Deeper Commentary
Deu 4:1 Now Israel, listen to the statutes and to the ordinances
which I teach you. Do them so that you may live and go in and possess the
land which Yahweh, the God of your fathers gives you-
He pleaded with them to "take heed to thyself" (AV- 'you' singular) that they kept God's
word and taught it to their children, so that they would enter the land
(Dt. 4:1,9). These words are alluded to by Paul in 1 Tim.4:16, where he
says that attention to the doctrine of the new covenant will likewise save
us and those who hear us. Paul's last words to Timothy are in the spirit
of the whole of Deuteronomy, Moses' farewell warning: love the word, be
obedient to it, because this will lead you to inherit the promised land
for ever.
Deu 4:2 You must not add to the word which I command you, neither must you
take away from it, so that you may keep the commandments of Yahweh your
God which I command you-
Pharaoh had insisted that nothing should be "diminished" from the quota
of bricks he had set (Ex. 5:11), and the same word is later used of how
Israel were not to "diminish" ["take away"] from obeying Yahweh's
commandments (Dt. 4:2; 12:32). They were being reminded that they had
changed masters when they crossed the Red Sea, just as Paul says happens
when we are baptized (Rom. 6). And the Red Sea crossing represented
baptism into Jesus (1 Cor. 10:1,2). Like us, Israel were not radically
free to do as they pleased. What happened was that they changed masters;
hence the appeal to Pharaoh to let God's people go, that they may serve
Him rather than Pharaoh. We too will only find ultimate freedom through
this servitude to God's ways, and will finally emerge into the radical
liberty of the children of God in the Kingdom age (Rom. 8:21).
The last message of Jesus, like that of Moses,
emphasizes we are not to add to nor subtract from God’s word (Rev. 22:19).
The commandments we have been given are designed by God to be a system of
living which brings us to Him as He wishes. Jesus was perfect before God
not just because He kept the commandments fully, but because the life
elicited by that obedience produced a totally God-like person. If we omit
some commandments and add others, then this will not be the end result.
They are intended to synthesize together to produce a truly spiritual
character and way of life. If we ignore some of them and add others then
we will actually find obedience to the commandments
in toto far more difficult. See
on Dt. 11:22.
Dt. 4:2 suggests that God had given them just the right commands "that you may keep" them. In other words, obedience to one command
would lead to obedience to another, so that a whole way of life could be
developed which was in accord with God's laws. Successful keeping of the
commandments of Christ is similar. Viewed one by one, they can seem just
too much to cope with. David found that keeping God's laws made it even
easier to keep them; there was an upward spiral of conformity to God's
mind. Thus he asks God to give him any other commandments which God
desired; rather than thinking 'I can't cope with all these, so no more,
please!'.
Deu 4:3 Your eyes have seen what Yahweh did because of Baal Peor; for all
the men who followed Baal Peor, Yahweh your God has destroyed them from
the midst of you-
Dt. 4:3 implies that all who followed Baal Peor were destroyed, and
only those who "were faithful" to Yahweh survived (Dt. 4:4). But Num.
25:9,11 suggests that virtually all Israel went after Baal Peor and would
all have been destroyed, had not Phinehas and his men slain 24,000 of
them. What Phinehas did therefore had real and absolute meaning for God-
those who did follow Baal Peor were counted as if they hadn't done so.
This was imputed righteousness, and looks forward to the even greater
effect of the intercession of the Lord Jesus for us.
Deu 4:4 But you who were faithful-
AV "you that did cleave to Yahweh". The idea of 'cleaving' to God is also a big theme of Moses in Deuteronomy (4:4; 10:20; 11:22; 13:4,17; 28:21,60; 30:20); the only other time Moses uses the word in his writings is in Gen. 2:24, concerning a man cleaving to his wife. Moses seems to have been suggesting to Israel that their covenant relationship with God meant they were marrying God. This was a real paradigm breaker. We may be used to such things. But against the theological background of the time, not to say the generally low level of spirituality among Israel, this was a shocking idea. It reflected the heights to which Moses had risen.
To Yahweh your God are all alive this
day-
Moses in his final speech in Deuteronomy uses the name "Yahweh" over 530 times, often with some
possessive adjective, e.g. "Yahweh thy God" or "Yahweh our God". He saw the personal relationship between a man and his God. Jacob reached a like realization at his peak.
Deu 4:5 Behold, I have taught you statutes and ordinances as Yahweh my God
commanded me-
The Hebrew mishpat, "ordinances", has a wide range of meaning.
The idea is of judgment, as if God and His Angels gave these laws as their
considered judgment after considering the human condition, and Israel were
to abide by them. But the word also the idea of a right or privilege; and
that is how we should see God's laws. They are only felt as a burden
because of human hardness of neck towards God's ways. His laws are not of
themselves burdensome, but rather a privilege and blessing. The law was
indeed "holy, just and good" (Rom. 7:12), designed to inculcate a holy,
just and good life (Tit. 1:8), a way in which a man should "walk" in daily
life (Lev. 18:4), a culture of kindness and grace to others which
reflected God's grace to man. If we dwell upon the idea of "rights"
carried within the word mishpat, we note that the law begins in
Ex. 21:1,2 (also Dt. 15:12-18) with the rights of a slave- those
considered to have no rights in the society of that day. The "rights" to
be afforded by us to others are the essence of God's rightness / justice.
That you should do so in the midst of the land where you go
in to possess it-
The reference may specifically be to the sanctuary envisioned as
being built "in the midst of the land".
Deu 4:6 Keep therefore and do them, for this is your wisdom and your
understanding in the sight of the nations who shall hear all these
statutes and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding
people!-
The preacher of the Gospel
is the Gospel; the man is the message, just as the very same
word / message was made flesh in the Lord. Israel of old were taught this.
They were to keep and do the commandments of God, and
this would be the witness of
their wisdom and understanding to the nations around them- who would
thereby be brought to Israel’s God (Dt. 4:6-8). The imparting of wisdom
and understanding therefore didn’t come so much through specific doctrinal
exposition, as through living out those principles in daily life.
