Chapter 31 Moses’ Final Words.

Having made his great oration Moses was now aware that his death was rapidly approaching, and he spoke even more earnestly in the light of it. And that approaching death could only increase his pessimism about the people.

His first words were to ‘all Israel’, encouraging them to trust Yahweh (Deu 31:1-6), his next to Joshua in order to encourage him in what lay ahead (Deu 31:7-8), and then he spoke to the priests and elders for the preservation of the covenant (Deu 31:9-13). But then he entered into the secret counsels of Yahweh and his message was less encouraging, at least for the medium term (Deu 31:14 onwards). From that point on he was taking the longer view about Israel, and it was not very encouraging at all, so much so that Yahweh commissioned him to write a song in preparation for it, a song of Complaint.

Moses Final Words Of Encouragement To His People And Call To Joshua ( Deu 31:1-8 ).

Moses now calls the people together again and addresses then in readiness of his death.

Analysis using the words of Moses:

a And Moses went and spoke these words to all Israel. And he said to them, ‘I am a hundred and twenty years old this day. I can no more go out and come in, and Yahweh has said to me, “You shall not go over this Jordan” ’ (Deu 31:1-2).

b Yahweh your God, He will go over before you; He will destroy these nations from before you, and you will dispossess them, and Joshua, he will go over before you, as Yahweh has spoken (Deu 31:3).

c And Yahweh will do to them as He did to Sihon and to Og, the kings of the Amorites, and to their land; whom He destroyed (Deu 31:4).

d And Yahweh will deliver them up before you

d And you shall do to them according to all the commandment which I have commanded you (Deu 31:5).

c Be strong and of good courage, fear not, nor be afraid at them, for Yahweh your God, He it is who does go with you); He will not fail you, nor forsake you (Deu 31:6).

b And Moses called to Joshua, and said to him in the sight of all Israel, “Be strong and of good courage, for you will go with this people into the land which Yahweh has sworn to their fathers to give them, and you will cause them to inherit it” (Deu 31:7).

a And Yahweh, He it is who does go before you. He will be with you, He will not fail you, nor forsake you. Fear not, nor be dismayed (Deu 31:8).

Note that in ‘a’ the bad news is that Moses cannot go over Jordan with them because Yahweh has forbidden it, and in the parallel the good news is that Yahweh Himself will go over before them. In ‘b’ Yahweh will go over before them and destroy the nations from before them, and so will Joshua. And in the parallel Joshua must be strong and courageous because Yahweh is going before them and will cause them to inherit the land. In ‘c’ Yahweh will do to the nations what He did to Sihon and Og, and in the parallel they are therefore to be strong and of good courage. In ‘d’ Yahweh will deliver them up before them, then in the parallel they are to ensure that they drive them out or slay them.

Note the two references in the second part of the chiasmus to ‘Be strong and of good courage’. We have already seen earlier that that is typical of the Pentateuch, the repetition of something vital in the second part of a chiasmus (see for example Exo 18:21-22 a with Exo 18:25-26 a; Num 18:4 with Num 18:7, Num 18:23 with Num 18:24; Deu 2:21 with Deu 2:22. Compare also Isa 2:19; Isa 2:21).

Deu 31:1

‘ And Moses went and spoke these words to all Israel.’

Once again we have it stressed that we have here the words of Moses, and in fact there is really no good reason to doubt it. As we have seen all the signs point in that direction.

“And Moses went.” This is a gentle indication that this was at a different point in time to the previous chapter, stressing also deliberate purpose.

Deu 31:2

‘ And he said to them, I am a hundred and twenty years old this day. I can no more go out and come in, and Yahweh has said to me, “You shall not go over this Jordan.” ’

He declared his old age (compare Deu 34:7). One hundred and twenty was probably a round number, possibly representing three generations of forty years. He had been ‘eighty’ when he had first approached Pharaoh (Exo 7:7 – he had had a generation in Egypt and a generation in Midian) and Aaron had been three years older. It may be that each period of his life; his time in Egypt, his time in Moab, and his time leading the people in the wilderness, was seen in terms of ‘three generations’ expressed in terms of three forties of years. This was the way numbers were often used in those days, to convey an idea rather than a mathematical fact. Note how many of the references to age and time in Genesis end in nought or five. Thus he had lived through three generations. He may in fact have been, say, in his eighties or nineties.

“I can no more go out and come in.” This did not signify decrepitude. To ‘go out and in’ indicated being busy with the affairs of life. But this was no longer to be possible for him because he was to be displaced. His usefulness was over. This was his constant regret. The phrase is not a contradiction of Deu 34:7. His eye was still keen, he had been able to see across the Jordan. His strength had not abated. He could still walk and move around. But there was nothing further for him to do. His purpose in life was over.

But his greatest disappointment was that he was not to be allowed to cross the Jordan. He was not to be allowed even to step into the land. It was partly because of his failure at Meribah, which had revealed a lack in his full commitment. But we may also see it as indicating that God did not want Israel’s first days and memories in the land to be ones of grief and disappointment at the death of their great leader. He wanted them to be days of encouragement. They would need such encouragement before they were finished. Thus it was far better for them to get over the death of Moses before they entered the land. Moses could only ever be a reminder of the wilderness. Joshua could then be a new beginning who would see them through the first years after their entry into the land.

Deu 31:3

‘ Yahweh your (thy) God, he will go over before you (thee); he will destroy these nations from before you (thee), and you (thou) will dispossess them, and Joshua, he will go over before you (thee), as Yahweh has spoken.’

But lest this discourage them he pointed out that while he may die Yahweh would still be alive. He would go over before them and would destroy the nations from before them so that they would dispossess them. Like a true leader his thoughts were for his people and not for himself. And he also pointed out that Yahweh had appointed a new leader for them, even his servant Joshua. He too, like Moses, would be God’s instrument of deliverance. He would be ‘the Servant of Yahweh’ in his stead (Jos 24:29). He too would go over, in the triumphant train of Yahweh (Deu 31:7-8).

Deu 31:4

‘ And Yahweh will do to them as he did to Sihon and to Og, the kings of the Amorites, and to their land; whom he destroyed.’

And they need not therefore fear. Yahweh would destroy the nations before them as He had Sihon and Og, the kings of the Amorites. He had destroyed them and their lands. They had therefore no need to fear Amorites any more (contrast Deu 1:44), for now they had seen what Yahweh could do to them.

Deu 31:5

‘ And Yahweh will deliver them up before you (ye), and you (ye) shall do to them according unto all the commandment which I have commanded you (ye).’

For Yahweh would deliver them up before them, and when He did they were to ensure that they did what He had commanded them, slay every last person, so that evil might be rooted out of the land. Had they in fact carried out this command they might have been saved for a much longer period from the cursings. But subsequently they were disobedient once the initial rest and time of blessing was past (Jdg 2:7), simply because they were influenced by the people still remaining in the land, as the narrative in Judges makes clear, and that was why the cursings began to reveal themselves. When God calls on us to do something, however unpleasant, we do well to do it (but we must make sure that it is God Who is calling us to do it).

Deu 31:6

‘ Be strong and of good courage, fear not, nor be afraid at them, for Yahweh your (thy) God, he it is who does go with you (thee); he will not fail you (thee), nor forsake you (thee).’

They were therefore to be strong and of good courage. They were to carry no fear in their hearts, and they were not to be afraid of the enemy. For it was Yahweh their God who was going with them, and He would neither fail them nor forsake them. They would be able totally to rely on Him. If God was for them, who could be against them?

Here they were on the verge of the land. Ahead of them lay battle after battle. The thought that Yahweh was with them and that victory was certain in them all if they truly followed Him, would have been a huge encouragement,

We too must ever remember as we go forward in our lives Who it is Who goes with us. The thought should not only keep us from sin, but also be the assurance to us of the certainty of success if we walk with Him. If God be for us who can be against us, no matter how long the trials may go on?

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Deu 31:7  And Moses called unto Joshua, and said unto him in the sight of all Israel, Be strong and of a good courage: for thou must go with this people unto the land which the LORD hath sworn unto their fathers to give them; and thou shalt cause them to inherit it.

Deu 31:7 Comments – Moses represents “The Law,” which failed in that it did not succeed in bringing men into redemption and restore fellowship with God. Joshua represents “Jesus Christ.” He is able to bring us into Promised Land, since the Law was not able to save us (Gal 2:16; Gal 3:11).

Gal 2:16, “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.”

Gal 3:11, “But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith.”

Deu 31:8  And the LORD, he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed.

Deu 31:7-8 Comments Moses Charges Joshua – Moses’ charge to Joshua to be strong and of good courage in Deu 31:7-8; Deu 31:23 is similar to the command that God gave to Joshua in Jos 1:6-7.

Jos 1:6-7, “Be strong and of a good courage: for unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the land, which I sware unto their fathers to give them. Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest.”

Deu 31:19  Now therefore write ye this song for you, and teach it the children of Israel: put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the children of Israel.

Deu 31:19 Scripture References – Note similar verses:

Psa 50:4, “He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people.”

Deu 4:26, “I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that ye shall soon utterly perish from off the land whereunto ye go over Jordan to possess it; ye shall not prolong your days upon it, but shall utterly be destroyed.”

Deu 31:24 And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished,

Deu 31:25 That Moses commanded the Levites, which bare the ark of the covenant of the LORD, saying,

Deu 31:26 Take this book of the law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God, that it may be there for a witness against thee.

Deu 31:24-26 Comments – The Book of the Law Many biblical scholars understand the phrase “book of the law” mentioned in Deu 31:24-26 as a reference to the Pentateuch, the first five books of Moses. The phrase “until they were finished” points to the fact that the text, and the books of the Pentateuch, are now complete and have come to an end. This has led many scholars to conclude that Deuteronomy 32-34 is an epilogue added during later redaction, or editing of the Old Testament Scriptures, perhaps during the time of Ezra after the Babylonian Captivity.

Deu 31:27 For I know thy rebellion, and thy stiff neck: behold, while I am yet alive with you this day, ye have been rebellious against the LORD; and how much more after my death?

Deu 31:28  Gather unto me all the elders of your tribes, and your officers, that I may speak these words in their ears, and call heaven and earth to record against them.

Deu 31:28 Scripture References – Note a similar verse:

Psa 50:4, “He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people.”

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

The Charge to Joshua

v. 1. And Moses went, he appeared before the people in a last solemn farewell, and spake these words unto all Israel.

v. 2. And he said unto them, I am an hundred and twenty years old this day, Cf Exo 7:7; I can no more go out and come in, his personal work before the people had now come to an end, Num 27:17; also the Lord hath said unto me, Thou shalt not go over this Jordan, Num 20:24.

v. 3. The Lord, thy God, He will go over before thee, and He will destroy these nations from before thee, and thou shalt possess them, take possession of all the land which had formerly belonged to the Canaanitish tribes and which they still occupied; and Joshua, he shall go over before thee, as the Lord hath said, Deu 3:28.

v. 4. And the Lord shall do unto them as He did to Sihon and to Og, kings of the Amorites, and unto the land of them whom he destroyed, Num 21:21-35.

v. 5. And the Lord shall give them up before your face, that ye may do unto them according unto all the commandments which I have commanded you, Deu 7:2-24; for the Lord’s intention was to make it a war of extermination.

v. 6. Be strong and of a good courage, Deu 1:21; Deu 20:3; fear not, nor be afraid of them, Deu 7:18; for the Lord, thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee nor forsake thee, literally, He will not let thee sink down nor loosen His hold on thee; He would not leave them without His guiding, sustaining hand, nor indeed entirely forsake them.

v. 7. And Moses called unto Joshua and said unto him in the sight of all Israel, with formal solemnity, Be strong and of a good courage; for thou must go with this people unto the land which the Lord hath sworn unto their fathers to give them; and thou shalt cause them to inherit it; as the future leader of the people he was bound, of course, to set them all the best example of steadfast courage.

v. 8. And the Lord, he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee; fear not, neither be dismayed; he was not to sink down and shrink back in view of the magnitude of the task set before him.

v. 9. And Moses wrote this Law, the entire code of precepts as it had been transmitted to him by the Lord, and delivered it unto the priests, the sons of Levi, which bare the ark of the Covenant of the Lord, Num 4:15, and unto all the elders of Israel; for these two classes were given permanent charge of Israel’s ordinances and precepts, as being responsible for their promulgation and observance.

v. 10. And Moses commanded them, saying, at the end of every seven years, in the so called Sabbatical Year, in the solemnity of they ear of release, Deu 15:1-11, in the Feast of Tabernacles, the last great festival of the Jewish ecclesiastical pear,

v. 11. when all Israel is come to appear before the Lord, thy God, in the place which he shall choose, at the central Sanctuary, thou shalt read this Law before all Israel in their hearing, for that was the purpose for which they were entrusted with the written code of the Law, that they might proclaim and teach it.

v. 12. Gather the people together, men, and women, and children, and thy stranger that is time in thy gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn, and fear the Lord, your God, with that wholesome reverence and awe which flows from faith, and observe to do all the words of this Law;

v. 13. and that their children, which have not known anything, not having heard the proclamation of the various precepts by the mouth of Moses, may hear, and learn to fear the Lord, your God, as long as ye live in the land whither ye go over Jordan to possess it, as long as they and their descendants occupied the land of Canaan. In this way the Law of the Lord was to be made pleasant and acceptable to the entire nation, and children and children’s children were to treasure it as a precious gift of His mercy. Note the prominence given to the children at this point and the emphasis placed upon their being taught properly. We are also bound to the written Word of God, and if we are truly members of God’s people, we shall be grateful for every opportunity to hear the proclamation of the Word of God and keep it with a cheerful observance.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

PART IV.FAREWELL ADDRESS OF MOSES, WITH HIS PARTING SONG AND BENEDICTION.

CHAPTERS 31-33.

EXPOSITION

Moses had now finished his work as the legislator and ruler and leader of Israel. But ere he finally retired from his place, he had to take order for the carrying forward of the work by the nomination of a successor to himself in the leadership; by committing the keeping of the Law to the priests; and by anew admonishing the people to obedience, encouraging them to go forward to the conquest of Canaan, animating them with the assurance of the Divine favor and blessing, and pronouncing on them his parting benediction.

Deu 31:1-30. MOSES‘ FINAL ARRANGEMENTS AND HANDING OVER OF THE LAW TO THE PRIESTS.

Deu 31:1-13

Last acts of Moses.

Deu 31:1

And Moses went; i.e. disposed or set himself. The meaning is not that he “went away” into the tent of teaching, as one of the Targums explains it, which does not agree with what follows; nor is “went” merely equivalent to “moreover;” nor is it simply redundant;it intimates that the speaking was consequent on Moses having arranged, disposed, or set himself to speak (cf. Exo 2:1; Jos 9:4; Job 1:4).

Deu 31:2

I am an hundred and twenty years old this day. When Moses stood before Pharaoh he was eighty years old (Exo 7:7); since then forty years had elapsed during the wanderings in the wilderness. I can no more go out and come in; I am no longer able to work among and for the nation as I have hitherto done (cf. Num 27:17). This does not conflict with the statement in Deu 34:7, that up to the time of his death his eyes were not dim nor his natural strength abated, for this is the statement of an observer, and it often happens that an individual feels himself to be failing, when to those around him he appears to possess unabated vigor. There is no need, therefore, for resorting, with Raschi and others, to the expedient of reading “for” instead of “and” in the following clause; as if the cause why Moses could no longer go in and out among the people was God’s prohibition of his going over Jordan. This is simply another and collateral reason why he had now to retire flora his post as leader.

Deu 31:3-6

But though Moses was no longer to be their leader, he assures them that the Lord would fulfill his engagement to conduct them to the possession of Canaan, even as he had already given them the territory of the kings of the Amorites; and he therefore exhorts them to be of good courage and fearlessly go forward to the conquest of the laud (cf. Deu 1:21; Deu 10:3).

Deu 31:7, Deu 31:8

Moses, having in view the appointment of Joshua as his successor, also encourages him to go forward on the strength of the Divine promise. Thou must go with this people. This is a correct rendering of the words as they stand in the Hebrew text. The Samaritan, Syriac, and Vulgate have, “Thou shalt bring this people;” but this is probably an arbitrary correction in order to assimilate this to verse 23. And thou shalt cause them to inherit it; i.e. shalt conduct them to the full possession of the land.

Deu 31:9-13

Moses turns next to the priests and the elders, and to them he commits the Law which he had written, with the injunction to read it to the people at the end of every seven years during the festival of the year of release, viz. at the Feast of Tabernacles (cf. Lev 23:34), when they appeared before the Lord. At the end of every seven years (cf. Deu 15:1). The Law was committed to the priests and elders, not merely to preserve it in safe keeping, but that they might see to its being observed by the people; else why commit it to the elders whose it was to administer rule in the nation, as well as to the priests who alone had access to the ark of the covenant where the Law was deposited? Moses “entrusted the reading to the priesthood and the college of elders, as the spiritual and secular rulers of the congregation; and hence the singular, Thou shalt read this Law to all Israel” (Keil). By the Law here is meant the Pentateuch; but it does not necessarily follow that the whole of the Pentateuch was to be thus read. As the reading was to be only once in seven years, it may be concluded that it was not so much for the information of the people that this was done, as for the purpose of publicly declaring, and by a solemn ceremony impressing on their minds the condition on which they held their position and privileges as the chosen people of the Lord; and for this the reading of select portions of the Torah would be sufficient. The Feast of Tabernacles was appointed as the season for the reading, doubtless because there was a connection between the end for which the Law was read and the spirit and meaning of that festival as a festival of rejoicing because of their deliverance from the uncertainty and unsettledness of their state in the wilderness, and their establishment in a well-ordered state where they could in peace and quietness enjoy the blessings which the bounty of God bestowed. When all Israel is come to appear before the Lord (cf. Deu 16:16). Thou shalt read this law (cf. Jos 8:34; 2Ki 23:2; Neh 8:1, etc.).

Deu 31:14-23

After nominating Joshua as his successor, and assigning the keeping of the Law to the priesthood and body of elders, Moses was summoned by the Lord to appear with Joshua in the tabernacle, that Joshua might receive a charge and appointment to his office. At the same time, God announced to Moses that after his death the people would go astray, and turn to idolatry, and violate the covenant, so that God’s anger should be kindled against them, and he would leave them to suffer the consequences of their folly and sin. In view of this, Moses was directed to write a song and teach it to the people, that it might abide with them as a witness against them, rising up, as songs will do, in the memory of the nation, even after they had apostatized from the path in which the author of the song had led them.

Deu 31:14

The tabernacle of the congregation; properly, the tent of meeting (cf. Exo 33:7; Exo 39:32). May give him a charge; may constitute him (; cf. Num 27:19; “and constitute him in their sight,” Gesenius), appoint and confirm him in this office.

Deu 31:15

The Lord appeared in a pillar of a cloud (cf. ExDeu 33:9; 40:38; Le Deu 16:2; Num 12:5).

Deu 31:16

Behold, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers (cf. 2Sa 7:12; Psa 13:3; Psa 76:5; Dan 12:2; Mat 27:52; Joh 11:11; 1Th 4:14). “The death of men, both good and bad, is often called a sleep, because they shall certainly awake out of it by resurrection” (Peele). Go a whoring (cf. Exo 34:15; Jdg 2:17) after the gods of the strangers of the land; literally, after gods of strangeness of the land; i.e. after gods foreign to the land, as opposed to Jehovah, the alone proper God of the land he had given to them.

Deu 31:17

I will hide my face from them; will not look on them with complacency, will withdraw from them my favor and help (cf. Deu 32:20; Isa 8:17; Isa 64:7; Eze 39:23).

Deu 31:19

Write ye this song. This refers to the song which follows in next chapter. Moses and Joshua were both to write this song, Moses probably as the author, Joshua as his amanuensis, because both of them were to do their endeavor to keep the people from that apostasy which God had foretold.

Deu 31:23

And he gave, etc. The subject here is God, not Moses, as is evident partly from Deu 31:14, and partly from the expression, the land which I aware unto them; and I will be with thee (cf. Exo 3:12).

Deu 31:24-29

After the installation of Joshua, only one thing remained for Moses to do that all things might be set in order before his departure. This was the finishing of the writing of the Book of the Law, and the committing it finally to the priests, to be by them placed by the ark of the covenant, that it might be kept for all future generations as a witness against the people, whose apostasy and rebellion were foreseen.

Whether this section is to be regarded as wholly written by Moses himself, or as an appendix to his writing added by some other writer, has been made matter of question. It is quite possible, however, that Moses himself, ere he laid down the pen, may have recorded what he said when delivering the Book of the Law to the priests, and there is nothing in the manner or style of the record to render it probable that it was added by another. What follows from verse 30 to the end of the book was probably added to the writing of Moses by some one after his death, though, of course, both the song in Deu 32:1-52, and the blessing in Deu 33:1-29, are the composition of Moses (see Introduction, 6).

Deu 31:25

The Levites, which bare the ark; i.e. the priests whose business it was to guard and to carry the ark of the covenant; “the priests the sons of Levi,” as in Deu 31:9. According to Num 4:4, etc; it was the Kohathites who carried the ark on the journey through the desert; but they seem merely to have acted in this respect as the servants or helpers of the priests, who alone might touch the ark, and by whom it was carefully wrapped up before it was handed to the Kohathites. On special occasions the priests themselves carried the ark (cf. Jos 3:3, etc.; Jos 4:9, Jos 4:10; Jos 6:6, Jos 6:12; Jos 8:33; 1Ki 8:3).

Deu 31:26

In the side of the ark; at or by the side of the ark. According to the Targum of Jonathan, it was in a coffer by the right side of the ark that the book was placed; but the Talmudists say it was put within the ark, along with the two tables of the Decalogue (‘Baba Bathra,’ 14); but see 1Ki 8:8.

Deu 31:27

I know thy rebellion; rather, rebelliousness, i.e. tendency to rebel. In Num 17:1-13 :25 [10], the people are described as , “sons of rebelliousness;” Authorized Version, “rebels.”

Deu 31:28

Call heaven and earth to record against them (cf. Deu 32:1). These words; the words of his charge, and especially the song he had composed, and which it would be the business of these officers to teach to the congregation.

Deu 31:29

Ye will utterly corrupt yourselves; literally, corrupting, ye will corrupt ( , sc. ); i.e. your ways (cf. for the phrase, Gen 6:12). The latter days; the after-time, the future, as in Deu 4:30; Num 24:14, etc. The work of your hands; the idols they might make (cf. Deu 4:28). By some, however, the phrase is interpreted of evil deeds in general

HOMILETICS

Deu 31:1-13

A new generation receiving the heritage of the past.

The closing scene of Moses’ life is drawing nigh. The time is at hand when he and Israel must part, and the leadership must be undertaken by another. As far as can be done, two things have to be ensuredviz, the conservation of Israel’s Law, and the conduct of the people to their goal. “God buries his ministers, but he carries on his work.” Hence Moses first addresses all the people; then he turns to Joshua, confirming him as the future leader (verses 7, 8); and finally to the priests, who are to be henceforth the custodians and guardians of the holy Law. Having thus handed over the leadership of an army, and the conservation of a faith, Moses has little else to do but to go up and die. Hence our themeA new generation entrusted with the heritage of the past. Taking up this as a Christian preacher may be supposed to do, we find that seven consecutive lines of thought are suggested.

I. There has been given, prior to our time, a “precious faith,” which has been handed down to the present day (verses 12, 13).

II. Those who have been the leaders and warriors in God’s Israel in past days have commended this faith to us, with all the earnestness created by their deep and strong convictions, which, in the hard school of experience and trial, were formed, fostered, and verified (verses 3, 4).

III. The work thus entrusted to the men of the present is analogous to that which was required of the ancient people of God:

(1) to clear the ground of alien faiths;

(2) to occupy the ground so cleared; and

(3) to maintain thereon pure worship, brotherly fellowship, and holy life.

IV. In the fulfillment of this work we shall enjoy the Divine presence (verse 6).

V. God’s providence will also go before us to clear the way (verse 8).

VI. Consequently, it behooves us to go forward, to “be strong and fear not” (verse 6); for

VII. Where the responsibilities of the men of the past leave off, our responsibility begins.

Deu 31:9-13

Importance of knowing the Word of God.

In resigning his commission into other hands, Moses had a double duty to discharge. There had been, in fact, a twofold responsibility resting on him more or less till the close of his life, which after his death would be divided. He was not only the leader of the people, but also the receiver, transcriber, and guardian of the Law. As the nation became consolidated, this double work would certainly become too heavy for one man to discharge. Hence he commissions one man to be the leader of an army, and another set of men to be the conservators of the truth. Joshua is leader. The priests are to be the keepers and teachers of the Law. It is one remarkable feature of the constitution of the Hebrew commonwealth, that such stress is laid upon popular education. This was again and again made matter of Divine precept. And about this there were two main regulations: one, that it was to begin at home; another, that it was to have as its one golden thread running through all, that the fear of the Lord was the beginning of wisdom. Over and above, however, the home teaching from childhood, there was to be at stated times a public reading and enforcement of the Law. At this public reading, the people were to be gathered together. “Young men and maidens, old men and children;” the stranger that was within their gates was not to be forgotten. All, all were to hear the Word of God, that they might learn, fear, love, and obey.

