Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the ordinances, which Yahweh your God commanded to teach you, that you might do them in the land that you go over to possess; that you might fear Yahweh your God, to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you—you, your son, and your son’s son, all the days of your life; and that your days may be prolonged. Hear therefore, Israel, and observe to do it, that it may be well with you, and that you may increase mightily, as Yahweh, the God of your fathers, has promised to you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.
Hear, Israel: Yahweh is our God. Yahweh is one. You shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. These words, which I command you today, shall be on your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them for a sign on your hand, and they shall be for frontlets between your eyes.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 7, 8 Or, judgments.
Or, judgments.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–8 Deu 6:1 Now these [are] the commandments, the statutes,…
Deu 6:1 Now these [are] the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments, which the LORD your God commanded to teach you, that ye might do [them] in the land whither ye go to possess it:
Ver. 1. Now these are the commandments.] Moses having repeated the decalogue, begins here to explain it: and first, the first of the ten, in this present chapter: that first commandment being such, as that therein the keeping of all the other nine is enjoined, as Luther rightly observeth. {a}
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{a} Primo praecepto reliquorum omnium observantia praecipitur. - Luth.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 That thou mightest fear the Lord, which he hereby…
That thou mightest fear the Lord, which he hereby implies to be the first principle of true obedience.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 4 Observe here, 1. That Moses taught the people all…
Observe here, 1. That Moses taught the people all that, and that only, which God commanded him to teach them, Deu 6:1. Thus Christ's ministers are to teach his churches all that he has commanded, and neither more nor less, Mat 28:20. 2. That the end of their being taught was that they might do as they were taught (Mat 28:1), might keep God's statutes (Deu 6:2), and observe to do them, Deu 6:3. Good instructions from parents and ministers will but aggravate our condemnation if we do not live up to them. 3. That Moses carefully endeavoured to fix them for God and godliness, now that they were entering upon the land of Canaan, that they might be prepared for the comforts of that land, and fortified against the snares of it, and now that they were setting out in the world might set out well. 4. That the fear of God in the heart will be the most powerful principle of obedience: That thou mightest fear the Lord thy God, to keep all his statutes, Deu 6:2. 5. The entail of religion in a family, or country, is the best entail: it is highly desirable that not we only, but our children, and our children's children, may fear the Lord. 6. Religion and righteousness advance and secure the prosperity of any people. Fear God, and it shall be well with thee. Those that are well taught, if they do what they are taught, shall be well fed too, as Israel in the land flowing with milk and honey, Deu 6:3.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–8 Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the…
Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments,.... Not the ten commandments repeated in the preceding chapter, but all others, whether moral, ceremonial, or judicial, afterwards declared; for what Moses now did was only to give a repetition and fresh declaration of such laws as he had before received, and delivered to the people; and so the Targum of Jonathan thus paraphrases this clause,"this is a declaration of the commandments, statutes, and judgments:"
which the Lord your God commanded to teach you; that is, which he commanded him, Moses, to teach them, though not fully expressed, as may be learned from Deu 4:1.
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that ye might do them in the land whither ye go to possess it; this is often observed, to imprint upon their minds a sense of their duty, even of obedience to the laws of God, which they were carefully and diligently to perform in the land of Canaan they were going into, and by which they were to hold their possession of it.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 5, 7, 8 A persuasive to obedience, ver. 1-3. The first truth,…
A persuasive to obedience, ver. 1-3. The first truth, God is One, the first duty, to love him, ver. 4, 5. The means hereto, ver. 6-9. A caution not to forget God in prosperity, ver. 10-13. Not to worship idols, or tempt God, ver. 14-16. Exhortation to obedience, ver. 17-19. And to teach their children, ver. 20-25.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1–8 The great design of God in giving his laws…
CHAPTER VI
The great design of God in giving his laws is, that the people
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may fear and obey him, that they may continue in peace and
prosperity, and be mightily increased, 1-3.
The great commandment of the law, 4, 5,
which shall be laid up in their hearts, 6;
taught to their children, 7;
and affixed as a sign to their hands, heads, doors, and gates,
8, 9.
How they are to act when they shall come into the promised land,
10-19.
How they shall instruct their children, and relate the history
to them of God's wonderful acts, 29-25.
NOTES ON CHAP. VI
Verse 1. Now these are the commandments, c.] See the difference between commandments, statutes, judgments, &c., pointed out, See Clarke on Le 26:15.
Do them] That is, live in the continual practice of them for by this they were to be distinguished from all the nations of the world, and all these were to be in force till the Son of God should come. Whither ye go. עברים oberim, whither ye pass over, referring to the river Jordan, across which they must pass to get into Canaan.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv4–8 Deu 6:4. Hear, O Israel! — The passage contained…
Deu 6:4. Hear, O Israel! — The passage contained in this and the following verse, the Jews reckoned one of their choicest portions of Scripture. They wrote it on their phylacteries, (or slips of parchment bound on their foreheads, their necks, their breasts, or wrists,) and thought themselves not only obliged to repeat it twice every day, but very happy in being so obliged; having this saying among them, “Blessed are we who, every morning and evening, say, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord!” Jehovah our God is one Jehovah; 1st, The God whom we worship is Jehovah; a Being infinitely and eternally perfect, self-existent, and self- sufficient. 2d, He is the only living and true God, he only is God, and he is but one. The firm belief of this self-evident truth would effectually arm them against all idolatry, which was introduced by that fundamental error, that there are gods many. It is past dispute that there is one God, and that there is no other but he, Mar 12:32. Let us, therefore, neither have, nor desire to have any other.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 5, 8 Moses proceeds to set forth more particularly and to…
Moses proceeds to set forth more particularly and to enforce the cardinal and essential doctrines of the Decalogue, the nature and attributes of God, and the fitting mode of honoring and worshipping Him. Two objects are indicated Deu 6:2-3, the glory of God and the welfare of man, as the grand aims that he has in view.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv3, 5, 7, 8 Hear. The Jews have a particular respect for the…
Hear. The Jews have a particular respect for the seven following verses, which they write on vellum, and recite every day, as a preservative against the devil. (Clarius.) --- To do. It will not suffice to hear nor to learn the law, we must also put it in execution, chap. v. 1. (Worthington)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v4 Hortatory Exposition of the First Two Commands
Hortatory Exposition of the First Two Commands
Deu_6:4 to Deu_11:32
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The First Commandment. (Deu_6:4 to Deu_8:20)
Deu_6:4-25
4Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord. 5And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. 6And these words which I command [am commanding] thee this day, shall be in thine heart: 7and thou shalt teach [sharpen] them diligently unto thy children [sons], and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. 8And thou shalt [omit thou shalt] bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as front-lets 9[brow-bands] between thine eyes. And thou shalt [omit thou shalt] write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates. 10And it shall be, when the Lord thy God shall have brought thee1 into the land which he sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give thee great and goodly cities, which thou buildedst not, 11and houses full of all [every kind of] good things, which thou filledst not, and wells digged, which thou diggedst not, vineyards and olive-trees, which thou plantedst not; when thou shalt have eaten and be full [and thou 12eatest and art full], Then beware lest thou forget the Lord, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage [bondmen]. 13Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and serve him, and shalt swear by his name. 14Ye shall not go after [go behind, follow] other gods, of the gods of the people which are round about you; 15(For the Lord thy God is a jealous God among you;) lest the anger of the Lord thy God be kindled against thee, and destroy thee from off the face of the earth [land]. 16Ye shall not tempt the Lord your God, as ye tempted him in Massah. 17Ye shall diligently2 [truly, carefully] keep the commandments of the Lord your God, and his testimonies, and his statutes, which he hath commanded thee. 18And thou shalt do that which is right and good in the sight of the Lord: that it may be well [good] with thee, and that thou mayest go in and possess the good land [the land, the good] which the Lord sware unto thy fathers, 19To cast out [so that, because he drives out] all thine enemies from before thee, as the Lord 20hath spoken. And when thy son asketh thee in time to come [in the future], saying, What mean [is wished, intended by] the testimonies, and the statutes, and the judgments, which the Lord our God hath commanded you? 21Then thou shalt say unto thy son, We were Pharaoh’s bond-men in Egypt; and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand: 22And the Lord shewed [gave] signs and wonders, great and sore [evil] upon Egypt, upon Pharaoh, and upon all his household, before our eyes: 23And he brought us out from thence, that he might bring us in [hither] to give us the land which he sware unto our fathers. 24And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as it is at this day. 25And it shall be our righteousness, if we observe [think upon, keep] to do all these commandments3 [this whole command] before the Lord our God, as he hath commanded us.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. Deu_6:1-9. The exposition of the first command (comp. Deu_5:6-7) connects itself both with the doctrine, the matter of faith, Deu_6:4, and with the life, the moral demand, Deu_6:5. (This is to the Jew the sacred quintessence of his religion, through the involuntary expression of which many betrayed themselves, and were burned during the persecution in Spain.) אֶחָד is not synonymous with לְבַדִּי, alone. But if Jehovah is one, Deu_6:4, he is therewith also alone Jehovah. The sense of the verse is, Jehovah our God is as such, as this Jehovah, one (Mar_12:29; Mar_12:32). [Wordsworth: “Surely the adoption of these words of Deuteronomy by our blessed Lord Himself is a sufficient refutation of the theory of those who affirm that Deuteronomy is a spurious work. Our Lord makes them the very ground-work of all true religion.” Bib. Com. “This mighty text contains far more than a mere declaration that God is one. It asserts that the Lord God of Israel is absolutely God, and none other. The last letter of the first and last word are written large, which the Jewish commentators make highly significant.”—A.G.] The predicate of the sentence begins with the repeated Jehovah; but Jehovah is repeated in order to bring out more impressively the absolute being of the God of Israel, from which results, qualitatively, His universality and eternity, relatively His absoluteness, quantitatively His unity (Deu_4:35; Deu_4:39). With the unity of the absolute, His simplicity also must be conceded, which, although it does not occur in the Scripture, in its metaphysical abstraction, meets us still in the attributis derivatis, His immateriality, spirituality and invisibility in the second command (comp. upon. Deu_5:8). For this first command, so far as the doctrine or faith is concerned, limits itself to the oneness, i.e. to the monotheism of the absolute Jehovah, over against polytheism generally, and also over against every polytheistic, paganistic nationalizing or localizing of Jehovah (Zec_14:9). This is the explanation of the I am Jehovah thy God, and the no other gods before me. This oneness, and therefore exclusiveness, of Jehovah well supports, Deu_6:5, the moral demand for the perfect ordering of the life. The Hear, O Israel (as usually behold), which in the conciseness of the expression calls attention to the importance of the subject, reaches still to this also. The polytheist is absolutely dependent upon no one of his gods, and thus religion with him never reaches the truth of its idea. But as and just because Jehovah is one, His demand generally upon Israel, thus the whole law, with all its variety of commands, must have a unity (Joh_17:21 sq.), just as law and promise are also one, Gal_3:21. Since, however, the unity of Jehovah opens or begins the law, it is only fitting that the unity in the demands of Jehovah should be placed as the first command (as the πρώτη ἐντολή, Mat_22:38), the opening for all that follows, in the very spirit of which they are to be understood.—And thou shalt love, καὶ ἀγαπήσεις, Mar_12:30. A simple continuation of Deu_6:4, as that which evidently flows from it. It is scarcely and strictly a command, rather as a direction or concession: the duty belongs to thee to love in this measure, sq.: at the most a demand; so love, sq. (Deu_5:10). To the unity of the absolute, since He is the God of Israel (Deu_5:6), agrees the redemption from Egypt (Deu_6:12; Deu_6:21 sq.), as showing that He is such, through which also this Jehovah appears worthy of love, and indeed to the whole man, in heart and life, and in all his relations. Heart (Deu_5:26) the innermost, then soul as synonymous with life, thus already more external than heart, (Deu_4:29) and then strength, which designates the still more outward effective proofs of the life. (Mat_22:37; Luk_10:27; Mar_12:33). [Bib. Com.: “The specification is intended to include every faculty that can possibly come in question.” Alexander on Mar_12:29-31 : “There is no need of attempting any nice distinction between heart and soul and mind, the obvious design being to exhaust the one idea of the whole man.” It is clear also from the reference of our Lord to this command, that the law and the Gospel do not differ as an outward and carnal service from an inward and spiritual one. Love holds the same prominence in both, but the gospel gives new and peculiar motives to enforce this love.—A. G.]. As the love to Jehovah, and the keeping of His commands are connected, Deu_5:10, so now Deu_6:6 sq., follows Deu_6:5, as love must show itself in this relation, or way. These words which, thus all which is commanded, Deu_6:1. Shall be in [upon, Schroeder] thine heart, (Deu_11:18) as the duty which rests upon thee, but also a matter of the heart, and therefore must be a “pleasant burden” (Schultz) 1Jn_5:3. “As written upon the heart, Jer_31:33.” Knobel. Whatever the heart is full of, that comes out from the mouth, Deu_6:7, and whatever comes from the heart, reaches the heart; but that it may reach the hearts of the children, it must be sharpened [taught diligently] upon their hearts, rigorously commanded, for mere words secure only a mere recollection (Heb_4:12). Of them.בְּ as in Deu_3:26, so that the discourses rest in them, have their very substance and contents in them, and indeed at all times and everywhere, Psa_1:2. Deu_6:8-9, state how the commandment should rule the private, domestic, and public life in figurative, but therefore in more vivid and proverbial language (comp. Deu_11:18; Exo_13:9; Exo_13:16; Pro_3:3; Pro_3:21-22; Pro_6:21-22; Pro_7:3; Isa_49:16) precisely in accordance with oriental usage. We use the hand in our acts, and hence to bind them upon thy hand is to keep them for a sign for thy conduct, as ever to be regarded, and which must determine my manner of action. The brow, between thine eyes, represents the chamber of thought, is as the door to the intellectual nature of man (hence the easy transition to the door-posts, Deu_6:9). The commandments, as frontlets or browbands, become therefore a badge or confession by which one may be known, and embrace the private life, both on the side which is turned, and open to the man himself, and upon that which lies open to other men (Rev_13:16; Rev_14:1). טֹטָפֹת instead of טַפְטָפוֹת occurs only in the Pentateuch, is obsolete in later periods. Transformed into a symbol and by the Pharisees perverted to carnal ends, Mat_23:5. The socalled Tephillim, for the left hand and the head, small cases with the Scripture texts Exo_13:1-11; Exodus 11-17; Deu_6:4-10; Deu_11:13-26, fastened with a leathern thong, are still worn among the Jews of to-day as an appropriate prayer ornament. But writing is first spoken in Deu_6:9. Since the commandments are a pledge or confession, he states also how they express the rule and support of the domestic and public life. That which is thus a confession, serves at the same time as a continual self-exhortation, as with respect to the family, so in civil life the Litera scripta manet. The analogy of Deu_6:8, the universality in the terms and write them, and the indefiniteness as to what is to be written, all go to prove that Deu_6:9 uses merely figurative language, and does not require any actual inscription upon the gates and door-posts. The references to Egyptian usages (Hengstenberg and Schultz), to the customs of oriental nations of to-day (Knobel), which might be enlarged still further from Germany, show how little of this kind it was necessary to require. [See also Wilkinson, A. E. III., 364,—Lane, Modern Egypt,—Kitto and Smith for fuller statements as to these oriental and Jewish usages.—A. G.]. If writing has once become a popular means to aid the memory it is evident that one would say, “lest thou forget it, write it upon thy wall, upon thy door.” If this is not what it means, still it must be regarded as a proverbial figurative expression for forget not! as Deu_6:12 expresses the exhortation. As the Tephillim are connected with Deu_6:8, so the Talmud connects with Deu_6:9 the (מְזוּזָה, door-posts, Exo_12:7; Exo_21:6), mezuzah, a metal case containing a parchment roll, inscribed with Deu_6:4-9; Deu_11:13-22, and dedicated to Shaddai, (the Almighty) which every Jew fastened to the right door-post of his house as a protection against death, the devil, ghosts and witchcraft.
2. Deu_6:10-19. Deu_6:10. Comp. with Deu_1:8; Deu_4:37-38; Gen_50:24. Cities, sq. A detailed description for the purpose of warning, to which the exhortation now passes. Deu_6:11. And thou eatest sq. The rich enjoyment and pleasure should not destroy the remembrance of Jehovah. (Deu_5:6). The religious secularization (of God) is image worship, here they are warned against the moral secularization (of men). But comp. Deu_31:20; Deu_32:15. Deu_6:13. They must guard above all against forgetting the name with which the redeemer of Israel out of Egypt had named Himself. Hence the positive form of the lest thou forget with reference to the name Jehovah, still not now for the purpose of explaining the third command, but rather to impress the heartfelt fear of Jehovah (Deu_6:2; Deu_5:26) for the individual, and the service of Jehovah in the cultus and life (Deu_5:9) for the household (Jos_24:15). And shalt swear by His name, i.e., when thou swearest—the solemn, vital, essential confession of the mouth, as before the court, so also in civil life and acts (Isa_19:18; Isa_45:23; Isa_65:16; Jer_12:16; Jer_4:2; Psa_63:11), [of the oath as an act of worship. See Mat_5:34; Heb_6:16; Jam_5:12.—A. G.]. The emphatic position of אֶה־יְהוָֹה prepares the way for Deu_6:14 (comp. further Mat_4:10; Luk_4:8; the Sept. adds μόνῳ) with which comp. Deu_4:3. Deu_6:15. See Deu_5:9; Deu_4:24;—Exo_32:11;—Deu_4:26; Deu_5:16. Deu_6:16 parallel to Deu_6:14. There superstition, here unbelief, which calls in question the presence of Jehovah, or generally His existence. Exo_17:7; Mat_4:7; Luk_4:12; (1Co_10:9). [Deu_6:16. This is one of the texts quoted by Christ in the temptation. And as He quoted Deuteronomy as a part of the sacred Scriptures, and as it was then held, i.e., as the work of Moses, so we have here again His endorsement of the Mosaic authorship of this book.—A. G.] Deu_6:17. Forgetfulness leads to apostacy, and to sinful doubt, love, to the keeping of the commandments sq. Comp. Deu_4:40; Deu_4:45. Deu_6:18. יָשָׁר even, straight. טוֹב (contracted from טהב = צהב), bright, brilliant, beautiful, the good as it falls in the eyes namely, of God, as pleasing to Him, (1Jn_3:22; Joh_8:29). There is here a play upon words, to the good, good comes, it goes well—here in reference to the good land, (Deu_6:10). Deu_6:19; Deu_4:38; Exo_23:27; Lev_26:7. Preparatory to chap. 7.