Deu 4:7 For what great nation is there that has a god so near to them as
Yahweh our God is whenever we call on Him?-
"So near" is s.w. kinsman. God was as a kinsman to Israel. No other God was able to be this close and therefore this close to being human as Yahweh. A relative was seen in those days as one who would provide for you, redeem you, stand up for you, one you could always turn to. And God was Israel's kinsman par excellence. It is thrice emphasized that Israel were a "great nation" because of this closeness of their God (Dt. 4:6-8). The Hebrew term "great nation" is at the foundation of the promises to Abraham which form the new covenant. Through the seed [the Lord Jesus] "I will make of you a great nation" (Gen. 12:2; 18:18). God had earlier told Moses that He would destroy Israel and make of Moses a "great nation" (Ex. 32:10; Num. 14:12); but Moses had successfully pleaded with God not to do so and to continue His attempt to make Israel the intended "great nation". So all Moses' references here to Israel as a "great nation" are a reflection of his own desire that they would come to this status. But their greatness was in having God so close to them. Moses himself had known God very near to him, had spoken with God and heard God's voice- he had experienced the 'greatness' of the relationship God intended with all His people. But Israel preferred not to hear God's voice direct, they moved away from the possible intimacy, and preferred instead a human mediator and system of religion interposing between God and man.
The Lord Jesus speaking of "The Angels of God in Heaven" (Mt. 22:30) suggests that they spend a fair proportion of their time located there physically. God ‘comes near’ whenever we call upon Him (Dt. 4:7 RV). Perhaps this refers to an Angel literally being sent out from Heaven to come near to us in working out the answer to our prayer. It seems that great stress is placed in Scripture on the Angels physically moving through space, both on the earth and between Heaven and earth, in order to fulfil their tasks, rather than being static in Heaven or earth and bringing things about by just willing them to happen. See on Gen. 18:10.
Deu 4:8 What great nation is there that has statutes and ordinances so
righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?-
The law was holy, just and good (Rom. 7:12), and David often
perceives this in Ps. 119. The effect of perfect obedience to it would
elicit a character like that of the Lord Jesus, the only one to fully obey
it- perfect in every way. This is one reason why His death fulfilled the
law of Moses. It fulfilled the intentions of that law. And His
righteousness and perfection of character is counted by grace to those of
us who are in Him, despite our failures to keep Divine law.
Deu 4:9 Only take heed to yourself-
"Take heed" runs like a refrain throughout Moses' speech.
Despite such great love for Israel, Moses knew them so well that he fully
appreciated that they were extremely prone to weakness. This is one of the
major themes of Moses in Deuteronomy. He did not turn a blind eye to their
sins; Deuteronomy is punctuated with reminders of how grievously they had
sinned during their journey. Time and again he comments on how easily they
will be tempted to disobey commandments.
And keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things which
your eyes saw and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your
life; therefore make them known to your children and your children’s
children-
Israel’s guardian Angel was to “keep” them in the way (Ex. 23:20), clearly echoing how the Angels kept the way to the tree of life in Eden. The same Hebrew word for “keep” occurs very often in Exodus in the context of Israel being told to keep God’s commands; but their freewill effort was to be confirmed by the Angel keeping them in the way of obedience. They were to “keep” themselves in the way (Dt. 4:9 and many others; s.w. “take heed”, “observe” etc.), but the Angel would keep them in it. This mutuality is developed in Ex. 23:21, where having said the Angel will keep them, Israel are told “Beware of him, and obey his voice”. “Beware” translates the same Hebrew word as “keep”. The Angel would keep them, but they were to keep to the Angel.
And they didn't, and so that generation died and were not brought to the
Kingdom as was potentially possible. This is an example of how we are intended to have a mutual relationship with
the Lord, leading to Him strengthening us in the one way. This word translated “keep” is also translated “spies” in Jud. 1:24; the spies were the keepers in the way of Israel, to bring them in to the land. And yet the Angel at the exodus was their ‘keeper’ to bring them into the land. The spies were working in harmony with their Angels; and thus they succeeded.
This is an evident allusion to the Angel-cherubim keeping the way to the tree of life. But did all Israel remain “in the way” whilst in the wilderness? Evidently not. Did the Angel fail? No. The Angel was given power and strength in order to potentially enable Israel to remain “in the way”, just as our Angels are given that same power. But Israel refused to work with the Angel; they didn’t make use of the Angel’s efforts to keep them in the way.
Deu 4:10 Remember the day that you stood before Yahweh your God in Horeb,
when Yahweh said to me, Assemble me the people and I will make them hear My
words, that they may learn to fear Me all the days that they live on the
land-
The LXX uses the word ekklesia eight times in Deuteronomy,
but not once in Moses' other recorded words (Dt. 4:10; 9:10; 18:16; 23:1,2,3,8;
32:1). In his spiritual maturity in Deuteronomy, he was very aware of the
"ecclesia". Responsibility for the whole family God had redeemed was a mark of
his maturity. It is observable that both as a community and as
individuals, this will be a sign of our maturity too.
And that they may teach their children-
The very process of teaching or explaining something
to others makes us fully conscious of the material we are teaching; and so
preaching or teaching our children God’s principles enables us to be the
more conscious of them and to ourselves remember them. The whole concept
of evangelization is partly for our benefit.
Deu 4:11 You came near and stood under the mountain, and the mountain
burned with fire to the heart of the sky, with darkness, cloud and thick
darkness-
The mountain appeared to be burning with fire when Moses
ascended it due to the pillar of fire standing there, appearing to
reach to the "midst of Heaven", showing Heaven and earth were connected
through this manifestation. The Angel led them through the wilderness, and
elsewhere we read that the pillar of fire led them; the conclusion is
therefore that the pillar of fire was where the Angel dwelt. Thus the
Angel literally "went before" them as God promised it would, in the
form of the pillar. Angels are elsewhere associated with pillars of fire,
e.g. the one which came to Manoah, and not least in that God came down in
a pillar of fire to speak to Moses. Ex. 14:19 conclusively shows the
pillar of fire/cloud and the Angel to be identical: "the Angel of God
which went before the camp of Israel removed and went behind them; and the
pillar of the cloud (the Shekinah glory) went from before their face, and
stood behind them".
The idea was as in Ex.19:13 LXX "when the voices and trumpets and cloud depart from off the mountain, they shall come up on the mountain". But this didn't happen- see on Ex.19:14. They were not sufficiently sanctified; see on Ex.19:10. Instead of all of them ascending the mountain, only Moses was invited to ascend (Ex.19:20). This was a departure from the initial intention. And when he got to the top, he was simply told to go down and ensure the people didn't break through the cordon and come up the mountain as originally planned. Some of them had already touched the mountain; for the commentary of Heb. 12:20 is that "They could not endure [s.w. "uphold"] that which was commanded- If even a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned". The argument in the context seems to be that Israel were disobedient even to the peripheral command not to touch the mountain. The whole narrative is the story of an intimacy with God which didn't come about as potentially possible. And that is the sad story of so much of the Divine-human encounter. But Moses at the end of his life was full of grace and he doesn't remind them of all this. He focuses on just one point he wishes to make- that they saw no form, and so should make no images. Faced with people with a range of immaturities, we likewise must show grace and focus on just one or two issues specifically.