It is to secure this most desirable end that Moses, having written the Law, delivers it to the priests, the sons of Levi, and gives them the charge of which the paragraph before us is the sum. Our theme isThe value of the Word of God as an educating power in home and nation. The points to be noted in the words of Moses here given, are these:

1. That both young and old were to have ever before them the truth that their life was for God, was to be permeated by Divine influence, and regulated by the Divine will.

2. That the will of God, so revealed as to be the true and sufficient regulator of life, was to be found in the Book of the Law.

3. That all classes of the people, home-born and alien, freemen and slaves, were to be taught what was the Divine will concerning them.

4. That the object of the teaching was that they might grow up with an intelligent apprehension of the deep meaning of life.

5. That intelligence was intended and expected to blossom into piety. Men were to “fear” the Lord their God, and to “observe to do all the words of this Law.”

Our purpose in this Homily is to inquire, How far does all this hold good at the present day? When Moses wrote the Law, it served, as it did for ages after, as the people’s literature. It would take a like place with the people that our histories of England do now, and would, moreover, serve them as the story-book for children, and the statute-book for all. And there was a time when to large masses of our people the Bible constituted the chief literary treasure of the home. And ere the people could read, the exposition and enforcement of its truths from the pulpit formed the staple of their education. But things are changed now. The increase of literary material in every direction is amazing. The vastly wider field of natural knowledge takes so much time and energy for its exploration, that the Bible is in danger of being “crowded out.” And what may be called in an intelligible sense the literary rivals of the Bible are “legion.” We propose to suggest a few lines of thought which the Christian preacher may work out, with the view of showing that an intelligent acquaintance with the Word of God is, if possible, more important now than ever it was. Many reasons may be urged for this.

I. LET US CONSIDER THE VARIOUS ASPECTS IN WHICH THE BIBLE MAY BE REGARDED. We need scarcely observe (save for the sake of completeness of setting) that our Bible is much larger than Israel’s was, and that therefore by so much as this is the case there is much more to be affirmed of it now than could be of the old Book of the Law.

1. In the Bible we have a trustworthy history of Judaism and Christianity, in their origin and meaning. Of the first we have an outline during the main periods of its constitutional history; of the second, during the first generation after its planting. And so important are these features of history, that apart from them the history of the world cannot be understood.

2. We have the noblest ethical standard in the world. The moral law cannot, even in conception, be surpassed.

3. We have a revelation of a great redeeming plan steadily unfolded from Genesis to Revelation.

4. We have a disclosure of God in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

5. We have the manifestation of power from heaven to begin a new creation of grace.

6. We have a body of doctrine for the life that now is.

7. We have glorious glimpses of the life which is to come. In all these respects the Book is unique. It has no compeer in any literature in the world!

II. AS THE CONTENTS OF THE BIBLE ARE UNIQUE, SO ALSO IS ITS OBJECT DEFINITE. (See Psa 19:1-14; Psa 119:1-176; Joh 21:1-25 :31, et al.) That object is the regulation of life on earth, and the preparation of it for heaven. And the Book seeks to secure this by enforcement of duty, revelations of truth, disclosures of love, and offers of power.

III. NO AMOUNT OF NATURAL LEARNING CAN EVER COMPENSATE FOR DEFICIENCY OF KNOWLEDGE OR FAILURE IN PRACTICE CONCERNING MAN‘S DUTY TO HIMSELF, HIS FAMILY, HIS NEIGHBOR, AND HIS GOD. If he fails here, he fails everywhere. The more splendidly a vessel is fitted up, the more costly the wreck if she dashes on the rocks. To teach natural knowledge and leave out religion, is to furnish the vessel but to fail to make any provision for steering it aright.

IV. NATURAL KNOWLEDGE IN THE HANDS OF OTHER THAN VIRTUOUS MEN MAY BECOME AN INSTRUMENT OF ENORMOUS MISCHIEF. The attempt to blow up the Winter Palace at St. Petersburg is an illustration of what science and skill may do in bad hands. The disclosures after the destruction of the Tay Bridge showed us how science, art, and skill may do their best, and yet the greatest efforts of great men may be blown away in an hour by a single blast, through the weak points which unconscientious work had left, in the hope of being undetected.

V. THE GREATER THE STRENGTH THAT IS PUT FORTH IN ACQUIRING KNOWLEDGE, THE GREATER THE ENERGY DEMANDED IN ORDER TO USE SUCH KNOWLEDGE WELL. The larger the vessel, the more power is required to propel her. So the wider the culture, the stronger does moral principle need to be in order that natural knowledge may be not a veil to conceal, but a book to reveal the Divine.

VI. HENCE THE CONCLUSION FOLLOWS: SO far from the accumulating mass of natural knowledge making the Word of God less necessary as a guide to living well and dying well, the fact is, that the necessity of Bible study is greater than ever! No book can take its place. No study can supersede that of the ways of God to man. Some of the wisest men of the age (so far as science goes) confess themselves hopelessly in the dark with regard to man’s origin, nature, and destiny. Ah! in the Book of God, and in that alone, can man learn that which shall make him wise unto salvation. Here alone can we learn the mystery of God’s will which was hidden from ages and generations, but now is made manifest. Here alone can he be taught that godliness which hath “promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.”

Deu 31:16-21

Faithful words silent accusers of those who heed them not.

In the several paragraphs of this chapter we find that Moses was borne along by the Holy Ghost to take a glance into the future. He had been instructed by God to give a charge to Joshua, and to surrender into his hands the leadership of the host. He had given to the priests their commission to guard the Law for the people. And now there remained but for him to give his final words to the people themselves. The Omniscient One foresaw that, after the death of their leader, they would become corrupt, forsaking the Lord, and ensuring for themselves and their children a heritage of woe. And hence it was mercifully provided that, even in the worst of times, their lawgiver’s words should be for them a perpetual standard of appeal; so that, however the people might have fallen from the heights of virtue, they should still have the same trusty words to guide their path, and to direct and restore their life. While at the same time, these words would be a constant and silent witness against them for departing from the ways of the Lord. It is not at all unlikely that our Lord had this passage in mind when he said to the Jews, “Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust.” That very Book, which if rightly used is “a lamp” to the feet and “a light” to the path, becomes, if neglected, a perpetual and silent accuser. Very earnestly and solemnly may the Christian preacher press this home “to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.” That selfsame purpose which was answered by securing permanent records of the Mosaic legislation, is also answered by permanent records of the Christian redemption. The apostles and prophets of the New Testament, like the legislator of the old, spake and wrote as they were borne along by the Holy Ghost. It is, therefore, over the larger sphere that we propose now to illustrate and enforce the truth that neglected teaching becomes a silent accuser.

I. WHEN OUR GOD LODGED IN THE WORLD THE JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN FAITHS, HE LOOKED ONWARD AND FORESAW THE FEATURES OF THE COMING GENERATIONS. (Cf. verses 16-18; see also Act 20:29, Act 20:30; 1Ti 4:1-3; 2Pe 3:3; Mat 24:24.) Whatever developments of ungodliness or of unbelief, of immorality or of heresy, may develop themselves, are all known to him who seeth the end from the beginning.

II. WITH FUTURE EVIL FULL IN VIEW, GOD HAS HAD HIS OWN WORD PUT DOWN IN WRITING. The words of Moses, of the prophets, of the Lord Jesus Christ, and of his apostles are faithfully recorded. They have suffered no material change through all the accidents of transition (Php 3:1). Paul felt what a safeguard it would be for after ages to have his words written down, and sent to the Churches, that they might be by them guarded, distributed, and taught (see verse 19).

III. THE WORD OF GOD, SO RECORDED, IS A PERPETUAL STANDARD OF APPEAL FOR EVERY AGE. Whatever corruptions may enter into or fasten on the Churches; however oral tradition may change the original form of Divine communication,the written Word changeth not. How very soon Churches as Churches may drift far away from the true in faith and the holy in life, the Epistles to the Churches in Galatia, Corinth, Ephesus, Pergamos, Thyatira, Laodicea, tell. We see by them how very soon our faith might be seriously obscured or impaired if dependent merely on the oral transmission of any Church.

IV. BY THE PURE WORD OF GOD, ABERRATIONS MAY FROM TIME TO TIME BE CORRECTED. It is by the Church that the Word of God is kept and transmitted. It is by the Word so kept and transmitted that the Church is to be tested. Hence, whatever respect it may he appropriate to pay to the decision of a Church or of Churches, those decisions are valid only as they harmonize with what the Lord hath spoken in his revealed Word. Whatever will not abide the test of an appeal to the Book of God, with it Christian Churches and people should have nothing to do. Of how much importance our Lord regarded this final test is seen by his frequent appeal to what is written. Whether he was in conflict with the evil one, or was himself exposing or denouncing evil, his ultimate reference was to what God had said.

V. CONSEQUENTLY, BY HAVING IN OUR HANDS A PERPETUAL STANDARD OF REFERENCE, WE HAVE A CONSTANT AND UNVARYING GUIDE TO WHAT IS RIGHT BOTH IN FAITH AND PRACTICE. The accounts which we get of the after history of the Hebrew nation show us plainly enough how far adrift the people might soon have gone, if their faith had not been once for all enshrined and guarded in a book. And so it is in the New Testament. For though we get therein hints of the Church’s life for but little more than two generations after they were formed, yet the severe lashings and rebukes which the Churches in Corinth, Galatia, and Colosse required, as well as the seven Churches, show with equal distinctness that our most holy faith might soon have been all but unrecoverable from the mass of corruption, if it, too, had not been recorded in the writings of the apostles and evangelists. But thus recorded it was, and through all the ages it has been guarded for us as a perpetual standard of appeal.

VI. IF, HOWEVER, WE ARE GUIDED BY THE VARYING OPINIONS AND SINFUL PRACTICES OF MEN, AND SO NEGLECT TO TAKE HEED TO OUR STANDARDS, THEY WILL BE PERPETUAL WITNESSES AGAINST US. (Verse 21,) So our Lord tells the Jews in reference to the departures from the faith and the corruptions in life which marked his time (cf. Joh 5:1-47 :54). And thus it must ever be. The very fact of having a standard of appeal serves two purposes. Which of the two it will serve so far as we are concerned depends on the use we make thereof. If we abide by it and conform thereto, it will verify our belief and justify our life. But if we depart from it, it can only act as a witness against us to condemn us. Every privilege is this two-edged. If used aright, it helps us; if disused or abused, it will be for a perpetual reproof. So it is with parental advice, with a teacher’s counsels, with a pastor’s pleadings, with a Savior’s invitations: accepted and heeded, they will be a perpetual joy; but if made light of, they will plunge daggers into the soul.

VII. THIS SILENT ACCUSATION GOING ON NOW FORESHADOWS A MORE SERIOUS CRIMINATION AT THE JUDGMENT DAY. (Cf. Mat 11:22, Mat 11:24; Mat 12:41, Mat 12:42.) The whirl of life, and the surroundings of flesh and sense, conceal from many the spiritual world. But it exists. And when we are summoned hence we shall see it and know it. We shall feel ourselves with Godalone. And thisthis will be the beginning of that awful process of judgment which, on the last day, is to be consummated and sealed. And what sore condemnation must await those to whom God has spoken in his Word for years on years, but in vain (see Eze 33:1-33.)!

HOMILIES BY J. ORR

Deu 31:1, Deu 31:2

Moses the aged.

I. A MAN MAY BE IN HEALTH AND VIGOR, YET PAST CAPACITY FOR A CERTAIN WORK. Moses’ “eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated” (Deu 34:7), yet he felt that he lacked the fire, the activity, the youthful energy, the elasticity of mind and body, which would have made him a suitable leader for Israel in the new period of her history. Greatness is tested by the magnanimity with which a man long used to power is able to lay it down when he feels that his day for effective service is past. Moses had served his generation nobly. There arose none like him. But, as has been said of Luther, who reached his meridian at the Diet of Worms, and whose end, had Providence pleased to remove him then, would have been like an apotheosis, “It is a law of history that every personality bears within itself a measure which it is not permitted to exceed” (Hagenbach). A new age was opening, and new powers were needed to do justice to its calls. The lawgiver, the prophet, the leader of the desert march, the meek, long-enduring, deep-souled man of God must give place to one more distinctively a soldier. The calm gifts of the legislator and statesman were not those which were most required for the work of conquest and settlement. Moses felt this, and felt, too, that he was getting old. The old man cannot enter as a younger man would into the thoughts, circumstances, and feelings of a new time. He belongs to the past, and is limited by it. His powers have lost their freshness, and can henceforth only decay. This was Moses’ situation, and he had the dignity and wisdom to acknowledge it, and to arrange for the appointment of a suitable successor.

II. WHEN A MAN‘S DAY OF SERVICE IS PAST, IT MAY BE KINDNESS IN GOD TO REMOVE HIM FROM THE WORLD. Moses’ removal was a punishment for sin, but there was mercy concerned in it also. Long life is not always desirable. Had Moses lived longer, he could never have been greater than he is. He might have seemed less. Shades appear in the character of Luther after it had reached its meridian above spoken ofthings which disturb and annoy us. Certainly, Moses’ position, with Joshua as actual leader in the field, would not have been an enviable one. Joshua must increase, he must decrease. The impetuous soldier, the able strategist, the hero of the battles, would have eclipsed him in the eyes of the younger generation. He would feel that he had over-lived himself. Fitly, therefore, is he removed before the decline of his influence begins. The great thing is to have done one’s workto have fulfilled the ends for which life was given. That done, removal is in no case a loss, and in most cases a boon in disguise (2Ti 4:6-9).

III. WHEN THE SERVICES OF ONE MAN FAIL, GOD WILL PROVIDE FOR THE CONTINUANCE OF HIS WORK BY RAISING UP SUCCESSORS. So Joshua was raised up to succeed Moses.J.O.

Deu 31:3-8, Deu 31:23

Joshua.

Joshua a type of Jesus, the true Leader into the rest of God (Heb 4:8). God has given him, as formerly he gave the son of Nun, for “a Leader and Commander to the people” (Isa 55:4).

I. THE MAN. Joshua as leader was:

1. Divinely appointed (verse 3).

2. Divinely led. “He doth go before thee” (verse 8). The captain had a higher Captain (Jos 5:14).

3. Divinely assisted. “He will be with thee” (verse 8). Our Leader is Emmanuel”God with us” (Mat 1:23).

4. He was to be strong and courageous (verse 7). The ground of true courage is God being with us. It is said of the Savior, “He shall not fail nor be discouraged” (Isa 42:4). The perseverance of the Savior is as deserving of consideration as the perseverance of the saints.

II. HIS WORK. While Joshua’s and the people’s, it was still more God’s work (verses 3, 4). With Joshua as leader:

1. The enemy would be overthrown (verses 3-6).

2. All opposition would be overcome.

3. He would conduct the people unto the land of their inheritance (verse 7).

4. He would cause them to inherit it (verse 7), i.e. settle them in their possessions.

Christ in like manner has overthrown the enemy (Col 2:15); has won an inheritance for his people (Col 1:12); in his victory they are enabled to overcome the world (Joh 16:33; 1Jn 4:4); his cause is steadily triumphing; he is conducting, and has already conducted, many sons to glory (Heb 5:10).J.O.

Deu 31:9, Deu 31:24-26

The authorship of the book.

A clear testimony to the Mosaic authorship of the Book of Deuteronomy. The book, as Moses gave it to the priests, has plainly been re-edited, with the additions of Moses’ song, Moses’ blessing, and the account of his death; but only the wantonness of criticism can see “a different hand or hands” in Deuteronomy 12-26, from that employed upon the earlier chapters, or discern probability in the assumption that De 4:44-26:19 once constituted a separate book. The unity in style and treatment is so conspicuous throughout”the same vein of thought, the same tone and tenor of feeling, the same peculiarities of conception and expression”that unity of authorship follows as a thing of course. The denial of it is incomprehensible. It is less certain whether the “Book of the Law” (verse 26) comprehends Deuteronomy only, or the bulk of the other books of the Pentateuch as well. That Deuteronomy is represented as existing in a written form is plain from Deu 28:58, Deu 28:61; Deu 29:20, Deu 29:21, Deu 29:27; and Hoses had probably the written discourses in his band when he delivered them. But Deuteronomy, as a written book, rests so entirely on the history as we have it in the previous books; is so steeped in allusions to it; implies so full and accurate a knowledge of it, from the days of the patriarchs downwards;that the presumption in favor of that history also existing in a written form, in authentic records, which subsequent generations could consult, is so strong as almost to amount to certainty. It is incredible that Moses should have taken pains to write out these long discoursesdiscourses based on the history, and inculcating so earnestly the keeping of its facts and lessons in remembranceand yet have taken no pains to secure an authentic record of the history itself; that he should not have compiled or composed, out of the abundant materials at his command, a connected narrative of God’s dealings with the nation, down to the point at which he addressed it; incorporating with that narrative the body of his legislation. Confining our attention to Deuteronomy, there can be no fair question but that it gives itself out as from the pen of Moses. This claim is disputed, and the book referred to about the time of Josiah on grounds of style, of discrepancies with the Levitical laws, and of laws and allusions implying the later date. On the contrary, we hold that the critical hypothesis can be shown to raise greater difficulties than it lays, and that the difficulties in the way of accepting the book as a composition of Moses have been greatly exaggerated. We glance at a few of these difficulties.

I. STYLE. Professor W.R. Smith notes as a crucial instance the laws about the cities of refuge in Num 35:1-34; and Deu 19:1-21. These laws are supposed to have been penned by the same hand within a few months of each other; yet, it is alleged, the vocabulary, structure of sentences, and cast of expression widely differ. But allowance must surely be made for the difference between a careful original statement of a law, and a later general rehearsal of its substance in the rounded style of free, popular discourse. And what are the specific differences? Deuteronomy, we are told, does not use the term “refuge,” but “the cities are always described by a periphrasis.” But the Deuteronomist simply says, “Thou shalt separate three cities for thee in the midst of thy land” (Deu 19:2); “thou shalt separate three cities for thee” (Deu 19:7); “thou shalt add three cities more for thee “(Deu 19:1-21.9); and there is no periphrasis. The phrase, “that every slayer may flee thither” (Deu 19:3), “the slayer which shall flee thither” (Deu 19:4), is derived from Num 35:11, Num 35:15. But Deuteronomy and Numbers use different words for “accidentally.” Admitted, but the words used are synonymous, and are only used in each case twice altogetherin Num 35:11, Num 35:15, and in Deu 4:42; Deu 19:4. “The judges in the one are ‘ the congregation,’ in the other ‘ the elders of his city.'” But Deuteronomy says nothing about “judges,” and “the elders” who are once referred to in Deu 19:12, plainly act in the name of the congregation. “The verb for ‘hate’ is different.” Rather, “the verb for ‘hate'” does not occur at all in Num 35:1-34; but the noun derived from it does (Num 35:20), and is translated “hatred,” while in Num 35:21, Num 35:22, a different term, translated “enmity,” is employed, which expresses nearly the same sense. Had these words appeared, one in Numbers and the other in Deuteronomy, instead of standing in consecutive verses of one chapter, they would doubtless have been quoted as further evidence of diversity of authorship. So one book, uses the expression “to kill any person,” while the other has “to kill his neighbora difference surely not incompatible with identity of authorship. “The detailed description of the difference between murder and accidental homicide is entirely diverse in language and detail.” But in Deuteronomy there is no “detailed description” of the kind referred to. There is in Numbers (Num 35:16-24); but Deuteronomy confines itself to one simple illustration from concrete life, admirably adapted, it will be admitted, to the speaker’s popular purpose (Deu 19:5). The statement in Deuteronomy, it is evident, presupposes the earlier law, and is incomplete without it, occupying only a dozen verses, as compared with over twenty in Numbers, while even of the dozen, three are occupied with a new provision for the number of the cities being ultimately raised to nine (Deu 19:8-10).

II. DISCREPANCIES IN LAWS. Considering the number of the laws, the alleged discrepancies are singularly few. On the “tithes,” see Deu 26:12; on the “firstlings,” Deu 15:20; “the priests’ due,” in Deu 18:3, seems, like the “fleece” of Deu 18:4, to be in addition to the provision in Num 18:11-18; the law of carrion (Deu 14:21) is slightly modified in view of the altered circumstances of settlement in Canaan (cf. Le 17:15); and so with other instances. The chief modifications arise from the new legislation in regard to the central sanctuary, with the permission to kill and eat flesh at home (Deu 12:20-24). On this depends the new tithe-laws (provision for the sanctuary feasts), the additions to the priests’ portions, and various minor changes.

III. PECULIARITIES IMPLYING A LATER DATE. We need not delay on stray phrases, such as “unto this day” (Deu 3:14), or “as Israel did unto the land of his possession” (Deu 2:12). The instances usually cited are not of great force, and are easily explicable as glosses. More important cases are:

1. The central altar. On this, see under Deu 12:1-32. It suffices to meet most objections to observe that, on the face of it, the Law bears that it was not intended to be put strictly in force till certain important conditions had been fulfilledconditions which, owing to the disobedience of the people, who during the time of the judges so often put back the clock of their own history, were not fulfilled tilt as late as the days of David and Solomon. For thus it reads (Deu 12:10), “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,” etc. (cf. 2Sa 7:1; 1Ki 3:2; 1Ki 5:4).

2. Priests and Levites. The distinction between priests and Levites, which counts for so much in Leviticus and Numbers, is not, it is alleged, recognized in Deuteronomy. The phrase in use is not “priests and Levites” (which, however, as little as the other, occurs in the earlier books), but “the priests the Levites” (Deu 17:9, Deu 17:18; Deu 18:1; Deu 24:8; Deu 27:9). They are not distinctively “the sons of Aaron,” but “sons of Levi” (Deu 21:5; Deu 31:9). “All Levites are possible priests.” But the objection is deprived of its force when we discover, what any one can verify, that these same expressions were freely used, and used interchangeably with others, at a time when it is not doubted that the Levitical system was in full operation. This is the case in the Books of Chronicles, written, it is asserted, in the interest of that system, yet using this phrase, “the priests the Levites,” without hesitation or sense of ambiguity (2Ch 5:5; 2Ch 23:18; 2Ch 30:27). “The priests the Levites” mean simply the Levitical priests; and when the tribe of Levi as a whole is meant, it is either expressly designated as such (Deu 10:8), or the designation is appended to the other phrase as a wider denomination (Deu 18:1). Nor is the idiom a strange one. At first, the priests,” the sons of Aaron,” stood out from the people with sharp distinctness, as alone invested with sacred office. The case was greatly altered after the separation of the tribe of Levi; when the designation “sons of Aaron” seems speedily to have been dropped for another identifying the priests more directly with their tribe. “Sons of Aaron” is not found in the latter part of Numbers. Priests and Levites had more in common with each other than either class had with the body of the people; and besides, the priests were Levites. So that to the popular eye, the tribe of Levi stood apart, forming, as a whole, one sacred body, engaged in ministering in holy things to God. Sacerdotal functions are attributed to the tribe, but not necessarily to all members of it (Deu 10:8; Deu 18:7).. The counter-theory, that this distinction had no existence under the kings, and first originated in the time of the exile, is without a jot of evidence in the Books of Kings, and only escapes foundering on the statements in Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah, by robbing these books of their historical character.

3. The position of the Levites. Instead of being furnished with cities and pasturages, and enjoying an independent income from the tithes, they are represented as homeless and dependent, wandering from place to place, and glad to be invited, with the stranger, the widow, and the fatherless, to share in charitable feasts. (See on this, Deu 12:19.) But if a time is sought for the composition of the book when this was the actual position of the Levites, no time is so suitable as that of Moses himself, before the tithe-laws had come into regular operationwhen, in truth, there was little or nothing to titheand when the Levites would be largely dependent on the hospitality of individuals. The language would have a point and force to Moses’ contemporaries, which it would have greatly lost had the circumstances of the Levites, at the time of his address, been more prosperous. They were dependent then, and might from very obvious causes come to be dependent again. Their state would not be greatly bettered in the unsettled times of the conquest. Nothing could be more appropriate in itself, better adapted to create kindly sympathies between Levites and people, or more likely to avert neglect of the tribe by withholding of their just dues, than the perpetuation of these primitive hospitalities. No doubt the Levites suffered severely in the days of the judges and under bad kings, but we are not to forget the power and splendor to which the order attained under David and Solomon, and the revivals it enjoyed under Hezekiah and Josiah. There is no evidence that their condition was so deplorably destitute in the later days of the kingdom as the critics represent.

