These are the statutes and the ordinances which you shall observe to do in the land which Yahweh, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess all the days that you live on the earth. You shall surely destroy all the places in which the nations that you shall dispossess served their gods: on the high mountains, and on the hills, and under every green tree. You shall break down their altars, dash their pillars in pieces, and burn their Asherah poles with fire. You shall cut down the engraved images of their gods. You shall destroy their name out of that place. You shall not do so to Yahweh your God.
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Deuteronomy 12:1-4 sits inside this longer paragraph.
These are the statutes and the ordinances which you shall observe to do in the land which Yahweh, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess all the days that you live on the earth. You shall surely destroy all the places in which the nations that you shall dispossess served their gods: on the high mountains, and on the hills, and under every green tree. You shall break down their altars, dash their pillars in pieces, and burn their Asherah poles with fire. You shall cut down the engraved images of their gods. You shall destroy their name out of that place. You shall not do so to Yahweh your God. But to the place which Yahweh your God shall choose out of all your tribes, to put his name there, you shall seek his habitation, and you shall come there. You shall bring your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the wave offering of your hand, your vows, your free will offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock there. There you shall eat before Yahweh your God, and you shall rejoice in all that you put your hand to, you and your households, in which Yahweh your God has blessed you. You shall not do all the things that we do here today, every man whatever is right in his own eyes; for you haven’t yet come to the rest and to the inheritance which Yahweh your God gives you. But when you go over the Jordan and dwell in the land which Yahweh your God causes you to inherit, and he gives you rest from all your enemies around you, so that you dwell in safety, then it shall happen that to the place which Yahweh your God shall choose, to cause his name to dwell there, there you shall bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the wave offering of your hand, and all your choice vows which you vow to Yahweh. You shall rejoice before Yahweh your God—you, and your sons, your daughters, your male servants, your female servants, and the Levite who is within your gates, because he has no portion nor inheritance with you. Be careful that you don’t offer your burnt offerings in every place that you see; but in the place which Yahweh chooses in one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall do all that I command you.
Parallel Translations
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These are the statutes and the ordinances which you shall observe to do in the land which Yahweh, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess all the days that you live on the earth.
You shall surely destroy all the places in which the nations that you shall dispossess served their gods: on the high mountains, and on the hills, and under every green tree.
You shall break down their altars, dash their pillars in pieces, and burn their Asherah poles with fire. You shall cut down the engraved images of their gods. You shall destroy their name out of that place.
You shall not do so to Yahweh your God.
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These are the statutes and judgments, which ye shall observe to do in the land, which the LORD God of thy fathers giveth thee to possess it, all the days that ye live upon the earth.
Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree:
And ye shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their groves with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place.
Ye shall not do so unto the LORD your God.
Show all 3 translations
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These are the statutes and the ordinances, which ye shall observe to do in the land which the LORD, the God of thy fathers, hath given thee to possess it, all the days that ye live upon the earth.
Ye shall surely destroy all the places, wherein the nations that ye are to dispossess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every leafy tree.
And ye shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and burn their Asherim with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods; and ye shall destroy their name out of that place.
Ye shall not do so unto the LORD your God.
Examined in Scripture Analysis
Contradictions (1)
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
Commandments (2)
The laws of the Torah, each cited and shown as a primary source.
Cross-references (45)
- Deuteronomy 7:5 (vv2–3) But you shall deal with them like this: you shall break down their altars, dash their pillars in pieces, cut down their Asherah poles, and…
- Leviticus 20:23 (v4) You shall not walk in the customs of the nation which I am casting out before you; for they did all these things, and therefore I abhorred…
- Judges 2:2 (vv2–3) You shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land. You shall break down their altars.’ But you have not listened to my voice.…
- Numbers 33:51-52 (v2) Speak to the children of Israel, and tell them, “When you pass over the Jordan into the land of Canaan, then you shall drive out all the…
- Numbers 33:52 (v3) then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, destroy all their stone idols, destroy all their molten images,…
Show all 43 cross-references
- Deuteronomy 20:18 (v4) that they not teach you to follow all their abominations, which they have done for their gods; so would you sin against Yahweh your God.
- 2 Kings 16:4 (v2) He sacrificed and burned incense in the high places, on the hills, and under every green tree.
- Zechariah 13:2 (v3) It will come to pass in that day, says Yahweh of Armies, that I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they will be…
- Exodus 34:12-17 (v2) Be careful, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you are going, lest it be for a snare among you; but you shall…
- Deuteronomy 7:25-26 (v2) You shall burn the engraved images of their gods with fire. You shall not covet the silver or the gold that is on them, nor take it for…
- Deuteronomy 12:30-31 (v4) be careful that you are not ensnared to follow them after they are destroyed from before you, and that you not inquire after their gods,…
- Deuteronomy 16:21-22 (v4) You shall not plant for yourselves an Asherah of any kind of tree beside Yahweh your God’s altar, which you shall make for yourselves.…
- 1 Kings 8:40 (v1) that they may fear you all the days that they live in the land which you gave to our fathers.
- 2 Kings 17:10-11 (v2) and they set up for themselves pillars and Asherah poles on every high hill, and under every green tree; and there they burned incense in…
- Psalms 16:4 (v3) Their sorrows shall be multiplied who give gifts to another god. Their drink offerings of blood I will not offer, nor take their names on…
- Exodus 23:13 (v3) “Be careful to do all things that I have said to you; and don’t invoke the name of other gods or even let them be heard out of your mouth.
- Job 7:1 (v1) “Isn’t a man forced to labor on earth? Aren’t his days like the days of a hired hand?
- Jeremiah 3:6 (v2) Moreover, Yahweh said to me in the days of Josiah the king, “Have you seen that which backsliding Israel has done? She has gone up on every…
- Ezekiel 20:28-29 (v2) For when I had brought them into the land which I swore to give to them, then they saw every high hill, and every thick tree, and they…
- Exodus 23:24 (v2) You shall not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor follow their practices, but you shall utterly overthrow them and demolish their…
- Numbers 22:41 (v2) In the morning, Balak took Balaam, and brought him up into the high places of Baal; and he saw from there part of the people.
- Deuteronomy 4:1-2 (v1) Now, Israel, listen to the statutes and to the ordinances which I teach you, to do them; that you may live, and go in and possess the land…
- Deuteronomy 4:5 (v1) Behold, I have taught you statutes and ordinances, even as Yahweh my God commanded me, that you should do so in the middle of the land…
- Deuteronomy 4:9-10 (v1) Only be careful, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things which your eyes saw, and lest they depart from your heart all…
- Deuteronomy 4:19 (v1) and lest you lift up your eyes to the sky, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, even all the army of the sky, you are drawn…
- Deuteronomy 4:45 (v1) These are the testimonies, and the statutes, and the ordinances which Moses spoke to the children of Israel when they came out of Egypt,
- Deuteronomy 6:1-2 (v1) Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the ordinances, which Yahweh your God commanded to teach you, that you might do them in…
- Deuteronomy 12:19 (v1) Be careful that you don’t forsake the Levite as long as you live in your land.
- 1 Kings 15:13 (v3) He also removed Maacah his mother from being queen, because she had made an abominable image for an Asherah. Asa cut down her image and…
- 2 Kings 18:4 (v3) He removed the high places, and broke the pillars, and cut down the Asherah. He also broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had…
- 2 Kings 23:13 (v2) The king defiled the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the right hand of the mountain of corruption, which Solomon the…
- 2 Kings 23:14 (v3) He broke in pieces the pillars, cut down the Asherah poles, and filled their places with men’s bones.
- 2 Chronicles 19:3 (v3) Nevertheless there are good things found in you, in that you have put away the Asheroth out of the land, and have set your heart to seek…
- 2 Chronicles 31:1 (v3) Now when all this was finished, all Israel who were present went out to the cities of Judah, and broke the pillars in pieces, cut down the…
- 2 Chronicles 34:3 (v3) For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father; and in the twelfth year he…
- Psalms 104:33 (v1) I will sing to Yahweh as long as I live. I will sing praise to my God while I have any being.
- Psalms 146:2 (v1) While I live, I will praise Yahweh. I will sing praises to my God as long as I exist.
- Jeremiah 17:2 (v3) Even their children remember their altars and their Asherah poles by the green trees on the high hills.
- Hosea 2:17 (v3) For I will take away the names of the Baals out of her mouth, and they will no longer be mentioned by name.
- Hosea 4:13 (v2) They sacrifice on the tops of the mountains, and burn incense on the hills, under oaks and poplars and terebinths, because its shade is…
- Micah 5:14 (v3) I will uproot your Asherah poles out from among you; and I will destroy your cities.
- Revelation 13:1 (v3) Then I stood on the sand of the sea. I saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads. On his horns were ten…
- 2 Chronicles 14:3 (v3) for he took away the foreign altars and the high places, broke down the pillars, cut down the Asherah poles,
43 distinct cross-references across this passage (45 total citations).
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (27 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
Private notes
Saved on this device only — never synced or sent anywhere.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4 Whereby they are admonished to seek none other God.
Whereby they are admonished to seek none other God.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–4 Deu 12:1 These [are] the statutes and judgments, which…
Deu 12:1 These [are] the statutes and judgments, which ye shall observe to do in the land, which the LORD God of thy fathers giveth thee to possess it, all the days that ye live upon the earth.
Ver. 1. These are the statutes.] Here Moses begins to comment upon the second commandment of the law. {See Trapp on "Deu 6:1"}
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv2–4 All the places; temples, chapels, altars, groves, as appears…
All the places; temples, chapels, altars, groves, as appears from other scriptures. The Gentiles used to employ the
high mountains for their idolatry; (see Isa 57:5,7; Eze 6:13; Hos 4:13) and as they consecrated divers trees to their false gods, so they worshipped these under them:
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v1 From those great original truths, That there is a…
From those great original truths, That there is a God, and that there is but one God, arise those great fundamental laws, That that God is to be worshipped, and he only, and that therefore we are to have no other God before him: this is the first commandment, and the second is a guard upon it, or a hedge about it. To prevent a revolt to false gods, we are forbidden to worship the true God in such a way and manner as the false gods were worshipped in, and are commanded to observe the instituted ordinances of worship that we may adhere to the proper object of worship. For this reason Moses is very large in his exposition of the second commandment. What is contained in this and the four following chapters mostly refers to that. These are statutes and judgments which they must observe to do (Deu 12:1), 1. In the days of their rest and prosperity, when they should be masters of Canaan. We must not think that our religion is instituted only to be our work in the years of our servitude, our entertainment in the places of our solitude, and our consolation in affliction; no, when we come to possess a good land, still we must keep up the worship of God in Canaan as well as in a wilderness, when we have grown up as well as when we are children, when we are full of business as well as when we have nothing else to do. 2. All the days, as long as you live upon the earth. While we are here in our state of trial, we must continue in our obedience, even to the end, and never leave our duty, nor grow weary of well-doing. Now,
I. They are here charged to abolish and extirpate all those things that the Canaanites had served their idol-gods with, Deu 12:2, Deu 12:3. Here is no mention of idol-temples, which countenances the opinion some have, that the tabernacle Moses reared in the wilderness was the first habitation that ever was made for religious uses, and that from it temples took their rise. But the places that had been used, and were now to be levelled, were enclosures for their worship on mountains and hills (as if the height of the ground would give advantage to the ascent of their devotions), and under green trees, either because pleasant or because awful: whatever makes the mind easy and reverent, contracts and composes it, was thought to befriend devotion. The solemn shade and silence of a grove are still admired by those that are disposed to contemplation. But the advantage which these retirements gave to the Gentiles in the worship of their idols was that they concealed those works of darkness which could not bear the light; and therefore they must all be destroyed, with the altars, pillars, and images, that had been used by the natives in the worship of their gods, so as that the very names of them might be buried in oblivion, and not only not be remembered with respect, but not remembered at all. They must thus consult, 1. The reputation of their land; let it never be said of this holy land that it had been thus polluted, but let all these dunghills be carried away, as things they were ashamed of. 2. The safety of their religion; let none be left remaining, lest profane unthinking people, especially in degenerate ages, should make use of them in the service of the God of Israel. Let these pest-houses be demolished, as things they were afraid of. He begins the statutes that relate to divine worship with this, because there must first be an abhorrence of that which is evil before there can be a steady adherence to that which is good, Rom 12:9. The kingdom of God must be set up, both in persons and places, upon the ruins of the devil's kingdom; for they cannot stand together, nor can there be any communion between Christ and Belial.
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II. They are charged not to transfer the rites and usages of idolaters into he worship of God; no, not under colour of beautifying and improving it (Deu 12:4): You shall not do so to the Lord your god, that is, "you must not think to do honour to him by offering sacrifices on mountains and hills, erecting pillars, planting groves, and setting up images; no, you must not indulge a luxurious fancy in your worship, nor think that whatever pleases that will please God: he is above all gods, and will not be worshipped as other gods are."
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–4 These are the statutes and judgments which ye shall…
These are the statutes and judgments which ye shall observe to do,.... Which are recorded in this and the following chapters; here a new discourse begins, and which perhaps was delivered at another time, and respects things that were to be observed:
in the land which the Lord God of thy fathers giveth thee to possess it; the land of Canaan, often described by this circumlocution, to put them in mind that it was promised to their fathers by their covenant God, was his gift to them, and which they would quickly be in the possession of; and therefore when in it should be careful to observe the statutes and judgments of God constantly:
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even all the days that ye live upon the earth; or land, the land of Canaan; for though there were some laws binding upon them, live where they would, there were others peculiar to the land of Canaan, which they were to observe as long as they and their posterity lived there; see Kg1 8:40.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1–4 A command, to destroy all relicks of idolatry, ver.…
A command, to destroy all relicks of idolatry, ver. 1-3. To worship God in his own place, and according to his own appointment, ver. 4-14. A permission to eat flesh, but not blood, ver. 15, 16. Directions to eat the tithe in the holy place, and to take care of the Levite, ver. 17-19. A farther permission to eat flesh, but not blood, ver. 20-25. A direction to eat holy things in the holy place, ver. 26-28. Farther cautions against idolatry, ver. 20-32.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 3 All monuments of idolatry in the promised land to…
CHAPTER XII
All monuments of idolatry in the promised land to be destroyed,
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1-3;
and God's service to be duly performed, 4-7.
The difference between the performance of that service in the
wilderness and in the promised land, 8-11.
The people are to be happy in all their religious observances,
12.
The offerings must be brought to the place which God appoints,
and no blood is to be eaten, 13-16.
The tithe of corn, wine, oil, &c., to be eaten in the place that
God shall choose, 17, 18.
The Levite must not be forsaken, 19.
All clean beasts may be eaten, but the blood must be poured out
before the Lord, and be eaten on no pretence whatever, 29-25.
Of vows, burnt-offerings, &c., 26, 27.
These precepts are to be carefully obeyed, 28.
Cautions against the abominations of the heathen, 29-31.
Nothing to be added to or diminished from the word of God, 32.
NOTES ON CHAP. XII
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1–2 Deu 12:1. These are the statutes — Moses, being…
Deu 12:1. These are the statutes — Moses, being still deeply impressed with a sense of the great danger his nation would be in of falling into idolatrous practices, after their settlement in the promised land, in the neighbourhood of so many superstitious nations, begins here a new exhortation to them, reminding them of the laws provided against it, as the indispensable conditions of their happy and peaceful enjoyment of that fruitful country.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4 Moses now passes on to apply Deut. 12–26 the…
Moses now passes on to apply Deut. 12–26 the leading principles of the Decalogue to the ecclesiastical, civil, and social life of the people. Particulars will be noticed which are unique to the Law as given in Deuteronomy; and even in laws repeated from the earlier books various new circumstances and details are introduced. This is only natural. The Sinaitic legislation was nearly 40 years old and had been given under conditions of time, place, and circumstance different and distant from those now present. Yet the Sinaitic system, far from being set aside or in any way abrogated, is on the contrary throughout presupposed and assumed. Its existence and authority are taken as the starting-point for what is here prescribed, and an accurate acquaintance with it on the part of the people is taken for granted.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1–3 These. Having inculcated the general precepts, and the obligation…
These. Having inculcated the general precepts, and the obligation of loving God above all things, Moses now descends to particular duties. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 Supplementary Exposition of the Third to the Tenth Command
Supplementary Exposition of the Third to the Tenth Command
Deuteronomy 12-26
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The Third Command. (Deuteronomy 12-14)
Deu_12:1-31
1These are the statutes and judgments which ye shall observe [keep] to do in the land which the Lord God of thy fathers giveth thee to possess it, all the days that ye live upon the earth. 2Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, wherein the nations [Gentiles] which ye shall possess [expel from the possession]1 served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree: 3And ye shall overthrow [tear down, raze] their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their groves [their pillars of wood] with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place. 4Ye shall not do so unto the Lord your God. 5But unto the place which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put his name there,2 even unto his habitation shall ye seek, [keep, inquire] and thither thou shalt come: 6And thither ye shall bring your burnt-offerings, [whole offerings] and your sacrifices, and your tithes, and heave-offerings of your hand, and your vows, and your free-will offerings, and the firstlings of your herds, and of your flocks: 7And there ye shall eat before the Lord your God, and ye shall rejoice in all that ye put your hands unto, ye and your households, wherein the Lord thy God hath blessed thee. 8Ye shall not do after all [according to all what, i.e., just as] the things that we do [are doing] here this day, every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes. 9For ye are not as yet 10come to the rest and to the inheritance which the Lord your God giveth you. But [Still] when ye go over Jordan, and dwell in the land which the Lord your God giveth you to inherit, and when he giveth you rest from all your enemies round about, so that [and] ye dwell in safety: 11Then there shall be [And it come to pass,] a place which the Lord your God shall choose to cause his name to dwell there; thither shall ye bring all that I command you; your burnt-offerings, and your sacrifices, your tithes, and the heave-offering of your hand, and all your choice vows3 which ye vow unto the Lord: 12And ye shall rejoice before the Lord your God, ye, and your sons, and your daughters, and your men-servants, and your maid-servants, and the Levite that is within your gates; forasmuch as he hath no [for not to him belongs] part nor inheritance with you. 13Take heed to thyself that thou offer not thy burnt-offerings in every place that thou seest: 14But in the place which the Lord shall choose in one of thy tribes, there thou shalt offer thy burnt-offerings, and there 15thou shalt do all that I command thee. Notwithstanding, thou mayest kill and eat flesh in all thy gates, whatsoever thy soul lusteth after [Only in all thy soul desireth thou, etc.] according to the blessing of the Lord thy God which he hath given thee:4 the unclean and the clean may eat thereof, as of [om. of] the roe-buck [antelope] and as of the hart. 16Only ye shall not eat the blood; ye shall pour it upon the earth-as water. 17Thou mayest not eat within thy gates the tithe of thy corn, or of thy wine, or of thy oil, or the firstlings of thy herds or of thy flock, nor any of thy vows which thou vowest, nor thy free-will-offerings, or heave-offering of thine hand: 18But thou must eat them before [the face of] the Lord thy God in the place which the Lord thy God shall choose, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy man-servant, and thy maid-servant, and the Levite that is within thy gates: and thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God in all that thou puttest thine hands unto. 19Take heed to thyself that thou forsake not the Levite as long as thou livest [all thy days] upon the earth. 20When the Lord thy God shall enlarge thy border, as he hath promised thee, and thou shalt say, I will eat flesh, because thy soul longeth to eat flesh, thou mayest eat flesh, whatsoever thy soul lusteth5 after [in all the desire of thy soul]. 21If the place which the Lord thy God hath chosen to put his name there be too far from thee, then thou shalt kill of thy herd and of thy flock, which the Lord hath given thee, as I have commanded thee, and thou shalt eat in thy gates whatsoever thy soul lusteth after. 22Even as the roe-buck and the hart is eaten, so thou shalt eat them: the unclean and the clean shall eat of them alike [in like manner]. 23Only be sure [strong, firm] that thou eat not the blood: for the blood is the life [soul]: and thou mayest not eat the life [soul] with the flesh. 24Thou shalt not eat it; thou shalt pour it upon the earth as water. 25Thou shalt not eat it; that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee, when thou shalt do that which is [om. that which is] right in the sight of the Lord. 26Only thy holy things which thou hast, and thy vows, thou shalt take, and go unto the place which the Lord shall choose: 27And thou shalt offer [prepare, make] thy burnt-offerings, the flesh and the blood, upon the altar of the Lord thy God: and the blood of thy sacrifices shall be poured out upon the altar of the Lord thy God, and thou shalt eat the flesh. 28Observe and hear all these words which I command thee, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee for ever, when thou doest that which is good and right in the sight of the Lord thy God. 29When the Lord thy God shall cut off the nations from before thee, whither thou goest to possess them, and thou succeedest [dost possess] them, and dwellest in their land; 30Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them [cleavest not after them] after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou inquire [seek, search] not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve [accustomed to serve] their gods? even so will I do likewise. 31Thou shalt not do so unto the Lord thy God; for every abomination to [of] the Lord which he hateth have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. Deu_12:1-14. The connection with the foregoing (Deu_11:32) as Deu_6:1. Deu_12:1 serves as a title to introduce what follows. Comp. Deu_4:5; Deu_4:10; Deu_5:29. We feel that we have reached a new topic, hence the absence of the וְ, as Deu_6:4. Deu_12:2 refers back substantially to what was said upon the first command, with this difference, that the places of the false worship of God are here prominent, and thus the connection with the second command is made apparent. Utterly destroy, i.e., destroy utterly and entirely as places of the cultus (Knobel), mountains, especially high mountains, but also hills in which they believed themselves nearer the heavenly powers, as upon the natural altars of the earth. Green trees are at the same time leafy, as this lies in the radical signification of the word רָעַן, and is rejected erroneously by Schultz. They represent the oaks with their dense shade, (Eze_6:13; Eze_20:28). It is not truly the vivid fulness of color, but the mysterious rustling of the foliage which comes into view here, as in the high places it is the all-overpowering elements of air and light. Upon Deu_12:3 comp. Deu_7:5; Deu_7:25. The destruction of theirnames, i.e., that the places of the cultus should no longer be named after the idols previously honored in them, shows already, since it brings out the connection of the places with the idol images, and thus connects it with the second command, that Moses now passes over to the third command, that chap. 12 treats of the name of Jehovah, before which all other names of the deities mast retire (Act_4:12). Comp. Deu_7:24. Hence Deu_12:4 (Deu_12:31) introductory: Since you cannot rest in the places and names of a false cultus, you should not especially take examples from them of the true worship of God. For as Jehovah is the one only in opposition to these many, so also the place of His only name should be freed from all subjective arbitrariness (Intro., § 4, 1. 23). Deu_12:5. Which Jehovah shall choose. The manner and method how all will-worship reveals itself in opposition to this choice of Jehovah, is fixed by that choice, whether it is effected in some extraordinary way, or by the mere arrangement of circumstances. It is enough that he will select and define the place, and indeed one place, as the addition, out of all your tribes, shows, (the unity of all in the Lord) and thus certainly with reference to Lev_17:3 sq., namely, to the oneness of the tabernacle. But at the same time the mention of the name of Jehovah in the destination of the place in question, touches upon the more general and indefinite passage, Exo_20:24, which however for the usual arrangement of things must be more closely limited by לָשׂוּם and לְשִׁכְנוֹ. Upon the name comp. Deu_5:11. The heathen deity abides in nature, Jehovah, on the contrary, is Spirit, manifest in word and deed, which personal revelation embraces and constitutes His name, by which He calls Himself among His people, which He makes for and in His people. To put there, i.e., to take, order, to settle it there; for that which is customary (the discourse indeed is of the usual cultus), without any allusion to extraordinary cases (Exodus 20), but also without excluding them. To his habitation—שָׁכַן to settle, dwell. The infinitive separated by the accent from the foregoing, although it may define it more closely (Exo_25:8; Exo_29:44 sq.) and in Deu_12:11, לְשַׁבֵּן stands for לָשׂוּם. But just precisely on account of this latter (and לְשַׁבֵּן is to permit to dwell), the connection with תִּדְרְשׁוּ pointed out by the accents is to be preferred. לְ resumes in an abbreviated form the אֶל at the beginning. Understanding the infinitive thus substantively of the place, which represents the dwelling of Jehovah or of His name, with a clear reference to the Shechinah since the erection of the tabernacle, over which the pillar of cloud tarried or dwelt, when Israel rested in the march, it is neither Jerusalem nor the temple which is the dwelling in view, (Knobel) but the infinitive rather leaves the locality undetermined, provided only that some one permanent position is kept in view. [The fixing of one place is not, as Schroeder intimates, entirely new. It is implied in Exo_20:24, and was actually observed during the wanderings in the desert, Lev_17:1 sq. It is precisely in accordance with the object in Deuteronomy, which regards the future of Israel, and especially when scattered through the land of promise, that this revelation should be insisted upon with so much definiteness and stringency. The command does not conflict with the worship of God in those places in which the worshippers had express divine authority. As e.g., the offerings of Gideon, Manoah, David.—Wordsworth well asks: “If Deuteronomy is not the work of Moses, how is it possible that it could have been received when all the kings of Israel, and often those of Judah, were living in violation of this command? If it had been a forgery, they would surely have exposed it.”—A. G.]. דָּרַשׁ (Deu_11:12), the idea of something urgent lies in the root, perhaps with reference to the difficulties (out of all the tribes) when the people dwelt scattered in Canaan: to seek, to search after, to turn one’s self thither, to keep, abide there, as directed for the ordinary cultus, public and individual, hence shall ye seek, and thou shalt come, ye and thou. Deu_12:6. Brings up the altar instituted with the tabernacle (Exo_29:44; Exo_20:24). [As to the difficulties in bringing the offerings from the distance, they are partly met by the provision in Num_14:24-25, and partly by the mere statement of the fact that the distance at the greatest was less than a hundred miles; so that what was required was nothing impossible. Moreover, we must bear in mind here the whole spirit of the law. God always required mercy and not sacrifice. Obviously the sick, and those detained by any special providences, would be regarded as fulfilling the law, if they brought their offerings at other than the stated times. They could not present it at any but the chosen place, but they might reserve it until they could bring it there. The time is not fixed, except at the three great feasts. And even then there must have been exceptions provided for, in the spirit if not in the letter, of the law.—A. G.] Bring, generally, under the presumption that whatever concerns the time, procedure, etc., was already known from the law and customs (comp. chap, 16). The offerings as a whole are embraced in the number seven. Beginning with the burnt-offering and “sacrifices” as the principal (Lev_17:8; Exo_10:25; Num_15:3). Comp. Lev_1:3 sq. זבח, especially praise and thank-offerings, Lev_3:7; Lev_3:12; Num_15:4 sq. (perfect concession and joy of salvation, שלמים זבח). Upon the tithe comp. Introd. § 4, I. 19. [“These supposed discrepancies” (Wordsworth) are evidences of the unity of plan of the Pentateuch. The author takes for granted here that his hearers were familiar with what had been said by him in the earlier parts of his work, and what had become a usage among them (as the sacred feast, Deu_12:17-18), and does not repeat it, but proceeds at once to speak of the tithes he had in view. Distingue tempora et concordabis Scripturas is a sound maxim.”—A. G.] Heave what the hand takes up as a free gift to Jehovah from the fruits of the ground, besides the tithes and the first-born. Vows and free-will [gifts] offerings, Lev_7:16. Upon the first-born comp. Exodus 13; Numbers 18 (and upon Deu_15:19). Deu_12:7. Thus sacred and joyful meals (Exo_18:12). All that you put your hand unto.—Concrete (comp. Isa_11:14) for every thing which they could put their hand to, which was proper and due to them. The gains, acquisitions (Knobel, Keil) made through the hand cannot well be alluded to here, since it is precisely with reference to these that the blessing of God is spoken of. Since Moses includes himself, Deu_12:8, he cannot refer here to unlawful courses, but intends those procedures namely, in opposition to the oneness of the sanctuary, perhaps still more particularly what concerns the meals, as Deu_12:9 expressly excuses these on the ground that the wanderers had not yet come to their rest. Upon Deu_12:10 comp. Exo_34:23-24. Upon Deu_12:11 comp. Deu_12:5-6. הַמָּקוֹם—placed first here for the emphasis. וכל מבחר—a comprehensive term, as they must then be selected or chosen. On the other hand, Deu_12:12 more in detail than Deu_12:7 (Exo_20:10; Deu_5:14; comp. Deu_10:9. See Introd. § 4, I. 21). The wives as evidently included are not mentioned (Knobel). Deu_12:13-14. A final inculcation of the oneness of the sanctuary, with regard to the burnt-offering, as instar omnium.
