Deuteronomy 11:1-32

Deuteronomy 10:12 to Deuteronomy 11:32. Final Exhortations, Introductory to the Laws

Enforced by the preceding Retrospect, the discourse continues to urge its practical conclusions of full fear and love to God, by worshipping and obeying Him (Deuteronomy 10:12-13); because, though all heaven and earth is His, He was pleased to love the fathers of Israel and to choose their posterity (Deuteronomy 10:14-15). Changing to the Pl. address the discourse urges Israel to circumcise their hearts and be no more stiffnecked, for their God is the greatest God and Lord, mightiest and most terrible and absolutely impartial (Deuteronomy 10:16-17). He secures justice for the widow and orphan and loves the stranger, as Israel, themselves strangers in Egypt, must do (Deuteronomy 10:18-19). Returning to the Sg. exhortations follow to fear, worship, and cleave to Jehovah, for He is Israel's God who has done all these mighty things for the people, and out of seventy individuals who went down to Egypt, made them a multitude like to the stars; therefore loving God they shall keep His commandments (Deuteronomy 10:20 to Deuteronomy 11:1). Once more in the Pl., Israel are reminded of the discipline of God, which they themselves have experienced in their deliverance from Egypt and guidance through the desert, and in the punishment for rebellion of Dathan and Abiram (Deuteronomy 10:2-7); therefore they shall keep the commandment, that they may be strong, possess the land and prolong their days upon it (Deuteronomy 10:8-9). Oscillating between Sg. and Pl. there follows a description of the distinction of the land from the flat and rainless Egypt, irrigated from the Nile by the foot of man: it is a land whose water comes from heaven and God's eyes are always upon it (Deuteronomy 10:10-12); if Israel observe His commandments (vv. here the discourse passes from Moses to the person of the Deity), He will give the rains in their seasons and fulness of crops (Deuteronomy 10:13-15). Let them not turn away from Him to other gods, lest in His anger He send drought and they perish (Deuteronomy 10:16-17). Therefore they shall lay His words to heart, bind them as signs on their hands and brows, teach them to their children, and write them by their doors and gates that their days, and their children's, may be long in the land (Deuteronomy 10:18-21). For if they keep all his commandments (vv. the discourse is already again in the person of Moses) God will expel all these nations and give them every part of the land they tread, from the desert to Lebanon and from the Euphrates to the Western Sea (Deuteronomy 10:22). The speaker, in short, has set a blessing and a curse before Israel on conditions respectively, and they shall put them up on Gerizim and Ebal on the other side of Jordan, which they are about to cross and then they must keep all the statutes and judgments now to be delivered to them (Deut 10:26 32). So we reach the close of the discourses introductory to the Laws. The frequent changes between the Sg. and Pl. forms of address, sometimes coinciding with transitions to subjects not always relevant to the main theme of the discourses, are proof of the composite character of this closing section; and after the text (which, as the versions show, is by no means certain) has been corrected, furnish material for the question whether it is possible to discriminate two original discourses, introductory to the Code, one Sg. the other Pl., or whether the changes of address may be explained by the expansion of one original at the hands of editors.