3. Deu_6:20-25. Deu_6:20. The carrying out of Deu_6:7, as Deu_6:8 sq. is of Deu_6:6. מָה with respect to their import, or their ground and aim. The son asks because he sees the father doing, as Deu_6:7 enjoins (Exo_13:14; Exo_12:26). A testimony, example, and earnest instruction is presupposed, (Psa_34:11; Pro_4:1; Eph_6:4). It concerns the ground or reason, if the youth asks wherefore? and the application to the heart and life, if the question is that just as frequently asked, What is that to me? to what end? (How practical)? First the wretched condition of Israel, bondmen, sq., then the redemption (Deu_6:22נָהַן as Exo_7:9. Comp. Deu_4:34) to its completion (Deu_6:23, that he might, sq.) with a citation of the promise, which he swore, sq., and with an emphatic mention of the fruits of salvation (Deu_6:24, comp. upon Deu_4:1). Lastly the thankfulness in Deu_6:25 : So we are under obligation to God. Righteousness (Deu_24:13, comp. upon Deu_4:8) refers to the acquitting sentence of the law, as opposed to κατάκριμα (Rom_5:16) and hence involves the fulfilling (Rom_2:13) of the whole law (Jam_2:10); and as more nearly defined here as before the Lord this righteousness is not opposed to that in Rom_8:4, which also consists in walking not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Thus Moses describes the righteousness which is of the law (Rom_10:5) as far from the hypocritical, or even merely external righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees (Mat_5:20) as Paul on his side separates widely justification by faith from the simple, external apprehension of the work of Christ for us. [But Paul never separates justification by faith from a hearty practical obedience to the law. He teaches that the man is justified by the simple apprehension and reception of the work of Christ for us, i.e., by faith—but this faith is never fruitless. The man so believing is in Christ, Rom_8:1, and so must walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. The note in Bib. Com. is judicious. The word translated righteousness is the same as in Gen_15:6, rendered in the N. T. by δικαιοσύνη. Moses from the very beginning has made the whole “righteousness of the law” to depend so entirely on a right state of the heart, in one word, on faith, that there can be no real inconsistency between the verse before us, taken thus strictly and properly, and the principle of Justification by faith only.—A. G.]. At the same time it is clear that although לפּני יְוָֹה cannot be referred to וצדקה, true righteousness is the justification of men, not before men, but before God, and therewith Christ is the end of the law for righteousness (Rom_10:4) Rom_8:3. Here also the faith, Deu_6:4, precedes the love, Deu_6:5.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. “All comprehensive obedience roots itself in the fear of the Lord, (Deu_6:2-3), for this is the first and nearest truth in the relations of Israel to Jehovah, (Deu_5:26). But if the fear of Jehovah especially restrains man from gratifying his selfish nature as opposed to God, it cannot rest in this mere denial of the self-will, although this is first as even the negative form of the decalogue shows, but leads to a union of the divine and human wills, and this is love, which has been explained as the true condition of obedience in the decalogue (Deu_5:10).” Baumgarten.
2. Since love—and love to God is the strength of the love to our neighbor—is represented as the sum of the commandments, the deep inward character of the Mosaic law appears here (comp. further Deu_10:12; Deu_11:1; Deu_11:13), and at the same time it is presented as one holy spiritual whole, so that we cannot speak of any higher New Testament stand-point in this regard. Pharisaism does not find its condemnation first in Christ, it met it long ago in Moses. But as this Jewish (not O. T.) idea and use of the law separates it into manifold external statutes, literally understood, so on the other hand it breaks the thread which connects the law, according to its origin with the covenant of God, and love as the fulfilling of the law with faith. The “position of faith to the law” in the old covenant, (Auberlen) is this, “the believer receives the law as a gracious gift of God, rejoices in its perfection, places his whole life under its sacred discipline and control. But the more earnestly he strives after the fulfilling of the law, the more he recognizes his own unfitness to the effort, his weakness to good, the power of evil in the heart. Then he seeks the forgiveness of sins, as it was already offered in the O. T., through the grace of God, and comforts himself with redemption through the Messiah.”
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Deu_6:4-5. Luther: “That God is one, profits us not, but that He is held as one God and our God, that is blessedness and life and the fulfilling of all the law. The first explanation of the first command relates to faith. For no one can have one God who does not depend upon Him alone, does not leave all for Him alone, otherwise he will be hurried away to manifold works, and feign himself manifold deities. The second explanation flows from the first, and relates to love. For when we understand that all things flow from Him, then a sweet love necessarily follows. In Deu_6:4 He claims the confidence of all, and then in Deu_6:5 awakens a joyful and free service of God. Thus in faith we receive through the unity of God all things freely of God, through love we do all things cheerfully for our God. The one God and His one command. True love requires the whole man). Deu_6:6. Berl. Bib.: “The heart alone receives this lesson. The language of love is taught by love, and love teaches to love.” Luther: “Not alone in the book, nor in thought, but in the innermost affection of thy heart.” Tueb. Bib.: “The law of God must be engraved upon our hearts with an evangelical pen, if we will keep it.” Starke: “Whoever will truly teach and inculcate upon others the commands of God, must first take them to heart, that he may mould his Christian character, faith, and walk, upon them. Mark that, ye parents and teachers.” Deu_6:7. Randgl.: “The more one obeys the word of God the clearer and fresher it will become. The longer, the more lovingly.” Starke: “Parents should not only send their children to school, and lead them to Church, but hold frequent instructive conversations with them. They should be diligently trained in the Catechisms in the Church, school, and at home.” (How faith and love rule all, heart, home, and land). Richter: “According to Deu_6:9 every Israelite must be able to read and write.”(?) Deu_6:10-12. Luther: “He reproves wealth and luxury, especially mammon and avarice (1Ti_6:10; Col_3:5). For the human heart yields itself to present good, but has no confidence in that which is not present. But trust in wealth, and faith, and love cannot rule in the same heart at the same time. See how Moses guards against the idolatry of the heart before he speaks of other gods.” Schultz: To be full becomes a peculiar pregnant expression in Scripture. Deu_6:12. Cramer: “There must be great strength to support such good days.” Deu_6:13. Luther: “This is the strength of faith, and the result of the first command, that in prosperity we are reverent and fearful, in adverse affairs we are secure and free, and in both lean upon God. In great wealth do not trust therein, hast thou none, be not therefore despondent. Moses never dreams of the doulia, latria, hyperdoulia of the sophists. And so also should’st thou take this oath, since thou remainest in the service of God.” (The true oath an act of worship). Deu_6:14. A bad neighborhood often corrupts good morals. Deu_6:16. Luther: “Before, it was that we should in prosperous times do right, now that in the opposite condition we should suffer right, and be certain that God is near us in the time of need. God is tempted, 1) when we do not use what we have, thus whoever complains and thinks that God should feed him without his own efforts; 2) when we appoint Him place, time, method, and so to speak feel whether He is there; thus through the pressure of want, and the counsel of a weak faith.” What is it to tempt God? To doubt His being, to test His omnipotence, to give direction for His help, to question His faithfulness, to hasten or anticipate His providence, to limit His grace to our own will, to ridicule His long-suffering patience, and also His righteousness, etc. Berl. Bib.: “God was tempted in His wisdom, Psa_73:11, in His truth, 2Ki_7:2, in His goodness and providence over us, Mat_4:6-7, in His power, Num_11:4-5; Psa_78:19-20; Num_14:22, in His omnipresence, Exo_17:7.” God never tempts us to evil, and we ought not to tempt Him out of our wicked will, (Mat_22:18). The right and the wrong doubt. Gideon (Jdg_6:36 sq.) Ahaz (Isa_7:12) and Jesus (Mat_4:7). The good is at the same time the beautiful. That is good which, 1) will pass with God; 2) upon which and through which good comes to us; 3) through which we may enter upon the good, the eternal good. Deu_6:20. Schultz: “As revealed religion was introduced into the world through teaching and discipline, so it must be preserved through the same method.” Lange: “Happy parents whose children seek after the commandments of God.” Berl. Bib.: “One may better be sparing in pleasures, and have a Bible in his house, better than all prayer books, that he may read with his family, and ever take it to his heart.” Deu_6:24. Schultz: “Our life support comprehends all that makes our life truly beautiful, easy, and blessed. As there is nothing without life, so there is no life, truly so-called, without many things, as health, success, joy and peace.” Berl. Bib.: “Serving God we truly serve ourselves, for then we have all things for our use.”
Footnotes:
[1][Deu_6:10. Lit.: Shall have caused thee to come.—A. G.]
[2][Deu_6:17. Lit.: Keeping ye shall keep.—A. G.]
[3][Deu_6:25. All the command. The pronoun is singular; the commandment is one.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 1, 2. The commandments — That which is commanded.…
1, 2. The commandments — That which is commanded. The word in its signification is equivalent to the thorah, the law.
Statutes, and the judgments — Explanatory of the preceding word — statutes referring more to moral and religious precepts, judgments to laws regulating civil rights.
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That thy days may be prolonged — Comp. what Moses says in chap. Deu_8:1; Deu_30:16.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–8 1. Not a fresh title, marking the beginning of…
1. Not a fresh title, marking the beginning of a separate discourse, but the natural continuation of the discourse from the previous ch. and still couched in the Pl.
And this is] The conjunction not merely continues the discourse, but has an antithetic force, therefore not too strongly rendered now by A.V. and R.V. What at that time in Ḥoreb was delivered to Moses himself (as described in Deu_5:31) he now in Moab proceeds to present.
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this is the commandment, the statutes, and the judgements] LXX these are the commandments, but Sam. confirms Heb., which is the more probable. Because this, not these, is used, and because the separate laws do not come till ch. 12, the words statutes and judgements are regarded by some as an editorial intrusion. But this is not certain: this with three objects following, and two of them in the plural, is grammatically possible in Heb., and Moses was now about to declare to the people in Moab not only the Charge or Miṣwah, but the statutes and judgements as well. The point is not important. What is clear is that Miṣwah or Charge (see Deu_5:31) is the enforcement of general principles underlying the Law, which proceeds till the end of ch. 11. For after this discourse is finished, the title in Deu_12:1, where the separate laws at last begin, drops the term Miṣwah and reads only these are the statutes and the judgements. Cp. Westphal, Sources du Pent. ii. 111.
whither ye go over to possess it] A formula distinctive of the Pl. passages occurring, besides here, Deu_4:14, Deu_11:8; Deu_11:11; whereas when the Sg. passages use the verb go over they add the Jordan, Deu_9:1, Deu_30:18, but elsewhere prefer the equivalent phrase, the land whither thou art entering (or thou art entering the land), Deu_6:18, Deu_7:1, Deu_9:5, Deu_11:10; Deu_11:29, Deu_12:29, Deu_18:9, Deu_23:20, Deu_28:21; Deu_28:63, Deu_30:16. The only verse in which this phrase occurs with the Pl. Isa_4:5 b (q.v.); while Deu_4:1 (Pl.) gives a variation.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 FIRST PORTION OF THE COMMENTARY ON THE LAW (Deuteronomy…
VI.
FIRST PORTION OF THE COMMENTARY ON THE LAW (Deuteronomy 6-11).
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(1) These are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments, which the Lord . . . commanded . . . that ye might do them in the land.—After the Decalogue itself has been recapitulated, Moses proceeds to apply its principles to the conduct of Israel in the promised land. The first part of the application is more general, and concerns the relation of Israel to Jehovah, who has brought them from Egypt through the wilderness to the promised land. This portion concludes with Deuteronomy 11. The precepts that follow are particular, and concern the land of Israel viewed as the seat of (1) the worship and (2) the kingdom of Jehovah. But the whole discourse, from Deu_4:44 to the end of Deuteronomy 26 is presented to us as one unbroken whole. (See Introduction for a complete analysis.)
The commandments.—Literally, this is the commandment, the statutes, and the judgments. The “commandment” is the duty imposed on Israel by the covenant of the ten words—its application to their daily lives. This application includes (1) statutes, religious ordinances, or institutions; and (2) judgments, requirements, actual rules of behaviour. The two words “statutes” and “judgments,” in the original, may sometimes represent two aspects of the same thing. For example, the Passover is an ordinance, or “statute,” or, as we should say, an “institution.” The rules for its observance are “judgments,” or requirements. The thing itself is permanent; the rules for its observance may vary. It was originally eaten standing, and in haste. But after Israel was at rest, it was eaten by them reclining, and in an attitude of repose. Again, the moral law as a whole was eternal; but its application to the life of Israel was very different from its application to ourselves. The word here rendered “commandments” is now commonly employed by the Jews to signify any religious duty or good work.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. H. Mackintosh 1880 · Public Domain On v1 Deuteronomy 6
Deuteronomy 6
"Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgements, which the Lord your God commanded to teach you, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go to possess it: that thou mightest fear the Lord thy God, to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command thee; thou, and thy son, and thy son’s son, all the days of thy life; and that thy days may be prolonged. Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe to do it, that it may be well with thee, and that ye may increase mightily, as the Lord God of thy fathers hath promised thee, in the land that floweth with milk and honey. Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord."
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We have here presented to us that great cardinal truth which the nation of Israel was specially responsible to hold fast and confess, namely, the unity of the Godhead. This truth lay at the very foundation of the Jewish economy. It was the grand centre round which the people were to rally. So long as they maintained this, they were a happy, prosperous, fruitful people; but when it was let go, all was gone. It was their great national bulwark, and that which was to mark them off from all the nations of the east. They were called to confess this glorious truth in the face of an idolatrous world, with "its gods many, and lords many." It was Israel’s high privilege and holy responsibility to bear a steady witness to the truth contained in that one weighty sentence, "The Lord our God is one Lord," in marked opposition to the false gods innumerable of the heathen around. Their father Abraham had been called out from the very midst of heathen idolatry, to be a witness to the one true and living God, to trust Him; to walk with Him; to lean on Him; and to obey Him.
If the reader will turn to the last chapter of Joshua, he will find a very striking allusion to this fact, and a very important use made of it, in his closing address to the people. "And Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem, and called for the elders of Israel, and for their heads, and for their judges, and for their officers; and they presented themselves before God. And Joshua said unto all the people, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor; and they served other gods. And I took your father Abraham from the other side of the flood, and led him throughout all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his seed, and gave him Isaac."
Here, Joshua reminds the people of the fact that their fathers had served other gods - a very solemn and weighty fact, most surely; and one which they ought never to have forgotten, inasmuch as the remembrance of it would have taught them their deep need of watchfulness over themselves, lest, by any means, they should be drawn back into that gross and terrible evil out of which God, in His sovereign grace, and electing love, had called their father Abraham. It would have been their wisdom to consider that the self-same evil in which their fathers had lived, in the olden time, was just the one into which they themselves were likely to fall.
Having presented this fact to the people, Joshua brings before them, with uncommon force and vividness, all the leading events of their history, from the birth of their father Isaac, down to the moment in which he was addressing them; and then sums up with the following telling appeal, "Now therefore fear the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in truth; and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the Lord. And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which, your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land ye dwell; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
Mark the repeated allusion to the fact that their fathers had worshipped false gods; and, further, that the land into which Jehovah had brought them had been polluted, from one end to the other, by the dark abominations of heathen idolatry.
Thus does this faithful servant of the Lord, evidently by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, seek to set before the people their danger of living up the grand central and foundation truth of the One true and living God, and falling back into the worship of idols. He urges upon them the absolute necessity of whole-hearted decision. "Choose you this day whom ye will serve." There is nothing like plain, out and out decision for God. It is due to Him always. He had proved Himself to be unmistakably for them, in redeeming them from the bondage of Egypt, bringing them through the wilderness, and planting them in the land of Canaan. Hence, therefore, that they should be wholly for Him was nothing more than their reasonable service.
How deeply Joshua felt all this, for himself, is evident from those very memorable words, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." Lovely words! Precious decision! National religion might, and alas! did go to ruin; but personal and family religion could, by the grace of God, be maintained, everywhere, and at all times.
Thank God for this! May we never forget it! "Me and my house" is faith’s clear and delightful response to God’s "Thou and thy house." Let the condition of the ostensible, professed people of God, at any given time, be what it may, it is the privilege of every true-hearted man of God to adopt and act upon this immortal decision, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."
True, it is only by the grace of God, continually supplied, that this holy resolution can be carried out; but, we may rest assured that, where the bent of the heart is to follow the Lord fully, all needed grace will be ministered, day by day; for those encouraging words must ever hold good, "My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness."
Let us now look, for a moment, at the apparent effect of Joshua’s soul-stirring appeal to the congregation. It seemed very promising. (The people answered and said, God forbid that we should forsake the Lord, to serve other gods; for the Lord our God, he it is that brought us up and our fathers out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, and which did those great signs in our sight, and preserved us in all the way wherein we went, and among all the people through whom we passed; and the Lord drave out from before us all the people, even the Amorites which dwelt in the land: therefore will we also serve the Lord; for he is our God."
All this sounded very well, and looked very hopeful. They seemed to have a clear sense of the moral basis of Jehovah’s claim upon them for implicit obedience. They could accurately recount all His mighty deeds on their behalf, and make very earnest and, no doubt, sincere protestations against idolatry, and promises of obedience to Jehovah, their God.
