Behold, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and evil.
Parallel Translations
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Behold, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and evil.
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See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil;
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See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil,
Cross-references (11)
Passages linked to Deuteronomy 30:15 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Deuteronomy 11:26 Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse:
- Deuteronomy 30:19 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Therefore choose life, that you may live, you and your descendants,
- Galatians 3:13-14 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. For it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree,” that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
- 1 John 5:11-12 The testimony is this, that God gave to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has the life. He who doesn’t have God’s Son doesn’t have the life.
- Deuteronomy 28:1-14 It shall happen, if you shall listen diligently to Yahweh your God’s voice, to observe to do all his commandments which I command you today, that Yahweh your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. All these blessings will come upon you, and overtake you, if you listen to Yahweh your God’s voice. You shall be blessed in the city, and you shall be blessed in the field. You shall be blessed in the fruit of your body, the fruit of your ground, the fruit of your animals, the increase of your livestock, and the young of your flock. Your basket and your kneading trough shall be blessed. You shall be blessed when you come in, and you shall be blessed when you go out. Yahweh will cause your enemies who rise up against you to be struck before you. They will come out against you one way, and will flee before you seven ways. Yahweh will command the blessing on you in your barns, and in all that you put your hand to. He will bless you in the land which Yahweh your God gives you. Yahweh will establish you for a holy people to himself, as he has sworn to you, if you shall keep the commandments of Yahweh your God, and walk in his ways. All the peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by Yahweh’s name, and they will be afraid of you. Yahweh will grant you abundant prosperity in the fruit of your body, in the fruit of your livestock, and in the fruit of your ground, in the land which Yahweh swore to your fathers to give you. Yahweh will open to you his good treasure in the sky, to give the rain of your land in its season, and to bless all the work of your hand. You will lend to many nations, and you will not borrow. Yahweh will make you the head, and not the tail. You will be above only, and you will not be beneath, if you listen to the commandments of Yahweh your God which I command you today, to observe and to do, and shall not turn away from any of the words which I command you today, to the right hand or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.
- Deuteronomy 32:47 For it is no vain thing for you, because it is your life, and through this thing you shall prolong your days in the land, where you go over the Jordan to possess it.”
- Deuteronomy 30:1 It shall happen, when all these things have come on you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you shall call them to mind among all the nations where Yahweh your God has driven you,
- Mark 16:16 He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who disbelieves will be condemned.
- John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
- Galatians 5:6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision amounts to anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith working through love.
- 1 John 3:23 This is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, even as he commanded.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Deu 30:15 See, I have set before thee this…
Deu 30:15 See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil;
Ver. 15. See, I have set before thee.] Matters of great importance must be set on with greatest vehemency.
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 Life and good, i.e. a good or a happy…
Life and good, i.e. a good or a happy life; a figure called heniaduo: or, life, and all the blessings of life, as good is oft used, as Job 7:7; Psa 4:6; 128:5; Ecc 2:24; 4:8; 6:3.
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 Moses here concludes with a very bright light, and…
Moses here concludes with a very bright light, and a very strong fire, that, if possible, what he had been preaching of might find entrance into the understanding and affections of this unthinking people. What could be said more moving, and more likely to make deep and lasting impressions? The manner of his treating with them is so rational, so prudent, so affectionate, and every way so apt to gain the point, that it abundantly shows him to be in earnest, and leaves them inexcusable in their disobedience.
I. He states the case very fairly. He appeals to themselves concerning it whether he had not laid the matter as plainly as they could wish before them. 1. Every man covets to obtain life and good, and to escape death and evil, desires happiness and dreads misery. "Well," says he, "I have shown you the way to obtain all the happiness you can desire and to avoid all misery. Be obedient, and all shall be well, and nothing amiss." Our first parents ate the forbidden fruit, in hopes of getting thereby the knowledge of good and evil; but it was a miserable knowledge they got, of good by the loss of it, and of evil by the sense of it; yet such is the compassion of God towards man that, instead of giving him to his own delusion, he has favoured him by his word with such a knowledge of good and evil as will make him for ever happy if it be not his own fault. 2. Every man is moved and governed in his actions by hope and fear, hope of good and fear of evil, real of apparent. "Now," says Moses, "I have tried both ways; if you will be either drawn to obedience by the certain prospect of advantage by it, or driven to obedience by the no less certain prospect of ruin in case you be disobedient - if you will be wrought upon either way, you will be kept close to God and your duty; but, if you will not, you are utterly inexcusable." Let us, then, hear the conclusion of the whole matter. (1.) If they and theirs would love God and serve him, they should live and be happy, Deu 30:16. If they would love God, and evidence the sincerity of their love by keeping his commandments - if they would make conscience of keeping his commandments, and do it from a principle of love - then God would do them good, and they should be as happy as his love and blessing could make them. (2.) If they or theirs should at any time turn from God, desert his service, and worship other gods this would certainly be their ruin, Deu 30:17, Deu 30:18. Observe, It is not for every failure in the particulars of their duty that ruin is threatened, but for apostasy and idolatry: though every violation of the command deserved the curse, yet the nation would be destroyed by that only which is the violation of the marriage covenant. The purport of the New Testament is much the same; this, in like manner, sets before us life and death, good and evil; He that believes shall be saved; he that believes not shall be damned, Mar 16:16. And this faith includes love and obedience. To those who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory, honour, and immortality, God will give eternal life. But to those that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness (and so, in effect, worship other gods and serve them), will be rendered the indignation and wrath of an immortal God, the consequence of which must needs be the tribulation and anguish of an immortal soul, Rom 2:7-9.
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II. Having thus stated the case, he fairly puts them to their choice, with a direction to them to choose well. He appeals to heaven and earth concerning his fair and faithful dealing with them, Deu 30:19. They could not but own that whatever was the issue he had delivered his soul; therefore, that they might deliver theirs, he bids them choose life, that is, choose to do their duty, which would be their life. Note, 1. Those shall have life that choose it: those that choose the favour of God and communion with him for their felicity, and prosecute their choice as they ought, shall have what they choose. 2. Those that come short of life and happiness must thank themselves; they would have had it if they had chosen it when it was put to their choice: but they die because they will die; that is, because they do not like the life promised upon the terms proposed.
III. In the last verse, 1. He shows them, in short, what their duty is, to love God, and to love him as the Lord, a Being most amiable, and as their God, a God in covenant with them; and, as an evidence of this love, to obey his voice in every thing, and by a constancy in this love and obedience to cleave to him, and never to forsake him in affection or practice. 2. He shows them what reason there was for this duty, inconsideration, (1.) Of their dependence upon God: He is thy life, and the length of thy days. He gives life, preserves life, restores life, and prolongs it by his power though it is a frail life, and by his patience though it is a forfeited life: he sweetens life with his comforts, and is the sovereign Lord of life; in his hand our breath is. Therefore we are concerned to keep ourselves in his love; for it is good having him our friend, and bad having him our enemy. (2.) Of their obligation to him for the promise of Canaan made to their fathers and ratified with an oath. And, (3.) Of their expectations from him in performance of that promise: "Love God, and serve him, that thou mayest dwell in that land of promise which thou mayest be sure he can give, and uphold to thee who is thy life and the length of thy days." All these are arguments to us to continue in love and obedience to the God of our mercies.
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 See, I have set before thee this day,.... Moses…
See, I have set before thee this day,.... Moses here returns to press the Israelites to the present observance of the laws, statutes, and judgments of one sort and another, he had been delivering to them; as being of great moment and importance to them, no other than
life and good, and death and evil; which are the effects and consequences of obedience and disobedience to them; a happy temporal life, and a continuance of it in the good land of Canaan, and an enjoyment of the blessings and good things thereof to them that are obedient; for not spiritual and eternal life, or spiritual blessings and everlasting happiness, are to be had by man's obedience to the law of works, only through Christ, through his obedience, righteousness, sufferings, and death; see Gal 3:21; so temporal death, or a cutting short of natural life in the promised land, and evil things, calamities, and distresses, or a deprivation of all the good things of it to the disobedient; see Isa 1:19.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 15. Life and good] Present and future blessings.
Verse 15. Life and good] Present and future blessings.
Death and evil] Present and future miseries: termed, De 30:19, Life and death, blessing and cursing. And why were these set before them?
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1. That they might comprehend their import.
2. That they might feel their importance.
3. That they might choose life, and the path of believing, loving obedience, that led to it.
4. That they and their posterity, thus choosing life and refusing evil, might be the favourites of God in time and eternity.
