Now if we admit that he is not unduly importing into these sacrifices ideas which are really foreign to them, surely awe is the only adequate emotion wherewith a believer in Christ can meet such a strange prophecy, in the lowest religion, of that which is deepest in the highest. The sacrificial system in general was founded, in part at least, on belief in the possibility and desirability of communion with God. In the sacrificial feasts this was supposed to be attained, and the essential religious needs of mankind found expression in much of the ritual. If the death of the god, and his returning to life again in his people found a prominent place in piacular sacrifices in various lands, that suggests that in some dim way even heathen men had learned that sin cannot be removed and forgiven without cost to God as well as to man, and that communion in suffering as well as in joy is a necessary element of life with God. The human heart, Divinely biased, asserted itself in effort after such association with Deity, and in the feeling that sin was that element in life which it would make the highest demand upon the Divine love to set effectively aside.
But if such preparation for the fullness of the time was going on in heathenism, if the mind and heart of man, driven forward by Divinely ordered experience and its own needs, could produce such forecasts in the ritual of heathen religion, we surely must admit that the religious ritual in Israel had an even more intimate connection with that which was to come. For we claim that in guiding the destinies of Israel God was, in an exceptional manner, revealing Himself, that among them He established the true religion, unfolded it in their history, and prepared as nowhere else for the advent of Him who should make real and objective the union of God and man. Here consequently, if anywhere, we should expect to find the permanent factors in religion recognized even in the forms of worship, and the less permanent allowed to fall away. We should also expect the ritual of the cultus to grow in depth of meaning with time, and that it would more and more recognize the moral and spiritual elements in life. Finally, we should expect that it would be the parent of conceptions rising above and beyond itself, and more fully consonant with the revelation given by Christ than anything in heathenism.
Now all these expectations would seem to have been fulfilled; and it is reasonable to assume that those sacrificial ideas which corresponded to the deepened consciousness of sin, and synchronized apparently with the decay of Israels political independence, are rightly applied to the elucidation of the meaning of Christs death. Of course mistakes may be and have been made in the application of this principle; the most common being that of forcing every detail of the imperfect and temporary provision into the interpretation of the perfect and eternal. Sometimes, too, the significance of the life and coming of Christ are obscured by a too exclusive attention to His sacrificial death. But the principle in itself must be sound, if Christianity is in any sense to be regarded as the completion and full development of the Old Testament religion. Besides the immediate significance of sacrifice which the worshippers perceived and by which they were edified, there was another significance which belonged to it as a step in the long progress which had been marked out for this people in the Divine purpose. Regarded from that standpoint, the sacrifices, and the ritual connected with them, had a meaning for the future also, were in fact typical of the final sacrifice which would need to be offered only once for all. How much of this was understood by the men of ancient Israel we have no means of knowing. Some, doubtless, had a faint perception of it; but at its clearest it was probably more a dissatisfaction with what they had, leading them to look for some better sacrifice, than any more definite understanding. But what they only dimly guessed was, as we can now see, the inner meaning of all; and it is perfectly legitimate to use both the provisional and the perfected revelations to explain each other. On these grounds the New Testament freely makes use of the ancient ritual to bring out the full significance of the sacrifice of Christ.
No doubt a different view has to be reckoned with. Many say that the whole of this typical reference is a begging of the question. In the infancy of mankind sacrifice was a natural way of expressing adoration and of seeking the favor of the gods. In the heathen world it reached its highest manifestation in those piacular sacrifices of which Robertson Smith speaks, but which nevertheless were merely an outgrowth of Totemism. In Israel sacrifice was taken up by the religion of Yahweh and embodied in it. The spiritual forces which were at work in that nation used it as a means whereby to express themselves; and when Christ came to complete the revelation, His purely ethical and spiritual work was unavoidably expressed in sacrificial terms. But that is no guarantee that the essential thing in the work of Christ was sacrifice. On the contrary, the sacrificial language used about it is of no real importance. It is simply the natural and unavoidable form of expression, in that place and at that time, for any spiritual deliverance. In short, had there been really nothing sacrificial in the death of Christ, the religious meaning and significance of it would have been expressed in sacrificial language, for no other was available. Consequently the presence of such language in the New Testament does not prove that the sacrificial meaning belongs to its main and permanent significance. The sacrificial idea, on this view of things, belongs, both in Israel and in heathenism, to the elements which Christianity superseded and did away with; and it is consequently an anachronism to bring it in to explain and elucidate anything done or taught under this new dispensation.
But such a view is singularly narrow, and unjust to the past. It surely is more honoring to both God and man to suppose that the capital religious ideas of the race, those ideas which have been everywhere present and have been seen to deepen and refine with every advance man has made, have permanent value. Moreover, on any view, it is probable that in them the essential religious needs of human nature have found expression. If so, we should expect that they would in the end be met, and that the perfect religion, when it did come, would not ignore but satisfy the demand which the nature of man and the providence of God had originated and combined to strengthen. Further, it is the very essence of the Scriptural view of Christ that He perfected and carried to their highest power all the essential features in the religious constitution of Israel. He was indeed the true Israel, and all Israels tasks fell to Him. As Prophet, Priest, and Messianic King alike, He excelled all His predecessors, who were what they were only because they had, in their degree, done part of the work which He was to come to finish. Apart from the religion of the Old Testament, therefore, Christ is unintelligible, and that, in turn, without Him, has neither a progress nor a goal. Belief in a Divine direction of the world would in itself be sufficient to forbid the separation of one from the other. If so, it will follow that the sacrificial idea is essential to the interpretation of our Lords work. That idea grew in complexity with the growth of the higher religion. It was at its deepest when religious thought and feeling had done its most perfect work; and on every principle of evolution we should expect that, instead of disappearing at the next stage, it would, though transformed, be more influential than ever. It is so if Christs death is regarded from the point of view of sacrifice; whereas, if that is laid aside like a worn-out garment, it can never have been anything anywhere but an excrescence and a superstition. That has not been so; the essential ideas connected with sacrifice, and forgiveness by means of it, were lessons Divinely taught in the childhood of the world, to prepare men to understand the Divinest mystery of history when it should be manifested to the world.
Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary

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