But it is very evident that Joshua was not particularly sanguine about all this profession, for "He said unto the people, Ye cannot serve the Lord: for he is an holy God; he is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins. If ye forsake the Lord, and serve strange gods, then he will turn and do you hurt, and consume you, after that he hath done you good. And the people said unto Joshua, Nay; but we will serve the Lord. And Joshua said unto the people, Ye are witnesses against yourselves that ye have chosen you the Lord, to serve him. And they said, We are witnesses. Now therefore put away, said he, the strange gods which are among you, and incline your heart unto the Lord God of Israel. And the people said unto Joshua, The Lord our God will we serve, and his voice will we obey."
We do not now stop to contemplate the aspect in which Joshua presents God to the congregation of Israel, inasmuch as our object in referring to the passage is to show the prominent place assigned, in Joshua’s address, to the truth of the unity of the Godhead. This was the truth to which Israel was called to bear witness, in view of all the nations of the earth, and in which they were to find their moral safe-guard against the ensnaring influences of idolatry.
But alas! this very truth was the one as to which they most speedily and signally failed. The promises, vows, and resolutions made under the powerful influence of Joshua’s appeal soon proved to be like the early dew and the morning cloud that passeth away. "The people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord, that he did for Israel. And Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died, being an hundred and ten years old.... And also all that generation were gathered unto their fathers; and there arose another generation after them, which knew not the Lord, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel. And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and served Baalim; and they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, which brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the people that were round about them, and bowed themselves unto them, and provoked the Lord to anger. And they forsook the Lord, and served Baal and Ashtaroth." (Judges 2: 7-13)
Reader, how admonitory is all this! How full of solemn warning to us all! The grand, all-important, special and characteristic truth so soon abandoned! The one only true and living God given up for Baal and Ashtaroth! So long as Joshua and the elders lived, their presence and their influence kept Israel from open apostasy. But no sooner were those moral embankments removed than the dark tide of idolatry rolled in and swept away the very foundations of the national faith. Jehovah of Israel was displaced by Baal and Ashtaroth. Human influence is a poor prop, a feeble barrier. We must be sustained by the power of God, else we shall, sooner or later, give way. The faith that stands merely in the wisdom of men, and not in the power of God, must prove a poor, flimsy worthless faith. It will not stand the day of trial; it will not bear the furnace; it will, most assuredly, break down.
It is well to remember this. Second-hand faith will never do. There must be a living link connecting the soul with God. We must have to do with God for ourselves, individually, else we shall give way when the testing time comes. Human example and human influence may be all very good in their place. It was all very well to look at Joshua and the elders, and see how they followed the Lord. It is quite true that, "As iron sharpeneth iron, so doth the countenance of a man his friend." It is very encouraging to be surrounded by a number of truly devoted hearts; very delightful to be borne along upon the bosom of the tide of collective loyalty to Christ - to His Person and to His cause. But if this be all; if there be not the deep spring of personal faith and personal knowledge; if there be not the divinely formed, and the divinely sustained link of individual relationship and communion, then when the human props are removed; when the tide of human influence ebbs, when general declension sets in, we shall be, in principle, like Israel following the Lord, all the days of Joshua and the elders, and then giving up the confession of His name, and returning to the follies and vanities of this present world-things no better, in reality, than Baal and Ashtaroth.
But, on the other hand, when the heart is thoroughly established in the truth and grace of God; when we can say - as it is the privilege of each true believer to say - "I know whom I have believed; and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day; then, although all should turn aside from the public confession of Christ; although we should find ourselves left without the help of a human countenance, or the support of a human arm, we shall find "the foundation of God" as sure as ever; and the path of obedience as plain before us as though thousands were treading it with holy decision and energy.
We must never lose sight of the fact that it is the divine purpose that the professing church of God should learn deep and holy lessons from the history of Israel. "Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning; that we, through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope." Nor is it, by any means, necessary, in order to our thus learning from the Old Testament scriptures, that we should occupy ourselves in searching out fanciful analogies, curious theories, or far-fetched illustrations. Many alas! have tried these things, and, instead of finding "comfort" in the scriptures, they have been led away into empty and foolish conceits, if not into deadly errors.
But our business is with the living facts recorded on the page of inspired history. These are to be our study; from these we are to draw our great practical lessons. Take, for example, the weighty and admonitory fact now before us - a fact standing out, in characters deep and broad, on the page of Israel’s history from Joshua to Isaiah - -the fact of Israel’s lamentable departure from that very truth which they were specially called to hold and confess - the truth of the unity of the Godhead. The very first thing they did was to let go this grand and all-important truth, this keystone of the arch, the foundation of the whole edifice, the very heart of their national existence, the living centre of their national polity. They gave it up, and turned back to the idolatry of their fathers on the other side of the flood, and of the heathen nations around them. They abandoned that most glorious and distinctive truth on the maintenance of which their very existence, as a nation, depended. Had they only held fast this truth, they would have been invincible; but, in surrendering it, they surrendered all, and became much worse than the nations around them, inasmuch as they sinned against light and knowledge - sinned, with their eyes open - sinned in the face of the most solemn warnings and earnest entreaties; and, we may add, in the face of the most vehement and oft-repeated promises and protestations of obedience.
Yes, reader, Israel gave up the worship of the One true and living God, Jehovah Elohim, their covenant God; not only their Creator, but their Redeemer; the One who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt; conducted them through the Red Sea; led them through the wilderness; brought them across the Jordan, and planted them, in triumph, in the inheritance which He had promised to Abraham their father. A land flowing with milk and honey, which is the glory of all lands." They turned their backs upon Him, and gave themselves up to the worship of false gods. "They provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their graven images."
It seems perfectly wonderful that a people who had seen and known so much of the goodness and loving kindness of God; His mighty acts, His faithfulness, His majesty, His glory, could ever bring themselves to bow down to the stock: of a tree. But so it was. Their whole history, from the days of the calf, at the foot of Mount Sinai, to the day in which Nebuchadnezzar reduced Jerusalem to ruins, is marked by an unconquerable spirit of idolatry. In vain did Jehovah, in His long-suffering mercy and abounding goodness, raise up deliverers for them, to lift them from beneath the terrible consequences of their sin and folly. Again and again, in His inexhaustible mercy and patience, He saved them from the hand of their enemies. He raised up an Othniel, an Ehud, a Barak, a, Gideon, a Jephthah, a Samson, those instruments of His mercy and power, those witnesses of His deep and tender love and compassion toward His poor infatuated people. No sooner had each judge passed off the scene, than back the nation plunged into their besetting sin of idolatry.
So also, in the days of the kings. It is the same melancholy, heart-rending story. True, there were bright spots, here and there, some brilliant stars shining out through the deep gloom of the nation’s history; we have a David, an Asa, a Jehoshaphat, a Hezekiah, a Josiah - refreshing and blessed exceptions to the dark and dismal rule. But even men like these failed to eradicate from the heart of the nation the pernicious root of idolatry. Even amid the unexampled splendours of Solomon’s reign, that root sent forth its bitter shoots, in the monstrous form of high places to Ashtaroth, the goddess of the Zidonians; Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites; and Chemosh, the abomination of Moab.
Reader, only think of this. Pause for a moment, and contemplate the astounding fact of the writer of the Canticles, Ecclesiastes, and Proverbs bowing at the shrine of Molech! Only conceive the wisest, the wealthiest and the most glorious of Israel’s monarchs, burning incense, and offering sacrifices upon the altar of Chemosh!
Truly, there is something here for us to ponder. It was written for our learning. The reign of Solomon affords one of the most striking and impressive evidences of the fact which is just now engaging our attention, namely, Israel’s complete and hopeless apostasy from the grand truth of the unity of the Godhead - their unconquerable spirit of idolatry. The truth which they were specially called out to hold and confess, was the very truth which they, first of all and most persistently, abandoned.
We shall not pursue the dark line of evidence further; neither shall we dwell upon the appalling picture of the nation’s judgement, in consequence of their idolatry. They are now in the condition of which the prophet Hosea speaks: "The children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim." - "The unclean spirit of idolatry has gone out of them," during these "many days," to return, by-and-by, with "seven other spirits more wicked than himself" - the very perfection of spiritual wickedness. And then will come days of unparalleled tribulation upon that long misguided and deeply revolted people - "The time of Jacob’s trouble."
But deliverance will come, blessed be God! Bright days are in store for the restored nation - "days of heaven upon earth" - as the same prophet Hosea tells us: "Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the Lord their God, and David their King; and shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days." All the promises of God to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David shall be blessedly accomplished; all the brilliant predictions of the prophets, from Isaiah to Malachi, shall be gloriously fulfilled. Yes, both promises and prophecies shall be literally and gloriously made good to restored Israel, in the land of Canaan; for "the scripture cannot be broken." The long, dark, dreary night shall be followed by the brightest day that has ever shone upon this earth; the daughter of Zion shall bask in the bright and blessed beams of "the Sun of Righteousness;" and "the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea."
It would indeed be a most delightful exercise to reproduce upon the pages of this volume those glowing passages from the prophets which speak of Israel’s future; but this we cannot attempt; it is not needful; and we have a duty to fulfil which, if not so pleasing to us, or so refreshing to the reader, will, we earnestly hope, prove not less profitable.
The duty is this, to press upon the attention of the reader - and upon the attention of the whole church of God - the practical application of that solemn fact in Israel’s history on which we have dwelt at such length - the fact of their having so speedily, and so completely given up the great truth set forth in Deuteronomy 6: 4, "Hear, O Israel; the Lord our God is one Lord."
We may, perhaps, be asked, "What bearing can this fact have upon the church of God?" We believe it has a most solemn bearing; and, further, we believe we should be guilty of a very culpable shirking of our duty to Christ and to His church, if we failed to point it out. We know that all the great facts of Israel’s history are full of instruction, full of admonition, full of warning, for us. It is our business, our bounden duty to see that we profit by them - to take heed that we study them aright.
Now, in contemplating the history of the church of God, as a public witness for Christ, on the earth, we find that, hardly had it been set up, in all the fullness of blessing and privilege which marked the opening of its career, ere it began to slip away from those very truths which it was specially responsible to maintain and confess. Like Adam, in the garden of Eden; like Noah, in the restored earth; like Israel, in Canaan; so the church, as the responsible steward of the mysteries of God, was no sooner set in its place, than it began to totter and fall. It almost immediately began to give up those grand truths which were characteristic of its very existence, and which were to mark off Christianity from all that had gone before. Even under the eyes of the apostles of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, errors and evils had begun to work which sapped the very foundations of the church’s testimony.
Are we asked for proofs? Alas! we have them, in melancholy abundance. Hear the words of that blessed apostle who shed more tears and heaved more sighs over the ruins of the church than any man that ever lived. "I marvel," he says; and well he might, "that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ, unto another gospel: which is not another." "O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you" "Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service to them which by nature are no gods. But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years;" Christian festivals, so called, very imposing and gratifying to religious nature; but, in the judgement of the apostle, the judgement of the Holy Ghost, it was simply giving up Christianity and going back to the worship of idols. "I am afraid of you," and no wonder, when they could thus so speedily turn away from the grand characteristic truths of a heavenly Christianity, and occupy themselves with superstitious observances. "I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain." "Ye did run well; who did hinder you, that ye should not obey the truth? This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump."
And all this in the apostle’s own day. The departure was even more rapid than in Israel’s case; for they served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua; but, in the church’s sad and humiliating history, the enemy succeeded, almost immediately, in introducing leaven into the meal, tares among the wheat. Ere the apostles themselves had left the scene, seed was sown which has been bearing its pernicious fruit ever since, and shall continue to bear, till angelic reapers clear the field.
But we must give further proof from scripture. Let us hearken to the same inspired witness, near the close of his ministry, pouring out his heart to his beloved son Timothy, in accents, at once pathetic and solemn. "This thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me." Again, "Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables."
Here is the testimony of the man who, as a wise master builder, had laid the foundation of the church. And what was his own personal experience? He was, like his blessed Master, left alone, deserted by those who had once gathered round him in the freshness, bloom, and ardour of early days. His large, loving heart was broken by Judaising teachers who sought to overturn the very foundations of Christianity, and to overthrow the faith of God’s elect. He wept over the ways of many who, while they made a profession, were, nevertheless, "the enemies of the cross of Christ."
In a word, the Apostle Paul, as he looked forth from his prison at Rome, saw the hopeless wreck and ruin of the professing body. He saw that it would happen to that body, as it had happened to the ship in which he had made his last voyage - a voyage strikingly significant and illustrative of the church’s sad history in this world. But here let us just remind the reader, that we are dealing now only with the question of the church, as a responsible witness for Christ on the earth. This must be distinctly seen, else we shall greatly err in our thoughts on the subject. We must accurately distinguish between the church as the body of Christ, and as His light bearer or witness in the world. In the former character, failure is impossible; in the latter, the ruin is complete and hopeless.
The church, as the body of Christ, united to her living and glorified Head in the heavens, by the presence and indwelling of the Holy Ghost, can never, by any possibility, fail - never be smashed to pieces, like Paul’s ship, by the storms and billows of this hostile world. It is as safe as Christ Himself. The Head and the body are one - indissolubly one. No power of earth or hell, men or devils can ever touch the feeblest and most obscure member of that blessed body. All stand before God, all are under His gracious eye, in the fullness, beauty and acceptability of Christ Himself. As is the Head, so are the members - all the members together - each member in particular. All stand in the full eternal results of Christ’s finished work on the cross. There is - there can be no question of responsibility here. The Head made Himself responsible for the members. He perfectly met every claim, and discharged every liability. Nothing remains but love - love, deep as the heart of Christ, perfect as His work, unchanging as His throne. Every question that could possibly be raised against any one, or all of the members of the church of God, was raised, gone into, and definitively settled, between God and His Christ, on the cross. All the sins, all the iniquities, all the transgressions, all the guilt of each member in particular, and all the members together - yes all, in the fullest and most absolute way, was laid on Christ and borne by Him God, in His inflexible justice, in His infinite holiness, in His eternal righteousness, dealt with everything that could ever, in any possible manner, stand in the way of the full salvation, perfect blessedness, and everlasting glory of every one of the members of the body of Christ the assembly of God. Every member of the body is permeated by the life of the Head; every stone in the building is animated by the life of the chief corner-stone. All are bound together in the power of a bond which can never, no never, be dissolved.
And, furthermore, let it be distinctly understood that the unity of the body of Christ is absolutely indissoluble. This is a cardinal point which must be tenaciously held, and faithfully confessed. But, obviously, it cannot be held and confessed, unless it is understood and believed; and, judging from the expressions which one sometimes hears, in speaking on the subject, it is very questionable indeed if people, so expressing themselves, have ever grasped, in a divine way, the glorious truth of the unity of the body of Christ - a unity maintained, on earth, by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost.
Thus, for example, we sometimes hear people speak of "rending the body of Christ." It is a complete mistake. Such a thing is utterly impossible. The Reformers were accused of rending the body of Christ, when they turned their backs upon the Romish system. What a gross misconception! It simply amounted to the monstrous assumption that a vast mass of moral evil, doctrinal error, ecclesiastical corruption, and debasing superstition was to be owned as the body of Christ! How could any one, with the New Testament in his hand, regard the so-called church of Rome, with its numberless and nameless abominations, as the body of Christ? How could any one, possessing the very faintest idea of the true church of God, ever think of bestowing that title upon the darkest mass of wickedness, the greatest masterpiece of Satan the world has ever beheld?
No, reader; we must never confound the ecclesiastical systems of this world - ancient, medieval, or modern, Greek, Latin, Anglican, National or Popular, Established or Dissenting - with the true church of God, the body of Christ. There is not, beneath the canopy of heaven, this day, nor ever was, a religious system, call it what you please, possessing the very smallest claim to be called, "The church of God," or "The body of Christ." And, as a consequence, it can never be, rightly or intelligently, called schism, or rending the body of Christ, to separate from such systems; nay, on the contrary, it is the bounden duty of every one who would faithfully maintain and confess the truth of the unity of the body, to separate with the most unqualified decision, from everything falsely calling itself a church. It can only be viewed as schism to separate from those who are, unmistakably and unquestionably, gathered on the ground of the assembly of God.
No body of Christians can now lay claim to the title of the body of Christ, or church of God. The members of that body are scattered everywhere they are to be found in all the various religious organisations of the day, save such as deny the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ. We cannot admit the idea that any true Christian could continue to frequent a place where his Lord is blasphemed. But, although no body of Christians can lay claim to the title of the assembly of God, all Christians are responsible to be gathered on the ground of that assembly, and on no other.
And if we be asked, "How are we to know - where are we to find this ground?" We reply, "If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light." “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine." "There is "a path" - thanks be to God for it, though - "no fowl knoweth, and the vulture’s eye hath not seen it. The lion’s whelps have not trodden it, nor the fierce lion passed by it." Nature’s keenest vision cannot see this path, nor its greatest strength tread it. Where is it then? Here it is, "Unto man - to the reader and to the writer, to each, to all ’he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding." (Job 28.) But there is another expression which we not infrequently hear from persons from whom we might expect more intelligence, namely, cutting off the members of the body of Christ."* This too, blessed be God, is impossible. Not a single member of the body of Christ can ever be severed from the Head, or ever disturbed from the place into which he has been incorporated by the Holy Ghost, in pursuance of the eternal purpose of God, and in virtue of the accomplished atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ. The divine Three in One are pledged for the eternal security of the very feeblest member of the body; and for the maintenance of the indissoluble unity of the whole.
{*The expression, "cutting off the members of Christ’s body" is generally applied in cases of discipline. But it is quite a misapplication. The discipline of the assembly can never touch the unity of the body. A member of the body may so fail in morals or err in doctrine, as to call for the action of the assembly, in putting him away from the Table; but that has nothing to do with his place in the body, The two things are perfectly distinct.}
In a word, then, it is as true, today, as it was when the inspired apostle penned the fourth chapter of his epistle to the Ephesians, that "There is one body," of which Christ is Head, of which the Holy Ghost is the formative power; and of which all true believers are members. This body has been on earth, since the day of Pentecost, is on earth now, and shall continue on earth until that moment, so rapidly approaching, when Christ shall come and take it to His Father’s house. It is the same body, with a continual succession of members, just as we speak of a certain regiment of her Majesty’s army having been at Waterloo, and now quartered at Aldershot, though not a man in the regiment of today appeared at the memorable battle of 1815.