4. The law of the king (Deu 17:1-20.). The law, it is thought, is sketched in terms borrowed from the court of Solomon. The objection derives much of its plausibility from not observing that the description of Solomon’s court in the Book of Kings (1Ki 10:26-29; 1Ki 11:1-4) is, on the other hand, given in terms distinctly borrowed from this law. The familiarity of the writer of the Books of Kings with Deuteronomy is undoubted, and he plainly draws up his account of Solomon’s luxury and splendor in such language as will impress the mind by its contrast to the law. We, on the contrary, reading the law, are apt to think of Solomon’s reign as if it were the original, and the law the copy. Solomon did what Moses knew too well kings would be prone to do, and there was every reason for the warning that was given. The objections taken to the book cannot, therefore, be allowed to set aside its own decisive testimony to its authorship. If we adopt the hypothesis of the critics, we are involved in graver difficulties than those from which we flee. We must suppose a state of things as existing under the kings, in respect of the Levitical orders, which we have no reason to believe ever did exist, which there is great difficulty in believing to have existed, and which historical documents in the most express language tell us did not exist. We must suppose Josiah and his people deceived about the book, for they unquestionably took it for a veritable book of Moses, grieving that its words had been neglected by their fathers (2Ki 22:1-20.; 23.; 2Ch 34:1-33.). We must explain away a multitude of the plainest allusions to the book, not simply in Joshua, but in the prophets, particularly in Hosea, whose pages are rich in such references (cf. Deu 7:13; Deu 8:7-20; Deu 11:14-16, with Hos 2:8; Hos 12:8; Hos 13:6; Deu 12:1-32. with Hos 8:11; Deu 18:18 with Hos 12:13; Deu 17:12 with Hos 4:4; Deu 28:68 with Hos 8:13; Hos 9:3; Deu 29:23 with Hos 11:8; Deu 30:1-10 with Hos 14:1-9.; Deu 25:13-16 with Hos 12:7, etc.). We must suppose such a passage as Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the temple (1Ki 8:1-66.), which is saturated with Deuteronomic language, to have been a free and unhistorical composition; though, if this be allowed for Deuteronomy, it need not trouble us with Solomon. Even then we are not out of difficulties, for the book itself is in many respects internally unsuitable to the times to which it is assigned; compare e.g. the mild tone of the book towards Edomthe kindly and brotherly relations which are enjoinedwith the hostile tone to which we are accustomed in the prophets, where Edom is a sort of later Amalek, a standing type of implacable enmity to the people of God. If Deuteronomy is not by Moses, it bears false witness of itself, was misconceived by the writers of the later books of Scripture, imposed upon the Jews from the days of its first appearance, and has had its claims endorsed by Christ and his apostles in a way which makes them partners in the general delusion.J.O.

Deu 31:9, Deu 31:24-27

The written Word.

The Law here put in writing and solemnly deposited in the side of the ark, is the foundation of our present Bible. All Scripture is built up upon it. On this consignment of the first installment of the Word, we remark

I. THE WRITTEN WORD EMBODIES AND IS THE VEHICLE OF AN AUTHORITATIVE REVELATION. The Law was first given, thereafter recorded. Revelation precedes the record of it. But this line must not be drawn too finely. The record is inspired (1Ti 3:16), and is to us the revelation of the will of God. It is, as well as contains, the Word of God. The line must not be drawn too finely:

1. Between revelation and its history. The threads of revelation cannot be picked out from the texture of its history, and exhibited apart. They constitute one whole; the record embraces both.

2. Between revelation and inspired prophetical discourseswith psalms, poems, wisdom literature, etc; which unfold the principles of revelation, apply and enforce them, turn them into subjects of praise, or deal with them reflectively. For discourses, psalms, didactic literature, etc; add to revelation as well as unfold its meaning.

3. Between revelation and the written Word. For that, as above remarked, is the revelation to us. It is clothed with its own authority as inspiredan authority the nature and degree of which is a study by itselfand it is clothed with the authoritativeness (objective) inherent in the revelations of which records are preserved.

II. THE WRITTEN WORD IS NECESSARY FOR THE PERPETUATION OF REVEALED TRUTH. It embodies truth in a form which secures its transmission to posterity without material distortion or corruption. Tradition, however carefully guarded, would have been a most unsafe medium for the conveyance of important revelations. A body of facts and laws such as we have in the Pentateuch, or discourses like these of Moses, could not have been entrusted to it without certainty of mutilation. The Law, accordingly, was put in writing. A written revelation is one great proof of the wisdom and care of Goal. Variations in manuscripts rarely affect the substance of the message.

III. THE WRITTEN WORD IS A WITNESS FOR GOD AGAINST THE APOSTASY OF THOSE TO WHOM THE WORD IS GIVEN. (Verse 26.)

1. If it does not prevent corruption of doctrine, it testifies against it. It was by appeal to the Scriptures that Josiah wrought his reformation in Judah (2Ki 23:1-37.). It was by appeal to the Scriptures that the Reformers aroused Europe against the Church of Rome.

2. If it cannot prevent apostasy in deed, it remains as a witness against the apostates. It holds up the Law from which they have departed. It convicts them of rebellion. It denounces against them the penalties of transgression. While it invites them to repentance, and promise, s, if they return, healing of their backslidings.J.O.

Deu 31:10-13

Reading the Law.

(For an example of fulfillment of this command, see Neh 8:1-18.) Observe

I. IT WAS TO BE READ AT A RELIGIOUS FEAST. On an occasion of solemnityat the Feast of Tabernacles (Deu 31:10). Our feelings in reading the Scriptures, or in hearing them read, ought always to be of a solemn and reverential kind. But it is well to avail ourselves of every aid which may lend solemnity and impressiveness to the reading of words so sacred.

II. IT WAS TO BE READ AT A TIME OF GENERAL LEISURE. In the sabbatical year” the year of release.” Leisure hours cannot be better employed than in making ourselves acquainted with “what God the Lord will speak” (Psa 85:8). We should avail ourselves of the leisure of others to endeavor to instruct them.

III. IT WAS TO BE READ PUBLICLY. (Deu 31:11.) The private reading of the Law would doubtless be attended to in many pious homes. But the practice would not be general (scarcity and expensiveness of manuscripts, want of education, religious indifference). The Levites were to teach Israel the Law (Deu 33:10; Le Deu 10:11; Mal 2:7); but they might not do so, or the people might not wait on their instructions. The public reading of the Law, even once in seven years, was thus calculated to be of great advantage. As long as the practice was observed, multitudes would derive benefit from it. The reading was of the nature of a public testimony, but also, as we see in Neh 8:1-18; for purposes of real instruction. The public reading of Scripture, with or without comment, is an important means of edification. Read with intelligence and judgment, the Word commends itself. And such readings are necessary. Many have Bibles, yet do not read them; many read and do not understand.

IV. IT WAS TO BE READ FOR THE BENEFIT OF OLD AND YOUNG. (Neh 8:12.) All are interested in listening to the Word of God. Men and women, little children, strangers, no class but has a concern-in it. None but may be edified by it. Children ought to be more recognized than they are in religious services. Need for making them feel that they too are interested in what is being said; that the Bible has a message for them as well as for their elders.

V. THE END OF READING GOD‘S WORD IS THAT WE MAY BE ENABLED TO OBEY IT, (Neh 8:13.)J.O.

Deu 31:16-22, Deu 31:28-30

God’s foresight of Israel’s declension.

We learn

I. THAT THE FUTURE IS PERFECTLY UNVEILED TO GOD. God claims this power as one of his prerogatives (Isa 41:22; Isa 42:9; Isa 43:25, Isa 43:26; Isa 45:20, Isa 45:21). And no one can question but that these predictions have been strikingly fulfilled. The people did corrupt themselves and turn aside, and evil did befall them in the latter days (Deu 31:29).

II. THAT THE PLAINEST WARNINGS ARE FREQUENTLY DISREGARDED. Israel was under no government of fate. Had the people repented, they would have been forgiven. The predictions are cast in absolute form, only because God saw that warning would not be taken. He would only too gladly have revoked his threatenings, had Israel, roused to alarm, turned from its evil (cf. the case of Nineveh). This, however, it did not do, but, with these woe-laden prophecies spread before it, rushed madly on, as if eager to fulfill them. How like sinners still. The plainest declarations, the most explicit warnings, the direst threatenings, are as little recked of as if no Word of God were in existence. Strange that God’s Word should be so disregarded, and yet profession so often made of believing in it (cf. Jer 36:1-32.)!

III. THAT GOD‘S WORD HAS ITS USES EVEN THOUGH MEN PROVE DISOBEDIENT. It is to be spoken to them and taught them, “whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear’ (Eze 2:7). It tells them the truth. It shows them their duty. It warns them of the consequences of disobedience. It upholds a witness for God in their apostasy (Deu 31:19). It renders them inexcusable. A solemn responsibility thus attaches to us in the possession of God’s Word.

IV. THAT A TIME WILL COME WHEN THE SINNER WILL BE FORCED TO CONFESS THAT GOD‘S WORDS AGAINST HIM HAVE ALL BECOME TRUE. (Deu 31:17.) Only that time may come too late (Deu 31:18). “Missing God is not true repentance” (Keil).J.O.

HOMILIES BY R.M. EDGAR

Deu 31:1-8

The leadership made over to Joshua.

There is something wonderfully pathetic in the great leader, whose eye is yet undimmed, laying down his trust beside the Jordan. He is a hundred and twenty years old, but the Lord hath denied him the privilege of entering the land of promise. He now meekly resigns his command, and nominates Joshua as his successor. It might have discouraged the people, the loss of their great leader; but he points them upward to the Lord their God, who had been the real Leader in the Exodus and pilgrimage, and who was going at their head across the Jordan. Their faith in the invisible Leader is to be strengthened now that the visible and human leader is to be taken away from them. Besides, they are to have Joshua as the captain of the host. We notice here

I. THE MEN APPOINTED BY GOD TO SPECIAL OFFICE RECEIVE FROM HIM SPECIAL PREPARATION. Moses himself had received a wondrous preparation, first at his mother’s knee, next in the palace of Pharaoh, and next in the solitudes of Midian. And Joshua, who is to succeed him as leader, though not as lawgiver, has also received important preparation. He is first associated with Moses in the mount, as he is receiving the Law. He is thus trained to firm faith in the invisible King, and accustomed to his wonders. He is next exercised in battle, leading the Israelites against Amalek, and proving himself skilful in the field. He had also, as a spy, become minutely acquainted with the land of promise, and brought up with Caleb an encouraging report. None was so fitted as he for high command. Just, then, as the twelve were carefully trained to be the apostles of the Church, so was Joshua trained, and so is every one selected for important work.

II. THE ASSURANCE THAT GOD WAS ASSOCIATED WITH THE INVASION GAVE THE INVADERS THE BEST POSSIBLE STIMULUS. God is to go with them; they need in such a case fear no evil. Their foes may be gigantic, but greater is he that is for them than all that can be against them. Their vantage-ground is that they can be “strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.”

And this is the one question to be asked always: Is God with us? If so, all is well. The work always succeeds of which he is the head.

III. THE WORK BEFORE THEM IS TO BE JUDGMENT. They are to enter Canaan as destroyers. It is iconoclasts that have been brought from Egypt. Their commission is death to the old religions of the country, and to the incorrigible devotees. They enter as “the scourge of God.” And such a mission must have proved a warning to themselves. If called to be the executioners of the apostates of Palestine, they will surely guard against apostasy.

IV. IN THE INVASION THEY MUST ADHERE TO THE LETTER OF THE COMMANDMENTS. It is a terrible mission; but God leaves no loophole for them to escape it. He leaves nothing to license; he gives them strict orders, and these must be carried carefully out. Thus are the rigors of the invasion brought under the shadow of his throne, and he, who is Sovereign and legitimate Avenger, commissioned Israel to execute his orders amid the criminal population of Palestine.R.M.E.

Deu 31:9-13

The literary executors of Moses.

It must have been a solemn act on the part of Moses, after having nominated Joshua as his successor in the leadership of Israel, to summon the priests and the elders, that they might be the custodians of his manuscripts, and deal with them as he desired. It was to the ministers of religion, and to the rulers elected by the people and ordained of God, that he gave this important charge. Of course they could not, as nowadays, publish in multiplied copies the carefully written Law. But they were directed to have a great congregation every seven years, at the time of the Feast of Tabernacles, for the public reading of the Law. Hence in this sabbatic time, when no rain need be feared, but brightness and peace reigned by night and day in the land of promise, they were to make public, through reading, this important Law. This interesting arrangement suggests such lessons as these

I. THERE IS NOTHING SO PRECIOUS AS GOD‘S WORD. No wonder that special officers got special charge of it, when the first installment was given and completed. It was a sacred deposit such as no other nation possessed. The Jew had surely a great advantage, inasmuch as there were committed to him “the oracles of God” (Rom 3:2).

II. THE WIDEST POSSIBLE PUBLICATION SHOULD BE SECURED FOR IT. No better arrangement in times before printing can be imagined than this one of a great congregation with perfect publicity thereat. What an audience every seventh year! And amid the solemnity of the year of release, the sabbatic year, when time lay plentifully on their hands, they could not better spend a portion of the year than in meeting together to learn God’s Law. It was a splendid, periodic publicity.

And is it not typical of that wider publicity which the printing press is now giving to the Divine Word? Assuredly it is a striking fact that the circulation of the most successful human publication dwindles into insignificance compared with the circulation of the Word of God. Men are trying to make it as widely known as possible.

III, SPECIAL SEASONS FOR THE STUDY OF GOD‘S LAW ARE EMINENTLY DESIRABLE, Had this direction of Moses been faithfully followed, there would have been a revival of religion every seventh year. A new start would thus have been given to the study of God’s will, and greater devotedness of spirit have been created throughout the many thousands of Israel.

Similarly, congregations and Churches should have grand assemblies for the express purpose of the public study of God’s Law, not merely on the Lord’s day each week, but at special and stated seasons. The “camp meetings” of America may have objectionable elements attaching to them; but it would be a good day for all the Churches, if some grand reunions could be devised, when the highest aim of mankind would be carried out in the study of God’s Law.

IV. THE CHILDREN AS WELL AS ADULTS SHOULD BE MADE SHARERS IN THE SPECIAL STUDY AND BLESSING. The purpose of the arrangement was not only to publish truths as widely as possible among the adult portion of the population, but to interest also the children in the doctrines and discipline of the Church. Hence the meeting was to be an aggregation of families. It was to be “a gathering of the clans;” young as well as old were to hear the wonderful works of God and his gracious commandments.

The special religious service, then, which the Churches should aim at, will be of the widest character. It should contemplate the presence of the young as well as the old, and be adapted to the revival of the Lord’s work in all sections of the Church. There is power in the aggregation of individuals for religious purposes. The children must be kept in view in every effort to extend the kingdom. The family must be lifted, if possible, all of a piece, as a unit of God’s own making, and in the elevation of families will come the elevation of nations.
There is something peculiarly bright and happy in the picture. The sky is cloudless and the people are living in booths “without carefulness.” They have met together for the purpose of celebrating a feast, but there is to be a special study of the Law for the benefit of young as well as old. Old heads and young are bowed before the Majesty of heaven, anxious to know his will and how to do it. In such circumstances surely religion must be promoted. May we have grace to imitate such an excellent example!R.M.E.

Deu 31:14-23

The Lord’s charge to Moses and Joshua.

Moses, in making over the leadership to Joshua, was only anticipating a more formal assignment of it by God himself. He directs the old leader and his successor to repair to the tabernacle, and there to receive their respective charges. The Shechinah appeared to convince the people of the reality of the Divine interview with the leaders. Moses is first informed of his own approaching end, of the certain apostasy of the people, and of the desirability of laying before them a song which would testify to the wickedness of the apostasy when it took place. Then Joshua is encouraged by the Lord himself and promised his presence.

I. LET US NOTICE THE EXPRESSION THAT MOSES IS TO “SLEEP WITH HIS FATHERS.” The words (I ) are literally, “lie down with thy fathers,” and in this connection are surely significant. They point assuredly to fellowship and rest with the fathers in another life. They cannot refer to any depositing of the remains of Moses in the same tomb as his fathers. His sepulcher was solitary and sacred; his lying down with his fathers, therefore, can only refer to the fellowship in a future life. This is the only place in the Pentateuch where this particular expression occurs, although we meet it in the Books of the Kings no less than twenty-six times. It was undoubtedly an intimation to Moses that he was about to enter into restful fellowship with his fathers, and was most welcome consolation at this peculiarly trying time.

II. APOSTASY NEVER TAKES GOD BY SURPRISE. He foresees it and makes provision for it, preparing his servants for its appearance, and preparing a proper recompense for the apostates themselves. It must be a remarkable experience to be in such a position as God, and to have prevision of all the future, so that there can be no element of surprise for him. His resources are so adequate that he is outside the region of finite surprises and difficulties.

III. SKEPTICISM IS THE DAUGHTER OF ABUNDANCE RATHER THAN OF WANT. It will be, the Lord says, when Israel has entered into the Promised Land, and enjoyed its milk and honey, and when they have waxed fat, that they shall turn to other gods and be guilty of apostasy. In the same way, our modern skeptics are men for the most part in comfortable worldly circumstances, and out of these spring doubts about the existence of God and suspicions that we can do very well without him, and with minor majesties. “It is on the bed of luxury,” says Mr. Martineau, “not on the rock of nature, that skepticism has its birth And while from the center of comforts many a sad fear goes forth, and the warmest lot becomes often filled with the chillest doubts, hidden within it like a heart of ice that cannot melt, you may find toiling misery that trusts the more the more it is stricken, and amid the secret prayers of mourners hear the sweetest tones of hope.”

IV. PROPHECY IS A WITNESS SUBPOENAED BEFOREHAND AGAINST GOD‘S ENEMIES. We have here God giving a certain song which is to be a witness against Israel in the coming apostasy. And prophecy is the retaining of a witness long beforehand for the coming trial. It is proof positive that no varying moods of men can ever surprise God or thwart his magnificent designs. The substance of this song we are presently to consider.

V. JOSHUA RECEIVES ENCOURAGEMENT ABOUT A SUCCESSFUL LEADERSHIP AND THE PERPETUAL PRESENCE OF GOD. This means immediate success as a set-off to the sad intelligence about ultimate apostasy. Joshua is assured that God will be with him and ensure the success of the invasion. Hence Joshua is only to be a lieutenant-general under the invisible Leader and King. And Joshua desired nothing higher. The great honor was in being a fellow-soldier with God. It was God’s battles he was going to fight, and it would be God’s victories which Israel would win.

VI. IT IS A GREAT BLESSING AT LIFE‘S CLOSE TO HAVE A SUCCESSOR TO CARRY ON OUR WORK, AND AN ASSURANCE THAT WE OURSELVES ARE SAFE BEYOND THE BORDER. There was much sadness about the close of Moses’ career. He was reminded of his sin in his exclusion from Canaan. But he had compensation in Joshua taking up his work, and in the assurance of” rest beyond the river.” He was going over to a better land than lay beyond the Jordan. He was passing on to peace with the sainted fathers who had preceded him. He had thus calmness and blessing given in the midst of his pain.

May we have work worth carrying on after us, and some one to succeed us in it; and may we have rest like that of Moses after our demise!R.M.E.

Deu 31:24-30

The Divine testimony deposited in the ark.

Moses, being thus commissioned of God to utter the inspired warning, loses no time in summoning the congregation. But while doing so, he gives precise directions to the Kohathites, who had charge of the ark, to deposit his manuscripts within it. Is anything to be learned from this consignment of the sacred books?

I. THE SACRED BOOKS ARE NOT COMPLIMENTARY TO HUMAN NATURE. The Pentateuch, in its tremendous charges and indictments against mankind, is in unison with the rest of the Word. It is a sustained witness against the human race. “Others may perhaps suspect,” says Henry Rogers, “that Jewish vanity led the writers thus to ignore or treat lightly the affairs of all nations except their own. The answer is concise, but conclusive. Let Jewish vanity in general be what the reader pleases, these writers would seem to have had none of it. If they have passed by the glorious achievements of secular history, they have recorded all the infamies of their own nation; and, indeed, their principal references to other nations are as ‘scourges’ of their ownscourges justly sent, they confess and avow, for apostasies which had wearied out the patience of Heaven!” The marvel is that the Jews and Christians should conspire to preserve what is a most humiliating account of the race.

II. THE ARK WAS THE TREASURE–HOUSE OF GOD PROTECTED BY HIS PRESENCE. It was the “safe” of Israel, not, alas! “fire-proof,” like Milner’s, as the Babylonians demonstrated, yet as durable and as sacred as the times allowed. It was fenced around by the holiest sanctions. Nowhere could the manuscripts be so safe. Now, the ark is regarded as a type of Jesus; and if so, then the depositing of the Law within the ark would convey the idea of the Law of God being within the heart of Christ (Psa 40:8). In other words, Jesus Christ embodies the Divine Law or will, add is at once its most brilliant exposition and the most tremendous indictment of human nature. The Jews were not so careful of the living Law as their forefathers were of the written Law. They recognized its charge against themselves: the charge had become oral; it walked before them; it was something that they could not shake off except through the desperate alternative of assassination. They killed in Christ their living Conscience.

III. WE SHOULD LEARN FROM THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST TO TREASURE UP GOD‘S LAW WITHIN OUR OWN HEARTS. We cannot have too much of the Bible in our minds and memories. The more we study it, the more like Christ shall we become. He whose “delight is in the Law of the Lord, and in his Law doth he meditate day and night,” is blessed, and he shall be like the tree whose roots are in the waters, duly fruitful and ever green (Psa 1:2, Psa 1:3). His conscience shall be reinforced and become increasingly tender; his heart shall be elevated in its affections and longings; and his mind shall be trained to what is high and holy. Thus is the whole being enriched and the life enlarged. May we deposit the Word of God with as much care in our hearts as the Levites did the rolls of Moses in the ark!R.M.E.

HOMILIES BY D. DAVIES

Deu 31:1-8

Putting off the harness.

Faith in God anticipates every event without distress. If God’s plan cut across the grain of our own inclination, faith inspires us to say,” His plan is best.” By virtue of a living faith, we can face death without anxiety, and advance to meet the last foe. We see in this passage

I. FAITH ACQUIESCENT IN BODILY DISSOLUTION. Splendid triumphs were in sight. The Jewish host was about to complete its conquest; just about to realize full success after forty years of patient trial. Such an hour is the most precious in a man’s history. Yet the faith of Moses saw a nobler conquest yeta conquest over self, a conquest over the unseen foe. A voice from withinthe voice of failing naturewhispered that he was no longer equal to the fatigues of a military campaign. And a voice from above told him that his work was done; and, though high reward was in store, justice exacted satisfaction for an earlier misdeed. Even a single blemish in a good man’s life entails on him loss. We cannot cheat God. Without a murmur, Moses, like a little child, yields to his Father’s decree, and meekly prepares to die.

II. FAITH REJOICING IN OTHERS‘ PROMOTION. In every age, faith has worked to the production of love. It is the extirpator of selfishness. Moses found as much pleasure in announcing that Joshua should lead the people to conquest, as that he should himself lead. Indeed, Moses felt that Joshua could do better than he could. He had been emphatically a legislator; now a warrior was needed. If God removes one servant, he provides a better. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I am nobler than thou.” Each man has a place and an office of his own. If only God’s work is well and truly done, faith will rejoice in the means.

III. FAITH CONVINCED THAT GOD AND MAN MUST CO–OPERATE FOR THE TRIUMPH OF THE KINGDOM. “The Lord thy God, he will go before thee;” and “Joshua, he shall go over before thee” (verse 3). The presence of man, in action or in warfare, does not exclude the presence of God. Joshua could gain no triumph if he had gone alone. God has chosen to work through human agencies. By his wise appointment, Divine and human co-operation is a necessity. “The Lord shall give them up before your face, that ye may do unto them according to his commandment” (verse 5). Nor is Moses’ power and influence to be quite absent from the conflict. Being dead, he yet acted. His commandment regulated their conduct. His word was still a mighty spell. Each man can add something to the aggressive activity of God’s truth.

IV. FAITH ASSURED OF GOD‘S SELF–CONSISTENCY. God had succored Israel in the past; therefore he would succor them again. He had begun to dislodge the Canaanite kings before Israel, therefore he would go on until he completed for them the conquest (verse 4). Jehovah had foreseen all the weaknesses and unfaithfulness of Israel and yet he had commenced to give them triumphs. On what reasonable ground would he do this, unless he purposed to repeat his favors, and to subdue for them every foe? Half a conquest would be no boon to them. This would be a vexation to Israeli and a dishonor to God. The man of faith knows that God can never be at variance with himself. When we have discovered the method of God’s procedure, we should act along this line in order to enjoy his help. In his footsteps let us plant our feet.

V. FAITH IN ONE STIMULATING IN OTHERS LATENT QUALITIES OF ENERGY. Although it appears that Moses was lacking in martial skill and prowess, his faith in God enabled him to stir up the hidden gifts of others. Faith foresees the victory, and confident hope is a great inspirer of strength. Like new nerve-power, it interlaces and braces all the active energies of a man. The voice of robust faith has always a magical charm over us. We perceive forthwith that the demand is most reasonable, and that largest exertion is our highest glory. It is easy to be strong when Infinite Strength is awaiting us. Every endeavor we make enlarges our capacity to receive more strength. The weaker parts of our nature perish under the strain, but newer and nobler elements fill up the room. And if God be with us, then fear of man departs. Faith is a prolific parent of courage.

“Fear him, ye saints, and ye will then

Have nothing else to fear.”

And God can never fail the man of faith. Having pledged his presence, we are well ensured. For him to forsake his friends is an impossibility. “The mountains may depart, and the hills be removed; but never shall the covenant of his faithfulness fail.”D.

Deu 31:9-13, Deu 31:24-29

The honor appertaining to God’s Law.

