2Moses exhorteth the people to obedience by the memory of the works they had seen. 10They are all presented before the Lord to enter into covenant with him, and warned of the danger of flattering themselves in wickedness. Revealed things alone belong to men.
1THESE are the words of the covenant, which the LORD commanded Moses to 1make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, 2beside the covenant which he made with them in 3Horeb.
1 Or, hew, cut. See Gen. 15 on verse 18; and so in the sequel.
2 It was indeed one and the same covenant, but renewed, repeated and explained here in the fields of Moab, unto many other persons, in another place and in another manner than at Mount Horeb or Sinai. Compare Deut. 5:2 and Deut. 5 on verse 3.
3 See Deut. 1 on verse 2.
2¶And Moses called unto all Israel, and said unto them, Yea have seen 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;
a Exod. 19:4.
3Theb great 4temptations which thine eyes have seen, the signs, and those great miracles:
b Deut. 4:34; 7:19.
4 See Deut. 4 on verse 34.
4Yet the LORD hath not given you 5an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day.
5 That is, an understanding heart, eyes seeing and ears hearing. The sense is, that God up to this time had not given them the gift to understand rightly to perceive and to consider duly and to use and apply fruitfully to God’s glory and their salvation that which they had seen and heard. Compare Deut. 30 on verse 6; Isa. 6:9, 10; Ezek. 36:26, etc.; Mat. 13:9, 11, 13.
5And 6I have led you forty years in the wilderness: your clothes are not waxen old 7upon you, and thy shoe is not waxen old upon thy foot.
6 God speaketh this, as appears at the end of the sixth verse.
7 Hebr. from on, or, from upon you, that is, that you, as worn, have been constrained to cast them away, as they are wont to do with garments which are grown old; so again with the shoe in the following words.
6Ye have not eaten 8bread, neither have ye drunk wine or strong drink: 9that ye might know that I am the LORD your God.
8 Ordinary, common or usual bread, for, the LORD fed them with manna.
9 Understand: I have so ordered and disposed all these things, wonderfully furnishing you with meat and drink that ye might know, etc.
7And when ye came unto this place, Sihonc the king of Heshbon, and Og the king of Bashan, came out against us unto battle, and we smote them:
c Num. 21:24, 33; Deut. 2:32; 3:1.
8And we took their land, and gave it ford an inheritance unto the Reubenites, and to the Gadites, and to the half tribe of Manasseh.
d Num. 32:33; Deut. 3:12; Joshua 13:8.
9Keep therefore the words of this covenant, and do them, 10that ye may prosper in all that ye do.
10 Other, that ye may be prosperous in all, or, make all to prosper, etc.
10 ¶ 11Ye 12stand 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 The continuation of these words is in verse 12.
12 Being called together of God by me; as appears in verses 1, 2.
11Your little ones, your wives, and thy 13stranger that is in thy camp, from the 14hewere of thy wood unto the drawer of thy water:
13 Who came along with them out of Egypt (Exod. 12:38) or came to them from other nations, and, by embracing the Jewish religion, became incorporated with the people of God.
14 That is, even the most simple and poorest kind among the people.
e choppers, cutters*
12That thou shouldest enter into covenant with the LORD thy God, and into his 15oath, 16which the LORD thy God maketh with thee this day:
15 That is, the curse of the covenant wherewith they cursed themselves in the oath which they made in the presence of God if they would not keep the promises of obedience. See Neh. 10:29.
16 The covenant.
13That he may establish thee to day for 17a people unto himself, and that he may be unto thee 18a God, as he hath said unto thee, and asf he hath sworn unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
17 That is, establishes you for a people, which may be His and may belong to Him as His peculiar treasurer, to enjoy the blessing of His covenant and to serve Him. Compare Deut. 7 on verse 6, and Deut. 28:9.
18 See Gen. 17 on verse 7.
f Gen. 17:7.
