Deuteronomy 4

— the likeness of any fish] The famous Dagon, which the Philistines worshipped, was a fish with a human face, hands and feet; the Syrians worshipped a fish, as Cicero tells us: and all Egypt worshipped certain fishes, and some of them the crocodile and the hippopotamus. Bp. Patrick.

Deuteronomy 4:6

6. — this is your wisdom &c.] It is the fruit of great wisdom, to fear God and obey His laws: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do His commandments,” Ps. cxi. 10. Besides, many of these laws were such as the wiser heathen could not but approve: and accordingly they did actually receive several of them into their own laws; as was the case with the Athenians and the Romans. Bps. Kidder and Patrick.

Deuteronomy 4:7

7. — who hath God so nigh unto them.] God shewed Himself ready to hear the prayers of His servants upon all occasions, Exod. xvii. 11, and to protect and defend them in all straits and dangers, as appeared by the many miracles which He had wrought. Bp. Kidder. To this may be added, that they had a symbol of God’s presence continually among them, in the Holy place, where He dwelt with them; and Moses, whenever he pleased, consulted Him in all difficult affairs; as their high priest might do with the Urim and the Thummim in all times to come Bp. Patrick.

Deuteronomy 4:8

8. — what nation is there so great, &c.] Hence it appears that the true greatness of a nation consists in the sincere worship of God, and in the upright administration of justice. Both of these were so provided for by the Divine laws among the Jews, that no nation could compare with them, or was really so great as they. Bp. Patrick.

— that hath statutes — so righteous as all this law.] The Jews, who were a nation separated from other people, and perhaps not equal to many of them in polite arts and learning, yet in religious knowledge far surpassed the rest of mankind. This we must ascribe to the discoveries, which God made to them of His will. In the two tables, and in the laws added to them, God gave the Jews just notions of Himself, and a system of morality, which in equity, charity, humanity, and many other respects, surpassed what could have been collected from the laws of other nations. And as good laws naturally tend to make good subjects, and a good religion to make good men, so the lives and behaviour of some worthies recorded in Scripture are witnesses to the excellence of the religion which they had received, and by which they were guided. They were remarkable for piety to God, and for a disinterested love of their country: they preferred their duty to all worldly advantages, and endured with patience cruel persecutions, even to death, for the sake of a good conscience. Dr. Jortin.

Deuteronomy 4:14

14. — that ye might do them in the land &c.] The calling of the Israelites, and their separation from the Gentiles, to be “a holy nation, and a peculiar treasure unto God above all people,” took place in the fulness of time, when the apostasy from the pure patriarchal religion was become universal, and polytheism and idolatry had pervaded the most polished nations of the earth, the Assyrians, Babylonians, Phenicians, Canaanites, and Egyptians: and pure and undefiled religion would soon have been exterminated and lost every where, had not the Israelites, themselves a degraded and enslaved people, “been borne on eagles’ wings,” from the house of bondage in Egypt, and brought by their gracious Redeemer unto Himself, to His holy mountain, in the solitary deserts of Arabia Petrea; where they were at first instructed by the voice of God Himself, pronouncing the ten commandments audibly from the summit of Sinai; and were afterwards trained up to re-

Deuteronomy 4:16

16. — a graven image.] The idolatry of the heathens in general, and of the Egyptians and Canaanites in particular, consisted not only in worshipping false gods, such as the sun, moon, stars, winds, elements, &c. see ver. 19, which they supposed to be animated and actuated by some intelligences residing in them, and exerting their beneficial or noxious powers to the advantage or detriment of mankind; but also in framing certain symbolical or figurative representations of the true God, under the forms of beasts, birds, and fishes, expressive of their peculiar excellencies or powers: as the horns or strength of the bull, the milk or nourishment of the cow, the swiftness and sharpsightedness of the eagle or hawk, the wisdom or cunning of the serpent, &c. until at length the symbols were forgotten, or perverted by the vulgar into the most grovelling and senseless materialism on the one hand, or bestial idolatry on the other. Dr. Hales.

