Deuteronomy 1

Chapter 1. Moses’ First Address On the Plains of MoabRetrospectiveDeu_1:1 to Deuteronomy 4:43This address is introduced in the five opening verses of the book by a simple historical reference to the circumstances in which it was given. It was spoken on the plain of Moab “in the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month” (Deuteronomy 1:3), after their victory over Sihon, king of the Amorites, and over the king of Bashan. It contains a striking little parenthesis which is more emphatic than the whole chapter (Deuteronomy 1:2): “It takes eleven days to go from Horeb to Kadesh Barnea by the Mount Seir road.” This little sentence stands in contrast with the 40 years of their wandering, and is a hint of what might have been had they promptly believed and obeyed God. Alas! many a journey in our Christian pilgrimage is made a thousandfold more sad and long by our refusing to obey the Lord. The address proper consists of two portions; first, a recapitulation of their history up to the present time (Deuteronomy 1:6 to Deuteronomy 3:29); and secondly, an exhortation to obedience (Deuteronomy 4:1-43).

Section I: Recapitulation

Section I—RecapitulationDeuteronomy 1-3Departure From Horeb1. Moses goes back to their departure from Horeb (Deuteronomy 1:6-8), and their setting out for the land of promise. “You have stayed long enough at this mountain” (Deuteronomy 1:6) is the Lord’s message. Break camp and advance into the hill country of the Amorites; go to all the neighboring peoples in the Arabah, in the mountains, in the western foothills, in the Negev and along the coast, to the land of the Canaanites and to Lebanon, as far as the great river, the Euphrates. See, I have given you this land. Go in and take possession of the land that the Lord swore he would give to your fathers—to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—and to their descendants after them. (Deuteronomy 1:7-8) Here there is no long interval, no weary wilderness march even suggested; the land is right before them as God’s immediate purpose for them to inherit; and back of the command stands the oath of God to their fathers. It was well that it was so, for had it not been for their sakes the promise would have been of no effect; but when they forfeited their claim, the covenant with Abraham still stood fast, and by virtue of it their children entered in. It is well for us that the covenant is not with us and the mercy of God is not for our sakes, but wholly on account of the Lord Jesus Christ, our covenant Head. “For God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable” (Romans 11:29). Organization of the Camp 2. Moses next refers to his plan for the organization and government of the host. The multitude had grown so vast that it was necessary that there should be a system of administration in detail. This was rendered the more necessary by what Moses pathetically refers to as their burden and their strife. Alas! it was this element of human self-will, discontent and murmuring, which caused most of his burdens and their sorrows. This, alas! is still true. It is not our troubles that burden the Master, but our strife. To meet the innumerable cases of complaint and litigation that would arise, Moses appointed judges and commanders “of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties and of tens” (Deuteronomy 1:15) and laid upon them the most solemn charges with regard to the patient and righteous administration of justice in all the minor difficulties that might arise. He reserved to himself for personal decision the cases that might prove too complicated for them. We have here a wise example of the importance of a careful, thorough organization in the work of the Church of Christ. George Whitefield once said: “The Lord gave me as great a work as John Wesley, but he organized and I did not; the result was his became an enduring system, and mine, so far as visible and organic results were concerned, a rope of sand.” Through the Wilderness 3. He next recalls their journey through the wilderness from Horeb to Kadesh Barnea. “Then, as the Lord our God commanded us, we set out from Horeb and went toward the hill country of the Amorites through all that vast and dreadful desert that you have seen, and so we reached Kadesh Barnea” (Deuteronomy 1:19). The remembrance still seems to cause a shudder of horror as he speaks of the great and terrible wilderness. Like them we too must pass into our inheritance through a waste and desolate region of separation from the world and crucifixion with Christ. But it need not be long. It was only 11 days’ journey, and it was utterly unnecessary that they should return to it again and again and wander in it for the remaining 40 years. And so we too must pass through the earlier conflicts which meet us into a deeper rest; yet the ordeal need not be long, and certainly need not be renewed and prolonged through all the weary pilgrimage of life. He that is brave enough to pass quickly through the border land and utterly to follow the Lord will find that this is the secret of a peaceful and happy life, free from the struggles and conflicts which should be settled at the beginning. But he who is afraid utterly to die and wholly to obey will find his whole life a long and ineffectual struggle of useless misery. The Crisis 4. The crisis of their history has now come. Then I said to you, “You have reached the hill country of the Amorites, which the Lord our God is giving us. See, the Lord your God has given you the land. Go up and take possession