2. Deu_12:15-31. Deu_12:15. A remission from the strictness of the law, Lev_17:3 sq., out of regard to the scattered condition of Israel in Canaan. בכל־אות—comp. Deu_5:18. According to the necessity for the support of life, for which the permission to eat flesh was granted (Gen_1:29; Gen_9:3), and according to their desire. It is not the sacrificial meal which is here treated (Lev_7:20). The (levitically) unclean, sq.—[As the roe-buck, gazelle, and the hart, which were clean for food, but not for sacrifices. Wordsworth.—A. G.] The sacrificial victims could not be offered there, although they were clean (Lev_17:13). But although the sacrificial character was taken away from the slaying, there remains still (Deu_12:16) a reference to the sacrifice, in regard to the blood, Lev_17:10 sq. This medium of atonement should be poured out as water, and return simply to the earth, from which God had called the animals in the creation. If it did not return to God on the altar in the way of the sacrifices, it must return to Him in this way (Deu_12:27). Since Moses returns again to Deu_12:5-6; Deu_12:11, he makes clear and prominent, as in Deu_12:13-14, the burnt-offering; and in Deu_12:15, the simple killing in distinction from the sacrificial killing; here, Deu_12:17, the tithe, etc.; both because one in this regard might soonest think himself at liberty, and because of the sacrificial meals, which indeed in every third year (Deu_14:28 sq.) could be held at home and upon the tithes. Comp. further, the Introd. § 4, I. 19, especially also in regard to the first-born, and upon Deu_15:19 sq. Deu_12:18. Comp. Deu_12:7; Deu_12:12; Deu_12:19; Introd. § 4, I. 21. All thy days—thy whole life—upon the earth (lit. upon thy land), in which, viz., he had no part,—urged here as a motive. The repetition of the permission, Deu_12:15, only emphasizes so much the more what in other cases is the rule, through that exception. At the same time, however, it ratifies and confirms the promised (Exo_23:27 sq.) enlargement of the borders (Deu_11:24; Deu_1:7). Deu_12:20. Comp. Deu_12:15. Deu_12:21. From thee—an example, as the position of the thou designates the individual case. A more subjective clause parallel to the more objective Deu_12:20. For the rest comp. Deu_12:5. As I have commanded thee.—The permissive command, Deu_12:15. Deu_12:22 looks back to Deu_12:15. Alike—not together, but the one as well as the other. Deu_12:23. Comp. Deu_12:16. The ground or basis of the prohibition is that the blood, the bearer of the soul life, the soul quickening the flesh, is substantially the soul, as Lev_17:14; Lev_17:11. The emphatic arrangement of the sentence is made more emphatic still by the repetition of the not. Deu_12:24-25, as supported by the promising prospect of prosperity. Comp. Deu_4:40; Deu_5:26; Deu_6:18. Upon Deu_12:26 comp. Deu_12:6; Deu_12:11; Deu_12:17 (Lev_22:3; Num_18:8). After the general expression, the vows are specially mentioned, on account of the apparent freedom in regard to them (Num_15:3; Num_15:8). Deu_12:27. (Lev_1:3 sq.; Deu_3:2 sq.) Shall be poured out—namely, by the priests, and at the same time explanatory for the preparatory steps [our version renders “thou shall offer,” lit.: thou shalt make, which Schroeder renders: prepare, or make thy preparation—A. G.], so far as they belonged to the offerer. All the details are presupposed from the earlier law-giving; hence to pour out is as to sprinkle around, and על=סביב על. The former expression is given as the more general in Deu_12:24; Deu_12:16; the latter through the על at the beginning of this verse, which usually specifies the direction or destination whither. Comp. farther Lev_7:14 sq. Deu_12:28 is a resumption of the preliminary conclusion in Deu_12:25. It should be observed, kept especially by the hearing. The good and right in the sight of the Lord thy God,” as already in Deu_12:25, in opposition to Deu_12:8. Deu_12:29. A new sentence parallel to Deu_12:20. Comp. Deu_11:23. The discourse at its close returns to the beginning. Deu_12:30. תִנָּקֵשׁ imp. Niph. from נָקַשׁ, to follow after, while תִוָּקֵשׁ, Deu_7:25, imp. Niph. from יָקַשׁ, to ensnare. The after them after that (אַחֲרֵי) makes a vivid impression in its connection. Before thee.—How foolish, after they were destroyed before thee, that thou shouldst still go after them! Moreover, comp. Deu_12:5. Even so will I do—namely, to Jehovah, as Deu_12:31 shows. Thus a transfer of the cultus of the land to Jehovah. Comp. further Deu_12:4; Deu_7:25; Lev_18:25. [Bib. Com.: This caution is based upon the notion generally entertained in the ancient heathen world that each country had its own tutelary deities, whom it would be perilous to neglect, 1Ki_20:23; 2Ki_17:26. Hence even in conquered districts the worship of the local deities was wont to be scrupulously maintained. But Israel was to shun such superstitions.—A. G.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. The one place, of the one sanctuary, of the one Jehovah, is the theme of the chapter. The one Jehovah, protests against the gods of Canaan, His one sanctuary, is opposed to the numerous heathen sanctuaries. This negation shows the connection with the first two commands—in particular with the second command. It follows from this negation that Jehovah, who in this second command has spoken as a Spirit, who in His word, especially in the ten words, has taught His people, now when the discourse (Deu_12:5) comes positively to treat of the place of His name, it makes the destination of the place dependent upon His choice, i.e., upon His command as revealed in word or deed. This is the side which the one place of the sanctuary has towards God; the objective side, at the same time, of the now to be explained third command. But this also has its subjective side, as we have repeatedly heard that Israel should swear by the name of Jehovah; this is the confession to Jehovah in every way. And thus the oneness of the place of the sanctuary wins its significance for the nationality of Israel; it characteristically comprises the same in this confession to Jehovah. One religiously, it remains politically one. Out of all your tribes Jehovah has chosen His place, thus also for all; and by so much the more fruitfully, since the piety of the individual (comp. the Psalms) could be efficient at the one place of the sanctuary, improving and quickening for the whole people. (On the extraordinary sacrificial places, comp. Introd. § 4.)
2. Joy before Jehovah, which is so repeatedly uttered, should be the animating disposition of meals at the sanctuary. The inculcated unity of the place of the sanctuary was thus right humanly commended. Thus there enters into the collective ceremonial requirements a disposition—indeed an evangelical feature—which eclipses the face of the legal. That is truly, genuinely deuteronomic; but it is something else as truly. Lev_23:40 speaks of the joy before the Lord at the feast of tabernacles—thus whenever one thinks of the wilderness as past. Is not that truly the stand-point of Deuteronomy in its constant look into Canaan and its sure rest? The eating at the place of the sanctuary becomes at the same time the eating before Jehovah—therefore in the best sense; but at the same time the exalted joy appears as a common joy, thus in reference to our neighbor. The two tables of the law appear behind it. Still remarks Baumgarten: “The union of the godly and worldly, the spiritual and natural, which the popular life even elsewhere in heathen antiquity and the Christian middle ages, manifoldly seeks and in some measure finds, since the places of the cultus are at the same time centres of trade and commerce; religious times are also days of popular joy and pleasure; this union is never so original and pure as in Israel, because in it Jehovah the holy God has placed and managed all natural and worldly things from the beginning; and although the actual result even here appears defective and clouded, still it presents itself as the pure, clear glass of this present and much sought unity.”
3. The discourse speaks again and again of rest. So Jos_21:44; Jos_22:4 (Deu_18:1). So 2Sa_7:1; 2Sa_7:10-11. So 1Ch_22:9; 1Ki_5:4; 1Ki_5:18. This ever appears in connection with the tabernacle, or the ark of the covenant, or the temple. God’s rest is the rest of the people. What is still further said in Hebrews 4 is drawn from the very depth of the idea. Comp. further Gen_49:10 and 1Pe_1:4.
4. Men and maid servants (Deu_12:7) were included in the family life of the Israelites, and recognized and received in the most general human pleasures, the eating and the joy, and consecrated through the connection with Jehovah and the sanctuary. The religious thought is all penetrating salt in Israel. That the Levite was included, as it promoted the sanctification of the family life, especially the eating and the joy, so it corresponds with the deuteronomic reference to Canaan, in which Levi had no part nor inheritance.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
The threefold unity: one God, one sanctuary, the one place of the same, in its importance for the moral, ecclesiastical, political unity of Israel. What the religion of the fathers has to do with the national life (England, America). Deu_12:1 sq. Luther: “He commands all. The people could not proceed in the worship after their own mind or will, however holy and good they were,—all that is ruled by the word. If man cannot live without the word, as to the body, the outward form, how much less in the work of God and in the Spirit. God wills, then, our conscience should be certain that our service is well-pleasing to Him.”—Lange: “Our welfare and our duty must ever stand together.”
Deu_12:2. Cramer: “When God comes, the devil must depart.”
Deu_12:4. Starke: “This also is idolatry, to serve and honor God otherwise than He has commanded.”
Deu_12:5. Berl. Bib.: “Christ, is in all the congregations gathered in His name, and this is the place which God has chosen, and whither we may bring our prayers and thank-offerings, Mat_18:19.”—Starke: “Be diligent to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, Eph_4:3.” Deu_12:7. Richter: “If God would not have any joyless, gloomy, complaining, sad believer under the Old Testament, how much less under the gracious light of the New Test.! Php_3:1; Php_4:4.” “Joy before, in, the Lord, the harmonizing principle of the divine life. It unites the inward oppositions and glorifies all that is external. The food is sanctified, family life becomes festal, and all is illuminated with the divine blessing.
Deu_12:8. Liberty has its limitations as to time and circumstances—especially by the law of God.” Berl. Bib.: “The soul, in the eternal law, judges as God judges; for it sees through the eye of God. That is the highest freedom.” Deu_12:9-10. Lange: “We look for the perfect rest, first in the life beyond.” Deu_12:12. Friedlib: “So God takes care for poor servants also. As the house in the church, so the servants of the church belong to the household.”
Deu_12:13. Starke: “Woe to those who say, lo, here is Christ, or lo, there, Mat_24:26; Php_3:2.” Deu_12:14. Berl. Bib.: This passage represents Christ, to whom His people should adhere, as the one whom the Father has chosen, and in whom the name of His majesty and glory dwells.
Deu_12:16-23. The significance and hence the prohibition of blood. As to the first table: God is alone the Author of all life; as to the second table: a sacred awe, reverence for life should be preserved with regard to every man; as to both commands, it was thus a means of atonement, and pointing to the sacrifice of Christ, who requires the participation of His blood, Joh_6:53 sq.
Deu_12:19. Starke: Teachers in church and school should have continual support, 1Co_9:13-14; 1Ti_5:18.
Deu_12:21 sq. To these men widely removed the permission of enjoyment is also enlarged, but by so much the more should they keep to the word of God, that the use may not become misuse, and that the pain may not succeed the pleasure.
Deu_12:29 sq.: There is a false conservatism in the Church as in the State (exemplified in the Romish missions and the Church of England).
Footnotes:
[1][Deu_12:2. Which ye are driving them out, and so possessing. It is not to inherit, as the margin.—A. G.].
[2][Deu_12:5. The Vulg. connects this clause with what follows, to put His name and dwell there, and so essentially the Sept. Our version accords with the accents, and is better.—A. G.].
[3][Deu_12:11. Margin, lit., all the choice of your vows.—A. G.].
[4][Deu_12:15. Our version transposes the clauses in this verse needlessly, although without materially affecting the sense.—A. G].
[5][Deu_12:20. Our word lusteth has acquired a technical and bad sense, and is too strong here and in Deu_12:15 above, and 21 below.—A. G.].
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2–3 Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, wherein the…
Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods--This divine command was founded on the tendencies of human nature; for to remove out of sight everything that had been associated with idolatry, that it might never be spoken of and no vestige of it remain, was the only effectual way to keep the Israelites from temptations to it. It is observable that Moses does not make any mention of temples, for such buildings were not in existence at that early period. The "places" chosen as the scene of heathen worship were situated either on the summit of a lofty mountain, or on some artificial mound, or in a grove, planted with particular trees, such as oaks, poplars, and elms (Isa 57:5-7; Hos 4:13). The reason for the selection of such sites was both to secure retirement and to direct the attention upward to heaven; and the "place" was nothing else than a consecrated enclosure, or at most, a canopy or screen from the weather.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4 2. Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, etc.…
2. Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, etc. — The Hebrew word translated places (makom) is almost the exact equivalent of the modern mukam or makam. In speaking of the tenacity with which old religious customs have been kept up, C. Clermont Gann-vean (Survey of Western Palestine, p. 324) says: “Not only have the fellaheen, as Robinson conjectured, preserved by the erection of their Mussulman kubbehs and their fetichism for certain large, isolated trees the site and the souvenirs of the hill sanctuaries and shady groves which were marked out for the execration of the Israelites on their entry into the Promised Land, but they pay them almost the same veneration as did the Canaanites whose descendants they are. These makoms, as Deuteronomy calls them, which Manasseh rebuilt and against which the prophets in vain exhausted their invectives, are word for word, thing for thing, the Arabic makams, whose little white-topped cupolas are dotted so picturesquely over the mountainous horizon of central Judea.”
Which ye shall possess — Better rendered, whom you are dispossessing.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–2 1. These are the statutes and the judgements] As…
1. These are the statutes and the judgements] As in Deu_6:1 but minus the Commandment or Charge (Miṣwah) because this, the introductory enforcement of the religious principles on which the laws are based, is now finished.
observe to do] See on Deu_4:6, Deu_5:1.
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God of thy fathers] See on Deu_6:3.
all the days, etc.] Cp. Deu_4:9-10, Deu_31:13.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–4 (1) These are the statutes and judgments.—The word Mitzvah—commandment,…
XII.
(1) These are the statutes and judgments.—The word Mitzvah—commandment, or duty—is not used here. Particular institutions and requirements are now before us.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. H. Mackintosh 1880 · Public Domain On v1 Deuteronomy 12
Deuteronomy 12
We now enter upon a new section of our marvellous book. The discourses contained in the first eleven chapters having established the all-important principle of obedience, we now come to the practical application of the principle to the habits and ways of the people when settled in possession of the land "These are the statutes and judgements which ye shall observe to do in the land which the Lord God of thy fathers giveth thee to possess it, all the days that ye live upon the earth"
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It is of the utmost moral importance that the heart and conscience should be brought into their true attitude in reference to divine authority, irrespective altogether of any question as to details. These will find their due place when once the heart is taught to bow down, in complete and absolute submission, to the supreme authority of the word of God.
Now, as we have seen in our studies on the first eleven chapters, the law-giver labours, most earnestly and faithfully, to lead the heart of Israel into this all-essential condition. He felt, to speak after the manner of men, it was of no use entering upon practical details until the grand foundation principle of all morality was fully established in the very deepest depths of the soul. The principle is this - let us Christians apply our hearts to it - It is man’s bounden duty to bow implicitly to the authority of the word of God. It matters not, in the smallest degree, what that word may enjoin, or whether we can see the reason of this, that or the other institution. The one grand, all-important and conclusive point is this, Has God spoken? If He has, that is quite enough. There is no room, no need for any further question.
Until this point is fully established, or rather until the heart is brought directly under its full moral force, we are not in a condition to enter upon details. If self-will be allowed to operate, if blind reason be permitted to speak, the heart will send up its endless questionings; as each divine institution is laid before us, some fresh difficulty will present itself as a stumbling-block in the path of simple obedience.
"What!" it may be said, "Are we not to use our reason? If not, to what end was it given?" To this we have a twofold reply. In the first place, our reason is not as it was when God gave it We have to remember that sin has come in; man is a fallen creature, his reason, his judgement, his understanding, his whole moral being is a complete wreck; and moreover, it was the neglect of the word of God that caused all this wreck and ruin.
And, then, in the second place, we must bear in mind that if reason were in a sound condition, it would prove its soundness by bowing to the word of God. But it is not sound; it is blind and utterly perverted; it is not to be trusted for a moment, in things spiritual, divine or heavenly.
If this simple fact were thoroughly understood, it would settle a thousand questions and remove a thousand difficulties. It is reason that makes all the infidels. The devil whispers into man’s ear, "You are endowed with reason; why not use it? It was given to be used, used in everything; you ought not to give your assent to anything which your reason cannot grasp. It is your chartered right, as a man, to submit everything to the test of your reason; it is only for a fool or an idiot to receive, in blind credulity, all that is set before him."
What is our answer to such wily and dangerous suggestions? A very simple and conclusive one, namely this. The word of God is above and beyond reason altogether; it is as far above reason as God is above the creature, or heaven above earth Hence, when God speaks, all reasonings must be cast down If it be merely man’s word, man’s opinion, man’s judgement, then verily reason may exert its powers; or rather, to speak more correctly, we must judge what is said by the only perfect standard, the word of God. But if reason be set to work on the word of God, the soul must inevitably be plunged in the thick darkness of infidelity from which the descent to the awful blackness of atheism is but too easy.
In a word, then, we have to remember, yea, to cherish in the very deepest depths of our moral being, that the only safe ground for the soul is divinely wrought faith in the paramount authority, divine majesty, and all-sufficiency of the word of God. This was the ground which Moses occupied in dealing with the heart and conscience of Israel. His one grand object was to lead the people into the attitude of profound, unqualified subjection to divine authority. Without this all was useless. If every statute, every judgement, every precept, every institution were to be submitted to the action of human reason, then farewell to divine authority, farewell to scripture, farewell to certainty, farewell to peace. But, on the other hand, when the soul is led by God’s Spirit into the delightful attitude of absolute and unquestioning submission to the authority of God’s word, then every one of His judgements, every one of His commandments, every sentence of His blessed Book is received as coming direct from Himself; and the most simple ordinance or institution, stands invested with all the importance which His authority is fitted to impart. We may not be able to understand the full meaning or exact bearing of each statute and -judgement; that is not the question; it is sufficient for us to know that it comes from God; He has spoken; this is conclusive. Till this great principle is grasped, or rather till it takes full possession of the soul, nothing is done; but when it is fully understood and submitted to, the solid foundation is laid of all true morality.
The foregoing line of thought will enable the reader to seize the connection between the chapter which now lies open before us, and the preceding section of this book; and not only will it do this, but we trust it will also help him to understand the special place and bearing of the opening verses of chapter 12.
"Ye shall utterly destroy all the places wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree. And ye shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their groves with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place." (Vers. 2, 3)
The land was Jehovah’s; they were to hold as tenants under Him, and therefore their very first duty on entering upon possession, was to demolish every trace of the old idolatry. This was absolutely indispensable It might, according to human reason, seem to be very intolerant to act in this way towards other people’s religion. We reply, without any hesitation, Yes, it was intolerant, for how could the one only true and living God be otherwise than intolerant of all false gods and false worships. To suppose, for moment, that He could permit the worship of idols in His land, would be to suppose that He could deny Himself, which were simply blasphemy.
Let us not be misunderstood It is not that God does not bear with the world, in His long-suffering mercy. It seems hardly needful to state this, with the history of well-nigh six thousand years of divine forbearance before our eyes. Blessed for ever be His holy Name, He has borne with the world most marvellously, from the days of Noah, and He still bears with it, though stained with the guilt of crucifying His beloved Son.
All this is vain, but it leaves wholly untouched the great principle laid down in our chapter. Israel had to learn that they were about to take possession of the Lord’s land, and that, as His tenants, their first and indispensable duty was to obliterate every trace of idolatry. To them there was to be but "the one God.’ His Name was called upon them. They were His people, and He could not permit them to have fellowship with demons. "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God; and him only shalt thou serve."
This might, in the judgement of the uncircumcised nations around, seem very intolerant, very narrow, very bigoted. They indeed might boast of their freedom, and glory in the broad platform. of their worship which admitted "gods many and lords many." It might, according to their thinking, argue greater breadth of mind to let every one think for himself in matters of religion, and choose his own object of worship, and his own mode of worshipping also. Or, still further, it might give evidence of a more advanced condition of civilisation, greater polish and refinement to erect, as in Rome, a pantheon in which all the gods of Heathendom might find a place. "What did it matter about the form of a man’s religion, or the object of his worship, provided he himself were sincere? All would be sure to come right in the end; the great point for all was to attend to material progress, to help on national prosperity as the surest means of securing individual interests. Of course, it is all right for every man to have some religion, but as to the form of that religion it is immaterial. The great question is what you are yourself, not what your religion is."
All this, we can well conceive, would admirably suit the carnal mind, and be very popular amongst the uncircumcised nations. But as for Israel, they had to remember that one commanding sentence, "The Lord thy God is one God." And again, "Thou shalt have none other gods before me;" This was to be their religion; the platform of their worship was to be as wide and as narrow as the one true and living God, their Creator and Redeemer. That, assuredly, was broad enough for every true worshipper, every member of the circumcised assembly, all whose high and holy privilege it was to belong to the Israel of God. They were not to concern themselves with the opinions or observations of the uncircumcised nations around. What were they worth? Not the weight of a feather. What could they know about the claims of the God of Israel upon His circumcised people? Just nothing. Were they competent to decide as to the proper breadth of Israel’s platform? Clearly not; they were wholly ignorant of the subject. Hence their thoughts, reasonings, arguments and objections were perfectly worthless, not to be listened to for a moment. It was Israel’s one simple, bounden duty to bow down to the supreme and absolute authority of the word of God; and that word insisted upon the complete abolition of every trace of idolatry from that goodly land which they were privileged to hold as tenants under Him.
But not only was it incumbent upon Israel to abolish all the places in which the heathen had worshipped their gods; this they were solemnly bound to do, most surely; but there was more than this. The heart might readily conceive the thought of doing away with idolatry, in the various places, and setting up the altar of the true God instead. This might seem to be the right course to adopt. But God thought differently. "Ye shall not do so unto the Lord your God. But unto the place which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes, to put his name there, even unto his habitation shall ye seek, and thither thou shalt come; and thither ye shall bring your burnt offerings, and your sacrifices, and your tithes, and heave offerings of your hand, and your vows, and your freewill offerings, and the firstlings of your herds and of your flocks; and there ye shall eat before the Lord your God; and ye shall rejoice in all that ye put your hand unto, ye and your households, wherein the Lord thy God hath blessed thee."
Here a great cardinal truth is unfolded to the congregation of Israel. They were to have one place of worship - a place chosen of God and not of man. His habitation - the place of His presence was to be Israel’s grand centre; thither they were to come with their sacrifices and their offerings, and there they were to offer their worship, and find their common joy.
Does this seem exclusive? Of course it was exclusive; how else could it be? If God was pleased to select a spot in which He would take up His abode in the midst of His redeemed people, surely they were, of necessity, shut up to that spot as their place of worship. This was divine exclusiveness, and every pious soul would delight in it. Every true lover of Jehovah would say, with all his heart, "Lord, I have loved the habitation of thy house, and the place where thine honour dwelleth." And, again, "How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! My soul longeth; yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God... . Blessed are they that dwell in thy house; they will be still praising thee.... A day in Thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness." (Psalms 26: 84.)
Here was the one grand and all-important point. It was the dwelling-place of Jehovah which was dear to the heart of every true Israelite. Restless self-will might desire to run hither and thither; the poor vagrant heart might long for some change; but, for the heart that loved God, any change from the place of His presence, the place where He had recorded His blessed Name, could only be a change for the worse. The truly devout worshipper could find satisfaction and delight, blessing and rest only in the place of the divine presence; and this, on the double ground, the authority of His precious word, and the powerful attractions of His presence. Such an one could never think of going anywhere else. Whither could he go? There was but one altar, one habitation, one God, that was the place for every right-minded, every true-hearted Israelite. To think of any other place of worship would, in his judgement, be not only a departure from the word of Jehovah, but from His holy habitation.
This great principle is largely insisted upon throughout the whole of our chapter. Moses reminds the people that from the moment they entered Jehovah’s land, there was to be an end to all the irregularity and self-will that had characterised them in the plains of Moab or in the wilderness. "Ye shall not do after all the things that we do here this day, every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes. For ye are not as yet come to the rest, and to the inheritance, which the Lord your God giveth you. But when ye go over Jordan, and dwell in the land which the Lord your God giveth you to inherit, and when he giveth you rest from all your enemies round about, so that ye dwell in safety; then there shall be a place which the Lord your God shall choose, to cause his name to dwell there; thither shall ye bring all that I command you.... Take heed to thyself that thou offer not thy burnt-offerings in every place that thou seest; but in the place which the Lord shall choose in one of thy tribes, there thou shalt offer thy burnt offerings, and there thou shalt do all that I command thee." (Vers. 4-14.) Thus, not only in the object, but also in the place and mode of Israel’s worship, they were absolutely shut up! to the commandment of Jehovah. Self pleasing, self-choosing, self-will was to have an end, in reference to the worship of God, the moment they crossed the river of death, and, as a redeemed people planted their foot on their divinely given inheritance. Once there, in the enjoyment of Jehovah’s land, and the rest which the land afforded, obedience to His word was to be their reasonable, their intelligent service. Things might be allowed to pass in the wilderness which could not be tolerated in Canaan. The higher the range of privilege, the higher the responsibility and the standard of action.
Now, it may be that our broad thinkers, and those who contend for freedom of will and freedom of action, for the right of private judgement in matters of religion, for liberality of mind and catholicity of spirit, will be ready to pronounce all this, which has been engaging our attention, extremely narrow, and wholly unsuited to our enlightened age, and to men of intelligence and education.
What is our answer to all who adopt this form of speech? A very simple and conclusive one; it is this, Has not God a right to prescribe the mode in which His people should worship Him? Had He not a perfect right to fix the place where He would meet His people Israel? Surely we must either deny His existence, or admit His absolute and unquestionable right to set forth His will as to how, when and where His people should approach Him. Will any one, however educated and enlightened, deny this? Is it a proof of high culture, refinement, breadth of mind or catholicity of spirit, to deny God His rights.
If then God has a right to command, is it narrowness or bigotry for His people to obey? This is just the point. It is, in our judgement, as simple as anything can be. We are thoroughly convinced that the only true breadth of mind, largeness of heart and catholicity of spirit, is to obey the commandments of God. Hence, when Israel were commanded to go to one place and there offer their sacrifices, it most assuredly was neither bigotry nor narrowness on their part to go thither, and to refuse, with holy decision, to go anywhere else. Uncircumcised Gentiles might go where they pleased; the Israel of God were to go only to the place of His appointment.
And oh! what an unspeakable privilege for all who loved God and loved one another to assemble themselves at the place where He recorded His Name! And what touching grace shines in the fact of His desiring to gather His people round Himself, from time to time! Did that fact infringe their personal rights and domestic privileges? Nay, it enhanced them immensely. God, in His infinite goodness, took care of this. It was His delight to minister to the joy and blessing of His people, privately, socially and publicly. Hence we read, "When the Lord thy God shall enlarge thy border, as he hath promised thee, and thou shalt say, I will eat flesh, because thy soul longeth to eat flesh, thou mayest eat flesh, whatsoever thy soul lusteth after. If the place which the Lord thy God hath chosen to put his name there be too far from thee, then thou shalt kill of thy herd and of thy flock, which the Lord hath given thee, as I have commanded thee, and thou shalt eat in thy gates whatsoever thy soul lusteth after, even as the roebuck and the hart is eaten, so thou shalt eat them; the unclean and the clean shall eat of them alike."
Here we have, most surely, a broad margin afforded by the goodness and tender mercy of God, for the fullest range of personal and family enjoyment. The only restriction was in reference to the blood. "Only be sure that thou eat not the blood; for The blood is the life; and thou mayest not eat the life with the flesh, Thou shalt not eat it; thou shalt pour it upon the earth as water. Thou shalt not eat it; that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee, when thou shalt do that which is right in the sight of the Lord."
This was a great cardinal principle under the law, to which reference has been made in our "Notes on Leviticus." How far Israel understood it is not the question; they were to obey that it might go well with them, and with their children after them. They were to own, in this matter, the sovereign rights of God.
Having made this exception, in reference to personal and family habits, the law-giver returns to the all-important subject of their public worship. "Only thy holy things which thou hast, and thy vows, thou shalt take, and go unto the place which the Lord shall choose; and thou shalt offer thy burnt offerings, the flesh and the blood, upon the altar of the Lord thy God; and the blood of thy sacrifices shall be poured out upon the altar of the Lord thy God, and thou shalt eat the flesh." (Vers. 26, 27.) If reason, or self-will were permitted to speak, it might say, "Why must we all go to this one place? Can we not have an altar at home? Or, at least, an altar in each principal town, or in the centre of each tribe?" The conclusive answer is, "God has commanded otherwise; this is enough for every true Israelite. Even though we may not be able, by reason of our ignorance, to see the why or the wherefore, simple obedience is our obvious and bounden duty. It may be, moreover, that, as we cheerfully tread the path of obedience, light will break in upon our souls as to the reason, and we shall find abundant blessing in doing that which is well-pleasing to the Lord our God."