As our Lord, in the near prospect of death, employed his thoughts in comforting and instructing others, so Moses, instead of centering his thought upon himself, is only more eager to provide for the people’s future obedience. Inasmuch as his days on earth were now very few, he yearned to crowd into them as much counsel and kindly warning as it was possible. To be of service to Israelthis absorbed the passions and desires of his soul.

I. GOD‘S REDEMPTIVE LAW IS EMBODIED IN A WRITTEN FORM, To Moses it had been revealed that it would not suffice to instruct the people orally in the lines of religious duty. So pregnant with importance is the Law of God, that it must be reduced to writing, and carefully preserved. God’s law concerning our bodily lifehow to use food, how to heal disease, how to prolong our daysall this is revealed in other modes: this Law is written by the finger of God on the very structure of man. In such matters, God’s will is to be discovered by investigation and by experiment. But the law of the soul’s life is disclosed to us in a different way. How sin can be pardoned; how reconciliation between a guilty man and his Maker can be secured; how inward purity can be gained, and immortality reached;all this is disclosed by God through his prophets, and reduced to a written form. If a perverse disposition prevails in a man, he may refuse to read the record, and so “count himself unworthy of everlasting life.”

II. GOD‘S REDEMPTIVE LAW IS COMMITTED TO TRUSTY STEWARDS. The Law of God written by Moses, touching purification and obedience, was placed in the custody of the priests (Deu 31:9), and secured in the ark of the covenant. This was both a realized fact and a symbolic figure. That ark is an emblem of Christ’s Church, and the sons of Levi were the early representatives of genuine believers. The Christian family has become a royal priesthood; and one of their delightful duties is to conserve God’s Law so as to hand it on to coming generations. By the loving care of loyal disciples, the oracles of God have been preserved intact. The vigorous life of the Church today is displayed in revising the exact text, translating it into other tongues, and unfolding it to the understanding of the people. We are “stewards of the mysteries of God.”

III. GOD‘S REDEMPTIVE LAW IS TO BE PERIODICALLY EXPOUNDED. Moses required this to be done once in every seven years. By this method, the recollections of those who had heard it aforetime would be revived, it would be impressed on memory with fresh force, and many would rise to a higher understanding and appreciation of its meaning. The recurring period is symbolic. Once every seven days the privilege now returns. Nor have we to journey to some metropolis to hear the sacred record. Printing has multiplied the copies of God’s Law on every side; and it would be spiritual obtuseness if we did not recognize this modern invention as a new agency in God’s hands for enlightening the human race. The Law was ordained to be “read in the year of release, and at the Feast of Tabernacles.” This was the anniversary of the Sinaitic revelation; this festival was signalized for its unusual joyousness. And this fresh revelation of God’s truth, in each septennial period, would add new zest to gladness. Good men would say, “Thy words were found, and I did eat them, and they were to me as the joy and rejoicing of my heart.”

IV. GOD‘S REDEMPTIVE LAW IS TO BE BROUGHT WITHIN THE UNDERSTANDING OF ALL. The wisdom and the loving-kindness of God are displayed in his care for children. As he has abundantly provided for their bodily and mental wants in their long dependence upon parents, so too he provides for the enlightenment of their consciences by the ministry of his Word. Right impressions are very early made. It is the highest wisdom to entwine the tender affections of children around God and truth and heaven. Before they “know anything” else, God commands us to see to it that “they hear, and learn to fear the Lord our God.” To neglect the religious training of the young is heinous sin. This is to deprive the host of God’s elect of young recruits. “instead of the fathers, must come up the children.” God’s will is abundantly revealed, to the end that we may do it.D.

Deu 31:14, Deu 31:15, Deu 31:23

The official investiture of Joshua.

It was fitting that a public transference of authority should be made from Moses to Joshua. The nobleness of Moses comes prominently into view. As John said of Jesus, so substantially Moses said of Joshua, “He must increase, but I must decrease.”

I. THE OCCASION. The occasion had an aspect of mournfulness. Moses was about to die; nevertheless, no tinge of grief is in his words. He contemplates the event with calm serenity. His chief concern is a competent successor. The good of others was still Moses’ uppermost desire. Promptly he responded to the Divine call.

II. THE PLACE. God had appointed the meeting to take place in the tabernacle. All great enterprises should be consecrated in the sanctuary. Here we touch the fountain head of effectual blessing. God has engaged to be found by us here. “This is my rest forever ‘ here will I dwell!”

III. THE APPEARANCE “The Lord appeared in a pillar of a cloud.” So ineffably dazzling is the native glory of God, that no mortal eye can look upon it. We should be blinded by the excess of light. In accommodation to human weakness, God tempers his brightness by an attendant cloud. Such was the form in which he was pleased to appear upon the mercy-seat. Such was the mode of his manifestation on the Mount of Transfiguration. In our present imperfect state we need the intervention of the cloud.

IV. THE CHANCE. God’s charge came to Joshua through human lips, yet none the less was it God’s charge. We must suppose that Joshua was lacking that susceptibility of soul which is essential for the hearing of God’s voice. Some can hear that voice direct; some can hear it only through transmission of others’ speech. God’s charge and Moses’ charge were one, “Be strong and of a good courage.” What God commands, God first gives. Says he to men, “Here is my entrusted strength: use it well! More is ready as soon as it is needed.” Best of all, he adds, “I will be with thee.”D.

Deu 31:16-22, Deu 31:29

The last precaution against idolatry.

We cannot trace into all its ramifications the subtle influence of a good man’s life. If it does not accomplish all that he has desired, it often achieves more than he imagines. It operates in directions he had not designed. The presence of a good man will often repress an evil which he cannot eradicate. All the faith and piety of Moses had hardly restrained the people from idolatry; his removal will be the loosening of the flood-gates which had held in check the wayward passion. We have in this paragraph

I. GOD‘S FORECAST OF ISRAEL‘S FUTURE SIN. “This people will rise up, and go a-whoring after the gods of the strangers” (Deu 31:16). Moses himself had surmised this result. With hidden sorrow, he had observed the base tendencies of the people towards idolatry. As he forecast the time when warfare should cease, and the tribes should find themselves among the relics of idols, he trembled for the result. And now this surmise on his part was confirmed by a revelation from God. It is now a foreseen reality: “They will forsake me, and break my covenant.” Worldly success and self-indulgence would lead to impiety. Yet this foreknowledge of Israel’s certain sin did not deter God from promising to Joshua military success, nor did it deter God from using all practical measures to dissuade from sin. We conclude that God sees it best to employ all remedial measures, even when it is known that in the chief end they will fail.

II. WE HAVE GOD‘S ANNOUNCEMENT OF CONSEQUENT CALAMITY. “My anger shall be kindled against them and I will forsake them.” The series of evils that would spring from idolatry is vividly set before them; and no other motive can be conjectured for this than a generous desire to deter from sin. Love is more conspicuous in portraying the certain miseries of misconduct, than in promising the rewards of obedience. The former duty is done with personal painfulness; the latter is a delight. And not only will the severity of the punishment be keenly felt, but the people will also apprehend the reason of the calamity. They will trace it up to God’s displeasure; yet will they not repent. Men are woefully blind to the iron force of sinful habit. Today it is a silken thread; tomorrow it is an iron chain.

III. GOD‘S LAST EXPEDIENT TO PREVENT SIN. Moses, the servant of God, was about to die; but his death was to be a sleep, and he should die with a song in his mouth. At first sight, it seems a strange expedient as a deterrent from sin. But the intention was, that by the sweet and flowing sounds of rhythm, the main facts of God’s covenant might be kept vividly alive in the people’s memory. In the absence of printing, and cheap circulations of written documents, poetic forms will live when prose is quite forgotten. God condescends to employ every possible method by which a sense of religious duty might be preserved and perpetuated. The song would live by the action of known law, when the full sense would be ignored. Thus the song of Moses, “familiar in their mouths as a household word,” would be an abiding witness against them. Said God, “It shall not be forgotten.” By such gracious methods the Most High would win men unto obedience and life. The mightiest power is in gentleness. If this fails, all fails.D.

Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary

Ver 1. Moses went and spake these words Soon after Moses had finished the foregoing discourses, he gave a new summons to the Israelites, at least to the chief heads of them, to acquaint them that the time both of his government and life was now very short: and though, through the special providence of God, his strength and faculties were not decayed, even at the age of one hundred and twenty years, (see ch. Deu 34:7.) yet it was the decree of heaven, as he had told them before, that he was not the person who should conduct them into Canaan, and that he was now to commit them to the conduct of Joshua, to whom therefore he exhorted them to pay all due respect, and to follow him with a cheerful and undaunted assurance in the divine power and providence. The next verse might be rendered, more properly, thus: I am an hundred and twenty years old this day; I may no more go out and come in; for the Lord hath said unto me, Thou shalt not go over this Jordan.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

The Surrender of Office and Work as a Pause to the Third Discourse

Deu 31:1-30

1And Moses went and spake these words unto all Israel. 2And he said unto them, I am an hundred and twenty years old this day; I can no [I will not be able] more go out and come in: also [and] the Lord hath said unto me, Thou shalt not go over this Jordan. 3The Lord thy God, he will go over before thee, and he will destroy these nations [Gentiles] from before thee, and thou shalt possess them: and Joshua he shall go over before thee, as the Lord hath said. 4And the Lord shall do unto them as he did to Sihon, and to Og, kings of the Amorites, and unto the land of them, whom he destroyed. 5And the Lord shall give them up before your face, that ye may do unto them according unto all the commandments which I have commanded you. 6Be strong and of a good courage [firm], fear not, nor be afraid of [tremble before] them: for the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee, he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. 7And Moses called unto Joshua, and said unto him in the sight of all Israel, Be strong and of a good courage [and firm]: for thou must [shalt] go with this people unto the land which the Lord hath sworn unto their fathers to give them; and thou shalt cause them to inherit it. 8And the Lord, he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed. 9And Moses wrote this law, and delivered [gave] it unto the priests the sons of Levi, which bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and unto all the elders of Israel. 10And Moses commanded them, saying, At the end of every seven years, in the solemnity of the year of release [year of Jubilee], in the feast of tabernacles, 11When all Israel is come [In the coming of all Israel] to appear before [by over against the face of] the Lord thy God in the place which he shall choose, thou shalt read [proclaim] this law before all Israel in their hearing. 12Gather the people together, men, and women, and children, and thy stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and fear the Lord your God, and observe to do all the 13words of this law: And that their children which have not known [do not yet know] anything, may [shall] hear, and learn to fear the Lord your God, as long as ye live in the land whither ye go over Jordan to possess it. 14And the Lord said unto Moses, Behold, thy days approach that thou must die [near are thy days to die]: call Joshua, and present yourselves in the tabernacle of the congregation, that I may give him a charge. And Moses and Joshua went and presented themselves in the tabernacle of the congregation. 15And the Lord appeared in the tabernacle in a pillar of a cloud: and the pillar of the cloud stood over the door of the tabernacle. 16And the Lord said unto Moses, Behold, thou shalt sleep [margin: liest down] with thy fathers, and this people will rise up, and go a whoring after the gods of the strangers of the land [of the foreign land]1 whither they go to be among them, and will forsake me, and break my covenant which I have made with them.

17Then [And] my anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured [for a consumption] and many evils and troubles shall befall [margin: find them] them, so that they will say in that day, Are not these evils come upon [have they not 18found us] us, because our God is not among us? And [But] I will surely [or still] hide my face in that day for all the evils which they shall have wrought, in that 19[for] they are turned unto other gods. Now therefore [And now] write ye this song for you, and teach it the children of Israel; put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the children of Israel. 20For when I shall have brought [For I will bring]2 them into the land which I sware unto their fathers, that floweth with milk and honey; and they shall have eaten [they eat] and filled themselves, and waxen fat; then will they [and] turn unto other gods, and serve them, and provoke [reject, despise] me, and break my covenant. 21And it shall come to pass, when many evils and troubles are befallen [shall find] them, that this song shall testify against them [margin: before them] as a witness: for it shall not be forgotten out of the mouths of their seed: for I know their imagination which they go about [margin: do]3 even now, before I have brought them into the land which I sware. 22Moses therefore wrote this song the same day, and taught it the children of Israel. 23And he gave Joshua the son of Nun a charge, and said, Be strong and of a good courage [firm]: for thou shalt bring the children of Israel into the land which I sware unto them: and I will be with thee. 24And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in [upon] a 25book, until they were finished, That [Then] Moses commanded the Levites which bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying, 26Take this book of the law, and put it in [by] the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a witness against thee. 27For I know thy rebellion [obstinacy], and thy stiff neck: behold, while I am yet alive with you this day, ye have been rebellious against the Lord; and how much more [will ye be] after my death? 28Gather unto me all the elders of your tribes, and your officers, that I may [and I will] speak these words in their ears, and call heaven and earth to record against them. 29for I know that after my death ye will utterly [surely] corrupt yourselves, and turn aside from the way which I have commanded you; and evil will befall [meet] you in the latter days; because ye will do evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to anger through the work of your hands. 30And Moses spake in the ears of all the congregation of Israel the words of the song until they were ended.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

1. It forms as it appears a third last Selah, comprehending the two earlier. In the first Pause we have the designation of the cities of refuge on the east of the Jordan, that the office of Moses as rescuing life might clearly appear; in the second, the setting up of the monumental stones on the west of Jordan, as Moses work is to place the law in the life of Israel. The office and work, which now in the third pause are surrendered, relate therefore to the whole land of the chosen people.

2. Deu 31:1-8. The close. 1) In reference to Moses himself. Deu 31:1-2. And Moses went, Deu 31:1, is not a continuation of 1 (Hengst. speaks further, proceeds); the Sept. gives a sense better suited to the connection, completed, closed his discourse. It is literally either went away (Baumgarten: into his tent where he composed his written discourses, brought up to the last point, Deu 31:9), comp. Deu 31:14; then we must supply, and after he came again, he spake; or in order to emphasize the personal close, after the actual, the literal discourses were closed with chap. 30; i.e., and he came, entered, after his previous retiring from sight. Schultz supplies: anew, or it is spoken still once more of the discourses generally, (Deu 1:1; Deu 4:45; Deu 5:1; Deu 27:1 ). It is essentially as if it were: he prepared himself and spake. [The Bib. Com. regards the word as redundant, but it is better to take it as Schroeder and Keil, prepared himself, rose up, or began.A. G.]. Deu 31:2. Comp. Deu 34:7 (Exo 7:7). The apparent diversity is only that between the personal perception of Moses, the presentiment of his death, and the view of his contemporaries, chap. 34. Does he say with respect to his birth-day? The announcement of his age stands by itself and has no necessary influence upon what follows, which rather has its ground in the last clause of the verse. (also may be regarded as intimating that in the future, with such an age, he would not be able.Go out and come in does not designate the leadership of Moses, but his personal work Deu 28:6 and here only that. It is not therefore to draw attention, Schultz, to any failing, declining strength . Comp. Deu 27:17 The thought is completed first in the last clause of the Verse. Comp. besides, upon Deu 1:37; Deu 3:26 Deut 31:31; Deu 3:1 to Deu 6:2) In reference to Israel. It closes his years of wandering under the leading of Jehovah. Comp. Deu 9:3; Deu 9:1.He not directly in opposition to Moses, but emphatically pointing away from Moses to the Lord. Joshua would naturally stand as the one opposed to Moses, but he is rather placed by the Lord as the successor, the continuation to Moses. Hence, as the law-giving is both of Moses and of God, so also the emphatic expression here is equally suited to Joshua and to Jehovah. Comp. Deu 3:28 Deu 31:4. Comp. Deu 2:3 Deu 31:5. Comp. Deu 7:2 Deu 31:6. Comp. Deu 20:3 and Deu 4:31. Neither suffer them to sink down, thus to leave them without His guiding hand, nor indeed entirely forsake them Heb 13:5).

Deu 31:7; Deu 8:3) In reference to Joshua: the last words from Moses to him. (Schultz). Deu 31:7. Solemnly as it is formally in the sight of all. Comp. Deu 1:38; Deu 3:28 What was formerly said to the people is here addressed to its leader; for what is becoming to them, is not only also becoming to him, but is first truly incumbent upon him. Deu 31:8 : as Deu 31:6 Comp. still Deu 1:21.

3. The handing over of the Mosaic work. Deu 31:9-13. Comp. Intro., 2. The writing on the part of Moses, Deu 31:9, is made prominent indeed because such prominence was generally necessary with respect to the priests, etc., but particularly necessary for the special charge, Deu 31:10 sq. The significance of the written, fixed form, thus appears already from both classes of officials, the ecclesiastical and the civil, who as permanent, and thus distinguished from the temporary activity of Joshua, come into view with regard to the law. For the priests see Intro., 4, I. 22. Beth the construction with , and the mention of all the elders of Israel, to whom the literal giving would be out of place, as also the whole connection, evidently shows that the giving of the book by Moses is not to be understood of the material book, literally given out of the hand, but as a formal assignment, or an addressing of the law to these persons. Both officers are necessary for the charge, Deu 31:10; the priests for the law, the elders for the people. Comp. Deu 15:1. is a definite time (Exo 9:5), Schultz: the time at which the year of release began; Keil: the festival time of the year of release, since he places the tabernacle feast at the expiration of the civil year (Exo 23:16), Knobel: the specified time of the sabbatical year, and indeed at its close. It might designate also the festal gathering (Deu 31:11). Schultz: That the people might thereby be incited to spend this year of rest in their employment with the word of God. Bahr: It was not intended for this purpose, but as a solemn promulgation of the fundamental law of the State, of the embodied covenant with Jehovah, and at the same time for the leading back and restoration, so far as departures had found entrance into the life of the people; which at all events is better suited to what follows than the view of Keil, that it was for the purpose of quickening and refreshing the people with the law, etc., in order to make the law beloved by the people as a gracious gift of God, an entirely subjective aim and purpose according to the experience of David, Psalms 19. Moses neither emphasizes the propriety of the sabbatical year, nor signalizes its idea, nor even generally the idea of the feast of tabernacles, but what was opportune for the required reading of the law, i.e., Deu 31:11 : the gathering of the whole people at the place of the sanctuary (chaps. 12, 16.). Thou, i.e., the priestly and civil magistrate who represents Israel. According to Neh 8:1, the priest Ezra. [We learn also from this passage in Neh., not only that Ezra read in the book of the law day by day, but that the book of the law was the Pentateuch, not merely Deuteronomy, since Ezra had actually read from the earlier portions of the Pentateuch. Comp. Neh 8:14-15, with Lev 23:4; Lev 23:40. See also Hengstenberg, Authen. II., pp. 153163, and Keil, who well says, Ezra did not regard the book of Deuteronomy like the critics of our day, as the true national law book, an acquaintance with which was all that the people required.A. G.]. According to the Talmud: the king. But Deu 31:12 expressly requires the gathering of all the people in all its parts for this purpose. The object of the ordinance is here clearly and fully declared. Although that object was elsewhere (Deu 6:6 sq.; Deu 11:18 sought, yet it is cared for here in the most solemn and public manner. So that every excuse, over against this solemn testimony of the law, even the natural ignorance of the children, Deu 31:13, may fall away. Comp. further Deu 4:10.

4. Deu 31:14-23. After the Mosaic close, there follows now immediately the divine conclusion, and in the same order or succession of thought, as 18: Moses, Israel, Joshua. Deu 31:14 is connected with Deu 31:2, as to Moses, and the actual approach of his death gives the middle term between what is there said and what is here required. Comp. Gen 47:29. That I may give him, is the new stage, the directly divine appointment, in distinction from Deu 31:7 sq. and Num 27:16 sq. Moses goes to the appointed place, Joshua alone with him. We need not suppose that either Israel or its representatives were dismissed (Schultz); it would have been more solemn still if the people in the meantime remained before the tabernacle and awaited the return (Luk 1:10 Herxheimer: Here, for the first time, Joshua stands by the side of Moses before the God who reveals Himself. Deu 31:15. Comp. Exo 13:21; Exo 40:34; Num 12:5; Exo 33:9. The pillar of cloud stands high over the entrance. Since in Deu 31:16 the discourse is still addressed to Moses, it resumes again his death (Gen 47:30; Joh 11:11; 1Th 4:13), which also serves to introduce what follows, and appears once more in reference to the people of Israel (Deu 31:3). The people appear only restrained, kept down. Its nature1 is to rise up again as soon as possible. to turn aside, especially from a wife, thus to commit adultery, to run after many paramours, etc. (Exo 34:15 sq.; Lev 17:7; Lev 20:5 sq.; Num 14:33; Num 15:39), Jehovah the husband of Israel, the covenant a marriage covenant. of the strange foreign land (Gen 35:2; Jos 24:23), not as Knobel, Keil, foreign gods of the land, since that would have been the same as other gods. It rather calls attention to the fact that Canaan, because of its past idolatrous nature, is a rejected () land (Deu 9:4 sq.). Upon forsake me comp. Deu 31:6; Deu 31:8 (Deu 32:15 sq.); and for the rest, Gen 17:14; Lev 26:15 (Num 15:31). Deu 31:17. Comp Deu 29:26; Deu 7:16. Others: Many and pressing (oppressive) evils. Israel must pronounce its judgment with its own mouth. Schultz: They were attributing their necessities and distress to his want of power rather than to his righteousness; the Lord protracts their sorrows to bring them to a better mind (?) What follows does not necessarily imply this thought, for although there is a confession of guilt, it is only, or very much external and formal. But hence the position of the Lord in Deu 31:18. and , as they have turned away from me, so I from them (Deu 30:17). Deu 31:19. The association of Joshua with Moses in the writing (see Introd. 2) shows the significance of the written document also for the future consequences; Israel endures upon the progressive revelation of Godfor the this here evidently refers to the song which follows in chap. 32.but, at the same time, in the manner there intimated, viz., that the divine revelation must be ever deposited in writing. (In Deu 31:16 sq. it was intimated that the song should spring up in the mind of Moses out of the Spirit, which Jehovah, when He announced to him the coming conduct of the people, had breathed upon His servant, and with which he was filled; there is no revealing word of the Lord, which was not accompanied by the efficacy of His Spirit. Sack.) Now thereforein view of such a future, Joshua also must know from the outset, and indeed from God Himself, with what a people he had to deal, that he might not give himself up to any delusion, but rather in his leading of the people keep their apostacy in mind. Nevertheless, Moses remains the leader of the people while he lives. As Deu 30:14, the law generally, so also this song added to it should be sung for a testimony to the Lord against Israel (Luk 19:22). Comp. Deu 31:26. Deu 31:20 sq. forms the fuller basis and carrying out of the testimony of the song, through what Jehovah had done for Israel, and what Israel had done in return. Comp. Deu 6:10 sq.; Deu 8:7 sq.; Deu 6:3; Deu 32:15. What grace turned to license! Provokedespise, reproach, reject me, Num 14:11. Comp. Deu 31:16. Deu 31:21. Comp. Deu 31:17. Testify. Schroeder. Answer, Deu 19:16. To the law, to Moses himself (Joh 5:45; Joh 5:47), there is still now another witness Deu 17:6 [against; literally, before his face]. Israel should hold the court against itself even (Gal 2:11; Act 25:16), and indeed down to the very latest Israel (their seed). The power and significance of a sacred song confirmed by God Himself. [Comp. Col 3:16.A. G.] Song against imagination (Gen 6:5; Gen 8:21). Deu 31:22. An insertion of the performance of the command immediately (Schultz:) as often occurs, e.g., Exo 12:50, not only on account of the great importance of the song, but especially because of the immediate divine conclusion, and hence also barely, Moses wrote, etc.and then the transition from Moses and Israel to the third stage or person, to Joshua (Deu 31:7-8). Deu 31:23. And heComp. Deu 31:14. With this the revelation in the tabernacle closesand according to Hengstenberg, Keil, at the same time, the autographic work of Moses. Comp. on the contrary, Schultz, pp. 88 and 646.

5. Deu 31:24-30. The final surrender of the Mosaic work for its preservation and introduction to the following song. Upon Deu 31:24 comp. Num 16:31 and Introd. 2. Upon Deu 31:25 comp. Deu 10:8 and Introd. 4, I. 22. [It is clear that the Levites here are the priests, the sons of Levi, who alone could so freely approach or touch the ark. For although the Kohathites bore the ark through the wilderness, it was still as prepared by the priests; and on all solemn occasions it was the priests who bore the ark. See Jos 3:3; Jos 4:9-10; Jos 8:33; 1Ki 8:3.A. G.] Deu 31:26. In [at] the sidenot in the ark, where were the two tables of stone (Exo 25:16; Exo 40:20), but as a commentary upon the decalogue, it was to have its place outwardly as an accompanimentKeil, 1Ki 8:9; 1Sa 6:8; 1Sa 6:11; 1Sa 6:15; 2 Kings 22. (Introd. 4, II.). Comp. further Deu 31:19; Deu 31:21. Deu 31:27. Comp. Deu 1:26; Deu 1:43; Deu 9:7; Deu 9:23 sq. [While Moses appears to have handed over the book with these words, it was simply the words of this law (Deu 31:24), and it does not therefore in the least conflict with the theory that Moses himself wrote the song, and the blessing which follows. It is only a special part of his work which was then finished and delivered.A. G.] Thus the song is introduced. The persons addressed Deu 31:28 are the Levitesthose who came together or had remained together for the foregoing purpose (Deu 31:14). Gather (Deu 31:12) may be here not any new peculiar calling together, but directed on account of the here added officers (comp. upon Deu 1:15). Keil. Because the civil authorities must take care that the whole people should learn the song. They are rather regarded as the representatives of the people Deu 4:26; Deu 30:19;). Heaven and earth

Verbally according to the beginning of the following songreally because of its whole enunciation. Deu 31:29. A communication of that revealed in the tabernacle, but not at all superfluous (Knobel). Comp. Deu 4:16; Deu 4:25; Deu 9:12; Deu 4:30, Evil on account of evil, Deu 4:28 (Deu 27:15). Deu 31:30. It is not said that he read it. (J. H. Michaelis: recitavit ex scripto.)

