Deuteronomy 4:1-49
1 Now therefore hearken, O Israel, unto the statutes and unto the judgments, which I teach you, for to do them, that ye may live, and go in and possess the land which the LORD God of your fathers giveth you.
2 Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.
3 Your eyes have seen what the LORD did because of Baalpeor: for all the men that followed Baalpeor, the LORD thy God hath destroyed them from among you.
4 But ye that did cleave unto the LORD your God are alive every one of you this day.
5 Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the LORD my God commanded me, that ye should do so in the land whither ye go to possess it.
6 Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.
7 For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the LORD our God is in all things that we call upon him for?
8 And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?
9 Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life: but teach them thy sons, and thy sons' sons;
10 Specially the day that thou stoodest before the LORD thy God in Horeb, when the LORD said unto me, Gather me the people together, and I will make them hear my words, that they may learn to fear me all the days that they shall live upon the earth, and that they may teach their children.
11 And ye came near and stood under the mountain; and the mountain burned with fire unto the midsta of heaven, with darkness, clouds, and thick darkness.
12 And the LORD spake unto you out of the midst of the fire: ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude; onlyb ye heard a voice.
13 And he declared unto you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even ten commandments; and he wrote them upon two tables of stone.
14 And the LORD commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go over to possess it.
15 Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves; for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the LORD spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire:
16 Lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female,
17 The likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged fowl that flieth in the air,
18 The likeness of any thing that creepeth on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the waters beneath the earth:
19 And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the LORD thy God hath dividedc unto all nations under the whole heaven.
20 But the LORD hath taken you, and brought you forth out of the iron furnace, even out of Egypt, to be unto him a people of inheritance, as ye are this day.
21 Furthermore the LORD was angry with me for your sakes, and sware that I should not go over Jordan, and that I should not go in unto that good land, which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance:
22 But I must die in this land, I must not go over Jordan: but ye shall go over, and possess that good land.
23 Take heed unto yourselves, lest ye forget the covenant of the LORD your God, which he made with you, and make you a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, which the LORD thy God hath forbidden thee.
24 For the LORD thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God.
25 When thou shalt beget children, and children's children, and ye shall have remained long in the land, and shall corrupt yourselves, and make a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, and shall do evil in the sight of the LORD thy God, to provoke him to anger:
26 I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that ye shall soon utterly perish from off the land whereunto ye go over Jordan to possess it; ye shall not prolong your days upon it, but shall utterly be destroyed.
27 And the LORD shall scatter you among the nations, and ye shall be left few in number among the heathen, whither the LORD shall lead you.
28 And there ye shall serve gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
29 But if from thence thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.
30 When thou art in tribulation, and all these things are come upon thee, even in the latter days, if thou turn to the LORD thy God, and shalt be obedient unto his voice;
31 (For the LORD thy God is a merciful God;) he will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which he sware unto them.
32 For ask now of the days that are past, which were before thee, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and ask from the one side of heaven unto the other, whether there hath been any such thing as this great thing is, or hath been heard like it?
33 Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou hast heard, and live?
34 Or hath God assayed to go and take him a nation from the midst of another nation, by temptations, by 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?
35 Unto thee it was shewed, that thou mightest know that the LORD he is God; there is none else beside him.
36 Out of heaven he made thee to hear his voice, that he might instruct thee: and upon earth he shewed thee his great fire; and thou heardest his words out of the midst of the fire.
37 And because he loved thy fathers, therefore he chose their seed after them, and brought thee out in his sight with his mighty power out of Egypt;
38 To drive out nations from before thee greater and mightier than thou art, to bring thee in, to give thee their land for an inheritance, as it is this day.
39 Know therefore this day, and consider it in thine heart, that the LORD he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath: there is none else.
40 Thou shalt keep therefore his statutes, and his commandments, which I command thee this day, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days upon the earth, which the LORD thy God giveth thee, for ever.
41 Then Moses severed three cities on this side Jordan toward the sunrising;
42 That the slayer might flee thither, which should kill his neighbour unawares, and hated him not in times past; and that fleeing unto one of these cities he might live:
43 Namely, Bezer in the wilderness, in the plain country, of the Reubenites; and Ramoth in Gilead, of the Gadites; and Golan in Bashan, of the Manassites.
44 And this is the law which Moses set before the children of Israel:
45 These are the testimonies, and the statutes, and the judgments, which Moses spake unto the children of Israel, after they came forth out of Egypt,
46 On this side Jordan, in the valley over against Bethpeor, in the land of Sihon king of the Amorites, who dwelt at Heshbon, whom Moses and the children of Israel smote, after they were come forth out of Egypt:
47 And they possessed his land, and the land of Og king of Bashan, two kings of the Amorites, which were on this side Jordan toward the sunrising;
48 From Aroer, which is by the bank of the river Arnon, even unto mount Sion, which is Hermon,
49 And all the plain on this side Jordan eastward, even unto the sea of the plain, under the springs of Pisgah.
Deuteronomy 4:2. Ye shall not add unto the word. This would be to debase revelation, and treat the divine law as a defective production of man, that needed additions and retrenchments. Solon, the Athenian lawgiver, obtained an oath from the principal officers of the senate to observe his laws inviolate for ten years, till he should return from his travels. Besides, the tabernacle being a type of heaven, would utterly be gaited and marred by the fanciful rituals devised by men. Yet many things were added, as the feast of purim, in Esther, and additional altars when Solomon dedicated the temple.