Were there no such thing as free will in man, who could reconcile these sayings either with sincerity or common sense? God has made the human will free, and there is no power or influence either in heaven, earth, or hell, except the power of God, that can deprive it of its free volitions; of its power to will and nill, to choose and refuse, to act or not act or force it to sin against God. Hence man is accountable for his actions, because they are his; were he necessitated by fate, or sovereign constraint, they could not be his. Hence he is rewardable, hence he is punishable. God, in his creation, willed that the human creature should be free, and he formed his soul accordingly; and the Law and Gospel, the promise and precept, the denunciation of wo and the doctrine of eternal life, are all constructed on this ground; that is, they all necessarily suppose the freedom of the human will: nor could it be will if it were not free, because the principle of freedom or liberty is necessarily implied in the idea of volition. See on the fifth chapter and 29th verse. See Clarke on De 5:29
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Evil. Obedience will insure eternal life: but if thou…
Evil. Obedience will insure eternal life: but if thou give the preference to evil, the second death must be thy portion, ver. 19. (Haydock) (Ecclesiasticus xv. 17.) (Menochius) --- It may also refer to the goods and evils of the present life, of which Moses has been speaking. (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).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain DEATH AND LIFE ARE SET BEFORE THE ISRAELITES. (Deu…
DEATH AND LIFE ARE SET BEFORE THE ISRAELITES. (Deu 30:15-20)
See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil--the alternative of a good and happy, or a disobedient and miserable life. Love of God and compliance with His will are the only ways of securing the blessings and avoiding the evils described. The choice was left to them, and in urging upon them the inducements to a wise choice, Moses warmed as he proceeded into a tone of solemn and impressive earnestness similar to that of Paul to the elders of Ephesus (Act 20:26-27).
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Next: Deuteronomy Chapter 31
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 15-20. Choose life — In striking expressions Moses summarizes…
15-20. Choose life — In striking expressions Moses summarizes his teachings. Life is connected with their obedience, death with their disobedience.
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 15–20. The Peroration to the Discourses
15–20. The Peroration to the Discourses
15. Cp. Jer_21:8.
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set before thee this day] Deu_4:8.
life and good, etc.] Cp. Deu_11:26 : blessing and curse. For death and evil cp. Deu_4:26, Deu_8:19, etc.
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.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Vers. 15-20. Moses concludes by solemnly adjuring the people,…
Vers. 15-20. Moses concludes by solemnly adjuring the people, as he had set before them, in his proclamation of the Law and in his preaching, good and evil, life and death, to choose the former and eschew the latter, to love and serve the Lord which is life, and to shun apostasy and disobedience which are death. (cf. Deu_11:26, Deu_11:27)
Vers. 15-20. A dread alternative.
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While handling substantially the same momentous themes, the aged lawgiver, as if the thought were oppressing him that he should very soon speak his last word, becomes more and more intensely earnest, and mingles a solemnity and pathos which may well be followed by those whose work it is to "warn every man, and teach every man in all wisdom," that they may "present every man perfect in Christ Jesus." Here is presented to us a series of considerations, which are cumulative in their force, and which should be deeply pondered in strict order of progress.
I HERE IS A GREAT MASS OF TRUTH SET BEFORE MEN"S CONSCIENCES AND HEARTS. There are a few words and phrases here given, in form most short and simple, yet in meaning how august! how deep! how high! They are such as these God, the Lord thy God, good, evil, life, death, blessing, cursing. "Dread words! whose meaning has no end, no bound." There are immeasurable, yea, infinite realities behind them. And having once been lodged in the conscience with the significance which is theirs, no power can dislodge them, nor can any one cause it to be to the man as if he had never heard them.
II THERE IS A GREAT DUTY WHICH PRESSES ON MEN WITH WHOM THIS TRUTH IS DEPOSITED. (See vers. 16, 20.) To love the Lord, to obey him, to cleave to him, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments, and his statutes, and judgments, this is obviously the right course for men to follow. On many grounds.
1. The Lord God is holy, and all his commandments are so too; and it is intrinsically and manifestly right to follow what is holy.
2. As our Maker and Preserver, God has supreme claims on our loyalty of heart and life.
3. As our Lawgiver, he has the infinite right to require our obedience.
4. As our Infinite Benefactor, having commended his love towards us, having bought us with a price, he has a claim of love as well as a right of law. And it is not possible for a man to dispute this claim unless his nature is becoming so perverted that he begins to call evil good, or good evil.
III THERE IS A GREAT BLESSING WHICH WILL FOLLOW OUR LOYALTY AND OBEDIENCE. This is so under the gospel, as really as under the Law. For the Law rested on a basis of gospel, and the gospel brings with it its own law. How can it be otherwise? The gospel call is, "Repent, believe, obey." This is the precise and immutable order. The grace of God teaches us that "we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world, looking for that blessed hope," etc. And we know what is the promised issue: Godliness... hath promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come." "For God is our life and the length of our days." Peace, joy, hope, and all joyful graces and blessings attend on a life which is in accordance with God"s will.
IV IT IS NOT POSSIBLE THAT OPPOSITE MORAL COURSES SHOULD HAVE LIKE ISSUES. Men going in opposite directions, in a right line, on a plane surface, from the same point, can never meet. If to love and obey God be good and tends to good, then the reverse must be evil, and can work nothing but evil. And such ill effects must, for aught we know, go on forever and ever, unless something or some being interposes (ver. 18). The prolongation of Israel"s life in the Promised Land, even though they reached it in peace, would depend on the continuity of their obedience to their God. They rebelled. Their kingdom was broken up; their people were carried captive; and the sad story already rehearsed became theirs. And if now men quit the leadership of the Lord Jesus Christ, there will be there must be, a sorer condemnation than for those who rebelled against the Law of Moses. (Heb 6:, Heb 9:, Heb_9:10; Joh_3:36) The outlook for the despisers of Christ, in the next life, is darkness without a gleam of the light of hope in the distant horizon. And even in this life nothing but woe can possibly be to him who striveth with his Maker.
V THERE ARE WITNESSES THAT WE HAVE NOT BEEN LEFT UNDIRECTED AND UN-WARNED. (Ver. 19.) Compare with this solemn adjuration of Moses that of Paul in Act_20:26, Act_20:27; Php_1:8. "Heaven" was witness. For every warning given to men in God"s Name is known and received on high. Earth" is witness, for the record of the warning is published to the world. And the warning itself was heard by thousands of ears, and was heard of by many thousands more. By the very directions of our Lord, we are to proclaim to the many, not to whisper to a few.
VI SUCH OPEN HERALDING SHOULD PREVENT ANY ONE WHO HEARS THE MESSAGE FROM CHERISHING THE HOPE OF SCREENING HIMSELF UNDER FALSE PRETENCES. The following passages may be compared with our text: Eze_33:2-5, Eze_33:9; Mat_12:41, 42 8:11, 12. If any one, having heard the gospel message in all its fullness and freeness, should ever attempt to throw the blame of his destruction upon others, the light of eternity will be to his complete unmasking and discomfiture. No false pretences will stand in the judgment. (Ps 1)
VII AN OUTLOOK SUCH AS THIS MAY WELL GIVE A DEEP AND DEEPENING EARNESTNESS TO A PREACHER"S TONE. Specially:
1. If he is nearing the close of his course.
2. If a year is approaching its close.
3. If he realizes the thought that soon, very soon, some of his hearers may be in the eternal world.
4. If he gives due heed to the thought that, even apart from the possible nearness of the next life, the accidents of time may make the period exceedingly short for teaching and warning any one individual.
VIII AFTER ALL, THERE IS A LIMIT BEYOND WHICH NO HERALD FOR GOD CAN GO. He may teach and warn and plead, but when he has done that where his responsibility ends, that of the hearer begins; ver. 19, "therefore choose life." The preacher witnesses. The hearer must be left alone with God and his own conscience to decide the all-important question, on which a whole eternity depends. Man can direct his fellowman to God. He may plead and beseech, even weeping. He may, as in Christ"s stead, pray, "Be reconciled to God." But on the hearer alone the full responsibility for the final step must rest. We may point to God: but we cannot come between the soul and God. We can herald the way: but we cannot lead the soul along the paths of righteousness. (Eze_33:4) Hence the final word must be, "Choose life." "Choose ye this day whom ye will serve." With the power of free choice man cannot interfere. With it God will not trifle. And what should be the effect of such an appeal, but to shut the sinner up alone with his God, that between him and Heaven the great matters of life and death may be decided, and that, with the judgment seat alone in view, in full sincerity of soul, the sinner, pressed with the weight of the Divine claims, may then and there "repent," and "yield himself unto God?" And if then, conscious of the feebleness of a will weakened by so oft determining on the wrong side, he cries, "Lord, help me, and I will be thine forever," a regal love shall cancel past sin and completely forgive; and a gracious power shall cure the weakness and perfectly restore!
Vers. 15-20. A last word.
I AN ALTERNATIVE. Life and death; good and evil (ver. 15); blessing and cursing (ver. 19). An alternative for the nation, but also for the individual. "Life" is more than existence it is holy and happy existence. "Death" is not equivalent to non-existence. As respects the natural life, it is the separation of the living, thinking principle from the body, and is compatible with the survival of the soul in a future state. As respects the spiritual life that life which the believer has, and the unbeliever has not, even now, while yet both have conscious being (1Jn_5:12) death is the cessation in the soul of all holy, spiritual functions, implying, indeed, a state of moral ruin, destruction, and disorganization, but by no means the wiping out of consciousness. "Eternal death a phrase not scriptural, though "eternal punishment" is (Mat_25:46) is not held by any one to mean "eternal existence in suffering;" but it is believed that a being who exists eternally, and exists consciously, whether in actual suffering or not, may yet in a very true sense be "dead." "Death," in this verse (ver. 15), is deemed compatible with experience of "evil." How strange that between such alternatives there should be a moment"s hesitation!