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. The parallel to Moses here, in 2Pe 1:12 sq.

2. A hundred and twenty years is the limit of life (Gen 6:3) for the sinners of the old world. As the mediator and bearer of the law, Moses must experience the whole strength of the divine righteousness. Baumgarten. This was the noticeable age of Moses, of which forty years were spent in Egypt, forty in Midian, and forty in the wilderness. Berl. Bib.

3. The thorah, from , to scatter, spread, e.g., the hand, in order to point to any thing, is instruction, Deu 31:12. The appointment at the end of the Sabbatical year prefigures the intimation, Heb 4:9.

4. The days of birth and death are times fixed by God.
5. The death of believers is even in the Old Testament a falling asleep.
6. The relation of the wife to her husband, that of total dependence, is very instructive as to the correct understanding of the covenant of God.

7. How personally the covenant relation on the part of God declares the symbolism of the divine face, Deu 31:17-18.

8. Roos calls the song a majestic song, because the only one flowing directly from the mouth of the Lord.
9. Psalms and spiritual songs serve for the confession of sin, for consolation to the troubled heart, and to remind us how we should order our life, so that we may please God, particularly to call upon Him and praise Him. Piscator.

10. It is to be observed that the evil upon Israel, Deu 31:29, coincides with the salvation of the world.

11. [The book so received, so secured, so guarded, was not to be kept secret, but to be published by open reading in the ears of all Israel. Wordsworth.A. G.]

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

Deu 31:1 sq. The faithfulness of Moses to his office, even to the end. Deu 31:2. Osiander: If we should live equally long, still we must die, and often when we least expect to do so. Starke: A Christian should put his affairs in order before his end comes. Deu 31:3. Zinzendorf: The most important condition in all the undertakings under the Old Testament is that the Lord thy God be with thee: unless He goes with us, we may not go. Paul shows that the same desire dwelt with him: the Lord stood by me. But the declaration of the Saviour is most expressI am with you unto the end of the worldwhence we are justified in thinking and speaking of Him as present. Deu 31:4. Cramer: If God promises that He will do any thing, He confirms it by examples from what He has already done. Deu 31:7 sq. Berl. Bib.: It is well when subjects and rulers mutually seek the blessing of God. Osiander: Soldiers should not rely upon their power and strength, but should lay their hopes upon God. Deu 31:13. Starke: The Scriptures should be taught even to the little children. Deu 31:15. Starke: Where two or three are gathered in the name of Christ, there He is in the midst of them. Zinzendorf: But we have other eyes. Every child of God has spiritual senses, without which he cannot enter the kingdom of God, and with which he knows inwardly and truly the Saviour. Deu 31:16. Starke: God knows all things and understands the thoughts of men afar off, Psalms 139. Deu 31:19. Zinzendorf: It is an old and well-known fact that the song is the best method of bringing the truths of God into the heart, and of preserving them there. Deu 31:20. Starke: We should not be secure in favorable circumstances; Lord, give me only my allotted part, Pro 30:8. Deu 31:22. V. Gerlach: Moses thus has occasion to place his own testimony beneath his work,that he has written down the whole law. Deu 31:24. Starke: The sacred scripture is not incomplete, 2Ti 3:16. Deu 31:26. Cramer: Gods word is the blessed accompaniment and the true treasure of the Church. Upon Deu 31:29 comp. Act 20:29. Deu 31:30. V. Gerlach: A precedent for many predictions of the prophets.

Footnotes:

[1][Deu 31:16. Schroeders suggestion here adds nothing to our version, which is literal, and conveys the full sense of the original.A. G.].

[2][Deu 31:20. Hiphil, I will cause them to come. The construction is more direct and simple than in our version.A. G.].

[3][Deu 31:21. Literally: Is doing, denoting the process already going on, and one which would continue.A. G.].

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

CONTENTS

The man of GOD, having finished his sermon to the people, in this chapter makes a particular address to Joshua, whom the LORD had appointed as his successor: enjoins him to be valiant for GOD, and assures him of the divine favor: Moses gives the law which he had written to the priests, commanding it to be read every seventh year. By the LORD’S foretelling Moses, he admonishes them of their degeneracy. He writes a song and rehearseth it in the ears of the people, which song is contained in the succeeding chapter.

Deu 31:1

There is somewhat very interesting in this view of Moses, and in the subject of his long sermon. The law, as a prelude to the gospel, is always interesting; for by the law, saith an apostle, is the knowledge of sin. Rom 3:20 . And certain it is, that the law is the truest schoolmaster unto CHRIST. Gal 3:24 .

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Deu 31:23

Moses, in God’s name, did counsel Joshua, Be strong and of a good courage: for thou shalt bring the children of Israel into the land which I sware unto them. God immediately did command him (Jos 1:6 ), Be strong and of a good courage; and again (v. 7), Only be thou strong and very courageous; and again (v. 9), Have I not commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage. Lastly, the Reubenites and Gadites heartily desired him (v. 18), Only be strong and of a good courage. Was Joshua a dunce or a coward? Did his wit or his valour want an edge, that the same precept must so often be pressed upon him? No doubt neither, but God saw it needful that Joshua should have courage of proof, who was to encounter both the froward Jew and the fierce Canaanite. Though metal on metal, colour on colour, be false heraldry, line on line, precept on precept is true divinity.

Thomas Fuller.

Deu 31:26

St. John of the Cross says that God commanded that nothing should be placed within the ark which contained the manna except the book of the law and Aaron’s rod, ‘which signifies the Cross’. ‘Thus the soul which cares for no other thing except to keep perfectly the Law of the Lord and to bear the Cross of Christ, will be a true Ark which will have within it the true Manna, which is God.’

Obras, Vol. 1. p. 22.

References. XXXII. 11, 12. J. M. Neale, Sermons Preached in a Religious House, vol. ii. p. 331. W. J. Brock, Sermons, p. 1. W. M. Taylor, The Limitations of Life, p. 78. XXXII. 20. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxx. No. 1784. XXXI. -XXXII. Ibid. p. 341. J. Monro-Gibson, The Mosaic Era, p. 333. XXXII. 8, 9. M. Dods, Israel’s Iron Age, p. 172. XXXII. 31. J. Barton Bell, Christian World Pulpit, 1890, p. 74. D. Moore, Penny Pulpit, No. 3342. P. McAdam Muir, Modern Substitutes for Christianity, p. 173. XXXII. 39. Bishop Alexander, The Great Question, p. 30. XXXII. 47. H. J. Buxton, God’s Heroes, p. 226. XXXII. 48-50. C. D. Bell, Hills that Bring Peace, p. 143. XXXII. 48-62. J. W. Boulding, Sermons, p. 1. XXXII. 52. R. Betts, Christian World Pulpit, 1890, p. 51.

Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson

The Last Song

Deuteronomy 31-32

The old man whom we have known so long dies singing. All men should die so; all men may so die: God is not sparing in his gift of song or privilege of music: music was in his purpose long before speech: all things are to end in a great song. What speeches may be delivered on high we cannot tell: few if any have been reported even by dreamers and seers; but they have all told us of the singing that characterises life in the upper spaces: they quote the very words of the noble song; they give some idea of the innumerableness of the numbers who sing the triumphant hymn. God means, therefore, that every life should end in a song not necessarily in the mechanical definition of that term, but as to its spiritual scope and meaning: there is triumph in serenity yea, serenity may be the last expression of triumph. There are songs without words: there is singing without articulate and audible voice: we may sing with the spirit and with the understanding. Blessed are they who, before going up to Nebo to die, sing in the valley, and, so to say, pass out of sight with their singing robes around them; to this end we are invited in Christ, and in Christ this is the only possible end namely, triumph, song; the rapture of expectancy, and the inspiration of hope.

The song was to be a “witness” for God “against” the children of Israel, say, rather, as between himself and the children of Israel. Witness does not always imply accusation: it quite as frequently implies confirmation, endorsement, approval; it embodies in itself a sure testimony, strong because of its indisputableness. God is said to be “Judge,” and we too frequently attach somewhat of harshness to that word; in many of its relations it is noble in its tenderness: it is a refuge to which the soul may continually flee. God is the “Judge” of the widow and the fatherless. Does the Scripture mean that God will hold them to standards that are severe and bind upon them penalties which are intolerable? On the contrary: instead of Judge, say “Vindicator.” God is the Judge of the widow and fatherless: he will hear their cause and determine it; he will attemper judgment with mercy: in wrath he will remember mercy; to the Judge of all the earth all good causes may appeal, and all weakness, and all inculpable infirmity, and all broken-heartedness. God is the Judge of the little, the mean, the helpless, the widow, the orphan. The word “witness” is to be interpreted after some such fashion. The song is not to be put up to accuse the children of Israel only: it is not an impeachment merely; it is a witness, a record, a testimony, a distinct writing that can be appealed to in all critical or ambiguous circumstances.

Moses wrote the song “the same day.” We speak of our efforts of genius, and the time required for the elaboration of this or that attempt to serve the sanctuary; but if you can write a song at all you can write it at once. Herein the great French poet’s dictum is true: said one to Victor Hugo, “Is it not difficult to write epic poetry?” “No,” said the great genius of his day, “No: easy or impossible.” “Difficult” implies that the poetry can be written with due time, and after due effort; but the French judge would have no such construction put upon the term. Poetry is breathing, looking, the last expression of inspired genius. Moses wrote the song “the same day:” he could not stop the rush of the musical storm: the moment he got the first note he had all the rest in him. How many men would be burning lives, in all the best sense of ardour, if they could but get the first spark! they have fuel enough in them: they have great latent power; but they have not the starting spark, the first ignition, which would set on a blaze whole volumes of noble matter.

Moses has been trained to this effort: he has sung before; but he always sings after great disclosures of the divine face after the most vivid consciousness of the divine presence and touch. His songs are all in the same key: they roll along the same lofty level; they never beat into weakness, they are never impaired by meanness; from end to end they are God’s own songs, and Moses seems to have been but a hand in the grasp of Omnipotence when he traces the immortal words. Such is to be our ministry; such is to be our life: “We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.”

What are the characteristics of a great song? The first most noticeable characteristic of this song is that it is intensely theological. The keyword is GOD in his majesty, in his com passion, in his righteousness, in his tears God in a species of incarnation thousands of years before the event of Bethlehem. Without God there is no song that fills the whole arch; there are snatches of song that want unity, cohesion, and massiveness, stray notes, wandering chords, confused vibrations; but in God you have the upgathering of every chord, bar, suggestion, and tone of music: he is the centralising, uniting, all-cohering force. Have nothing to do with songs that do not lead up to God. This will not exclude many songs that are supposed to be of a secular kind. Who made the earth? Who cut off the little slice from eternity which we call time? God is the God of the whole world, and his is the fulness of the sea. Many a song that dips down towards recreation, amusement, entertainment, may have in it the true music of heaven; let such be the beginning, and let the end be grand as thunder, solemn as lightning, appalling as the height of heaven.

Another characteristic of the song is its broad human history. Read the thirty-second chapter from end to end, and you will find it a record of historical events. Facts are the pedestals on which we set sculptured music. We must know our own history if we would know the highest religious arguments, and apply with unquestionable and beneficent skill great Christian appeals. The witness must be in ourselves: we must know, and taste, and feel, and handle of the word of life, and live upon it, returning to it as hunger returns to bread and thirst flies swiftly to sparkling fountains. We do not live upon the history of other people: we only read the history of Israel to show how true it is that God is one and that his government is an indissoluble whole. To the Christian student there is no ancient history in the sense of history that is antiquated, obsolete, and no longer applicable to human circumstances. What we call ancient history was done yesterday from a divine point of view; from that point of view, indeed, there is but one day, quick with the tumultuous pulses of a thousand years. As we have often seen, we impoverish ourselves and lower the temperature of all noblest history by causing great spaces to intervene between our personal consciousness and the actual transaction of the events. Everything has occurred today. Early on the summer morning God said, “Let there be light,” and the east whitened, and the dawn blushed, and over all the hills and vales and streams there came a tender glory. This very morning God shaped us in his own image and likeness. He was with us in the darkness, bearing our aching and weary heads, remaking us, reconstructing us, putting a distance between ourselves and our last sin and our most recent failure, and setting us up in the strength of recruited power to attempt the labour of another day. Speak not of ancient history in any sense that severs present consciousness from the eternal providence of God. When you are doubtful as to religious mysteries, read your own personal record; when metaphysics are too high or too deep, peruse facts, put the pieces of your lives together: see how they become a shape a house not made with hands, a temple fashioned in heaven. The days are not to be detached from one another: they are to be linked on and held in all the symbolism and reality of their unity. Hence, another characteristic of the song is its record of providence. God found Jacob

“In a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: so the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him” ( Deu 32:10-12 ),

“Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation” ( Deu 32:15 ).

Moses able to say all this after such experience as he knew! This is a noble testimony; this, indeed, is a complete and happy vindication of the ways of God to man. It is Moses who writes this; no poet was created for the purpose: no hidden genius or flower born to blush unseen and waste its sweetness on the desert air was developed for the purpose of writing these noble stanzas, these rolling, thunderous bursts of song. The old legislator, the holy leader, the man who had to bear so much, who knew all the providence of God in human history even from the beginning to the end he was elected to be poet. That is God’s way. Serve on faithfully; bend the back, use your arms, toil in the dust; but whatever you do carry it out with both hands, with reality and simplicity of purpose; and, by-and-by, when the poet is wanted, you, toiler, may be told to stand up and sing. This is the loving way of God: those who pass his scrutiny go in through the gate of pearl to sing on the inner side: after hearing God’s “Well done, good and faithful servant,” everything but a song becomes impossible; from that poetry there can be no apostasy into prosaic moods and contracted spaces.

In this song we have the commandments all repeated, that is to say, you find nothing in the Ten Commandments, as to the formation of human character and the shaping of human destiny, that is not to be found in this great song. Commandments must be the severe side of true music; duty is only the outer aspect of song. Without the commandments of God there could be no songs of men with reality in them and with the fire pentecostal and the touch that gives immortality God will have his commandments honoured: first he will state them in plain, stern terms: “Thou shalt,” “Thou shalt not:” there shall be no mistake about the literal meaning of the commands of God; but after long years every commandment will come back again upon us in song, in appeal, in persuasion, in tears, in the Cross of Christ, and in all the love spoken by the Gospel. Thus the Bible is one: the spirit of the Bible is a spirit of righteousness, truth, compassion, redemption. Everything in human history is in the Pentateuch; every romance that can be read aloud and every true work of fiction repeats the commandments of Sinai. Men do more than perhaps they mean to do. We cannot escape the circle of God in any lawful industry, in any conscientious effort. A man shall set himself to depict in parable or fiction the life of his day; he may describe himself as an artist, he may even go so far as to describe himself as a mere artist a devotee of art, a student of proportion, perspective, and colour; he little knows that in proportion as he succeeds in rightly interpreting life he is a preacher. Great is the company of preachers! They would not be called by that name: they are suspicious of that limited term, because it has been limited by the very men who should have glorified it. You find all the fiction in the world that is true to human life in the parable of the Prodigal Son: the pen of fiction has never touched a point that is not involved within the sweep of that nobler delineation. The parables of Christ contain everything every spark of genius, every throb of poetry, every moral of sound teaching. So we return to find all the commandments of God in the last song of Moses; as God first gives the commandments, and then gives the history, and then gives the song, so all life is under his control, and he is revealing his purposes and providences in many a book never meant to call attention to his sovereignty. Many are called they know not why, or how, or to what end: the first may be last, the last may be first. As for those who are nominally Christians and preachers baptised men, anointed with a sacred unction what if they fall short of their calling and other men should come from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south, and they the supposed lineage of God should be shut out! The Christian reader of all history should make it his business to include, wherever he can, every effort and attempt made to lighten human burdens, to soothe human misery, and disentangle human perplexity; we cannot have such service described as worldly, secular, atheistic. He who dries a child’s innocent tears is by so much serving God; he who but closes his eyes silently before partaking of his food recognises a Hand unseen a Giver quite near; he who writes a poem for the purpose of brightening family life and cheering solitary wanderers he who leaves behind him some sign which may be seen after many days, that a forlorn and shipwrecked brother seeing may take heart again, is a minister not ordained by human touch or recognition of an ecclesiastical kind, but a helper in the human strife, a friend of the friendless. Do not reject commandments because they come in the form of song, and do not regard song as being destitute of the inspiration and virility of righteousness. The Bible combines strength and beauty, law and gospel Moses and the Lamb. Our life is meant to fall into music. Music is an abused term. The musicians have been as unkind to music as the theologians have been unkind to theology. Definitions need enlargement; terms need ampler reference and application. Many a man is musical who cannot sing; the spirit of music is in the man: he knows the true tone when he hears it not from the critical point of view but it touches his soul, comes into his being like an inspiration, and soothes him like a benediction, or stirs him like a war-trumpet. Music is the inheritance of little children the angel that sits upstairs watching the weak and the dying when hired eyes tire and fall into needed slumber. So with the Gospel of Jesus Christ: it has its stern theology, its profound metaphysics, its awful morality the very snow of heaven, the spotless whiteness of the ineffable purity; but it has its song, its musical strain, and it calls us all to walk in step to go processionally: our feet are to fall harmoniously: the whole motion of the Church is to be a motion united, massive, coherent, resonant, providences turned into psalms, afflictions elevated into music, and righteousness itself the stern commandment is to be made to take up the harp and re-express itself in tender strains. Do be musical, do be harmonious in life; as for the mere vocal exercise, that may be poor or uncultivated, but there is another kind of music a spiritual, intellectual, moral music, and to that we are all called a blessed, a sacred destiny.

Prayer

We would see Jesus. He is the fairest among ten thousand, and altogether lovely. Our eyes ever desire to look upon him, and now we have come to the place of his appointment. Where two or three are gathered together, there Jesus is in the midst; he is always the centre. We know him to be the way, the truth, and the life, and none may dispute his place. We will have this Man to reign over us, for it is his right to reign. We call him King of kings; we hail him Lord of lords; we bow down before him, and worship the Son of God, God the Son, Immanuel God with us. We have praises to sing, and we would sing them with a loud, clear voice. We are not ashamed of the providence of God. Thou art our Father: thou dost guide us with thine eye; thine arms are round about us; thy smile is our soul’s day, thy frown the night in which our soul trembles. Thou hast spread our table bountifully, so that our hunger has been more than satisfied; thou hast kept our house, so that there is peace at home; thou hast given us music in every room and light on every point of the dwelling; verily, thou art the God of the families of the earth, and our households trust in thee. As for our afflictions, it was good for us that we were afflicted: we were chastened, sobered, refined; there came into our voice a tenderer tone, and there settled in our hearts a nobler trust: thou hast sanctified thy chastening, and turned our smarting to our spiritual account. We bless the rod, we kiss the hand that lifted it, and at the grave-side we desire to say, It is well. For all thy mercies we bless thee for every flower that blooms, for every bird that sings, for every stream that moistens the green grass, for all the promise of the year, for a good seed-time and bay harvest, and prospect of plentifulness of bread; the Lord has been in the field, and the orchard, and the garden, and has filled the river with riches. Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power be unto the name of the God of Providence! We will not ask thee for the earth: it is too small a gift for a King; we want thyself, we desire thy Spirit, we yearn for clearer sight of thy love and for further hold of thy purpose, that when we are tossed upon the deep, the tumult may be but local, for in our souls immortal there is rest a deep and eternal tranquillity. We desire to read thy word with new vision, to enter into the spirit of its history and its prophecy, its minstrelsy and gospel, that the word of Christ may dwell in us richly, abounding in gracious fulness, so as to make the enemy afraid because of the holiness of our souls. We desire to see thee in all the way of life, to say every day, This is the Lord: lo, God was here, and I knew it not; and even among these rocks he has set up his ladder. We pray for one another: for the young, and the bright, and the tuneful, that they may rise up into nobleness and usefulness of life; for the sad and the weary; for the man who has just seen life’s emptiness, and turned away with discontent from the place where he meant to find his pleasure. Thou dost send that revelation upon us all; we say, Surely on the mountain-top we shall find our home, and, lo, we cannot stay there, because of the darkness, and the cold, and the dreariness of stony places. We said, Surely now we shall find what we needed of wealth, and beauty, and comfort, and enjoyment; now will begin the dance of pleasure, now will break out the music of lasting gladness; and, behold, we fell among serpents and into dangerous places, and every tree shook as with alarm, and the wind was full of fear. We now see that light is in heaven only, and rest in truth, and peace in faith, and joy in purity; thou hast scourged out of us our old vanities and misleading sophisms and false expectations, and now we see where the garden of the Lord is, and that it opens but at one place, and with one key Jesus, Son of Mary, Son of man, Son of God. We pray for the friends we love, and without whom we could not live the hearts we look for, the travellers we expect with joy, the souls that light every room of the house with tender glory; for our friends who are far away, across the great sea, in the colonies wanderers in places they have not yet known. We pray for those in trouble on the sea that great and terrible waste. We pray for all who are visiting us from distant places: may they feel at home; may there be some touch in thy house that they shall recognise with ardent love and thankfulness. We pray for our sick ones: some nigh unto death; some are sick of body weary, utterly exhausted: the grasshopper is a burden; others are ailing in mind: they are disappointed, they are mortified, they have not found what they expected: they dug in earth that they might find heaven, and, lo, heaven was not there. We pray for those whose graves are quite new, for the grass has not yet had time to grow upon them, there is not a flower upon the mould that hides the dead; be thou the resurrection and the life in the hearts of such, and make them glad even in the churchyard: turn that last resting-place into a garden of flowers, and make it a place where they will keep appointments with those who from death would learn how to live. The Lord be with us now; and we need no other presence. Amen.

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

(See the Deuteronomy Book Comments for Introductory content and Homiletic suggestions).

XIV

THIRD, FOURTH, AND FIFTH ORATIONS

Deu 27:1-31:13

It is customary to classify the words of Moses in Deuteronomy into three orations, a song and a benediction, but this classification is not exact. His third address is contained in Deuteronomy 27-28. A fourth distinct address with its introduction is contained in Deuteronomy 29-30. A fifth address distinct in introduction and matter is to be found in Deu 31 , covering only thirteen verses. So that there are at least five distinct addresses, besides the song and benediction, each with an appropriate historical introduction. We consider in this discussion the third, fourth, and fifth addresses.

THE THIRD ORATION

This oration first provided for a most elaborate and impressive renewal and ratification of the covenant when Israel shall have entered the Promised Land, and closes with a most earnest exhortation to obedience, including a notable and far reaching prophecy of the curses that will certainly follow disobedience. The parts of this third oration are very distinct:

(1) Associating with him the elders of Israel, he directs that on entrance into the Land of Promise, plastered monumental stones shall be erected on Mount Ebal and thereon plainly inscribed all the laws of the covenant, as a perpetual memorial and witness of their possession of the land by Jehovah’s power and grace, conditioned upon their observance of the terms of the covenant. What a lasting library of stone! What a witness to the grounds of their tenure of the land!

(2) The erection of an altar after the model given in the original covenant at Sinai (Exo 20:24-26 ) and the sacrifice thereon of burnt offerings as originally provided, thus renewing the ratification of the covenant.

(3) The sacrifice of peace offerings followed by a Joyful communion feast showing forth peace with Jehovah (arising from the blood of the covenant) and their enjoyment of him.

(4) Then associating himself with the priests and Levites, he provides for the solemn announcement that they are Jehovah’s people and must obey him.

(5) He then charges the whole people that on this great day they must take their places in two great divisions, six tribes on Gerizirn and six on Ebal, prepared to repeat after the Levites the responsive blessings and curses of the law.

He directs that on this great day the Levites shall stand in the valley between the two mountains and solemnly pronounce alternatively twelve blessings and twelve curses, the first eleven of each special statutes as specimens of the whole, and the twelfth of each touching the whole law as a unit. That as each course on disobedience is pronounced by the Levites, the six tribes on Ebal shall repeat it, and as the alternate blessing on obedience is pronounced, the other six tribes on Gerizirn shall repeat it, and when the twelfth blessing and curse touching the whole covenant are repeated, then all the tribes on both mountains in one loud, blended chorus shall say, “Amen.” We shall find in Joshua all these directions becoming history. The history of the world furnishes no parallel in solemnity and sublimity to this great transaction in conception here, and in fulfilment later.

Deu 28 is devoted to exhortation based upon these directions and prophecies. It is difficult to summarize this awful exhortation, but we may profitably emphasize the following points of the exhortation:

(1) If you keep this covenant you shall be blessed in national position and with God. Jehovah shall be your God and ye shall be the head and not the tail; shall be above and not below. Jehovah shall smite all your enemies. Coming against you in one way, they shall flee in seven ways. All other nations shall see that you are called by Jehovah’s name and shall be afraid. Jehovah will establish you as a holy people unto himself.