of it as the Lord, the God of your fathers, told you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.” (Deuteronomy 1:20-21) This represents the crisis hour in our Christian life when the soul comes face to face with the question of entire consecration and entering into the fullness of Christ’s blessing. It is a moment that never will come again, and on which the issues of a lifetime hang. Happy are they who stop not to reason and compromise, but literally go up at once and possess it. Their First Compromise 5. They began to reason about the promise of the Lord. Then all of you came to me and said, “Let us send men ahead to spy out the land for us and bring back a report about the route we are to take and the towns we will come to.” The idea seemed good to me; so I selected twelve of you, one man from each tribe. They left and went up into the hill country, and came to the Valley of Eshcol and explored it. Taking with them some of the fruit of the land, they brought it down to us and reported, “It is a good land that the Lord our God is giving us.” (Deuteronomy 1:22-25) Alas! they now made the fatal mistake of beginning to reason about that which the Lord had distinctly promised and commanded. They came to Moses and proposed that the spies should be sent up to reconnoiter the land, and bring word again concerning the country and the way by which they should go. While, on the superficial view, this looks plausible enough as a human proposition, yet as a people supernaturally led by the very hand of God, such a resort to mere human wisdom was inconsistent and dangerous. If the Lord was to lead them what need had they of man’s counsels? And if the Lord had told them what the land was, how dared they question it even sufficiently to try to find it out by human wisdom? And yet, even Moses was caught in the snare, and admits in his address, “The idea seemed good to me” (Deuteronomy 1:23). He even went to God and obtained the divine permission for this arrangement. God Himself allowed it to test their faith and show the folly of leaning on human understanding and the mistake which even the best of men are sure to make when they fail to act upon the simple principles of obedience and faith. The spies were able to successfully accomplish their inspection and even to bring back with them a sample of the wonderful products of the land. And surely this ought to have been at least a pledge that the dangers were not insurmountable, if 12 men could go safely through this foreign territory. Rebellion 6. Their compromise was followed speedily by a bolder step of disobedience and rebellion. But you were unwilling to go up; you rebelled against the command of the Lord your God. You grumbled in your tents and said, “The Lord hates us; so he brought us out of Egypt to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us. Where can we go? Our brothers have made us lose heart. They say, ‘The people are stronger and taller than we are; the cities are large, with walls up to the sky. We even saw the Anakites there.’” (Deuteronomy 1:26-28) They did not question the merits of the land but their cowardly hearts were afraid of the perils of the way. “Our brothers have made us lose heart. They say, ‘The people are stronger and taller than we are; the cities are large, with walls up to the sky. We even saw the Anakites there’” (Deuteronomy 1:28). Discouragement soon led to darker thoughts of God, and they dared to say, “The Lord hates us; so he brought us out of Egypt to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us” (Deuteronomy 1:27). So, still, the unbelief of God’s people does not question the excellency of His promises or the reality of divine things and of the higher possibilities of Christian life, but it questions their own ability to live such a life, and faints before the dangers and temptations of the way and the helplessness of their own weakness and sinfulness; leaving God Himself quite out of view and forgetting that He is greater than all difficulties and mightier than all our weakness. Moses’ Appeal 7. Moses appeals to them with this very thought. “Then I said to you, ‘Do not be terrified; do not be afraid of them. The Lord your God, who is going before you, will fight for you’” (Deuteronomy 1:29-30), and then he reminds them of their own previous experience of His victorious power “as he did for you in Egypt,… and in the desert. There you saw how the Lord your God carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went” (Deuteronomy 1:30-31). This is the ground of our confidence for all our spiritual victories; this is the answer to all our difficulties and all our fears; we are not sufficient for anything, but Christ is all-sufficient, and we “can do everything through him who gives [us] strength” (Philippians 4:13). When the soul sees the living Christ and His infinite resources, it has the pledge of perfect victory. They could not see God because their eyes were full of their enemies and their own insignificance. Their Unbelief 8. And so the crisis ends in utter unbelief and disobedience. “In spite of this, you did not trust in the Lord your God” (Deuteronomy 1:32). This is the root of all disobedience and sin. The fall of man at first sprang from doubting God. Salvation begins with the recovery of our lost faith, as apostasy always originates in some form of faithlessness. Let us “see to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God” (Hebrews 3:12). God’s Rejection 9. Their unbelief is immediately followed by the divine rejection (Deuteronomy 1:34-40). When