II A WARNING. (Vers. 17, 18.) If the heart is drawn away from God, and turns to idols, i.e. sets up any other objects in God"s place, and forbears to give to God his proper love and honor, he whose heart does this, or the nation if it does so, shall surely perish.
1. An awful end.
2. A certain end.
3. An end of which due warning has been given.
III AN APPEAL. (Vers. 19, 20.) "Therefore choose life," etc. On which note:
1. That choice or moral determination underlies our salvation.
2. That choice underlies the possibility of love to God.
3. That one deep choice in the heart"s center underlies all the separate acts of choice involved in a life of obedience.
4. That the choice God wishes involves the choosing of himself, with a view to love him, to obey him, and to cleave to him.
5. That the choice of God is the choice of life, and carries all lesser good with it. J.O.
Vers. 15-20. An alternative choice.
The prophet"s power to persuade and influence a people is great unspeakably great; yet it is not irresistible. It has its limits. After all that has been said to him, a man feels that the determination and choice rest within himself. Reason may be convinced; judgment may give a decided verdict; still inclination may inordinately lean to the weaker side, and baffle all prudent calculations. The intense eagerness of Moses for the people"s weal is a sublime spectacle of generous devotement an unparalleled instance of ardent patriotism. Calling up all his powers of persuasive and passionate appeal, he makes a final effort to win the tribes for God. We have here
I ALTERNATIVE LINES OF CONDUCT. All possible courses of life are reduced to two one of which every man must take; a third course is excluded. The two are separately described.
1. The course of loyalty is described:
(1) By the man"s state of heart. "To love the Lord thy God." This determines all that follows the root out of which all flowers and fruits of obedience spring. This love arises from a right appreciation of God. He is thy life," yea, the life of thy life. Without him, life is a shadow a dream outside showy. "In him we live." "Christ is our life the Source of all strength and goodness and joy. This love arises from near relationship. He is our God; he has entered into loving covenant with us joined forever his interests with ours.
(2) By the man"s habit of life. He "walks in God"s ways." In those ways he finds God. It is the King"s highway. He has daily companionship with Jehovah. All his tastes and wishes are gratified. His will is sweetly acquiescent in God"s will. He steadily makes advancement in the beauteous life. He does not halt; he walks.
(3) By his practical obedience. "He keeps his commandments and his statutes." He keeps them in memory, and has regard to them in every step he takes. They are written upon the tablet of his heart; they shine out in lustrous characters in all his actions. He guards them from the assaults of others. As the stone tablets of the Decalogue were preserved in the ark of the covenant, so in the more capacious ark of a good man"s heart, the commandments of God are kept.
2. So, also, the course of disloyalty is portrayed:
(1) As a dislike of God. "If thine heart turn away." Through ignorance, or prejudice, or pride, or sensual indulgence, men grow in dislike of God, until his very Name is odious his presence a very hell. Repugnance to God is the livery they wear.
(2) Is wanton deafness. "So that thou wilt not hear." The ear is only an instrument; the effective power comes from a deeper source. We gradually bring ourselves into a condition in which we hear only what we wish to hear. The bulk of men have made themselves deaf to God"s voice.
(3) Is weak compliance to temptation. Thou "shall be drawn away." The habit of most men is to float with the stream. They yield thoughtlessly to the influence of public example. They do as others do, speak as others dictate.
(4) As ignoble service of idols. "And worship other gods." Man must worship somewhat. It is a necessity of his being. He is not self-contained; nor can he be satisfied out of himself. He worships power, wealth, fashion, social fame, fate, the devil.
II ALTERNATIVE EXPERIENCE.
1. The course of loyality secures:
(1) All real good. The good is not always apparent not always immediate. Yet even the experiences of pain and calamity prove ultimately to the obedient soul a real good. The storms of winter are as needful to the best life as the warm breath of spring. All that is wise, pure, excellent, elevating, noble, useful, is to be gained in the pathway of obedience. Every stage accomplished is a new installment of good.
(2) It secures increase of numbers. Rapid multiplication was, humanly speaking, Israel"s security. By this means, they could outnumber their foes. Through our children, blessing and gladness come. So is it in spiritual things. We taste the highest joy when we become the channels of Christ"s life to men. We long to have many genial companions in the road to heaven.
(3) It secures Divine blessing. "The Lord thy God shall bless thee." External possessions contain no blessing in themselves. The richest lands the fairest scenes on earth, are stripped of charm, so long as they areenveloped in absolute darkness. It is the light of God"s favor that converts possession into blessing. Hence the little of the righteous is better than the abundance of the wicked. If God"s blessing be on our estates, that makes them secure. That blessing is the core and marrow of true prosperity. That blessing alone gives fragrance and gladness to life. This blessing is secured by the oath of God.
2. But the course of disloyalty is marked by the opposite experience.
(1) It is an experience of evil. The table may groan under the profusion of dainty food, but there is a scarcity of food for the soul. The body may be pampered, but there is leanness in the spirit. Riches may increase, but they daily corrupt the mind. There may be noisy laughter, but it only covers inner sadness and hidden grief. No sorrow is sanctified. The real man is starved and ruined.
(2) There is distressing insecurity. We are rich today; we may be paupers tomorrow. "Ye shall not prolong your days in the land." Apart from God"s favor, we have not a day"s lease of life not the certainty that any possession of ours shall continue. We dwell on the verge of a volcano. The earth quivers under our feet.
(3) There is a sense of the Divine curse. A life of disloyalty is a life of constant warfare with God a conflict with Omnipotence. Every plan which impious men make is a plan to elude and defeat God. And they know they cannot permanently succeed. There is a dark pall overhanging every prospect a night of gloom closing in their little day. The curse of a good man is an awful calamity: what must God"s curse include?
III ALTERNATIVE DESTINY.
1. The destiny of the good man is life. This means life in its fullest measure, in its highest form, in its perpetual developments. Gradually all the elements of weakness and pain and decay shall be eliminated. Compared with the future life of the righteous, the present life is but childhood the feebleness and ignorance of infancy. The life which is promised to the righteous is nothing less than the life of God. "We shall be like him.
2. The destiny of disloyalty is destruction. "Ye shall surely perish." This includes disappointment the sudden collapse of all earthly hopes. It embraces shame and public reproach. The disloyal will be the laughingstock of the universe. They shall be covered with confusion. This dark destiny includes poignant remorse. The unrighteous will know, to their deepest grief, that they might have been saved if they would. Such despair baffles all description.
IV INSTANT CHOICE DEMANDED. We cannot do other than admire the condescension of God in pleading so pathetically with men.
1. There is full instruction. "I have set before thee life and death." Every element of needed information is furnished; and personal examination of spiritual facts is expected. Every man is bound to investigate, to ponder, to judge.
1. There is authoritative command. "I command thee." On the side of righteous precept there is supreme authority. Every appeal of God is an appeal to the noblest part of our nature to conscience. Every solicitation of the tempter is an appeal to appetite and passion.
2. There is tender entreaty. To the activities of wisdom and authority is added the impulse of love. If man"s benevolent love prompt him to use all measures to turn the disloyal unto God; how much deeper must be the love of God, of which man"s affection is but a faint adumbration! With all the pathos which human sympathy can lend to entreaty Moses pleads, therefore choose life.
3. Heaven and earth are summoned to hear the solemn charge. Angels note the fidelity of God"s prophets. All heaven is interested in man"s obedience. The joy of heaven rises to new heights with every accession of loyal subjects. And all the inhabitants of earth are interested in our obedience, whether they feel that interest or not. The future history of this world is in our hands is being molded by our deeds. What we are today determines what the next generation will be. Each man who hears the heavenly summons makes decision straightway, if not in form, yet in reality. Each man is writing the epitaph for his tomb preparing his verdict for the last assize! Can we not today forecast our final destiny? D.
Vers. 15-20. Death and life set before the people.
In this earnest word which concludes a section of his address to the people, Moses is summing up his deliverance. It has been called by Havernick "the classic passage" upon the subject of death and life as understood in Old Testament times. "Shut out from the true community of life (Lebensgemeinschaft)," says Havernick," the sinner puts in only a pretended life (Scheinleben), without God, enduring and promoting ruin in himself, until death physical, with its terrors, overtakes him. The Divine penalty manifests itself to the sinner as death." Let us consider what is here suggested. And
I GOD IS THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE. He was before all things; in him they live and move and have their being; by him all things consist. Life physical is from him; but so also, and in a much fuller fashion, is life spiritual. The inner man is from him, and depends upon him for sustenance. And when his only begotten Son came into the world, he gave him to have life in himself, (Joh_5:26) so that of him it could alone be said, "In himwas life, and the life was the light of men". (Joh_1:4) We recognize in God, therefore," the Fountain of living waters," from which, to their own great damage, men are separating themselves, as if the broken cisterns of their own hewing could ever slake their thirst. (Jer_2:13)
II LOVE ATTACHES US TO THIS SPIRITUAL FOUNTAIN. As we love God with all our heart, and soul, and mind, and strength, we find that we have begun to live. On the other hand, the loveless life is only a pretended life, and carries within itself the "Anathema Maranatha". (cf. 1Co_16:22) Love places our heart at a level with God"s, and the riches of his life flow into us. As Emerson, writing of gifts, says, "The gift, to be true, must be the flowing of the giver unto me, correspondent to my flowing unto him. When the waters are at a level, then my goods pass to him and his to me. All his are mine, all mine his." It is exactly in this magnanimous spirit God deals with those who love him. All his life and fullness flow down to us; we cannot, of course, take all in-our measure is a small one, but we are filled up to our capacity with all the fullness of God. (Eph_3:18)
III LOVE GIVES BIRTH TO NEW OBEDIENCE. If we love God, we shall keep his commandments. (Joh_14:15) In the eye of love, his commandments are not grievous. (1Jn_5:3) Our meat is found in doing the will of him that sends us, and in finishing his work. (Joh_4:34) We say with the Master, "I delight to do thy will, O my God; yea, thy Law is within my heart". (Psa_40:8) And so, in the terms of the passage before us, we walk in God"s ways, and keep his commandments and statutes and judgments.