Yes; reader, this is the proper method of answering all the reasonings and questionings of the carnal mind which is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. Light is sure to break in upon our souls, as we tread, with a lowly mind, the sacred path of obedience; and, not only so, but untold blessing will flow into the heart in that conscious nearness to God which is only known to those who lovingly keep His most precious commandments. Are we called upon to explain to carnal objectors and infidels our reasons for doing this or that? Most certainly not; that is no part of our business; it would be time and labour lost, inasmuch as objectors and reasoners are wholly incapable of understanding or appreciating our reasons.
For example, in the matter now under our consideration, could a carnal mind, an unbeliever, a mere child of nature, understand why Israel’s twelve tribes were commanded to worship at one altar - to gather in one place - to cluster round one centre? Not in the smallest degree. The grand moral reason of such a lovely institution lies far away beyond his ken.
But to the spiritual mind all is as plain as it is beautiful. Jehovah would gather His beloved people around Himself, from time to time, that they might rejoice together before Him and that He might have His own peculiar joy in them.
Was not this something most precious? Assuredly it was to all who really loved the Lord.
No doubt, if the heart were cold and careless toward God, it would matter little about the place of worship; all places would be alike. But we may set it down as a fixed principle that every loyal loving heart from Dan to Beersheba would rejoice to flock to the place where Jehovah had recorded His Name, and where He had appointed to meet His people. "I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go unto the house of the Lord. Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem [God’s centre for Israel]. Jerusalem is builded as a city that is compact together; whither the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, unto the testimony of Israel, to give thanks unto the name of the Lord. For there - and nowhere else - "are set thrones of judgement, the thrones of the house of David. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem; they shall prosper that love thee. Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces. For my brethren and companions’ sakes, I will now say, Peace be within thee. Because of the house of the Lord our God I will seek thy good." (Ps. 102.)
Here we have the lovely breathings of a heart that loved the habitation of the God of Israel - His blessed centre - the gathering-place of Israel’s twelve tribes - that hallowed spot which was associated in the mind of every true Israelite with all that was bright and joyous in connection with the worship of Jehovah and the communion of His people.
We shall have occasion to refer to this most delightful theme again, when we come to study Deuteronomy 16, and shall draw this section to a close by quoting for the reader the last paragraph of the chapter before us.
"When the Lord thy God shall cut off the nations from before thee, whither thou goest to possess them, and thou succeedest them, and dwellest in their land; take heed to thyself, that thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou inquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise. Thou shalt not do so unto the Lord thy God; for every abomination to the Lord, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods. What thing soever I command you, observe to do it; thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it." (Vers. 29-32.)
The precious word of God was to form a sacred enclosure round about His people, within which they might enjoy His presence, and delight themselves in the abundance of His mercy and loving-kindness; and wherein, they were to be entirely apart from all that was offensive to Him whose presence was to be, at once, their glory, their joy and their grand moral safeguard from every snare and every abomination.
Alas! alas! they did not abide within that enclosure; they speedily broke down the walls thereof, and wandered away from the holy commandment of God. They did the very things they were told not to do, and they have had to reap the terrible consequences. But more of this and of their future by-and-by.
C. H. Mackintosh, Notes on the Pentateuch — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4 CHAPTER 12-CHAPTER 26. Moses, having in his first address…
ANNOUNCEMENT OF PARTICULAR LAWS.
CHAPTER 12-CHAPTER 26. Moses, having in his first address cast a glance at the events which had transpired between Sinai and the plains of Moab, and in his second recapitulated what had happened at Sinai, repeated the Decalogue, and urgently counseled the people to be obedient to the Divine commandment, and steadfast in their adherence to Jehovah as their God and King; proceeds now to set forth certain laws which it specially behooved them to observe. These are for the most part the same as those already recorded in the previous books; but a few are new, and are to be found only here. No special order or plan of exposition is here observed; the speaker uses that freedom of discourse which was fitting in a popular address. One or two historical narratives are interpolated; but the address as a whole is hortatory, and is designed to direct to the proper regulation of the ecclesiastical, social, and domestic life of the Israelites when they should be settled in Canaan.
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PLACES AND MONUMENTS OF IDOLATRY TO BE DESTROYED; JEHOVAH TO BE WORSHIPPED IN THE ONE PLACE WHICH HE SHALL CHOOSE; INSTRUCTIONS AS TO THE USE OF FLESH FOR FOOD; AND CAUTIONS AGAINST BEING ENSNARED INTO FOLLOWING THE HEATHEN IN THEIR MANNER OF SERVICE.
These are the statutes and judgments (cf. Deu_4:1 Deu_6:1) Moses, as the servant of God, had taught Israel statutes and rights, as God had commanded him; (Deu_4:5) and now he recapitulates the principal of these for their guidance in the way of obedience. These they were to observe all the days of their life upon the land that was to be given them; the land was the Lord"s, and there, as long as they possessed it, the Law of the Lord was to be paramount.
Vers. 1-32. Regulations for Divine worship: specific rules embodying permanent principles.
With this twelfth chapter an entirely new set of instructions begins. Up to this point the exhortations have been for the most part moral: now they are positive. Hitherto the precepts have been, speaking generally, concerning duties which God commanded because they were right; but from this point they concern duties which became right because God had commanded them. Of all specific directions which Moses gave to Israel, none could possibly be more important than those which had to do with the Divine worship. A true, wise, spiritual worship, established and maintained, would do very much to ensure Israel"s weal in every other respect; while if corruption was admitted and tolerated here, its ill effects would soon be seen through the length and breadth of their land. In dealing homiletically with this chapter, we must take it as a whole. To sever it into paragraphs would be to conceal its unity; taking it, however, as one, we shall see how very far more than is generally supposed, the observance of God"s worship among the Hebrews was based on everlasting principles both as to its matter and its manner; and that while there was much ritual in external forms, yet Judaism was not ritualistic in any sense which would imply the efficacy of ritual by itself to bring about spiritual results. Let us enumerate the principles which here are embodied in the directions for the worship of God. The forms in which the principles are expressed may change; the principles themselves, never!
I HEBREW WORSHIP WAS TO BE IN ALL RESPECTS A PROTEST AGAINST SURROUNDING IDOLATRY. (Vers. 2, 3, 29-31.) They were not only to carry out a policy of destruction, in sweeping from the land every vestige of ancient heathen worship, (see Homily on Deu_7:1-11) but were to avoid everything like imitation of it. Theirs was a new nationality, a new deliverance, a new faith, and it must be a new kind of worship, corresponding in its purity to the holiness of Jehovah, and in its intelligence to that knowledge of him which they were expected to cultivate in themselves and hand down to others. And so now, if there are corrupt forms of worship, such as Rome"s pagan ceremonies baptized with the Christian name, the worship of God"s true Church must needs be a protest against it, and a contention for "the simplicity which is in Christ.
II IT WAS TO BE ACCORDING TO DIVINE DIRECTION. They might not consult their own religious sentiments, as the heathen did, in choosing e.g. the tops of the hills for worship, because they thought so to get nearer God. Israel must consult revelation, and follow it. So with the Church of God now. True, we have not such minute rites enjoined as Israel had, for we need them not now. But in our New Testament writings all needful instructions are given for those who would worship the Father in spirit and in truth.
III THE DINIE RULES WERE TO BE PRECISELY ADHERED TO. They might not be swerved from, either by addition or diminution (ver. 32). This is indeed but an extension of principle No. 2; but it requires in oar day to be noticed separately; since many will admit, generally, that worship must be according to Scripture, who nevertheless also maintain that the Church may direct as to forms of worship. But we cannot forget two facts: one, that at the close of the New Testament there is a like caution and prohibition to that given here; another, that the entire course of Church history shows us that men know not where to stop when they once diverge from the Book," and that departures therefrom little by little, even under Church authority, do ultimately land men in the complicated and superstitious ceremonial of the Church of Rome.
IV THERE WAS TO BE (after they were settled in Palestine) ONE PLACE WHICH GOD CHOOSE TO PUT HIS NAME THERE. And this place where God would meet with his people is called, in the beautiful Hebrew phrase, God"s rest (ver. 5), "his habitation". (of Psa_132:13, Psa_132:14) Thus would God, in his condescending love, launch a new thought into the world, in a form in which the people could understand it; viz. that God"s home is with his believing worshippers. It was necessary, for a while, to associate that truth with one special place, until "the fullness of times" should come, when One should say (Joh_4:20-24; Mat_18:20; and when Christians should learn that they are the home of God 1Co_3:16; Eph_2:22)
V TO THIS PLACE THE TRIBES WERE TO COME AND WORSHIP TOGETHER. Thus the unity of God"s redeemed people in him, would be continually before their eyes. Though the times in the year were not many when the people were thus to meet as one nation and commonwealth, yet they were frequent enough to ensure their thoughts turning thereto, either by retrospection or anticipation, from one year"s end to another. Here is the germ seed of the doctrine of the unity of God"s Church. Many tribes, one redeemed people. And is it not precisely this principle which is brought out in the New Testament, only in far grander form? (see Re 7 Eph 2 Joh 17 Ro 12) Is not the Christian unity a union of many tribes and tongues in one deliverance, and one Deliverer?
VI THE FORMS OF ISRAEL"S WORSHIP WERE TO BE SUFFICIENTLY VARIED TO REFLECT THE CHANGING ASPECTS AND CIRCUMSTANCES OF LIFE. These forms are sevenfold. In each case, however, an offering was brought to God. It might be typical, symbolic, eucharistic, dedicatory, or votive. (For specific treatment of each kind, see Kurtz, and Kalisch, in loc.) There were:
1. Burnt offering.
2. Sacrifices.
3. Tithes. (Deu_26:12)
4. Heave offerings. "Quae sponte dabatur Deo" (Buxtorf).
5. Vows. (Psa_76:11)
6. Free-will offerings (1Ch_29:17; Deu_16:10)
7. Firstlings of herds and flocks (Exo_13:12; Neh_10:35-37; Pro_3:9; Psa_66:13-16)
How varied! There were sacrifices of atonement and of consecration; offerings of consecration and thanksgiving. Each changing scene of life was to call forth its act of devotion to God.
VII IT WAS TO BE A FAMILY AND HOUSEHOLD WORSHIP. (Ver. 18.) Not the head of the house only, but the children, yea, even the little ones had their recognized place in the house of God (ver. 12). And the slaves too! The stranger and the sojourner might also come. The religion of the family was a keystone of Israels national life; and it will be a very serious thing for any nation, if family religion comes to be slighted or ignored, never let us rob the children of their rightful place in Christian ordinances and in the house of God.
VIII IT WAS TO BE A JOYFUL WORSHIP. Ver. 12, "Ye shall rejoice before the Lord your God." The pagan worship never was or could be a glad one. The heathens feared their gods, dreaded them, sought to propitiate them, but as for being glad in them because of any loving care on the part of their gods towards them, they knew nothing at all about any such blessing. But Israel did. They worshipped Jehovah, a redeeming God, who had manifested his Name to them. Hence such psalms as the twenty-third and the one hundred and third, could be prepared for their gladsome worship and song. Much more may we "Rejoice in the Lord.
IX ISRAEL"S WORSHIP WAS TO BE SUPPORTED BY THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE PEOPLE. (Ver. 19; and see Deu_18:1-8) Thus were the people at large from the first to be educated "in giving to God," and in maintaining, at their own cost, the worship and ordinances of God, so as to hand them down intact and untainted to their children and their children"s children. How clearly is this principle reproduced in the New Testament! (see 1Co_9:9-14) Though there is far less detail, yet it is not supposed that less will be done, but rather more; such verses as 2Co_8:7-9, how much they imply and suppose! Surely it would be well if our Churches everywhere recognized the nine principles of Divine worship which we find laid down by Moses. It may fairly be made a question whether even the purest Church is found recognizing them all; and yet, which one of the nine is repealed or even modified under the gospel? Of necessity, forms have changed. But so long as we need the ordinances of Christian worship at all, so long must we assert and maintain all that we find inculcated here: simplicity versus false ceremonialism; exact loyalty to Divine direction; recognizing the Church as "the rest" of God, where the tribes are many, but the commonwealth one; letting the worship reflect life"s varied moods; letting it be a joyous family worship, maintained and supported by our contributions and our prayers.
HOMILIES BY J. ORR.
Vers. 1-5. Destruction of monuments of idolatry.
Israel"s entrance into Canaan was the entrance of true knowledge, of pure forms of religion, of cleansed morals. The worship of Jehovah was the very antithesis of that of which these altars, pillars, and graven images, were the polluted memorials. "What did the grove conceal? Lust blood imposture. What sounds shook the lane? Alternate screams of anguish and the laughter of mad votaries. What was the priest? The teacher of every vice of which his god. was the patron and example. What were the worshippers? The victims of every woe which superstition and sensuality can gender, and which cruelty can cherish." (Isaac Taylor). Why should the last trace of these hateful worships not be removed from the land of God"s abode?. (see on Deu_7:1-6) These commands had
I A GROUND IN RELIGIOUS FEELING. Even the dumb memorials of iniquity will excite in pure minds feelings of horror and revulsion. It is positive pain to look upon them. The only sentiments which these monuments of a dark polytheism suggestive of every species of wickedness, and steeped in foulness through the cruel and lustful rites once associated with them could awaken in the minds of devout worshippers of Jehovah were those of inexpressible abhorrence. The sooner they were swept away the better. Healthy moral instincts will lead us to hate "even the garment spotted by the flesh". (Jud_1:23)
II A GROUND IN PRUDENCE. It removed from Israel"s midst what would obviously have proved a snare. Prone of their own motion to idolatry, how certainly would the people have been drawn into it had idol sanctuaries, idol altars, idol groves stood to tempt them at every corner, met their gaze on every hill-summit. A wise legislation will aim at the removal of temptations. The business of legislation, as has been well said, is to make it as easy as possible for the people to choose virtue, and as difficult as possible to choose vice.
III A GROUND IN POLICY. The design of Moses, to gather the life and religion of the people round a central sanctuary, would plainly have been frustrated had innumerable sacred places of repute, associated with the old idolatry, been allowed to remain unshorn of their honors. On the same principle, missionaries, in order to prevent relapses into idolatry, have often found it needful to get their converts to collect their idols, and unitedly to destroy them burning them, it may be, or flinging them into some river. J.O.
HOMILIES BY R.M. EDGAR Vers. 1-3. The invasion a religious one.
The Israelites were instructed to exterminate the Canaanites in consequence of their sins, as we have already seen; but in this passage we have strict injunctions given to destroy the places of worship which the Canaanites had used, "upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree," etc. They were, in fact, to be iconoclasts, and they were to leave no vestige remaining of the Canaanitish worship.
I IT WAS THUS MADE EVIDENT THAT THE INVASION WAS RELIGIOUS IN ITS CHARACTER. Palestine, as we have already seen, was not a country of exceptional natural advantages. It was a good training school for a spiritual people. When the Lord, then, sent his emancipated people in to carry out such a program as the destruction of the Canaanitish worship, it was evident to all that religion lay at the basis of the invasion. It was no tribal feud, but a contest for religious supremacy. As Abraham, their forefather, came to Canaan to be the exponent and founder of a new religion, so the descendants are required to expound the religion still more forcibly by putting clown all traces of the heathen worship.
II THE MULTIPLICITY OF CANAANITISH PLACES OF WORSHIP REALLY EXPRESSED THE POLYTHEISM OF THE PEOPLE. The Canaanites believed in the "gods of the hills," and "gods of the valleys," and "gods of the grove." Hence they erected altars with melancholy frequency over the land. It was not a sense of the omnipresence of a Supreme Being, but a belief in a multiplicity of gods, which led to such multiplicity of places of worship. The land was polluted with idols. Every green tree was supposed to overshadow a god. Altars, pillars, and groves sheltered and surrounded graven images. The desecration was all-prevailing.
III THE POWER OF ASSOCIATION NECESSITATED THE COMPLETE DESTRUCTION OF THESE SIGNS OF IDOLATRY. If polytheism expressed itself so universally, then association would assert in the Israelitish mind a corresponding power, and lead weak minds to the idea that an idol was surely something in the world, when it secured such recognition. No wise leader could allow such temptations to remain before his people. Hence the Israelites are instructed to spare no trace of the old worship. Intolerance may be a duty in pure self-defense. It was a duty in this case divinely ordained.
IV CURIOSITY IS NOT TO BE LEFT ANYTHING TO FEED UPON. For there is a prurient curiosity which only leads to sin. All humoring of this is evil. When a soul insists on tasting the fruit of forbidden trees, as a matter of curiosity, he only repeats the act of our first parents in Eden. No possible good can come of it. Much curiosity is indulged only to the deterioration of soul and body. Now, this would have been a danger with the Israelites. The worship of the Canaanites was so sensual and horrible, that the less known about it the better. Hence the command to destroy every vestige of it. It would be well for Christians more frequently to restrain their curiosity than they do. In many cases it would be well if every vestige of sinful practices were destroyed, instead of being preserved to satisfy an "idle curiosity.
V THE WHOLESALE DESTRUCTION OF THE PARAPHERNALIA OF IDOLATRY WOULD BE THE BEST OF ALL DEMONSTRATIONS OF THE NOTHINGNESS OF THE IDOLS. For if these gods of Canaan had any power, they might be expected to vindicate their majesty against these spoilers. But Israel never suffered anything from the destruction of the idolatry. The only danger arose from the destruction not being as complete in some cases as God intended it should be. And it is important to have the impotence of God"s foes made matter of demonstration. Sooner or later this is the case.
VI THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST HAS ALSO ITS INTOLERANT, AS WELL AS ITS TOLERANT, SIDE. In a sermon on Mat_12:30, "He that is not with me is against me," Vinet, the greatest of the moral analysts, has expounded L"intolerance de l"Evangile, just as in a companion sermon on Luk_9:50, "He that is not against us is for us," he expounds La tolerance. It is well to realize that religion is not an easy-going matter, making things pleasant all round, but something requiring stern and uncompromising conduct oftentimes. We may suffer as much by an unenlightened latitudinarianism as by an unenlightened attachment to non-essentials in use and wont. R.M.E.
HOMILIES BY D. DAVIES Vers. 1-4. The doom of idolatry.
The reverse side of blessing is a curse. The abuse of the best things is the worst. In the ratio in which any institution has capacity to benefit, has it capacity to injure. The sun can quicken life or kill. The temple is a stepping-stone to heaven or a snare of hell.
I BOTH NATURE AND ART HAVE BEEN PROSTITUTED TO BASEST USES. If men cannot find God in themselves, they cannot find him in material nature. Some "look through nature up to nature"s God." Some look through nature to darkness, sensuality, and despair.
II THE BEAUTIFUL MUST BE SACRIFICED TO MORAL NECESSITIES. Esthetics must yield to ethics. Our moral exigencies are paramount. The voice of taste is the voice of a charmer. The voice of conscience is the voice of a king. If the creations of art are inimical to the interests of righteousness, they must be destroyed. Eternal life is beyond all price. Whatever keeps man from the living God is doomed.
III TRUE LIFE HAS A DESTRUCTIVE SIDE. The growth of a plant involves the death of the seed. The life of the body is sustained by manifold death. Eternal life comes by the death of the Son of God. The inner life of piety is quickened by the death of self. True love to God is the hatred of his foes. Jesus Christ "came to destroy the works of the devil. D.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1–2 If there arise among you a prophet.
Deu_12:1-3
If there arise among you a prophet.
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On the criterion of a false miracle
I. The evidence drawn from miracles, in favour of any Divine revelation, rests in general on the testimony of those who saw the miracles performed. But in addition to this, it is important to inquire, whether some consideration may not be at the same time due to the nature and tendency of the doctrines themselves, and whether there may not be in them some internal marks, which, in some cases at least, may enable us to distinguish false miracles from true. That such a criterion was given to the Jews appears plain from the words of the text, according to which, though a miracle should actually be performed, yet if its intention was to teach the doctrine of idolatry, it was not to be considered as a miracle authorised by God.
II. Yet the text does not appear to be confined merely to fictitious miracles of human contrivance, but to extend to real miracles actually performed, either by men permitted so to act, or by the agency of superior intellectual beings, with the permission indeed of God, but not by His authority. Not only no human art or deception, but also no superior, or supernatural power should undermine our faith, or draw us from the allegiance which we owe to God.
III. I cannot dismiss the subject without taking notice of a difficulty which may possibly be thought to attend the foregoing theory. It relates to the assertion that no internal doctrine can be brought in proof of a miracle. For it may be said, that there are certain doctrines conveyed by the help of miracles, which no human reason could ever have discovered; such are, that God on certain conditions will freely forgive sins, and that to the sincere, penitent, and faithful believer in Jesus Christ, He will grant life eternal. The answer is, that though the truth of these things be beyond the reach of the human reason to discover, yet the things themselves are not beyond the reach of the human imagination to conceive. Their truth therefore must depend on the evidence of the miracles which were wrought in their support, and the miracles must first be distinctly proved, before we can give an admission to the doctrines. (W. Pearce, D. D.)
The objection of the Jews to Christianity, as founded on this passage, answered
It has commonly, and with justice, been thought, that the two great pillars on which a revelation from God must stand, are miracles and prophecies. Without these we cannot be assured that any discovery which may have been made in man is really Divine. We must, indeed, inspect the matter of the thing revealed to see whether it be worthy of Him from whom it is said to come; and from its internal evidence our faith will derive great strength; but still in the first instance we look rather to external proofs. But the Jews imagine that they are precluded from judging of Christianity on such grounds as these, since Moses, in this passage, guards them against any such inferences as we are led to draw from the prophecies and miracles on which our religion is founded. He concedes that some prophecies may be uttered, and some miracles be wrought in favour of a false religion; and that, even if that should be the case, the Jews are not to regard any evidences arising from those sources, but to hold fast their religion in opposition to them. First, mark the supposition here made, namely, that God may permit miraculous and prophetic powers to be exercised even in support of a false religion. We are not indeed to imagine that God Himself will work miracles in order to deceive His people and to lead them astray; nor are we to imagine that He will suffer Satan to work them in such an unlimited way as to be a counterbalance to the miracles by which God has confirmed His own religion; but He will, for reasons which we shall presently consider, permit some to be wrought, and some prophecies to come to pass, notwithstanding they are designed to uphold an imposture. The magicians of Pharaoh, we must confess, wrought real miracles. They were permitted to do so much as should give Pharaoh an occasion for hardening his own heart, but not sufficient to show that they could at all come in competition with Moses. In every age there were also false prophets, who endeavoured to draw the people from their allegiance to God; and in the multitude of prophecies that they would utter, it must be naturally supposed that some would be verified in the event. Now then, in the next place, let us notice the injunction given to the Jews notwithstanding this supposition. God commands them not to give heed to that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, even though his predictions should be verified, if his object be to turn them from Him; for that He Himself suffers these illusions to be practised upon them in order that their fidelity to Him may be tried, and their love to Him approved. It may seem strange that God should suffer such stumbling blocks to be cast in the way of His people; but it is not for us to say what Jehovah mayor may not do; we are sure that He tempteth no man, so as to lead him into sin (Jam_1:13), and that the Judge of all the earth will do nothing but what is right. But it is a fact that He thus permitted Job to be tried, in order that he might approve himself a perfect man; and in like manner He tried Abraham, in order that it might appear, whether his regard for Gods authority and his confidence in Gods Word were sufficient to induce him to sacrifice his Isaac, the child of promise (Gen_22:1-2; Gen_22:12). It was for similar ends that God permitted His people to be tried for forty years in the wilderness (Deu_8:2), and in the same way He has tried His Church in every period of the world. It is Gods express design in the whole constitution of our religion to discover the secret bent of mens minds; and whilst to the humble He gives abundant evidence for their conviction, He has left to the proud sufficient difficulties to call forth their latent animosity, and to justify in their own apprehensions their obstinate unbelief (Luk_2:34-35). He gave originally to the Jews, as He has also given to us, sufficient evidence to satisfy any candid mind; and this is all that we have any right to expect. The argument founded on this injunction comes now before us with all the force that can be given to it. A Jew will say, You Christians found your faith on prophecies and on miracles; and admitting that Jesus did work some miracles, and did foretell some events which afterwards came to pass, God permitted it only to try us, and to prove cur fidelity to Him. He has cautioned us beforehand not to be led astray from Him by any such things as these; and therefore, however specious your reasonings appear, we dare not listen to them or regard them. Having thus given to the objection all the force that the most hostile Jew can wish, I now come, in the second place, to offer what we hope will prove a satisfactory answer to it. It cannot but have struck the attentive reader that in this objection there are two things taken for granted; namely, that in calling Jews to Christianity we are calling them from Jehovah; and that our authority for calling them to Christianity is founded on such miracles as an impostor might work, and such prophecies as an impostor might expect to see verified. But in answer to these two points we declare, first, that we do not call them from Jehovah but to Him; and next, that our authority is not founded on such miracles and prophecies as might have issued from an impostor, but such as it was impossible for an impostor to produce; and lastly, that, in calling them to Christ, we have the express command of God Himself.
1. We do not call our Jewish brethren from Jehovah, but to Him. We worship the very same God whom the Jews worship; and we maintain His unity as strongly as any Jew in the universe can maintain it. As for idols of every kind, we abhor them as much as Moses himself abhorred them. Moreover, we consider the law which was written on the two tables of stone as binding upon us, precisely as much as if it were again promulgated by an audible voice from heaven. With respect to the ceremonial law, we do indeed call you from the observance of that; and we have good reason so to do; for you yourselves know that all the essential part of your religion existed before the ceremonial law was given; and that Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, who lived hundreds of years before the ceremonial law was given, were saved simply and entirely by faith in that promised seed, in whom all the nations of the earth are blessed. If you ask, Why then was the ceremonial law given? I answer, To shadow forth your Messiah, and to lead you to Him; and when He should come and fulfil it in all its parts, it was then to cease; and you yourselves know that it was intended by God Himself to cease at that appointed time. If then we call you from the outward observances of the law, it is not from disrespect to that law, but from a conviction that it has been fulfilled and abrogated by the Lord Jesus. We call you only from shadows to the substance. We call you to Christ as uniting in Himself all that the ceremonial law was intended to shadow forth. I am aware that in calling you to worship the Lord Jesus Christ we appear to you to be transferring to Him the honour due to God alone. But if you will look into your own Scriptures you will find that the person who was foretold as your Messiah is no other than God Himself. Receive Him in the character in which the prophet Isaiah foretold His advent, as the Child born, the Son given, the wonderful Counsellor, the mighty God, the Prince of peace. Call Him, as another prophet instructs you, Jehovah our Righteousness, and know that in thus honouring Christ you will honour the Father who sent Him.
2. The next thing which we proposed to show was, that our authority for calling you thus to Christ is not founded on such prophecies or miracles as might have issued from an impostor, but on such as it was impossible for an impostor to produce. Consider the prophecies; they were not some few dark predictions of mysterious import and of doubtful issue, uttered by our Lord Himself; but a continued series of prophecies from the very fall of Adam to the time of Christ; of prophecies comprehending an almost infinite variety of subjects, and those so minute, as to defy all concert either in those who uttered, or those who fulfilled them. Consider the miracles also; these were beyond all comparison greater and more numerous than Moses ever wrought. The whole creation, men, devils, fishes, elements, all obeyed His voice; and at His command the dead arose to life again. But there is one miracle alone which in particular we will mention. Jesus said, I have power to lay down My life, and I have power to take it again; and the former of these He proved by speaking with a loud voice the very instant He gave up the ghost, showing thereby that He did not die in consequence of His nature being exhausted, but by a voluntary surrender of His life into His Fathers hands. And at the appointed time He proved the latter also, notwithstanding all the preparations made to defeat His purpose, all which proved in the issue the strongest testimonies to the truth of His word. We therefore confidently call you to believe in Him, and to embrace the salvation which He offers you in the Gospel. But there is one great argument which we have reserved till now, in order that it may bear upon you with the greater weight.
3. We declare to you, then, in the last place, that in calling you to Christ we have the express command of God Himself. Moses, in chap. 13, bids you, as we have seen, not to listen to any false prophet; but in Deu_18:18-19, he most explicitly declares that a prophet should arise, to whom you should attend. Now I ask you, who is the prophet here spoken of Where was there ever, besides Moses, a prophet that was a Mediator, a Lawgiver, a Ruler, a Deliverer? Was there ever such an one except Jesus? And was not Jesus such an one in all respects? Yes; He has wrought for yell not a mere temporal deliverance like Moses, but a spiritual and eternal deliverance from sin and Satan, death and hell; He has redeemed you, not by power only, but by price also, even the inestimable price of His own blood. When therefore you plead the authority of Moses, we join issue with you, and say, Be consistent. Renounce false prophets, because he bids you; but believe in the true Prophet, whom God, according to His Word, has raised up to you, because He bids you. Let His authority weigh equally with you in both cases; and then we shall not fear, but that you will embrace the salvation offered you in the Gospel, and be the spiritual children, as ye already are the natural descendants of believing Abraham. (C. Simeon, M. A.)