the Lord heard what you said, he was angry and solemnly swore: “Not a man of this evil generation shall see the good land I swore to give your forefathers, except Caleb son of Jephunneh. He will see it, and I will give him and his descendants the land he set his feet on, because he followed the Lord wholeheartedly.” (Deuteronomy 1:34-36) That whole generation is refused by an angry God and consigned to an ignominious grave in the wilderness, and their little children, for whom they pretended to be afraid, are chosen to inherit the land which they refused. The only exceptions to this sweeping sentence of exclusion are Joshua and Caleb, the two faithful spies, who stood alone in the dark and awful hour of their people’s revolt and pleaded with them at the risk of their lives to trust and obey Jehovah and go up at once and possess the land. Even Moses himself intimates that his own exclusion was in some measure due to the people’s sin: “Because of you the Lord became angry with me also” (Deuteronomy 1:37). It was their perverse spirit which provoked the meek and gentle lawgiver and for once in his life seemed to infect even him with the spirit of their unbelief. And, as the law could show no mercy even to its author he must become a monument of its inexorable severity. Their Remorse and Recklessness 10. The reaction from their desperate act soon comes and leads them into an attitude of presumption as wicked as their cowardice had been before. Then you replied, “We have sinned against the Lord. We will go up and fight, as the Lord our God commanded us.” So every one of you put on his weapons, thinking it easy to go up into the hill country. But the Lord said to me, “Tell them, ‘Do not go up and fight, because I will not be with you. You will be defeated by your enemies.’” So I told you, but you would not listen. You rebelled against the Lord’s command and in your arrogance you marched up into the hill country. The Amorites who lived in those hills came out against you; they chased you like a swarm of bees and beat you down from Seir all the way to Hormah. You came back and wept before the Lord, but he paid no attention to your weeping and turned a deaf ear to you. (Deuteronomy 1:41-45) As soon as they find that they have lost the inheritance through their wickedness, they go to the opposite extreme of remorse and regret, acknowledge their sin and offer immediately to go forward. But this is only the passionate impulse of the sorrow that works death; and even had God met them in this position they would signally have failed, and soon after proved that they did not possess any permanent element of true repentance or faith. And so He righteously refuses to allow them to go forward; they have chosen the issue and they must meet it. They soon show that their spirit is not truly chastened or penitent, by refusing to obey the warning of Moses, and rushing presumptuously forward against the enemy. They are terribly defeated and smitten by the Amorites and driven back in confusion and despair. So the willful and unbelieving heart swings from the extreme of doubt to that of daring presumption; attempts to do in its own strength what it had refused to do in the Lord’s, and is met with desperate failure and disaster. There is a time, we know not when, A place, we know not where, That marks the destiny of men For glory and despair. Let none of us trine with God’s nows; but today, while it is called today, if we will hear His voice, let us harden not our hearts (Hebrews 3:13, Hebrews 3:15). There is a sorrow that has no healing in it; a remorse that has no repentance in it, a weeping that has no softening, sanctifying power; a grief that even God has no compassion for, because it is the cry of a willful, proud and sinful heart; as self-willed in its weeping as it was in its defiance. What infinite pathos and despair there is in the closing words: “You came back and wept before the Lord, but he paid no attention to your weeping and turned a deaf ear to you” (Deuteronomy 1:45). Wasted Years 11. The Interval spent in Kadesh became wasted years. “And so you stayed in Kadesh many days—all the time you spent there” (Deuteronomy 1:46). How long they remained in Kadesh after this melancholy occurrence we do not know, and the narrative reads as if it did not matter much. There are chapters in life’s history that are as blank and cold as the face of an iceberg. They count for nothing in the annals of God and eternity; they are simply, bitterly and utterly vague—barren and empty as the desert wind. What a suggestive meaning there is in this sentence, “And so you stayed in Kadesh many days—all the time you spent there” (Deuteronomy 1:46). That is to say that there were just so many days and they were counted simply by the number of days, and not by any event of the slightest interest or importance. They were just passed by and that was all. They were not according to the will of God, or according to the plan of His love and ordering, or according to the useful service with which they were filled, but they were just according to the number of the days. They had 38 years to throw away, to finish the tramp of their vain and lost existence, and it seemed to be little matter where they spent them. Oh! it is pitiful to be living a life with God above us, immortality within us and eternity before us with such an awful record of vanity; and yet, such is the life of all who live not for God. They are just filling up the time until the next chapter, the long, the sad eternity. The Wilderness Again 12. The wandering