Now, this obedience strengthens the spiritual life. Just as exercise invigorates the body, so work of a spiritual kind invigorates the soul. We not only find rest in coming to Jesus, but refreshment in taking on us his yoke and his burden. (Mat_11:28-30)
IV SUCH A LIFE OF ATTACHMENT AND OBEDIENCE UNTO GOD TENDS TO PERPETUATE OUR POWER AND EXISTENCE. Other things being equal, a religious life tends to perpetuate physical power. The calm which pervades the faculties, the wholesome exercise which devotedness to God administers, the deliverance from fear which religion bestows in face of all possible vicissitude and change, all this favors health and longevity. Of course, Christianity does not need now such outward testimonies as these. Many saints are sickly, and die young; but religion never made their sickness a whir more serious, nor shortened their career by a single day. They would have been less easy in their sickness, and it would have cut their thread of life more quickly, had they been strangers to its solaces and joys.
V SEPARATION FROM THE SOURCE OF LIFE IS DEATH INDEED. In this striking passage, while "good" and "life" go together, so do "death" and "evil." The idea in death is not cessation of existence, but separation from God. Adam and Eve died the day they doubted God"s love and ate the fruit. They ceased not to exist that day, but died out of fellowship with God. Hence we are not to associate an annihilation view with the Biblical idea of death. Men die when they are separated from God as really as the branch broken from the stem. Sin is the mother of Death. (Jam_1:15) It brings it forth, because it separates the soul from him who is the Fountain of life.
The Jews found in their national experience how deadly a thing it is to disobey their God and to depart from him. Nor shall their calamities cease till they return to him. Meanwhile, may we see to it that we cleave trustfully and lovingly to God, and have increasing life in his favor! R.M.E.
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 I have set before thee this day life and…
Deu_30:15-20
I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil.
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Life and good, death and evil
1. The matter propounded. Life as the end, good as the means leading to life; or else, life, that is, the enjoyment of God; and good, the felicity following it.
2. The manner of proposing. Here is good and evil, life and death, put together, that we may embrace the one and eschew the other. As the poets feign of Hercules when he was young, virtue and vice came to woo and make court to him; virtue, like a sober chaste virgin, offering him labours with praise and renown; vice, like a painted harlot, wooing him with the blandishments of pleasure. The word exciting attention, See; I have done this in order to choice; for so it is, Deu_30:19, Choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live. It is the duty of the faithful servants of the Lord in a lively manner to set before the people life and death as the fruit of good and evil. Our work, the matter of it, and the manner in which we are to propound it to you.
I. The matter: we must set before the people--
1. Life and good.
2. Death and evil. This I shall open in these propositions--First, that there is a distinction between good and evil, vice and virtue. He that doth not acknowledge it is unworthy the name, not only of a Christian, but of a man. Secondly, the matching these two, death and evil, life and good. And here I shall speak--
(1) of the suitableness of the connection between them.
(2) The greatness of both.
(3) The certainty of both these, life and death, as the fruit of good and evil.
II. The manner how this is to be done. It must be set forth with all evidence and conviction as to the reason of men, with all earnestness and affectionate importunity to awaken their affections. Use of exhortation.
1. Suffer us to discharge our duty in this kind (Heb_13:22). Would you have us compound with you, and deceive your souls with a false hope, which will leave you ashamed when you most need the comfort of it? Men would live with the carnal, die with the sincere; therefore suffer us to be earnest with you.
2. The next thing that we exhort you to is to believe the certainty, consider the weight and importance of these truths, that there is a difference between good and evil, that the fruit of the one is death, of the other life; and consider how irrational it is for a man to love death and refuse life. No man in his right wits can make a doubt which to choose. (T. Manton, D. D.)
Life or death
I. The alternative placed before all men. Life or death--good or evil (Psa_106:4-5; 1Co_2:9; Joh_14:1-2; Isa_35:10).
1. A choice must be made. Death decides for us when it comes (Luk_16:22-23; Heb_9:27), and it may come in an hour (Mar_13:35; Mar_13:37).
2. The undecided are really decided against God: therefore against life and good (Joh_5:40; Joh_3:19; 2Ti_3:4-5; Pro_1:24-27).
3. The choice, however made, is final and eternal. On the one hand life, love, and happiness for evermore (Joh_10:28). On the other death and evil eternally (1Sa_2:9; Mat_5:41).
II. The result of decision for God (Heb_6:18-20; 1Ti_6:12).
1. Life (Deu_30:19). First temporal, as under the law (Exo_20:12); then life eternal (Joh_10:10; Joh_14:19; Heb_7:16); for Christ, who is our life, is eternal (Col_3:4).
2. Love (Deu_30:20; 1Jn_4:8; 1Jn_4:16). God is love, therefore if Gods life be in us, as Joh_10:28, then Gods love must also be in us.
3. Obedience, that thou mayest obey His voice (verse 20). Yielding to our Father the obedience of love (2Th_1:8; Rom_1:5; 1Pe_1:2; Jam_1:23).
4. To dwell in the land of promise (verse 20). A shadow of a better land--of an inheritance that fadeth not (Joh_14:1-2; 1Pe_1:4-5). All these blessings resulting from decision for God and good are not for ourselves only, but also for our children (verse 19; Act_2:39).
III. The power of this new life. He is thy life (verse 20). He is the resurrection and the life (Joh_11:25-26). He is the Prince of Life (Act_3:15). With Him is the fountain of life. Hence Christ Himself is the power of the new life (1Jn_5:12). He alone can by His Spirit quicken (Joh_5:26). If therefore we desire the life that never fails, that cannot be dissolved (Heb_7:16), we must come to Him, that, like St. Paul, we too may say, I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live: yet not I, but Christ liveth in me (Gal_2:19-20; Joh_14:6; Heb_10:19-20; see also verses 11-14, and Rom_10:4-9). (H. Linton, M. A.)
The good choice
Moses said these words first to Israel. But God says them to each of us, to everyone who has a conscience, a sense of right and wrong, and sense to see he ought to do right and shun wrong. I have heard a great man call this the granite on which all other spiritual beliefs rest, and so it is. It is taken for granted and built, on in all Gods revelation, in all Christs atoning work, in all the Holy Spirits operation. This is a choice we must each make, not, like the fabled one, for once, but day by day, continually. It is the resultant of all our life.
I. This daily endeavour to be holy, to be like Christ, will be a spring of interest which will never fail, when other interests fail with our failing selves.
II. If we choose well, we must end well. If we grow here fit for a better place, pure, kind, hardworking, unselfish, we cannot be a failure.
III. It is not for ourselves only, either here or hereafter, that God bids us choose good. We have got in our keeping the worldly peace of others.
IV. Love to the Redeemer, who died for us and lives for us, is the great spring of all right-doing. Only by the grace of God can we choose good. (A. K. H. Boyd, D. D.)
The law of God sets before us good and evil
I. As a matter of information, to show us the real difference that is between them, and the different consequences which they produce.
1. The Word of God sets before us this difference, in so plain convincing terms that, though we may be perverted by evil, yet it is hard for us to be mistaken. Though God has sent us into this wilderness of a world, where there are many intricate passages to perplex us, and much variety of objects to distract our thoughts, yet He has not left us without a guide, nor Himself without a witness. He has given us His Word, as a perfect rule, by which we shall certainly be tried at last: and therefore by this rule we ought to try our own actions now.
2. Conscience, when it comes to speak for itself, as it will sometimes do, is as convincing as any revelation, and as obliging as any law; it is a witness that will not be silenced, and a judge that cannot be suborned. It is this that makes us look upon some actions with abhorrence, and upon others with delight; and according to this inward relish or disgust so we learn to discover the difference between good and evil, and find that every action of man has an indelible character stamped upon it, by which its value is easy to be known.
II. As an object of your choice. When things of so very different natures are set before us, one would think it an easy matter to be determined. If our notions of good and evil are too weak to work upon us, and hold our minds for some time in suspense; yet surely life and death admit of no dispute. One is the sole delight, and the other the utter abhorrence of our nature, and a powerful instinct within us always inclines us to the better part. What indefatigable pains do we take to gratify our foolish lusts, when with half the pains we might learn to live much happier without them. What violence do we use upon ourselves, to lay our souls and consciences asleep, for fear the beautiful prospect of life should tempt us to be virtuous, or the dismal apparitions of death should affright us from our vice, when half that force employed against our vanities and corruptions would suffice to take heaven itself by violence, and make us forever happy. (C. Hickman, D. D.)
