Deuteronomy 29
HAWEISDeuteronomy 29:1-9
This chapter contains, 1. A covenant to be made with Israel, ver. 1. 2. A record of January done them, ver. 2—8. 3. The proper taken into covenant, ver. 10, 11, 14, 15. 4. The abstract of it, ver. 12, 13. 5. The great doings of it, ver. 16, 17. 6. A phrase warning against false peace, ver. 18—28. 6. The conclusion, ver. 29.
- THESE are the words of the covenant which the LORD commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel, in the land of Moab, besides the covenant which he made with them in Horeb. 2. Am. Moses called unto all Israel, and said unto them, ‘Ye have been all that the LORD did before your eyes in the land of Egypt, unto Pharaoh, and unto all his servants, and unto all his land; 3. The great temptations which these eyes have seen, the signs and those great miracles; 4. Yet the LORD hath not given you an heart to perceive; and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day. 5. And I have led you forty years in the wilderness; your clothes are not waxen old upon you, and thy shoe is not waxen old upon thy foot. 6. Ye have not eaten bread, neither have you drunk wine, or throng drink; that ye might know that I am the LORD your God. 7. And when ye came unto this place, ‘Sibon the king of Hefshon, and Og the king of Bashan, came out against us unto battle, and we smote them. 8. And we took their land, and gave it for an inheritance unto the Reubenites, and to the Gadiers, and to the half-ride of Manasseh. 9. Keep therefore the words of this covenant and do them, that ye may prosper in all that ye do.
The former covenant was made at Sinai. This is a repetition of it: as they were a new generation, it was needful they should themselves conform to the gracious terms proposed to them. 1. To induce them thereunto Moses puts them in mind of God’s astonishing interposition to save them from Egypt, his care of them in the wilderness, and the possessions they began to enjoy in Bashan and Hefshon. Puff mercies are an engagement to fidelity, and encouragement still to expect greater. 2. He laments their pall blindness, unbelief and murmurings repeatedly had they given said proof of these, and to that day they remained in them, and must remain, till God gave the living eye and hearing ear. Note, (1.) Unbelief is a dec-rooted evil. (2.) Till God opens the eyes of our mind, we can neither know him, lose him, nor serve him. 3. He charges them to attend now to the words of this covenant: and happy! if at last there were such a heart in them, firmly to believe the divine promises, and cheerfully to obey the divine commands; prosperity then could not but attend them.
- Ye stand this day all of you before the LORD your God; your captains of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, with all the men of Israel. 11. Your
little ones, your wives, and thy stranger that is in thy camp, from the tower of thy wood, unto the drawer of thy water: 12. That thou shouldst enter into covenant with the LORD thy God, and into his oath, which the LORD thy God maketh with thee this day: 13. That he may establish thee to-day for a people unto himself, and that he may be unto thee a God, as he hath said unto thee, and as he hath sworn unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. 14. Neither with you only do I make this covenant and this oath; 15. But with him that standeth here with us this day before the LORD our God, and all with him that is not here with us this day: 16. (For ye know how we have dwelt in the land of Egypt, and how we came through the nations which ye pulled by. 17. And ye have seen their abominations, and their idols, wood and stone, silver and gold, which were among them.) 18. Let there should be among you man or woman, or family, or tribe, ‘whose heart turneth away this day from the LORD our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations: ’let there should be among you a man that beareth 3 gall and wormwood, 19. And it come to pass when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thrift: 20. The LORD will not spare him, but then the anger of the LORD, and his painless shall smoke against that man, and all the curse that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the LORD shall blot out his name from under heaven. 21. And the LORD shall separate him unto evil, out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curse of the covenant, that I are written in this book of the law: 22. So that the generation to come of your children that shall rise up after you, and the stranger that shall come from a far land, shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sickness which the LORD hath laid upon it; 23. And that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning, that it is not sown, nor neareth, nor any grass groweth therein, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim, which the LORD overthrew in his anger and in his wrath: 24. Even all nations shall say, ‘Wherefore hath the LORD done thus unto this land? What meaneth the heat of this great anger? 25. Then men shall say, Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them forth out of the land of Egypt. 26. For they went and served other gods, and worshipped them, gods whom they knew not, and season he had not given unto them. 27. And the anger of the LORD was kindled against this land, to bring upon it all the curse that are written in this book. 28. And the LORD rooted them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation, and call them into another land, as it is this day. 29. The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us, and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.