in the wilderness is even sadder. This is, if possible, still more sad. “Then we turned back and set out toward the desert along the route to the Red Sea, as the Lord had directed me. For a long time we made our way around the hill country of Seir” (Deuteronomy 2:1). A single verse completes the history of 3 million people for 38 years. “Then we turned back and set out toward the desert along the route to the Red Sea, as the Lord had directed me. For a long time we made our way around the hill country of Seir” (Deuteronomy 2:1). What a mournful picture; still more desolate as the speaker draws it out into days rather than years. Oh! how long and dreary they must have seemed to him in retrospect. Nearly 14,000 days of useless ineffectual wandering, and that when he himself was nearly 80 years old, and was wasting the last 38 years of his already almost finished life in this dreary land. In the 90th Psalm he has given us some conception of those scenes: “All our days pass away under your wrath; we finish our years with a moan” (Psalms 90:9). Day by day and year by year he saw them fading before his eyes. Fathers and mothers wandered in the burning sands with their thirsty little ones, and saw one and another of their neighbors faint and sink amid the sands, gasp out their lives, and leave their bones to whiten in the desert, and they knew that soon their turn would come; for them there was no prospect but death. Oh! how vivid a picture it is of the emptiness and failure of the Christian life which hesitates wholly to follow the Lord and to enter into the fullness of our inheritance. There will be very little history for many lives. One single verse in the book of Numbers (Numbers 33:37) tells the story of most of the 40 years as we have already seen in that book. This very verse is the sole memorial, in the address of Moses, of that melancholy time from which his thoughts would gladly turn away. It is a chapter from the annals of eternity, and such awful blanks will meet many of us, it is to be feared, when we come face to face with the issues of life and the books of the judgment. The New Departure “Then the Lord said to me, ‘You have made your way around this hill country long enough; now turn north’” (Deuteronomy 2:2-3). 13. The 38 years of wandering have about passed; and now the command comes to turn northward from the territory of Edom toward the land of promise. The last days of the wilderness are spent in passing through, for the last time, the territory of the Edomites. Their first aggressive work is now to begin. Through many adversaries they are to fight their way into their inheritance. The Edomites 14. The Edomites are not to be attacked. Give the people these orders: “You are about to pass through the territory of your brothers the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir. They will be afraid of you, but be very careful. Do not provoke them to war, for I will not give you any of their land, not even enough to put your foot on. I have given Esau the hill country of Seir as his own.” (Deuteronomy 2:4-5) They are their own brethren, the race of Esau, and their territory is not to be disturbed because of the covenant with Esau. They are to deal honestly by them and pay for all which they shall require, both food and drink; even their inhospitality is not to be avenged, but they are to be treated with forbearance and justice, even as the children of God today should act in all their dealings with the world and even with those that are most unkind and selfish. The Moabites 15. The Moabites also are spared because they are the descendants of Lot, and thus distantly related to the Hebrew race. So we went on past our brothers the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir. We turned from the Arabah road, which comes up from Elath and Ezion Geber, and traveled along the desert road of Moab. Then the Lord said to me, “Do not harass the Moabites or provoke them to war, for I will not give you any part of their land. I have given Ar to the descendants of Lot as a possession.” (Deuteronomy 2:8-9) The Years of Wandering 16. Here the narrative pauses a moment to mark the close of the 38 years of wandering. Thirty-eight years passed from the time we left Kadesh Barnea until we crossed the Zered Valley. By then, that entire generation of fighting men had perished from the camp, as the Lord had sworn to them. The Lord’s hand was against them until he had completely eliminated them from the camp. (Deuteronomy 2:14-15) As they cross the brook Zered, on the borders of Moab, the last of the unbelieving generation has passed away, and Moses sets up a memorial stone, as it were, in the record, to mark the beginning of the new departure and to recognize the hand of God in the solemn and awful dissolution of a whole generation. He adds, “The Lord’s hand was against them until he had completely eliminated them from the camp” (Deuteronomy 2:15). “That entire generation of fighting men had perished from the camp, as the Lord had sworn to them” (Deuteronomy 2:14). How very dreadful it is to have the hand of the Lord against us; not one of all those millions escaped. Patiently His judgment waited until the work was thoroughly finished, and every soul was sifted from among the whole population. God’s purposes, both of blessing and of judgment, are as immutable as eternity. Happy is he who has that mighty Hand upon his side. The Ammonites 17. They next pass the territory of the Ammonites. The Lord said to me, “Today you are to pass by the region of Moab at Ar. When