Choose death or life.
The central thought of the text lies in the word choose. The Israelites are on the point of entering the promised land, and Moses entreats them to choose between idolatry and the religion of Jehovah. A similar alternative is before us now.
I. The choice is personal and free. These words which were addressed to Israel as a people, applied to each individual in particular; for the individual alone is free and responsible. To each human being the command is given, Choose. The power of making such a choice is ours, else the words of the text had in them no meaning. It has been said that religion enthralls conscience and thought, and that it must be rejected in the name of liberty. That is false. The Bible, on the contrary, reveals and holds out to us that glorious liberty of the children of God which is inseparable from holiness; and freedom of choice is affirmed in its pages as the primary condition and starting point of our enfranchisement. There can be no more energetic appeal than that contained in the word Choose! But the Bible never separates the idea of liberty from that of responsibility. The liberty of which it tells is that which takes the Divine law as its binding yet not coercive rule. Such a religion is, more than any other, fitted to form strong characters and free nations. Together with human liberty, the Bible teaches that mutual dependence which unites all the sons of Adam, and which we call human solidarity. A thousand influences, over which we have no control, act upon us; yet, however numerous and powerful these may be, they do not affect our liberty. We can resist them, and it is our duty to do so. Again, the Bible speaks of supernatural powers that are brought to bear upon our will, but without enchaining or destroying it. There is an enemy that prowls around you; but if you resist him he will flee from you. You have a God who loves you, but He will not save you against your will. You have a Saviour, but if you will not open your hearts to Him, He will not enter them by force. In relation to God and in relation to Satan, you are free. There is one thing, however, that you are not free to do: you cannot refuse to make your choice. And this choice, whether good or bad, is the one essential business of life.
II. This choice is to be made between two opposite courses. I have set before you life and death. Jesus Christ speaks of the broad and of the narrow way: no middle course or third way. This classification does not exclude certain differences of degree which morally exist between men. In the broad as well as the narrow way various stages may have been reached; but there are only two courses leading to two opposite ends. At this hour you are standing at the Junction of these two ways, but henceforth you shall be walking in one or the other of them. Your destinies will vary infinitely, but all outward diversities are as nothing in comparison of the moral difference which shall result from your personal choice. Each day you will take a step further in either of these two paths; the greater your progress, the riper shall you be for salvation or for condemnation. Whilst this choice is still possible and comparatively easy, choose life!
III. This choice must be made today. In the life of individuals as well as in that of nations there are certain decisive moments that determine their future. Such a time was it when Adam was subjected to the trial that involved issues of such moment for the human family. He chose. He disobeyed, and by the disobedience of one man sin entered into the world. We find such another hour in the life of Jesus. He is tempted in the wilderness. He chooses, and by the obedience of one man we have eternal life. Would you know what a moment of blind folly may cost a family, an individual, a nation? Remember Lot casting a covetous eye on the plain of Sodom; Esau selling his birthright; the Jews shouting: Not this man, but Barabbas; Felix putting off his conversion, Go thy way, and when I have, etc. Would you know, on the contrary, how fruitful in blessing may a moment of fidelity be? Remember Abraham obeying the Divine call; Moses preferring the affliction of his people to the delights of sin; Solomon praying for wisdom; the disciples of Jesus leaving all to follow Him. Will you follow the first of these examples or the last? Choose.
IV. The witnesses of your choice. I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day. The witnesses that surround you are not against you but for you. They are parents, pastors, the Church, the angels. And who can tell if among the invisible witnesses there are not some for whom you mourn! These witnesses might one day rise up against you and exclaim: We were present on such a day, at such an hour, in such a place; the exhortations of the preacher were pressing; the Christian life presented itself to this young man, with its duties, its joys, its sorrows; Jesus was there, ready to forgive the past and--that young man would not! To this outward testimony will be added that of your own conscience: That is true, it will say; you might have decided for God. Oh! how overpowering shall be the confusion of the hardened sinner! There is but one way of escaping it. Choose life today.
V. The consequences of this choice. Blessing or cursing, life or death. Many will find these words too stern. They are Divine. They are logical. The sinner cannot be blessed, else God would cease to be holy. There are two ways open before you. If you choose the straight way you shall be blest in your youth, in your manhood, in your profession, in your family, in your days of joy and of sorrow, in eternity. If you choose the broad way, whatever be your lot here below, you shall not be blest. What shall you become when Christ shall say to you: I know you not! Choose life! (Bonnefon.)
The service of God chosen
I. The service of God is ever a matter of free personal choice. Surely irresistible grace is contrary to Scripture and experience. It reduces religious service to mechanism, and destroys that free-willingness which gives worth to all religious actions. True, that exemption from compulsion is not release from obligation, and that it is mans bounden duty to serve God. To man Gods grace should be indeed irresistible. Yet if man turn from God the responsibility is with man, and not God.
II. Further, the address of Moses demonstrated that the service of God is based upon reasonable considerations. If they turned from God, then upon them would fall His judgments, but if they cleaved unto Him they would know His blessing. Religion is our reasonable service, and careful thought ever leads to the conclusion that to choose God is--
1. To obey conscience;
2. To follow wisdom.
(1) To choose God is to obey conscience. Woe be to man if the voice of conscience he disregards.
(2) To choose God is to follow wisdom. That is demonstrated in the history of Israel, and of every nation and individual. If self is served, server and served are ruined (Pro_3:17).
(3) To choose God is to express the gratitude we should feel towards Him.
III. Lastly, the address of Moses was made forceful by his noble personal example. No desire to please the people led him to qualify his words. The experience of a long life spent in the service of God had convinced him of the glory of Gods service, and from that conviction he would not swerve. (C. E. Walters.)
Choosing life
I. The solemn alternative which is offered to every soul. Now, young people come into life, and as you look forward, it has roseate tints, and there is a natural buoyancy in living by impulse, which is one of Gods best gifts to you, and which I would be the last man to try to darken; but what I would press on you is that life, as it is opening before you, is no pleasure ground, still less a factory, or a shop, or a warehouse, least of all a place for dissipation. But that it is set before every one of you--a tremendous either . . . or, which you have to deal with whether you will or no. You have the alternative of, on the one hand, a life of sense, and on the other hand a life of spirit. Is it to be sense, or is it to be spirit? Is it to be the lower needs of your nature gratified, and the higher ones starved? Is it to be licence or self-control,--which? To gather it all into one, the choice which every son of man has to make is between self and God. Now, mind! it is an alternative; that is to say, you cannot ride the two horses at once. There are plenty of us that try to do that. If we have religion at all it must be the uppermost thing in us, and must rule us. If it does not, we do not really possess it in any measure. Further, let me remind you of the issues which are wrapped up in this sharp alternative. Remember my text: life or death, blessing or cursing, said Moses. You say, Oh, I surely may indulge in these natural requirements of my corporeal nature. Yes! But in electing whether you will live for sense or spirit, for self or God, make clear to yourself that the one is life, the other is death; the one is blessed, the other is cursed. Eternal issues of the gravest sort hang upon your relation to Jesus Christ, and you cannot alter that fact.
II. The need for a deliberate act of decision. An enormous number of us do not live by the deliberate choice of our wills, but are content to take our colour from circumstances, like some lake that, when the sky above it is blue, is all sparkling and sunny, and when the great clouds are drawn over the azure is all dull and sad. So hosts of us have never once deliberately sat down to look realities in the face, or said to ourselves, in regard to the deepest things of our lives, I see these alternatives before me, and here I now, deliberately, make my choice, and take this, and reject that. Circumstances rule us. There are fishes that change the hue of their spots according to the colour of the bed of the stream. How many of you owe your innocence simply to not having been tempted? How many of you are respectable people for no other reason than because you have always lived amongst such, and it is the fashion of your circle to be like that? Now, you cannot get away from the influence of your surroundings, and it is no use trying, but you can determine your attitude to your surroundings. And you can only do that by bringing a resolved will to bear upon them as the result of a deliberate choice. Now, remember that any man who lives by anything else than deliberate choice and resolve is degrading himself by the act. Have you not got reason, judgment, common sense--call it what you like--which is meant to be your pilot? And have you not got a conscience which is meant to be your compass? And what becomes of the ship if the pilot goes to sleep and lashes the helm right away up on one side, and puts a cover over the binnacle where the compass is, and never looks at the chart? Let me remind you, still further, that unless you make for the great things of life, the deliberate choice of the better, part, you have in effect made the disastrous choice of the worse. The policy of drift always ends in ruin for a nation, for an army, for an individual. To go down stream is easy, but there is a Niagara at the far end. You choose the worse when you do not deliberately choose the better. I do not suppose that any of you have deliberately said to yourselves, I do not mean to have anything to do with Jesus Christ, but you have drifted. You have not resolved that you will have something to do with Him. Not choosing, you have chosen. It is that widespread indifference, and not either intellectual or any other kind of opposition to Christianity, that I for one am afraid of, and into which so many of you have fallen. And so there is need for decision. If the Lord be God, follow Him; and if Baal, then follow him.