If ye keep this covenant ye shall be blessed in all places: in the city, in the field, in the home, in the barn, and in the kitchen.

Ye shall be cursed in all things: in children, in crops, in herds, in vineyards, in the seasons, and in business (lending to others but not borrowing), in health, in your outgoings and incomings, and especially in peace of mind and joy of heart.

(2) But if you disobey this covenant and break it, all these groups of blessings shall be reversed into their opposites: Ye shall lose your exalted position among the nations, and with God. Ye shall be outcasts from God; ye shall be the tail of all nations and not the head. Ye shall be beaten in wars; ye shall flee in all battles; ye shall be dispersed seven ways where you went out one. Now you see this curse is national, just like the corresponding blessing was national. Ye shall be cursed in all places: in the city, in the home, in the field, in the barn, in the kitchen, and in all lands of dispersion.

Ye shall be cursed in all things: in children, in crops, in herds, vineyards, wars, outgoings, incomings, and especially shall ye be cursed in your mind and heart. Ye shall have neither peace of mind nor joy of heart. Here is the curse of mind and heart; it is as awful a thing as I ever read in my life:

“And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, and there shall be no rest for the sole of thy foot: but Jehovah will give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and pining of soul; and thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear night and day, and shalt have no assurance of thy life. In the morning thou shalt say, Would it were even I And at even thou shalt say, Would it were morning! for the fear of thy heart which thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see” (Deu 28:65-67 ). Note particularly the awful picture of their disaster when besieged by enemies, as set forth in Deu 28:49-57 , so literally fulfilled when Jerusalem was taken by Titus in A.D. 70, and so fearfully depicted by Josephus. The prophecy closes with a reversal of their deliverance from Egypt since as captives they again shall be transported back in ships to become once more a nation of slaves in Egypt. This going into Egyptian bondage we shall find verified in the closing days of Jeremiah. His book of Lamentations furnishes the commentary on a part of this fearful prophecy. Poor man! he himself was carried there, and died there at the downfall of the Jewish monarchy.

FOURTH ORATION

The fourth address is contained in Deuteronomy 29-30, according to our chapter divisions. The occasion of this address as set forth in the introductory verse is a special present renewing of the Sinaitic covenant by oath, but it is not followed by ratification by sacrifices. The address recites again their miraculous deliverance from Egypt by Jehovah with signs and wonders, his merciful providence in miraculously supplying all their needs throughout their wanderings even though they had not eyes to see nor heart to appreciate. These blessings were light by night and shade by day, guidance in travel, water from the rock, bread from heaven, clothing and shoes that did not wax old or wear out, oracles for perplexities, forgiveness of sin through faith in the antitype of sacrifices, healing when poisoned, health so miraculous that there was not a feeble one in all the host, deliverance in battle. And now after reciting the Egyptian deliverance and the providential miracles while wandering, he tells them that they all stand before Jehovah to renew the oath of the covenant. Particularly note how comprehensive the statement of the human parties to the covenant:

“Ye stand this day all of you before Jehovah your God; your heads, your tribes, your elders, and your officers, even all the men of Israel, your little ones, your wives, and thy sojourner that is in the midst of thy camps, from the hewer of thy wood unto the drawer of thy water; that thou mayest enter into the covenant of Jehovah thy God, and into his oath, which Jehovah thy God maketh with thee this day; that he may establish thee this day unto himself for a people, and that he may be unto thee a God, as he spake unto thee, and as he sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. Neither with you only do I make this covenant and this oath, etc.”

Elders, tribes, officers, men, women, children, sojourners, and slaves and their children to the latest posterity, and as a national unit, and all touching every individual are bound by this covenant. Now later after that statement of the case he commences his exhortation:

(1) He warns against the arising of any root or germ of bitterness (Deu 29:18 ). How radical the law! It does not wait to condemn the stem, or branches, or flowers, or fruit, but strikes at the root hidden from sight. So our Saviour interprets the law condemning the heart fountain from which flow all the streams of blasphemy, murder, adultery, and other overt actions. And so the wise man: “Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.” And so the letter to the Hebrews quotes this very passage (Heb 12:15 ) warning them “lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby the many be defiled.”

(2) The second point in his exhortation is that he warns them against the vain confidence of security, even though the law be broken. He describes a man or a woman in confidence saying to the heart: “I am all right if I did break the law,” that vain confidence of feeling secure with the law broken, and then he goes on to show that nothing under the heavens is so certain as that Jehovah saw that breach of the covenant and will punish it.

(3) He foretells that other nations in future days, seeing the awful desolation of their once beautiful land, shall count it a land accursed of God on account of the sins of Israel. That is just exactly what you would say if you were to go there and look at the country. You would be astonished that such a land was ever described as flowing with milk and honey; you would not be able to understand how such a land ever was so beautiful and fruitful as described. You would see it under a curse.

(4) He warns them that while some things are hidden, inscrutable, the property of God, the revealed things touching both blessing and curse belong to them and to their children. Whatever God reveals, that is worthy of study; whatever he hides, let it alone.

(5) Then he graciously unfolds this special mercy of God, that if when smitten and scattered and oppressed by all other nations they will in far-off lands of exile and dispersion repent and turn to God, he will forgive and restore them. It was this promise of restoration that prompted the notable paragraph in Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the temple (1Ki 8:33-40 ), and encouraged the later prophets, like Zechariah, Ezekiel and Daniel in days of exile, and still later the Apostles, like Paul in his discussion, Rom 11 , concerning the restoration of the Jews.

(6) He then assures them that obedience to this law is neither too hard nor too far off, but very nigh to them. Alas, it was both too far off and too hard to be obeyed by unrenewed and unbelieving hearts without faith in Christ. It remained for Paul, a later Jew, and the only other man in all show how by faith alone this salvation was both nigh and easy. (See Rom 10 .)

He closes with a most touching invocation to both heaven and earth to bear witness that he that very day set before them these awful, inexorable alternatives: Life and good go together; death and evil are indissoluble.

FIFTH ORATION

This, the last and shortest address, is contained in Deu 31:1-13 . The first part, verses Deu 31:1-8 , touchingly refers to his age, “I am now one hundred and twenty years old,” and to the vacation of his office. The great leader can no more go out and come in before them. But they need neither despair nor fear on that account. God’s cause does not die with its great advocates. Moses indeed will be gone, but Jehovah himself will remain their guide and protector. And even a human successor, Joshua, has already been trained to be their captain.

The second part of this last oration directs that every seventh year, the year of release, the great Land Sabbath, a sabbath a year long, the whole people must be assembled, men, women and children, and that very year in which they have to do no work because the land lies idle, is to be devoted to studying and understanding the entire Pentateuch. I am sometimes blamed for devoting so much time to the Pentateuch. Here is my warrant. The year of the Land Sabbath was to be so devoted. It calls for a year. Happy the man who can master it in one year. What a Sunday school is here, men, women and children devoting a year to the study of the Law! Let us here find the original Sunday school idea; that it is not a school for only little children. The Sunday school idea is that men, women, and children shall come together and hear and be made to understand that Word of God. For example of fulfilment, see the remarkable history in Neh 8:1-8 . Illustrations may be given of the tremendous power of even a month’s concentration of mind on one study, viz.: the case of a thirty days’ school in geography, arithmetic, writing or mathematics. I would suggest the trial of one summer month devoted to the Pentateuch, the Gospels, Paul’s Letters, Eschatology, the Prophets) the Poetical Books, or the Monarchy.

QUESTIONS

1. What chapters contain the third oration and of what does it consist?

2. Itemize the provisions for a renewal of the covenant after entrance into the Promised Land.

3. Of what does the twenty-eighth chapter consist?

4. Give a summary of the exhortation based on the required renewal of the covenant.

5. What the blessings promised for obedience?

6. What the curses threatened for disobedience?

7. What chapters contain the fourth oration?

8. What its occasion?

9. In what does it consist?

10. Wherein does this retaking of the oath of the covenant in Oration Four, before they cross the Jordan, differ from the full renewal of the covenant required after they cross the Jordan, aa set forth in Oration Three?

11. What blessings recited here?

12. Who were the human parties to the covenant?

13. Give a summary of the exhortation of the Fourth Oration.

14. How does he close this oration?

15. Where do we find the Fifth Oration?

16. In what does it consist?

17. Did they ever, apart from the one case cited in Nehemiah, attempt even to keep any part of this Land Sabbath, or its culmination, the Year of Jubilee?

18. What exact and awful judgment in their later history became the penalty for disregarding the seventh year, or Land Sabbath, and its accompanying year-study of the Law?

19. Cite the scriptures that prove the enforcement of the penalty for not keeping it.

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

Deu 31:1 And Moses went and spake these words unto all Israel.

Ver. 1. Went and spake, ] i.e., Went on to speak, setting things in order before his death.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Deu 31:1-6

1So Moses went and spoke these words to all Israel. 2And he said to them, I am a hundred and twenty years old today; I am no longer able to come and go, and the LORD has said to me, ‘You shall not cross this Jordan.’ 3It is the LORD your God who will cross ahead of you; He will destroy these nations before you, and you shall dispossess them. Joshua is the one who will cross ahead of you, just as the LORD has spoken. 4The LORD will do to them just as He did to Sihon and Og, the kings of the Amorites, and to their land, when He destroyed them. 5The LORD will deliver them up before you, and you shall do to them according to all the commandments which I have commanded you. 6Be strong and courageous, do not be afraid or tremble at them, for the LORD your God is the one who goes with you. He will not fail you or forsake you.

Deu 31:1 spoke these words Possibly this should be finished speaking, following the Septuagint and some manuscripts of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which transpose two Hebrew consonants (cf. NRSV, REB). This is the end of Moses’ three sermons.

Deu 31:2 I am a hundred and twenty Moses’ life of 120 years (cf. Deu 34:7) can be divided into three 40 year segments. Moses was 40 years being prepared at the royal academies of Egypt, 40 years in the desert training for his call, and 40 years from the time of the burning bush to the present (cf. Exo 7:7 and Act 7:23 ff). Why mention his age? These are possible reasons: (1) in Egyptian literature 110 years was the age of wise men, but in Syria it was 120 years; (2) age limit of Gen 6:3; or (3) another excuse of Moses for why he will not lead them into the Promised Land.

I am no longer able to come and go This is a Hebrew idiom for vitality (Jos 14:11; NRSV, TEV, NJB, JPSOA)! However, old age had not taken away Moses’ strength, cf. Deuteronomy 34. Possibly this was an excuse (cf. Deu 1:37) related to Moses’ public disobedience recorded in Num 20:11-12. Deu 3:23-29 records Moses’ pleading with God to let him enter the Promised Land (cf. Deu 32:48-52).

Deu 31:3 the LORD your God who will cross ahead of you God fights for them, though they must prepare for battle and participate (cf. Deu 31:3-6, i.e., holy war terminology). Moses was a tool used by God. God, Himself, was the one who delivered the people. In reality it is YHWH, not Joshua, who goes into battle ahead of His people!

Joshua is the one who will cross ahead of you A new leader was needed because of Moses’ disobedience. God will be with Joshua, but he too must do his covenant obligations (cf. Deu 1:38; Deu 3:28).

Deu 31:6 Be strong and courageous This verse has several imperatival forms:

1. be strong – BDB 304, KB 302, Qal IMPERATIVE, cf. Deu 31:7; Deu 31:23

2. be courageous – BDB 54, KB 65, Qal IMPERATIVE, cf. Deu 31:7; Deu 31:23

3. do not be afraid – BDB 431, KB 432, negated Qal IMPERFECT, used in a JUSSIVE sense

4. do not tremble – BDB 791, KB 888, negated Qal IMPERFECT, used in a JUSSIVE sense, cf. Deu 1:29; Deu 7:21; Deu 20:3; Jos 1:9

Numbers 1, 2 are repeated by Moses to Joshua in Deu 31:7 and Numbers 3, 4 are repeated in Deu 31:8 (#4 is parallel, but a different VERB, be dismayed, BDB 369, KB 365, Qal IMPERFECT).

A proper attitude and faith are essential! There are giants in the land, but YHWH is with His people (cf. Deu 31:3-6).

He will not fail you or forsake you

1. YHWH goes with them (i.e., walks, BDB 229, KB 246, Qal ACTIVE PARTICIPLE)

2. YHWH will not fail them (i.e., abandon, BDB 951, KB 1276, Hiphil IMPERFECT)

3. YHWH will not forsake them (leave, BDB 736 I, KB 806, Qal IMPERFECT, cf. Gen 28:15)

This promise is repeated to Joshua in Jos 1:5 and is repeated as a promise to NT believers in Heb 13:5! Our hope is in the unchanging gracious character of YHWH (e.g., Exo 34:6; Neh 9:17; Psa 103:8; Psa 145:8; Joe 2:13)!

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

these words. The Massorah itself, with Targum of Onkelos, Septuagint, Syriac, and Vulgate, read “all these words”. This is the beginning of the seventh address, which ends with Deu 31:6.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Chapter 31

So Moses, chapter thirty-one, went and spoke these words to all Israel. And he said unto them, I am now a hundred and twenty years old today ( Deu 31:1-2 ).

Happy birthday, dear Moses. One hundred and twenty years old. Ah, what a character, what a beautiful character this man is, one who walked with God in such an intimate way. He said,

I can no more go out and come in: also the LORD had said unto me, You are to go over this Jordan ( Deu 31:2 ).

I can’t go with you; I have brought you as far as I can.

It is interesting to me that Moses who is representing the law could only bring them to the Promised Land. He could not take them in. The law cannot take you into the full blessings of God. Grace must do that. So the law could only bring them to the border of the land. Now it’s up to Joshua to take them in. And so, it’s typical of our lives: the law cannot bring you into that glorious rich life in the Spirit. It can only bring you to it, but by grace and faith we must enter in.

Now the LORD is going to go before you, and He is going to drive out these nations just like He has driven out Og and Sihon. Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the LORD thy God, he it is that goes before you; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. And Moses called unto Joshua, and said unto him in the sight of all Israel, Be strong and of a good courage: for thou must go with this people into the land which the LORD hath sworn unto their fathers to give them; and thou shalt cause them to inherit it. And the LORD, he it is that goes before you; he will be with you, he will not fail you, neither forsake you: fear not, neither be dismayed ( Deu 31:3-8 ).

Isn’t that a glorious charge? Here’s Joshua, been depending upon Moses for a long time. He’s been his servant. Now Moses said, “Okay Joshua, you’re going to take over”. Oh, that’s an awesome thing. Fear would grip your heart, but Moses said, “Be strong, be of good courage, for the Lord is the one who is going to go before you. He will be with you. He will not fail or forsake you”.

So Moses wrote the law. And again notice this, Moses wrote the law. For all those theological scholars who want to, you know, argue about who wrote the five books. If they would only read them, they will find out they tell them. Moses wrote this law and delivered it to the priest, the sons of Levi.

And Moses commanded them saying, At the end of every seven years, in the solemnity of the year of release, in the feast of tabernacles, When Israel is come to appear before the LORD thy God in the place which He shall choose, thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their hearing ( Deu 31:10-11 ).

So every seven years at the Feast of Tabernacles when they came to Jerusalem, they were to get out this law of Moses and read it for all the people. Now we’re several months going through this thing reading it. So that must have been quite a thing.

Now we remember when Ezra returned from captivity and they gathered the people back into the land that they found the law. They opened it and began to read it and the people stood from morning till evening as the law of God was read. And they covered their heads and began to weep as they realized how much they had failed God. And as they realized from the law of God that their failure was the thing that caused them to be delivered into Babylon and all. So they read the law in the time of Ezra and they gave the explanation. They did this for several days. The people would stand there from morning till evening as the law was read and explained to them, as the people repented before God after the return from Babylon captivity. Quite a fascinating experience, and here there is that command. Every seventh year, the year of release, the law was to be read at the Feast of Tabernacles.

Gather the people together, the men, and the women, and the children, the stranger that are within your gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn, and that they may fear the LORD your God, and observe to do all the words of this law ( Deu 31:12 ):

So these four things: They were to hear it, they were to learn it, they were to reverence God, and they were to observe to do the law.

Verse fourteen,

And the LORD said unto Moses, Behold, thy days approach that thou must die: call Joshua, and present yourselves in the tabernacle of the congregation, that I may give him a charge. And Moses and Joshua went, and presented themselves in the tabernacle of the congregation. And the LORD appeared in the tabernacle in a pillar of a cloud: and the pillar of the cloud stood over the door of the tabernacle. And the LORD said unto Moses, Behold, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers; and this people will rise up, and go whoring after the gods of the strangers of the land, whither they go to be among them, and will forsake me, and break my covenant which I have made with them ( Deu 31:14-16 ).

Now God is telling Moses, flat, “Moses, these people are going to go in and they are going to mess up. They are going to start whoring after the gods of the land. They are going to forsake Me. They are going to start following these other gods.” How discouraging it must be to have foreknowledge.

Then my anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall befall them; so that they will say in that day, Are not these evils come upon us, because our God is not among us? And I will hide my face in that day for all the evils which they shall have wrought, in that they are turned unto other gods. Now therefore write this song for you, and teach it the children of Israel: put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the children of Israel ( Deu 31:17-19 ).

In other words, now write this song for them. And the song is something they will remember and later on when the calamities happen, they will still be singing this song, but as they sing it, then all of a sudden they’ll begin to understand it. The song will be a reminder to them of the reason why the calamities have befallen them is because they have forsaken God. So the Song of Moses that he was to teach to the children of Israel in order that when the calamities came, it would remind them and be a testimony or a witness against them.

And it shall come to pass, when many evils and troubles are befallen them, verse twenty-one, that this song shall testify against them as a witness: for it will not be forgotten. So Moses wrote this song the same day, taught it to the children of Israel. And to Joshua he said, Be strong, be of good courage for thou shalt bring the children of Israel into the land which I sware unto them: and I will be with thee. And it came to pass, when Moses made an end of writing the words, (And again it tells us) that Moses made an end of the writing of the words of this law in a book till they were finished. Then Moses commanded the Levites, which bare the ark of the covenant of the LORD, saying, Take this book of the law, and put it in the ark of the covenant as it is to be preserved there. And so Moses spake into the ears of the congregation of Israel the words of this song, until they were ended ( Deu 31:21-24 ),

“

Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary

At the conclusion of his fourth discourse, Moses talked to the people concerning his own departure and encouraged them in view of the fact that they were coming into the land by assuring them of the continued presence and power of God. To Joshua also he spoke words of the same kind.

It is very beautiful to see Moses in his last days on earth attempting in every way in his power to impress on the people the fact that only one thing matteredthat they should remember God and obey Him. Here it is distinctly stated that Moses wrote the words of the Law. This was probably among the last things he did.

In the final movement of this particular chapter we have an account of matters preceding the public uttering of the great song of Moses. First he and Joshua appeared before the Lord in order that Joshua might be officially appointed to succeed Moses as administrator of affairs.

Jehovah then spoke to His servant, telling him that the time had come for him to sleep with his fathers, that the people whom he had led would fulfil his predictions concerning their failure, and that God would visit them with the punishments previously announced.

It was a gloomy outlook for the great leader, but it was the occasion of one of those manifestations of the divine love which are ever full of beauty. He was commanded to write a song, the purpose of which was distinctly, stated. The song embodied in the national life would remain, from generation to generation, a haunting memory testifying to truth concerning God. Songs often remain after commandments are forgotten, and it was that this might be so that Moses was instructed to write. The song was written and taught to the people. The Law was written and committed to the priests.

Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible

the Great Lawgivers Parting Instructions

Deu 31:1-13

This chapter is a link between sunset and sunrise. God buries His workers, but carries on His work. None are indispensable. Moses is succeeded by Joshua; Stephen by Paul. The grass withereth but the word of our God shall stand forever.

The old Lawgiver passes on the assurances on which he had rested. After all, men are but the figureheads of movements which are greater than themselves. God goes before; God destroys; God accompanies and delivers. Let timid souls take courage. When the Good Shepherd puts them forth He precedes them, Joh 10:4; the iron gates stand open at His summons, and the big stones are rolled from the door of the sepulchers, Act 12:10; Mar 16:3. He will not fail thee, etc., reappears in Heb 13:5, as the right of all believers. It is for me and thee!

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

Deu 31:13

I. Godliness in children is accounted by Christians generally to be extraordinary, or at least uncommon, and perhaps there are but few godly children. But there is no theory of Christian doctrine with which we are acquainted which excludes children from the experience and practice of godly life. In the present state of human nature, the two fundamental principles of religious life are repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ, and there is nothing in childhood which prevents repentance and faith becoming living and abiding sources of action in children.

II. We must admit that a child’s knowledge of sin is necessarily small, that its sense of sin is feeble, and its sorrow for sin shallow. But then it must be remembered that, comparatively speaking, the actual transgressions of children are but few, and that godly sorrow is a slow growth, even in the adult convert. If the understanding of a child be less enlightened, the soul is more sensitive; if the judgment be less formed, the conscience is more tender; if there be but little strength of purpose, the heart is less hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

III. If decided piety be within reach of a child, how is it that the absence of godliness from children does not more distress us, and that piety in children is not more our aim and hope, and that it is not more frequently the burden of our prayer? Because godliness is not looked for in children; it is not seen where in many cases it exists; and the signs of it are not trusted when they are clearly manifest.

IV. Godly children are God’s workmanship, created by Jesus Christ, and if we would be the means of leading children into true godliness, we must bid them look to our Saviour Jesus.

S. Martin, Rain, upon the Mown Grass, p. 404.

Deu 31:14

I. Those who live chiefly for this world try not to think of death, because they would like nothing better than to live on here for ever. But the shutting of our eyes to the approach of death does not make him turn away from us, and therefore our wisest and safest course is to prepare for his coming, whether it be near or far off.

II. Death does not occupy that place in the word of God which it does occupy in that religion of ours which professes to be derived from the word of God. In the New Testament death is simply treated as an abolished thing. The second coming of Christ is always, in the exhortations of the New Testament, substituted for death. Death, in the eye of faith, is not the end, but the beginning, of all; it is the commencement of the “life that knows no ending.”

III. If Christ has robbed death of its sting, it does not behove us to look at death as if He had not done so. Let us view the approach of death as something which He means should bring us nearer to Him. We must pray Him, since the days approach in which we must die, that death may not find us unprepared. And as we look forward to the future, we must commit our way and ourselves into His keeping.

F. E. Paget, Village Sermons: Advent to Whit Sunday, p. 44.

References: Deu 31:14.-Parker, vol. iv., p. 333. Deu 31:23.-I. Williams, Characters of the Old Testament, p. 138. Deut 31, Deut 32-Ibid., p. 341; J. Monro Gibson, The Mosaic Era, p. 333. Deu 32:3.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vii., No. 367. Deu 32:5.-Ibid., vol. xiii., No. 780; Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 359. Deu 32:8, Deu 32:9.-M. Dods, Israel’s Iron Age, p. 172. Deu 32:8-13.-F. Whitfield, The Blessings of the Tribes, p. 247. Deu 32:9.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. viii., p. 451; Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 320; A. Maclaren, A Year’s Ministry, 1st series, p. 221; W. Wilkinson, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. viii., p. 132. Deu 32:11.-G. Morrison, The House of God, p. 46.

Fuente: The Sermon Bible

III. THE FINAL WORDS OF MOSES AND THE VISION OF THE FUTURE

1. Moses Final Charge, The Written Law Delivered, and Jehovahs Word to Moses

CHAPTER 31

1. The final charge of Moses (Deu 31:1-8)

2. The written law delivered (Deu 31:9-13)

3. Jehovahs word to Moses–Moses to Joshua (Deu 31:14-23)

4. A prophecy (Deu 31:24-30)

The final words of Moses to the people are full of tenderness and affection. There he stood, an hundred and twenty years old, a witness to the grace of His God. His eye was still the eye of youth, for it knew no dimness. And his frame was not bowed down by old age; there was no sign of feebleness about him (Deu 34:7). The words I can no more go out and come in are not in clash with the statement about his physical condition. He knew that he had to die because the Lord had told him so. He encouraged the people to trust in the Lord and assured them that the Lord would give them victory. He it is who doth go with thee; He will not fail thee nor forsake thee. Precious words these! And the same Jehovah is on our side, never to leave nor forsake His people. May we walk in the obedience of faith and find that His promise is true. Then followed an impressive scene. Joshua is called and in the sight of all Israel Moses addressed him. Joshua would bring them into the land. The same words given to Moses by the Lord to address to Joshua were spoken again to Joshua by the Lord Himself (Josh. 1).

The law, which Moses had written was next delivered unto the Levites. Moses wrote this law. Could there be a more emphatic statement than this! And this declaration that Moses wrote this law is confirmed by our Lord, the same Lord who spoke to Moses and whose words and laws Moses committed to writing. The denial of the Mosaic authorship includes the denial of the infallibility of the Son of God. It is infidelity. The infidels of the past ridiculed the teaching that Moses wrote the five books of the law. The infidels of Christendom do now the same. And this law was to be read before all Israel at the feast of tabernacles. They were to be dependent upon the Word of God and learn, fear, and obey by reading and hearing it. Our dependence is the same. Apart from believing and obeying the Word, spiritual life, walking in the Spirit, in fellowship with God, is impossible.