The only pulpit worth having
I. That no instrumentality is of any real service to man, as man, that does not promote in him a right sovereign affection.
1. Every man is under some one dominant affection. Love of--
(1) Pleasure.
(2) Money.
(3) Power.
(4) Knowledge. Mans loves are his sovereign laws.
2. A wrong dominant affection in a man will neutralise the highest services that may be rendered to him.
II. That the only right sovereign affection is supreme love for the supremely good. All goodness streams from God as all light from the sun. Ought He not, then, to be extremely loved?
III. That the only pulpit that is of any real service to man is that which generates and fosters this sovereign affection.
1. It is the pulpit that works into man the conviction that God loves men, though sinners.
2. It is the pulpit that exhibits God as essentially good and benevolent in Himself. (Homilist.)
Danger and security
This passage, by the inspiration of God, touches upon all the possible points of danger in a religious course.
I. What are the points of danger?
1. The first may be described as being somewhat after a philosophical sort. There is nothing rude in the assault, nothing violent or startling, from a merely physical point of view; it is a very delicate encroachment upon religious thought; it is impalpable as a dream. Surely this is harmless: it is more than harmless; it is instructive: it may be a lesson in the deeper philosophy; it may be the beginning of a widening revelation. The mischief is this, that a man who would listen to such a dreamer, or seer of visions, and allow his religion to be affected by the nightmare, would turn the man out of his presence if he attempted to offer him a single idea upon any practical subject under heaven. We are easily beguiled from the religious point. O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you? It would seem as if it were easier to murder the soul than to kill the body. The first point of danger, therefore, is thus clouded in a golden veil; and the man who may be said to be preparing for that danger is dreamy, hazy-minded, speculative, always looking into a mist if, haply, he may find a star; such a gentle, dozing creature, so harmless, and really so very attractive in many qualities of his character.
2. What is the second point of danger? It is not at all philosophical; it may be ranked among the social forces that are constantly operating upon life (verse 6). Social influences are constantly operating upon our faith. The youngest member of the family has been reading a book, and has invited the head of the house to go and listen to some new speaker of theories, speculations, and dreams; the service is so beautiful; the idea is so novel; a great deal of the rush and tumult common to elementary religious life is totally escaped; the intellectual brother--the man supposed to have all the brains of the family--has got a new idea--an idea which in nowise associates itself with historical churches and traditional creeds, but a brand new idea, altogether sparkling and daring, and whosoever professes it will at once take his place in the synagogue of genius; or the darling friend has caught a voice down some byway, and he will have his other self go with him in the evening to hear this speaker of anti-Christian ideas--a man who has undertaken to reconstruct so much of the universe as will allow him to touch it; a person of exquisite mind, of dainty taste, and of quiet latent power. The subtle purpose is to draw men away from the old altar, the old Book, the God of deliverance and beneficence, of mercy and redemption, to another God who will condescend to be measured for a creed, and who is not above sitting for his portrait. Do not follow a multitude to do evil. Do not always be at the string end, led about by those who are of more forceful and energetic will than yourselves. Be sure as to what they are taking you to; have a clear understanding before you begin. You would not allow those persons to interfere with anything practical: when the discussion of commercial questions arises, you stand at the front and say, There I can bear testimony, and there I ought to be heard. Why claim such a solemn responsibility in the settlement of nothing, and allow anybody to settle for you the great questions of religious truth and personal destroy?
3. What is the third point of danger? It is not philosophical; it is not, in the narrow sense of the term, social; it is a point of danger which may be characterised as public sentiment, public opinion--a general turning round, and a wholesale abandonment of old theologies and old forms of worship (verses 12, 13). Some men may have courage to laugh at the dreamer; others may have virtue enough to resist the blandishments of the nearest friend; but who can resist the current or tendency of public opinion?
II. What is the course to be taken under circumstances of danger? Moses had no difficulty about his reply: let us see what it was, and consider whether we can adopt it. And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death (verse 5). The seducer in the family brings upon himself this penalty. Neither shall thine eye pity him neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: but thou shalt surely kill him (verses 8, 9); thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die (verse 10). And as for the city--representative of public opinion--Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, etc. (verses 15-17). That was a drastic course; there is no touch of compromise in that stern provision; there is no line of toleration in that tremendous answer. The same course is to be taken today, as to its spiritual meaning. Physical violence there must be none; the day of physical pains and penalties for spiritual offences has closed; but the great lesson of destruction remains forever. What penalty, then, shall we inflict upon men who seek to destroy our faith? I hesitate not in my reply: Avoid them; pass by them; they would injure your soul. (J. Parker, D. D.)
True tests are unfailing discoverers
Every substance is discoverable by some test, which usually neutralises it, or rather, by uniting with it, forms a new compound. The whole fabric of chemistry rests upon this wonderful principle as one of its cornerstones. Thus if the least fragment of copper be dissolved in acid, and the fluid be then diluted with water until no trace of colour remains, so potent, nevertheless, is the affinity of the well-known fluid called ammonia for the copper, that a single drop of the latter fluid will immediately reveal the presence of the metal by uniting with it and forming a new substance of the loveliest violet colour. Similarly, if a morsel of lead be dissolved in acid, and the acid be then diluted with water, a single drop of a solution of iodide of potassium will turn the whole to a brilliant crocus-yellow. The presence of iron, after the same manner, is discovered by the least drop of tincture of galls, which blackens it upon contact; that of silver by a little solution of common salt, which causes flakes of imitative snow to make their appearance; that of mercury again with iodide of potassium, which turns the fluid containing it to a beautiful red. (Scientific Illustrations.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1 Deuteronomy 12-26
LAW AND RELIGION
Deuteronomy 12-26
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WITH this section (chapters 12-26) we have at length reached the legislation to which all that has gone before is, in form at least, a prelude. But in its general outline this code, if it can be so called, has a very unexpected character. When we speak of a code of laws in modern days, what we mean is a series of statutes, carefully arranged under suitable heads, dealing with the rights and duties of the people, and providing remedies for all possible wrongs, then behind these laws there is the executive power of the Government, pledged to enforce them, and ready to punish any breaches of them which may be committed. In most cases, too, definite penalties are appointed for any disregard or transgression of them. Each word has been carefully selected, and it is understood that the very letter of the laws is to be binding. Every one tried by them knows that the exact terms of the laws are to be pressed against him, and that the thing aimed at is a rigorous, literal enforcement of every detail. Tried by such a conception, this Deuteronomic legislation looks very extraordinary and unintelligible.
In the first place, there is very little of orderly sequence in it. Some large sections of it have a consecutive character; but there is no perceptible order in the succession of these sections, and there has been very little attempt to group the individual precepts under related heads. Moreover in many sections there is no mention of a penalty for disobedience, nor is there any machinery for enforcing the prescriptions of the code. There is, too, much in it that seems rather to be good advice, or direction for leading a righteous life, a life becoming an Israelite and a servant of Yahweh, than law. For instance, such a prescription as this, "If there be with thee a poor man, one of thy brethren, within any of thy gates, in thy land which Yahweh thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not harden thine heart nor shut thine hand from thy poor brother," can in no sense be treated as a law, in the hard technical sense of that word. It stands exactly on a level with the exhortations of the New Testament, e.g., "Be not wise in your own conceits," "Render to no man evil for evil," and rather sets up an ideal of conduct which is to be striven after than establishes a law which must be complied with. There is no punishment prescribed for disobedience. All that follows if a man do harden his heart against his poor brother is the sting of conscience, which brings home to him that he is not living according to the will of God.
In almost every respect, therefore, this Deuteronomic code differs from a modern code, and in dealing with it we must largely dismiss the ideas which naturally occur to us when we speak of a code of laws. Our conception of that is, clearly, not valid for these ancient codes; and we need not be surprised if we find that they will not bear being pressed home in all their details, as modern codes must be, and are meant to be. Great practical difficulties have arisen in India, Sir Henry Maine assures us, from applying the ideas of Western lawyers to the ancient and sacred codes of the East. He says that the effect of a procedure under which all the disputes of a community must be referred to regular law-courts is to stereotype ascertained usages, and to treat the oracular precepts of a sacred book as texts and precedents that must be enforced. The consequence is that vague and elastic social ordinances, which have hitherto varied according to the needs of the people, become fixed and immutable, and an Asiatic society finds itself arrested and, so to speak, imprisoned unexpectedly within its own formulas. Inconsistencies and contradictions, which were never perceived when these laws were worked by Easterns, who had a kind of instinctive perception of their true nature, became glaring and troublesome under Western rule, and much unintentional wrong has resulted. May it not be that the same thing has happened in the domain of literature in connection with these ancient Hebrew laws? Discrepancies, small and great, have been the commonplace of Pentateuch criticism for many years past, and on them very far-reaching theories have been built. It may easily be that some of these are the result rather of our failure to take into account the elastic nature of Asiatic law, and that a less strained application of modern notions would have led to a more reasonable interpretation.
But granting that ordinary ancient law is not to be taken in our rigorous modern sense, yet the fact that what we are dealing with here is Divine law may seem to some to imply that in all its details it was meant to be fulfilled to the letter. If not, then in what sense is it inspired, and how can we be justified in regarding it as Divinely given? The reply to that is, of course, simply this, that inspiration makes free use of all forms of expression which are common and permissible at the time and place at which it utters itself. From all we know of the Divine methods of acting in the world, we have no right to suppose that in giving inspired laws God would create entirely new and different forms for Himself. On the contrary, legislation in ancient Israel, though Divine in its source, would naturally take the ordinary forms of ancient law. Moreover in this case it could hardly have been otherwise. As has already been pointed out, a large part of the Mosaic legislation must have been adopted from the customs of the various tribes who were welded into one by Moses. It cannot be conceived that the laws against stealing, for example, the penalties for murder, or the prescriptions for sacrifice, can have been first introduced by the great Lawgiver. He made much ancient customary law to be part and parcel of the Yahwistic legislation by simply taking it over. If so, then all that he added would naturally, as to form, be molded on what he found pre-existing. Consequently we may apply to this law, whether Divinely revealed or adopted, the same tests and methods of interpretation as we should apply to any other body of ancient Eastern law.
Now of ancient Eastern codes the laws of Manu are the nearest approach to the Mosaic codes, and their character is thus stated by themselves (chapter 1., ver. 107): "In this work the sacred law has been fully stated, as well as the good and bad qualities of human actions and the immemorial rule of conduct to be followed by all." That means that in the code are to be found ritual laws, general moral precepts, and a large infusion of immemorial customs. And its history, as elicited by criticism, has very interesting hints to give us as to the probable course of legal development in primitive nations. It is sometimes said that the results of the criticism of the Old Testament, if true, present us with a literature which has gone through vicissitudes and editorial processes for which literary history elsewhere affords absolutely no parallel. However that may be as regards the historical and prophetical books, it is not true with regard to the legal portions of the Pentateuch. The very same processes are followed in Professor Buhlers Introduction to his translation of the "Laws of Manu," forming Vol. 25. of "The Sacred Books of the East." as are followed, in the critical commentaries on the Old Testament law codes. Pages 67, seq. of Buhlers Introduction read exactly like an extract from Kuenen or Dillmann: and the analysis of the text, with its resultant list of interpolations, runs as much into detail as any similar analysis in the Old Testament can do. Moreover the conjectures as to the growth of Manus code are, in many places, parallel to the critical theories of the growth of the Mosaic codes. The foundation of Manu is, in the last resort, threefold - the teaching of the Vedas, the decisions of those acquainted with the law, and the customs of virtuous Aryas. At a later time the teachers of the Vedic schools gathered up the more important of these precepts, decisions, and customs into manuals for the use of their pupils, written at first in aphoristic prose, and later in verse. These, however, were not systematic codes at all. As the name given them implies, they were strings of maxims or aphorisms. Later, these were set forth as binding upon all, and were revised into the form of which the "Laws of Manu" is the finest specimen.
In Israel the process would appear to have been similar, though much simpler. It was similar; for though there are radical differences between the Aryan and the Semitic mind which must not be overlooked, the former being more systematic and fond of logical arrangement than the latter, a great many of the things which are common to Moses and Manu are quite independent of race, and are due to the fact that both legislations were to regulate the lives of men at the same stage of social advancement. But Manu was much later than Moses. Indeed, as we now have them, the laws of Manu are as late as the post-Ezraite Judaic code, and in temper and tone these two codes very nearly resemble each other. Consequently the earlier codes of the Pentateuch are simpler than Manu. When Israel left Egypt, custom must have been almost alone the guide of life. Moses task was to promulgate and force home his fundamental truths; in this view he must adopt and remodel the customary law so as to make it innocuous to the higher principles he introduced, or even to make it a vehicle for the popularizing of them. So far as he made codes, he would make them with that end. Consequently he would take up mainly such prominent points as were most capable of being, or which most urgently needed to be, moralized, leaving all the rest to custom where it was harmless. This is the reason, too, most probably, why the earlier codes are so short and so unsystematic. They are selections which needed special attention, not complete codes covering the whole of life. In fact the form and contents of all the Old Testament codes can be accounted for only on this supposition. As the codes lengthen, they do so simply by taking up, in a modified or unmodified form, so much more of the custom; and under the pressure of Yahwistic ideas these selected codes became more and more weighted with spiritual significance and power.
That would seem to have been the process by which the inspired legislators of Israel did their work; and if it be so, some of the variations which are now taken to be certain indications of different ages and circumstances may simply represent local varieties of the same custom. Custom tends always to vary with the locality within certain narrow limits. It would be quite in accord with the general character of ancient customary law to believe that, provided the law was on the whole observed, there would be no inclination to insist upon excluding small local variations; and equally so that in a collection like the Pentateuch the custom of one locality should appear in one place, that of another in another. In that case, to insist that a certain sacrifice, for example, shall always consist of the same number of animals, and that any variation means a new and later legislation on the subject, is only to make a mistake. The discrepancy is made important only by applying modern English views of law to ancient law. Professor A. B. Davidson has shown in the Introduction to his "Ezekiel" (p. 53.) that this latter was probably Ezekiels view. "On any hypothesis of priority," he says, "the differences in details between him (i.e., Ezekiel) and the law (i.e., P) may be easiest explained by supposing that, while the sacrifices in general and the ideas which they expressed were fixed and current, the particulars, such as the kind of victims and the number of them, the precise quantity of meal, oil, and the like, were held non-essential and alterable when a change would better express the idea." The same principle would apply to the differences between Ezekiel and Deuteronomy, e.g., the omission of the feast of weeks and of the law of the offering of the firstlings of the flock. If so, then obviously Ezekiel must have thought that the previous ritual law was not meant to be as binding as we make it.
But, as has already been remarked, this law was elastic in more important matters; often, even when it seems to legislate, it is only setting up ideals of conduct. Before we leave this subject an example should be given, and the law of war may serve, especially if we compare it with the corresponding section of Manu. The provisions in Deuteronomy, chapter 20, according to which on the eve of a battle the officers should proclaim to the army that any man who had built a new house and had not dedicated it, or who had planted a vineyard and had not yet used the fruit of it, or who had betrothed a wife and not yet taken her, or who was afraid, should retire from the danger, as also the provisions that forbid the destruction of fruit-trees belonging to a besieged city, cannot have been meant as absolute laws. Yet that is no ground for supposing that they could have been introduced only after Israel, having ceased to be a sovereign state, waged no war, and that consequently they are interpolations in the original Deuteronomy. For the similar provisions of the laws of Manu were given while kings reigned, and were addressed to men constantly engaged in war. Yet this is what we find: "When he (the king) fights with his foes in battle, let him not strike with weapons concealed (in wood), nor with (such as are) barbed, poisoned, or the points of which are blowing with fire. Let him not strike one who (in flight) has climbed on an eminence, nor a eunuch, nor one who joins the palms of his hands (in supplication), nor one (who flees) with flying hair, nor one who sits down, nor one who says I am thine, nor one who sleeps, nor one who has lost his coat of mail, nor one who is naked, nor one who is disarmed, nor one who looks on without taking part in the fight, nor one who is fighting with another foe, nor one whose weapons are broken, nor one afflicted (with sorrow), nor one who has been grievously wounded, nor one who is in fear, nor one who has turned to flight; but in all these cases let him remember the duty (of honorable warriors)." With an exact and unremitting obligation to observe these precepts war would be impossible, and we may be sure that in neither case were they meant in that sense. They simply set forth the conduct which a chivalrous soldier would desire to follow, and would on fitting occasions actually follow; but by no means what he must do, or else break with his religion. Only by hypotheses like these can the form and the character of such laws be properly explained, and if we keep them constantly in mind, some at least of the difficulties which result from a comparison of the law and the histories may be mitigated.
Such being the character of the Deuteronomic code, the question has been raised whether its introduction and acceptance by Josiah was not a falling away from the spirituality of ancient religion. Many modern writers, supported by St. Pauls dicta concerning the law, say that it was. Indeed the very mention of law seems to depress writers on religion in these days, and Deuteronomy appears to be to them a name of fear. But whatever tendencies of modern thinking may have brought this about, it is nevertheless true that experience embodied in custom and law is the kindly nurse, not the deadly enemy, of moral and spiritual life. Without law a nation would be absolutely helpless; and it is inconceivable that at any stage of Israels history they were without this guide and support. As we have seen, they never were. First they had customary law; then along with that short special codes, e.g., the Book of the Covenant and the Deuteronomic code; and even when the whole Pentateuchal law as we have it had been elaborated, a good deal must still have been left to custom. Consequently there was nothing so startling and revolutionary in the introduction of Deuteronomy as many have combined to represent. Indeed it is difficult to see how it altered anything in this respect. Of all forms of law, customary law is perhaps that which demands and receives most unswerving obedience. Under it, therefore, the pressure of law was heavier than it could be in any other form. It does not appear how the fact that those observing it did not think of that which they obeyed as law, but simply custom, altered the essential nature of their relation to it. They were guided by ordinances which did not express their own inward conviction, and were not a product of their own thought. They obeyed ordinances from without, and these ought therefore to have had the same effect upon the moral and spiritual life as written laws. For they cannot be said to have regulated only civil life. Religious life (even if the Book of the Covenant be Mosaic or sub-Mosaic, as I believe; much more if it be post-Davidic, as many say) must have been largely regulated by the customs of Israel. If law then be in its own nature, as the antinomians tell us, destructive of spontaneity and progress, if it necessarily externalizes religion, then there would have been as little room for the religion of the prophets before Deuteronomy as after it.
But, as a matter of fact, no falling off in spirituality took place after Deuteronomy. Wellhausen says that with law freedom came to an end, and this was the death of prophecy. But he can support his thesis only by denying the name of prophet to all the prophets after Jeremiah. It is difficult to see the basis of such a distinction. It is judged by this, if by nothing else-that it compels Wellhausen to deny that the author of Second Isaiah is a prophet. That he wrote anonymously is held to prove that he felt this himself. Now a view so extraordinarily superficial has no root, and every reader of that most touching and sublime of all the Old Testament books will simply stand amazed at the depth of the critical prejudice which could dictate such a judgment. If the post-Deuteronomic prophets are not prophets, then there are no prophets at all, and the whole discussion becomes a useless logomachy. But even if Ezekiel and Second Isaiah and the rest are not prophets, they are at least full of spiritual life and power, so that the decay of spiritual religion which the adoption of Deuteronomy is supposed to have brought about must be considered purely imaginary on that ground also. And this contention is strengthened by the theories of the critical school themselves. If the bulk of the Psalms, as all critics incline to believe, or all of them, as some say, are post-exilic, then the first centuries of the post-exilic period must have been the most spiritually minded epoch in Israelite history. The depth of religious feeling exhibited in the Psalms, and the comprehension of the inwardness of mans true relation to God by which they are penetrated, are the exact contrary of the externality and superficiality which the introduction of written law is said to have produced. So long as the Psalms were being written religious life must have been vigorous and healthy, and to date the beginnings of Pharisaic externalism from Josiahs day must consequently be an error.
After what has been said it is scarcely necessary to discuss Duhms views of the opposition between prophecy and Deuteronomy, It will be sufficient to ask how the latter can have turned against prophecy, when it is in its essence an embodiment of prophetic principles in law, and was introduced and supported by prophets. But, it may be said, after all prophecy did decay, and ultimately die, and that too during the period after Deuteronomy. Is there not in that admitted fact a presumption that this law did work against prophecy? If so, then it is more than met by the fact that the decay of spiritual religion became noticeable only some centuries after this, and that the immediate effect of Deuteronomy was rather to deepen and intensify religion, and to keep it alive amid all the vicissitudes of the Captivity and Return. Moreover the break-up of the national life was sufficient to account for the slow decay and final cessation of prophecy. From the first, prophecy had been concerned with the building up of a nation which should be faithful to Yahweh. Its main function had been to interpret and to foretell the great movements and crises of national life-to read Gods purpose in the great world movements and to proclaim it. With Israels death as a nation the field of prophecy became gradually circumscribed, and ultimately its voice ceased. Consequently, though in the main the final cessation of prophecy was connected with the rise of externalism in religion and with the great decay of spiritual life in the two or three centuries before Christ, the destruction of the nation would account for the feebleness of prophecy during a period when the inner spiritual life was flourishing as it flourished after Deuteronomy. Moreover, as religion became more inward and personal, prophecy, in the Old Testament sense, had less place. Though in New Testament times spiritual life and spiritual originality and power were more present than at any time in the worlds history, prophecy did not revive. In the whole New Testament there is not one purely prophetic book save the Revelation, and that is apocalyptic more than simply prophetic; and though there was an order of prophets in the early Church, if they had any special function other than that of preachers their office soon died out. If then the denationalizing of religion and its growth in individualism and inwardness in New Testament times prevented the revival of prophecy, we may surely gather that the same things, and not the introduction of written law, brought it to an end in the Old Testament.
Nor does St. Pauls judgment as to the meaning and use of law, in Galatians, when rightly understood, contradict this. No doubt he seems to say that the Mosaic law by its very nature as law is incompatible with grace, that it necessarily stands out of relation to faith, and that its principle is a purely external one, so much wages for so much work: Further, he clearly regards it as having been interpolated into the history of Israel between the promises given to Abraham and the fulfillment of them in the redemption by Christ, and as having served only to increase sin and to drive men thus to Christ. But when he says this he is replying mainly to the Pharisaic view of the law which was represented by the Judaizers, and finds himself all the more at home in refuting it that it was his own view before he became a Christian. According to that view, the whole law, both the moral and ceremonial provisions of it, was necessary to obtain moral righteousness, and the mere doing of the legally prescribed things gave a claim to the promised reward. So interpreted, law had all the evil qualities he states, and stood in absolute hostility to grace and faith, the great Christian principles. The only difficulty is that St. Paul does not say, as we should expect him to do, that originally the law was not meant to be so regarded. He seems to admit by his silence that the Pharisaic view of the law was the right one. But if he does, he cannot have meant to include Deuteronomy. For there law is made to have its root and ground in grace. It is given to Israel as a token of the free love of God, and it is a law of life which, if kept, would make them a peculiar people unto God. Further, love to God is to be the motive from which all obedience springs, so that this law is bound up with both grace and faith. But the probability is that St. Paul admits the Pharisaic view only because it is that view with which alone he has to contend in the case in hand. For in Romans 7 he gives us quite another conception of the Mosaic law. There he is thinking of it mainly from an ethical point of view, and he regards it as full of the Spirit of God, as a norm of moral life which not only continues to be valid in Christianity, but which finds in the Christian life the very fulfillment which it was intended to have. It presses home too the moral ideal upon the man with extraordinary power, and marks and emphasizes the terrible divergence between his aspirations and his actual performance. This is a much higher office than that which he assigns to law in Galatians; and hence one gathers that he is not speaking in Galatians exhaustively and conclusively, but is condemning rather a way of regarding the Mosaic law with which he had once sympathized than that law in its own essential character. In its moral aspects, as represented by the Decalogue, the law is of eternal obligation. From it comes the light which brings to the Christian that moral unrest and dissatisfaction which is one of Gods Divinest gifts to His people. In this aspect, the law is holy and just and good: instead of favoring the critical view St. Paul leaves it without any fragment of real support.
Our conclusion is, therefore, that the anti-nomianism, which makes the acknowledgment of Deuteronomy by Josiah and his people the turning-point for the worse in the religious history of Israel, is unfounded. The nation had always been under law, and previous to Deuteronomy under even written law. This code was not in any previously unheard-of way made the law of the kingdom. Its very contents are conclusive against that view, for it contains much that could not be enforced by the State. Instead of trying to do by external means that which the persuasions of the prophets had failed to do, Josiah and his people did just what they would have had to do, when they became convinced that the prophetic principles ought to be carried out. They made an agreement to follow these Divine commands, these God-given principles, in actual life. But there is no hint that they regarded Deuteronomy as the sum of the Divine ordinances for the life of men. Indeed there are many references to other Divine laws; and the priestly oracle remained, after Deuteronomy as before it, a source of Divine guidance. Deuteronomy therefore did not destroy prophecy; the post-exilic Psalms are proof that it did not destroy spiritual life: and the Pauline view of the law, in at least one series of passages, coincides entirely with the view that law stated as it is stated in Deuteronomy may be one of the mightiest influences to mould, and enrich, and deepen, moral and spiritual life.
LAWS OF SACRIFICE
Deuteronomy 12.
IT is a characteristic of all the earlier codes of law-the Book of the Covenant, the Deuteronomic Code, and the Law of Holiness-that at the head of the series of laws which they contain there should be a law of sacrifice. Probably, too, each of the three had, as first section of all, the Decalogue. The Book of the Covenant and Deuteronomy undeniably have it so, and the earlier element which forms the basis of Leviticus 17-26, not improbably had originally the same form. If so, we may assume that the order of the precepts has in a measure been determined by the order of the commandments. On this account the laws for the cultus would naturally come first. For just as the first commandment is, "Thou shalt have no other god before Me," and the second forbids all idolatrous images, so the laws begin with provisions meant in the main to ward off idolatry. Israels great calling was to receive and to spread the truth concerning God. That was the center of the sacred deposit of Divine and revealed truth committed to that nation; and it is most instructive to see how, not only in historical statements, but even in the form in which early Israelite legislation is handed down to us, the Decalogue dominates all the details of it. It formulated in as concrete a shape as was possible the Divine demand that Israelites should love God and their neighbor, and therefore the legislative provisions and statutes begin with ordinances dealing with sacrifice.
To us in modern times it may seem almost bathos to connect such an antecedent with such a consequent; but it seems so, only because we have difficulty in apprehending the meaning and importance of sacrifice in primitive religion. For sacrifice had in Israel a meaning and importance of its own, and a present value at every period, which in no way depended upon its typical or prophetic value as pointing forward to the sacrifice of Christ. It supplied the religious needs of men even apart from the clearness of their knowledge about its ultimate purpose. Sacrifice, especially in its simplest meaning, was in heathenism absolutely essential as a means of approach to God. To come before a great man without a gift was in ancient days an outrage. It was therefore inevitable that men should approach their gods in the same manner. Sacrificial gifts expressed the dependents joy in a gracious lord, and also the homage and reverence due from a subject to a king. Further, as all good things were regarded as the gifts of the gods to their worshippers, the sacrifices conveyed thanks for good gifts received, and joined the gods and their worshippers by a common participation in the Divine gift which connected them as eaters at the same table. But sacrifices had a higher reach of expression even than that. As they were brought to the gods they were the symbols of the self-devotion of the offerer to the service of his god; and where there was need of propitiation because of offence consciously given, or offence felt by the deity for unknown reasons, these gifts took on in some measure a reconciling or propitiatory quality.
Now the Old Testament sacrifices had in them, unquestionably, all these elements: but as Yahweh was high above all heathen deities in moral character, they also took on a depth and intensity of meaning which they could never have on the soil of heathen religious conceptions. Along this line of sacrificial ritual, therefore, all the spiritual emotions of Israel flowed; and to hold that sacrifice had no real place in the religion of Yahweh would be almost equivalent to saying that neither love, nor penitence, nor prayer, had any real place in it either. All these found utterance in sacrifice and along with it; and it has yet to be shown that they had any regular and acceptable utterance otherwise. To regulate sacrifice and keep it pure must, therefore, have been one chief means of guarding against the degradation of Yahweh to the level of the gods of the heathen.
But there is another and very important reason for it. Both in the days when Moses parted from his people, and also in the time of Manasseh, the people stood confronted by very special danger just at this point.
At the earlier period they were about to enter upon intimate contact with the Canaanites, their superiors in culture and in all the arts of civilized life, but corrupted to the core. Further, the Canaanite corruption was focused in their religious rites and worship, and evil could not fail to follow if the people suffered themselves to be drawn into any participation in it. For if Professor Robertson Smith be right, the central point of ancient sacrifice was the communion between the god and his worshippers in the sacrificial feast. They became of one kin with each other and with the god, and this close relationship made the communication of spiritual and moral infection almost a certainty.