III. Some reasons why that decision should be made now.
1. I pray you to make choice of Jesus Christ for your Saviour and your King now, because this is your plastic, formative time. The metal is running fluid, as it were, out of the furnace when you are young. Its gets hardened into heavy bars when you get a little older, and it needs a great deal of hammering in order to bring it into other shape than that which it has taken.
2. Let me remind you, too, of another reason for immediate decision--that you need a Guide. Your desires, longings, passions are strong. They were meant to be. Your experience is little. You need a Guide; you will never need Him more. Take Him now.
3. Another reason is, because you will save yourselves from a great deal of pain, and sorrow, and disappointment, and perhaps remorse, if you now begin your life as a disciple of Jesus Christ.
4. And the last reason that I suggest to you is this, that every moment that you put off decision, and every appeal which you leave unobeyed, will make it harder for you if over you do choose Jesus Christ. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The choice of life
What an awful alternative--if it were true! Who, where are they who would not choose life, if the choice were really offered them? The martyr has chosen death, but we shudder at the cruel times which have demanded such self-sacrifice; the devotee has chosen death, and chooses it today, but we pity his fanatic faith; the maniac has chosen death, but only because bereft of reason; the suicide is the remaining exception--and his example proves the rule. But this alternative is not true. Life and death, in this physical sense, are not matters of rational choice. We are started on our journey, and spontaneously and rightly we do all that we can to keep in the way until the bodily machinery either breaks down at some weak point, or wears out generally, and all our endeavours are at an end. Duty and instinct compel us in the same direction; there is no choice here. Let us pass from the physical to the spiritual, which is also the scriptural sense. I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil, the blessing and the curse; therefore choose the inner life of goodness on which the blessing is pronounced, and not the inward deadness which destroys your true being. And again we say--What an alternative, if it were true! What a crowning choice--if it were indeed ours! But actual life--spiritual life--this true inward life, cannot be chosen or cast aside at once and forever, with our eyes wide open, and our minds made up, and our wills prepared to take all the consequences--the blessing or the curse. For us life does not concentrate its chances and hazard all its prospects at one only point; it is not even a series of points, at each of which this chance is renewed. It is not a single, nor yet an occasional, game of touch and go. Rather is it an ever-varying, many-winding river, its course now this way, now that; its waters muddy or clear, shallow or deep, at one time swollen and turgid, at another peacefully gliding through quietest scenes--but never at rest, always advancing resistlessly on, and often luring us by its motion into drowsy content. We wend our way through the everydayness of this weekday world attended by associations, painful or pleasant, which touch us at every point, surrounded by interests of varying import, and more numerous than we can name, with our plans in one direction, then new hopes in another--before, behind, on either side is this ever-shifting scenery, this crowded landscape of circumstance, through which we float for evermore--this is what life means to us. Where is there space, or chance, or stopping point for that single choice between two things only, as though all the rest would vanish at a word? This is a very plausible plea, especially for busy men. But however admissible in a general sense, there are several cases which it does not cover. There are times in human experience when the vast difference between these two only things is brought so bluntly before men--when that unlovely blank between what has been and what might be seems to cover so completely their whole horizon, that they are impelled to pull up, to face a choice of two conditions, and to decide abidingly for one or the other. Then the single, final alternative--life or death--is placed before them, and it is, moreover, felt to be absolute and exclusive. When Paul heard the voice say, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me? and straightway transformed himself from persecutor to preacher; when Augustine was stayed by the childlike tones chanting, Tolle, lege, and opened at words which to him were salvation; when Bunyan was suddenly stopped at his game by the warning appeal in his heart, Wilt thou leave thy sins and go to heaven, or have thy sins and go to hell? this difference was realised, this alternative accepted. But if these times, in which we are compelled to face an inner alternative, are rare, there are other times, happily less rare, when we are not compelled, but quietly prompted to face our choice. We are not forced, but asked, to look into our hearts. Our better self makes a secret suggestion that all there is not as it might be, that the lower self is allowed far too much prerogative, that one can only triumph by the others fall, and that, in fact, we must know our own mind and say deliberately which it shall be. Choose, whispers the secret voice: shake off all seeming, put away your coloured spectacles of prejudice, strip yourself of every proud thought, whether of wealth or position or ability, lay aside your little worldly triumphs, pray to be shown your transgressions as they truly are; and then look at yourself in the light of heaven, as a child of God. Such a time, surely, is the opening of a New Year. It is no mere return of habit, but a resistless instinct that invests this time with a special significance. A New Year, if it means anything beyond an altered almanac, means new life to everyone amongst us, but it will mean that only so far as we are faithful to our inner light. It may mean, and ought to mean, the awakening of holier desires, the birth of higher ideals, the death or defeat of a whole army of little sins and shallow ways, the oft-convicted traitors to our true being. It may be--let it be--a secret anniversary of the heart on which we take stock of ourselves, clear our accounts if we can, and start afresh. It is indeed a charge upon our weak wills that we need such outward promptings to attempt utterly the thing that is in us to be. The true Christlike life is an even progress towards perfection, not a series of jumps, or starts, or sudden ascents. But so long as our very weakness itself cries out for these helps, so long as these times of renewal are offered to us, let us not pass them by without hearing their message. Take them lest the chain be broken, ere thy pilgrimage be done. (F. K. Freeston.)
Freedom of mans will; or, the great decision
Two orders of men are generally fatalists--the eminently successful and the supereminently unfortunate. The former regard themselves as the children of destiny, for whom a place in the temple of the ages has been prepared, and without whom its glory would be incomplete. To this class belong the Caesars, the Napoleons, and Mahomets, whose wonderful abilities were only equalled by their complacent confidence in their own guiding star. In the ranks of the second are to be found many of those unhappy ones who have failed in lifes battle, with whom everything has fallen out badly, and who have steadily gone from loss to loss, or from crime to crime. Such people seem to derive comfort from the belief that they are the victims of fate; that they too would have succeeded if the Supreme Power had only been propitious; and that, consequently, circumstances or something else beyond their control, and not themselves, are to blame for the disasters attending their career. It is not to be denied that there is much in the philosophical speculations and the religious creeds of mankind to encourage such opinions. In India, in Greece, in Arabia, as well as among Western nations, the most ancient faiths affirmed the doctrine of necessity. Back of gods and men, and above them, in the Greek mythology reigned the unspeakable and unchangeable Fates, to whom the oppressed, like Prometheus, could appeal, and on whose final decisions everything from Olympus down to Hades absolutely depended. Buddha, also, and with him the wisest Eastern sages, regarded the race as practically in bondage to a Sovereign Soul, and as sweeping along a preordained course to its final goal. He had no logical place in his system for will-freedom, and was as far from doing justice to its phenomena as Spinoza or Mr. Buckle. This, however, is not the doctrine of the Scriptures. The Bible not only directly affirms the moral liberty of Gods intelligent creatures, but its entire revelation proceeds on the assumption that they are free to choose. Edens garden and the Fall lose their significance unless Adam was free. So when we come to study redemption the Bible does not hesitate to teach that its efficacy depends on the volition of the sinner, and that he is really able to accept or reject eternal life. On what other hypothesis can such passages as these be explained: See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil. The material universe which He has made cannot but obey His law. From age to age, and through all dispensations, the sun rises and sets, the stars peep out at night, the seasons come and go in their order, and the tides of the sea throb and surge with an exactness and regularity which precludes the possibility of derangement. Not one of these ponderous orbs or these Titanic forces has chosen the service which it renders. Blind, unknowing, uncaring, winds and waves below, and planet and constellation above, apply themselves to their allotted work. No wonder that a heart like the heart of God, full of fatherhood and brotherhood, should yearn to develop, among these enthralled masses an order of service different from theirs--a service that should be freely offered and which should be preferred beyond all others. The guilty must choose to be saved, and must choose to be saved in the way acceptable to the Almighty. Doubtless this interpretation of the Bible will to some minds be regarded as incompatible with what it seems to teach concerning Gods sovereignty. Unquestionably there is an appearance of contradiction; and yet I do not think it is as serious as many suppose. We know that even among men a great many wills come into play, and that frequently they coincide without infringing on each other; and