Does the reader feel any difficulty as to all this? It may be that he finds it hard, in the present broken and scattered condition of the members, to believe and confess the unbroken unity of the whole. He may feel disposed, perhaps, to limit the application of Ephesians 4: 4, to the day in which the apostle penned the words, when Christians were manifestly one; and when there was no such thing thought of as being a member of this church or a member of that church; because all believers were members of the one church.*
{*The unity of the church may be compared to a chain thrown across a river; we see it at each side, but it dips in the middle. But though it dips, it is not broken; though we do not see the union in the middle, we believe it is there all the same. The church was seen in its unity on the day of Pentecost, and it will be seen in its unity in the glory; and although we do not see it now, we nevertheless believe it most surely.
And, be it remembered, that the unity of the body is a great practical, formative truth; and one very weighty practical deduction from it is that the state and walk of each member affect the whole body. "If one member suffer, all the members suffer with it." A member of what? Some local assembly? Nay; but a member of the body. We must not make the body of Christ a matter of geography.
"But," we may be asked, "are we affected by what we do not see or know?" Assuredly. Are we to limit the grand truth of the unity of the body with all its practical consequences, to the measure of our personal knowledge and experience? Far be the thought. it is the presence of the Holy Ghost that unites the members of the body to the Head and to one another; and hence it is that the walk and ways of each affect all. Even in Israel’s case, where it was not a corporate but a national unity, when Achan sinned, it was said, "Israel hath sinned;" and the whole congregation suffered a humiliating defeat on account of a sin of which they were ignorant.
It is perfectly marvellous how little the Lord’s people seem to understand the glorious truth of the unity of the body, and the practical consequences flowing from it.}
In reply, we must protest against the very idea of limiting the word of God. What possible right have we to single out one clause from Ephesians 4: 4-6 and say it only applied to the days of the apostles? If one clause is to be so limited, why not all? Are there not still, "one Spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all"? Will any question this? Surely not. Well then it follows that there is as surely one body as there is one Spirit, one Lord, one God. All are intimately bound up together, and you cannot touch one without touching all. We have no more right to deny the existence of the one body than we have to deny the existence of God, inasmuch as the self-same passage that declares to us the one, declares to us the other also.
But some will, doubtless, inquire, "Where is this one body to be seen? Is it not an absurdity to speak of such a thing, in the face of the almost numberless denominations of Christendom?" Our answer is this, We are not going to surrender the truth of God because man has so signally failed to carry it out. Did not Israel utterly fail to maintain, confess and carry out, the truth of the unity of the Godhead? And was that glorious truth, in the smallest degree, touched by their failure? Was it not as true that there was one God, though there were as many idolatrous altars as streets in Jerusalem, and every housetop sent up a cloud of incense to the queen of heaven, as when Moses sounded forth in the ears of the whole congregation, those sublime words, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord"? Blessed be God, His truth does not depend upon the faithless, foolish ways of men. It stands in its own divine integrity; it shines in its own heavenly, undimmed lustre, spite of the grossest human failure. Were it not so, what should we do? whither should we turn? or what would become of us? In fact, it comes to this, if we were only to believe the measure of truth which we see practically carried out in the ways of men, we might give up in despair, and be of all men most miserable.
But how is the truth of the one body to be practically carried out? By refusing to own any other principle of Christian fellowship - any other ground of meeting. All true believers should meet on the simple ground of membership of the body of Christ; and on no other. They should assemble, on the first day of the week, round the Lord’s Table, and break bread, as members of the one body, as we read in 1 Corinthians 10, "For we, being many, are one loaf, one body; for we are all partakers of that one loaf." This is as true, and as practical, today, as it was when the apostle addressed the assembly at Corinth. True, there were divisions; at Corinth as there are divisions in Christendom; but that did not, in any wise, touch the truth of God. The apostle rebuked the divisions - pronounced them carnal. He had no sympathy with the poor low idea which one sometimes hears advocated, that divisions are good things as superinducing emulation. He believed they were very bad things - the fruit of the flesh, the work of Satan.
Neither - we feel persuaded - would the apostle have accepted the popular illustration that divisions in the church are like so many regiments, with different facings, all fighting under the same commander-in-chief. It would not hold good for a moment; indeed, it has no application whatever, but rather gives a flat contradiction to that distinct and emphatic statement, "There is one body."
Reader, this is a most glorious truth. Let us ponder it deeply. Let us look at Christendom in the light of it. Let us judge our own position and ways by it. Are we acting on it? Do we give expression to it, at the Lord’s Table, every Lord’s day? Be assured it is our sacred duty and high privilege so to do. Say not there are difficulties of all sorts; many stumbling-blocks in the way; much to dishearten us in the conduct of those who profess to meet on this very ground of which we speak.
All this is, alas! but too true. We must be quite prepared for it. The devil will leave no stone unturned to cast dust in our eyes so that we may not see God’s blessed way for His people. But we must not give heed to his suggestions or be snared by his devices. There always have been, and there always will be difficulties in the way of carrying out the precious truth of God; and perhaps one of the greatest difficulties is found in the inconsistent conduct of those who profess to act upon it.
But then we must ever distinguish between the truth and those who profess it; between the ground and the conduct of those who occupy it. Of course, they ought to harmonise; but they do not; and hence we are imperatively called to judge the conduct by the ground, not the ground by the conduct. If we saw a man farming on a principle which we knew to be thoroughly sound, but he was a bad farmer, what should we do? Of course, we should reject his mode of working, but hold the principle all the same.
Not otherwise is it, in reference to the truth now before us. There were heresies at Corinth, schisms, errors, evils, of all sorts. What then? Was the truth of God to be surrendered as a myth, as something wholly impracticable? Was it all to be given up? Were the Corinthians to meet on some other principle? Were they to organise themselves on some new ground? Were they to gather round some fresh centre? No, thank God! His truth was not to be surrendered, for a moment, although Corinth was split up into ten thousand sects, and its horizon darkened by ten thousand heresies. The body of Christ was one; and the apostle simply displays in their view the banner with this blessed inscription, "Ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular."
Now these words were addressed, not merely "unto the church at Corinth," but also "to all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours." Hence, the truth of the one body is abiding and universal. Every true Christian is bound to recognise it, and to act on it; and every assembly of Christians, wherever convened, should be the local expression of this grand and all-important truth.
Some might, perhaps, feel disposed to ask how it could be said to any one assembly, "Ye are the body of Christ"? Were there not saints at Ephesus, Colosse and Philippi? No doubt? and had the apostle been addressing them on the same subject, he could have said to them likewise, "Ye are the body of Christ," inasmuch as they were the local expression of the body; and not only so, but, in addressing them, he had before his mind all saints, to the end of the church’s earthly career.
But we must bear in mind that the apostle could not possibly address such words to any human organisation, ancient or modern. No; nor if all such organisations, call them what you please, were amalgamated into one, could he speak of it as "the body of Christ." That body, let it be distinctly understood, consists of all true believers on the face of the earth. That they are not gathered on that only divine ground, is their serious loss, and their Lord’s dishonour. The precious truth holds good, all the same - "There is one body;" and this is the divine standard by which to measure every ecclesiastical association and every religious system under the sun.
We deem it needful to go somewhat fully into the divine side of the question of the church, in order to guard the truth of God from the results of misapprehension; and also that the reader may clearly understand that, in speaking of the utter failure and ruin of the church, we are looking at the human side of the subject. To this latter, we must return for a moment.
It is impossible to read the New Testament, with a calm and unprejudiced mind, and not see that the church, as a responsible witness for Christ on the earth, has, most signally and shamefully, failed, To quote all the passages in proof of this statement would, literally, fill a small volume. But, let us glance at the second and third chapters of the book of Revelation where the church is seen under judgement. We have, in these solemn chapters, what we may call a divine church history. Seven assemblies are taken up, as illustrative of the various phases of the church’s history, from the day in which it was set up, in responsibility, on the earth, until it shall be spued out of the Lord’s mouth, as something utterly intolerable. If we do not see that these two chapters are prophetic, as well as historic, we shall deprive ourselves of a vast field of most valuable instruction. For ourselves, we can only assure the reader that no human language could adequately set forth what we have gathered from Revelation 2 and 3, in their prophetic aspect.
However, we are only referring to them now as the last of a series of scripture proofs of our present thesis. Take the address to Ephesus, the self-same church to which the Apostle Paul wrote his marvellous epistle, opening up, so blessedly, the heavenly side of things, God’s eternal purpose respecting the church - the position and portion of the church, as accepted in Christ, and blessed with all spiritual blessings, in the heavenlies in Him. No failure here. No thought of such a thing. No possibility Of it. All is in God’s hands here. The counsel is His; the work His. It is His grace, His glory, His mighty power, His good pleasure; and all founded upon the blood of Christ. There is no question of responsibility here. The church was "dead in trespasses and sins" but Christ died for her; He placed Himself judicially where she was morally; and God, in His sovereign grace, entered the scene and raised up Christ from the dead, and the church in Him glorious fact! Here all is sure and settled. It is the church in the heavenlies, in Christ, not the church on earth for Christ. It is the body "accepted," not the candlestick judged. If we do not see both sides of this great question, we have much to learn.
But there is the earthly side, as well as the heavenly; the human as well as the divine; the candlestick as well as the body. Hence it is that in the judicial address, in Revelation 2, we read such solemn words as these, "I have against thee, that thou hast left thy first love."
How very distinct! Nothing like this in Ephesians; nothing against the body, nothing against the bride; but there is something against the candlestick. The light had, even already, become dim. Hardly had it been lighted, ere the snuffers were needed.
Thus, at the very outset, symptoms of decline showed themselves, unmistakably, to the penetrating eye of Him who walked amongst the seven golden candlesticks; and when we reach the close, and contemplate the last phase of the church’s condition - the last stage of its earthly history, as illustrated by the assembly, at Laodicea, there is not a single redeeming feature. The case is almost hopeless. The Lord is outside the door. "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock." It is not, here, as at Ephesus, "I have somewhat against thee." The whole condition is bad, The whole professing body is about to be given up. "I will spue thee out of my mouth." He still lingers, blessed be His Name, for He is ever slow to leave the place of mercy, or enter the place of judgement. It reminds us of the departure of the glory, in the opening of Ezekiel. It moved, with a slow and measured pace, loath to leave the house, the people and the land. "Then the glory of the Lord went up from the cherub, and stood over the threshold of the house; and the house was filled with the cloud, and the court was full of the brightness of the Lord’s glory." "Then the glory of the Lord departed from off the threshold of the house, and stood over the cherubims." And, finally, “The glory of the Lord went up from the midst of the city, and stood upon the mountain which is on the east side of the city. (Ezek 10: 4, 18; 11: 23.)
This is deeply affecting. How striking the contrast between this slow departure of the glory and its speedy entrance, in the day of Solomon’s dedication of the house, in 2 Chronicles 7: 1. Jehovah was quick to enter His abode, in the midst of His people; slow to leave it. He was, to speak after the manner of men, forced away by the sins and hopeless impenitence of His infatuated people.
So also, with the church. We see, in the second of Acts, His rapid entrance into His spiritual house. He came, like a rushing mighty wind, to fill the house with His glory. But, in the third of Revelation, see His attitude. He is outside. Yes; but He is knocking. He lingers, not indeed with any hope of corporate restoration; but if haply "any man would hear his voice and open the door." The fact of His being outside, shows what the church is. The fact of His knocking, shows what He is.
Christian reader, see that you thoroughly understand this whole subject. It is of the very last importance that you should. We are surrounded, on all sides, with false notions as to the present condition and future destiny of the professing church. We must fling these all behind our backs, with holy decision, and listen, with circumcised ear, and reverent mind, to the teaching of holy scripture. That teaching is as clear as noon-day. The professing church is a hopeless ruin, and judgement is at the door. Read the epistle of Jude; read 2 Peter 2 and 3. read 2 Timothy. Just lay aside this volume, and look closely into those solemn scriptures, and we feel persuaded you will rise from the study with the deep and thorough conviction that there is nothing whatever before Christendom but the unmitigated wrath of Almighty God. Its doom is set forth in that brief but solemn sentence in Romans 11, "Thou also shalt be cut off."
Yes; such is the language of scripture. "Cut off" - "spued out." The professing church has utterly failed as Christ’s witness on the earth. As with Israel, so with the church, the very truth which she was responsible to maintain and confess she has faithlessly surrendered. Hardly had the canon of New Testament scripture closed, hardly had the first set of labourers left the field, ere gross darkness set in, and settled down upon the whole professing body. Turn where you will, range through the ponderous tomes of "the fathers" as they are called, and you will not find a trace of those grand characteristic truths of our glorious Christianity. All, all was shamefully abandoned. As Israel, in Canaan, abandoned Jehovah for Baal and Ashtaroth, so the church abandoned the pure and precious truth of God for puerile fables and deadly errors. The rapid departure is perfectly astounding; but it was just as the Apostle Paul forewarned the elders of Ephesus. "Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them." (Acts 20)
How truly deplorable! The holy apostles of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, almost immediately succeeded by "grievous wolves," and teachers of perverse things. The whole church plunged into thick darkness. The lamp of divine revelation almost hidden from view. Ecclesiastical corruption, in every form; priestly domination with all its terrible accompaniments. In short, the history of the church - the history of Christendom is the most appalling record ever penned.
True it is, thanks be to God, He left not Himself without a witness. Here and there, from time to time, just as in Israel of old, He raised up one and another to speak for Him. Even amid the deepest gloom of the middle ages, an occasional star appears upon the horizon. The Waldenses and others were enabled, by the grace of God, to hold fast His word and to confess the Name of Jesus in the face of Rome’s dark and terrible tyranny, and diabolical cruelty.
Then came that gracious season, in the sixteenth century, when God raised up Luther and his beloved and honoured fellow-labourers, to preach the great truth of justification by faith, and to give the precious volume of God to the people, in their own tongue wherein they were born. It is not within the compass of human language to set forth the blessing of that memorable time. Thousands heard the glad tidings of salvation - heard, believed, and were saved. Thousands who had long groaned beneath the intolerable weight of Romish superstition, hailed, with Profound thankfulness, the heavenly message. Thousands flocked, with intense delight, to draw water from those wells of inspiration which had been stopped for ages by papal ignorance and intolerance. The blessed lamp of divine revelation, so long hidden by the enemy’s hand, was permitted to cast its rays athwart the gloom, and thousands rejoiced in its heavenly light.
But while we heartily bless God for all the glorious results of what is commonly called the Reformation, in the sixteenth century, we should make a very grave mistake indeed were we to imagine that it was anything approaching to a restoration of the church to its original condition. Far - very far from it. Luther and his companions, if we are to judge from their writings - precious writings, many of them - never grasped the divine idea of the church as the body of Christ. They did not understand the unity of the body; the presence of the Holy Ghost in the assembly, as well as His indwelling in the individual believer. They never reached the grand truth of ministry in the church, "its nature, source, power and responsibility." They never got beyond the idea of human authority as the basis of ministry. They were silent as to the specific hope of the church, namely, the coming of Christ for His people - the bright and morning Star They failed to seize the proper scope of prophecy, and proved themselves incompetent rightly to divide the word of truth.
Let us not be misunderstood. We love the memory of the Reformers. Their names are familiar household words amongst us. They were dear, devoted, earnest, blessed servants of Christ. Would that we had their like amongst us, in this day of revived popery, and rampant infidelity. We would yield to none in our love and esteem for Luther, Melanchthon, Farel, Latimer and Knox. They were truly bright and shining lights in their day; and thousands - yea millions will thank God, throughout eternity, that they ever lived and preached and wrote. And not only so, but, looked at in their private life and public ministry, they put to shame many of those who have been favoured with a range of truth for which we look in vain in the voluminous writings of the Reformers.
But, admitting all this, as we most freely and gratefully do, we are nevertheless convinced that those beloved and honoured servants of Christ failed to seize and therefore failed to preach and teach many of the special and characteristic truths of Christianity; at least, we have failed to find these truths in their writings. They preached the precious truth of justification by faith; they gave the holy scriptures to the people; they trampled under foot much of the rubbish of Romish superstition.
All this they did, by the grace of God; and for all this we bow our heads in deep thankfulness and Praise to the Father of mercies. But Protestantism is not Christianity; nor are the so-called churches of the Reformation, whether National or Dissenting, the church of God. Far from it. We look back over the course of eighteen centuries, and, spite of the occasional revivals, spite of the brilliant lights which, at various times, have shone upon the church’s horizon - lights which appeared all the brighter in contrast with the deep gloom that surrounded them - spite of the many gracious visitations of God’s Spirit, both in Europe and America, during the past and present century - spite of all these things, for which we most heartily bless God, we return, with decision to the statement already advanced, that the professing church is a hopeless wreck; that Christendom is rapidly hastening down the inclined plane, to the blackness of darkness for ever; that those highly favoured lands, where much evangelical truth has been preached; where Bibles have been circulated in millions, and gospel tracts in billions, shall yet be covered with thick darkness - given over to strong delusion to believe a lie!
And then? - Ah! what then? A converted world? Nay, but a judged church. The true saints of God, scattered throughout Christendom - all the true members of the body of Christ, will be caught up to meet their coming Lord - the dead saints raised, the living changed? in a moment, and all taken up together to be for ever with the Lord. Then the mystery will rise to a head in the person of the man of sin - the lawless one, the Antichrist. The Lord Jesus shall come, and all His saints with Him, to execute judgement on the beast, or revived Roman empire, and the false prophet, or Antichrist - the former in the West, the latter in the East.