In Manassehs day again it was natural that legislation on the same subject, and warnings of even a more solemn kind, should be repeated. A prophetic lawgiver writing at that date had before him, not only the possibility of evil, but actual experience of it. The laws and warnings of the earlier code had been defied and neglected. The faith of the chosen people had been miserably perverted by contact with the Canaanites; the whole history of prophecy had been a struggle against corrupt and insincere worship; and now the monstrous sacrifices to Moloch and the invasion of Assyrian idolatry had degraded Yahweh and destroyed His people, so that scarce any hope of recovery remained. In bracing himself for one more struggle with this desperate corruption, the Deuteronomist naturally repeated in deeper tones the Mosaic warnings. The command utterly to uproot and trample under foot the symbols and instruments of Canaanite worship, he brings, from the less prominent place it occupies in the Book of the Covenant, to the first place in his own code. To break with that and all other forms of idolatry, utterly and decisively, had come to be the first condition of any upward movement. The degrading and defiling bondage to idolatry into which his people had fallen must end. With trumpet tongue he calls upon them to break down the Canaanite altars, dash in pieces their obelisks, and burn their Asherim with fire.
To some moderns it may seem that such excessive energy might, with better effect, have been expended upon the denunciation of moral evils, such as cruelty and lust and oppression, rather than of idolatry. We have grown so accustomed to the distinctions drawn by the Church of Rome, and in later times by the neo-classicists, between worshipping God through an image or a picture, or in any natural object or natural force, and the actual worship of the image or picture or natural object itself, that we have sophisticated our minds. But the author of Deuteronomy knew by bitter experience that such subtle, and, in great part, sophistical distinctions had no application to his people and his time. Their worst immoralities were, he knew well, rooted in their idol-worship. For idolatry in any form binds all that is highest in man to the sphere of nature, i.e., of moral indifference. Just as a conception of God which rigorously separated Him from nature, which made His will the supreme impelling force in the world, and which conceived His essential attributes to be entirely ethical, was the fountain of the higher life in Israel, so a lapse into idolatry of any kind was the negation of it all. No doubt some moral life would have remained in Israel, even if the lapse had become universal. But, even at its best, this natural morality of self-preservation has no future and no goal. It does not lead the van of human progress; it merely comes after, to ratify the results of it. Only when social morality is taken up into a wider sphere than its own, -only when it is conceived as the path by which man can co-operate with a sublime purpose lying beyond himself, -can it maintain itself as the inspiration of human life, impelling to progress and guiding it. Now, so far as history teaches, this energy of moral life has been attained only where the conception of God which makes moral perfection to be His essential nature has been accepted and cherished. But no natural religion can rise to that; hence idolatry must always be destructive of ethical religion. It must destroy faith in the moral character of God.
Further, it must destroy the moral character of man. In the last resort all idolaters are equally acceptable to their god, if only they bring the prescribed gifts and accurately perform the prescribed ceremonies. The lewd and the chaste, the cruel and the merciful, the revengeful and the forgiving, are all equally accepted when they sacrifice. Non-moral or positively immoral gods can care nothing about such differences. Of this fact and its results no man acquainted with the history of Israel could doubt. The main zeal of the prophets was at all times directed against those who were steeped in moral evil, but were zealous in all that concerned sacrifice, and against the amazing folly of a people who thought to bind the living God to their cause and their interests by mere bribes, in the shape of thousands of bullocks and ten thousand rivers of oil. This conception was bound up essentially with idolatry. But the evil of it was intensified in the Semitic idolatries with which Israel specially defiled itself. Their cruelty and obscenity were unspeakable. Now by Israels idolatry Yahweh was made to appear tolerant of Moloch and Baal, as if they were equals. Every quality which the Mosaic revelation had set forth as essential to the character of Yahweh-His purity, His mercy, His truth-was outraged by the society which His worshippers in Manassehs days had thrust upon Him. No reform, then, had the least chance of stability till the axe was laid at the root of this wade-spreading upas tree.
Deuteronomy, therefore, grapples first and grapples thoroughly with the evil, and strikes it a blow from which it was never to recover. The inspired writer repeats with new energy the old decrees of utter destruction against the Canaanite sanctuaries; for though these were for the most part no longer in Canaanite hands, the High Places still existed; and the principle of that old prohibition was more clamant for recognition and realization than it had ever been in the history of Israel before.
Then he goes on to proclaim the new law, that no sacrifice should any longer be offered save at the one central sanctuary chosen by Yahweh. There is no such provision in the Book of the Covenant, and there is no hint in the legislation of Deuteronomy that its author knew of the Tabernacle and its sole right as a place of sacrifice. From beginning to end of the code he never mentions the Tabernacle nor the sacrifices there; and in the very terms in which he permits the slaughter of animals for food in Deu_12:15-16, and Deu_12:20-25, though he obviously repeals a custom which has been embodied in the Priestly Code as a law, {Lev_17:3 ff.} he makes no reference to that passage. Consequently this at least may be said, that he may quite conceivably have been ignorant of Lev_17:3 ft. In ignorance of it, he might write as he has done; and if not ignorant, it would be much more natural to refer to it. When we add to this negative testimony the positive testimony of Deu_12:8 and Deu_12:13, which we have already discussed in Chapter 1, there would seem to be little room for doubt that the priestly law on this subject was not before the writer of Deuteronomy. Consequently we are justified in regarding this as the first written law actually promulgated on this subject. Hezekiah had attempted the same reform; but he had, so far as we know, neither published nor referred to any law commanding it, and his work was entirely undone. The Deuteronomist, more convinced than he that this step was absolutely necessary to complete the Mosaic legislation on idolatry, and filled with the same inspiration of the Almighty, completed it; and though a reaction followed Josiahs enforcement of this law also, its existence saved the life of the nation. Its principles kept the nation holy, i.e., separate to their God, during the Exile, and at the return they were dominant in the formation of the "congregation."
Certainly there is no lack of earnestness in the way in which these principles are urged. With that love of repetition which is a distinguishing mark of this writer, he expresses the commandment first positively, then negatively. Then he brings in the consequential alteration in the law regarding the slaughtering of animals for food. Again he returns to the command, explaining, enlarging, insisting, and concludes with a reiteration of the permission to slaughter. Efforts, of course, have been made to show that this repetition is due to the amalgamation here of no fewer than seven separate documents! But little heed need be given to such fantastic attempts. It is, once for all, a habit of this writers mind to shrink from no monotony of this kind. There is not one important idea in his book which he does not repeat again and again; and where repetition is so constant a feature, and where the language and thought is so consistent as it is here, it is worse than useless to assert separate documents. The writers earnestness is sufficient explanation. He saw plainly that, so long as the provincial High Places existed and were popular, it would be impossible to secure purity of worship. The heathen conceptions of the Canaanites clung about their ancient sanctuaries, and, like the mists from a fever swamp, infected everything that came near. Inspection sufficiently minute and constant to be of use was impracticable; there remained nothing but to decree their abandonment. When the whole worship of the people was centered at Jerusalem, corruption of the idolatrous kind would, it was hoped, be impossible. There, a pious king could watch over it; there, the Temple priesthood had attained to worthier ideas in regard to sacrifice and the fulfillment of the law than the priests elsewhere. Josiah accordingly rigorously enforced this new law.
Such a change, aimed solely at religious ends, did not stop there. Is many ways it affected the social life of the people; in Deu_12:15-16, and Deu_12:20, Deu_12:24, the author meets one hardship connected with the new law, by allowing men to slay for food at a distance from the altar. According to ancient custom, no flesh could be eaten by any Israelite, save when the fat and the blood had been presented at the altar. During the wilderness journey there would be little difficulty regarding this. In the desert very little meat is eaten; and so long as life was nomadic there would be no hardship in demanding that: those who wished to make sacrificial feasts should wander towards the central place of worship rather than from it. It has been disputed whether there was in those days a tabernacle such as the Priestly Code describes; but there certainly was, according to the earliest documents, a tent in which Yahweh revealed Himself and gave responses. As we have seen, there must have been sacrifice in connection with it; and though worship at other places where Yahweh had made His name to be remembered was permitted, this sanctuary in the camp must have had a certain preeminence. A tendency, but according to the words of Deuteronomy nothing stronger than a tendency, must have shown itself to make this the main place of worship.
When the people crossed the Jordan into the land promised to the fathers, and had abandoned the nomadic life, great difficulty must have arisen. For those at a distance from the place where the Tabernacle was set up, the eating of meat and the enjoyment of sacrificial feasts would, by this ancient customary law, have been rendered impossible, if the attendance at one sanctuary had been obligatory. Only if men could come to local sanctuaries, each in his own neighborhood, could the religious character of the festivals at which meat was eaten be preserved. The nature of mens occupations, now that they had become settled agriculturists, and the dangers from the Canaanites so long as they were not entirely subdued and absorbed, alike forbade such long and frequent journeys to a central sanctuary. The conquest must consequently at once have checked any tendency to centralization that may have existed; and there is reason to believe that the acceptance of the Canaanite High Places as sanctuaries of Yahweh was in great part caused by the demands of this ancient law concerning the "zebbach." In any case it must have helped to overcome any scruples that may have existed. But when the Tabernacle and Ark were brought to Zion, and still more when the Temple was built, the centripetal tendency, never altogether dead, must have revived. For there was peace throughout the land and beyond it. No danger from the Canaanites existed; and the political centralization which Solomon aimed at, and actually carried out, as well as the superior magnificence of the Solomonic Temple and its priests, must have attracted to Jerusalem the thoughts and the reverence of the whole people. What Deuteronomy now makes law may have then first arisen as a demand of the Jerusalem priests. At all events, the very existence of the Temple must have been a menace to the High Places; and we may be sure that among the motives which led the ten tribes to reject the Davidic house, jealousy for the local sanctuaries must have been prominent.
But the separation of the ten tribes would only strengthen the claim of the Temple on Zion to be for Judah the one true place of worship. The territory ruled from Jerusalem was now so small that resort to the central sanctuary was comparatively easy. The glorious memories of the Davidic and Solomonic time would center round Jerusalem. Any local sanctuaries would be entirely dwarfed and overshadowed by the splendor and the, at least comparative, purity of the worship there. Priests of local altars too must inevitably have sunk in the popular estimation, and even in their own, to a secondary and subordinate position, as compared with the carefully organized and strictly graded Jerusalem priests. Even without a positive command, therefore, the people of Judah must have been gradually growing into the habit of seeking Yahweh at Jerusalem on all more solemn religious occasions; and though the High Places might exist, their repute in the Southern Kingdom must have been decreasing. Of course if a command was given in the Mosaic time which had been neglected, the tendencies here traced must have been stronger and more definite than we have depicted them. When the prophetic teachings of Isaiah which proclaimed Jerusalem to be "Ariel," the "sacrificial hearth," or "the hearth of God," were so wondrously confirmed by the destruction of Sennacheribs host before the city, the unique position of Zion must have been secured; and after that only those who were set upon idolatry can have had much interest in the High Places. Hezekiahs effort to abolish these latter is quite intelligible in these circumstances; and we may feel assured that, as Wellhausen says, "The Jewish royal temple had early overshadowed the other sanctuaries, and in the course of the seventh century they were extinct or verging on extinction."
Along with this there must have grown, up a measure of laxity in regard to the provision that all slaughtering for food should take place at the sanctuary. Many would doubtless go to Zion, many would continue to resort to the High Places, and a number, from a mere halting between two opinions, would probably take their "zebhachim" to neither. Consequently the law before us would by no means be so revolutionary as Duhm, for instance, pictures it. He says: "I do not know if in the whole history of the world a law can be pointed to which was so fitted to change a whole people in its innermost nature and in its outward appearance, at one stroke, as this was. The Catholic Church even has never by all her laws succeeded in anything in the least like it." But we have seen evidence of a very strong and continuous pressure to this point, at least in Judah. History during centuries had justified and intensified it; so that in all probability the true worshippers of Yahweh found in the new law not so much a revolution as a ratification of their already ancient practice. To idolaters, of course, its adoption must have meant a cessation of their idolatry; but the change in the people and in their life would, though extensive, be only such as any ordinary reform would produce. Duhm overlooks altogether the very small territory which the law affected. A long days walk would bring men from Jericho, from Hebron, from the borders of the Philistine country, and from Shechem and Samaria to Jerusalem. If Deuteronomy made a revolution, it must have been confined within the modest limits of substituting a whole for a half-days journey to the Sanctuary.
Moreover it is a mistake to say that sacrifice at one central sanctuary "took religion away from the people," as Duhm says. If spiritual religion be meant, it ultimately brought religion more vitally home to them. For when the priestly system was fully carried out, the demands of household religion were met, as the post-exilic Psalms show, by the adoption of the practice of household prayer without reference to sacrifice, and finally by the institution of the synagogue. A more spiritual method of approach to God was substituted for a less spiritual in the remote places and in the homes of the people. And the public worship even gained. It became deeper, and more penetrated with a sense of the necessity of deliverance from sin. It is true, of course, that in the end Pharisaic legalism perverted the new forms of worship, as heathen externalism had perverted the old. But in neither case was the perversion a necessity. In both it was simply a manifestation of the materialistic tendency which dogs the footsteps of even the most spiritual religion, when it has to realize itself in the life of man. It is enough for the justification of the whole movement led by Josiah to say that it held the Judaean exiles together; that it kept alive in their hearts, as nothing else did, their faith in God and in their future; and that on their return it gave them the form which their institutions could most profitably take. Further, under the forms of religious and social life which this movement generated, the true, heartfelt piety which the prophets so mourned the want of became more common than ever it had been before.
The establishment of the central altar as the only one was the main object of this law; but there is much to be learned from the very terms in which this is expressed. They breathe the same love for man and sympathy with the poor which forms one of the most attractive characteristics of our book. The gracious bonds of family affection, the kindly feeling that should unite masters and servants, the helpfulness which ought to distinguish the conduct of the rich to the poor, and above all the cheerful enjoyment of the results of honest labor, are to be preserved and sanctified even in the ritual of sacrifice. "Thou shalt rejoice before Yahweh in all that thou puttest thine hand unto," is here the motto, if we may so speak, of religious service. That, indeed, is to be made the opportunity for the discharge of all humane and brotherly duties; and the religious life is at its highest when the worshipper rejoices himself, and shares and sheds abroad his joy upon others. The love of God is here most intimately blended with love of the brethren. Masters and servants, slaves and free, the high and the low, are to be reminded of their equal standing in the sight of God, by their common participation in the sacrificial meals; and the poorest are to be permitted an equal enjoyment of the luxuries of the rich in these solemn approaches to Yahweh. The Deuteronomist here reaches the highest stage of religious life, in that he shows himself in nowise afraid of human joy. As we have seen, he knows the value of austerity in religion. He is well enough aware that war against evil is not made with rose-water. But then he is equally far from the extreme of suspecting all affection not directly turned to God, of regarding natural gladness as a ruinous snare to the soul. This finely balanced, this just attitude to all aspects of life, is a most notable thing at this epoch in the history of the world, and considering the circumstances of the time it is little short of a marvel. It is true, of course, that the religion of Israel was always finely human. It could run into excesses, and was marked by many imperfections; but asceticism, the doctrine which holds pain and self-denial to be in themselves good, when it did intrude into Israel, always came from without. Nevertheless the heartiness and thoroughness with which all gracious human feelings and all kindly human relations are here taken up into religion is remarkable, even in the Old Testament. More, perhaps, than anything else in this book, it shows the sweetening and wholesome effect of demanding supreme love to God as mans first duty. "If any man come to Me and hate not his father and mother," says Christ, "he cannot be My disciple," {Luk_14:26} and many purblind critics have found this to be a hard saying. But all who know men know, that when God in Christ is made so much the supreme object of love that even the most sacred human obligations seem to be disregarded in comparison, the human affection so thrust into the background is only made richer far than it otherwise could be.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 CRITICAL NOTES.—Moses now begins an exposition of the principal…
CRITICAL NOTES.—Moses now begins an exposition of the principal laws which must govern the people in their ecclesiastical, civil, and domestic life in Canaan. The religious life of Israel is described first. In this chapter a place for God’s worship is chosen, and the right method pointed out.
Deu_12:2. Destroy all “places” of idolatory. Hills and elevated spots they imagined were nearer heaven. Green trees and shades of foilage or wood inspired awe.
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Deu_12:3. Monuments of idolatry destroyed. Altars. piles of turf, or small stones. Pillars, rude blocks of coloured stone used before the art of sculpture was known. Groves, lit. idol, pillars of wood. (cf. Deu_7:5; Deu_16:21.) Names, every trace of existence.
Deu_12:4-5. Not do, as idolators worship in what place and in what way you think fit. God chose the places and in these places alone did He put His name, i.e., manifest his presence. To these appointed places must they resort (seek cf. 2 Chronicles 1-5), to offer gifts and sacrifices. The various kinds of which are given “in order to enforce the order that each and every one of them is to be offered at the sanctuary, and nowhere else.”
Deu_12:6. First, two chief altar offerings. Burnt offerings and sacrifices with which meat offerings and drink offerings were united. (Num_15:4.) Second, tithes and heave offerings types of field produce and cattle (Lev_27:30-33; Num_18:21-24), heave offerings, free gifts of love in addition to legal offerings. Third, vows and free will offerings, in consequence of vows or spontaneous impulse. (Lev_7:16; Lev_22:1; Num_15:3; Num_29:39). Fourth, firstlings of herds and flocks. (cf. Exo_13:2; Num_18:5.)
Deu_12:7. Eat, many injunctions had been allowed to lie in abeyance in their migratory condition, now the whole ritual would be obligatory. The sacrifical feast was to accompany certain offerings, put hand, all undertaken or acquired by activity. (cf. Gen_3:22; Isa_11:14.)
Deu_12:8-9. Reason for these instructions, for up to this time every one had done what he thought right, because they were not in possession of the inheritance.
Deu_12:10-11. But when settled in the land a certain order and a fixed locality should be determined. Choice vows, lit., the choice of your vows, the vows of your choice, voluntary. (Lev_22:21; Num_3:8.)
Deu_12:12. Rejoice. Joy to be the distinctive feature of all sacrificial meals, to be shared by sons and daughters, and by slaves (menservants and maidservants). No part. Levites at gates, i.e., in towns and hamlets (Exo_20:10) resembled strangers, and had no share in the land as hereditary property. “The repeated injunction to invite the Levites to the sacrificial meals is not at variance with Num_18:21, where the tithes are assigned to the tribe of Levi for their maintenance.”—Keil.
Deu_12:13-14. Moses sums up instructions. They must beware of offering sacrifices in every place they thought fit, especially burnt offering, the chief offering.
Deu_12:15. In the wilderness animals for food were slain at the door of the tabernacle. (Lev_17:3 -Ver. 6.) This prohibition, designed to gather them round one centre, and to cut off private idolatrous rites, was now to be relaxed. When the people were scattered they might slay at their houses (gates). Lusteth after, not in a bad sense, but means simply to will or choose. According, in preportion to means and condition. Unclean, as no longer consecrated as sacrifices. “The ceremonial distinctions do not apply in such cases, any more than to ‘the roebuck’ (or gazelle) ‘and hart,’ animals allowed for food but not for sacrifice.”—Speak. Com.
Deu_12:16. Blood forbidden to be eaten (Lev_17:10) was poured as water upon the earth and sucked in.
Deu_12:17-19. Sacrificial meals could only be held at the sanctuary. Servants and foreign slaves were to participate with them; the Levites especially were not to be forgotten.
Deu_12:20. These rules were to be in force when God would enlarge their border. If too far off (Deu_12:21) to come, the allowance in Deu_12:15-16, is repeated, and the reason of it given. Be sure, (Deu_12:23) lit., be strong, steadfast, determined to resist temptation to eat blood—a temptation to which they were specially exposed, probably.
Deu_12:23-24. The law relating to blood as in Deu_12:16.
Deu_12:26. Holy things, tithes, etc., as in Deu_12:17; not tithes for Levites, but special gifts of thankfulness and piety to be presented as peace offerings at the sanctuary. Vow. (Gen_28:20.)
Deu_12:27. The flesh and blood of burnt offerings were to be put upon the altar. (Lev_1:5-9.) The blood of sacrifices in the ritual of the peace offering was poured out. (Lev_3:2; Lev_3:8; Lev_3:13.) Eat. (Lev_7:11.)
Deu_12:28. The closing admonition in expansion of Deu_12:25. (cf. Deu_11:21.)
Deu_12:29-32. A reference to the beginning (Deu_12:2), and a warning against Canaanitish idolatry. Heed. Be not ensnared by the worship of the local deities, the neglect of which was thought would bring misfortune, (cf. 2Ki_17:26.) The fire. The heathens prepare all kinds of abominations for their gods which Jehovah hates. They even burn their children to their idols. (Leviticus 18; Jer_32:35.) Observe. This verse is best taken “as an intermediate link, closing what goes before, and introductory to what follows.”—Keil.
THE LAWS OF DIVINE WORSHIP.—Deu_12:1-32
“Having thus rehearsed the Decalogue and enforced its leading principles, Moses now passes on to apply those principles to the ecclesiastical, civil, and social life of the people. Fourteen chapters are thus occupied. Many particulars are peculiar to the law given in Deuteronomy. The Sinaitic legislation was nearly forty years old, and had been given under conditions of time, place, and circumstances very different. Canaan was in sight, the legislator Himself was about to be withdrawn, and in the ripeness of his wisdom he now completes his work by enlarging, explaining, modifying and supplementing under Divine guidance the code which he promulgated in earlier days. Moses fitly begins with regulations pertaining to the worship of the Israelites during their settled life in Canaan” (cf. Speak. Com.). Taking the whole chapter, we get the following outline—
I. Worship as a protest to heathen idolatry. The invasion of Canaan was a new period in life—a period of true service and purified character.
1. Idolatry was not to be imitated (Deu_12:29-31). They must shun superstitions, and take heed not to be ensnared by their prevalence and popularity.
2. Idolatry was to be destroyed (Deu_12:2-4). Its monuments to be overturned, and its places swept away that God might come down and dwell among them.
II. Worship localised in its position (Deu_12:4-5). God would select a spot to which Israel must resort, institute a worship which should appeal to the senses, and teach the truth that where His people meet there He dwells. (1Ki_8:29; 2Ch_7:12.)
III. Worship joyful in its nature (Deu_12:7). There was enough in Israel’s past and present history to make them joyful. It is God’s will that we should serve Him with gladness, and never cover His. altar with tears. (Mal_2:13.) Religion should never be a task or drudgery, but a pleasure. God commands those who worship Him to be joyful. “Neither be ye sorry, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”
IV. Worship Divine in its regulations. God only knows and prescribes what is acceptable to Him. We must not follow custom, nor devise for ourselves. In papal ceremonies and the worship of images we have ingenuity “graven by art and man’s device” (Act_17:29)—“a show of wisdom in will worship” (worship arbitrarily invented, devised by self-will, not by God, and which has a reputation of wisdom.) (Col_2:23.)
V. Worship obligatory in its ritual. There was room for vows, free-will offerings and voluntary efforts; yet the worship was binding upon all. The command was peremptory. Households and tribes must come to the appointed place (Deu_12:6). They must bring the kind of offerings specified, and no other. It is our duty to recognise God as our protector (Deu_12:10) and proprietor. Our attendance in His house should not be matter of form or custom, but of conscience.
Return, my senses, range no more abroad;
He only finds his bliss who seeks for God.—Parnell.
THE CHOSEN PLACE.—Deu_12:4-6
The name of the place is not mentioned by Moses. Different places were chosen in after times, Mizpeh, Shiloh and Jerusalem. “This studied silence was maintained partly lest the Canaanites, within whose territory it lay, might have concentrated their forces to frustrate all hopes of obtaining it; partly lest the desire of possessing a place of such importance might have become a cause of strife or rivalry amongst the Hebrew tribes, as about the appointment to the priesthood.” (Numbers 16.)—Jamieson
I. An assertion of God’s right to every place. All the earth belongs to God. He has perfect right to appropriate any spot. “The Lord hath chosen Zion; He hath desired it for His habitation.” Now spiritual incense may be offered in every place. (Mal_1:11.) There has been divine order and gradual revelation in the worship of God; “but the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father.” The heart, spirit and truth are required more than place. (Joh_4:21-24.)
II. A Dwelling place for God. “To put His name there.” God’s name is in every place, where He specially reveals Himself (cf. 1Ki_8:29), and which is therefore His habitation or dwelling place. The God of heaven will indeed dwell with men upon earth. God is specially present in His house—a place distinguished by His presence—detached from secular pursuits, and attended by true worshippers—the most solemn and attractive place on earth. “How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” (Gen_28:17.)
III. An aid to unity. To this chosen place all the tribes were to repair several times a year. The meeting would thus counteract local interests, tribal jealousies, and feuds. Like the Grecian games the festivals would cultivate national feeling and act as a bond of union. They were not merely commemorations of great events, but occasions for the reunion of friends, the enjoyments of hospitality and interchange of kindness. They opened the heart to joy and gave a welcome to the stranger and the fatherless. The Christian Church is a unity of many people, the centre of friendships and joys. “Jerusalem is builded (the well built one) as a city that is compact together (in unity), whither the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, unto the testimony of Israel (i.e., a law or custom to Israel, or a testimony to Israel’s covenant).” (Psa_120:3-4.)
IV. A preservative of purity. “That there should be one national centre for the religion of the people was obviously essential to the great ends of the whole dispensation. Had fanciful varieties of worship such as Polytheism delighted in been tolerated, the Israelites would soon have lapsed into idolatry, and the deposit of the true faith and knowledge of God would have been, humanly speaking hopelessly lost.” (Speak. Com.) This holy ground, sanctified by God’ s presence and consecrated to His service, demands purity of motive, heart and life. “Feigned holiness is a double evil,” says St. Jerome. “Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in His holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart, etc.” (Psa_24:3-5.)
Look to thy actions well,
For churches either are our heaven or hell.
(Geo. Herbert.)
THE BLESSINGS OF PUBLIC WORSHIP.—Deu_12:5-6
It is advantageous individually and socially to meet together in religious worship.
I. It is a necessity of our moral nature. As social beings we crave for the society of our fellowmen; as religious creatures we depend upon God and seek His presence. Worship is needful to satisfy our instincts and hearts—to develope our nature and dispositions.
II. It is a bond of Christian fellowship. In this hallowed spot dearest friends “meet and mingle into bliss.” Here is delight with the excellent of the earth, sympathy and sweet converse with God and His people. Public prayer and praise have a sensible tendency to unite men together and to cherish and enlarge their generous affections.
III. It is an advantage to the nation. The national assembly to Israel was an immense advantage. But for public worship the greater part of mankind would have no instruction—no religion at all. This diffuses knowledge among the people, unites different classes of society and preserves real godliness in the nation.
IV. It is a duty of Divine appointment. “Thither shalt thou come, bring burnt offerings and eat” The apostle reproved those who deserted public worship. “Not forsaking the assembly of ourselves together, as the manner of some is.” (Heb_10:25.), We are not to forget the command of God, nor dispute the practice of apostolic churches and Christian communities in every age. “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God.”
THE FUTURE INHERITANCE.—Deu_12:9-10
Canaan is here described in a way adapted to the condition of Israel and may typify the future portion of the believer.
I. The description given.
1. A rest; “the rest.” “This is the scene of combat, not of rest.” At the end of the journey, will be peace, “quietness and assurance for ever.” “My chief conception of heaven is perfect rest,” said Robert Hall.
2. An inheritance not gained by hereditary succession, merit, or human friendship; but prepared for “the saints in light”—an inheritance “incorruptible and undefiled and fadeth not away.”
3. A gift. “The Lord your God giveth you”—a pure, munificent, and unparalled gift in Christ Jesus. Denoting great love, freeness and blessing.
4. A dwelling. “So that ye dwell in safety.” Beautiful in situation, secure in possessions, “it stands securely high, indissolubly sure.” The metropolis of the universe, the abode of saints, the palace of angels, and the residence of the Great King.
O ye blest scenes of permanent delight!
Full without measure! Lasting beyond bound!
A perpetuity of bliss, is bliss.
Could you, so rich in rapture, fear an end,
That ghastly thought would drink up all your joy,
And quite imparadise the realms of light.
II. The relation to this inheritance indicated. “Ye are not as yet come to the rest.” God’s people are seeking it and will attain it. Many come near but do not enter it. Hence all should take warning, be encouraged, and strive to enter it. “It is the best of all blessings,” said David Stoner, “to die well, and get safely home to heaven.” “Arise ye and depart, for this is not your rest.”
HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Deu_12:1.
1. The duty. “Observe to do.” Weighty and most important.
2. Method of performing it. (a) Considerately “observe.” (b) Continually “all the days ye live upon earth.” “A sense of duty pursues us ever. It is omnipresent like the Deity.”—J. Webster.