you come to the Ammonites, do not harass them or provoke them to war, for I will not give you possession of any land belonging to the Ammonites. I have given it as a possession to the descendants of Lot.” (Deuteronomy 2:17-19) And they, too, share the same immunity which their brethren, the Moabites, received on account of their relationship with Israel. Some important incidents of the earlier history both of the Moabites, Ammonites and Edomites, are here interspersed, giving us an account of how these tribes had dispossessed the former inhabitants, which were of the race of the giants, and had occupied their territory. Their First Campaign 18. The first aggressive movement follows immediately after this. Set out now and cross the Arnon Gorge. See, I have given into your hand Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his country. Begin to take possession of it and engage him in battle. This very day I will begin to put the terror and fear of you on all the nations under heaven. They will hear reports of you and will tremble and be in anguish because of you. (Deuteronomy 2:24-25) God would not let them fight until the old generation had all passed away. Now with a new race they enter upon their career of victory. It is not until the old generation in our heart has died that we can fight the battles of the Lord or claim the victories of faith. And so, immediately after the 38 years are ended, they commence the irrepressible conflict which is to be consummated on the other side of the Jordan. Their first antagonist is Sihon, the king of the Amorites; and he is permitted to bring upon himself the conflict which ends in his destruction. A courteous message is sent to him asking permission to pass through the territory, and promising to respect the rights of person and property, and to buy honorably all supplies that may be needed. Sihon met the request with a hostile army and disputed the passage at Jahaz, but was utterly defeated, his whole race exterminated, the spoil of his rich land confiscated, and all his fortified cities captured and held. This was Israel’s first aggressive victory, and it must have been an unspeakable inspiration to the long discouraged and passive tribes, as well as an acquisition of invaluable territory and extensive and costly possessions. This, as well as the subsequent victory, represents the conflicts and triumphs into which the Lord leads His people, even before they cross the Jordan in the full experience of death and resurrection life. The death of the old generation and the advent of the new perhaps represents the new life and birth in Christian experience, while the passage of the Jordan symbolizes the deeper experience of death and resurrection into which the converted soul passes afterwards, before its full inheritance of the land of promise. Israel had many glorious experiences even on the wilderness side of the Jordan; and so the children of God may pass through much victory and blessing even before they enter into the full meaning of death and resurrection with Christ. Most of their victories occur just as this conflict with Sihon occurred, out of the obstacles met with in the ordinary course of life. It was the refusal of Sihon to grant them a polite request which led to the possession of his entire territory. And so, the things that we call hindrances, difficulties and even injuries are the very occasions out of which God desires to bring, if we would only let Him, the most glorious triumphs of our experience. The Second Campaign 19. The conflict with Og and Bashan next follows. Next we turned and went up along the road toward Bashan, and Og king of Bashan with his whole army marched out to meet us in battle at Edrei. The Lord said to me, “Do not be afraid of him, for I have handed him over to you with his whole army and his land. Do to him what you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon.” So the Lord our God also gave into our hands Og king of Bashan and all his army. We struck them down, leaving no survivors. (Deuteronomy 3:1-3) His was a still more valuable territory than that of the Amorites, including Bashan and Gilead. He was the last of the primitive race of giants and his tremendous stature may well suggest some of the formidable adversaries which confront us in our earlier experiences. Every one of them may become a trophy as valuable and yield us an inheritance as precious, as their position was threatening. Division of the New Territory 20. Next comes the distribution of Gilead and Bashan among the two and a half tribes. Of the land that we took over at that time, I gave the Reubenites and the Gadites the territory north of Aroer by the Arnon Gorge, including half the hill country of Gilead, together with its towns. The rest of Gilead and also all of Bashan, the kingdom of Og, I gave to the half tribe of Manasseh. (The whole region of Argob in Bashan used to be known as a land of the Rephaites. Jair, a descendant of Manasseh, took the whole region of Argob as far as the border of the Geshurites and the Maacathites; it was named after him, so that to this day Bashan is called Havvoth Jair.) And I gave Gilead to Makir. But to the Reubenites and the Gadites I gave the territory extending from Gilead down to the Arnon Gorge (the middle of the gorge being the border) and out to the Jabbok River, which is the border of the Ammonites. Its western border was the Jordan in the Arabah, from Kinnereth to the Sea of the Arabah (the Salt Sea), below the slopes of Pisgah. I commanded you at that time: “The Lord your