Deu 4:12 Yahweh spoke to you out of the midst of the fire-
Moses graciously doesn't mention that they shied away from Yahweh's
appearance at that time and wanted him only to engage with Yahweh. Grace
and speaking graciously about others' weaknesses is a sign of spiritual
maturity, and we see it in Moses now at the end of his life.
The references to fire, smoke, furnace, earthquake and the descent of Yahweh (Ex. 19:18) is very similar to the language of Divine judgment, especially of Sodom (Gen. 19:28; Rev. 9:2). And we know from the prophets that Israel were considered by God as Sodom. We could read this as His wrath with Israel for breaking His simple commandments about not touching the mountain, and for not having sufficiently sanctified themselves (see on Ex. 19:10,14,18). The argument of Heb. 12 appears to be that the scene here is one of condemnation of sinful man- and we have not been called to that, but to salvation by grace in the new covenant in Christ. But out of that condemnation, God earnestly wished to reach out to His people, with words of covenant salvation.
You heard the
voice of words, but you saw no form; you only heard a voice-
The fact they saw no similitude is sandwiched between two statements
that they heard God's word. The idea surely is that they were the image
and likeness of God (Gen. 1:26) and God's intention was to fashion them
through His word into His moral image. Instead, they rejected this
closeness to God by wanting to turn Him into a similitude, an idol,
creating Him as a "likeness" of something familiar (:16-18). God's
likeness is to be found in us who are made in His physical image and
transformed by His word into His moral image. He has no other likeness
apart from in and through us. His closeness to us is amazing.
Sinai burnt with a fire which came "from the heart of Heaven" (Dt. 4:11 RV). But the people saw nothing; all they heard was a voice. The word of God was thus visually associated with a fire coming from Heaven's heart- from the very core of God Himself. The focus was upon the voice of God's words- hence "you saw no form; only a voice" (Dt. 4:12 Heb.). They 'saw' the voice in that they saw it associated with the fire that came from the heart of Heaven. This is the intensity of God speaking with us in His word. And Israel turned away from this intensity- for they asked that this experience not happen again, and that Moses instead be a mediator of God's word to them.
Deu 4:13 He declared to you His covenant which He commanded you to
perform, the Ten Commandments, and He wrote them on two tablets of stone-
This verse makes a clear connection between the ten commandments and
the old covenant. The ten commandments include the Sabbath. That old
covenant has now been replaced by the new covenant. The Lord's teachings
repeat the essence of nine of the ten commandments- but not the Sabbath.
Deu 4:14 Yahweh commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and
ordinances that you might do them in the land you go over to possess-
Moses was indeed "apt to teach".
“The servant of the Lord [A very common title of Moses] must not strive
[As Israel did with him (Num. 26:9)] but be gentle unto all [The spirit of
Moses] apt to teach [As was Moses (Ex. 18:20; 24:12; Dt. 4:1,5,14; 6:1;
31:22)], patient [As was Moses], in meekness [Moses was the meekest man
(Num. 12:3)] instructing those that oppose themselves [at the time of
Aaron and Miriam’s self-opposing rebellion] if God peradventure will give
them repentance [i.e. forgiveness] [“Peradventure I shall make an
atonement for your sin” (Ex. 32:30)]"- and he prayed 40 days and nights
for it. And note too: 2 Tim. 2:19 = Num. 16:5,26; 2 Tim. 2:20 = Num. 12:7;
2:21 = Num. 16:37; 2 Tim. 2:22 = Num. 12:2; 16:3; 2 Tim. 2:26 = Num.
16:33. This is quite something. The height of Moses’ devotion for His
people, the passion of his praying, shadowing as it did the matchless
intercession and self-giving of the Lord, really is our example. It isn’t
just a height to be admired. It means that we will not half-heartedly ask
our God to ‘be with’ brother x and sister y and the brethren in country z,
as we lie half asleep in bed. This is a call to sustained, on our knees
prayer and devotion to the salvation of others. For the Judaists, an
appeal to be like Moses, to emulate him in teaching, was blasphemous; for
they considered Moses at such a level that he could never be imitated. Yet
Paul urges timid Timothy and all teachers to realistically be Moses to our
audience.
Deu 4:15 Take therefore good heed to yourselves, for you saw no kind of
form on the day that Yahweh spoke to you in Horeb out of the midst of the
fire-
Paul warned the new Israel that after his death ("after my departing",
Acts 20:29) there would be serious apostasy. This is the spirit of his
very last words, in 2 Tim. 4. it is exactly the spirit of Moses' farewell
speech throughout the book of Deuteronomy, and throughout his final song
(Dt. 32) and Dt. 31:29: "After my death you will utterly corrupt
yourselves". Paul's "Take heed therefore unto yourselves" (Acts 20:28) is
quoted from many places in Deuteronomy (e.g. Dt. 2:4; 4:9,15,23; 11:16;
12:13,19,30; 24:8; 27:9).
“Form” or "likeness" is used in the LXX in the frequent warnings not to make an image or likeness of any god, let alone Yahweh (Ex. 20:4; Dt. 4:16-25; Ps. 106:20; Is. 40:18,19). The reason for this prohibition becomes clearer in the New Testament; the ultimate likeness of God is in His Son, and we are to create the likeness of His Son not as a mere physical icon, but within the very structure of our human personality and character.
Deu 4:16 Do not corrupt yourselves-
The idea may be that it is man who is made in the form / image /
likeness of God (Gen. 1:26). Our emphasis must be upon replicating God's
thinking in ourselves, making ourselves after His image and likeness.
Rather than seeking to worship a physical image of Him in the form of an
idol or animal. To do so is to corrupt both Him and the humanity which He
intends to be in His image and likeness.
And make yourself an engraved image in
the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female-
God’s people are to accept Him as He is in His word, rather than try
to create God in a form which seems attractive to us. As we read His word,
it is not for us to say ‘I don’t think God would be like
that, He will be like
this, which is how I imagine He
ought to be’. And it is not for us to work around those words of His which
are inconvenient to us by forced, out of context interpretation,
dismissing their inspiration or using other tricks of the human intellect.
By doing so we are effectively making a graven image, fashioning God as we
want Him to be rather than accepting Him as He is.
Deu 4:17 the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of
any winged bird that flies in the sky-
As discussed on :16, it is humans who are made in God's image and
likeness. We are to seek to become after His spiritual, mental image and
likeness. To worship physical idols or "nature" is a corruption of that
intention, and in fact a devaluing of ourselves as humans and what it
means to be human, made in God's likeness.
Deu 4:18 the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness
of any fish that is in the water under the earth-
The Egyptians were fond of making idols in the form of animals and
the plagues had therefore been a judgment upon Egypt's gods. Yet Israel
had taken those gods with them through the Red Sea (Ez. 20:7,8).