The path of duty is the way to glory.
Tennyson.
Deu_12:2-3. Destruction of idolatry. A divine command. A prudent policy. A good example. “We easily fall into idolatry; for we are inclined thereunto by nature, and coming to us by inheritance, it seems pleasant.”—Luther.
Deu_12:5.
1. The place. The heathen sought and worshipped gods of nature wherever they could discern any trace of Divinity.
2. The name. The name indicates the manifestation of his presence in the place; “presents his personality, as comprehended in the word Jehovah, in a visible sign, the tangible sign of his essential presence.” (Keil.)
3. The seeking. Not merely turn in’ a certain direction; but to inquire for something. Hence come to God’s house for a purpose, in anxiety to fulfil that purpose. Not to seek entertainment, for it is not a place of amusement (Eze_33:22); nor to attend with worldlimindedness; for it is not the house of merchandise (Luk_19:45-46). We must not profane it by sinful indulgence and Satan’s service (Jas_1:21). Attend with serious consideration, constant watchfulness and deep concern to obtain God’s blessing.
Deu_12:7; Deu_12:12. Joyful Worship. This joy springs—
1. From Divine goodness, past and present.
2. Great numbers, households and tribes.
3. Reciprocal feeling, warm hearts will create joy in prayer and praise and vibrate like chords in harmony. There is a place for song as well as meditation in the sanctuary. “Thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God.”
Deu_12:9. Not come to the rest. No more are any of us indeed, till we come to that “rest which remaineth for the people of God.” (Heb_4:3; Heb_4:8-10). The ark was transportive till settled in Solomon’s temple; so till we come to heaven are we in continual unrest.—(Trapp). Learn:
1. The insufficiency of earthly bliss; both to the believer and unbeliever.
2. The nature of heavenly bliss. Complete, perpetual and certain. Causes of evil and distress removed, and communications of glory beyond description.
THE SACREDNESS OF BLOOD.—Deu_12:16; Deu_12:20-23
The prohibition to use blood is most distinct and often repeated, and that for many reasons.
I. Blood sacred as an article of food. In Pagan and uncivilised nations it was the custom to eat flesh whilst quivering with life and to drink blood mixed with wine, as a right of idolatrous worship. (cf. 1Sa_14:32; Eze_33:25; Acts 15.) But when animal food was granted to man it was forbidden “to eat flesh with its soul, its blood.” (Gen_9:4.) The body may become food, but the blood, the life of the body which is the gift of God must be treated with reverence and reserved for Him.
II. Blood sacred as an emblem of life. Blood is the seat, the source of life. It contains the vital principle of all animal life, “For it is the life of all flesh,” (Deu_12:14). “Man is man only by virtue of his blood, and nature is chiefly admirable as supplying its ingredients.”—(Grindon.) Blood is distinguished from all other constituents of the human body. “It is the fountain of life, the first to live and last to die, and the primary seat of the animal soul; it lives and is nourished of itself, and by no other part of the human body.”—(Harvey.) When the blood is shed the life is gone. Hence, man or beast guilty of this act must be put to death.” “Blood of your lives will I require.” (Gen_9:5; Exo_21:12-28.)
Murder may pass unpunish’d for a time,
But tardy justice will o’ertake the crime.—Dryden.
III. Blood sacred as an element of expiation. As the blood was identical with the life and represented the soul of the victim, God appointed it as a substitute for the sinner’s life. Thus the life of the sacrifice was an atonement for the life of the offerer. It was an established rabbinical maxim that “there is no expiation except by blood,” a principle recognised in Heb_9:22 “without shedding of blood there is no remission.” Let us be thankful that Christ died, and shed His precious blood for us—blood which cleanseth from all sin and “which speaketh better things than that of Abel.” Never count the blood of the covenant, by which we are sanctified and saved “an unholy (or common) thing” (Heb_10:29) and thus insult God and lose your soul!
DIRECTIONS IN THE CHOICE OF ANIMAL FOOD.—Deu_12:15-16; Deu_12:20-26
The instructions concerning food were given to the Israelites in a way most convenient and generally understood at the time. God separated His people from others and all their laws reminded them of His covenant. Even laws of diet and regulations in the choice of food were given to teach dependence and enforce obedience.
I. Food in its benevolent design. Life requires for its maintenance constant supplies of food. Creatures may fast long, but can never dispense with food altogether. We may therefore learn the goodness of God in caring for the body, in providing sufficient and wholesome food, and in the enjoyment and strength which it gives. Since food is necessary we are taught to labour and pray for its continuance. “Give us this day our daily bread.” In legislating for our lower nature God teaches what is wholesome and unwholesome—suggests His greater care for our higher wants, food for mind, heart and soul, and reminds us of the care which should exercise over body and soul.
II. Food in its ceremonial use. In the garden of Eden vegetables were given to man (Gen_1:29). Animal food was granted first to Noah (Gen_9:25). In patriarchal times food consisted of flesh of animals tame and wild, as well as cereals. In the wilderness supplies came from heaven. In the promised land special rules were given as to kind of animals to be used. (Leviticus 11, Deuteronomy 14.) The Israelites were not to eat animals which were unclean, which were offered to idols (Exo_34:15); and which had been torn by wild beasts (Lev_22:8 cf. Eze_4:14). All animals for food had formerly to be killed at the door of the tabernacle (Lev_16:1-8), but in view of entrance into the land the prohibition is relaxed. More liberty was given, but the blood of the animal was prohibited to prevent ferocity in men towards lower creatures and profanation of a sacred element. The separation of animals into clean and unclean would remind Israel of their separation from the nations. They were not to join in convivals feasts and social banquets of idolaters. Their ordinary meals must be chosen with care and eaten in gratitude. We must be temperate, orderly and obedient in the government of the table, and exercise control over appetites and desires. Touch nothing unclean, regard the sanctity of life and let thanks giving be offered with daily food. (1Ti_4:4-5.) “Whether, therefore, ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.”
HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Deu_12:16. The prohibition of blood. To elucidate this ordinance, I shall—I. Confirm the fact here stated. God had from the beginning appointed the blood of animals to be offered by man as an atonement for his soul. This appears throughout all the Mosaic history and the New Testament II. Consider the prohibition as founded on it. It was most salutary as tending—
1. To excite reverence for sacrifices.
2. To bring continually to remembrance the way of salvation.
3. To direct attention to the great sacrifice.—C. Simeon, M.A.
Deu_12:20-26. Laws of diet.
1. Founded upon God’s will.
2. Related to the health of the people. Most of animals forbidden are unclean and unwholesome—others injurious in warm countries. To please the appetite is often prejudicial to health.
3. Designed to promote religions sanctity. We must be separate from all uncleanness; in religious worship and in the common acts of life. “Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things; for in all these the nations are defiled, which I cast out before you.”
Here’s neither want of appetite no mouths;
Pray heaven we be not scant of meat or mirth.—Shakespeare.
THE LEVITE.—Deu_12:19
This frequently recurring description of the Levites (cf. Deu_12:18, Deu_14:27; Deu_16:11; Deu_16:14; Deu_18:6; Deu_26:12), does not assume that they were homeless, which would be at variance with the allotment of towns for them to dwell in (Numbers 35); but simply implies what is frequently added in explanation “that the Levites had no part nor inheritance,” no share of the land as their hereditary property, and in this respect resembled strangers (Deu_14:21; Deu_14:29; Deu_16:11). And the repeated injunction to invite the Levites to the sacrificial meals is not at variance with Num_18:21, where the tithes are assigned to the tribe of Levi for their maintenance. For, however ample this revenue may have been according to the law, it was so entirely dependent upon the honesty and conscientiousness of the people that the Levites might very easily be brought into a straitened condition, if indifference toward the Lord and his servants should prevail throughout the nation.—Keil.
I. The Levites, servants of the people. They were appointed to teach and officiate for Israel before God and thus prevent the anger of God from coming upon the people (cf. Num_8:18-22.) They were given to the people and depended upon their help and generosity, designed to train them for service and not absolve them from duty. In heathen countries the priestly caste was hereditary, wealthy, and held much of the land (cf. Gen_47:2), but the Levites had no landed property, were servants of God and the people. “Behold I have taken your brethren the Levites from among the children of Israel; to you they are given as a gift for the Lord, to do the service of the tabernacle of the congregation” (Num_17:6).
II. The Levites, servants of God. God claimed them as the first-born, separated and cleansed them. They were dedicated to him as Israel’s representatives in holy work. They had no worldly portion in houses and land. The avenues to wealth and power were closed to them. God alone was their inheritance in the riches of His grace and the resources of His providence.
WARNING AGAINST SNARES.—Deu_12:29-32
During the sojourn in Egypt Israel became familiar with the customs of idolatry. From this idolatry they were scarcely weaned. Since the forms of licentiousness were worse in the land which they were to inherit, there was need of caution. “Forewarned, forearmed.”
I. The need of warning. In circumstances most favourable and secure there is need of watchfulness and prayer.
1. The dangers were great. “Take heed”—Evils might be vivid, abominable, and cruel, but familiarity would weaken resistance and ensnare. The vices of a companion and of society may be gross and palpable to others, yet (says Shakespeare) “a friendly eye cannot see such faults.”
2. The attractions were strong. Idol worship was ancient and prevalent. Fashions are often popular and attractive. “Do at Rome what Rome does” is the rule of many. But conscience must be regarded, and the command of God obeyed.
3. The foe was conquered, not subdued. Sins may revive, and habits not broken may regain their dominion and tyranny. Men may cease to swear and forsake intemperate ways, and yet be afterwards ensnared. Pity for the enemy, and dependence upon resolves, must not throw us off our guard.
II. The consequences of neglecting the warning. There must be no curiosity, no parley, but constant regard to the word of God.
1. Neglect would offend God. Idolatry was hateful to God, and if guilty we lose His favour and protection. We must hate what He hates, and assimilate our tastes and habits to His. We shall never err, if we “observe to do” His commandments.
2. Neglect would bring ruin upon themselves. Idolatry had been the overthrow of Pharaoh, and the destruction of surrounding nations. It will bring utter ruin to individuals and nations who persist in it. Israel sadly fell by neglecting this caution. (Jer_32:35; Eze_23:37.) “They followed vanity and became vain, and went after the heathen that were round about them, concerning whom the Lord had charged them, that they should not do like them.” (2Ki_17:15.)
HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Deu_12:25. Not eat. Who can ever think any commandment of God to be light or little, when this of not eating the blood is charged with so much strictness? The minutula of the law, as well as the magnalia, must be carefully heeded and practised.—Trapp.
Deu_12:29. Cut off nations. God in the history of nations.
1. Appointing their lot. (Jos_23:4).
2. Robbed of their inheritance. “God shall cut off the nations.”
3. Succeeding to their possessions. “Thou succeedest them.”
4. Secure in their dwelling “and dwellest in the land.” “The life of a nation,” says Dr. Arnold, “is to me as distinct as that of an individual.” “The Lord is governor among the nations.” (Psa_22:28; 1Ch_16:31.)
Deu_12:31. Idolatry.
1. Abominable to God.
2. Cruel to humanity.
3. Easily fallen into. “We are inclined thereunto by nature, and coming to us by inheritance, it seems pleasant.”—Luther.
Deu_12:31.
1. The command a rule of duty. “Observe to do it.”
2. A complete rule of duty. “Thou shalt not add, nor diminish.” Add by pretending to have received similar divine revelations and persuading men to believe them, as Mahomet and others; diminish, by taking from them, denying them to be from God, and acting contrary to them.” From these words it is evident that the Jews were not to add any other rites of worship of their own devising, or from the idolatrous customs of those countries, nor omit any of those which God had commanded them to use, For if they had used any of the Gentile ceremonies, whereby they honoured their gods, it would easily have introduced the worship of the gods themselves; and if they had omitted any of the rites which God had ordained, some other would have easily stepped into their room which were used by idolators.”—Wilson.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 12
Deu_12:1-4. Destroy. This is a very important law: in this world, unhappily, names are often things; for whenever a party wish to get power, a party holding erroneous doctrines, the first thing they do is to establish titles; and when they have got titles, they soon follow them up by asserting realities. And therefore it is very wisely provided here that not only should the scenes, the altars, and the groves, all be overturned, as having been desecrated by practices that were abominable in the sight of a holy God, but that even the very names that might remind of that superstition that had passed away should be expunged from their vocabularies, and not mentioned even in their conversation.—Dr. Cumming.
Deu_12:5-7. Place. When we remember what the policy and practice of all the kings of Israel was, viz., to draw off their subjects from the place where God set His name and to deter them from going to Judah and Jerusalem, by means of the calves of Bethel and of Dan … it is not possible that Deuteronomy, requiring every Israelite to bring his sacrifice to the place which the Lord should choose to set His name there, should ever have been accepted as genuine and inspired if its genuineness and inspiration had not been incontrovertible (Bp. Wordsworth). It is a wise, a salutary, and a laudable provision of the Church’s discipline, that she sets apart, and consecrates, by solemn religious rites to God’s glory, the places which she intends for His worship; and by outward signs of decency, and reverence of majesty and holiness, impresses them with an appropriate character which, whilst it redounds to the honour of God, operates also with no mean or trivial influence on the minds of His people. A certain sense of holy pleasure is diffused over the pious and meditative mind, as soon as the feet cross the threshold which separates the house of God from common places. We feel that we are on “holy ground;” and a still small voice within, as we draw near to “worship God in the beauty of holiness,” “it is good for us to be here.”—Bp. Mant.
Deu_12:17-18; Deuteronomy 20 -
26. Eat. Some people have a foolish way of not minding or pretending not to mind what they eat. For my part, I mind very studiously; for I look upon it, that he who does not mind this, will hardly mind anything else. (Dr. Johnson.) Moderation is absolutely required in the lower things of life, especially in that of eating. Health—one of the greatest blessings of life—depends upon it; so also the happy flow of spirits, without which life is at least a perfect blank.—E. Davies.
Deu_12:26. Vows.
Unheeded vows may heedfully be broken;
And he wants wit, that wants resolved will,
To learn his wit to exchange the bad for better.—Shakespeare.
Deu_12:30-32. Take heed. There is a story which tells of a bell suspended on a rock dangerous to navigation. The waves of the ocean beating upon it caused it to make a noise to keep off the approaching mariner. It is said that at one time some pirates destroyed the bell to prevent the warning. Not long after, these very pirates struck upon the rock and were lost. How many hush the voice of warning at the point of danger, and founder upon the rock of temptation and are lost for ever.—McCosh.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 Deu 12:8-9
Deu 12:8-9
Moses warns the Israelites here in the text that it would be a great mistake if they supposed themselves more at their ease and liberty when they were in Canaan than when they were in the wilderness. He mentions it as one of the advantages of Canaan that they would there be able to live by a stricter and more exact rule than they could possibly do in the desert. In the same way, our Saviour, inviting us to the blessings of the Gospel, describes them as a yoke and a burden, easy, indeed, and light, yet still a yoke and a burden.
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I. We see, then, that both the law and the Gospel consider it a great blessing to be kept under strict rules. This way of thinking is by no means the way of the world. People in general like nothing so much as having their own choice in all things. We see this: (1) in the eagerness of children to get out of the state of childhood; (2) in our unwillingness to take advice, even from the wisest; (3) in our unwillingness to let God choose for us, and our impatience under the burdens He lays upon us.
II. To have this thought of being overruled and guided at every step firmly fixed within us will prove the greatest of all blessings both as to our rest in this world and our inheritance in that which is to come. It helps us greatly in the performance of our duty, because, in truth, it leaves us nothing else to do. It prepares and trains us for everlasting happiness in heaven. For the very secret of our enjoyment there will be that God’s will shall be ours. It shows the high and noble uses to which we may turn all our worst disappointments. They are so many lessons in God’s school, each intended to make us more perfect in that Divine art of having the same will that He has.
Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times" vol. ii., p. 104 (see also Keble, Sermons for the Christian Year: Ascension Day to Trinity Sunday, p. 53).
References: Deu 12:9.—Parker, vol. v., p. 9. Deu 12:10.—Ibid., p. 10. Deut 12.—Ibid., p. 220.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain On v1 Subdivision 2. (Deu 12:1-32; Deu 13:1-18; Deu 14:1-29; Deu…
Subdivision 2. (Deu 12:1-32; Deu 13:1-18; Deu 14:1-29; Deu 15:1-23; Deu 16:1-22; Deu 17:1-20; Deu 18:1-22; Deu 19:1-21; Deu 20:1-20; Deu 21:1-23; Deu 22:1-30; Deu 23:1-25; Deu 24:1-22; Deu 25:1-19; Deu 26:1-19.)
Application to the various relationships in which men stand to God or the world around them.
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The essence of the law, then, is whole-hearted love to God, who has revealed Himself in such a way as to be fully entitled to it. He who was of old their Creator is now their Redeemer; and the law comes to them laden with the mercies of life which man so keenly appreciates, (if not, alas! as mercies,) and with the memories of broken bonds to enhance their appreciation.
But the love of God of necessity implies the desire of moral assimilation to Him; and thus the law becomes a means to this. In His commandments we learn Himself, -not, indeed, as Christ reveals Him, for there was yet, and in this sense, a wail over His face, -but in such measure as was at present possible. In the practical application of the "ten words," we find still more than in the tables themselves, that the law made nothing perfect, and that such and such allowances had to be made in view of the hardness of their hearts, as the Lord declares. (Mat 19:8.) Spite of this, the imitation of God Himself is plainly what the law requires. (Deu 10:18-19.)
1. We have now the illustration of this in special commandments which amplify and apply the law to the special relationships of life, and in an orderly way, beginning once more with the first table though, of course, not with the first commandment which has been already dwelt upon and emphasized. The first section is thus marked out as applying to the first table, -to duties Godward.
(1) And of these the first subsection gives one whose importance must be apparent by the way it is insisted on. It is emphasized too as imposed of the Lord’s own will. He would choose one place out of all their tribes to put His name, and there they were to bring their gifts and offerings. There was to be one centre of gathering for all Israel: it is no question of what exceptionally God might. Himself command, as in the case of Gideon (Jdg 6:26), or of Manoah (13: 16), or of a prophet like Samuel (1Sa 7:9; 1Sa 10:8), -things which merely show that God was necessarily above His own law, and which might be argued as much to set aside the distinctive priesthood in Aaron’s family, as the one place of sacrifice. How should a law for Israel as a whole take notice of such rare exceptions? In fact, to none of these places were the people to come, nor did they. Shiloh first after the conquest of the land, and then Jerusalem, were the chosen centres. Between the two was a time of ruin, in which, it is said, irrespective of law, "every man did that which was right in his own eyes." (Jdg 21:25.) In such a time God acted in His goodness, outside the established order.
These ordinances are expressly given for the land, and are in character often supplementary to those given at Sinai. (Deu 29:1.) This accounts for much of the seeming contradiction, out of which infidelity has sought to make capital in her own behalf. To these cavils there have been replies in abundance, and they need not be repeated here, where we have but too little room for what is directly for edification. For souls to be nourished up in the positive teaching of the Word of God is also the best preserver from the questionings of unbelief, so easy to multiply, and whose factories pay such poor wages to the workman.
Here as a first necessity in order to maintain that pure worship of God which their existence as a nation in the midst of surrounding idolatry was to conserve, He once more insists upon the absolute extirpation of idolatry out of the land. All signs, every memorial of it, they were to destroy: the very names of the false gods were to be forgotten. Heathenism had possessed itself of the land: hills, groves, everywhere had been associated with the pollutions of impure and cruel rites. From all these, Israel’s eyes were to be called away to their one place chosen of God, where, without visible image or similitude, among all the creatures of His hand, Jehovah dwelt. There they were to bring all their offerings, and, filled with the blessing of the Lord, to eat and rejoice before Him, -themselves and their households.
A precious thing is this ability to rejoice before God. It is all power, all security for holiness, -the "joy of the Lord is your strength." (Neh 8:10.) Israel attached by the heart to this light- and heat-giving centre, their whole life was to revolve around it in the orbit of obedience, no more seeking release than the earth would of the sun. Here, then, God fixes the centre for them, -His sanctuary the heart of the land, from which should pulse and return the vivifying streams to every part. For He will be no man’s debtor: of His own only can we give Him and he who gives to Him indeed, enriches himself by giving. Has He hunger that shall be fed with Israel’s offerings? Has He need that He ordains them to satisfy? Yes: the need of love for its object. He is Love. His "delights are with the sons of men."
In a lesser sense they are taught to make all taking of life a "sacrifice" to the Lord, the word being used here with regard to what is at any time used for food, the blood being poured upon the ground as the life which belongs to God. It is the application of the principle of Lev 17:1-16 (which in its full detail was only possible in the camp in the wilderness) to the land at large. Here, as there, the sacredness of life was to be realized, and their own life to be constantly lifted into spiritual meaning, and brought near to God. Each common meal was to have, as far as this could be given to it, the character of a peace-offering: it was to be enjoyed in communion with God.
Care for the Levite is also insisted on, for if we are with God, He is master of the table at which He sits, and His pensioners become ours. Finally, the extension of the boundaries of the land beyond their present assignment is distinctly contemplated and provided for.
The uses of this provision of one only centre of gathering in the land for a people exposed and prone to yield to the seductions of an idolatry which had connected itself with every part of the scene around them, are evident enough in turning their eyes away from these, removing as far as possible the old associations, so powerful as they prove themselves, and bringing the whole people together under one manifest allegiance. This one sanctuary, with its Levite guard, and the awful Presence which abode there, was a security against the introduction of man’s will which for a people such as Israel nothing else could give. For her own purposes, and with evident wisdom, Rome has sought to imitate this. All she has lacked is that divine presence with her, which she has recognized indeed as necessary, and has not failed to claim. Metropolitanism in spiritual things has never been transferred from Jerusalem, though Jerusalem for centuries has been set aside from what was her glory, -what will again be this, -that she was the city of God. The city of God for Christianity is heavenly" Jerusalem which is above, which is our mother." (Gal 4:26.) The dwelling-place of God on earth is the Church which is formed by the Holy Ghost of living stones, which Peter himself has with prophetic significance been made to announce to us. (1Pe 2:5.) Practically, the presence of the Lord is with any "two or three gathered to" His "name." (Mat 18:20.) Unity now is spiritual, not local. To put it better, the centre of gathering is One hid in heaven, whose "name" alone unites us upon earth. But thank God we are not thus at distance from our centre ever: wherever we gather to His name He is.
(2) As the first subsection has thus to do with the maintenance of the sovereignty of the one true God, the second naturally treats of those who should turn aside to follow other gods. And here the closing verses of the twelfth chapter seem clearly the beginning of the subject of the thirteenth. The prohibition a all thought of such service, or of mixing it in any way with the service of Jehovah, which they were jealously to adhere to without addition or diminution, leads on to the treatment of seducers in the shape of false prophets, or among kindred and bosom friends, and then where even a whole city might have gone astray.
In the first place, there was to be no borrowing from the worship of false gods, much less going after themselves. A false god implies necessarily what is false and evil morally for were not man’s conscience defiled, he could not be away from God. The apostle’s history of the development of idolatry (Rom 1:1-32) is a true picture of every case, and the gods men take to themselves are a faithful picture of the lusts which call for them. It follows as a thing of course that their service gratifies these and develops them, remorse of conscience coming in, however, and claiming frightful penalties, until men offer the fruit of their bodies for the sin of their souls, passion and fear holding them alternately in bondage. God’s will as proclaimed by His commandments is the only path of light and freedom: they were not to add or take away from it.
Secondly, they were to learn the supremacy of the moral in what might claim to be miracle, and thus decisive witness of what it was wrought to attest. This is a most important principle even now, when from Romanism to Mormonism and to Spiritualism, the supernatural is appealed to as establishing any thing as truth. Not so does the Word of God use it. Confirm the truth it may awaken attention to it, it will: sound the alarm-bell in the conscience, summon response from the heart but that which compels belief is the manifest truth, -truth which is always pure, always holy, always witnesses for God within the soul. "By their fruits shall ye know them," says the Lord as to the false prophets. No jugglery can bring forth grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles.
God may, it is plainly stated, allow a sign to come to pass as predicted. The "wicked one" of the last days comes with "all power and signs and lying wonders," things that shall take captive with strong delusion those that have "not received the love of the truth, that they might be saved." (2Th 2:1-17) There is a moral order in all this, and no cause for marvel that they that love lies, and will have them, should find that what they have embraced for truth has been a lie. Those that are of the truth hear the truth -Christ’s voice, -none others. This is the unalterable and holy law of God’s holy government: "there is a way that seemeth right unto a man, and the end thereof are the ways of death."
How deep this sends home to us the question, so necessary and so healthful as it is, where, and what are we? How well it assures us that if in any thing we deal untruly with our souls, we can make no covenant with the deceit we have invited -deceit will deceive all round! How well may the voice of Truth cry to the sons of men: "All they that hate Me love death"! (Pro 8:36.)
This does not displace the miracle, as some would have it, from its place of witness. It only fixes its place, and refuses to make a servant master; assures us that we everywhere have need of open eyes and conscience, lest we become the poor slaves of superstition that millions are, and from which our vaunted civilization in no wise delivers us.
This second warning is against deception; but "Adam was not deceived," yet was seduced. The wife gave) to her husband, and with open eyes he fell. The third section here warns against this seduction. If it come from thy brother, the son of thy mother, or from the wife of thy bosom, or the friend who is as thine own soul, still the seducer to false gods must perish, and thou thyself have the responsibility of this, thy hand must be first upon him. This supposes public trial and full proof, of course, -sufficient witness, without which no life could be taken in Israel. The thing so proved, nothing remained but judgment: the judgment that fell upon Canaan and her gods must fall upon him who would bring back the gods and so the Canaan. It was God’s judgment -amply just as God’s must be; just, if ever judgment is just; and the smiting of a love which could not suffer the blight and canker to come upon His people whom He had saved from Egypt and brought home to Himself. Christianity does not smite thus, not because it is not just, but because Christianity is the spirit of grace in a world which has rejected Christ, and in which no divine throne any longer exists as it existed in Israel. But the judgment is reserved only for the time that is surely coming, upon all who refuse still the grace. The tenderest lips that have ever spoken shall pronounce it, the hearts of saints shall say their amen to it, and the consciences of those condemned shall own its justice in that day.
The last case provided for is where a whole city is gone astray from God, in which case it comes under the ban, and is to be destroyed utterly, never to be rebuilt. Thus only could the mercy of God go forth in blessing once more for the land.
(3) We have now three things put together which seem to have little connection with one another or with the topic of consecration to God upon which the first commandment is here directly based. We have indeed to remember that (as has been already said) only illustrations are given us of principles much wider in application. Yet we shall find surely here, as always, that divine wisdom has ordered every thing, and that the illustrations are really such as this supposes. If we take from the passage the typical, that is, the prophetic, spiritual meaning, then indeed we may expect the meagreness which must result from such spoliation; but this will be our own fault entirely, and we do not so propose to treat the blessed Word of God. The New Testament must light up the Old; and in this we deal no more untruly with it than the light does when it floods a landscape with the day. For us the day is come, and we are children of it.
(a) Whatever may be the value of what follows, it is plain that it is based upon a wondrous place that Israel had, their being sons to Jehovah their God. This was their special place among the nations: they had, as the apostle says, "the adoption." It did not involve for them, what it does for us now their being children of God as new-born of the Spirit, although where faith was truly in the heart, there of course was new birth at any time. If we read this, then, in the light of God’s desire for them, we may and must bring it in. By and by, it will be in fact accomplished as to the whole nation.
"Life," and that in its full sense, a life which the children of God have, gives evidently its fullness to the meaning here. Death is not to have power over the sons of God. "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living." It would be to dishonor Him, therefore, to make cuttings in the flesh for the dead, -ineffaceable marks of grief for that which touched not the true life, and which the hand of God was to remove forever. Except we take in this thought of life, who could refuse to own the power of that under which in fact all would be? Death brings things here to an end, and the more their value, the greater ruin accomplished. It is not to be endured, then, the notion that the Pentateuch is Sadducean, although only by the gospel indeed are life and incorruption fully brought to light. There is darkness, but to faith not impenetrable, as, in fact, we know it was not unpenetrated.
Israel must not disfigure themselves. They were wholly God’s, and not to mutilate what He claimed for Himself. So a mere asceticism is a mere dishonor to Him whose we are, and to whom to give one’s life is to make it full, perfect, exuberant. "Thou wilt show me the path of life," says the Psalmist, and then adds at once, "in Thy presence fullness of joy; at Thy right hand, pleasures for evermore." If it be answered to this, "Yes, but in heaven," Deuteronomy has enriched us already with the thought of "days of heaven upon the earth."