Then the Lord appeared in the tabernacle in a pillar of cloud, when Moses and Joshua presented themselves in the tabernacle of the congregation. The omniscient One, who knows everything from the beginning, announced the failure and apostasy of the nation, with whom He had dealt in such marvellous kindness, and who had been the witnesses of His power and glory. They would break the covenant and apostatize. He would forsake them also, because they turned away from Him to go a whoring after other gods. He would hide His face. All the predicted and threatened evils and troubles would come upon them. And their past, as well as present history, proves the solemn truth of these divine words. And there is one more chapter of their shameful history to be written. The great tribulation is still future. It will sweep over them in the days when the apostate nation will accept the false messiah, the Anti-christ, he who comes in his own name.

And Jehovah was to give Moses a song, which he was to teach Israel. The song is found in the chapter which follows. It has for its foundation the words of the Lord in verses 16-21. And Moses was obedient and wrote the same day and taught it to the children of Israel. It was a witness against them. It is so today. How striking that they should read this great final book of the law, read their own curses, their own history, past, present and future, and still abide in unbelief.

The parallel with the church is easy to recognize. Apostasy and failure were predicted for the latter days of the church on earth; that prediction was made in the very beginning of the church. How abundantly it has found its fulfillment! Compare Moses words in verse 29 with the words of Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, in Act 20:29-30.

Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)

Division 3. (Deu 31:1-30; Deu 32:1-52; Deu 33:1-29; Deu 34:1-12.)

The outcome, as revealed prophetically.

The substance of the third division of Deuteronomy is evidently prophetic -the song of Moses, and the blessing of the tribes, with which we have as introduction the leadership of the people committed to Joshua, and the law to the heads of the people. The last chapter, as an appendix to the whole, and of course by another hand, gives Moses’ vision of the land from Pisgah, with his death and burial by the Lord Himself.

1. Again we find, along with the giving of the law to the people, and the inspiriting words to them and their new leader to go in and take possession of the land, the positive assurance of the apostasy that would come, and the judgment of that apostasy. Even so the Church started with the assurance of latter day perilous times, the power of godliness denied, and the coming of Antichrist. Nor, in either case, was the beginning of this state of things far off. One generation only of Israel was faithful under Joshua, and then we have the confusion of the book of Judges. Paul lives to speak of all those in Asia having departed from him, and to find none in Rome to stand with him. While John writes already that it is (in principle) the last time, and that there are many Antichrists.

So little confidence can be placed in man; so surely does testing mean failure, even with the saint. History is a terrible witness against the pride of man; and prophecy, which is but divinely given history written beforehand, emphasizes the lesson. Instead of hiding the darkness of the future from those in the glow of first enthusiasm, God does the very reverse. He holds it up; He bids us never forget it; He sings it in our ears, making with it strange funeral music which shall linger there sweetly though sorrowfully: and why? Is this indeed armor for warriors, strength for a pilgrim path? Yes, it is a SONG; nay, it is a song of praise: “I will publish Jehovah’s name,” says Moses, “ascribe ye greatness unto our God.” Nor does He after all reign among ruins merely: He has a people whom He loves and cares for: “Jehovah’s portion is His people.” But the lesson needs to be well learnt, and emphasized with all the intensity of a prophet’s utterance: “Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord. Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is.” (Jer 17:5; Jer 17:7.) Thus we may have still a song over the destruction of all mere human hopes when they leave us the Lord to trust in, and make it our one necessity to trust in Him.

(1) They need not be afraid, then, though Moses’ strength is now to fail, nor to faint if even he be stricken of God and set aside. Jehovah abides, and He will go over before them and subdue all their enemies; Joshua too shall go before them: they shall have a leader, that they may learn subjection, and yet it must be God to whom they are really subject. Leader and people, let them be strong: for feebleness dishonors Him whose they are. He will not fail nor forsake.

(2) But they must have the law ever in remembrance. How strengthening and inspiriting a thing is it to have one’s life moulded by the declared will of God! What encouragement is there in the consciousness that one is simply obeying, and that the word we obey is perfect as it is authoritative! What a yoke is that which Christ gives, and which gives rest to the soul that takes it! We must not, of course, confuse the type and antitype here. But the principle has always been true, that the path of obedience is that of real strength and blessing and fruitfulness; and we need not wonder if the first psalm begins with this; for in this alone does God find His throne among men aright.

Moses therefore now gives them the law, and ordains it to be solemnly read to all the people every seventh year at the feast of tabernacles. In the midst of that which reminded them of the wilderness-course at an end for them and the land theirs by the favor of God, obedience could be most persuasively pressed upon them.

(3) Joshua is now called with Moses into the presence of the Lord Himself to receive his charge. It is thus with all true leaders. “Am I not an apostle? have I not seen the Lord?” Commissions must thus finally be given by the only One who has right to confer them, and who does not keep at a distance from Himself those whom He sends forth. Moses is also to write out the song which Israel is to learn, -the remedy against the evil it predicts for those who really; learn it; so gladly would divine love have, if it were possible, its prophecy made untrue, and the unrepenting One repent of what He is forced to do. (Jer 18:7-8.)

Alas! the book in the side of the ark, and the words of the song, are alike witnesses against the people of His choice.

2. We come now to the Song itself, a song which was, as we see, to have a peculiar place of testimony for God, and of warning to His people. Yet it is a “song,” and this we have seen to be significant. A “song” supposes in itself joy, and not sorrow; a battle-song, victory over enemies; a funeral song, victory over death. This of Moses unites these characters; and that it is above all a song of joy in God, explains all, assures that all must be. As joy, it is fitted to live in the heart; as a joy that does not ignore sorrow or make light of sin, the presence of these will only the more tend to preserve and give it power over the soul. It is truly a “song in the night,” and for the night, such as God alone could give, -a witness to the Giver.

(1) The real theme is in the first four verses: it is God Himself, the unchangeable One, faithful, just, and right. Well may the heavens hear, and the earth, the blessed words which drop as the rain, and distill as the dew of night, refreshing grass and herb. It is Jehovah’s name they publish, that sweet and wonderful name which expresses truly what He is, and which man, dropped out of that knowledge, needs so much to learn. To Him they ascribe greatness; yes, to Him, O man, out of the clay, who hast ruined thyself by thy pretension to it. He is the Rock -the “dwelling-place in all generations,” says our Moses elsewhere (Psa 90:1,) -safe as shelter, strong against storm, clear-shadowy in the noon-tide heat of a desert land. “His work is perfect” -though men and devils have combined in their own persons to dishonor it. “All His ways are judgment” -not wrath, but far-seeing, well-discerning righteousness. “A God of faithfulness without deceit, just and right is He.”

(2) But Israel? Alas, they have dealt corruptly with Him. Man, most favored, most blessed, can turn all this into the occasion of deeper condemnation. Adopted as His family, they are no sons of His, but a blot upon them, a generation crooked and perverse.

And will men thus requite Jehovah? and He the Father who has purchased them from captivity for the love He bare them? Foolish and unwise as they were, did they not know Him to be that? Had He not made and established them? Let them look back, then, upon the past, the record of continuous generations. Or let them ask their fathers, and the elders hoary with age. There could be but one answer of whomsoever they inquired.

(3) The song carries them then back to a time beyond these experiences, before the nation existed at all, when the sons of Adam were finding the abodes assigned them of God. Even then, when the Gentiles were receiving their inheritance, He set their bounds according to the needs of such a number as the children of Israel would become. For in truth they were Jehovah’s portion -His people, and Jacob (though but “Jacob”) the lot of His inheritance.

Where had He found them? In a desert land, yea, a howling wilderness; but where the Lord’s care had only the more opportunity for display. Compassed about, watched over, guarded as the pupil of the eye, they had proved this. By the law He had stirred them up like the eagle her nest, while with outstretched wings as in the pillar of cloud, He had sheltered and nestled them, then borne them up and carried them in His feathers. He, He alone did this, asking help of no strange god, and setting them upon the high places of Canaan, amid the abundance of that plenteous land.

(4) Then the song turns from past to future, but which is seen as the past, clear in the vision of God. Jeshurun grew fat and kicked: God’s loved, upright one* became rebellious in prosperity -a strange, common case -and gave up his Maker, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation. Then the heart estranged from Him turned to those that were His opposites. Strange gods came in, with their abominations, gods newly invented replaced Him who had brought them forth, -a thing continually repeated since, and under every imaginable form.

{* Jeshurun is the diminutive of “Jasher” -“upright.”}

(5) God could not forget, and be as man; but He could, and was forced to, hide His face. They had given Him up for gods that were not, and He would move them to jealousy by a people they disdained as none. It is here that the apostle sees the calling of the Gentiles. (Rom 10:19.) But Moses’ object is not to develop this; he goes on to the positive consequences of God’s wrath, the wrath of slighted love, and which works out in the end the purposes of love. His anger burns to the bottom of Sheol, for there are cast the objects of it; and with that which reaches down to this the earth and its produce are necessarily consumed. The foundations of the mountains are set on fire by the volcano of wrath; the elements, the teeth of beasts, hunger and plague fight against them; the sword of the enemy bereaves: a full end of them seems impending, but the proud enemy would not recognize Him in this, but only the strength of His own hand. Such is man, the unconscious worker-out of purposes he knows nothing of; and so God reigns, amid unintelligent and hostile powers, yoked to His service in their own despite.

Yet He longs and yearns over them! Let the cross say if He does not. And here His pity breaks out in Moses’ words. Oh, that they had been wise! that they had understood, that they had considered the end sure to come! Vanquished, broken by a contemptible enemy, -how should it be unless their Rock had sold them, and the unchangeable Jehovah delivered them into their hands! Was He less a Rock? Was it because their God was as poor a reliance as the common trusts of men? Ah, their bitter enemies could easily themselves decide this. No, alas! it was that the fruit He had looked for from them was but the vine of Sodom, bitter and poisonous; and He who was the Righteous had been forced to be against them.

(6) This is all plain but the end has unexpected disclosures. There was a secret hidden with God, sealed up among His treasures! Not judgment therefore; which every bad conscience could predict, and which He loves not!

Yet vengeance is His, and recompense, and their feet shall slip, the day of their calamity shall come, judgment shall come, Jehovah shall judge His people. Yes, judge; but not destroy! For when He sees them stricken down, helpless, their power gone, none left to help them, and the vanity of their false gods is fully seen, -then will He call them to Himself, with whom no other can be or can compare, and the rod of their correction, having accomplished its work, shall be broken: He will turn His hand against their enemies.

It is the judgment of the living nations when the Lord appears, and which will bring in blessing for more than Israel. Hence the nations too can be bidden to rejoice with Israel His people; the trumpet of their recall is the first note of earth,s jubilee: “for if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be but life from the dead?” (Rom 11:15.)

Thus Moses’ song vindicates itself as that; and what man is having been seen, evil looked in the face and triumphed over, its theme is fully looked at, and its argument maintained. Greatness belongs to God alone: He is the rock; His way is perfect. Let us remember but our littleness; let us ascribe to Him the greatness; let us hold fast to His perfection: then we have indeed a song which, begun in the night of time, shall last forever.

3. The blessing of the tribes is Moses’ last public act, emphasizing what is in the heart of God toward His people; and this is always blessing. But there are two significant things linked with and introductory to this.

(1) First, Moses and Joshua unite in reciting the song in the ears of the congregation, the old leader and the new being thus in that harmony in which all God’s agents, all dispensations, ultimately are. The people are then urged to set their hearts to it, as the condition of the accomplishment of obedience, and therein of lengthened days. In fact, for the blessing to come, the song must have done its work. Man must learn his own nothingness and the might of God; and the blessing waits for this. Hence the section here is fully in its place as introductory to what is before us.

(2) Secondly, we have the death of Moses again announced, with the sin for which he was set aside explicitly stated. It was not surely merely casual the connection of this with the song and blessing. Moses is in his own person an example of the condemning power of the law. He can only see from afar, what he is forbidden to possess; and if Moses, whom will it not exclude? For the true blessing, therefore, we must go beyond law, -beyond the old covenant to the new; beyond all past dispensations to that under which Israel is really to enter upon her inheritance.

(3) And, accordingly, when we come to the blessing of the tribes, we find that, after the first, we have really before us their millennial condition, into which the first and the second introduce us. Apart from Reuben, who represents for us the nation on their national footing, all the rest give us unmodified blessing, and which has but only partial connection with the features of their past history. This has perplexed the sober commentators, while leaving much to exercise the imagination of the “higher critics.” The real fact relieves all perplexity, while it is in perfect consistency with the character and purpose of all this closing portion of Deuteronomy, and with the general doctrine of Scripture also. It reminds us of the omitted blessings of the twenty-seventh chapter, and the emphasis upon the curse both there and elsewhere; of the memorial of the law set up on Ebal; and of how far already the Song has carried us.

The fullness of the blessing could not be under law, however modified. Here it is full, although Reuben may be an exception to be explained, and Simeon be omitted. This would not infer any omission of Simeon at the end, as the individual tribes, both here and in Jacob’s prophecy, stand often for aspects of the whole nation (comp. Gen 49:1-33, notes,) and may even, as in Joseph, contemplate it in its great Head and King.

The blessing divides into six parts, the first speaking of God as their Leader and His power for them, already there in the wilderness; the second, of their salvation by Him; the third, of their portion as thus saved; the fourth, of the Gentiles blessed through them; the fifth, the consequences in the government of God, no more against them; and lastly, the triumph of divine goodness over all their sin. The introduction may seem a strange one to a picture of millennial days. It may remind us in this of what is stated in the opening of the book, that from Sinai to Kadesh -from which they might have entered the land -was only eleven days, journey. In fact, it was nearly forty years that passed before they actually did enter. Even so the long time elapsing before the blessing comes to them has its necessity only in their own condition. He whose power and love had brought them through the wilderness, was even then ready to give them the fall promise, but that they were not prepared for this. And when the time shall come, it will be the completion of what their passage through it then implied. The wings under which they at last come to rest are those that canopied over them in their journeyings of old. All, therefore, is in place, as ever.

Let us look at it in detail.

(a) It is the blessing of Moses, the man of God, poured forth with his full heart in it, but where above all God reigns and thus the eyes are cleared and strengthened and the soul assured, so that what would be prayer becomes prophecy. He sees Jehovah advancing from Sinai with them, His glory flooding the wilderness, Seir radiating it from the east, Mount Paran from the North and West, angelic hosts around Him: out of His right hand came in fire to them the mandate of a King.* Yea, it is He who, God of all, loveth the peoples,** in whose hand His angels are ministering spirits for them, sitting at His feet, receiving, each one, of His words.

{*There are difficulties in this passage, well known to the critics, arising most of all from the abrupt poetic style. What is given above is literal according to the Hebrew, and consistent enough as it would seem with the whole character of what is here. The argument that the unusual word for “law” -dath , the “mandate of a King,” -is a word too recent for Moses’ time is worth little, as literature of Pentateuchal date is not abundant enough to prove it. Haevernick looks at it as derived from din, to “judge.” And Koenig as an Aramaism which may “testify as well of a very early, as of a late composition.” (See Schroeder, in Lange’s Commentary.)

**The plural form naturally looks beyond Israel; and this is in keeping with the blessing itself which, with all prophecy beside, connects that of the earthly people with that of the world at large.}

The law given to Israel by this glorious God, had yet a human mediator and interpreter; and thus Moses became, as it were, king in Jeshurun, the tribes receiving it from him, formally gathered under their heads. This position of Moses has been often before us; it typified that of the far more wondrous “Mediator of the new covenant.” God, seeking to be near, addresses man in form as man.

(b) The blessing of the tribes follows, beginning with Reuben, the rejected first-born, who, as in Jacob’s prophecy, receives what seems but little that. He is to live and not die, and his men be numerable. No one doubts that this is the regular force of the words, though exceptions have been pleaded. The argument for the opposite thought, “Let not his men be few” is simply that it appears more like blessing. When we take the whole prophecy into account, however, the grammatical meaning justifies itself. For we have seen already in Gen 49:1-33 how the first-born of nature stands for the nation on the ground of the first covenant, which was really “natural,” fleshly, because legal; and here nothing but the blessing of God (which of course is grace) could have preserved the existence of the nation at all. Under the sentence of the law, and rejecting their Deliverer, they have yet been marvelously kept from extinction, while also the subjects of a constant persecution, -“a sword drawn out after them,” -which has fulfilled the latter part of the prediction no less clearly.

Then follows Judah, not Simeon or Levi, as with Jacob. Simeon is not found at all, while Levi has gained a new and higher place. Judah, on the other hand, has fallen from that which Jacob pictured for him, and yet with a possible limit -“till Shiloh come.” Shiloh, we know, has come, and Judah’s staff of magistracy has been taken away. They knew not the day of their visitation. Moses’ blessing implies the disastrous consequences. “And he said, ‘Hear, Lord, the voice of Judah, and bring him unto his people; let his hands be sufficient for him, and be Thou a help to him from his enemies.'”

Judah, then, has been a wanderer, and separated from his people; his hand has brought him no sufficient help, and his enemies have been busy with him. All this suits exactly with what has long been history, and predicts the deliverance awaiting them in the near future. No tribal name, it is evident, would fill this place but that of Judah, connected with and following, as it does, that of Reuben. Numerically, they are in order, Reuben giving first the continuance, Judah then the deliverance of the people. Levi comes third, as showing the way of this deliverance to be by priesthood and sacrifice, the only way before God at any time for the restoration of the sinner.

We see, then, why Levi has such a special place in the blessing of Moses. We must look through the tribe and its individual history, to see, as in other cases, the One through whom the blessing comes for Israel. Christ is plainly the One with whom God,s Thummim and Urim. are, the Holy One, proved at the place of proof, and striven with where the waters of life gushed out. A Moses and an Aaron might give way under the pressure, but not the One for whom they stood. On the other side, the faithfulness of Levi at the scene of the calf-worship was more than found in Him who could say, “The zeal of Thy house hath eaten Me up.” Here Levi falls so much behind that it is proportionately difficult to read the antitype in the type. But there is a double application, Israel as a whole having to turn to God in this spirit to receive their final blessing, while for them none the less, as their day of atonement witnesses, the sacrifice upon the altar is the one means of acceptance. Here Christ is both priest and sacrifice, and through Him alone Thummim and Urim return to the delivered people: divine “perfections” being manifested, divine “light” results, and the voice of God is heard in new and more familiar intercourse with His people than for Israel the past age of law could realize at its best.

And now it is no temporary deliverance that is effected: “Bless, Lord, his substance, and accept the work of his hands: smite through the loins of them that rise against him, and of them that hate him, that they rise not again.” Here, therefore, a day begins for them which does not set.

(c) Benjamin follows Levi: “And of Benjamin he said, The beloved of the Lord shall dwell in safety near Him: He shall cover him all the day long, and he shall dwell between His shoulders.” The reference conceived by some to the tabernacle at Gibeon, or to the temple in Jerusalem in this last expression, is surely a mistake. It is not the Lord who dwells between Benjamin’s shoulders, (which would be an inversion of all right thought,) but the reverse. It is Benjamin who dwells in security, covered and sustained by his covenant-God. We see that Levi’s sacrifice has opened the sanctuary to him; and this is the way of divine grace, -His redeemed God brings near to Himself. This is true in measure of the earthly as of the heavenly people; and will be Israel’s special glory in the days to come. From this centre it radiates over the land, and thus the blessing of Joseph follows and unites with that of Benjamin. Under the smile of God the whole of the fruitful land breaks out into a manifold and continuous harvest. It is the good will of Him who dwelt in the bush that crowns as with a diadem the head of the Nazarite, separated to God and thus from his brethren. It is very plain that Christ it is who brings in this way the blessing down, and how Jacob’s word is confirmed in that of Moses here. For it the intruding Gentiles must be banished from the land, giving way to the myriads of “fruitful” Ephraim, and the thousands of Manasseh.

(d) Zebulon and Issachar are joined together. In Jacob’s prophecy we see the one stretching out toward the nations round, and the other couching underneath their yoke. We are reminded of this here, though how different is all now. Zebulon may now rejoice in going out, Issachar in the tents of her pilgrimage; and still they stretch out toward the nations; but they are now ambassadors of a present King, and with a joyful invitation to come up and do Him homage. “They shall call the peoples to the mountain: there they shall offer the sacrifices of righteousness.” The millennial application of this is as clear as can be: and Isaiah and Micah both develop it: And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it. And many peoples shall go and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. For He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” (Isa 2:2-3.) We see in what a connected and orderly manner the prophecy proceeds also. It is another kind of commerce from what in the past has attracted Israel: now the nations are attracted, and Israel sucks of the abundance of the seas (comp. Isa 60:5), and of the treasures hid in the sand of the seashore (the ports of its coasts?)

(e) Lastly, come the children of the bondmaids, but there is no longer any trace of what is servile in their condition. Their blessing is harder to interpret than what has gone before, although not always so, and that which is most obscure seems to be so from its brevity. In general, it seems to express the moral results of the relationship in which God now stands to His people. First, in Gad power and the ruler’s seat, from which is maintained the righteousness of the Lord, and His judgment in the midst of Israel. The meaning of Dan’s blessing is not so clear, but we may see in it power that makes itself feared round about: “thine enemies shall cringe before thee” (v. 29). Naphtali shows us the full favor of God enlarging the old limits: they possess as never before the sea -the coast of the Philistines and Phoenicians -and the south -including Edom’s territory as far as the Red Sea. Obadiah witnesses to both of these (vv. 19-21). Lastly, Asher completes the blessing of Israel by declaring its preeminence over that of all else, yet not envied, but accepted by their brethren -the nations of the earth, -their feet dipped in the flowing oil which speaks the fatness of the bounteous land. The last two points are differently understood. Many for “shoes” read “bolts,” which Keil interprets as “castles;” and the moderns against the ancients read “rest” instead of “strength.” In these two there would be doubly expressed their abiding security: and though we may not be willing to give up what we are so familiar with, that “as thy days thy strength shall be,” it is certainly not unsuited as the close of this wonderful blessing to have “as thy days shall be thy rest.”

(f) The last words celebrate the triumph of divine goodness for them, before which all enemies are helpless and defeated. This is a thing of course: but blessed are the people who are the subjects of such a salvation! And who is like the God of Jeshurun? He rides upon the heavens to thy help. Thy refuge is the eternal God; and underneath are everlasting arms!

4. The last chapter of Deuteronomy is necessarily an appendix by another hand. It is the account of Moses’ death on the mount, and his burial by God, after being shown the land into which he cannot enter. Joshua succeeds him as Israel’s leader; but as a prophet in the nearness to God to which he was called, he had no successor until He came who in His own Person stood alone, in life, in death, filling all the mediatorial types, and transcending them by the full measure of His infinite glory, in whose light indeed alone they shine.

Fuente: Grant’s Numerical Bible Notes and Commentary

THE CLOSE OF MOSES LIFE

ENCOURAGEMENT (Deu 31:1-8)

The law has been rehearsed and Moses exhortation is drawing to a conclusion. Several days may have been occupied in the review covered by Deuteronomy thus far. And now, Israel, by its leaders, having been gathered together at the place of meeting, Moses is apprising them of his imminent departure.

Though advanced in years (Deu 31:2), was he conscious of mental or physical decay (Deu 34:7)? Can you perceive a reason for the mention of this fact? Has it any bearing on the truth and virility of the divine messages Moses was chosen to communicate? What indicates that it was by revelation he knew of his approaching separation? Name three or four elements of the encouragement Moses gives Israel in Deu 31:3-6.

RESPONSIBILITY (Deu 31:9-13)

What provision was made for the perpetuity of the law (Deu 31:9)? Note the allusion to the bearing of the ark by the priests, which they did on extraordinary occasions (Jos 3:3-8; 1Ch 15:11-12), although commonly it was borne by the Levites.

While the people were to be instructed in the law in their homes, what public rehearsal of it was here provided for (Deu 31:10-11)? We appreciate how this guaranteed the preservation of the sacred oracles from generation

to generation, and can thank God for remembering us in this obligation upon them.

PREDICTION (Deu 31:14-30)

In what language is the infidelity of Israel foretold (Deu 31:16)? What would cause this apostasy? What consequence would follow (Deu 31:17-18)? When God says, I will forsake them, I will hide My face, etc., He refers to that withdrawal of His protection as symbolized by the cloud of glory, the shekinah. This never appeared in the second temple, i.e., after the Babylonian captivity, and, its non-appearance was a prelude of all the evils that came upon them, because their God was not among them.

Where was the book of the law placed (Deu 31:26)? In the Revised Version in is by. It is thought that it was deposited in a receptacle by the side of the ark which contained nothing but the tables of stone (1Ki 8:9). But some, guided by Heb 9:4, believe it was placed within, and that this was the copy found in the time of Josiah (2Ki 22:8).

INSPIRATION (Deu 32:1-43)

In Deu 31:19 Moses is commanded to write a song and teach it to Israel, and get them singing it as a witness for God against them in the day of their unfaithfulness. National songs take deep hold of the memories and have a powerful influence in stirring the deepest feelings of a people, and because of this God causes this song to be composed, and is indeed Himself the composer of it. In the Revised Version the whole chapter down to verse 44 is arranged as poetry.