This will be a summary act of direct warrior judgement, without any judicial process whatever, inasmuch as both the beast and false prophet shall be found in open rebellion and blasphemous opposition to God and the Lamb. Then comes the sessional judgement of the living nations, as recorded in Matthew 25: 31-46.
Thus, all evil having been put down, Christ shall reign, in righteousness and peace, for a thousand years - a bright and blessed time, the true Sabbath for Israel and the whole earth - a period marked by the grand facts, Satan bound, and Christ reigning Glorious facts! The very reference to them causes the heart to overflow in praise and thanksgiving. What will the reality be?
But Satan shall be loosed from his thousand years’ captivity, and allowed to make one more effort against God and His Christ. "And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle, the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.* And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city; and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever." (Rev. 20: 7, 10.)
{*The reader must distinguish between the Gog and Magog of Revelation 20 and those of Ezekiel 38 & 39. The former are post-millennial; the latter, pre-millennial.}
This will be Satan’s last effort, issuing in his eternal perdition. Then we have the judgement of the dead, "small and great" - the sessional judgement of all those who shall have died in their sins, from the days of Cain down to the last apostate from millennial glory. Tremendous scene! No heart can conceive, no tongue, no pen, set forth its awful solemnity.
Finally, we have unfolded to the vision of our souls the everlasting state, the new heaven and the new earth wherein righteousness shall dwell, throughout the golden ages of eternity.
Such is the order of events, as set forth, with all possible clearness, on the pages of inspiration. We have given a brief summary of them in connection with the line of truth on which we have been dwelling - a line, as we are fully aware, by no means popular; but we dare not withhold it on that account. Our business is to declare the whole counsel of God, not to seek popularity. We do not expect the truth of God to be popular in Christendom; so far from this, we have been seeking to prove that just as Israel abandoned the truth which they were responsible to maintain, so the professing church has let slip all those great truths which characterise the Christianity of the New Testament. And we may assure the reader that our one object in pursuing this line of argument is to arouse the hearts of all true Christians to a sense of the value of those truths, and of their responsibility not only to receive them, but to seek a fuller realisation and a bolder confession of them. We long to see a band of men raised up, in these closing hours of the church’s earthly history, who shall go forth, in true spiritual power, and proclaim, with unction and energy - the long-forgotten truths of the gospel of God. May God, in His great mercy to His people, raise up such and send them forth. May the Lord Jesus knock louder and louder, at the door, so that many may hear and open to Him, according to the desire of His loving heart, and taste the blessedness of deep personal communion with Himself, while waiting for His coming.
Blessed be God, there is no limit whatever to the blessing of the individual soul who hears Christ’s voice and opens the door; and what is true of one is true of hundreds or thousands. Only let us be real, and simple, and true, feeling and owning our utter feebleness, and nothingness; laying aside all assumption and empty pretension; not seeking to be anything, or to set up anything; but holding fast Christ’s word, and not denying His Name; finding our happy place at His feet, our satisfying portion in Himself, and our real delight in serving Him in any little way. Thus we shall get on harmoniously, lovingly, and happily together, finding our common centre in Christ, and our common object in seeking to further His cause and promote His glory. Oh! that it were thus with all the Lord’s beloved people, in this our day; we should then have a very different tale to tell, and present a very different aspect to the world around. May the Lord revive His work!
It may perhaps seem to the reader that we have wandered a long way from Deuteronomy 6; but we must remind him, once for all, that it is not merely what each chapter contains that demands our attention, but also what it suggests And further, we may add that, in sitting down to write, from time to time, it is our one desire to be led by God’s Spirit into the very line of truth which may be suited to the need of all our readers. If only the beloved flock of Christ be fed, instructed and comforted, we care not whether it be by well connected notes or broken fragments.
We shall now proceed with our chapter.
Moses, having laid down the grand foundation truth contained in the fourth verse, "Hear, O Israel; the Lord our God is one Lord," proceeds to press upon the congregation their sacred duty in respect to this blessed One. It was not merely that there was a God, but He was their God. He had deigned to link Himself with them, in covenant relationship. He had redeemed them, borne them on eagles’ wings, and brought them unto Himself, in order that they might be to Him a people, and that He might be their God.
Blessed fact! Blessed relationship! But Israel had to be reminded of the conduct suited to such a relationship - conduct which could only flow from a loving heart. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might." Here lies the secret of all true practical religion. Without this all is valueless to God. "My son, give me thine heart." where the heart is given, all will be right. The heart may be compared to the regulator of a watch which acts on the hair-spring, and the hair-spring acts on the mainspring, and the main-spring acts on the hands, as they move round the dial. If your watch goes wrong, it will not do merely to alter the hands, you must touch the regulator. God looks for real heart-work, blessed be His Name! His word to us is, "My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth."
How we ought to bless Him for such touching words! They do so reveal His own loving heart to us. Assuredly, He loved us in deed and in truth; and He cannot be satisfied with anything else, whether in our ways with Him or our ways one with another All must flow straight from the heart.
"And these words which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart" - at the very source of all the issues of life. This is peculiarly precious. Whatever is in the heart comes out through the lips, and in the life, How important then, to have the heart full of the word of God, so full that we shall have no room for the vanities and follies of this present evil world. Thus shall our conversation be always with grace, seasoned with salt. "Out of the abundance of the heart the month speaketh." Hence we can judge of what is in the heart by what cometh out of the mouth. The tongue is the organ of the heart the organ of the man. "A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things; and an evil man, out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things." When the heart is really governed by the word of God, the whole character reveals the blessed result. It must be so, inasmuch as the heart is the main-spring of our entire moral condition; it lies at the centre of all those moral influences which govern our personal history and shape our practical career.
In every part of the divine volume, we see how much importance God attaches to the attitude and state of the heart, with respect to Him or to His word, which is one and the same thing. when the heart is true to Him, all is sure to come right; but, on the other hand, we shall find that, where the heart grows cold and careless as to God and His truth, there will, sooner or later, be open departure from the path of truth and righteousness. There is, therefore, much force and value in the exhortation addressed by Barnabas to the converts at Antioch: "He exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord."
How needful, then, now, always! This "purpose of heart" is most precious to God. It is what we may venture to call the grand moral regulator, It imparts a lovely earnestness to the Christian character which is greatly to be coveted by all of us. It is a divine antidote against coldness, deadness and formality, all of which are so hateful to God. The outward life may be very correct, and the creed may be very orthodox; but if the earnest purpose of heart be lacking - the affectionate cleaving of the whole moral being to God and His Christ, all is utterly worthless.
It is through the heart that the Holy Ghost instructs us. Hence, the apostle prayed for the saints at Ephesus that, "The eyes of their heart [kardias, not dianoias] might be enlightened" And again, "That Christ may dwell in your heart by faith."
Thus we see how all scripture is in perfect harmony with the exhortation recorded in our chapter, "And these words which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart." How near this would have kept them to their covenant God! How safe, too, from all evil, and specially from the abominable evil of idolatry - their national sin, their terrible besetment! If Jehovah’s precious words had only found their right place in the heart, there would have been little fear of Baal, Chemosh or Ashtoreth. In a word, all the idols of the heathen would have found their right place, and been estimated as their true value, if only the word of Jehovah had been allowed to dwell in Israel’s heart.
And be it specially noted here how beautifully characteristic all this is of the book of Deuteronomy. It is not so much a question of keeping up a certain order of religious observances, the offering of sacrifices or attention to rites and ceremonies. All these things, no doubt, had their place, but they are, by no means, the prominent or paramount thing in Deuteronomy. No; THE WORD is the all-important matter here. It is Jehovah’s word in Israel’s heart.
The reader must seize this fact, if he really desires to possess the key to the lovely book of Deuteronomy. It is not a book of ceremonial; it is a book of moral and affectionate obedience. It teaches, in almost every section, that invaluable lesson, that the heart that loves, prizes and honours the word of God is ready for every act of obedience, whether it be the offering of a sacrifice or the observance of a day. It might so happen that an Israelite would find himself in a place, and under circumstances in which a rigid adherence to rites and ceremonies would be impossible; but he never could be in a place or in circumstances in which he could not love, reverence and obey the word of God. Let him go where he would; let him be carried, as a captive exile, to the ends of the earth, nothing could rob him of the high privilege of uttering and acting on those blessed words,
"Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee."
Precious words! They contain in their brief compass, the great principle of the book of Deuteronomy; and we may add, the great principle of the divine life, at all times, and in all places. It can never lose its moral force and value. It always holds good. It was true in the days of the patriarchs; true for Israel in the land; true for Israel scattered to the ends of the earth; true for the church as a whole; true for each individual believer, amid the church’s hopeless ruins. In a word, obedience is always the creature’s holy duty and exalted privilege - simple, unhesitating, unqualified obedience to the word of the Lord. This is an unspeakable mercy for which we may well praise our God, day and night. He has given us His word, blessed be His Name, and He exhorts us to let that word dwell in us richly - dwell in our hearts, and assert its holy sway over our entire course and character.
"And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart. And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates."
All this is perfectly beautiful. The word of God hidden in the heart; flowing out, in loving instruction, to the children, and in holy conversation, in the bosom of the family; shining out in all the activities of daily life, so that all who came inside the gates or entered the house might see that the word of God was the standard for each, for all, and in everything.
Thus it was to be with Israel of old; and surely thus it ought to be with Christians now. But is it so? Are our children thus taught? Is it our constant aim to present the word of God, in all its heavenly attractiveness, to their young hearts? Do they see it shining out in our daily life? Do they see its influence upon our habits, our temper, our family intercourse, our business transactions? This is what we understand by binding the word as a sign upon the hands, having it as a frontlet between the eyes, writing it upon the door posts, and upon the gates.
Reader, is it thus with us? It is of little use attempting to teach our children the word of God, if our lives are not governed by that word. We do not believe in making the blessed word of God a mere school book for our children; to do so is to turn a delightful privilege into a wearisome drudgery. Our children should see that we live in the very atmosphere of scripture; that it forms the material of our conversation when we sit in the bosom of the family, in our moments of relaxation.
Alas! how little is this the case! Have we not to be deeply humbled, in the presence of God, when we reflect upon the general character and tone of our conversation at table, and in the family circle? How little there is of Deuteronomy 6: 7! How much of "foolish talking and jesting which are not convenient!" How much evil speaking of our brethren, our neighbours, our fellow-labourers! How much idle gossip! How much worthless small talk!
And from what does all this proceed? Simply from the state of the heart. The word of God, the commandments and sayings of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, are not dwelling in our hearts; and hence they are not welling up and flowing out in living streams of grace and edification.
Will any one say that Christians do not need to consider these things? If so, let him ponder the following wholesome words, "Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers." And again, "Be filled with the Spirit; speaking to yourselves in psalms, and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." (Eph. 4: 29; 5: 18-20.)
These words were addressed to the saints at Ephesus; and, most assuredly, we should apply our hearts diligently to them. We are little aware, perhaps, of how deeply and constantly we fail in maintaining the habit of spiritual conversation. It is specially in the bosom of the family, and in our ordinary intercourse, that this failure is most manifest. Hence our need of those words of exhortation which we have just penned. It is evident the Holy Spirit foresaw the need, and graciously anticipated it. Hear what He says "to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ at Colosse." - "Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord." (Col. 3.)
Lovely picture of ordinary Christian life! It is but a fuller and higher development of what we have in our chapter, where the Israelite is seen in the midst of his family, with the word of God flowing forth from his heart, in loving instruction to his children - seen, in his daily life, in all his intercourse at home and abroad, under the hallowed influence of Jehovah’s words.
Beloved Christian reader, do we not long to see more of all this in our midst? Is it not, at times, very sorrowful and very humbling to mark the style of conversation that obtains in the midst of our family circles? Should we not sometimes blush if we could see our conversation reproduced in print? What is the remedy? Here it is - a heart filled with the peace of Christ, the word of Christ, Christ Himself. Nothing else will do. We must begin with the heart, and where that is thoroughly pre-occupied with heavenly things we shall make very short work with all attempts at evil speaking, foolish talking and jesting.
"And it shall be, when the Lord thy God shall have brought thee into the land which he sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give thee great and goodly cities, which thou buildedst not, and houses full of all good things which thou filledst not, and wells digged which thou diggedst not, vineyards and olive trees which thou plantedst not; when thou shalt have eaten, and be full; then beware lest thou forget the Lord which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage." (Vers. 10-12.)
Amid all the blessing, the mercies and the privileges of the land of Canaan, they were to remember that gracious and faithful One who had redeemed them out of the land of bondage. They were to remember, too, that all these things were His free gift. The land, with all that it contained, was bestowed upon them in virtue of His promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Cities built and houses furnished, flowing wells, fruitful vineyards and olive yards, all ready to their hand, the free gift of sovereign grace and covenant mercy. All they had to do was to take possession, in simple faith; and to keep ever in the remembrance of the thoughts of their hearts the bounteous Giver of it all. They were to think of Him, and find in His redeeming love the true motive spring of a life of loving obedience. Wherever they turned their eyes they beheld the tokens of His great goodness, the rich fruit of His marvellous love. Every city, every house, every well, every vine, olive and fig tree spoke to their hearts of Jehovah’s abounding grace, and furnished a substantial proof of His infallible faithfulness to His promise.
"Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and serve him, and shalt swear by his name. Ye shall not go after other gods, of the gods of the people which are round about you. (For the Lord thy God is a jealous God among you,) lest the anger of the Lord thy God be kindled against thee, and destroy thee from off the face of the earth."
There are two great motives set before the congregation, in our chapter, namely, "love" in verse 5; and "fear," in verse 13. These are found all through scripture; and their importance, in guiding the life and forming the character, cannot possibly be too highly estimated. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." We are exhorted to be in the fear of the Lord all the day." It is a grand moral safeguard against all evil. Unto man He said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding."
The blessed Book abounds in passages setting forth, in every possible form, the immense importance of the fear of God. "How," says Joseph, "can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?" The man who walks habitually in the fear of God is preserved from every form of moral pravity. The abiding realisation of the divine presence must prove an effectual shelter from every temptation? How often do we find the presence of some very holy and spiritual person a wholesome check upon levity and folly; and if such be the moral influence of a fellow mortal, how much more powerful would be the realised presence of God!
Christian reader, let us give our serious attention to this weighty matter. Let us seek to live in the consciousness that we are in the immediate presence of God. Thus shall we be preserved from a thousand forms of evil to which we are exposed from day to day, and to which, alas! we are pre-disposed. The remembrance that the eye of God rests upon us, would exert a far more powerful influence upon our life and conversation than the presence of all the saints upon earth, and all the angels in heaven. We could not speak falsely; we could not utter with our lips what we do not feel in the heart; we could not talk folly; we could not speak evil of our brother or our neighbour; we could not speak unkindly of any one, if only we felt ourselves in the presence of God. In a word, the holy fear of the Lord, of which scripture speaks so much, would act as a most blessed restraint upon evil thoughts, evil words, evil ways, evil in every shape and form.
Moreover, it would tend to make us very real and genuine, in all our sayings and doings. There is a sad amount of sham and nonsense about us. We frequently say a great deal more than we feel. We are not honest. We do not speak, every man, truth with our neighbour. We give expression to sentiments which are not the genuine utterance of the heart. We act the hypocrite, one with another.
All these things afford melancholy proof of how little we live, move and have our being in the presence of God. If we could only bear in mind that God hears us and sees us - hears our every word, and sees our every thought, our every way, how differently we should carry ourselves! What holy watchfulness we should maintain over our thoughts, our tempers, and our tongues! What purity of heart and mind! What truth and uprightness in all our intercourse with our fellows! What reality and simplicity in our deportment? What happy freedom from all affectation, assumption, and pretension! What deliverance from every form of self-occupation! Oh, to live ever in the deep sense of the divine presence! To walk in the fear of the Lord, all the day long?
And then to prove the "vast constraining influence" of His love! To be led out in all the holy activities which that love would ever suggest! To find our delight in doing good! To taste the spiritual luxury of making hearts glad? To be continually meditating plans of usefulness! To live close by the fountain of divine love, so that we must be streams of refreshing in the midst of this thirsty scene - rays of light amid the moral gloom around us! "The love of Christ," says the blessed apostle, "constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead; and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again."
How morally lovely is all this! Would that it were more fully realised and faithfully exhibited amongst us! May the fear and love of God be continually in our hearts, in all their blessed power, and formative influence, that thus our daily life may shine to His praise, and the real profit, comfort and blessing of all who come in contact with us whether in private or in public! God, in His infinite mercy, grant it, for Christ’s sake!
The sixteenth verse of our chapter demands our special attention. Ye shall not tempt the Lord your God, as ye tempted him in Massah." These words were quoted by our blessed Lord when tempted by Satan to cast Himself from the pinnacle of the temple. "Then the devil taketh him up into the, holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, and saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down; for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee; and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone."
This is a very remarkable passage. It proves how Satan can quote scripture when it suits his purpose. But he omits a most important clause - "To keep thee in all thy ways." Now, it formed no part of the ways of Christ to cast Himself from the pinnacle of the temple. It was not the path of duty. He had no command from God to do any such thing; and hence He refused to do it. He had no need to tempt God - to put Him to the test. He had, as a man, the most perfect confidence in God - the fullest assurance of His protection.
Moreover, He was not going to abandon the path of duty, in order to prove God’s care of Him; and herein He teaches us a most valuable lesson. We can always count on God’s protecting hand, when we are treading the path of duty. But, if we are walking in a self-chosen path; if we are seeking our own pleasure, or our own interest, our own ends or objects, then, to talk of counting on God would be simply wicked presumption.