why may not the same be possible on the part of the Creator and the creature? But when we meditate on this subject we should remember that we tread the borderland of two worlds--the natural and the supernatural--and that, like all other domains, it is next to impossible to tell how and where they flow into each other. Scientists find it difficult to trace the exact boundaries between the vegetable and animal kingdoms; they cannot tell exactly where the one ends and the other begins, and neither can they explain how and why they interpenetrate each other. Psychologists are equally perplexed. They are constrained to admit the relations between mind and brain to be inexplorable. No one can successfully deny the movement of history in which the Divine has been manifest in the human--as in the Incarnation, the founding of Christianity, and in those surprising providences which have vindicated right and confounded wrong--and yet no one can explain their harmony with the human, or prove that they in any way intrenched upon its freedom. The meeting place is veiled from us. Neither can we see in the application of redemption where these twain meet, how they interact on each other, and how they do so without limiting the power of the one or controlling the freedom of the other. Contact and interpenetration here is like contact and interpenetration in other departments of Gods wonderful cosmos, an unsearchable mystery, a mist-covered ocean, where only wreck awaits us if we insist on braving its darkness. Were not the Scriptures as decisive as they are on this general subject, I should be inclined to the doctrine already set forth by considerations of the weightiest character. What these are I shall briefly set before you, that you may be delivered from the illusions of modern fatalism, if unhappily you have been caught in their wiles. I would first of all remind you that some of the profoundest philosophers, such as Kant, Jacobi, and Hamilton, contend that consciousness is the most reliable witness of what we are, and that it testifies to our moral freedom. Analyse your own nature, and see whether it does not confirm the report which these thinkers give of its dignity. Do you not find that it discriminates between the voluntary and the involuntary, and that it attaches responsibility to the one and irresponsibility to the other? Let any man look within himself, and he will hear many voices declaring that he is free. Conscience, as it reproves him for wrong-doing, says, or there is no meaning in its voice, Thou art free; Remorse, dogging his footsteps and driving him from place to place, thunders in his ear, or his terror is absurd, Thou art free; Deliberation, as it ponders two paths and balances the reasons in favour of each, whispers distinctly, or this care and forethought are superfluous, Thou art free; and Desire, as it sways him and develops in his soul fierce contests with convictions of right or of prudence, proclaims above the battle, Thou art free! Thus he has the witness in himself, and if he doubts its reliability he may easily satisfy it by appealing from within to without. What says society, what say its leaders, what its members? Hegel, having taken a comprehensive view of humanity as revealed in history, gives utterance to the profound sentiment: Freedom is the essence of spirit, as gravitation is the essence of matter. That is, there could be no spirit without freedom, even as there could be no matter without gravitation. Society is organised on this principle. Its laws, its duties, its penalties, its censures and its praises, all centre in and derive their significance from the firm belief that whatever else man may or may not be, he is free. And the course of history, which influenced the thought of Hegel, confirms this judgment. It is seen that no mechanical theory, no doctrine of averages and of hard necessity, can be reconciled with its singular and eccentric movements, or its surprising and revolutionary changes. This Mr. Froude has clearly and admirably set forth in a paper reviewing Mr. Buckle. In opposition to that gentlemans so called Science of History, Froude reminds us that the first result of real science is the power of foresight, that when knowledge on any subject is systematised we can as accurately speak of its future as of its past. Thus, because astronomy is a true science, we can calculate eclipses and anticipate the most striking occurrences. But, he argues, when we come to the field of human endeavour certainty disappears, and we cannot tell what man will do tomorrow. He insists that such phenomena as Buddhism and Mohammedanism could not have been foretold, and he adds: Could Tacitus have looked forward nine centuries to the Rome of Gregory VII, could he have beheld the representative of the majesty of all the Caesars holding the stirrup of the Pontiff of that vile and execrated sect, the spectacle would scarcely have appeared to him the fulfilment of a rational expectation or an intelligible result of the causes in operation around him. We cannot anticipate the future of the world. Our soberest calculations may be deranged in a moment, and some unforeseen circumstances may frustrate all our expectations. Why? Why can we not as accurately predict the social convulsion that may be as the eclipse which cannot fail to be? Because in the domain of the stars there is no volition, while in that of history liberty of will is a controlling force. The freedom of mans will is vitally associated with the idea of morality. They are inseparable. Kant has exerted himself to show that they stand or fall together, and enters with so much zeal upon his task that he sometimes makes them appear synonymous. He says, We have now reduced the Idea of Morality to that of Freedom of Will, and in another place he writes, Autonomy of Will is the alone foundation of Morality. Hamilton likewise, following the sage of Koningsberg, declares that virtue involves liberty; that the possibility of morality depends on the possibility of liberty; for if man be not a free agent he is not the author of his actions, and has therefore no responsibility - nor moral responsibility - at all. In opposition to this position we find Spencer (Data of Ethics, p. 127)
asserting that the sense of duty or moral obligation is transitory; and he has certainly allowed no permanent place for it in his system. Now, I agree that we find here one of the strongest reasons for upholding the doctrine of free will. Under the declining sense of its truthfulness the colour and meaning are disappearing from the idea of duty. Indeed, we rarely hear a word now about duty but endless talk about rights. We are ready to fight and contend for rights; but, alas! our zeal for duties groweth cold. I insist on this doctrine, as it is the key to mans greatness. It shows that he is endowed with a wonderful and real power of conquering what to the faint hearted seems the unconquerable. Hamilton teaches that man is capable of carrying the law of duty into effect in opposition to solicitations, the impulsions of his material nature; and he declares that liberty is capable of resisting and conquering the counteraction of our animal nature. Kant likewise says: The instincts of mans physical nature give birth to obstacles which hinder and impede him in the execution of his duty. They are, in fact, mighty opposing forces which he has to go forth and encounter. What a grand conception is here presented of the will striving with inner enemies and overcoming their hostility. And if it can subdue inner foes, can it not resist and repel outer antagonists? I do not claim that your volition can change your nature, but I do claim that you are accountable for it, as your volition decides whether your nature shall be brought within the influence of heavens grace or not. Mere volition never built a ship, or a house, won a battle, or accomplished a voyage; and neither did it ever sanctify a soul. There is a difference between will and power. The will to be saved is of man, the power is of God. But whosoever wills cannot fail to find the power; for He has promised to confer on all such the water of life freely. For your choice, then, you are accountable, and your eternal destinies hang on your volition. (G. Lorimer, D. D.)
The offer of life and death
I. The two courses specified. Life and good, and death and evil. We shall take the latter first; that is, death and evil. Now, we observe--
1. That this is the course in which all men are involved by nature and practice.
2. This state is one of extreme wretchedness and misery.
3. It is only the shadow of the woes which await the sinner in the eternal world. Now, that is the dark side of the text.
Let us look at the other course specified, life and good.
1. Life is presented to us. For we are already dead, and life is the first essential blessing we need. Now, the life offered to us is--
(1) Freedom from the sentence of death.
(2) Regeneration of spirit.
2. Good is also presented to us. The favour of God the chief good; the love of God in the soul; the good providence of God; the good promises of God; the good enjoyments of God; and last of all, in eternity, pure unmixed good forever and ever--fulness of joy.
II. These things are set before us.
1. Where are they set before us?
(1) In the Word of God. In the Law, in the Prophets, the Gospels, Epistles, etc.
(2) In the ministry of the Gospel. See the great commission: it is to publish these great truths.
(3) In the influence of Gods truth on the conscience. Do you not feel an internal something speaking to you, etc., warning, etc.?
2. For what are they set before us?
(1) For our solemn consideration.
(2) For our own determination and choice.
Application--
1. The way of life and good is easy and free to you all. Repentance towards God, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. God is the willing Saviour of all men
2. None can perish but those who willingly choose death and evil. Every lost soul has destroyed itself.
3. The necessity of now choosing life and good. Did you ever know the diseased man to choose death; the condemned man, the shipwrecked man, etc.? (J. Burns, D. D.)
Life
I. What is life and who is the author of it?
1. The life spoken of here is three fold.
(1) Natural, which consists in the union of the soul and body.
(2) Spiritual, which consists in the union of Christ and the soul.
(3) Eternal, which consists in the communion of the soul and body with the Triune God through eternity.
2. God alone is the Author of this life, for--
(1) It is He who hath made us, and not we ourselves.
(2) He infuses the Spirit of His Son in our hearts, and He is life.
(3) By His grace and power He supports and brings believers to eternal life.