Deu 4:19 Do not lift up your eyes to the sky and when you see the sun and
the moon and the stars, all the army of the sky, be drawn away and worship
them and serve them, which Yahweh your God has allotted to all the peoples
under the whole sky-
This warns Israel not to worship the stars, because God has shared
them with “all the peoples under the whole heaven” (RV)- but He Has shared
Himself only with Israel, and brought them out from the world to be
separated unto Him (:20). Because of this unique and awesome entrance into
their lives by God, they ought to have naturally separated themselves from
any other god. The positive separation unto naturally resulted in the negative separation from.
Deu 4:20 But Yahweh has taken you and brought you forth out of the iron
furnace, out of Egypt, to be to Him a people of inheritance, right up to
this day-
In the eternity of the Kingdom, we will be God's inheritance (Dt.
4:20; 9:29), and He will be ours (Ps. 16:5). This mutuality between God
and His people is a common theme. "The ashes of the furnace" which created
the plague of boils (Ex. 9:8) may have been a reference to the furnaces
used for the brick kilns, where the Hebrews were made to slave away making
bricks. The result of this abuse was to come down upon the Egyptians as
boils (Ex. 9:9). Egypt is therefore likened to a furnace of oppression to
Israel (Dt. 4:20; Jer. 11:4). The Lord describes condemnation as being
cast into a furnace (Mt. 13:42,50). He is not speaking literally, but
rather using the figure of Egypt as a furnace- for the condemnation of the
unworthy in God's Israel is to be sent back into Egypt / the world (Hos.
8:13; 9:3), and share their judgments.
Deu 4:21 Furthermore, Yahweh was angry with me-
As noted on Dt. 1:26,32, Moses is pointing up the similarities between
himself and Israel. Yahweh was angry with him and barred him from entry to
the land (Dt. 1:37; 4:21), just as He had been angry with Israel and
barred them likewise (Dt. 1:34). He however became their representative,
having sinned in essence as they had, but having found forgiveness.
For your sakes and swore
that I should not go over the Jordan, and that I should not go in to that
good land which Yahweh your God gives you for an inheritance-
See on Dt. 1:37. The love of Moses for Israel is reflected in his final address to them in Deuteronomy, his knowledge of them, his sensitivity to their weakness, his constant desire for them to be spiritually strong and to enter the land; God's respect of him at the end of his life, shown in his burial and in subsequent comments about him. Although Moses is at a spiritual peak in Deuteronomy, he does repeatedly comment- almost under his breath as it were- that he was not going to enter the land “for your sakes”, and that he was thereby bearing the anger of God against Israel (e.g. Dt. 4:21 etc.). Whilst in a sense this was true, God’s anger was against Moses personally regarding the sin of striking the rock. Given that “that rock was Christ”, his inappropriate striking of it was some kind of symbolic crucifixion of Christ. He was in the wrong- the record of the event makes that clear. And yet at the end of his life, Moses is blaming Israel for his sin and his exclusion from the land. Perhaps he was indicating his understanding of how his prayer to not enter the land for their sakes was being answered. On the other hand, one could argue that even on the last day of his life, Moses never came to terms with that sin, sought to justify himself in the eyes of Israel, to shift the blame… and yet even then, God’s grace was big enough to accept him. Quite how to score Moses on this point will always be debatable, but the exercise certainly provokes a lot of introspection about our own attitudes to public confession of sin, both in ourselves and in others, and its relationship to God’s ultimate acceptance of a person.
In Dt. 9:18 he says that his prayer of Ex. 32:32 was heard- in that he was not going to enter the land, but they would. Hence his urging of them to go ahead and enter the land- to experience what his self-sacrifice had enabled. In this we see the economy of God, and how He works even through sin. Moses truly was made spiritually strong out of weakness. His faith fluctuated, until at last he came to a spiritual height at the end of his life. We have seen something of the intensity and passion of his love for Israel, to the point where he was willing to give his physical and eternal life for Israel's salvation. In a sense, his desire was heard. Because of the sin of a moment, caused by the provocation of the people he loved, God decreed that he could not enter the land of promise. For their sakes he was barred from the land; this is the emphasis of the Spirit (Dt. 1:37; 3:26; 4:21); and Ps. 106:32,33 says that Moses was provoked to sin because Israel angered God, and that therefore "it went ill with Moses for their sakes". Truly, God works through sinful man to achieve His glory. Ez. 20:38 says that the rebels in the wilderness “shall not enter into the land”, with reference to how when Moses called the people “rebels” and beat the rock, he was disallowed entry into the land. Because he called them rebels, i.e. unworthy of entry to the Kingdom, he also was treated as a rebel. If we condemn others, we likewise will be condemned. On another level, he was simply barred for disobedience; and on yet another, his prayer to the effect that he didn’t want to be in the land if his people weren’t going to be there was being answered; and on yet another and higher level, his offer to be blotted out of the book of inheritance for Israel’s sake was also being heard. Thus God works within the same incident in so many ways! Thus Moses says that he must die “Because ye [plural] trespassed against me” (Dt. 32:51 AV). This all helps explain why Christ had to die, apart from the fact that he was mortal. He died the death of a sinner for our salvation, he felt all the emotions of the rejected, the full weight of God's curse; for "cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree" in crucifixion (Gal. 3:13). Moses was a superb and accurate type of the Lord Jesus. Therefore Moses in his time of dying must grant us insight into the death of our Lord, the prophet like him (Dt. 18:18). As Christ declared God's Name just before his death (Jn. 17:26), so did Moses (Dt. 32:3 LXX).
Deu 4:22 but I must die in this land. I must not go over the Jordan; but
you shall go over and possess-
"Drive out" is s.w. "possess". We must note the difference between the
Canaanite peoples and their kings being "struck" and their land "taken" by
Joshua-Jesus; and the people of Israel permanently taking possession. This
is the difference between the Lord's victory on the cross, and our taking
possession of the Kingdom. Even though that possession has been "given" to
us. The word used for "possession" is literally 'an inheritance'. The
allusion is to the people, like us, being the seed of Abraham. The Kingdom
was and is our possession, our inheritance- if we walk in the steps of
Abraham. But it is one thing to be the seed of Abraham, another to take
possession of the inheritance; and Israel generally did not take
possession of all the land (Josh.
11:23 13:1; 16:10; 18:3; 23:4). The language of inheritance / possession
is applied to us in the New Testament (Eph. 1:11,14; Col. 3:24; Acts
20:32; 26:18; 1 Pet. 1:4 etc.). Israel were promised: "You shall possess
it" (Dt. 30:5; 33:23). This was more of a command than a prophecy, for
sadly they were "given" the land but did not "possess" it. They were
constantly encouraged in the wilderness that they were on the path to
possessing the land (Dt. 30:16,18; 31:3,13; 32:47), but when they got
there they didn't possess it fully.