No doubt, our God is very merciful, very gracious, and His tender mercy is over us, even when we wander off the path of duty; but this is another thing altogether, and it leaves wholly untouched the statement that we can only count on divine protection when our feet are in the pathway of duty. If a Christian goes out boating for his amusement; or if he goes clambering over the Alps merely for sightseeing, has he any right to believe that God will take care of him? Let conscience give the answer. If God calls us to cross a stormy lake, to preach the gospel; if He summons us to cross the Alps on some special service for Him, then, assuredly, we can commit ourselves to His mighty hand to protect as from all evil. The grand point for all of us is to be found in the holy path of duty. It may be narrow, rough and lonely; but it is a path overshadowed by the wings of the Almighty and illumined by the light of His approving countenance.
Ere turning from the subject suggested by verse 16, we would briefly notice the very interesting and instructive fact, that our Lord, in His reply to Satan, takes no notice whatever of his misquotation of Psalm 91: 11. Let us carefully note this fact, and seek to bear it in mind. In place of saying to the enemy, "You have left out a most important clause of the passage which you undertake to quote," He simply quotes another passage, as authority for His own conduct. Thus He vanquished the tempter; and thus He left us a blessed example.
It is worthy of our special notice that the Lord Jesus Christ did not overcome Satan, in virtue of His divine power. Had He done so, it could not be an example for us. But when we see Him, as a man, using the word as His only weapon, and thus gaining a glorious victory, our hearts are encouraged and comforted; and not only so, but we learn a most precious lesson as to how we, in our sphere and measure, are to stand in the conflict. The man, Christ Jesus, overcame by simple dependence upon God, and obedience to His word.
Blessed fact! A fact full of comfort and consolation for us. Satan could do nothing with one who would only act by divine authority, and by the power of the Spirit. Jesus never did His own will, though, as we know, blessed be His holy Name, His will was absolutely perfect. He came down from heaven, as He Himself tells us, in John 6, not to do His own will, but the will of the Father that sent Him. He was a perfect servant, from first to last. His rule of action was the word of God; His power of action, the Holy Ghost; His only motive for action, the will of God; hence the prince of this world had nothing in Him. Satan could not, by all his subtle wiles, draw Him out of the path of obedience, or out of the place of dependence.
Christian reader, let us consider these things. Let us deeply ponder them. Let us remember that our blessed Lord and Master left us an example that we should follow His steps. Oh! may we follow them diligently during the little while that yet remains! May we, by the gracious ministry of the Holy Ghost, enter more fully into the great fact that we are called to walk even as Jesus walked. He is our great Exemplar, in all things. Let us study Him more profoundly, so that we may reproduce Him more faithfully!
We shall now close this lengthened section by quoting for the reader the last paragraph of the chapter on which we have been dwelling; it is a passage of singular fullness, depth and power, and strikingly characteristic of the entire book of Deuteronomy.
"Ye shall diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God, and his testimonies, and His statutes, which he hath commanded thee. And thou shalt do that which is right and good in the sight of the Lord; that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest go in and possess the good land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers; to cast out all thine enemies from before thee, as the Lord hath spoken. And when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What mean the testimonies, and the statutes, and the judgements, which the Lord our God hath commanded you? Then thou shalt say unto thy son, We were Pharaoh’s bondmen in Egypt; and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand; and the Lord showed signs and wonders, great and sore, upon Egypt, upon Pharaoh, and upon all his household, before our eyes; and he brought us out from thence, that he might bring us in, to give us the land which he sware unto our fathers. And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that he might preserve as alive, as it is at this day. And it shall be our righteousness, if we observe to do all these commandments before the Lord our God, as he hath commanded us."
How prominently is the word of God kept before the soul, in every page and every paragraph of this book! It is the one great subject on the heart and in all the discourses of the revered law-giver. It is His one aim to exalt the word of God, in all its aspects, whether in the form of testimonies, commandments, statutes or judgements; and to set forth the moral importance, yea, the urgent necessity of whole-hearted, earnest, diligent obedience, on the part of the people. "Ye shall diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God" And again, "Thou shalt do that which is right and good in the sight of the Lord."
All this is morally lovely. We have here unfolded before our eyes those eternal principles which no change of dispensation, no change of scene, place or circumstances can ever touch, "That which is right and good" must ever be of universal and abiding application. It reminds us of the words of the Apostle John to his beloved friend Gaius, "Beloved, follow not that which is evil; but that which is good." The assembly might be in a very low condition; there might be very much to try the heart and depress the spirit of Gaius; Diotrephes might be carrying himself most unbecomingly and unwarrantably toward the beloved and venerable apostle and others; all this might be true, and much more, yea, the whole professing body might go wrong. What then? What remained for Gaius to do? Simply to follow that which was right and good; to open his heart and his hand and his house to every one who brought the truth; to seek to help on the cause of Christ, in every right way.
This was the business of Gaius in his day; and this is the business of every true lover of Christ, at all times, in all places, and under all circumstances. We may not have many to join us; we may perhaps find ourselves, at times, almost alone; but we are still to follow what is good, cost what it may. We are to depart from iniquity - purge ourselves from dishonourable vessels - flee youthful lusts - turn away from powerless professors. And what then? "Follow righteousness, faith, love, peace" - How? In isolation? Nay. I may find myself alone in any given place for a time; but there can be no such thing as isolation, so long as the body of Christ is on earth, and that will be till He comes for us. Hence we never expect to see the day in which we cannot find a few that call on the Lord out of a pure heart; whoever they are, and wherever they are, it is our bounden duty to find them; and, having found them, to walk with them in holy fellowship, until the end"
{P.S. - We must reserve the remaining chapters of Deuteronomy for another volume. May the Lord be graciously pleased to grant His rich blessing upon our meditation thus far! May He clothe these pages with the power of the Holy Ghost, and make them to be a direct message from Himself to the hearts of His people throughout the whole world! May He also grant spiritual power to unfold the truth contained in the remaining sections of this most profound, comprehensive and suggestive book!
We earnestly beseech the Christian reader to join us in prayer as to all this, remembering those most precious words, "If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them by my Father which is in heaven" C. H. M.}
C. H. Mackintosh, Notes on the Pentateuch — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 Vers. 1-3. Some connect this with what goes before,…
Vers. 1-3. Some connect this with what goes before, and take it as a sort of epilogue to the preceding discourse; but it is rather to be regarded as introductory to what follows. Being about to enjoin upon the people the commandments they were to obey in the land on which they were about to enter, Moses prefaces this with a general announcement of what he was about to deliver, and with a statement of the reason for such deliverance, and of the benefits that would flow from the observance of what should be enjoined.
These are the commandments. In the Hebrew it is, This is the commandment, i.e. the sum and substance of the Divine enactment; equivalent to "the Law". (Deu_4:44) "The statutes and judgments" (rights) are in apposition to "the commandment," and explain it.
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Vers. 1-3. Obedience to God conducive to the highest good.
The Lord God had launched forth into the world a new nation, the basis of whose constitution was specifically religious. The worship, fear, and service of the one living and true God were the prime duties enjoined on the people, without which no bare morality as between man and man was accepted before him. In this paragraph, however, we get no indications of duty which have not previously been included in the ten commandments. How can we? The whole ground of duty was covered by them. Still, the same truths are ever being thrown into forms fresh and new. The primal laws of duty are not many; they may soon be recounted. But we need "line upon line, precept upon precept," that the very precepts which perhaps we deem commonplace may be graven on our hearts, and there become living powers! In the three verses before us the enjoined duties are summed up in the one phrase, the commandment (ver. 1: the word is singular, and includes in its meaning both statutes and judgments). Four expressions show how "the commandment" is to be kept.
1. There is to be a fear of the Lord; a fear based on trust, not on distrust.
2. The Divine appointments are to be the rule of life.
3. The nurture and training of the family are to be in entire harmony therewith.
4. This family loyalty to God is to be continuous and unswerving the days of thy life." And in wealth and variety of diction the Legislator points out that in this loyalty of being Israel would find its well-being. Whence we get the topic for our present Homily: That our highest interests are ensured by the fulfillment of the Divine commands. Observe
I IT IS SUPPOSED THAT MEN WILL NOT BE INSENSIBLE TO THE QUESTION WILL BE MOST PROFITABLE TO US?" As a matter of fact, they do regard the measure of profit likely to accrue, as something which regulates their movements. Nor is there anywhere in the Word of God any censure passed on this. In fact, even our Savior himself appeals to considerations of profit in Mat_16:25, Mat_16:26. So also does the Apostle Paul in 1Ti_4:8. The working of self-love is recognized without rebuke in the Law, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself;" and it is even remotely enjoined in the words, "Do thyself no harm." The distinction between self-love and selfishness is very decided, yet is far too little noticed. Selfishness is having regard to our own interests in distinction from those of others; self-love has regard to our own interests in harmony with those of others. The first is sinful; the second is lawful; yea, more, to fight against our highest interests would be wrong. We may demur to the maxim that "utility is the foundation of virtue," and rightly so, if utility" be taken in the selfish aspect thereof. But if by "utility" we mean "the tendency to promote the highest good over the widest sphere, for all time," then the maxim is lifted up to a higher level, and becomes at least practically wholesome, even if it may be objected to on philosophical grounds. If, then, we do but entertain a right and scriptural view of what our highest interests are, it is lawful for us, and even binding on us, to have a regard to them; and it is to the desire in that direction that the passage before us makes its appeal.
II IT IS SHOWN HERE THAT THERE IS A COURSE OF LIFE WHICH IS APPOINTED FOR US BY GOD. The appointments of God for us are specified here. We are to "fear the Lord." Evidently this is to be a fear, not of dread, but of love; for see ver. 5. in Psa_130:4 we read, "But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared." God forgives, and so takes away the fear of the offender, that the fear of offending may take its place. There is to be dread of sin, but not of God. The fear is to be suffused with tenderness and brightened with joy. (Psa_33:1) See the phrases in this section, even touching in their pathos thy God," "the God of thy fathers." Yea, it is our own God who lays down our life-rules, and by all the force of his tender love would he win us to obedience.
III IN FOLLOWING GOD"S APPOINTED WAY WE ENSURE OUR OWN HIGHEST GOOD. (Vers. 2, 3.) The elements of good which obedience ensures are:
1. Peace. We remarked above that the fear of God, which we are called on to cherish, is one based on trust. The Christian form of this is reliance on the Lord Jesus Christ in all the aspects in which he is revealed to us as ours. The effect of this is named in Rom_5:1. Then there will be peace of conscience. (see Isa_32:17; Php_4:6, 7; Mat_11:29)
2. Harmony. Our nature will be in self accord when what we are and do corresponds to what we ought to be and do. There will be no schism between the judgment and the affections.
3. Health. Other things being equal, the man who is most obedient to God"s laws will have the soundest health in body, soul, and spirit. The gladsomeness and ease of a sound and well-balanced constitution will be his. Hence:
4. Continuance will be a part of the reward thy days may be prolonged". (see Psa_91:16; cf. Eph_6:3; Psa_36:9) The forms in which the rewards of loyalty to God will show themselves are very varied. The individual will find that godliness has "promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come." The family will find that "he blesseth the habitation of the just." The city will find that the keeping of God"s commandments is among the things which belong unto its peace." And "the righteous nation which keepeth the truth" will find that "salvation doth God appoint for walls and bulwarks". (see Isa_26:1, 2 48:17) It is a remarkable instance of the Divinecondescension to cur ways of thinking, feeling, and acting, that our God should stoop to teach us what is profitable to ourselves, and that he should deign in mercy to reward with honor and peace those who fear him. (Psa_62:12) Mercifully meeting us on the low ground on which we too frequently stand in looking out for profit, God would raise us up to the higher platform of a pure, self-abandoning self-forgetfulness and love, in which we are content to be nothing, that God may be all in all. For observe
IV APPARENT EXCEPTIONS TO THIS RULE ARE EXCEPTIONS ONLY IN APPEARANCE. Sometimes obedience to God may be attended with a most unusual amount of affliction or of persecution. Take, e.g. the roll of worthies referred to in Heb_11:32-39. Can we say it was for their "profit" to serve God? Most certainly we can. For:
1. By their endurance they became witnesses for God, and served their generation in the very way they would most have desired could they have seen as God sees.
2. Their afflictions were the means of purifying their characters, strengthening their principles, and ripening their virtues.
3. In the midst of all, God was himself to them "their exceeding joy;" and what they had in him was, even on earth, an ample recompense for all that they had suffered for him.
4. They had respect to the recompense of reward. (Heb_11:10, Heb_11:16, Heb_11:26)
5. Their sufferings are long ago forgotten in the rest of the unseen state where they are "inheriting the promises". (Heb_6:12) They had faith to believe them and patience to wait for them, and now they have entered into the rest." Who need wish to change their lot for the smoothest and most prosperous career of a man "without God in the world?" Virtue may for a while seem "to have the worst of it," but "they that are losers for God shall never be losers by him in the end.
V OBEDIENCE IS EXPECTED TO BE THE RESULT OF AN INTELLIGENT AND CULTURED FAITH, AND NOT OF A BLIND ONE. Ver. 1, "The Lord your God commanded to teach you." Nowhere has the adage, "Ignorance is the mother of devotion," less warrant than in the Word of God. The priests of a spurious or alien faith may inculcate blind submission. Not so any of the inspired writers, whether legislators, prophets, or apostles. Men were to be taught not only what God required, but why he required it, that they might render him the homage of a heart quickened to love through the truth which reached the understanding and "commended itself to every man"s conscience." God appeals to reason. (Isa_1:18)
HOMILIES BY D. DAVIES. Vers. 1-3. Obedience the end of Law.
All the machinery of law is abortive, unless obedience be the result. As a mother teaches her children, giving them line upon line," frequent repetition and variation, so Moses patiently taught Israel. He was "faithful in all his house.
I SEE THE INTERNAL EXCELLENCE OF GOD"S LAW. It has so many qualities of merit, that no one word in human language can express them all. They are "commandments," which word indicates the just authority from which they emanate. They are "statutes," implying their fixed and permanent character. They are "judgments," a description which denotes thoughtful deliberation, patient forethought, and sagacious decision. No greater benefactor can men have than a wise legislator. These Laws, if reverently observed, would have been "health to the marrow," and life to the nation.
II THE DESIGN OF GOD"S COVENANT WAS HEARTY AND COMPLETE OBEDIENCE. It was unprofitable for God to command, or for Moses to teach, unless the people obeyed; just as it is futile for the husbandman to plough his land, pulverize the clods, sow the seed, water his crops, if no harvest ensue. The end which God had clearly in view the only end worthy of him, was not Israel"s possession of Canaan, nor prosperity there; the final end was obedience. The land was selected to be a theatre for practical righteousness. The land would be forfeited if righteous obedience did not abound. And obedience, to be acceptable, must be real. External conformity to law would not suffice. The whole soul must yield compliance. There must be harmony between man"s will and God"s. Obedience would foster reverence, and reverence would strengthen love. There is action and reaction amid the forces of the soul.
III PIOUS OBEDIENCE IS ENTAILED. It is a moral inheritance passing from father to son. Formal and superficial obedience will not reproduce itself in others, will not bear seed of the true kind. But genuine, vital piety is contagious. If bad qualities are communicated, surely good qualities are also. Else truth would be feebler than error, virtue feebler than vice. Thorough, straightforward, transparent, cheerful piety is the greatest power in the world. For our children"s sake, and for our children"s children, let reverent obedience brighten and beautify our life!
IV PIOUS OBEDIENCE PRODUCES PRESENT FRUITS. Its rewards are not wholly reserved for the future. On earth some advantages are reaped.
1. Length of days is a result. "Thy days may be prolonged." A green old age is a beautiful thing. "The wicked shall not live out half their days.
2. Numerous progeny is a result. "Ye may increase mightily." A growing population is universally regarded as a token of material prosperity. "They of the city shall flourish as grass of the earth." Success in all enterprise is announced as an effect. "It shall be well with thee.
3. Robust health, domestic comfort, national peace, prolific harvests, security, contentment, honor, these are among the fruits to be anticipated. Obedience is an investment of moral capital, which brings largest and safest results. D.
HOMILIES BY R.M. EDGAR Vers. 1-5. The essence of the Decalogue is love.
Moses here applies the Decalogue to their present circumstances. He wishes them to enter Canaan in an obedient spirit. He knows that the wellbeing of the commonwealth depends upon it. To assist them in the understanding of the Law, he sums it up in one all-embracing principle of love. God as the supreme object is to receive the homage of the entire nature of man.
I MOSES INSISTS ON THE UNITY AND ABSOLUTE CHARACTER OF GOD. This would distinguish Israel from the polytheists around them. "Jehovah our Mighty One is one Jehovah the uncaused, self-existent One in his absolute unity and strength. All perfection is thus briefly attributed to him.
II GOD CAN BE THE OBJECT OF LOVE. His unity is not an unsocial thing. Within his being there are social qualities demanding, and from all eternity receiving, satisfaction. Hence we believe in what Jon. Edwards called a "social Trinity." Our social nature is the reflection of God, since we were made in his image. His unity does not imply that in the by-past eternity, before anything was made, he was alone. It was the fellowship of "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit three Persons in the one Godhead. The Trinity makes God lovable, for it is the condition of the satisfaction from all eternity of his social qualities.
III GOD DESERVES THE LOVE OF OUR WHOLE BEING. Heart, soul, and might are to be enlisted in this service. Our love to him should be intellectual and also emotional; it should be passionate and strong; an all-embracing energy of our nature.
All our faculties are appealed to by the Divine nature.
1. Our understanding is enlisted by God as the Infinite Mind. All our intellectuality finds its counterpart and culmination in the infinite intellectual powers which God possesses and exercises. We rest upon his superior intellectual power.
2. Our affections are enlisted by God as the Fountain of affection. God is a Heart of unspeakable tenderness as well as a Mind of infinite grasp. And so he elicits the love of the heart as well as of the mind.
3. Our will is swayed into passionate devotion by God as the Infinite Will. If the spectacle of will in resistless benevolence commands the homage of our powers, then God entrances our whole will-power into passionate devotion.
4. Our strength is enlisted by God as the embodiment of vital energies and powers in their highest form. So that as a matter of fact, God fits into every fold of human nature and elicits its loving and adoring homage.