After the exordium (Deu 32:1), notice the comparison of the divine instruction to what gentle, useful and beautiful feature of nature (Deu 32:2)? What gives this instruction this character (Deu 32:3)? Point out the seven attributes of God indicated in the ascription of praise that follows (Deu 32:3-4). Notice that these attributes constitute the proclamation of His name. Preachers and Christian workers will find the outline of a rich discourse here.

After the exordium we come to an indictment of the people (Deu 32:5-6). It is predictive as indicating what they would do in the future, and yet also a historic record of what they had already done. These verses, especially Deu 32:5, are clearer in the Revised Version. The indictment leads to a reminiscence of Gods goodness to them, to deepen their repentance in that day as it shall quicken their gratitude (Deu 32:7-14).

With Deu 32:8, compare Act 17:26-27 in the light of Deu 2:5-9 of the present book, and Gen 10:5, and observe that God has from the beginning reserved Palestine for this people, through whom He would show forth His wonders to the other nations. And admirably suited is the locality for the purpose. In Ezekiel it is described as the middle of the earth, and as from a common center the glad tidings were, and shall be, wafted to every part of the globe.

Notice the figure in Deu 32:11-12. When the eaglets are sufficiently grown, the mother bird at first supports them on the tip of her wing, encouraging and aiding their feeble efforts to higher flight.

This reminiscence of Gods goodness is followed by another indictment, fuller than the former, and showing the aggravation of the peoples sin.

Jeshurun is a poetic name for Israel. Notice the reference to demons of v Deu 32:17 (RV) and observe that such beings exist and are the real objects of the worship of false religions.

This second indictment is followed by an announcement of punishment (Deu 32:19-28). Note the allusion to the calling out of the Gentiles into the Church in Deu 32:21 (third clause). What are Gods arrows (Deu 32:23)? See for answer the following verses famine, pestilence, wild beasts, the sword, fear, captivity, etc. Why would He not altogether destroy such a faithless people (Deu 32:26-27)?

The announcement of punishment leads to a promise of forgiveness and restoration in the latter time (Deu 32:29-43). When will the Lord lift His hand from off His people (Deu 32:36)? How shall He afflict them who afflicted Israel (Deu 32:41)? What shows that the day of Israels blessing will be that of the whole earth (Deu 32:43)? Compare Psalms 65.

Fuente: James Gray’s Concise Bible Commentary

Deu 31:1-2. Went and spake Continued to speak, a usual Hebrew phrase. Go out and come in Perform the office of a leader or governor, because my death approaches.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Deu 31:2. I can no more go out and come in. Though Mosess senses were in vigour, yet he felt the infirmities which admonish aged men to retire.

Deu 31:7. Moses called to Joshua, to encourage and strengthen him. This we should also do to younger men, though Joshua was now growing old. The elders must honour the magistrate and the minister, that the people may follow their example.

Deu 31:10. At the end of every seven years; when apprentices became free, and must for themselves hear the law and swear to it, as their fathers had done before them. Those septennial convocations were wise and salutary guardians of the Hebrew covenant. Christian ministers, at proper times, should do the same to all the young people.

Deu 31:16. Thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, and this people will rise up, and go a whoring after other gods. The English follows the LXX, as do most other versions. But the Pharisees, in their long-continued disputations with the Sadducees, respecting the resurrection of the dead, by varying the punctuation, gave the text a sense widely different. hinnecha shokab im abtecha ve-kam, Behold, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, and rise again; and this people will go a whoring after the gods of strangers. If this promise were designed in any sense to comfort Moses at the close of life, it assuredly must designate a consolation higher than that of corruption in the grave. We cannot admit that Moses had less light than Joseph, who gave a command for the removal of his bones. For thus varying the punctuation from that of the Sadducees, the Pharisees had the whole weight of reason and revelation on their side.

Deu 31:19. Write ye this song: the song in the next chapter. The history of great men and of illustrious deeds, was from the earliest periods of society celebrated in verse, or poetic composition. While the original copy of the law was deposited in the ark, Moses gave this poem to the elders, that copies might be multiplied among the people. The Greeks abounded with hymns in praise of the gods, once but men. The ancient laws were also often celebrated in verse.

Deu 31:26. Take this book; namely, the Deuteronomy, except the last chapter, finished by authority. This, with the four former books, formed the Pentateuch of Moses, which was put in the side of the ark, that it might be easy of access.

REFLECTIONS.

Moses here comes forward with all the weight of great age and long experience to encourage and comfort the people. He could no longer go before them; but the Lords presence would be with them, to destroy the enemy, and to qualify Joshua for the high duties of a prince and leader, and for all the exigencies of great occasions. It is good when aged men and dying saints encourage young people, by recounting the grace of former times, and by adducing past victories as pledges of the future. This is the way to make them strong and of good courage.

In the charge to Joshua, accompanied with promises, we see how christian magistrates and ministers should be exhorted to acquit themselves in all the duties of their profession. So St. Paul, about to be offered up, charged Timothy; and the greatness of the occasion inspired him with the sublimest language which can possibly be uttered. 1Ti 6:13-16. 2Ti 4:1-6. In like manner our blessed Lord charged the apostles to keep his commandments, and abide in his love.

Besides the reading of the law every sabbath in the synagogue, Act 13:15, he required the covenant, or rather the blessings and curses of the covenant, to be read and subscribed every seventh year, and he required this to be done in the most solemn manner by a full convocation of the people and their little ones, for the preservation of piety and religion. It is good, extremely good, for religious assemblies to avow their faith, and own the sovereignty of God in the most public manner.

Moses was the more solicitous to do this because he saw, that after his death they would utterly corrupt themselves. More could not be said, and more could not be done, to preserve them in the religion of their fathers. St. Paul, animated by the same spirit, was the more earnest in giving charges to the churches, for he knew that after his death, grievous wolves would enter in among them, not sparing the flock. The frequent renewal of covenant is the best barrier we can oppose to the encroachments of the world. Where this is neglected, the divine institutions fall into decay, and would be utterly lost, if God did not in every age and nation frequently raise up blessed instruments to revive his work. And when a people who once walked in the truth, afterwards become degenerate, not only the sacred writings, but the hymns, the sermons, and theology of their ancestors shall remain as monuments of the glory of former times; and permanent evidence against their apostasy from sound doctrine, and rectitude of conduct.

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

Deuteronomy 31

The heart of Moses still lingers, with deep tenderness and affectionate solicitude, over the congregation. It seems as though he could never weary of pouring into their ears his earnest exhortations. He felt their need; he foresaw their danger; and, like a true and faithful shepherd, he sought, with all the deep and tender affection of His large, loving heart, to prepare them for what was before them. No one can read his closing words without being struck with their peculiarly solemn tone. They remind us of Paul’s touching farewell to the elders of Ephesus. Both these beloved and honoured servants realised, in a very vivid manner, the seriousness of their own position, and that of the persons they were addressing. They felt the uncommon gravity of the interests at stake, and the urgent need of the most faithful dealing with the heart and conscience. This will account for what we may term the awful solemnity of their appeals. All who really enter into the situation and destiny of the people of God, in a world like this, must be serious. The true sense of these things, the apprehension of them in the divine presence must, of necessity, impart a holy gravity to the character and a special pungency and power to the testimony.

“And Moses went, and spake these words unto all Israel. And he said unto them, I am an hundred and twenty years old this day; I can no more go out and come in; also the Lord hath said unto me, Thou shalt not go over this Jordan.” How very touching this allusion to his great age, and this fresh and final reference to the solemn governmental dealing of God with himself personally! The direct and manifest object of both was to give effect to his appeal to the hearts and consciences of the people – to strengthen the moral lever by which this beloved and honoured servant of God sought to move them in the direction of simple obedience. If he points to his gray hairs, or to the holy discipline exercised towards him, it, most assuredly, is not for the purpose of bringing himself, his circumstances, or his feelings before them, but simply to touch the deepest springs of their moral being by every possible means.

“The Lord thy God, he will go over before thee, and he will destroy these nations from before thee, and thou shalt possess them; and Joshua, he shall go over before thee, as the Lord hath said. And the Lord shall do unto them as he did to Sihon and to Og, kings of the Amorites, and unto the land of them whom he destroyed. And the Lord shall give them up before your face, that ye may do unto them according unto all the commandments which I have commanded you” Not a word of murmuring or repining as to himself; not the faintest tinge of envy or jealousy in his reference to the one who was to take his place; not the most distant approach to anything of the kind; every selfish consideration is swallowed up in the one grand object of encouraging the hearts of the people to tread, with firm step, the pathway of obedience which was then, is now, and ever must be, the path of victory, the path of blessing, the path of peace.

“Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them; for the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.” What precious, soul-sustaining words are these, beloved Christian reader! How eminently calculated to lift the heart above every discouraging influence! The blessed consciousness of the Lord’s presence with us, and the remembrance of His gracious ways with us, in days gone by, must ever prove the true secret of strength in moving onward. The same mighty hand which had subdued before them Sihon and Og, could subdue all the kings of Canaan. The Amorites were quite as formidable as the Canaanites; Jehovah was more than a match for all. “We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us, what work thou didst in their days, in the times of old. How thou didst drive out the heathen with thy hand, and plantedst them; how thou didst afflict the people, and cast them out”

Only think of God driving out people with His own hand! What an answer to all the arguments and difficulties of a morbid sentimentality! How very shallow and erroneous are the thoughts of some in reference to the governmental ways of God! How miserably one-sided their notions of His character and actings! How Perfectly absurd the attempt to measure God by the standard of human judgement and feeling! It is very evident that Moses had not the smallest particle of sympathy with such sentiments, when he addressed to the congregation of Israel the magnificent exhortation quoted above. He knew something of the gravity and solemnity of the government of God, something too of the blessedness of having Him as a shield in the day of battle, a refuge and a resource in every hour of peril and need.

Let us hearken to his encouraging words addressed to the man who was to succeed him. “And Moses called unto Joshua, and said unto him in the sight of all Israel, Be strong and of a good courage: for thou must go with this people unto the land which the Lord hath sworn unto their fathers to give them; and thou shalt cause them to inherit it. And the Lord, he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee; he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee; fear not, neither be dismayed.”

Joshua needed a special word for himself, as one called to occupy a prominent and very distinguished place in the congregation. But the word to him embodies the same precious truth as that addressed to the whole assembly. He is assured of the divine presence and power with him. This is enough for each, for all; for Joshua as for the most obscure member of the assembly. Yes, reader, and enough for thee, whoever thou art, or whatever be thy sphere of action. It matters not, in the least, what difficulties or dangers may lie before us, our God is amply sufficient for all. If only we have the sense of the Lord’s presence with us, and the authority of His word for the work in which we are engaged, we may move on with joyful confidence, spite of ten thousand difficulties and hostile influences.

“And Moses wrote this law, and delivered it unto the priests the sons of Levi, which bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and unto all the elders of Israel. And Moses commanded them saying, At the end of every seven years, in the solemnity of the year of release, in the feast of tabernacles, when all Israel is come to appear before the Lord thy God in the place which he shall choose, thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their hearing. Gather the people together, men, and women, and children, and thy stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear and that they may learn, and fear the Lord your God, and observe to do all the words of this law; and that their children, which have not known anything, may hear; and learn to fear the Lord your God, as long as ye live in the land whither ye go over Jordan to possess it.” (Vers. 9-35.)

Two things in the forgoing passage claim our special attention; first, the fact that Jehovah attached the most solemn importance to the public assembly of His people for the purpose of hearing His word. “all Israel” – “men, women and children” – with the stranger who had cast in his lot amongst them, were commanded to assemble themselves together to hear the reading of the book of the law of God, that all might learn His holy will and their duty. Each member of the assembly, from the eldest to the youngest, was to be brought into direct personal contact with the revealed will of Jehovah, that each one might know his solemn responsibility.

And, secondly, we have to weigh the fact that the children were to be gathered before the Lord to hearken to His word. Both these facts are full of weighty instruction for all the members of the church of God – instruction urgently called for on all sides. There is a most deplorable amount of failure as to these two points. We sadly neglect the assembling of ourselves together for the simple reading of the holy scriptures. There does not seem to be sufficient attraction in the word of God itself to bring us together. There is an unhealthy craving for other things; human oratory, music, religious excitement of some kind or other seems needful to bring people together; anything and everything but the precious word of God.

It will perhaps be said that people have the word of God in their houses; that it is quite different now from what it was with Israel; every one can read the scriptures at home, and there is not the same necessity for the public reading. Such a plea will not stand the test of truth for a moment. We may rest assured if the word of God were loved and prized and studied in private and in the family, it would be loved and prized and studied in public. We should delight to gather together round the fountain of holy scripture, to drink, in happy fellowship, of the living water for our common refreshment and blessing.

But it is not so. The word of God is not loved and studied, either privately or publicly. Trashy literature it devoured in private; and music, ritualistic services and imposing ceremonies, are eagerly sought after in public. Thousands will flock to hear music and pay for admission; but how few care for a meeting to read the holy scriptures! These are facts, and facts are powerful arguments. We cannot get over them. There is a growing thirst for religious excitement, and a growing distaste for the calm study of holy scripture, and the spiritual exercises of the Christian assembly. It is perfectly useless to deny it. We cannot shut our eyes to it. The evidence of it meets us on every hand.

Thank God, there are a few, here and there, who really love the word of God, and delight to meet, in holy fellowship, for the study of its precious truths. May the Lord increase the number of such, and bless them abundantly! May our lot be cast with them, “till travelling days are done!” They are but an obscure and feeble remnant everywhere; but they love Christ and cleave to His word; and their richest enjoyment is to get together and think and speak and sing of Him. May God bless them and keep them! May He deepen His precious work in their souls, and bind them more closely to Himself and one another, and thus prepare them, in the state of their affections, for the appearing of “The Bright and Morning Star”.

We must now turn, for a few moments, to the closing verses of our chapter, in which Jehovah speaks to His beloved and honoured servant in tones of deep and touching solemnity as to His own death, and as to Israel’s dark and gloomy future.

“And the Lord said unto Moses, Behold, thy days approach that thou must die: call Joshua, and present yourselves in the tabernacle of the congregation, that I may give him a charge. And Moses and Joshua went and presented themselves in the tabernacle of the congregation. And the Lord appeared in the tabernacle in a pillar of a cloud; and the pillar of the cloud stood over the door of the tabernacle. And the Lord said unto Moses, Behold, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers; and this people will rise up and go a whoring after the gods of the strangers of the land, whither they go to be among them, and will forsake me, and break my covenant which I have made with them. Then my anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall befall them; so that they will say in that day, Are not these evils come upon us, because our God is not among us? And I will surely hide my face in that day, for all the evils which they shall have wrought, in that they are turned unto other gods.”

“Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another god.” So says the Spirit of Christ, in Psalm 16. Israel has proved, is proving, and shall yet more fully prove the solemn truth of these words. Their history in the past, their present dispersion and desolation, and, beyond all, the “great tribulation” through which they have yet to pass, at “the time of the end” – all go to confirm and illustrate the truth that the sure and certain way to multiply our; sorrows is to turn away from the Lord, and look to any creature resource. This is one of the many and varied practical lessons which we have to gather from the marvellous history of the seed of Abraham. May we learn it effectually! May we learn to cleave to the Lord with purpose of heart, and turn away, with holy decision, from every other object. This, we feel persuaded, is the only path of true happiness and peace. May we ever be found in it!

“Now therefore write ye this song for you, and teach it the children of Israel; put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the children of Israel. For when I shall have brought them into the land which I sware unto their fathers, that floweth with milk and honey; and they shall have eaten and filled themselves, and waxen fat; then will they turn unto other gods, and serve them, and provoke me, and break my covenant. And it shall come to pass, when many evils and troubles are befallen them, that this song shall testify against them as a witness; for it shall not be forgotten out of the mouths of their seed: for I know their imagination which they go about, even now, before I have brought them into the land which I sware.”

How deeply affecting, how peculiarly solemn is all this! Instead of Israel being a witness for Jehovah, before all nations, the song of Moses was to be a witness for Jehovah against the children of Israel. They were called to be His witnesses; they were responsible to declare His Name, and to show forth His praise in that land into which, in His faithfulness, and sovereign mercy, He conducted them. But alas! they utterly and shamefully failed; and hence in view of this sad and most humiliating failure a song was to be written which, in the first place, as we shall see, sets forth, in most magnificent strains, the glory of God; and, secondly, records, in accents of inflexible faithfulness, Israel’s deplorable failure, in every stage of their history.

“Moses therefore wrote this song the same day, and taught it the children of Israel. And he gave Joshua the son of Nun a charge, and said, Be strong, and of a good courage, for thou shalt bring the children of Israel into the land which I sware unto them: and I will be with thee.” Joshua was not to be discouraged or faint-hearted because of the predicted unfaithfulness of the people. He was, like his great progenitor, to be strong in faith giving glory to God. He was to move forward with joyful confidence, leaning on the arm and confiding in the word of Jehovah, the covenant God of Israel, in nothing terrified by his adversaries, but resting in the precious, soul-sustaining assurance that, however the seed of Abraham might fail to obey, and as a consequence bring down judgement on themselves, yet the God of Abraham would infallibly maintain and make good His promise, and glorify His Name in the final restoration and everlasting blessing of His chosen people.

All this comes out, with uncommon vividness and power in the song of Moses; and Joshua was called to serve in the faith of it. He was to fix his eye not upon Israel’s ways, but upon the eternal stability of the divine covenant with Abraham. He was to conduct Israel across the Jordan and plant them in that fair inheritance designed for them in the purpose of God. Had Joshua occupied his mind with Israel, he must have flung down his sword and given up in despair. But no, he had to encourage himself in the Lord his God, and serve in the energy of a faith that endures as seeing Him who is invisible.

Precious, soul-sustaining, God-honouring faith! May the reader, whatever be his line of life or sphere of action, know, in the profoundest depths of his soul, the moral power of this divine principle! May every beloved child of God and every servant of Christ know it! It is the only thing which will enable us to grapple with the difficulties, hindrances and hostile influences which surround us in the scene through which we are passing, and to finish our course with joy.

“And it came to pass when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished that Moses commanded the Levites, which bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord saying, Take this book of the law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a witness against thee. For I know thy rebellion, and thy stiff neck: behold, while I am yet alive with you this day, ye have been rebellious against the Lord; and how much more after my death? Gather unto me all the elders of your tribes, and your officers, that I may speak these words in their ears, and call heaven and earth to record against them. For I know that after my death ye will utterly corrupt yourselves, and turn aside from the way which I have commanded you; and evil will befall you in the latter days; because ye will do evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to anger through the work of your hands.”

How forcibly we are here reminded of Paul’s farewell address to the elders of Ephesus! “For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among your own selves, shall men arise speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears. And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified.” (Acts 20: 29-32.)

Man is the same always and everywhere. His history is a blotted one, from beginning to end. But oh! it is such a relief and solace to the heart to know and remember that God is ever the same, and His word abides and is “settled for ever in heaven.” It was hid in the side of the ark of the covenant and there preserved intact, spite of all the grievous sin and folly of the people. This gives sweet rest to the heart, at all times, in the face of human failure, and the wreck and ruin of everything committed to man’s hand. “The word of our God shall stand for ever:” and while it bears a true and solemn testimony against man and his ways, it also conveys home to the heart the most precious and tranquillising assurance that God is above all man’s sin and folly, that His resources are absolutely inexhaustible, and that, ere long, His glory shall shine out and fill the whole scene. The Lord be praised for the deep consolation of all this!

Fuente: Mackintosh’s Notes on the Pentateuch

Deuteronomy 31-34. Moses last words and the closing events of his life. The narrative parts (based on JE and in part on P) resemble chs. 13, and are probably by the same author or compiler. Deu 32:1-4 (the Song of Moses) and Deuteronomy 33 (the Blessing of Moses) are independent pieces of unknown origin.

Deu 31:1-8. See RV refs. for parallel passages.

Deu 31:1. Read (with LXX), And when Moses had finished speaking these words, etc.

Deu 31:7. go with: read (with Sam. Syr., Vulg., and two Heb. MSS), bring, as in Deu 31:23.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

MOSES GIVING WAY TO JOSHUA

(vs.1-8)

Having finished his exposition of the law, Moses looks on to the future, so that the subject to the end of Deuteronomy is prophetic. Moses begins by announcing that he is 120 years of age, and no longer fitted for the work he has done for years (vs.1-2). Besides this, God had told him he would not cross over Jordan.

Yet Israel did not depend on Moses, but on God, who would pass over before them. He would destroy the nations from the land, and Israel would dispossess them. But God would work now by means of Joshua, who would take Moses’ place (v.3). As God did to Sihon and Og, so would He do with the nations of the land of Canaan (vs.4-5). Let Israel therefore be strong and courageous, depending on God’s faithfulness, not intimidated by enemies who were totally inferior to God (v.6).

Moses then called Joshua, announcing him before all Israel as God’s newly appointed leader, urging him to be strong and courageous, for he “must go with this people to the land.” This was God’s imperative decision, from which Joshua would have no way of escape. But Joshua is assured that the Lord will go before him, never leaving or forsaking him. Therefore there was no reason to fear (vs.7-8).

FREQUENT READING OF THE LAW

(vs.9-13)

Together with their new leader, Israel must have the law written for them, which Moses did, delivering it to the priests. Then the priests were commanded to read this law before all Israel every seventh year at the feast of tabernacles, in the place of God’s choosing, which was Jerusalem (vs.9-l0). The seventh year was the year of release from bondage or debt (Deu 15:1). The feast of tabernacles was one of the three feasts that all males in Israel were required to attend (Deu 15:16), so that in the seventh year all would hear the law read (v.11). But verse 12 speaks of gathering men, woman and little ones. It would not be possible that every individual from Israel would be gathered in Jerusalem at this time, but it is implied that all who were able to be there ought to be there, for the children should learn the truth of God too (v.13).

PROPHECY OF ISRAEL’S REBELLION

(vs.14-30)

Moses had already approved Joshua before all the people (v.7), but now the Lord tells Moses that he must die shortly, and to call Joshua, so that God would inaugurate him as leader of Israel. Then the Lord appeared at the door of the tabernacle in a pillar of cloud (vs.14-15).

In spite of their having a new leader, God tells Moses that after his death Israel would become unfaithful, following the idols of the nations, forsaking God and breaking His covenant (v.16). This must have spoken deeply to the heart of Moses after his spending time and labor in declaring the law and pleading with Israel to keep it.

God’s anger would be aroused and He would leave Israel to the painful results of their rebellion. Many evils would befall them, so they would realize that God was no longer among them (v.17). Yet, even then God would hide His face from them to make them feel their serious condition as they ought (v 18).

Therefore God provided a song for Israel, seen in the first 43 verses of chapter 32. Moses was to write it down for Israel to learn (v.19). When God has brought them into the land and they have become well fed and wealthy, turning to idols and provoking God, then this song would testify against them. If learning it by memory, they would remember it, and its words would serve at least to embarrass them when they acted in disobedience (vs.20-21). It is amazing how painstakingly God sought to impress on Israel from every angle their responsibility to Him, though He knew perfectly well that they would rebel.

Moses then wrote the song and taught it to Israel (v.22). At this time he inaugurated Joshua as leader in his place, encouraging him to be strong and courageous, for he would bring Israel into their land (v.23). Also, after he had completed writing the words of the law (the first five books of scripture), he commanded the Levites to put the Book of the Law beside the ark of the covenant (vs.25-26). This was a plain witness for God and a witness against the evils that the people would soon embrace, therefore a witness against them (vs.24-26).

Moses retained no hope whatever that Israel would be obedient. He says he knew that, since they had been rebellious during his life, this would only increase after his death (v 27). Therefore he asked for the gathering of the elders of all the tribes, not to give them any false hopes, but to tell them he knew that after his death Israel would become utterly corrupt and turn aside from God’s commandments. Paul speaks similarly in Act 20:29-30 to the Ephesian elders, “For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after themselves.” This has proven just as true in the history of the Church as did the prophecy of Moses as regards Israel.

Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible

A. The duties of Israel’s future leaders 31:1-29

"Israel was not to be a nation of anarchists or even of strong human leaders. It was a theocratic community with the Lord as King and with his covenant revelation as fundamental constitution and law. The theme of this section is the enshrinement of that law, the proper role of Mosaic succession, and the ultimate authority of covenant mandate over human institutions." [Note: Merrill, Deuteronomy, p. 395.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

1. The presentation of Joshua 31:1-8

Moses presented Joshua to the nation as God’s chosen leader who would take over the leadership of Israel very soon. He charged the people (Deu 31:6) and then Joshua (Deu 31:7-8) to be strong and courageous as they entered the land in view of God’s promises, presence, and power.

"Courage is only fear soaked in prayer." [Note: Lewis B. Smedes, "An Introduction to Mission Beyond the Mission," Theology, News, and Notes 30:3 (October 1983):3.]

"Commissioning of the community’s leader(s), therefore, as encountered in this model, is to a task, not to a position. Authority and standing are dependent upon the nature of the task, not vice versa." [Note: Miller, p. 221.]

We observe this too in the commissioning of Paul and Barnabas to their missionary task (Act 13:2-3).

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)