That good land-
The Hebrew word for "spied out" in Dt. 1:24 also means 'to slander'
(s.w. 2 Sam. 19:27; Ps. 15:3). Their slander of the land was in that they
misrepresented the strength of the people there, who were in fact fearful
of the Israelites. They brought up an evil report of the land (Num.
13:32), characterizing it as not "good" but "evil", as if inhabited by
insuperable forces of cosmic evil. They disbelieved God's simple statement
that He was bringing them a "good land" (Ex. 3:8). Moses therefore
repeatedly calls the land a "good land", denying their wrong idea that the
land was inhabited by 'evil spirits' (Dt. 3:25; 4:21,22; 6:18; 8:7; 9:6;
11:17). We see here how belief in 'evil spirits' or 'demons' militated
against their faith in God and His eagerness to give His good Kingdom to
His people. That continues to be His "good pleasure" (Lk. 12:32) toward
us, but like Israel, we are tempted to disbelieve this and allow our own
perceptions and empirical conclusions to lead us away from simple faith in
this.
Deu 4:23 Take heed to yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of Yahweh
your God which He made with you, and make you an engraved image in the
form of anything which Yahweh your God has forbidden you-
Like Paul in his time of dying, Moses in Deuteronomy saw the importance
of obedience, the harder side of God; yet he also saw in real depth the
surpassing love of God, and the grace that was to come, beyond Law. This
appreciation reflected Moses' mature grasp of the Name / characteristics
of God. He uses the name "Yahweh" in Deuteronomy over 530 times, often
with some possessive adjective, e.g. "Yahweh thy God" [AV- i.e. you
singular], or "Yahweh our God". He saw the personal relationship between a
man and his God. Jacob reached a like realization at his peak.
Deu 4:24 For Yahweh your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God-
This is quoted about us in Heb. 12:29 with a slight change of
pronoun; “Your (Israel’s) God”
becomes “our God”. The God of
the Christian believers is the Old Testament Yahweh God of Israel; in this
we see the significance of studying the accounts of how our God revealed
Himself in the Old Testament.
Israel is so often set up as the bride of God (Is. 54:5; 61:10; 62:4,5;
Jer. 2:2; 3:14; Hos. 2:19,20). This is why any infidelity to God is spoken
of as adultery (Mal. 2:11; Lev. 17:7; 20:5,6; Dt. 31:16; Jud. 2:17;
8:27,33; Hos. 9:1). The language of Israel 'selling themselves to do
iniquity' uses the image of prostitution. This is how God feels our even
temporary and fleeting acts and thoughts of unfaithfulness. This is why
God is jealous for us (Ex. 20:15; 34:14; Dt. 4:24; 5:9; 6:15)- because His
undivided love for us is so exclusive. He expects us to be totally His.
Just as Israel were not to be like the Egyptians they were leaving, nor
like the Canaanites into whose land they were going (Lev. 18:1-5;
20:23,24). We are to be a people separated unto Him.
Deu 4:25 When you father children and children’s children and you have
been long in the land and corrupt yourselves and make an engraved image in
the form of anything, and do that which is evil in the sight of Yahweh
your God, to provoke Him to anger-
God can be grieved [s.w. 'provoke to anger']. He has emotions, and
His potential foreknowledge doesn't mean that these feelings are not
legitimate. They are presented as occurring in human time, as responses to
human behaviour. This is the degree to which He has accommodated Himself
to human time-space limits, in order to fully enter relationship and
experience with us. As He can limit His omnipotence, so God can limit His
omniscience, in order to feel and respond along with us.
Deu 4:26 I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that you
shall soon utterly perish from off the land you go over the Jordan to
possess; you shall not prolong your days on it, but shall utterly be
destroyed-
Always in the OT, “I say unto you this day" was used as a Hebraism to
bring home the utter solemnity of some great truth (e.g. Dt. 4:26,39;
8:19). The Lord used this idiom in assuring the thief on the cross that he
could solemnly assure him, that he would share His Kingdom with Him. It's
worth noting that the comma is placed after 'today' in the Curetonian
Syriac version of the New Testament; the Syriac versions would reflect
better the original Aramaic in which the Lord likely spoke.
Deu 4:27 Yahweh will scatter you among the nations and you shall be left
few in number among the nations where Yahweh shall lead you away-
Israel were indeed disobedient and were scattered throughout the
provinces of the Assyrian and Babylonian empires. “There you will serve
gods...” (:28) - but the prophets (especially Isaiah, Jeremiah and
Ezekiel) condemned them for this. There is a downward spiral in
spirituality, whereby if people choose to go to false gods, the true God
confirms them in their delusions.
This is why followers of false religions are so totally convinced
they are right, everything makes sense to them within the theological
system they adopt- because God confirms them in the delusion they have
chosen (2 Thess. 2:11).
Deu 4:28 There you will serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and
stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell-
Condemnation is always essentially the choice made by the condemned
themselves. The gods of the nations were nearly always understood as local
gods, which had power in their homeland. Yet Israel worshipped those gods.
By doing so, they effectively identified themselves with those lands. And
so they were sent to live in those lands, and as it were properly worship
those gods, on their home territories. In this sense the Lord Jesus could
say that He judges / condemns no man; condemnation is self inflicted, and
a reflection of the dominant desire of the condemned person. And likewise,
all who truly love the Lord's appearing and the things of His Kingdom will
be accepted into it (2 Tim. 4:8).
Deu 4:29 But from there you shall seek Yahweh your God and you will find
Him, when you search after Him with all your heart and with all your soul-
We're wrong to think that God passionlessly waits for us to repent or pray
to Him, and then He will forgive or act for us. He loves us, simply so;
and with all love's manipulation of circumstances and proactive taking of
the initiative, He seeks to pour out His
love upon us. Thus repentance itself is a gift which God gives and is not
totally upon human initiative (Dt. 4:29-31; 30:1-10; 1 Kings 8:58).
The judgment will be the time when God 'requires' of us our behaviour. And yet the Hebrew word is used about our enquiring / searching to God in prayer now (Gen. 25:22; Ex. 18:15; Dt. 4:29; 12:5; 1 Kings 22:5), as well as His 'requiring' / searching of us at the last day (Dt. 18:19; 23:21; Josh. 22:23; 1 Sam. 20:16; 2 Chron. 24:22; Ez. 3:20; 33:6,8). There is a mutuality between a man and his God.