Deuteronomy 4:18

18. The likeness of any thing that creepeth &c.] Amongst the Egyptians almost every species of vermin was held sacred. They shewed a reverence, as Sir John Marsham observes, not only to cats, and rats, and spes; but to grubs and beetles; to birds, and reptiles, and fishes. Among these were, as Lactantius tells us, gnats and ants. Hence the children of Israel were enjoined by the Mosaick law to hold every thing of this sort in abhorrence. “Therefore,” says the lawgiver, “take ye good heed to yourselves, lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female,” verse 15, 16. And he further tells them, that this interdict did not merely extend to the larger and nobler animals, such as the steer and the cow; to the crocodile of the river, or the stork in the heavens; but to “the likeness of any thing that creepeth on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the waters beneath the earth,” verse 18. But notwithstanding these prohibitions, the children of Israel forsook the law of the Lord; and the rites, which they adopted, consisted in this symbolical worship, introduced from Egypt. They had polluted the house of God by painting these vile hieroglyphicks upon the walls of the inner court, the most sacred of all. Hence Ezekiel says, that when he was brought there in vision, he had a full sight of these abominations: “So I went in and saw; and behold every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, pourtraved upon the wall round about,” chap.

divided unto all nations under the whole heaven.

Deuteronomy 4:19

19. — and when thou seest the sun, &c.] By the best accounts we have of the earliest ages, the worship of the sun and planets was the first and leading instance of idolatry; being in all probability in use long before the time of Moses himself. Dean Prideaux.

It appears by the testimony of all history, sacred and profane, that the oldest and first idolaters worshipped the creature instead of the Creator, the powers of nature instead of the God of nature. Receiving life, health, food and many other blessings by means of the sun, the light, and the air, they forgot God who made those elements, and “deemed them to be the gods that governed the world,” Wisd. xiii. 2, supposing them to be endued with understanding and wisdom, as well as power and might. Bp. Horne.

Deuteronomy 4:20

20. But the Lord hath taken you, &c.] This verse contains two powerful arguments to obedience: 1. God’s great mercy in delivering them from the bondage and miseries of Egypt, which is here expressed by the “iron furnace,” or furnace where iron is melted, Exod. xx. 2. 2dly, His taking them for His peculiar people, Exod. xix. 5. Both of these arguments God made use of, when He gave them His law. Bp. Kidder. It was the design of these blessings to make the Israelites a separate and peculiar church and people, by the worship of the one true, infinite, and invisible God, free from all the ignorant and corrupt usages of idolatrous nations. This design the Israelites would frustrate, by falling into any kind of image-worship. Pyle.

— out of the iron furnace,] That is, out of Egyptian thralldom. Abraham saw in a vision the bondage of his posterity under the emblem of “a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp,” Gen. xv. 17; and the fiery furnace is frequently used in Scripture as a type of the Israelites’ slavery, and of all the cruelty which they experienced in Egypt, 1 Kings viii. 51; Is. xlviii. 10. Bryant. The phrase is used to express the most cruel servitude, wherein God suffered them to be tried, as metals are in a furnace of iron red hot. Bp. Patrick.

Deuteronomy 4:21

21. — the Lord was angry with me] Moses calls this to their recollection again, though he had mentioned it twice before, chap. i. 37; iii. 26; that they might be the

Before CHRIST 1451. Or, imported. An exhortation to obedience. God’s mercy toward Israel. shall go over, and possess that good land.

Deuteronomy 4:26

26. I call heaven and earth to witness against you &c.] That is, As sure as there is a heaven above, or the earth under your feet, so surely will the vengeance of God keep pace with your impiety. Pyle. This vehement attestation is used in the Scriptures, to upbraid men for their stupidity, and to awaken them to greater attention, Deut. xxxii. 1; Is. i. 2. Bp. Kidder.

Deuteronomy 4:32

32. — whether there hath been any such thing as this great thing is, &c.] If Moses has recorded nothing but real facts, (and the truth of what he has recorded no considerate person can dispute,) it must be undeniably evident, that the hand of God was most miraculously employed in leading the Israelites out of Egypt, in giving them their law, in conducting them through the wilderness, and in bringing them into Canaan. If the miracles were wrought in the land of Egypt, and the judgments executed upon Pharaoh and his people, as Moses has related, Exod. vii—xii; if the Red sea was really divided before the Israelites, and Pharaoh and his host drowned in it, as Moses has recorded, Exod. xiv; if a miraculous supply of food was given daily to the Israelites in the wilderness for forty years together, chap. xvi; if God did indeed speak to them in an audible voice from heaven, chap. xix, xx; if their laws were given, as Moses informs us; if their tabernacle was directed, and, when finished, if a cloud covered the tent, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle and rested upon it in a cloud by day, and in fire by night, Exod. xxxv—xl; if this cloud removed visibly to conduct their journeyings; if the many oppositions of the people were miraculously