God has given you this land to take possession of it. But all your able-bodied men, armed for battle, must cross over ahead of your brother Israelites. However, your wives, your children and your livestock (I know you have much livestock) may stay in the towns I have given you, until the Lord gives rest to your brothers as he has to you, and they too have taken over the land that the Lord your God is giving them, across the Jordan. After that, each of you may go back to the possession I have given you.” (Deuteronomy 3:12-20) This territory was divided between Manasseh, Gad and Reuben, whose families were to remain in the cities while their men of war crossed the Jordan and completed the conquest of Canaan with the other tribes. All this Moses rehearsed to them just on the eve of the last great movement across the Jordan itself. Moses’ Disappointment 21. Now comes the most tender part of all his retrospect, his own sad disappointment. At that time, I commanded Joshua: “You have seen with your own eyes all that the Lord your God has done to these two kings. The Lord will do the same to all the kingdoms over there where you are going. Do not be afraid of them; the Lord your God himself will fight for you.” At that time I pleaded with the Lord: “O Sovereign Lord, you have begun to show to your servant your greatness and your strong hand. For what god is there in heaven or on earth who can do the deeds and mighty works you do? Let me go over and see the good land beyond the Jordan—that fine hill country and Lebanon.” But because of you the Lord was angry with me and would not listen to me. “That is enough,” the Lord said. “Do not speak to me anymore about this matter. Go up to the top of Pisgah and look west and north and south and east. Look at the land with your own eyes, since you are not going to cross this Jordan. But commission Joshua, and encourage and strengthen him, for he will lead this people across and will cause them to inherit the land that you will see.” So we stayed in the valley near Beth Peor. (Deuteronomy 3:21-29) His heart has been so stirred up by seeing these mighty victories of the power of God over the enemies of Israel, that he longs to cross over with the people, even into the land of promise itself. And he ventures to ask the Lord once more, even if it be but to set his foot upon it and to see it; but his request is refused, as he pathetically tells them, for their sakes. His own offense would seem to have been provoked by their sin. All that the Lord would permit him to have was the view of the land from Pisgah’s top. With this he is content, and cheerfully obeys the command to prepare Joshua, his successor, for the great work which is so soon to devolve upon him and encourages him by the assurance that the same divine presence will accompany him which God has just begun to manifest through Moses. And so he pauses in the recapitulation and turns next to:

Section II: The Exhortation

Section II—The ExhortationDeu_4:1-40God’s Law1. He charges them to remember the sacredness and integrity of the divine law: “Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it” (Deuteronomy 4:2). Hear now, O Israel, the decrees and laws I am about to teach you. Follow them so that you may live and may go in and take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you. Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the Lord your God that I give you. (Deuteronomy 4:1-2) God’s Judgments 2. He reminds them how their own eyes have seen the judgments that have come in the past to all that have transgressed divine commandments, and how their obedience has brought them divine protection and blessing to this day. “You saw with your own eyes what the Lord did at Baal Peor. The Lord your God destroyed from among you everyone who followed the Baal of Peor, but all of you who held fast to the Lord your God are still alive today” (Deuteronomy 4:3-4). Their High Calling 3. He charges them as a nation to remember the distinguished honor that is put upon them in being trusted with the divine law and the direct revelation of His will, and reminds them that this is to be the glory and strength of their wisdom and their understanding in the sight of the nations. See, I have taught you decrees and laws as the Lord my God commanded me, so that you may follow them in the land you are entering to take possession of it. Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations, who will hear about all these decrees and say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.” What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the Lord our God is near us whenever we pray to him? And what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today? (Deuteronomy 4:5-8) Sacred Memories 4. He specially impresses upon their hearts the remembrance of the majestic and solemn scenes amid which the law was given to them at Horeb with His living voice, and graven with His fingers on tables of stone, that they might be forever impressed upon their memory and hearts with lasting solemnity. Remember the day you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, when he said to me, “Assemble the people before me to hear my words so that they may learn to revere me as long as they live in the land and may teach them to their children.” You came near and stood at the foot of the mountain while it blazed with fire to the very heavens, with black clouds and deep darkness. Then the Lord spoke to you out of the fire. You heard the sound of the words but saw no form; there was only a voice. He