Time and again in Deuteronomy, Moses speaks of the
state of the heart. He warns them against allowing a bad state of
heart to develop, he speaks often of how apostasy starts in the heart.
Moses makes a total of 49 references to the heart / mind of Israel in
Deuteronomy, compared to only 13 in the whole of Exodus, Leviticus and
Numbers. This was perhaps his greatest wish as he faced death; that God’s
people should develop a spiritual mind and thereby manifest the
Father and come to salvation. He saw the state of our mind as the key to
spiritual success. But do we share this perspective? There is so much in
our modern world which is mind-corrupting. Perceiving the importance of
spiritual mindedness is a sign of our spiritual maturity.
Deu 4:30 When you are oppressed and all these things have come on you, in
the latter days you shall return to Yahweh your God and listen to His
voice-
This is one of many indications that just before Christ returns, at
least some Jews will repent and turn to the Father and His Son in truth.
For His voice is supremely in the word made flesh, His Son. We should therefore always given special attention to witnessing the
Gospel to Jewish people, because their repentance will be one factor which
brings about Christ’s return.
Deu 4:31 for Yahweh your God is a merciful God; He will not fail you
neither destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which He
swore to them-
"Corrupted" in Dt. 4:16,25 is s.w. "'destroyed"
here. All judgment is finally self inflicted. Sin is its own judgment;
hence the Hebrew word for "corruption" also means "destruction", for moral
corruption is its own destruction. God Himself does judge, but always
prefers men to judge themselves.
Deu 4:32 For ask now of the days that are past, which were before you,
since the day that God created man on the earth, and from the one end of
the sky to the other, whether there has been anything like this great
thing, or has been heard like it?-
No other God came so close to His people to speak to them directly.
The tragedy was that Israel asked that God not do this, and speak with them through Moses. They wanted to interpose a religious system between God and themselves for fear of facing up to the awesome reality of personal relationship with God. And so it has ever been amongst 'religious' people.
The invitation to search through the records of all human history would
have been more relevant to Judah in captivity in Babylon, with access to
such records, than to Israel in the wilderness. I suggest this is another
example of where Deuteronomy was rewritten under Divine inspiration for
the exiles- for they too needed to quit idolatry and go forward in faith
to possess the same promised land and establish God's Kingdom in it. See
on :44.
Deu 4:33 Did a people ever hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst
of the fire as you have heard, and live?-
Israel complained that no other nation had ever been asked to hear
the voice of their God in a personal way; they feared that hearing this
voice meant their condemnation (Dt. 5:26). But God meant it so positively;
the fact they had heard God's voice was a sign of His amazing grace (Dt.
4:32,33). Yet Israel turned the display of that grace into a reason to
fear condemnation. They were far happier not being confronted by such
radical grace, and the personal engagement of God with them. And so they
desperately sought to use mere religion to shield them from this, asking
Moses to go through with this engagement with God and then give them a few
rules to obey, which didn't too deeply interrupt their lives. This is the
abiding tendency of men of all ages; to flee from grace to the structures
of mere religion.
Deu 4:34 Or has God tried to take a nation for Himself-
The Hebrew word for "trials" means just that. God tried, He attempted, to take Israel out of Egypt and make them His own loyal people- just as He tries, unsuccessfully, with so many today.
And it seems not all Israel kept the Passover, some were slain, and
perhaps some chose to remain in Egypt. And the majority He took out,
returned there in their hearts. But He tried, with amazing effort. In this we see the limitation of God, albeit self-imposed, due to His huge respect for human freewill. No other God tried [and tries] so hard to bring His people out from Egypt [the world] to be solely His. Every Red Sea / baptism deliverance of an individual is the sum of a huge amount of work from God. Those who were raised as believers need not think this to be irrelevant to them.
From the midst of
another nation by trials, by signs and by wonders-
It is stressed that Israel were taken out from the "midst of Egypt"
(Dt. 4:34; 1 Kings 8:51). The plagues and wonders were done in "the midst
of Egypt" (Ex. 3:20; Dt. 11:3). The midst of Egypt appears to be defined
in Ps. 135:9; Is. 19:3; Ez. 29:3 as being Pharaoh and his servants. The
narrative therefore stresses so much his response to the plagues. God's
especial focus had been upon his conversion, and yet he refused. Israel
were taken out right from under his nose, from the very heart of Egypt.
Ez. 20:8 reveals what is not recorded in the historical record; that
because the Israelites were so devoted to Egyptian idolatry still, His
thought had been to destroy them "in the midst of the land of Egypt" (Ez.
20:8). But God's pole of grace overcame the pole of necessary judgment. He
tolerated them and saved them, with enthusiasm, by the grace which comes
from love- love taken to its ultimate, saving term. The whole narrative
speaks as if the Hebrews were all at one place at one time and left "the
midst of Egypt" together. Although unrecorded in the historical narrative,
this would have meant that they gathered together "in the midst of Egypt"
with Moses, who was not in Goshen but in the locality and presence of
Pharaoh.
By war and by a mighty
hand, by an outstretched arm and by great terrors, according to all that
Yahweh your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?-
Moses was to stretch forth his hand to cause the waters of the Red Sea
to part and return, not his rod; because he was manifesting the hand of
Yahweh which was to deliver Israel (s.w. Ex. 7:5). The repeated references
to the stretched our arm or hand of Yahweh to save His people invite us to
recall this incident, and to perceive that Yahweh's hand had been manifest
through the hand of Moses (Dt. 4:34; 5:15; 7:19; 11:2; 26:8). That
stretched out, saving arm and hand of Yahweh was and is stretched out
still, to save His people (1 Kings 8:42; Ez. 20:34; Dan. 9:15 "as at this
day") and bring about a new creation in human lives (Is. 45:12). For the
deliverance through the Red Sea is intended to be experienced by all God's
people, and is now seen through His saving grace at baptism (1 Cor.
10:1,2). What happened there was but the beginning of the work of God's
outstretched arm (Dt. 3:24). Yet the stretched out arm / hand of God is
also a figure for His judgment (1 Chron. 21:16; Is. 9:12; 10:4). His hand
is at work in our lives- either to our condemnation or our salvation. And
it is for us therefore to humble ourselves beneath that mighty hand (1
Pet. 5:6).
Deu 4:35 It was shown to you so that you might know that Yahweh is God and
that there is none else besides Him-
“I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God (the Hebrew
word for ‘god’ essentially means ‘power’) beside Me” (Is. 45:5); “Is there
a God beside Me? There is no God; I know not any”, God says (Is.