Deuteronomy 4:7. What nation hath God so nigh? Moses here reaches the true sublime of instruction. Will the Lord indeed dwell with man, in all the promised glory and grace of his covenant? The gentile mythology can bear no comparison with the glory of the Hebrew ritual.
Deuteronomy 4:15. Ye saw no similitude. It is not a statue, nor even the glory of the heavens, that can adequately represent the Theotes or Divinity. Yet the fine paintings of scripture histories hung up in churches, did very much contribute to instruct the ignorant, and impress the heart.
Deuteronomy 4:19. Lest when thou seest the sun, the moon, and the stars. This is the Sabian worship, strongly abhorred by Job, in Job 31:26; a worship which overspread the world, and still subsists in the east. The sun is called the king of heaven, or Baal, the lord or ruler of the day. The moon (Juno, or the queen of heaven, Jeremiah 7:18) is called Baala, or lady, ruling the night; which Baala is called by Abedenus, βηλτις. In Philo, we find the word Baaltis. The Jews worship the moon with baking cakes, and by consequence with fire.
General Vallancey has written on the antiquities of the Irish language; and supposes Ireland to be the ancient Thule, and to have derived their worship from the Carthaginians, whose presiding deity was Baal. He supports his theory by the fires which they used to kindle, mi Baal tienne, in Baal's month; that is, on the first of May. On that day, the children scatter fire in the fields, and cry, Baal tienne fires. See on Job 1:5.
Herodotus gives us, book 7., an example how Xerxes worshipped the rising sun, before he set out on his most unfortunate expedition against the Greeks. “Awaiting the rising of the sun, they poured on the bridge all kinds of sweet odours, and scattered on all the road, branches of myrtle. Immediately when it was day, Xerxes with a golden phial poured a libation into the sea, and prayed the sun to turn away whatever might obstruct his subjugation of all Europe.” In this disastrous expedition, the stars did not hear him.
REFLECTIONS.
Moses, now commencing the improvements of the preseding history, stands, so to speak, on the high mountains of vast age, and looks back on the wilderness of life, with all the advantages of wisdom and experience. Hence all his words are weighty, all his conclusions just, and all his injunctions worthy of the spirit which inspired the venerable ruler. The leading fact he adduces to enforce future obedience is, that all the daring men who had followed Baal were destroyed; but that all those who had stedfastly adhered to the covenant of God were alive to that day. Surely here is a particular providence; surely from the beginning God had realized the blessings and curses of the covenant. What a school is the theocracy of Israel for the christian church; what a school of terror for the infidel age.
From the presence and glory of God resident in Israel; from the purity of his precepts, and the glory of the ceremonial service, he infers the duties of gratitude and fidelity. And how much more forcible is this inference, when applied to the christian church. For God who spake to the fathers from the cloud, and by the prophets, hath in these last days familiarly spoken to us face to face, the Son being veiled in human flesh. He has made us his sons and daughters, and called us to sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Let us charge ourselves and our children to devote our whole heart and life a grateful sacrifice, entirely to his glory.
The grand object of the strong and impressive language in this chapter is, a firm caution against idolatry; a caution it was needful often to repeat; for the idolatrous priests, daily availing themselves of the errors of superstition, and rendering the devotion of their altars almost enchanting to the carnal crowd, a firm barrier was requisite to stem the torrent. And oh that the christian world were properly apprized of the snares which the enemy, in this view, lays for their feet. Oh that they knew that by idolizing giddy pleasures, by indulging voluptuous habits, or devoting themselves to sordid gain, they leave the Lord and do homage to Satan. All these, he says, will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. All inordinate attachments to the riches and pleasures of the age are as fatal to the soul as the worship of Baal.
From the divine fervour with which Moses addressed the Israelites; from the vast variety of arguments and motives here urged; and in particular, from his calling heaven and earth to witness the vengeance which should follow, if either they or their children departed from the covenant of the Lord, when they stood before Sinai; in him, christian ministers have a model of the wisdom and unction which should distinguish their sermons. What, have we frequently one or two thousand people listening to our voice? Have they every one an immortal soul? Have all these people neighbours, children, and connections at home? And are they all in danger of idols? Are we all in danger of losing the gospel candlestick by apostasy from the essentials of christianity, and the spirit of our religion? What an eloquence should inspire our hearts; what language should distinguish our addresses; what tears should water our words, divinely to impress the people with the importance of what we urge! But seeing like Moses we are about to die, the old and worthy saints are about to follow, and a worse generation may ensue, let us make our final appeal to God. Let us take heaven and earth to record; they shall survive; they shall tell our sermons to a future age, and attest that apostates from the christian faith shall be afflicted with greater calamities than those which have repeatedly fallen on the apostate Hebrews. It is enough let all men fear. God hath said, I will avenge the quarrel of any covenant.