14Neither with you only do I make this covenant and this 19oath;
19 See verse 12.
15But 20with him that standeth here with us this day before the LORD our God, and also with him that is not here with us this day:
20 That is, with you, who are here present, and (as I declared unto Abraham long ago) with your seed, with your posterity which are not yet born and in time to come and might say that this covenant does not concern them. Compare Acts 2:39.
16(For ye know how we have dwelt in the land of Egypt; and how we came through the nations which ye passed by;
17And ye have seen their abominations, and their 21idols, wood and stone, silver and gold, which were among them:)
21 See Lev. 26 on verse 30.
18Lest 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; lest there should be among you a rootg that beareth 22gall and wormwood;h
g Acts 8:23; Heb. 12:15.
22 Or, poison, a poisonous herb, that is, such a heart which brings forth fruits that are abominable in the sight of God and will prove bitter to a man in the end and be as deadly poison to him. See further Psalm 69 on verse 21.
h bitter, oil-yielding plant*
19And it come to pass, when 23he heareth the words of this 24curse, that he 25bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the 26imagination of mine heart, to add 27drunkenness to thirst:
23 Namely, he who is compared to the root in the previous verse.
24 See verse 12.
25 That is, despises the curse, which he hears, in his heart, and, on the contrary, counts himself happy by himself, promises himself success and prosperity, although he scorns God and His Word.
26 Or, imagination, speculation, thought. Other, hardness. See Jer. 3 on verse 17.
27 Hebr. the drunken to the thirsty. Or, to add moistening to the thirsty. This seems to have been a proverb, taken from the dry ground that had to be moistened; so does this man endeavor to augment and increase in sin, to which he, as it were, thirsts to satisfy his lust to the full. Or, of drunkards, who, being of their own accord prone to drinking, do yet besides seek and use means to make themselves stark drunk and mad. As such does the wicked and ungodly wretch, who, being wicked already enough, encourages himself still to grow more wicked, to heap up one sin upon another, and, being become as it were insensible, without consideration to go on from bad to worse. Compare Job 34:7; Mat. 12:43, 44, 45; Eph. 4:19; Heb. 6:8; 2 Peter 2:20. Some understand by the drunken or abundantly moistened ground, the worship of the true God, Who is a fountain of life; and by the thirsty, the worship of idols, being as cisterns that hold no water, Jer. 2:13.
20The LORD will not spare him, but then the anger of the LORD and his jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the LORD shall blot out his name from under heaven.
21And the LORD shall separate him 28unto evil out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant that are written in this book of the law:
28 That is, unto punishment, mischief and destruction.
22So 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 29say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses which the LORD hath laid upon it;
29 The continuation of these words is verse 24.
23And that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and 30burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, 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:
30 That is, which burns the ground. Other, that the whole land thereof is burned with brimstone. The meaning is, that this land, by God’s just curse, was most wonderfully defaced and spoiled, as Sodom, Gomorrah were in times past, etc.
24Even all nations shall say, Whereforei hath the LORD done thus unto this land? 31what meaneth the heat of this great anger?
i Jer. 22:8.
31 That is, what does it signify or mean, what is the cause, etc.?
25Then 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:
26For they went and served other gods, and worshipped them, gods whom they 32knew not, and whom he had not 33given unto them:
32 As the true God favorably knows and cares for His own, Psalm 1:6; 2 Tim. 2:19, etc.
33 That is, had done or would do any good unto them. Other, whom he (namely, the LORD) had not imparted unto them, namely, to be served by them as gods. Compare Deut. 4:19.
27And the anger of the LORD was kindled against this land, to bring upon it all the curses that are written in this book:
28And the LORD rooted them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, 34as it is this day.
34 These words (as also the previous) pertain to the answer that was to be given at that time to the nations upon their question.
2935The 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.
35 Moses, having spoken and being yet to speak of many great and also future things, restrains in this verse the curiosity and inquisitiveness of searching further into things which are hidden in the counsel of God, and charges the people to abide and continue within the bounds of God’s revealed Word, to search it out, to believe it and to live according to it.