44:8). Such verses occur time and again throughout the Bible. Because God
is the source of all power and the only God, He is therefore a jealous
God, as He often reminds us (e.g. Ex. 20:5; Dt. 4:24). God gets jealous
when His people start believing in other gods, if they say to Him, ‘You
are a great God, a powerful God, but actually I believe there are still
some other gods beside You, even if they are not as powerful as You’. This
is the problem with believing that there are demons or a Devil in
existence as well as the true God. This is just the mistake Israel made.
Much of the Old Testament is spent showing how Israel displeased God by
believing in other gods as well as in Him. The “demons” some people
believe in today are equivalent to those false gods Israel believed in.
Deu 4:36 Out of heaven He made you hear his voice so that He might
instruct you, and on earth He made you see His great fire and you heard
His words out of the midst of the fire-
Although God spoke to Moses alone in the mount, Moses stresses that
actually God "spake unto
you in the mount out of the midst of
the fire". The word of God to His scribes really is, to the same gripping,
terrifying degree, His direct word to us (Dt. 4:36; 5:45; 10:4). This
explains why David repeatedly refers to the miracle at the Red Sea as if
this had affected him personally, to the extent that he could ecstatically
rejoice because of it. However it has to be noted that it was God's
intention that Israel heard His voice directly. This would persuade them
of His unique existence. But they refused to hear that word directly,
preferring to hear it through Moses indirectly, and therefore the
potential strengthening of faith didn't happen. And that is true of so
many apparently Christian people today.
Deu 4:37 Because He loved your fathers, therefore He chose their seed
after them and brought you out-
After the sin with the golden calf, God had told Israel that His
presence would not go with them. But Moses had persuaded God to change on
that (Ex. 33:15-17), and he cites this as yet another amazing grace toward
Israel by God. We note that he doesn't boast about the power of his
prayers, but instead glories in what God had therefore done.
Deu 4:38 to drive out nations from before you greater and mightier than
you, to bring you in, to give you their land for an inheritance, as at
this day-
Our separation from this world isn’t merely negative. We are
separated from the world
["brought you out", :37] so that we might be separated
unto the things of God ["to
bring you in"]. These two ideas are found together in the Hebrew word for
‘holiness’. We learn here that the nations of Canaan were "greater", more
numerous, than Israel. I have discussed on Ex. 12:37 how the word
"thousand" has a wide range of meaning; and it is used of the six hundred
"thousand" military age men who left Egypt. I suggested that we need not
read this as a literal number, and that therefore the people of Israel
were still relatively few, rather than several million as would be
required if they had 600,000 military age men amongst them. For if Israel
numbered a few million people, then the nations in Canaan would have
numbered many million, if they were so much more numerous than Israel. And
there are huge logistical problems with supposing a population in Canaan
of say 20 million people.
Deu 4:39 Know therefore this day and lay it to your heart, that Yahweh He
is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is none else-
Time and again, Moses speaks of the state of their heart. He warns
them against allowing a bad state of heart to develop, he speaks often of
how apostasy starts in the heart. Moses makes a total of 49 references to
the heart / mind of Israel in Deuteronomy, compared to only 13 in the
whole of Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers. This indicates the paramount
importance which our Lord attaches to the state of our mind. This was
perhaps his greatest wish as He faced death; that we should develop a
spiritual mind and thereby manifest the Father and come to salvation.
Moses likewise saw the state of our mind as the key to spiritual success.
But do we share this perspective? Do we guard our minds against the media
and influence of a mind-corrupting world? It's been observed that the
phrase "The God of [somebody]", or similar, occurs 614 times in the Old
Testament, of which 306 are in Deuteronomy. Our very personal relationship
with God was therefore something else which Moses came to grasp in his
spiritual maturity. Statistical analysis of the word "love" in the
Pentateuch likewise reveals that "love" was a great theme of Moses at the
end of his life (Moses uses it 16 times in Deuteronomy, and only four
times in Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers).
Deu 4:40 You must keep His statutes and His commandments which I command
you this day, that it may go well with you and with your children after
you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which Yahweh your God
gives you forever-
That God is one is a command, an imperative to action (Mk. 12:28,29).
It underlies the whole law and prophets (Mt. 22:40)- it's that
fundamental. If there were two Gods, Yahweh would only demand half our
energies. Nothing can be given to anything else; for there is nothing else
to give to. There's only one God. There can be no idolatry in our lives,
because there is only one God (2 Kings 19:18,19). Because "there is none
else, you shall keep therefore his statutes" (Dt. 4:39,40). The
Hebrew text of Dt. 6:4 suggests: "The Lord is our God, the Lord is one",
thereby linking Yahweh's unity with His being our God, the sole Lord and
unrivalled Master of His people. It also links the first principle of the
unity of God with that of the covenant to Abraham; for "I will be their
God" was one of the features of the covenant. The one God has only one
people; not all religious systems can lead to the one Hope of Israel.
So does "prolong your days" mean that long life promised to the obedient Israelite under the Old Covenant? Solomon observed that a just mad perished young and "a wicked man who prolongs his life in his wickedness" (Ecc. 7:15). Ez. 12:22 suggests that faithless Israel cynically observed that "The days are prolonged" and God's prophetic word of condemnation had failed- implying they thought that prolonged days were being experienced by them despite their disobedience. The Hebrew phrase 'to prolong days' is found in Is. 53:10, where it is applied to how Messiah would 'prolong His days' not in this life, but in the resurrection. The repeated promises recorded in Deuteronomy of prolonged days upon the land of Israel would therefore hint at the eternity of the Kingdom rather than this life. Indeed, Dt. 4:40 says they would prolong their days "for ever". For an individual Israelite might be faithful but not prolong his or her days in the land because the whole people were to be carried away captive for their sins and the land given to a Gentile power. The opposite of 'days being prolonged' was 'utter destruction' (:26)- which would then speak of condemnation in the second death. This is one of many examples of where eternal life was possible under the Old Covenant- there were multiple different possibilities and plans God could have worked by. Israel could have accepted the Lord Jesus as their Messiah and not killed Him, and so forth. It seems the closer we probe God's word, the more open He is revealed as being.
Deu 4:41 Then Moses set apart three cities beyond the Jordan toward the
east-
The emphasis was very much upon them making the cities of
refuge, and defining the paths which led to them from all settlements in
the land (Dt. 19:3): "I command you, saying, You must set apart three
cities for yourselves" (Dt. 19:7). Yet the record in Joshua 18-20 shows
that Israel didn't do this, because they didn't even capture all the
cities which were to be cities of refuge. Moses attempted to arrange it
all for them; for Moses set apart cities of refuge. But arrangements for
personal salvation cannot be done by someone else.