II. What is implied in this life?
1. Knowledge.
2. Feeling.
3. Tasting.
4. Movement.
5. Speech.
6. Hearing. All faculties exercised in Gods service.
III. How are we to obtain spiritual and eternal life?
1. Through Jesus Christ.
2. Patient continuance in well-doing, watching, praying, fasting, etc. (W. Stevens.)
The blessing and the curse
These words were spoken by Moses to all the Israelites shortly before his death. He had told them that they owed all to God Himself; that God had delivered them out of slavery in Egypt; God had led them to the land of Canaan; God had given them just laws and right statutes, which if they kept they would live long in their new home, and become a great and mighty nation. Then he calls heaven and earth to witness that he had set before them life and death, blessing and cursing. If they trusted in the one true God, and served Him, and lived as men should, then a blessing would come on them and their children, on their flocks and herds, on their land and all in it. But if they forgot God, and began to worship the sun and the moon, then they would die; they would grow superstitious, cowardly, lazy, and profligate, and therefore weak and miserable, like the wretched Canaanites whom they were going to drive out; and then they would die. Then he says--I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. He called heaven and earth to witness. That was no empty figure of speech. If you will recollect the story of the Israelites you will see plainly enough what Moses meant. The heaven would witness against them. The same stars which would look down on their freedom and prosperity in Canaan had looked down on all their slavery and misery in Egypt, hundreds of years before. They would seem to say--Just as the heavens above you are the same, wherever you go, and whatever you are like, so is the God who dwells above the heaven: unchangeable, everlasting, faithful, and true, full of light and love, from whom comes down every good and perfect gift, in whom is neither variableness nor shadow of turning. Do you turn to Him continually, and as often as you turn away from Him: and you shall find Him still the same; governing you by unchangeable law, keeping His promise forever. And the earth would witness against them. That fair land of Canaan whither they were going, with its streams and wells spreading freshness and health around; its rich corn valleys, its uplands covered with vines, its sweet mountain pastures, a very garden of the Lord, cut off and defended from all the countries round by sandy deserts and dreary wildernesses; that land would be a witness to them, at their daily work, of Gods love and mercy to their forefathers. The ruins of the old Canaanite cities would be a witness to them, and say--Because of their sins the Lord drove out these old heathens from before you. Copy their sins, and you will share their ruin. Does not the heaven above our heads, and the earth beneath our feet, witness against us here? Do they not say to us--God has given you life and blessing? If you throw that away, and choose instead death and a curse, it is your own fault, not Gods. Look at the heaven above us. Does not that witness against us? Has it not seen, for now fifteen hundred years and more, Gods goodness to us, and to our forefathers? All things have changed: language, manners, customs, religion. We have changed our place, as the Israelites did; and dwell in a different land from our forefathers: but that sky abides forever. The same sun, that moon, those stars shone down upon our heathen forefathers, when the Lord chose them, and brought them out of the German forests into this good land of England, that they might learn to worship no more the sun, and the moon, and the storm, and the thunder cloud, but to worship Him, the living God, who made all heaven and earth. And shall not the earth witness against us? Look round upon this noble English land. Why is it net, as many a land far richer in soil and climate is now, a desolate wilderness; the land lying waste, and few men left in it, and those who are left robbing and murdering each other, every mans hand against his fellow, till the wild beasts of the field increase upon them? Why but because the Lord set before our forefathers life and death, blessing and cursing; and our forefathers chose life, and lived; and it was well with them in the land which God gave to them, because they chose blessing, and God blessed them accordingly? In spite of many mistakes and shortcomings--for they were sinful mortal men, as we are--they chose life and a blessing; and clave unto the Lord their God, and kept His covenant; and they left behind, for us their children, these churches, these cathedrals, for an everlasting sign that the Lord was with us, as He had been with them, and would be with our children after us. And then when one reads the history of England; when one thinks over the history of any one city, even one country parish; above all, when one looks into the history of ones own foolish heart: one sees how often, though God has given us freely life and blessing, we have been on the point of choosing death and the curse instead; of saying--We will go our own way, and not Gods way. The land is ours, not Gods; our souls are our own, not Gods. We are masters, and who is master over us? That is the way to choose death, and the curse, shame and poverty and ruin; and how often we have been on the point of choosing it? What has saved us from ruin? I know not, unless it be for this one reason, that into that heaven which witnesses against us the merciful and loving Christ is ascended; that He is ever making intercession for us. Yes. He ascended on high, that He might send down His Holy Spirit; and that Spirit is among us, working patiently and lovingly in many hearts--would that I could say in all--giving men right judgment; putting good desires into their hearts, and enabling them to put them into good practice. (C. Kingsley, M. A.)
Choosing life or death
I. The personal and free character of the choice to be made. The religion of the Bible is the religion of liberty. I know of no bolder affirmation of the free will than that which is contained in my text. But the Bible never separates the idea of liberty from that of responsibility; the liberty of which it speaks is that which takes the law of God as its rule, not coercive but obligatory, and of which we shall have to give an account on the judgment day.
II. Free and personal choice is between two parties, between two opposite directions. Two, said I; not three, nor a greater number. I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Thus also the Lord Jesus speaks of two ways, the narrow way and the broad way; and in the picture He draws of the last judgment He calls some blessed, and the others cursed; nowhere does He speak of an intermediate class. This moral dualism runs through the whole of Scripture.
III. Now is the time to choose. Would you know how much an hour of blindness, of impiety, may involve of malediction for an individual, a family, a nation?--Remember Esau selling his birthright, and afterwards shedding useless and bitter tears on the consequences of his shameful bargain; the Jews crying in blind fury, Not this man, but Barabbas; the governor Felix, placed by providence in contact with St. Paul, and putting a stop to conversation which troubles him, by the plea in bar so common and fatal, Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season I will call for thee. Would you know, on the contrary, how fruitful in blessings may be one hour of fidelity, one generous and heroic choice?--Remember Abraham, obedient to the Divine calling and deserving to be called the father of the faithful; Moses, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. The decisive hour has come.
IV. The witnesses of the choice. Our text tells us of witnesses, sublime though speechless, heaven and earth: I call heaven and earth to record against you, says the Lord. Faithful to the Spirit of the New Covenant, we shall tell you that the witnesses you are surrounded by are not against you, but for you. Those witnesses are, in the first place, parents who ardently desire to see their children walk faithfully in the ways of the Lord; ministers, whose greatest joy would be to see you walking in the ways of piety and truth; the Church that presents you to God as its fondest hope; the holy angels who rejoice over every sinner who repents and gives himself truly to God.
V. The consequences of the choice. Blessing or cursing; life or death. If you choose life you shall be blessed. You shall be blessed in your youth and in your manhood; blessed in your career, be it long or short, obscure or brilliant; blessed in your family, present and future; blessed in your successes and in your reverses; blessed in your joys and in your griefs. At the end Christ will place you amongst those to whom He will say, Come, ye blessed of My Father, etc. If you do not choose life, I know not what may be your lot on earth. One thing is certain--you shall not be blessed. What will you do when, to all those who will not have done the will of His Father, He will say, I know you not? It does not behove me to decide what will be the end of such a way, the result of such a choice, but you have heard those two words of my text, Cursing! Death! Choose life! (C. Babut, B. D.)
The decisive choice
I. I call heaven and earth to record against you, says Moses. This was no idle rhetorical formula. The open sky over his head was the witness and pledge of permanence, the sign that in the midst of perpetual change there is that which abides. The earth at his feet had been given to man that he might dress it and keep it, and bring food for his race out of it. The one said to man, Thou art meant to look above thyself. Only in doing so canst thou find endurance, illumination, life. The other said, Thou art meant to work here. Thou must put forth an energy which is not in me, or I will not yield thee my fruits.
II. But Moses says, I have set before thee life and death, etc. There is no hint given to the Israelite upon which he can build a dream of security; he is warned in the most fearful language against forgetting the things his eyes had seen. But all the terrible warnings and prophecies of what he and his descendants may do hereafter imply that he is in a blessed condition, and that they will be.
III. And therefore he goes on, choose life. Say deliberately to thyself, I do not mean to give up the ground on which I am standing. God has placed me on it; all that is contrary to God will not prevail against God, and therefore need not prevail against me. Choose life is still the command at all times.
IV. The great reward of choosing life is, that thou mayest love the Lord thy God, etc. The growth of love and knowledge is always proclaimed in Scripture as the reward and prize of a man who walks in the way in which God has set him to walk, who chooses life, and not death.
V. That it may go well with thee and with thy seed after thee. The great lesson that the fathers are to teach their children is, that God will be the present and living Guide of each succeeding race as much as He has been of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. (F. D. Maurice, M. A.)
For He is thy life, and the length of thy days.
The God of our life
I. Upon what account is God said to be our life?
1. God gives life. He is the Author and Fountain of our being. All living creatures have their life from God (Act_17:25; Psa_104:30); but especially man (Isa_42:5), who is the object of His peculiar care.
2. God maintains life. Life in man is like a lamp kindled, which wastes and consumes, and will be soon extinguished, without fresh supplies of oil. And this supply is from God, who doth not only light the lamp at first, but keeps it burning. How liberal is God to the benefit and comfort of man; other creatures die that we may live.
3. God preserves life. He doth not only maintain and keep it from inward wasting, by daily supplies, but doth also preserve and keep it from outward dangers in daily protections. He holdeth our soul in life (Psa_66:9). His daily visitation preserveth our spirits (Job_10:12).
4. God sweetens life. We have not only life from Him, but all the comforts of life, which tend to make life pleasant and delightful; and without which it would be little better than a continuing death.
5. God prolongs life. Long life is very frequently in Scripture spoken of as a special gift of God.
6. God restores life. Elijah, Elisha, Christ, and His apostles, have done it. And He will do it for all mankind at the general resurrection at the great day (Joh_11:25; 1Co_15:42; 1Th_4:16; Joh_5:26-28).
7. God is the sovereign Lord of life. The life of all the creatures is entirely at the disposal of the living God.
II. The explication and illustration of such truths as those doth all aim at the application of them. What fruit, then, may we gather from this tree of life?
1. The greatness and goodness of God. If God be our life, then He is a great God.
2. The wisdom and happiness of the saints. Their wisdom, to choose this God to be theirs, and to be solicitous to keep themselves in His favour.
3. The evil of sin, and misery of sinners.
Exhortation--
1. Own and acknowledge your dependence upon God.
2. Make God your friend, and be very careful also to keep yourself in His love. (Matthew Henry.)
.
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 General Information:
General Information:
Moses speaks to the Israelites as if they were one man, so the words "you" and "your" here are singular. (See: Forms of You)
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I have placed before you
Putting something where another person can see it is a metaphor for telling someone about something. AT: "I have told you about" (See: Metaphor)
life and good, death and evil
You can make clear the implicit information. AT: "what is good and will cause you to live, and what is evil and will cause you to die" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
multiply
increase greatly in number
translationWords
life
die
evil
obey
decree
command
walk
ordinance
bless
possess
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.