punished in the several manners related to us, Numb. xi, xii, xiv, xvi, xxi, xxv, &c. and the miracles, that are recorded, were wrought to testify the Divine appointment of the institutions enjoined, when the people would have varied from them, Levit. x; Numb. xvi, xvii, &c.; if a Prophet, even of another nation, corrupt in the inclination of his heart, and tempted by great offers to speak evil of this people, was by very astonishing miracles prevented from declaring any thing about them, diverse from what Moses had represented to be the purpose of God towards them: if all these, and other things of a like nature, were really and truly done, as Moses hath related, well might be “call heaven and earth to witness” for him, Deut. xxx. 19; well might he observe, that “no such things had ever been done for any nation:” and we who read them, cannot but conclude from them, that the power of God did indeed miraculously interest itself in appointing the law and polity of this people, and in conducting them to their settlement in the promised land. Shuckford.

Deuteronomy 4:34

34. — by temptations.] Or trials. For the miracles, which God wrought in Egypt, were trials both to the Egyptians and the Israelites, whether they would obey God and trust in Him, or not. Bp. Kidder.

By “tempting” any one, is sometimes meant only trying him; putting his sincerity, his obedience, his faith, or any of his other virtues to the test. In this sense God “tempted” Abraham, when He commanded him to offer up his son, Gen. xxii. 1. In this sense He may be said to have “tempted” the Israelites in the wilderness; on purpose, as Moses expressly tells us, to “prove them, to know what was in their hearts, whether they would keep His commandments or no.” And in the same

Moses appointeth the three cities of refuge. Before CHRIST 1451.

signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched out arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?

Deuteronomy 4:40

40. Thou shalt keep therefore his statutes, &c.] That is, thou shalt worship and obey Him, as the only way to make thee and thy posterity live happily in the land, which God is about to give thee. Though Moses in this verse speaks of their long life upon earth, or of their long possession of the promised land, yet the better sort of Jews did not set up their rest here; but from the word “prolong,” here used, they extended their hope as far as to the other world. For thus, Maimonides says, they were taught by tradition to expound these words, “That it may be well with thee,” in the world which is all good; and, “that thou mayest prolong thy days” in the world which is all long; that is, which never ends. Bp. Patrick.

Deuteronomy 4:42

42. — that fleeing unto one of these cities he might live:] Yet he was not thereupon exempt from the pursuit of justice, Numb. xxxv. 12: an information was lodged

against him; he was summoned before the judges and the people, to prove that the act was really casual, and involuntary: if found innocent, he dwelt safely in the city, to which he had retired; if guilty, he was put to death according to the law. At the same time, to inspire the greater horreur, even of involuntary bloodshed, the law punished it by a kind of banishment: for the manslayer was obliged to dwell in this city, without going out of it, till the death of the high priest, Numb. xxxv. 25—28. Calmet.

Deuteronomy 4:44

44 And this is the law &c.] Moses did not deliver all that is contained in this book, in one continued speech. After the preface in these four chapters, it is to be supposed that he dismissed the people to consider what he had said; and then, having assigned the cities of refuge, some time after reassembled them, to put them in mind of the laws, which he so earnestly pressed them to observe. The next chapter contains “the Law,” that is, the Ten Commandments, which Moses “set before them;” and in the several following chapters, after new earnest exhortations to obedience, he represents to them the rest of God’s will, comprehended under these three words in the 45th verse, “testimonies, statutes, and judgments:” some of which belong to the Divine service, others to their civil government, and the rest to ceremonial observances, for the better security and preservation of both the former. Bp. Patrick.

The covenant in Horeb. The ten commandments. bank of the river Arnon, even unto mount Sion, which is Hermon,

Deuteronomy 4:48

48. — mount Sion.] Not that, which was so famous in aftertimes, when David made it the royal seat; for that was on the other side Jordan: the word is probably a contraction or a faulty reading for Sirion, the name by which the Sidonians called Hermon. See chap. iii. 8, 9. Bp. Patrick.

Chap. V. ver. 3. — not — with our fathers, but with us.] Though many, who were present at Sinai, were now dead, many also must have been still living: those only having perished in consequence of God’s threats, who were twenty years old and upwards, when they offended Him by their murmurs; and even of those, condemned to die in the wilderness, many might, like Moses, be suffered to behold the land, which they were not to enter. Moses however may perhaps mean only, that God made not that solemn covenant with their forefathers, the Patriarchs, but with the generation of his contemporaries. Dr. Gray.