Deuteronomy 29:10-29
We have here the covenant laid before them, and warmly recommended to them. 1. The parties of the covenant. God, as their God, engaging to bless them with every mercy, and confirming with an oath the immutability of his counsel; and they solemnly binding themselves, in return, to be his people, one and all. The captains and officers must subscribe to it: when great men are good men, their examples are greatly influential. Their wives and children are admitted to it. Believers children are shavers in their covenant mercies; and not only native Israelites, but the stranger, even to the meanest followers of the camp, is invited to come. Note, None are beneath God’s regard; to his covenant the poor have as welcome access to the great. And all are called to content thereto: though sickness or business of necessity prevented personal attendance, all must come under the bonds of the covenant, and, according to their fidelity or disobedience, share the blessing or curse therein contained. 2. The great article of the covenant on God’s part, is his being their God; this comprehending all imaginable bliss and happiness: on their part he expects (and well he might) that they should be his people, dependent on his promise, seeing him undogreeful, and cheerfully observant of all his commands and ordinances. Nothing so reasonable as this. Note, The promises of grace must
Before Chath 1615. 1. See p. 10. 2. See p. 11. 3. Heh. p. 10. 1. See A. 10. 2. See A. 11. 3. See A. 12. 4. See A. 13. 1. See A. 14. 2. See A. 15. 3. See A. 16. 4. See A. 17. 5. See A. 18. 6. See A. 19. 7. See A. 20. 8. See A. 21. 9. See A. 22. 10. See A. 23. 11. See A. 24. 12. See A. 25. 13. See A. 26. 14. See A. 27. 15. See A. 28. 16. See A. 29. 17. See A. 30. 18. See A. 31. 19. See A. 32. 20. See A. 33. 21. See A. 34. 22. See A. 35. 23. See A. 36. 24. See A. 37. 25. See A. 38. 26. See A. 39. 27. See A. 40. 28. See A. 41. 29. See A. 42. 30. See A. 43. 31. See A. 44. 32. See A. 45. 33. See A. 46. 34. See A. 47. 35. See A. 48. 36. See A. 49. 37. See A. 50. 38. See A. 51. 39. See A. 52. 40. See A. 53. 41. See A. 54. 42. See A. 55. 43. See A. 56. 44. See A. 57. 45. See A. 58. 46. See A. 59. 47. See A. 60. 48. See A. 61. 49. See A. 62. 50. See A. 63. 51. See A. 64. 52. See A. 65. 53. See A. 66. 54. See A. 67. 55. See A. 68. 56. See A. 69. 57. See A. 70. 58. See A. 71. 59. See A. 72. 60. 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Heh. with 59. Heh. with 60. Heh. with 61. Heh. with 62. Heh. with 63. Heh. with 64. Heh. with 65. Heh. with 66. Heh. with 67. Heh. with 68. Heh. with 69. Heh. with 70. Heh. with 71. Heh. with 72. Heh. with 73. Heh. with 74. Heh. with 75. Heh. with 76. Heh. with 77. Heh. with 78. Heh. with 79. Heh. with 80. Heh. with 81. Heh. with 82. Heh. with 83. Heh. with 84. Heh. with 85. Heh. with 86. Heh. with 87. Heh. with 88. Heh. with 89. Heh. with 90. Heh. with 91. Heh. with 92. Heh. with 93. Heh. with 94. Heh. with 95. Heh. with 96. Heh. with 97. Heh. with 98. Heh. with 99. Heh. with 100. Heh. Page Baker’s Child 14.1. Page us to the duties of obedience. 3. As idolatry was the rock which threatened the moft danger, they are especially warned to beware of it. Their abode in Egypt had probably infected them, and the idols of the nations they had jaffed by had enheard them; they had need therefore to watch against the befetting, and withal to provoking a sin, left ruin inevitable and dreadful came upon them for their idolatry, whether on individuals or the whole nation. 1. On individuals. None can escape God’s eye, none are above his arm, or beneath his notice. We have this apolyssey from God set in very striking colours: (1.) It begins in the departure of the heart from God, to some creature-love and idol-service. (2.) The fruit from this root is gall or hemlock and wormwood, identifiable principles, malignant and poisonous, and a conversation corrupt and abominable, adding drunkenness to thrift. (3.) Withal, the finner, secure and confident, promises himself peace, though walking in these vile imaginations of his heart. But (4.) His fearful end approaches, and the finishing wrath of God will feast him in the midst of his fatal security. Learn hence, 1. That many are bleiting themselves, over whom the curle of God hangs terrible. 2. That infidelity is one of the moft fatal lumpsom of a defeerate soul. 3. Nothing more effectually serves to stupify the confluence than a habit of drunkenness. 4. They who now glory in their shame are like those who go drunk in honour of their idols, and sin with greater aggravation. 5. Let the preformaneous sinner tremble; the wrath of God abideth on him; his smacking jealousy, like a fiery furnace, shall burn, and more shall quench it, deep at hell, abiding in the days of eternity; under it the perishing wretch must lie down without pity, without reproce, and, worse than all, without hope of abatement of his torment, or end of his misery. 6. That sinners were wise, that they understood these things, that they would confuse their latter end. 2. On the whole nation the same fins would bring the same punishment. Their land would become as the sulphureous plains of Sodom; and to this day that more fruitful spot of Judea bears the marks of this divine curse, being now almost defolate of inhabitants, and barren as the rocky wilderness. A scene so strange could not but excite the neighbouring nations to enquire into the cause; and the answer to fully introductory, because they forlorn the God of their fathers, transferred his covenant, and turned unto idols, therefore are their curles come upon them, and their defoliations accomplished. Note, (1.) The judgments of God should awaken our enquiries into the cause of them, that we may take warning. (2.) They who have abused the greatest national privileges, may expect the heaviest national visitations. (3.) They who forlorn their father’s God deserve to lose their father’s inheritance. Lolly, He concludes with silencing every objection which might be raised against God’s judgments, and an admonition to follow the plain and clear revelation of God’s will. Note, (1.) There are a thousand questions which curious pride would ask, that God forbids to answer. (2.) All that is needful for us to know, we may, if we confide God’s revealed will; where he sets bounds, ’tis our wisdom to be content to be ignocent. (3.) The revelation God hath made in defigured not to communicate speculative and useless knowledge, but to engage us to holy practice and dutiful obedience. (4.) In this we cannot be too careful to walk ourselves, and inflicted our children, as the fored means of averting all those plagues that are ready to defecund upon the ungodly.