IV LOVE MAKES LAWKEEPING DELIGHTFUL. The Law is not a pain to any who love the Lawgiver. Love is the essence of true loyalty. It makes service freedom. It is this which we must cultivate daily, and then life becomes delightful. 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 On vv2, 4, 5, 6 Thou shalt smite them and utterly destroy them.
Deu_6:2-4
Thou shalt smite them and utterly destroy them.
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Wars of the Israelites
There is, perhaps, no point on which the weakness of human nature is more clearly shown than in the difficulty of treading the right path between persecution on the one hand, and indifference to evil on the other. For although we are, it may be, disposed according to our several tempers more to one of these faults than to the other, yet I fear it is true also that none of us are free from the danger of falling into them both. If we have today been too violent against the persons of evil men whom we do not like, this is no security against our being tomorrow much too forbearing towards the practices of evil men whom we do like; because we are all apt to respect persons in our judgment and in our feelings; sometimes to be too severe, and sometimes too indulgent, not according to justice, but according to our own likings and dislikings. Nor is it respect of persons only which thus leads us astray, but also our own particular sympathy with, or disgust at particular faults and characters. Even in one whom we may like, on the whole, there may be faults which we may visit too hardly, because they are exactly such as we feel no temptation to commit. And again, in one whom we dislike on the whole, there may, for the same reason, be faults which we tolerate too easily, because they are like our own. There is yet a third cause, and that a very common one, which corrupts our judgment. We may sympathise with such and such faults generally, because we are ourselves inclined to them; but if they happen to be committed against us, and we feel the bad effects of them, then we are apt to judge them in that particular case too harshly. Or again, we may rather dislike a fault in general, but when it is committed on our own side, and to advance our own interests, then in that particular case we are tempted to excuse it too readily. There are these dangers besetting us on the right hand and on the left, as to our treatment of other mens faults. And in Scripture we find very strong language against the error on either side. A great deal is said against violence, wrath, uncharitableness, harsh judgment of others, and attempting or pretending to work Gods service by our own bad passions, and a great deal is also said against tolerating sin, against defiling ourselves with evil-doers, against preferring our earthly friendships to the will and service of God. Of these latter commands the words of the text furnish us with a most remarkable instance. We see how strong and positive the language is (Deu_7:2); and the reason is given (Deu_7:4). It is better that the wicked should be destroyed a hundred times over, yea, destroyed with everlasting destruction, than that they should tempt those who are as yet innocent to join their company. And if we are inclined to think that God dealt hardly with the people of Canaan in commanding them to be so utterly destroyed, let us but think what might have been our fate, and the fate of every other nation under heaven at this hour, had the sword of the Israelites done its work more sparingly. The Israelites fought not for themselves only, but for us. Whatever were the faults of Jephthah or of Samson, never yet were any men engaged in a cause more important to the whole worlds welfare. Their constant warfare kept Israel essentially distinct from the tribes around them, their own law became the dearer to them because they found such unceasing enemies amongst those who hated it. The uncircumcised, who kept not the covenant of God, were forever ranged against those who did keep it. It might follow that the Israelites should thus be accounted the enemies of all mankind, it might be that they were tempted by their very distinctness to despise other nations; still, they did Gods work; still, they preserved unhurt the seed of eternal life, and were the ministers of blessing to all other nations, even though they themselves failed to enjoy it. But still these commands, so forcible, so fearful--to spare none--to destroy the wicked utterly--to show no mercy--are these commands addressed to us now? or what is it which the Lord bids us do? Certainly, He does not bid us shed blood, or destroy the wicked, or put on any hardness of heart which might shut out the charity of Christs perfect law. But there is a part of the text which does apply to us now in the letter, thereby teaching us how to apply the whole to ourselves in the spirit. Be ye not unequally yoked together in marriage with unbelievers. For what concord hath Christ with Belial? It is, indeed, something shocking to enter into so near and dear a connection as marriage with those who are not the servants of God. It is fearful to think of giving birth to children whose eternal life may be forfeited through the example and influence of him or of her through whom their earthly life was given. But though this be the worst and most dreadful case, still it is not the only one. St. Paul does not only speak against marriage with the unbelievers; he speaks also no less strongly against holding friendly intercourse with those who call themselves Christs, yet in their lives deny Him (1Co_5:11). We need not actually refuse to eat with those whose lives are evil; but woe to us if we do not shrink from any closer intimacy with them; if their society, when we must partake of it, be not painfully endured by us, rather than enjoyed. We may put away from among ourselves that wicked person; put him away, that is, from our confidence, put him away from our esteem; put him altogether away from our sympathy. We are on services wholly different; our masters are God and Mammon; and we cannot be united closely with those to whom our dearest hopes are their worst fears, and to whom that resurrection which, to the true servant of Christ, will be his perfect consummation of bliss, will be but the first dawning of an eternity of shame and misery. (T. Arnold, D. D.)
Destruction of the Canaanites
The extermination of the Canaanites forces itself on the attention of the most careless reader of the Old Testament. We cannot deny that there is a difficulty which needs explanation: we cannot doubt that such a judgment was meant to give to every age a solemn and needful warning.
1. In the first place, it behoves us to understand that this destruction was not a punishment for idolatry. The war of Israel in Canaan did not resemble a crusade. The Canaanites perished, not because they had bowed down to false gods, or refused to worship the true God, but because they had made themselves utterly abominable. This is clear from Lev_18:24. The Canaanites perished because the earth could no longer bear them: the safety of the whole demanded their extirpation.
2. We observe, further, that they did not perish without warning. The sites of Sodom and Gomorrah, once like the garden of Eden in loveliness, withered and burnt up by fire from heaven, and at length turned into a bituminous lake, showed the end of those sins by which the land was defiled. It was a memorial not to be forgotten. The Dead Sea was a phenomenon which forced the inquiry, Wherefore hath God done this? The forty years sojourn in the wilderness was not only fraught with blessing to Israel and instruction to the Church, but it gave to the Canaanites time to consider and repent. It produced this effect on Rahab and on the Gibeonites, who humbled themselves under the hand of God and were spared. The rest of the nations of Canaan heard and feared, but repented not. We may not, then, marvel that the cup of wrath which such habitual and audacious wickedness had filled was deep and deadly. Yet the destruction is not without its parallels. Many modern campaigns have produced a greater loss of life and far intenser misery. The sword appalls us by its fierceness; but it is more merciful than the famine and the pestilence, which in our own days have ravaged large portions of the globe. It cuts short the suspense which is more grievous than death; it inflicts no lingering pain. Besides, this was the only judgment in which idolaters would have seen the hand of the God of Israel. Had they perished in thousands by want or disease they would have attributed this to the displeasure of Moloch or Baal. But they ever regarded battle as the trial of deities. So, when the iron chariots had been broken in the valleys, and the rocky fastness and fenced city had failed to protect the Anakim, all who felt the sword of Israel and all to whom the tidings came were forced to confess that Jehovah was to be feared above all gods. Hence we may see what Israel and all other nations were to learn from these wars in Canaan.
1. They learnt, first, Gods absolute sovereignty, His right and property, in the life of man, and therefore ill everything by and for which man lives. If, then, the Canaanite had no property in his life, nor power to retain it when God demanded it, we dare not claim more than stewardship of anything that we call ours. The largest possessions, the richest intellectual gifts, are less than the life. These, then, are at the disposal of Him who is the Lord of life. If we use them as Gods servants they will secure to us everlasting possessions; but from the unfaithful steward shall be taken even that which he seemeth to have.
2. Again, God manifested that man hath something better than life. Our hearts may be harrowed or sickened at the thought that the sword of Israel struck down not only the boastful warrior, but the feeble woman and the blooming child and the infant at the breast. But the same suffering and death of the weak and the graceful and the pure is continually forcing itself on our attention in every epidemic, in public calamities, and in the more frequent casualties of private life, in Indian and Syrian massacres, and even at the birth of Christ Himself, when Rachel was weeping for her children. All this piercing and cutting down of the young and the tender and the promising would be inexplicable if we had not the revelation of a higher life, for which suffering and the contact with suffering are the preparation. (M. Biggs, M. A.)
A noble resolve
Eliza Embert, a young Parisian lady, resolutely discarded a gentleman to whom she was to have been married the next day because he ridiculed religion. Having given him a gentle reproof for some impropriety, he replied that a man of the world would not be so old-fashioned as to regard God and religion. Eliza immediately started; but soon recovering herself, said, From this moment, as I discover you do not respect religion, I cease to be yours.
The danger of a morally vitiated atmosphere
Some time ago the following strange occurrence happened at St. Cierge, a village in the Jura. The principal room of an inn there, known as the Cerf, was lighted by a hanging petroleum lamp, above which had been placed, for the protection of the ceiling, a metal plate. In course of time the woodwork above the plate became desiccated, and one evening it took fire, and when the innkeeper and his family retired to rest was all aglow--a fact, however, which they do not seem to have noticed. From the ceiling the fire was communicated to the room above, and was first discovered by a neighbour, who, early next morning, observing smoke issuing from the door, gave an alarm, when, as none of the inmates could be aroused, the door was broken open. The fire, having gone on smouldering without bursting into flame, had done little material damage, and was easily extinguished; but all the people in the house--the landlord, his wife and sister--were dead. After the manner of country people, they had firmly closed their windows before going to bed, and the smoke, having no exit, had asphyxiated every one of them. In like manner those who allow a morally vitiated atmosphere to surround them, and willingly inhale its pestiferous fumes, wither and become spiritually suffocated.
The loss of spiritual tone
Animals that live in two elements are awkward in both. Do we find it difficult, even after the most innocent and unexceptionable entertainments, to brace the soul for its devotions? Do not our pinions flap languidly as we attempt our upward flight? And is it not the case that many of the so-called amusements which men pursue are in the last degree unfavourable to those exercises, without a constant application to which the highest zones of religious experience, the snowy summits of a pure spirituality--those glistening peaks that are the first to catch the auroral glow of the rising Sun of Righteousness, and the last to lose His evening beams--cannot be reached and maintained? To spoil a harp, you need not rudely break its strings and batter its sounding-board. Remove it from one temperature to another, and the mischief is done. We cannot say that people are not hurt by these things because they are not made openly and scandalously vicious. I maintain that a man has sustained a dire and irreparable, though a subtle, and at first impalpable injury, when he has lost his spiritual tone. (J. Halsey.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On vv4, 6 IN these verses we approach "the commandments, the statutes,…
LOVE TO GOD THE LAW OF LIFE
Deu_6:4-5
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IN these verses we approach "the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments" which it was to be Moses duty to communicate to the people, i.e., the second great division of the teaching and guidance received at Sinai. But though we approach them we do not come to them for a number of chapters yet. We reach them only in chapter 12, which begins with almost the same words as chapter 6. What lies between is a new exhortation, very similar in tone and subject to that into which chapters 1-3 have been transformed.
To some readers in our day this repetition, and the renewed postponement of the main subject of the book, have seemed to justify the introduction of a new author here. They are scornfully impatient of the repetition and delay, especially those of them who have themselves a rapid, dashing style; and they declare that the writer of the laws, etc., from chapter 12 onwards cannot have been the writer of these long double introductions. They would not have written so; consequently no one else, however different his circumstances, his objects, and his style may be, can have written so. It is true, they admit, that the style, the grammar, the vocabulary are all exactly those of the purely legal chapters, but that matters not. Their irritation with this delay is decisive; and so they introduce us, entirely on the strength of it, to another Deuteronomist, second or third or fourth-who knows? But all this is too purely subjective to meet with general acceptance, and we may without difficulty decide that the linguistic unity of the book, when chapters 6 to 12 are compared with what we find after 12, is sufficient to settle the question of authorship.
But we have now to consider the possible reasons for this second long introduction. The first introduction has been satisfactorily explained in a former chapter; this second one can, I think, quite as easily be accounted for. The object of the book is in itself a sufficient explanation. To modern critical students of the Old Testament the laws are the main interest of Deuteronomy. They are the material they need for their reconstruction of the history of Israel, and they feel as if all besides, though it may contain beautiful thoughts, were irrelevant. But that was not the writers point of view at all. For him it was not the main thing to introduce new laws. He was conscious rather of a desire to bring old laws, well known to his fellow-countrymen, but neglected by them, into force again. Anything new in his version of them was consequently only such an adaptation of them to the new circumstances of his time as would tend to secure their observance. Even if Moses were the author of the book this would be true; but if a prophetic man in Manassehs day was the author, we can see how naturally and exclusively that view would fill his mind. He had fallen upon evil times. The best that had been attained in regard to spiritual religion had been deliberately abandoned and trodden under foot. Those who sympathize with pure religion could only hope that a time would come when Hezekiahs work would be taken up again. If Deuteronomy was written in preparation for that time, the legal additions necessary to ward off the evils which had been so nearly fatal to Yahwism would seem to the author much less important than they appear to us to be. His object was to retrieve what had been lost, to rouse the dead minds of his countrymen, to illustrate that on which the higher life of the nation depended, and to throw light upon it from all the sources of what then was modern thought. His mind was full of the high teaching of the prophets. He was steeped in the history of his people, which was then receiving, or was soon to receive, its all but final touches. He was intensely anxious that in the later time for which he was writing all men should see how Providence had spoken for the Mosaic law and religion, and what the great principles were which had always underlain it, and which had now at last been made entirely explicit.
Under these circumstances, it was not merely natural that the author of Deuteronomy should dwell with insistence upon the hortatory part of his book; it was necessary. He could not feel Wellhausens haste to approach his restatement of the law. To him the exhortation was, in fact, the important thing. Every day he lived he must have seen that it was not want of knowledge that misled his contemporaries. He must have groaned too often under the weight of the indifference even of the well disposed not to be aware that that was the great hindrance to the restoration of the better thoughts and ways of Hezekiahs day.
He had learned by bitter experience, what every man who is in earnest about inducing masses of men to take a step backward or forward to a higher life always learns, that nothing can be accomplished till a fire has been kindled in the hearts of men which will not let them rest. To this task the author of Deuteronomy devotes himself. And whatever impatient theorists of today may say, he succeeds amazingly. His exhortation touches men from one end of the world to the other, even to this day, by its affectionate impressiveness, This exhibition of the principles underlying the law is so true that, when our Lord was asked, "Which is the first commandment of all?" He answered from this chapter of Deuteronomy: "The first of all the commandments is this, The Lord our God is one Lord: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength. The second is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these." Now these are precisely the truths Deuteronomy exhibits in these prefatory chapters, and it is by them that the after-treatment of the law is permeated. The author of Deuteronomy by announcing these truths brought the Old Testament faith as near to the level of the New Testament faith as was possible; and we may well believe that he saw his work in its true relative proportions. The hortatory chapters are really the most original part of the book, and exhibit what was permanent in it. The mere fact that the author lingers over it, therefore, is entirely inadequate to justify us in admitting a later hand. Indeed, if criticism is to retain the respect of reasonable men, it will have to be more sparing than it has hitherto been with the "later hand"; to introduce it here under the circumstances is nothing short of a blunder.
In our verses, therefore, we have to deal with the main point of our book. Coming immediately after the Decalogue, these words render explicit the principle of the first table of that law. In them our author is making it clear that all he has to say of worship, and of the relation of Israel to Yahweh, is merely an application of this principle, or a statement of means by which a life at the level of love to God may be made possible or secured. This section, therefore, forms the bridge which connects the Decalogue with the legal enactments which follow; and it is on all accounts worthy of very special attention. Our Lords quotation of it as the supreme statement of the Divine law, in its Godward aspect, would in itself be an overwhelmingly special reason for thorough study of it, and would justify us in expecting to find it one of the deepest things in Scripture.
The translation of the first clause presents difficulties. The Authorized Version gives us, "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord," but that can no longer be accepted, since it rests upon the Jewish substitution of Adhonai for Yahweh. Taking this view of the construction, it should be rendered, "Hear, O Israel: Yahweh our God is one Yahweh"; and this is the meaning which most recent authorities-e.g., Knobel, Keil, and Dillmann-put upon it. But equally good authorities-such as Ewald and Oehler-render, "Yahweh our God-Yahweh is one." This is unobjectionable grammatically. Still another translation, "Hear, O Israel: Yahweh is our God, Yahweh alone," has been received by the most recent and most scholarly German translation of the Scripture, that edited by Kautzsch. But the objection that in that case lbhaddo, not echadh, should have been used, seems conclusive against it. The two others come very much to the same thing in the end, and were it not for the time at which Deuteronomy was written, Ewalds translations would be the simpler and more acceptable. But the first-"Yahweh our God is one Yahweh"-exactly meets the circumstances of that time, and moreover emphasises that in Israels God which the writer of Deuteronomy was most anxious to establish. As against the prevailing tendency of the time, he not only denies polytheism, or, as Dillmann puts it, asserts the concrete fact that the true God cannot be resolved in the polytheistic manner into various kinds and shades of deity, like the Baalim, but he also prohibits the amalgamation or partial identification of Him with other gods. Though very little is told us concerning Manassehs idolatry, we know enough to feel assured that it was in this fashion he justified his introduction of Assyrian deities into the Temple worship. Moloch, for example, must in some way have been identified with Yahweh, since the sacrifices of children in Tophet are declared by Jeremiah to have been to Yahweh. Further, the worship at the High Places had led, doubtless, to belief in a multitude of local Yahwehs, who in some obscure way were yet regarded as one, just as the multitudinous shrines of the Virgin in Romanist lands lead to the adoration of our Lady of Lourdes, our Lady of Naples, and so on, though the Church knows only one Virgin Mother. This incipient and unconscious polytheism it was our authors purpose to root out by his law of one altar; and it seems congruous, therefore, that he should sum up the first table of the Decalogue in such a way as to bring out its opposition to this great evil. Of course the oneness of deity as such is involved in what he says; but the aspect of this truth which is specially put forward here is that Yahweh, being God, is one Yahweh, with no partners, nor even with variations that practically destroy unity. No proposition could have been framed more precisely and exactly to contradict the general opinion of Manasseh and his followers regarding religion; and in it the watchword of monotheism was spoken. Since it was uttered, this has been the rallying point of monotheistic religion, both among Jews and Mohammedans. For "there is no God but God" is precisely the counterpart of "Yahweh is one Yahweh"; and from one end of the civilized world to the other this strenuous confession of faith has been heard, both as the tumultuous battle-shout of victorious armies, and as the stubborn and immovable assertion of the despised, and scattered, and persecuted people to whom it was first revealed. Even today, though in the hands of both Jews and Mohammedans it has been hardened into a dogma which has stripped the Mosaic conception of Yahweh of those elements which gave it possibilities of tenderness and expansion, it still has power over the minds of men. Even in such hands, it incites missionary effort, and it appeals to the heart at some stages of civilization as no other creed does. It makes men, nay, even civilized men of the wild fetish-worshipping African; but for want of what follows in our context it leaves them stranded-at a higher level, it is true, but stranded nevertheless, without possibilities of advance, and exposed to that terrible decay in their moral and spiritual conceptions which sooner or later asserts itself in every Mohammedan community.