(b) It need not surprise us now that we find immediately upon this the insistence once more upon distinction of food, and that Israel shall only partake of what God pronounces clean. Food is the sustenance of life, and spiritually it is fully true that as the food is so the life must be. Christ is thus our Life itself, and the Bread of life. Strength cannot be ours without food, or without proper food; and if we only receive of Christ, it is He who says, "He that eateth Me, shall even live by Me."
Though the distinctions here insisted on have passed away as letter, as spirit they remain as things imperatively to be maintained. Would that we were careful always as to what we fed upon, and realized more fully that what we assimilate we are assimilated to. But in art, in literature, even for the Christian, genius is permitted to gild vice, and beauty of style to adorn error, until virtue in a rough garb is disdained, and evil in a fine coat welcomed. This has been in measure true at all times, never perhaps more, however, than in the present day; and therefore the commandment here never needed enforcement more.
The lists of clean and unclean are shorter and more concise than in Lev 11:1-47, with some differences also, of which we can at present unhappily give no account. All has been said already that we are able to say, in the notes upon Leviticus.
(c) In the third part of this chapter, the practical life of the Israelite is put in connection with the Sanctuary-Presence. An immense point it is that is here insisted on, although the reality is only faintly imaged in the legal statute.
The tithe spoken of is one of the supplementary laws of Deuteronomy, a second tithe, not the first, which belonged to God alone: while this was consumed, at the sanctuary, by the person whose land was tithed, with his household, and the Levite, never to be forgotten. He thus comes up to own before God His mercies and enjoy them with God.
The life is characterized by dependence -faith: and faith has its one object and need in God Himself. The psalms emphasize this need of God, the personal God, for the soul. "My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?" (Psa 42:2.) The eighty-fourth psalm celebrates the blessedness of those who dwell in God’s house, whose life is one perpetual praise and the blessedness next to that, of him in whose heart are the "ways" that lead there, who goes from strength to strength, though through the vale of weeping, making it a well, and the rain of heavenly refreshment filling the pools.
What is faith indeed without the God in whom it is? what divine life that draws not up to its source and centre? The journeys of the Israelite to Zion year by year, with their eating and drinking, and joy before Him, do indeed but feebly express the truth here: yet they shadow, and remind us of it.
(4) Of this joy in God the practical life is the outflow: on this we do not need to dwell, it is so manifest. Completely in place is it, therefore, that now we find every third year this tithe consumed at home, shared with the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow. Not simply given to them, but shared with them; -a deeper thing. Christ does not give merely, that we may carry it away from Him; He shares. This is fellowship. We are called to joy in His joy, who came here to sorrow in our sorrow: "I will drink the wine new with you," He says, "in My Father’s kingdom."
This is only the first illustration, however, of the mercy to be shown to the needy in Israel, the witness of His mercy who was Israel’s God. We find beyond this two other cases of need.
First, the debtor, to whom the seventh -the Sabbatic -year brought "release" as to his debt. The comparison with Exo 23:11, where the same word as used for "release" here is applied to the land, -the letting it rest, -assures us plainly that this was not an absolute remission of all debt, but a temporary one during the time of the land-rest, which might hinder payment. This, which did not of course affect the foreigner, shows the reason of his exemption. God would have no poor among His people, although such there would always be, left to test and draw out the mercy of their brethren, who were to make them practically to cease by their care for them. (Comp. v. 4 with v. 11.) Nor need they fear to suffer by this liberty; for so they would be blessed in all they put their hand to. How tender a witness this sabbatic year to the bounty of His hand who supported all!
The other case is that of a person who through want might have been compelled to become a bondman: for him also the seventh year of his service was to bring release; nor was he to be sent empty away, but furnished liberally. They were to remember the bond-service in Egypt, and their redemption. Yet love might rather choose continued service; and we know Whose love is pictured here.
This enforcement of mercy to the poor was the more needed because the law had promises of earthly blessing to him who kept it, which self-righteousness might abuse to justify another treatment. And for this reason the Lord,s story of Lazarus and the rich man would come home to covetous Pharisees. In this, the poor man -one in utter destitution -is taken to Abraham’s bosom, and the rich man shut out. But this is not legal right, but salvation, a very different thing, in the line of which comes the exhortation here in Deuteronomy to remember Egypt and their own redemption. To them all, and always, God,s blessings were but mercy; and the lesson of the law was not learnt by those in ignorance of this.
(5) The first section ends now with the repetition of that which is all through a governing thought -the going up to the sanctuary. The life which is of God must be lived with Him, of which these goings up are an imperfect yet real expression. In accordance with the number of this subsection, we have the occasions insisted on on which they went up, which naturally typify the ways that lead up. Blessed indeed he in whose heart they are!
(a) First, however, and as introductory to these, we have a supplementary note -in this, quite in the style of Deuteronomy -as to the first-born of the herd and flock. They were not to be worked, nor used by man for his own profit, but to be the Lord’s entirely, and eaten when they went up to the sanctuary, except there were some blemish; in which case, though not fit to be taken up, they were still to be eaten, as a portion from God in the family.
As supplementary to the former law (Num 18:1-32), it is, no doubt, the priest who is to eat this in the way stated. Nor does it seem possible that even such a modification should be intended as that the people should share with the priests, as some have thought: nothing like this is said. As a supplement to what was well known, there would be no misunderstanding of what, if it stood alone, would naturally be otherwise taken than now we take it. In fact, the Jews seem to have had no question.
Nationally, there was no separate going up to Jerusalem to present the firstlings, yet the fulfillment of the law required them to go up. It is thus a suited introduction to that of the three feasts following. The first-born belonged to God, as having been spared in Egypt, and to eat it before God speaks for us of realizing that relationship to God which is founded upon birth and redemption. Israel had this double position, -are for the earth, as the Church is for heaven, God’s first-born; and when they truly take it, it will be as born to God -newborn, as we, -a new birth, which implies the bringing home to Him, though the knowledge of redemption be the actual call. Perfectly in its place, then, is this introductory note as to the first-born. They must eat it at the sanctuary, therefore, -that is, if without blemish; if blemished, it was not a fit presentation of what God,s work and gift must be; and thus it lost its place, and became mere ordinary food.
(b) We now come to the three feasts which actually brought Israel to the sanctuary. The first of these was the passover, in which, as seen here, the feast of unleavened bread is merged. Redemption is the prominent thought, though the putting away of leaven surely accompanies it. Unleavened bread is the "bread of affliction," -the soul’s self-humiliation because of the remembrance of the bondage out of which the mercy of God has delivered; for us, indeed, how shameful an one! a sorrow which is to be the subduing of pride forever, and thus, morally, our deliverance.
Here is the first direct call to the sanctuary, though new birth underlies it, as we know. In the knowledge of redemption it is that the new life comes to itself, and so to God. In its second-first place in this series, the passover-feast is found in perfect order, as all is order here.
(c) The feast of weeks, or Pentecost, comes next to the passover, -a type, as we well know, of the gift of the Spirit, but which is characterized here by its effects -the fruit produced, of which a free-will offering is presented to God according to the measure of the blessing realized.
Upon this as bringing to God there is no need to dwell at length. The Spirit of God is He by whom we draw nigh, and the Spirit in us will not acquiesce in distance. He is the Spirit of adoption whereby we cry, "Abba, Father;" and it is good to notice, as connected with the type, the voluntary offering, and the joy before God, in which those who have special need are specially remembered and made to share. Such are the characteristics, indeed, of the work of the Spirit.
(d) Lastly, we have now the feast of tabernacles. This, as we have already seen, speaks of the perfected blessing, when, the harvest of the earth and the vintage of wrath being past, Israel, in the enjoyment of the land, shall remember all wilderness-experience as past forever, and the long joy wide-spread and unchecked shall reach on to eternal day. For us also, in a higher sphere, there are "pleasures at God’s right hand for evermore."
This completes the picture. The perpetuity of blessing means God’s unbroken delight in the work of His hands forever -God with us, we with Him, abidingly. Thus the three feasts that call Israel up to God do not speak of temporary or intermitting fellowship. That would be injurious to God as to man. "Emmanuel" -"God with us" can be of no mere temporary significance.
2. (1) We pass now from the first table of the law to the second -from duties Godward to duties manward; in the first section, finding connection between the two by means of the fifth commandment, under which the duties to rulers naturally come, especially in Israel, where, as we have seen, the idea of the family, the natural order, underlies the whole national constitution. Authority here, as it is derived from God, represents Him, as it is plain: a principle which the apostle applies for the Christian in a most sweeping way (Rom 13:1-14), and which is seen clearly in Scripture -"Calling those gods to whom the word of God came," (the judges in Israel, that is, who had divine commission,) -a phrase which the Lord seals with the emphatic assurance, "Scripture cannot be broken" (Joh 10:35.)
Those who would put the fifth commandment into the first table may find here their strongest argument, as confirmatory of which they urge the special commandments as to idolatry which follow in this place. One would think this view, however, to be self-evidently wrong, the numerical stamp also justifying fully the common division, as we have seen. The fifth commandment does indeed by this means only stand as the first of the second table -the representative of the first in the second, and this most perfectly.
The duties of rulers also are implied in the duties to them, and come under the same head here.
(a) We have, first, the institution of civil authority, that righteousness may be maintained throughout the land: judges everywhere, with a court for the settlement of difficult cases at the sanctuary, taking the place of the appeal hitherto to Moses himself; a king viewed as in the future in God’s thought for them, and the choice of one provided for.
The judges sat in the gates of the cities, because every one going out or coming in was to be under their eye; and justice thus, as it was to be open-eyed, and toward all, would come under the eyes of all, as able to bear the light. There was to be no respect of persons, no taking of gift. Righteousness in Israel was to be the basis of every thing, the condition of life and of inheritance.
But in the maintenance of this, the claim of God was first, and thus the commandments as to idolatry follow this immediately. There was to be no toleration in such cases at all, but sharp excision by the sword of justice, the government being exercised by God openly among them, and the worship of other gods manifest rebellion. Church and state were here really one, and ecclesiastical penalties also civil ones. This is, of course, no justification of such a course in entirely different conditions under another dispensation. The kingdom of God is now "not of this world;" Christ’s people reign not, but are patient sufferers; their weapons spiritual, and not carnal; and grace to be manifested by them while God in His grace forbears toward men.
In these cases, the law required sufficient witness, and of such sort as would be willing to put their hands to the confirmation of it: the witnesses must first execute the sentence of the judge.
In matters too difficult to settle by the ordinary procedure, the sanctuary became the place of final appeal, where the priest’s voice could re-inforce that of the judge; and this appeal was ultimate. A sentence so given none could resist without rebellion.
A king is contemplated in due time, when they should desire, in this, to be like the nations round about. But when the people make this very plea in Samuel’s time (1Sa 8:5), it is taken, not by him only, but by the Lord also, as the rejection of Him as their King. From this, it has been urged that this passage in Deuteronomy must have been the insertion of a later time. But why? Granted that it was failure on the people’s part, (and that is clear,) it is surely not clear that God could not foresee this, nor that, foreseeing, He might not provide for it. Certainly, a desire to be like the Gentiles, in one of those things that mainly distinguished them from the Gentiles, could not indicate a right appreciation of their blessings. And yet the wisdom and grace of God are only the more, not the less, conspicuous in this provision. True, of Saul it was said, "I gave thee a king in Mine anger, and took him away in My wrath." (Hos 13:11.) But this only brings out God’s real choice -David, "the beloved," type of One who is indeed that, and in whom a King is found who reigns forever. He is the One of whom the king that Deuteronomy announces is the shadow. Brought forth when priesthood has failed in Eli, and prophet in Samuel, the true king is God’s resource for Israel and the earth. For neither priesthood nor prophecy alone will set right the earth, or bring in the time when it shall be filled with the glory of the Lord. He must come to whom the throne belongs, and who shall bring back judgment to righteousness; He in whom Prophet, Priest, and King are one, -a threefold cord that never shall be broken.
Here it is but the type, the mere human king, needing to be reminded of his dependence upon God, and liable to trust in horses and chariots, and to yield himself to the lusts which enslave the greatest. In Solomon, the wisest of kings, is found the failure which is here anticipated. He is but the shadow. The reins of absolute empire are reserved for One who alone can hold them aright.
(b) The rights of priests and Levites follow, -the ministers of Jehovah, ministering in His name: identified with Him, not in rule, but in that which attests rather His heart than, as before, His righteousness. To them the people were in turn to minister a recognized portion, they having none with the other tribes in the land.
There was also a special privilege accorded to these, wherever there was a longing desire in the heart to dwell near the sanctuary, there was no fixed location which would prevent the accomplishment of this. Such an one could come and minister among his brethren who stood there before Jehovah, and was to find his portion among these. A precious witness for us of how God delights in and welcomes the approach of one who, as a worshiper, would draw nigh, and abide in His presence. Oh for more of this longing of heart among us, -the importunate faith of one to whom God must say, Be it unto thee even as thou wilt!
(c) As the judge or the king represents God characteristically in His righteousness, and the Levite-priest represents Him in His love, the prophet now gives utterance to His voice as the Living One. Through the Urim and Thummim of the priest He could be sought indeed and would respond, as we know; but the prophet waited not for inquiry. God’s word abode in him as a fire that must break out, urging him on in spite of fears and hesitation of nature and opposition of the evil around. It was the voice of holiness that spake to the conscience also, bringing all into the light because God is light. Hence the prophet was the man of God in days of reproach and apostasy, and the voice of revival wherever there were hearts yet to be reached.
Alas! the heart that drew away from God, and shunned Him, drew only the nearer, by this, to the living and active enemy of God and the very needs which should have drawn him as of necessity to Him who could satisfy them, put him then the more completely in the power of the dark and dreadful apostasy in heavenly spheres. Thus the word as to the true prophet here is prefaced by the prohibition of all divination, witchcraft, necromancy, and recurrence to the supernatural apart from God, -if apart, then in sure and deadly opposition.
The one need in seeking God is the remembrance of the holiness of His presence, -the need of truth, therefore, in the inward parts. Where it was not openly another god that was sought, the false way revealed itself by its essential unholiness, and never more clearly than where apparently purification was insisted on. For this purification was but a mockery of it, cruel and terrible as it might be in its demands. Thus the list of forbidden things begins here with the "making son or daughter to pass through the fire," a form of expression by which is intended that giving the "fruit of the body for the sin of the soul" which has been practiced among most heathen nations in their sore perplexity away from God.*
{*Comp. 2Ki 16:3 -"he made pass through" -with 2Ch 28:3 -"he burnt." That there were lighter modes of passing through the fire, however, is not to be denied; and they have survived in various parts of Christendom, as in the midsummer fires of St. John’s Eve, in some places in England.}
Following this, we have "all the words which the language contained for the different modes of exploring the future and discovering the will of God" (Keil) practiced by the heathen, brought together under one general condemnation. Nor are we past the need of reviewing them, so constantly does the power of evil work through the need and corruption of man to the same results, -modified only and disguised by the manners of the age, but which in no wise affects their inner meaning. Spiritualism, clairvoyance, and theosophy today have only freshened our apprehension of what has been in some shape always at work, although now energetically working in proportion as the end approaches, and the enfeebled power of Christianity allows them to appear with boldness.*
{* 1. We have in this list, first, qosem, the "diviner," which seems the general term, including all the rest.
2. Meonen, in the common version, the "observer of times," predicting lucky or unlucky days from the observation of the heavens, is, in the R.V., the "augur" in general. The Septuagint and the Syriac versions differ from these and from each other: the former giving kledonizomenos -"presaging from chance words;" the latter, "fascinating with the eyes," from which Pember conjectures perhaps a mesmerist, but which might refer as well to the power of the "evil eye." Neither of the last seem likely, however, here, nor does the derivation seem certain, whether it be part of the verb to "eye," (as 1Sa 18:9,) or of the verb to "cover" -"one who covers," or uses secret arts, which on the whole seems to give the simplest meaning.
3. Menachesh, in both versions, "enchanter." Pember well says, "The word is connected with nachash, a ’serpent,’ and is usually explained to mean a ’hisser,’ or ’whisperer’ and then ’a mutterer of enchantments.’ But the use of the verb, of which it is the Piel participle, seems to point in a different direction. In Gen 30:1-43, Laban entreats Jacob to stay with him; ’for,’ says he, ’I divine [or, more literally, perceive by observation,] that the Lord hath blessed me for thy sake.’ And again, when, to the pleading of Benhadad’s servants, Ahab replied, ’Is he yet alive? he is my brother,’ we are told that the men ’divined,’ ’took an omen,’ from what he had said. Hence the verb seems to have been used primarily of drawing an inference from rapid observation, and then of divining. From the first meaning comes nachash, a ’serpent,’ on account of its quick intelligence; from the second, menachesh, an ’augur’ -one who divines by observing signs and tokens, such as the singing and flight of birds, aerial phenomena, and other sights and sounds." (Earth’s Earliest Ages, p. 156.)
4. Mecashsheph, constantly rendered, in the Septuagint, pharmakos -"one who uses drugs," seems to be the enchanter proper, working through natural things endued, by magical formulae or prayers, with supernatural power.
5. Chover, literally, "binding" as with a spell; "charmer" in the common version.
6. Shoel obh -"one who consults a familiar spirit." The obh was in the person, as Lev 20:27 literally reads, although it is also applied to the person himself in whom it is, and this generally. It means, primarily, "a (skin) bottle" (Job 32:19), apparently from its dilatability, and its transference to the possessed person has been supposed to be either from the swelling of the body of which Virgil speaks (Aeneid, 6: 46, etc.) with the demoniac inspiration, or from the ventriloquism attending, to which the rendering of the Septuagint refers it. From the demoniac, the term was transferred to the demon.
7. Yidoni -the wise one in unlawful wisdom, the wizard.
8. The necromancer -the seeker to the dead.}
All who do these things are declared emphatically to be an abomination to Jehovah; not merely the things are such, but the people who do them. Christianity has not changed this, nor can subtly disguised names hinder divine judgment.
If the professing people of God turn to such things, it is not because God has refused them the joy and blessing of direct communication of His mind: it is because they have turned their back on Him. He would not even wait for the people to call on Him, but would come near to them Himself in the Prophet that He would raise up like unto Moses, and whom they were to hear; and of him who did not hear the Prophet it would be required.
It should be as certain that Christ is the only complete fulfillment of this as, on the other hand, that every prophet raised up was a partial anticipatory fulfillment. The threefold form of headship in Israel -King, Priest, and Prophet -we have here complete, and of each we must say exactly the same thing. Christ it is alone to whom they all looked forward, and without him, any fulfillment would be trivial and unworthy. Yet the terms of what is said show plainly that others are contemplated, as steps not unneeded by which we reach Him -certainly to Israel gracious helps by which in the meanwhile faith might be sustained and need ministered to.
It may be said by those who deny the lesser application, that neither king nor priest here are prophesied of in any direct way, while the prophet is: and this is true; yet the three offices are brought together surely for a purpose, each one to be filled by Christ at last, and each emphasizing one main attribute of Jehovah as Supreme Head in Israel, -righteousness, love, holiness, -as we have seen.
There is a reason also to be found for what is said of the prophet being more strictly predictive. For while the continuance of the priesthood and of the judgeship was provided for, and the king also when the time should come, the prophetic office was neither elective nor successional, but depended upon the mere good pleasure of God. Hence the promise, "God will raise up." A distinction of the prophet it is that even in Israel he existed only by the direct call and qualification of God only. Each one was therefore very distinctly the "man of God" in his day; and the "testimony of Jesus," which the "spirit of prophecy" was, was preserved from the corruption by which priest and king were overcome.
Thus the prophet marked the activity of the living God in behalf of His people, and throughout reign after reign of the later kings of Israel, the existence of the prophet is the one ray of light -the link still existing between God and the people who drew not near to God: in this way like Moses, although not of the full stature of Moses, no doubt, a fulfillment of what is here, though not the fulfillment; which easily reconciles the last saving of this book with such minor accomplishments, while it justifies the faith which even in Israel looked forward to "that Prophet" in whom, blessed be God, He has drawn nigh to us.
Christ has come: the Word of God is complete; -no new revelation need be or can be added to it. Yet in a minor sense the voice of prophecy should be found among us. The apostle, in writing to the Corinthians, after bidding them "desire spiritual gifts," adds as the chief of all, "but rather that ye may prophesy;" his reason for the preference, "he that prophesieth speaketh unto men to edification and exhortation and comfort." "Love edifieth;" and, he writes, "ye may all prophesy, one by one, that all may learn and all may be comforted." We see that he is not thinking of uttering predictions, which is what so many think to be all the business of a prophet, but of that speaking from God and for God which he can do best who has not necessarily most knowledge or most utterance, but most communion with Him, and who most stands in His presence, waiting for His word. The Church of God has much need of such men as these today.
(2) The subsection following now confirms the previous one by its clear reference to the sixth commandment, -the salvation-ordinance, as we have already called it, of the life that is. On account of its clearness, there will be little for us to say about it. It falls naturally into three parts, which are indicated by the divisions of the chapters in our common version.
(a) Of these, the first respects the individual life, and divides again in three parts, as is quite plain. First, it is enjoined on them to carry out in the land into which God is bringing them the law of the cities of refuge, by dividing it into three portions, with roads prepared in each, and a central city as an asylum. for the man-slayer innocently such, that the land may not be stained with innocent blood. Also if their borders should be extended, according to the promise made conditional upon obedience, then they were to mark off three cities more. This repetition of the number 3 cannot be without meaning, as indeed these cities had a notable significance for Israel themselves, as we have seen. Surely in them was the very secret of their future told out, and how God shall manifest Himself for them at last. In the meanwhile, by this provision human life is made known as the object of God’s care, and cherished. The extension of the land waits their future possession of it.
Secondly, the law against the removal of landmarks comes in here, no doubt, as generally seen, because the land was their life, as sustaining it. They were to be a nation of husbandmen, each for himself cultivating the soil of that good land, -a much-needed lesson of what God would have His people to be spiritually now. Here is our wealth and sustenance indeed; and "much food" -would that we did believe it! -"in the tillage of the poor."
Thirdly, life is guarded by a retributive law of false witness, -a law under which the world that crucified Christ is crucified to the Christian. That precious life itself could not be preserved, and yet by being given up abides for us and becomes fruitful.
(b) The subject next taken up is war, and here we have again three parts; first, Israel themselves being regarded; then their enemies; then the land itself in which they might be.
As to Israel themselves, they were to rely upon God as with them. We are to remember that this supposes that they too are with God, and therefore their going out and coming in according to His word. Then their enemies would be indeed God’s enemies, and resistance would-be resistance to Himself. Had they indeed abode in His covenant, how evident would this have been to all the world! and with what irresistible might would they have been clothed!
God then being thus with them, there was to be no craven fear in their hearts: he who was afraid might stay at home. God’s host must be, not conscripts, but volunteers. Then, too, if a man had built a new house and not lived in it, if he had planted a vineyard and not eaten of it, if he had betrothed a wife and not taken her, there was to be no sundering a man from what he was in pursuit of no bringing home-sickness into the battle-field.
As to the enemy, a besieged town was always to have the offer of peace by submission. If it resisted, it suffered the penalty of resisting God, not man merely; but the non-combatants were to be spared. The Canaanites, as under the divine curse, are excepted from this. As to the land, the fruit-trees were not to be cut down, but left to minister to the support of life.
(c) Thirdly, we have the expiation of an uncertain murder. Yet is it an expiation? There is certainly no mention of blood poured out, still less presented to God. In the land, at any distance from the sanctuary, it could not, of course, be put upon the altar. But the murderer is not found; and if he were, for him there could be no atonement; the elders who represent the city profess innocence, not assume guilt: atonement in this way, therefore, it would seem as if there could hardly be.
On the other hand, the heifer unbroken to the yoke reminds us irresistibly of the red heifer of purification for sin (Num 19:1-22), and as plainly seems to speak of Christ; and here vicarious penalty seems to be shown forth, even to some who dispute it elsewhere. Through all this, the broken neck of the victim strangely unites the deed which has to be cleansed away with that which cleanses it, -as if it were Christ murdered and yet dying to put away the crime, though the law of the city of refuge assures us that it cannot be put away.
The man was murdered -murder attaches somewhere: Christ too was the Victim of an enmity with which men "hated," He says, "both Me and My Father." (Joh 15:24.) Yet, again, at the cross He cries, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Here we have what at least approaches the mystery of the case before us: there were those of whom the one thing must be said; there were those also of whom grace could say the other. Thus the nation can be spared, though shut out in the meanwhile from their inheritance, as he was whom the city of refuge sheltered, but who could not return home till the death of the high-priest (see Num 35:1-34). There is governmental penalty, though not death. and when the years of chastisement have run out, then it will be said of Jerusalem, "She hath received of the Lord’s hand double for all her sins" (40: 2.) The "uneared, unsown land" indeed (how like Israel’s for so long!) testifying to this. But then, at last, there Will be a generation who, as to the guilt of Christ’s death, can plead, with these elders of the city, that they "have not shed this blood, nor have" their "eyes seen it," the "perennial stream" of God’s abiding love having carried it away forever.
How wonderful is this picture! how all parts unite to give expression to it when the key is once in our hands! even as all contrary-seeming things shall unite to accomplish His purpose at the last.
(3) The third subsection speaks of marriage and the family, in evident connection with the seventh commandment, although there are laws to follow which would seem as plainly so or more, if we had regard to them apart from their context. But the order of the decalogue can be traced as far as the end of the twenty-second chapter, the illustrations, however, becoming continually briefer, as, in fact, less needed. The internal connection also becomes continually more difficult, -which does not mean, however, that it is loose or wanting.
(a) The first part treats of marriage with a captive taken in war, -a distinct permission, of course, of marriage with a Gentile, where there was not the hindrance of such a ban as rested upon Canaan.
Here, as we know by our Lord,s words, in the law of marriage, we find, more than any where, the failure of the law. The hardness of man’s heart forbad, until grace should come, the full restraint of absolute righteousness. Polygamy and divorce, as practiced among the nations round, could only be modified by partial curbing of the will and prevention of mere lawlessness. It was reserved for Christianity to restore woman to her original place in creation by the side of man.
Yet here, where most of all (and that is surely the reason why the commandment takes the peculiar form it does,) the woman was in the hand and power of the man, he was fenced round with prohibition. She must be given the wife’s place, allowed a month for natural sorrow over the separation from her kindred, perhaps to test also somewhat the reality of the affection that has sprung up in him. If the tie is formed, she can never be enslaved again; and should she be divorced, is free to go whither she please.
Thus it would seem that what is emphasized is the government of the will -the putting restraint upon desire, so that at least it shall not be lawless; and this, with regard to a captive, the legitimate property of the conqueror according to the customs everywhere else prevailing, is a witness to the character of Him who ruled in Israel, which we must estimate, not by the full light of Christianity now come, but as contrasted with what was around. Thus seen, it becomes indeed the dawning of the day.
We have now the recognition of polygamy as a fact, but a provision against one of its many evils. If a man had two wives, and children by both, the one loved, the other hated; and if the first-born were the son of the hated; in this case, the first-born was not to be displaced from his rights as such because of the father’s preference for the mother of the later-born. In the case of Jacob, this might seem to have occurred, -Reuben gave place to Joseph, the son of the beloved Rachel; but then, as we know from Jacob’s own words, it was Reuben’s sin that forfeited the inheritance. (Gen 49:4.) This, however, might single out this case for special legislation.
"Here too we have in God’s ways another remarkable type; for, having first chosen Israel, He afterward (as we know, because of their sin,) was pleased to take the Gentiles to Himself. The Jews refused the testimony; and as for the Gentiles, it is said that they will hear. Nevertheless, here He gives a beautiful provision, to show that He has not done with that which shall come forth as the first-born son of the apparently hated one -of her He had first. On the contrary, this is the very one for whom the rights of the inheritance will be preserved when repentance will be wrought in their hearts. Thus it is evident that the godly remnant of the latter day will have its rights reserved, according to His own precious word in this chapter." (Lectures Introductory to the Pentateuch, by Wm. Kelly, p. 492.)
(b) But in contrast with this, we have the end of the disobedient son, given up at last by father and mother into the hands of the elders, by whose sentence he is stoned to death. The application is easy to the end of final disobedience on the part of those in Israel put in the place but not having the spirit of sons, as well as to those outwardly but not in heart sons among the Gentiles.
(c) In connection with this, we have an unspeakably solemn yet precious word. If a man had committed a sin worthy of death, and were put to death, and he were hung upon a tree, his body was not to remain all night upon the tree, but to be buried, that the land might not be defiled, "for he that is hanged," it is said, "is accursed of God."
This is literally "a curse of God," which the apostle in Galatians takes as having the same meaning, for while he quotes it as "accursed" (Gal 3:13), he argues from this that Christ was "made a curse for us." The Septuagint, Syriac, and Vulgate similarly render it "accursed;" but the Jews, since the second century of our era, have mostly decided for a different meaning, viz., "an injury, insult, mockery to God," a meaning possible to the language, no doubt, but used in a very obvious interest, which cannot commend it to us. How Jews of old understood it we may see by the Septuagint. And the typical application as given in the New Testament puts the whole subject in a light by which it is illumined.