Deu 4:42 that the manslayer might flee there, who kills his neighbour
unawares, and didn’t hate him in time past, and that fleeing to one of
these cities he might live:-
We are all in the position of the man who unintentionally committed
manslaughter and must therefore die. We are under sentence of death by
reason of being human, as well as for our actual sins. The avenger of
blood could be seen as God, for it is He alone who has the right to
execute judgment for sin. And we must note that the word ga'al
translated "avenger" is also that translated "redeemer" or 'ransomer'. The
cities of refuge are therefore understood in Heb. 6:18 as looking ahead to
refuge in the Lord Jesus: "Who have fled for refuge to lay hold on the
hope set before us". The allusion is to how the person who found
they had committed a sin worthy of death, yet without as it were wishing
to have done so, could flee to a city of refuge and be saved there by the
death of the high priest. The curse upon Levi was that the members of this
tribe were to be scattered in Israel (Gen. 49:7). However, this resulted
in the cities of the Levites being scattered throughout the land, thus
providing accessible cities of refuge to all who wished to escape the
consequences of sin. Those cities were evidently symbolic of the refuge we
have in Christ. Again and again, the curses and consequences of human sin
are used by the Father to mediate blessing. It is the sure hope before us
which is our refuge. "Hope", elpis, is a confident knowledge of a
future reality, rather than a hoping for the best. We should be confident
in our salvation. The 'guilty' person was made free totally through the
death of the High Priest, clearly looking forward to the significance of
the death of the Lord Jesus.
Moses was so sensitive to Israel’s weakness. He often reminds them that he knows that they will turn away from the Covenant he had given them (e.g. Dt. 30:1; 31:29). He knew that one day they would want a king, even though God was their king (Dt. 17:14). He foresaw how they would see horses and chariots and get frightened (Dt. 20:1-4). He knew that there would always be poor people in the land, even though if the Law was properly kept this would not be the case (Dt. 15:4mg, 11). He knew they would accidentally commit murder and would need a way of escape; therefore he twice repeats and explains the law concerning the cities of refuge (Dt. 4:42; 19:5). These being a symbol of the future Messiah (Heb. 6:18), this emphasis would suggest that like Paul and Jacob, the mind of Moses in his time of spiritual maturity was firmly fixed on the Lord Jesus Christ. See on 5:22
Deu 4:43 Bezer in the wilderness, in the plain country for the Reubenites;
Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites; and Golan in Bashan for the Manassites-
But Ramoth Gilead passed in and out of Israelite possession; and it
is doubtful whether Manasseh ever bothered securing Golan from the local
inhabitants. Likewise Kedesh, a city of refuge on the west of Jordan, was
listed in Josh. 19 as a city not yet taken by Naphtali; yet it was
commanded to be given by them to the Levites as a city of refuge (Josh.
20:7). So their refusal or 'being slack' to take the city meant they had
no wider vision, of providing a place of refuge for the needy within
Israel as a whole. And there is no real evidence that this wonderful
system of salvation and justice ever really worked in practice.
The cities were generally in the wilderness or mountainous areas;
perhaps the idea was that they should not be used casually, but the person
had to make quite some effort to get there.
Deu 4:44 This is the law which Moses set before the children of Israel-
Deuteronomy is largely a transcript of the final speech of Moses,
given at the very end of his life. But verses like this indicate an
editorial hand, and I suggested on :32 that this was done under Divine
inspiration in Babylon.
Deu 4:45 these are the testimonies, the statutes and the ordinances, which
Moses spoke to the children of Israel when they came forth out of Egypt-
"Came forth" is s.w. "brought forth". Israel were "brought forth" from
Egypt by God; they had been unwilling to leave Egypt, preferring to serve
the Egyptians rather than Yahweh (Ex. 14:12). God had as it were forced
through His project of saving Israel by bringing them out of Egypt. And He
had done so largely for the sake of Moses, by whose faith the Red Sea
parted and they were delivered (Heb. 11:28,29). Therefore Yahweh's
bringing Israel out of Egypt was what He did for Moses, and only thereby
for His people. We too are brought out of this world towards God's Kingdom
by His grace alone, with His consistently taking the initiative in our
hearts and life circumstances, in accord with the loving intercession of
the Lord Jesus [represented by Moses]. Thus Yahweh brought Israel out of
Egypt (Ex. 18:1; 19:1; Lev. 23:43; 25:55; Num. 26:4; 33:1,3,38; Dt.
4:45,46), but Moses did (Ex. 3:10,11).
Deu 4:46 beyond the Jordan, in the valley over against Beth Peor, in the
land of Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon, whom Moses and
the children of Israel struck, when they came forth out of Egypt-
Critics have made much of the apparent contradiction between the
geographical details in Dt. 1:1 and the location details in Dt. 4:45,46.
But I suggest that the names in Dt. 1:1 are not intended to be pinned down
to specific locations. There are six of them, and it was unlikely that any
reader would be able to pinpoint a location in the uncharted desert from
these vague places. Rather, we are given a word picture of what the desert
was like. The place names in Dt. 1:1 mean [in order] "Ornamental",
maybe referring to the appearance of sand sculptures made by the wind;
"quagmire", "whiteness", "tower" and "golden".
Deu 4:47 They took his land in possession, and the land of Og king of
Bashan, the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan toward
the sunrise-
"They took" again suggests an inspired editorial hand; see on :32,44.
Deu 4:48 from Aroer, which is on the edge of the valley of the Arnon, to
Mount Sion (the same is Hermon)-
This is not to be confused with Mount Zion in Jerusalem, nor the
Hermon in the north. It is significant that there were mountains called Hermon in the
extreme north and south of the land. It is a form of the word herem,
the term used in Dt. 3:6 for the 'devotion' of the conquered land to Yahweh.
Perhaps that was the idea. But we note that already, God has recalculated
Israel's inheritance, bounded now by these mountains; whereas His initial
intention was to give them the far wider area promised to Abraham. He
likewise adjusts His hopes and expectations of His individual people,
never giving up on any of us, but always seeking to lead us to at leas
some inheritance in His Kingdom.
Deu 4:49 and all the Arabah beyond the Jordan eastward, even to the sea of
the Arabah, under the slopes of Pisgah-
The way Deuteronomy refers to cities East of Jordan as being "on this
side Jordan" (e.g. Dt. 4:41,49 AV) would suggest that the editor of the
book was writing from a location East of Jordan- likely Babylon. Thus
books like Deuteronomy were edited, under Divine inspiration, in the
captivity- in order to show Judah how they were repeating the sins of
their forefathers, and appealing to them thereby to learn the lessons.
It has been observed that the books of Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges,
Samuel and Kings have certain similarities. For example, they all quote
the Deuteronomy version of Israel's earlier history, leading to the
suggestion that Deuteronomy was the first of the collection, a kind of
introductory background history. See on Dt. 28:41.
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