declared to you his covenant, the Ten Commandments, which he commanded you to follow and then wrote them on two stone tablets. And the Lord directed me at that time to teach you decrees and laws you are to follow in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. (Deuteronomy 4:10-14) Warnings Against Idolatry 5. Especially he warns them against the sin of idolatry, which he foresaw was to be their future national snare, and which involved a direct apostasy from their covenant, as a people, with Jehovah. You saw no form of any kind the day the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire. Therefore watch yourselves very carefully, so that you do not become corrupt and make for yourselves an idol, an image of any shape, whether formed like a man or a woman, or like any animal on earth or any bird that flies in the air, or like any creature that moves along the ground or any fish in the waters below. And when you look up to the sky and see the sun, the moon and the stars—all the heavenly array—do not be enticed into bowing down to them and worshiping things the Lord your God has apportioned to all the nations under heaven. (Deuteronomy 4:15-19) He reminds them in this connection that amid all the majestic manifestations of the divine presence at Sinai there was no similitude of God, on any ground whatever, to authorize them in forming unto themselves any image or likeness of His spiritual and invisible person. The National History 6. He reminds them of their previous national history, their glorious redemption from Egypt and their separation unto God as His chosen inheritance, and calls upon them by all the sacredness of their high calling to be true to their covenant with Jehovah. “But as for you, the Lord took you and brought you out of the iron-smelting furnace, out of Egypt, to be the people of his inheritance, as you now are” (Deuteronomy 4:20). His Own Example 7. He further impresses upon them the danger of disobedience, from his own personal example, and the judgment which has fallen even upon him because of a single offence, in excluding him from the land of promise; and he warns them that the God who has dealt thus with him will prove to them an inexorable Avenger if they presume to trifle with His sacred words, and warnings. The Lord was angry with me because of you, and he solemnly swore that I would not cross the Jordan and enter the good land the Lord your God is giving you as your inheritance. I will die in this land; I will not cross the Jordan; but you are about to cross over and take possession of that good land. (Deuteronomy 4:21-22) God’s Judgments On Israel 8. He next warns them in the most solemn manner of the judgment which shall come upon them and their posterity if they disobey and apostatize from Jehovah. Be careful not to forget the covenant of the Lord your God that he made with you; do not make for yourselves an idol in the form of anything the Lord your God has forbidden. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. After you have had children and grandchildren and have lived in the land a long time—if you then become corrupt and make any kind of idol, doing evil in the eyes of the Lord your God and provoking him to anger, I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you this day that you will quickly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live there long but will certainly be destroyed. The Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the Lord will drive you. (Deuteronomy 4:23-27) The words are almost a literal prophecy of the trials that have actually come to these people. Future Restoration 9. At the same time he lights up even this dark future with the gracious promise that if, even in the lands of the enemy they shall repent and turn to God, He will mercifully forgive and even yet restore. But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, then in later days you will return to the Lord your God and obey him. For the Lord your God is a merciful God; he will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your forefathers, which he confirmed to them by oath. (Deuteronomy 4:29-31) The Appeal of Love 10. By the tender sanctions of love does Moses finally seek to bind them to obedience and faithfulness, as he lingers with peculiar tenderness upon the blessings and privileges which have been poured out upon them, the love which has been displayed to them and the purposes of mercy which God has in store for them if they will not hinder His gracious plan by their own transactions and rebellion. Ask now about the former days, long before your time, from the day God created man on the earth; ask from one end of the heavens to the other. Has anything so great as this ever happened, or has anything like it ever been heard of? Has any other people heard the voice of God speaking out of fire, as you have, and lived? Has any god ever tried to take for himself one nation out of another nation, by testings, by miraculous signs and wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, or by great and awesome deeds, like all the things the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes? You were shown these things so that you might know that the Lord is God; besides him there is no other. From heaven he made you hear his voice to discipline you. On earth he showed you his great fire, and you heard his words from out of the fire. Because he loved your forefathers and chose their descendants after them, he brought you out of Egypt by his Presence and his great strength. (Deuteronomy 4:32-37)