It should be noted that hanging, or crucifixion, -the Jews used the same word for either -was not a mode of putting to death by the law of Moses. It came after death, to express peculiar enormity, and put a special brand upon the one so treated. As "lifting up from the earth" (Joh 3:14; Joh 12:32), it expressed rejection from among men; as lifting up toward heaven, it might well challenge heaven’s approval of that rejection, and thus imply the "curse of God" upon the sinner. We can in this way understand better the apostle’s appeal to this passage in Deuteronomy, and distinguish the two elements of the cross,death and curse, -the forsaking of God, which we have already had before us in the ritual of the sin-offering. (Lev 4:1-35.)
We see also why the body of one hanging on a tree could not be permitted to remain there. The burial was not in this case an end of penalty. Rather it expressed the defiling character of sin and the abhorrence with which God beheld it. It was to be put out of sight and away, buried not with honor, but in the grave of a criminal; and here we see at once the significance of the change in the Lord’s case. His grave was appointed with the wicked; but this could not be suffered to take effect: He was with the rich in His death. Joseph’s tomb was the only fitting receptacle for its brief sojourn there, of the body of the Holy One who could not see corruption -His providential justification until resurrection should justify Him openly.
(4) The last three commandments of the decalogue, more briefly illustrated than the former ones, are found together in the fourth subsection. At first sight indeed, this is not evident: one would say that each commandment would, here as elsewhere, claim a subsection to itself. But the twenty-third chapter, which speaks of Israel as the congregation of Jehovah, has thus the plain character of a fifth part; and when we come to look more closely, we gain sufficient assurance of the correctness of this grouping.
We have first to ask, however, are these commandments really represented in the three parts of this subsection? This has been denied, though certainly we should look for some regular treatment of these, such as we find in the case of previous ones. No doubt our anticipations of what ought to be are often astray; but the twenty-second chapter begins with what is plainly an expansion of the eighth commandment, as vv. 13-21 speak of false witness, and the rest of the chapter applies the tenth. So much should be plain; and only vv. 5-12 can remain at all doubtful. These give the laws as to the confusion of sex, as in a man wearing a woman’s garment, as to not taking the mother-bird with its brood, as to putting a battlement around the flat top of the house, the prohibition of certain mixtures as of seeds or of materials of a garment, and finally of putting fringes on a garment. These have been all by Schröder (in Lange’s Commentary) reduced under the fourth commandment of the second table, though in some cases it would seem in a somewhat artificial manner.
But we must note now that we have in these three parts an evident reference to the first three laws of the second table, and each in its place. Thus v. 7 repeats the promise of the fifth commandment, and in a parallel case. Secondly, the false witness in the case mentioned would if it succeeded involve murder, the breach of the sixth; while the seventh and tenth come so plainly together in the third part, as to need no insisting on. Here, then, we have the relation of these three parts to one another clearly marked out. While as to their coming together under a fourth head, the beginning of the first part clearly must do so; the cases of violation of nature, as in the confusion of sexes, would do the same, as in the fourth section of the expanded second table of the decalogue in Exo 21:1-36; Exo 22:1-31; Exo 23:1-33 (p. 211); and the first law of this section gives the last case supposed in the third part of what is here before us.
Although there may be more or less difficulty in some of the details, yet the spirit of the eighth commandment -that is, the fourth of the second table -seems to run through the whole of this: the prohibition of plunder and theft, with that which connects with it, the lack of tenderness and mercy toward others. How near the fourth and last of these commandments come to one another needs not to be insisted on. Let us go through the chapter briefly now.
How much beyond the mere letter is to be read in the commandments is plain in the tenderness of the opening words. To fulfill the commandment not to steal, you must not consent to the destruction or loss of any thing that is your neighbor’s. It must be cared for, guarded, and kept for him.
The disguise as to sex would plainly serve all kinds of fraudful and dishonest purpose, whilst it falsified the stamp which God has put upon nature, and mutilated, so to speak, the coin of His realm. The taking the mother-bird, held by her affection to her young, was shameful advantage used of natural instincts, and a violation of honor to parents in this reproduction of motherly love in the lower creatures. The repetition of the promise here is very striking. It shows how sensitive will be the really obedient heart, and how God has in nature encompassed us with remembrances as well as tests of our condition. The law as to the battlements for the flat roofs of houses is simple enough as a rebuke of that thoughtlessness which is really hardness of heart. The three laws which follow as much resemble one another as they differ from what goes before. As prohibitions of mixture they come naturally enough under the first head here. The interpretation of the unequal yoke" is plainly given in 2Co 6:14. Christ’s yoke cannot be borne by the unclean -the unbeliever, -and for the believer there is no other. The garment of woolen and linen speaks similarly of mixed habits; while the sowing seed represents the necessity of keeping the truth unmixed. Failure in all these points involves a real robbery, not only of God, but of one’s neighbor: we owe both to Christians and the men of the world the maintenance of our Christian simplicity and singleness of life and testimony. The last thing here, the tassels upon the garment, which we have had in Num 15:38, reminds us that this is to be true natural development -the development of the new nature, not artificial, for the word speaks primarily of flower-buds. How beautifully again does the spiritual meaning declare the perfection of the Word of God!
As to the ninth commandment we have but one case supposed, and that how shameful an one! What a heart is man’s! -that is to say, ours! Schultz, as quoted in Lange, remarks that "Moses must have held a different view of unions in the face of great aversion from that prevalent among us."
The exemplification of the tenth commandment for our purpose needs no remark.
(5) The methodical exposition of the "ten words" is thus complete; but there are yet three chapters more before the close is reached of the commandments, which now at first sight seem to be given without order or internal connection for the most part. Of course we know this cannot be, and that we only need more carefully to search it out. The most precious things often lie deepest; and our rule with Scripture is to believe in order to see -the opposite of the world’s rule, but which will always have experience to confirm it.
If the three chapters following stand for real divisions, then with the four previous ones we shall have seven subsections in this second section -the second table of the law complete. That the first four parts should close one division of this is quite in accordance with what we have seen to be the rule in a septenary series. In this case, we may expect the final three to form a whole, and the connection to be deeper, more spiritual and inward, than in the former case. And this seems indeed to be so.
The twenty-third chapter is in fact a fifth part, and, as already said, we have in it Israel as the congregation of Jehovah, the moral results of His place with them. Let us examine it.
(a) First, then, we have the assembly in its refusal of all discordant elements; and here the exclusion of the unsexed male is based on the need of maintaining the integrity of the creature. Mutilation was a reproach to God; and thus the whole spirit of asceticism is condemned and excluded both for Israel and for us today. The word for "bastard," -"one born of corruption" -only occurs once beside in Zec 9:6, is explained by the Rabbins, and received by commentators in general as meaning "one born of incest or adultery." Typically, one corruptly born is not the mere child of nature; but rather one corruptly introduced among the people of God. "Baptismal regeneration," as the ritualist holds it, is such a birth; and the Moabite and the Ammonite following here emphasizes this thought, though it be true that they are not distinctly reprobated for their birth, but for their enmity to the true people of God and their employment of Balaam to curse. But even thus does the false professor, like an Ammonite or a Moabite, show his birth today. The Edomite is the simple natural man, and for him there is more hope, and the Egyptian is classed with him, though only in the third generation (dead and risen with Christ) could they enter the congregation of the Lord.
(b) In the next place, we have Israel going forth to war, and here men might plead the work in hand for lack of care as to minor things; but not so thinks God. The most scrupulous purity is insisted on: for is not God with them their strength? What is all their human might if, because of their ways, He is unable to manifest Himself for them? Very simple is the lesson, incontrovertible the argument here; and yet have His people learnt it?
(c) Next, Israel’s home must be the refuge of the oppressed. True, slavery as yet was not banished from her midst, -perfection, we must ever remember, the Word itself asserts, could not be by the law, -yet it was greatly guarded and limited, so as to be another thing from that absolute subjection to the will of another which was every where recognized as lawful among the nations around. If, then, one of these human chattels broke its bands and fled, Israel was to be for such a secure asylum. In this way the enmity of the nations might be roused against them: this little people, nevertheless, were to extend their arms to the distressed whatever the consequences. According to the beauteous figure so often used, He under the shelter of whose wings they had come to rest could not destroy that confidence. Let it be a poor slave, he must yet be sheltered from the kings of the earth: there was one sanctuary of refuge for the oppressed; and it was in the bosom of the God of Israel.
The sanctuary -and such was all Israel compared with the world outlying -must indeed first of all be the place of freedom, in order that it may be the place of holiness; and this freedom must be found with God for it to be real and sanctifying: the heart is brought to Him. Hence, the enfranchisement of the slave comes in its right place here, and its connection is seen with what follows, and which for us has much fuller meaning, that there is to be no harlotry among the people of God. In plain, intentional antagonism to Israel,s sanctification, the harlot is called here kedeshah, "consecrated," as indeed the heathen consecrated themselves in this abominable manner to the service of their gods. May not we, too, easily cover with a well-seeming name what is merely the straying of the heart from God? Here let us note also, though it be simple, that the gain of such prostitution with which we would vindicate it to ourselves, or compensate the Lord, is only abomination to Him.
(d) The need of the poor is next considered; and as, on the one hand, liberality to them had been enjoined, so to take usury from them is forbidden. The stranger, from whom it was allowed to take it, probably borrowed for purposes of trade, but Israel were not themselves intended to be a commercial people, and certainly not to thrive upon the necessities of their brethren.
(e) Fifthly, relationship to God seems to be illustrated in a double way. First, the vow illustrates the freedom and yet the seriousness of this relation; while the other case reminds us of God’s real ownership of the land, and of a bounty which would banish scarcity and hunger from it, yet respecting the rights of possession which He has given, and so allowing no lack to him whose fields were thus called to witness to the plenteous hand which has the fullness of the earth in it, and every good and perfect gift.
(6) In the last subsection, we have Israel as the congregation of the Lord, in the dignity of that relationship. Schröder gives as a heading to the whole three chapters -"The perfection of Israel;" but this is so little true of the twenty-fourth chapter that it might be entitled, rather, "The imperfection of Israel." As to the law, we know well that, in fact, there was not perfection under it; and the present subsection, strictly according to the numerical stamp upon it, speaks plainly of the evil, while also showing the limit set to it by God. Every part of the chapter seems to be in conformity with this. It has, like the last chapter, five divisions, its close being also naturally similar.
(a) The first commandment here has very plainly the character of a toleration of what could not be yet entirely done away, with a restraint upon it in the meantime, however. And of this the Lord’s own words directly assure us. The numerical place seems even to affirm the unity which divorce sets aside; and this agrees with the law itself which treats the divorced woman as in some sense "defiled" by another marriage, and the broken bond in that case as incapable of being renewed.
The law of the "new wife," as supplementary to this, is a tender provision honoring the marriage tie, and bidding the man cherish the wife he has taken. What could be more expressive of the mind of the lawgiver, or adapted for its purpose than such an injunction as this?
(b) In the next place we have two laws also, of which the first is again a concession with a limit. A creditor might take a pledge of his poor neighbor, but not the hand-mill which ground his corn from day to day: it would be taking a man’s life as pledge. The greed that would actually steal a man was to be punished with death.
(c) And they were to take care not to bring the plague of leprosy upon them, as even Miriam had done in the wilderness. This was the typical punishment, as we know, involving banishment from God Himself; and directly announced here as His infliction. In this, Israel lost what was his most precious and peculiar privilege.
(d) The fourth part contains again two laws, once more contemplating the poor, whether as debtor or as creditor. In the first place, the pledge is again limited: the creditor must not intrude upon the debtor’s house for it; and if it be something which he can spare but for the day, it must be returned by nightfall. On the other hand, the laborer,s hire must not be kept back, lest he cry to the Lord about it, and the Lord visit it as sin.
(e) Next we have the perversion of judgment forbidden, -again two laws. First, the father must not suffer death for the children, nor the children for the fathers: a common thing among the nations round about. Secondly, there must be no oppression of the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow: their own Redeemer out of the oppression of Egypt bade them observe this.
These commandments close with the injunction to leave the gleanings of the olive and the vineyard for the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, the cultivation of an opposite spirit to that of the oppressor, -the ready giver scarcely can be that, -and they are again reminded of their bondage in Egypt that they may show mercy to the poor.
(7) Thus much is said or implied of evil in Israel, which can as yet have only partial remedy. Still this is not, of course, to intimate any failure on God’s part, -any less than perfect mastery of the evil at the last. God is strong, though patient, and provoked indeed every day. And now this seventh sub-section, though it cannot, of course, after what we have seen, speak of any present perfection, yet prophesies, as one may say, of it. As the third of these closing chapters, it hints, as it were, at resurrection, and brings them to an end in peaceful confidence in God with its series of six -the mastery number, which in subjection to the seven of the section speaks of what, being final, is perfect. God will show fully the entire supremacy which He had all through.
(a) First of all here, there was to be no excessive punishment; and that punishment would be excessive that made a brother to seem vile. This, in its application to Israel or to the Church, may tell us of the care which in all chastening. He has for His people. They are to be preserved for honor, not cast away as refuse, "salted with fire," in the gracious sense of that.
(b) The next commandment seems to come in very strangely; and the spiritual sense as given by the apostle alone explains it. Wordsworth rightly dwells upon the use he makes of it "not only as showing that the law has a spiritual sense, in which it is still binding upon all, but as giving us the key by which we may unlock the casket and take out of it its treasures." Gosman objects to this that it "opens wide the door to a very loose and fanciful exposition." No doubt this is to be dreaded, but the remedy is not to reject the principle, but guard rigidly the application. And when he further urges that the "apostle seems to use the words rather as illustrative of the truth he was teaching than assigning to them a figurative and spiritual sense," he surely is himself taking very loosely what the apostle says. We have only to look at it to see that, as plainly and definitely as can be, he asserts the very opposite: "Who goeth a warfare at any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the fruit of the flock? Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same? For it is written in the law of Moses, ’Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn.’ Doth God take care for oxen? or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes no doubt this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope." (1Co 9:7-10.)
Language could scarcely be plainer; and it does justify us in believing that a spiritual sense governs all here. Even our imperfect outline certainly has proved it to be so; and here if the apostle has interpreted this for us of the laborer in the Word, the numerical stamp is accordingly 2, the number of service.
What is the real connection with the preceding verses may be still in question. The ministry of the Word is that by which judgment is wrought in the conscience, and even outward chastenings produce their fruit in blessing. The reference to the threshing-floor seems to confirm this as the connection. It is by the patient labor of the spiritual workman that the grain is sifted from the chaff and the product of the seed sown laid up in the store at last. In God’s mastery of the evil, -in the victory of the good over it, could this be omitted? would it not have necessary place?
(c) Next follows the law which has so prominent a part in the story of Ruth. If a man die, and leave no issue, his nearest of kin was to marry his wife, and raise up seed to his brother, and the first-born son of this union was to succeed to the inheritance. In the story of Ruth we find a clear and beautiful type of the resurrection of Israel by means of the Kinsman-Redeemer, when the law, the nearest of kin, cannot take this place. The proof must be reserved until we come to Ruth, but the numerical place of the section is clear as a resurrection type, and in relation to the whole character of this part, as showing the resources that are in God Himself. But here also the spiritual meaning must come in for this, no strange or unwelcome thing to him who realizes the true dignity and glory of the law.
(d) But the failure contemplated as possible comes evidently under a separate head, and is, indeed, according to Ruth still, the failure of the law, -an ever-needed lesson, coming as clearly also into its right place. The law is really the next of kin to man; but he is dead, and it cannot raise him from the dead.
(e) But the fifth part shows that if the law be helpless as a saviour, righteousness is yet maintained, -a just weight and measure, and this is what assuredly grace does: "sin shall not have dominion over you, because ye are not under the law, but under grace." Simple enough this for us; but how beautifully is it put together, just when, under the guidance of the spiritual meaning, we consider that connection of one part with another, which while we take merely the letter, seems to be so perplexing and without a clue. Now we have only one thing more, entirely different from all the rest, and yet how perfectly in place!
(f) Sixthly and last, they are bidden not to forget Amalek, their wilderness-foe, and pointed onward to the time when, full rest in the land attained, and all enemies subdued, Amalek shall be blotted out from remembrance forever. A blessed time! when the lusts of the flesh shall no more have to be thought of at all, -their remembrance come practically to an end, -internal conflict passed away forever! Sweet note of triumph from the silver trumpets, sounding only for the gathering of assembly for the time to come, -no pilgrimage, no alarm! Sweet prophet art thou, Moses! for the greater Prophet than thyself is speaking through thee now!
3. We have now one closing section in which for a moment we see the Israelite in possession of the inheritance, and rich with the blessing of God, returning to God in confession and worship. This is the proper effect of the blessing, which else would not be that. It is the sign of the Spirit’s work, of distance put away, of God and man once more together. It is the token of the satisfied heart, full with a spring of joy which needs must overflow. It is what Israel should have been as the people of the living God; it is what they shall be in the glorious time to come. It is what the Church of God, indwelt of the Spirit, should be, -shall be -in a higher sphere, and in a more wondrous relation; what it, too, has but little been, although, thank God, many in every age have learnt this and much more, -for the "Abba, Father" is not yet in this book of Deuteronomy: it waits for Him who is able to declare the Father’s name.
(1) The confession is very simple; yet, Christians as we are, we may learn much from it. The first thing that is owned is the faithfulness of God in the fulfillment of His word. It is one in the land who speaks in the consciousness of what lie has. He is not hoping what will be; he is realizing what is. The Lord sware to give us this land: we have it; we are in it. Such is already the privilege of the child of God, whose worship is even now, not merely at the sanctuary, as the Israelite’s was, but who has "boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus." How we dishonor the One who has so wrought for us if we take the place of one longing to draw nigh, instead of in fact drawing near: "let us draw near," says the apostle, "with
full assurance of faith." For us it is faith, of course. The Israelite, one may say, could not doubt: but that makes him only the more impressive as a type for us. Neither can we doubt, if it be simply God’s Word and Christ’s work that are before us, and we are not arguing from what we have been or what we are. The sanctuary has been opened for us by blood shed for sinners, for all sinners: we may, if we will, draw nigh; what more do we need for drawing nigh?
But then also there are fruits of the land; not of their labors either, let us remember. When Israel came into possession of Canaan, it was to enjoy great and goodly cities which they built not, houses full of all good things which they filled not, wells digged which they digged not, vineyards and olive trees which they planted not. (Deu 6:10-11.) And so with the fruits of the land into which even now we are called to enter, -rich enjoyment, wondrous experiences, precious realizations, belong to us there, but faith must precede and bring us in where alone they can be ours. They cannot bring us in: we must have entered in by faith, in order to have them.
Having so entered, our apprehension of what we were will only fill our hearts the more with praise for what grace has done for us. "A Syrian ready to perish was my father; and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous." Then comes the bondage in Egypt, and how they were delivered: the types for us of a more glorious deliverance. The mere confession of this is praise; and we owe it to Him to confess with unhesitating simplicity, Christ has saved us. Is there presumption in this? No, it is His due. We have done nothing, except, indeed, incurred the penalty which Christ has borne in His own body on the tree. And the faith which gives Him the glory of this salvation is that which works in us also by the love which we have believed in. The first-fruits of this land are indeed His offerings: "sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving," which bring us to Him as priests to offer them.
(2) "And thou shalt rejoice in every good thing which the Lord thy God hath given unto thee." Yes, He has given us nothing from the enjoyment of which He would keep us back. We cannot too frankly accept or too fully enjoy the blessings that are ours in Christ Jesus. This joy opens the heart, not shuts it up in selfishness and indifference: "thou shalt rejoice, -thou, and the Levite, and the stranger that is among you." This is, therefore, now what follows, account being to be rendered to God of those tithes of the third year which we have already had before us, and which are destined for the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow. (Deu 14:28-29.) The dependence of the second table of the law upon the first it is not necessary again to insist upon.
(3) Thereupon the seal of God is openly put upon this people which is His: -"Thou hast avouched this day the Lord to be thy God, to walk in His ways, . . . and the Lord hath avouched thee to be His peculiar people, and to make thee high above all nations that He hath made, . . . and that thou mayest be a holy people unto the Lord thy God, as He hath spoken."
"God is not ashamed to be called their God." Alas, as yet for them this glory of theirs has been but a passing vision. And why? Because they had but too faithfully repeated the history of the generation of the wilderness, and it had yet to be said of all this blessing, "they could not enter in because of unbelief."
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 The Abolition of Idolatrous Places. The Centralisation of Worship.…
The Abolition of Idolatrous Places. The Centralisation of Worship. Abstinence from Blood
The larger section of the Second Discourse begins here and extends to the end of Deuteronomy 26. It consists of a code of laws, and constitutes the nucleus of the whole book: see on Deu_4:44-49. So far as any orderly arrangement can be discovered, Deuteronomy 12-16 are taken up with the more strictly religious duties; Deuteronomy 17-20 with civil ordinances; and Deuteronomy 21-26 with social and domestic regulations.
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1-3. An injunction to destroy all traces of Canaanitish idolatry: see on Deu_7:1-5.
4-28. No sacrifice to be made to Jehovah unless at the one place which He Himself prescribes. This law of the centralisation of worship is one of the main arguments employed by critics in support of the theory of the late origin of the book of Deuteronomy. The practice of sacrificing at local shrines, it is said, was universal till the time of Josiah, and could hardly have been so if there had been an earlier prohibition: see Intro. § 2.
4. Ye shall not do so] i.e. worship Jehovah in the places where the Canaanites worshipped their gods.
7. Ye shall eat] The reference is to the sacrificial meal at which part of the offerings were eaten by the worshippers: see on Leviticus 3.
15. This is a slight modification of the law prescribed in Lev_7:3-4, where see note.
16. On the prohibition to eat blood see Lev_3:3; Lev_17:10-16;
31 Every abomination] see on Lev_18:21.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 8. The Place of Worship
8. The Place of Worship
CHAPTER 12
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1. The overthrow of false worship (Deu 12:1-4)
2. The true place of worship (Deu 12:5-14)
3. Concerning eating and the blood (Deu 12:15-28)
4. Warning against the abominations of idolatry (Deu 12:29-32)
The law, and love as the fulfilment of that law, was the main subject of the words of Moses up to the close of the eleventh chapter. The chapters which follow also contain expositions of the different statutes, as well as exhortations to obedience and warnings against departure from Jehovah. How significant that worship occupies the prominent place! A false worship must be completely extirpated, for it would lead their hearts away from the one Jehovah. All images and pillars were to be destroyed. True worship is ever linked with obedience to and love for Jehovah. False worship is apostasy.
The one place is mentioned repeatedly, the place, which Jehovah has appointed for worship (verses 5, 11, 14, 18, 21 and 26). What disobedience if they left that one place and turned somewhere else to worship! The subsequent history of God’s ancient people teaches the awful results of such a course. We have in the New Testament also commandments to worship. Our worship is in spirit and in truth. It is not connected with an earthly place, an earthly altar, but we worship in the power of the Spirit in heaven itself, where our forerunner is. But Christendom has a false worship which apes after the ritualistic Jewish worship. In that worship we find also images, holy places, etc., and that is in the sight of God as great an abomination as the Canaanite worship, which Israel found in the promised land.
We do not touch here again upon the eating of flesh, the sanctity of the blood, etc. All this we have had in Leviticus to which we refer the reader. Nor do we enter into the alleged contradictions, which the modern day infidels, in the camp of Christendom, claim exist here. It is but blindness (we fear often wilful blindness), which can bring such criticism and accusations against the Word of God.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v1 Concerning the Place of Worship and Sacrifices
Concerning the Place of Worship and Sacrifices
v. 1. These are the statutes and judgments which ye shall observe to do in the land which the Lord God of thy fathers giveth thee to possess it, all the days that ye live upon the earth, Deu 4:10. The ordinances now following are intended to govern the ecclesiastical and the civil life of Israel in the land of Canaan.
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v. 2. Ye shall utterly destroy all the places wherein the nations which ye shall possess, whose land they would make their own by conquest, served their gods, upon the high mountains and upon the hills, for the idea was that the worshipers were nearer to the Deity at these places, and under every green tree, for the heathen loved groves, whose mysterious shadows furnished them the religious thrill which they felt to be essential;
v. 3. and ye shall overthrow, tear down, their altars, upon which the sacrifices of idolatry were made, and break their pillars, the statues of their idols, and burn their groves with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images, demolish the pictures carved from wood, of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place, the very names which reminded them of the former idolatrous practices should be abolished.
v. 4. Ye shall not do so unto the Lord, your God, that is, not select any place that pleased their fancy for His worship.
v. 5. But unto the place which the Lord, your God, shall choose out of all your tribes to put His name there, even unto His habitation shall ye seek, and thither thou shalt come, the Sanctuary where He would reveal His presence in the midst of His people;
v. 6. and thither ye shall bring your burnt offerings, and your sacrifices, and your tithes, and heave-offerings of your hand, and your vows, and your free-will offerings, and the firstlings of your herds and of your flocks, as it had been prescribed by the Lord in Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers, Lev 17:8; Exo 10:25; Num 15:3;
v. 7. and there ye shall eat before the Lord, your God, especially the sacrificial meals connected with peace-offerings, and ye shall rejoice in all that ye put your hand unto, Lev 23:40, ye and your households, wherein the Lord, thy God, hath blessed thee. "The author takes for granted here that his hearers were familiar with what had been said by him in the earlier parts of his work, and what had become a usage among them, and does not repeat it. "
v. 8. Ye shall not do after all the things that we do here this day, for in the wilderness the regularity of an ordered existence was impossible, for which reason many of the most sacred rites, such as that of circumcision, were not practiced, every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes, he acted according to his individual understanding of the Law, applying it to the extent he thought possible in the conditions under which he lived.
v. 9. For Ye are not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance, to the Land of Promise, where they would be able to live in peace and security, which the Lord, your God, giveth you. The Lord implied that He expected every Israelite to follow the objective rule of the divine Law just as soon as the people would occupy their inheritance in Canaan.
v. 10. But when ye go over Jordan, and dwell in the land which the Lord, your God, giveth you to inherit, and when he giveth you rest from all your enemies round about, so that ye dwell in safety,
v. 11. then there shall be a place which the Lord, your God, shall choose to cause His name to dwell there; thither shall ye bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings, and your sacrifices, your tithes, and the heave-offerings of your hand, and all your choice vows which ye vow unto the Lord; because the offerings which were made to the Lord as the result of vows were distinguished for excellence;
v. 12. and ye shall rejoice before the Lord, your God, ye, and your sons, and your daughters, and your men-servants, and your maid-servants, and the Levite that is within your gates, who was to be invited to such sacrificial meals, forasmuch as he hath no part nor in heritance with you, Deu 10:9; Deu 14:29.
v. 13. take heed to thyself that thou offer not thy burnt offerings in every place that thou seest, which might just happen to strike the worshiper’s fancy;
v. 14. but in the place which the Lord shall choose in one of thy tribes, there thou shalt offer thy burnt offerings, and there thou shalt do all that I command thee, everything connected with the cultus, with the external worship of Jehovah.
v. 15. Notwithstanding thou mayest kill and eat flesh in all thy gates, whatsoever thy soul lusteth after, or, wherever they might choose, according to the blessing of the Lord, thy God, which He hath given thee, as His rich bounty has provided; the unclean and the clean may eat thereof, as of the roebuck and as of the hart. This precept superseded and annulled the ordinance which had been observed in the wilderness, where all animals that were to be slaughtered had to be brought to the door of the Tabernacle, Lev 17:3-6.
v. 16. Only ye shall not eat the blood; ye shall pour it upon the earth as water. Cf Gen 9:4; Lev 7:26; Lev 17:10. The Lord thus changed the provisions of the Civil or Ceremonial Law to suit the needs and circumstances, whereas the ordinances of the Moral Law are in force for all time.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3 General Information:
General Information:
Moses is still talking to the people of Israel.
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you will keep
"you must obey"
all the days that you live on the earth
The phrase "live on the earth" is an idiom that means as long as a person lives. AT: "for as long as you live" (See:Idiom)
You will surely destroy
"You must destroy"
the nations that you will dispossess
Here "nations" represents the people groups that live in Canaan. AT: "the people groups whose land you will take" (See: Metonymy)
translationWords
statute
decree
Promised Land
Yahweh
God
ancestor
possess
day
life
earth
nation
worship
false god
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1–3 12:1–26:15 After Moses laid out the principles of the…
12:1–26:15 After Moses laid out the principles of the covenant (5:1–11:32), he moved to the application of these principles in everyday life. Passages in this section expand on the Ten Commandments and cover some of the contingencies that inevitably arise in the complexity of human relationships.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.