Israel was saved from the same spiritual disease by the great words which succeed the assertion of Yahwehs oneness. The writer of Deuteronomy did not desire to set forth this declaration as an abstract statement of ultimate truth about God. He makes it the basis of a quite new, a quite original demand upon his countrymen. Because Yahweh thy God is one Yahweh, "thou shalt love Yahweh thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might." To us, who have inherited all that was attained by Israel in their long and eventful history as a nation, and especially in its disastrous close, it may have become a commonplace that God demands the love of His people. But if so, we must make an effort to shake off the dull yoke of custom and familiarity. If we do, we shall see that it was an extraordinarily original thing which the Deuteronomist here declares. In the whole of the Old Testament there are, outside of Deuteronomy, thirteen passages in which the love of men to Yahweh is spoken of. They are Exo_20:6, Jos_22:5, Jos_23:11, Jdg_5:31, 1Ki_3:3, Neh_1:5, Psa_18:2, Psa_31:24, Psa_91:14, Psa_97:10, Psa_116:1, Psa_145:20; and Dan_9:4. Now of these the verses from Nehemiah and Daniel are manifestly later than Deuteronomy, and of the Psalms only the eighteenth can with any confidence be assigned to a time earlier than the seventh century B.C. All the others may with great probability be assigned at earliest to the times of Jeremiah and the post-exilic period. Three of the passages from the historic books again- Jos_22:5; Jos_23:11 1Ki_3:3 -are attributed, on grounds largely apart from the use of this expression, to the Deuteronomic editor, i.e., the writer who went over the historical books about 600 B.C., and made slight additions here and there, easily recognizable by their differing in tone and feeling from the surrounding context. Indeed Jos_22:5 is a palpable quotation from Deuteronomy itself.
Of the thirteen passages, therefore, only three- Exo_20:6, Jdg_5:31, and Psa_18:2 -belong to the time previous to Deuteronomy, and in all three the mention of love to God is only allusive, and, as it were, by the way. Before Deuteronomy, consequently, there is little more than the mere occurrence of the word. There is nothing of the bold and decisive demand for love to the one God as the root and ground of all true relations with Him which Deuteronomy makes. At most, there is the hint of a possibility which might be realized in the future; of love to God as the permanent element in the life of man there is no indication; and it is this which the author of Deuteronomy means, and nothing less than this. He makes this demand for love the main element of his teaching. He returns to it again and again, so that there are almost as many passages bearing on this in Deuteronomy as in the whole Old Testament besides; and the particularity and emphasis with which he dwells upon it are immeasurably greater. Only in the New Testament do we find anything quite parallel to what he gives us; and there we find his view taken up and expanded, till love to God flashes upon us from almost every page as the test of all sincerity and the guarantee of all success in the Christian life.
To proclaim this truth was indeed a great achievement; and when we remember the abject fear with which Israel had originally regarded Yahweh, it will appear still more remarkable that the book embodying this should have been adopted by the whole people with enthusiasm, and that with it should begin the Canon of Holy Scripture; for Deuteronomy, as all now recognize, was the first book which became canonical. I have said that the conception was an extraordinarily original one, and have pointed out that it had not been traceable to any extent previously in Israels religious books or its religious men. It will appear still more original, I think, if we consider what a growth in moral and spiritual stature separates the Israel of Moses day and that of Josiahs; what the attitude of other nations to their gods was in contrast to this; and, lastly, what it involves and implies, as regards the nature of both God and man.
As we have already seen, the earlier narratives represent the men to whom Moses spoke as acknowledging that they could not, as yet at any rate, bear to remain in the presence of Yahweh. Between their God and them, therefore, there could be no relation of love properly so called. There was reverence, awe, and chiefly fear, tempered by the belief that Yahweh as their God was on their side. He had proved it by delivering them from the oppressions of Egypt, and they acknowledged Him and were jealous for His honor and submissive to His commands. So far as the record goes, that would seem to have been their religious state. Progress from that state of mind to a higher, to a demand for direct personal relations between each individual Israelite and Yahweh, was not easy. It was hindered by the fact that Israel as a whole, and not the individual, was for a long time regarded as the subject of religion. That, of course, was no hindrance to the development of the thought that Yahweh loved Israel; but so long as that conception dominated religious thought in Israel, so long was it impossible to think of individual love and trust as the element in which each faithful man should live.
But the love of Yahweh was declared, century after century, by prophet and priest and psalmist, to be set upon His people, and so the way for this demand for love on mans part was opened. Mans relations with God began to grow more intimate. The distance lessened, as the use of the words "them that love Me" in the song of Deborah and the Davidic word in Psalms 18, "I love thee, Yahweh my rock," clearly show. Hosea next took up the strain, and intensified and heightened it in a wonderful manner, but the nation failed to respond adequately. In the later prophets the love and grace and long-suffering of Yahweh and His ceaseless efforts on behalf of Israel are continually made the ground of exhortations, entreaties, and reproaches; but, as a whole, the people still did not respond. We may be sure, however, that an ever increasing minority were affected by the clearness and intensity of the prophetic testimony. To this minority, the Israel within Israel, the remnant that was to return from exile and become the seed of a people that should be all righteous, the love of Yahweh tended to become His main characteristic. That love sustained their hopes; and though the awe and reverence which were due to His holiness, and the fear called forth by His power, still predominated, there grew up in their hearts a multitude of thoughts and expectations tending more and more to the love of God.
As yet it was only a timid reaching out towards Him. a hope and longing which could hardly justify itself. Yet it was robust enough not to be killed by disappointment, by hope deferred, or even by crushing misfortune; and in the furnace of affliction it became stronger and more pure. And in the heart of the author of Deuteronomy it grew certain of itself, and soared up with an eagerness that would not be denied. Then, as always where God is the object of it, love that dares was justified; and out of its restless and timid longings it came to the "place of rest imperturbable, where love is not forsaken if itself forsaketh not." From knowledge, confirmed by the answering love and inspiration of God, and impelled consciously by Him, he then in this book made and reiterated his great demand. All spiritual men found in it the word they had needed. They responded to it eagerly when the book was published; and their enthusiasm carried even the torpid and careless masses with them for a time. The nation, with the king at their head, accepted the legislation of which this love to God was the underlying principle, and so far as public and corporate action can go, Israel adopted the deepest principle of spiritual life as their own.
Of course with the mass this assent had little depth; but in the hearts of the true men in Israel the joy and assurance of their great discovery, that Yahweh their God was open to, nay, desired and commanded, their most fervent affection, soon produced its fruit. From the fragments of the earliest legislation which have come down to us, it is obvious that the Mosaic principles had led to a most unwonted consideration for the poor. In later days, though the ingrained tendency to oppression, which those who have power in the East seem quite unable to resist, did its evil work in both Israel and Judah, there were never wanting prophetic voices to denounce such villainy in the spirit of these laws. The public conscience was thereby kept alive, and the ideal of justice and mercy, especially to the helpless, became a distinguishing mark of Israelite religion. But it was in the minds of those who had learned the Deuteronomists great lesson, and had taken example by him, that the love which came from God, and had just been answered back by man, overflowed in a stream of blessing to mans "neighbors." Deuteronomy had uttered the first and great commandment! but it is in the Law of Holiness, that complex of ancient laws brought together by the author of P, and found now mainly in Leviticus 17-26, that we find the second word, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." {Lev_19:18; Lev_19:34} If we ask, Who is my neighbor? we find that not even those beyond Israel are excluded, for in Lev_19:34 we read, "The stranger that sojourneth with you shall be unto you as the home-born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself." The idea still needed the expansion which it received from our Lord Himself in the parable of the Good Samaritan; but it is only one step from these passages to the New Testament.
From the standpoint of mere fear, then, to the standpoint of love which casteth out fear, even the masses of Israel were lifted, in thought at least, by the love and teaching of God. And the process by which Israel was led to this height has proved ever since to be the only possible way to such an attainment. It began in the free favor of God, it was continued by the answer of love on the part of man, and these antecedents had as their consequence the proclamation of that law of liberty-for self-renouncing love is liberty-"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Without the first, the second was impossible; and the last without the other two would have been only a satire upon the incurable selfishness of man. It is worthy of remark, at least, that only on the critical theory of the Old Testament is each of these steps in the moral and religious education of Israel found in its right place, with its right antecedents; only when taken so do the teachers who were inspired to make each of these attainments find circumstances suited to their message, and a soil in which the germs they were commissioned to plant could live.
But great as is the contrast between the Israel of Moses day and that of Josiahs, it is not so great as the contrast between the religion of Israel in the Deuteronomic period and the religion of the neighboring nations. Among them, at our date 650 B.C., there was, so far as we know them, no suggestion of personal love to God as an effective part of religion. In the chapters on the Decalogue the main ideas of the Canaanites in regard to religion have been described, so that they need not be repeated here. I shall add only what E. Meyer says of their gods: "With advancing culture the cultus loses its old simplicity and homeliness. A fixed ritual was developed - founded upon old hereditary tradition. And here the gloomier conception became the ruling one, and its consequences were inexorably deduced. The great gods, even the protecting gods of the tribe or the town, are capricious and in general hostile to man-possibly to some degree because of the mythological conception of Baal as sun-god-and they demand sacrifices of blood that they may be appeased. In order that evil may be warded off from those with whom they are angry, another human being must be offered to them as a substitute in propitiatory sacrifice-nay, they demand the sacrifice of the firstborn, the best-loved son. If the community be threatened with the wrath of the deity, then the prince or the nobility as a whole must offer up their children on its behalf." This also is the view of Robertson Smith, who considers that while in their origin the Semitic religions involved kindly relations and continual intercourse between the gods and their worshippers, these gradually disappeared as political misfortune began to fall upon the smaller Semitic peoples. Their gods were angry and in the vain hope of appeasing them men had recourse to the direst sacrifices. Hints concerning these had survived from times of savagery; and to the diseased minds of these terror-stricken peoples the more ancient and more horrible a sacrifice was the more powerful did it seem. At this time, therefore, the course of the Canaanite religions was away from love to their gods. The decay of nationality brought despair, and the frantic efforts of despair, into the religion of the Canaanite peoples; but to Israel it brought this higher demand for more intimate union with their God. Whatever elements tending towards love the Canaanite religions originally may have had, they had either been mingled with the corrupting sensuality which seems inseparable from the worship of female deities, or had been limited to the mere superficial good understanding which their participation in the same common life established between the people and their gods. Their union was largely independent of moral considerations on either side. But in Israel there had grown up quite a different state of things. The union between Yahweh and His people had from the days of the Decalogue taken a moral turn; and gradually it had become clear that to have Abraham for their father and Yahweh for their God would profit them little, if they did not stand in right moral relations and in moral sympathy with Him. Now, in Deuteronomy, that fundamentally right conception of the relation between God and man received its crown in Yahwehs claim to the love of His people. No contrast could be greater than that which common misfortune and a common national ruin produced between the surrounding Semitic peoples and Israel.
But besides the small kingdoms which immediately surrounded Palestine, Israel had for neighbors the two great empires of Egypt and Assyria. She was exposed therefore to influence from them in even a greater degree. Long before the Exodus, the land which Israel came afterwards to occupy had been the meeting-place of Babylonian and Egyptian power and culture. In the fifteenth century B.C. it was under the suzerainty if not the direct sovereignty of Egypt; but its whole culture and literature, for it must have had books, as the name Kirjath-Sepher (Book-town) shows, was Babylonian. Throughout Israels history, moreover, Assyrian and Egyptian manners and ways of thought were pressed upon the people; and we cannot doubt that in regard to religion also their influence was felt. But at this period, as in the Canaanite religions, so also in those of Assyria and Egypt, the tendency was altogether different from what Deuteronomy shows it to have been in Israel.
In regard to Egypt this is somewhat difficult to prove, for the Egyptian religion is so complicated, so varied, and so ancient, that men who have studied it despair of tracing any progress in it. A kind of monotheism, polytheism, fetishism, animism, and nature-worship such as we find in the Vedas, have in turn been regarded as its primitive state; but as a matter of fact all these systems of religious thought and feeling are represented in the earliest records, and they remained constant elements of it till the end.
Whatever had once formed part of it, Egyptian religion clung to with extraordinary tenacity. As time went on, however, the accent was shifted from one element to the other, and after the times of the 29th dynasty, i.e., after the time of the Exodus, it began to decay. A systematized pantheism, of which sun-worship was the central element, was elaborated by the priests; the moral element, which had been prominent in the days when the picture of the judgment of the soul after death was so popular in Thebes, retired more into the background, and the purely magical element became the principal one. Instead of moral goodness and the fulfillment of duty being the main support of the soul in its dread and lonely journeys in the "world of the Western sky," knowledge of the proper formulas became the chief hope, and the machinations of evil demons the main danger. In the royal tombs at Thebes the walls of the long galleries are covered with representations of these demons, and the accompanying writing gives directions as to the proper formulas by knowledge of which deliverance can be secured. This, of course, confined the benefits of religion, so far as they related to the life to come, to the educated, and the wealthy. For these secret spells were hard to obtain, and had to be purchased at a high price. As Wiedemann says, "Still more important than in this world was the knowledge of the correct magical words and formulas in the other world. No door opened here if its name was not known, no daemon let the dead pass in if he did not address him in the proper fashion, no god came to his help so long as his proper title was not given him, no food could be procured so long as the exactly prescribed words were not uttered." The people were therefore thrown back upon the ancient popular faith, which needed gods only for practical life, and honored them only because they were mighty. Some of them were believed to be friendly; but others were malevolent deities who would destroy mankind if they did not mollify them by magic, or render them harmless by the greater power of the good gods. Consequently Set, the unconquerable evil demon, was worshipped with zeal in many places. With him there were numerous demons, "the enemies," "the evil ones," which lie in wait for individuals, and threaten their life and weal. The main thing, therefore, was to bring the correct sacrifices, to use such formulas and perform such acts as would render the gods gracious and turn away evil. Moreover the whole of nature was full of spirits, as it is to the African of today, and in the mystic texts of the Book of the Dead, there is constant mention made of the "mysterious beings whose names, whose ceremonials are not known," which thirst for blood, which bring death, which go about as devouring flame, as well as of others which do good. At all times this element existed in Egypt; but precisely at this time, in the reign of Psamtik, Brugsch declares that new force was given to it, and on the monuments there appear, along with the "great gods," monstrous forms of demons and genii. In fact the higher religion had become pantheistic, and consequently less rigidly moral. Magic had been taken up into it for the life beyond the grave, and became the only resource of the people in this life. Fear, therefore, necessarily became the ruling religious motive, and instead of growing toward love of God, men in Egypt at this time were turning more decisively than ever away from it.
Of the Assyrian religion and its influence it is also difficult to speak in this connection, for notwithstanding the amount of translation that has been done, not much has come to light in regard to the personal religion of the Assyrians. On the whole it seems to be established that in its main features the religion of both Babylon and Assyria remained what the non-Semitic inhabitants of Akkad had made it. Originally it had consisted entirely of a spirit and demon worship not one whit more advanced than the religion of the South Sea islanders today. As such it was in the main a religion of fear. Though some spirits were good, the bulk were evil, and all were capricious. Men were consequently all their lifetime subject to bondage, and love as a religious emotion was impossible. When the Semites came at a later time into the country their star-worship was amalgamated with this mere Shamanism of the Akkadians. In the new faith thus evolved the great gods of the Semites were arranged in a hierarchy, and the spirits, both good and evil, were subordinated to them. But even the great gods remain within the sphere of nature, and have in full measure the defects and limitations of nature-gods everywhere. They are not entirely beneficent powers, nor are they even moral beings. Some have special delight in blood and destruction, while the cruel Semitic child-sacrifice was practiced in honor of others. Again, their displeasure has no necessary or even general connection with sin. Their wrath is generally the outcome of mere arbitrary whim. Indeed it may be doubted whether the conception of sin or of moral guilt ever had a secure footing in this religion. It certainly had none in the terror-struck hymn to the seven evil spirits who are described thus:-
"Seven (are) they, seven (are) they. Male they (are) not, female they (are) not; Moreover the deep is their pathway. Wife they have not, child is not born to them. Law (and) order they know not, Prayer and supplication hear they not. Wicked (are) they, wicked (are) they."
There is here an accent of genuine terror, which involved not love, but hatred. Even in what Sayce calls a "Penitential Psalm," and which he compares to the Biblical Psalms, there is nothing of the gratitude to God as a deliverer from sin which in Israel was the chief factor in producing the response to Yahwehs demand for the love of man. Morally, it contains nothing higher than is contained in the hymn of the spirits. The transgressions which are so pathetically lamented, and from the punishment of which deliverance is so earnestly sought, are purely ceremonial and involuntary. The author of the prayer conceives that he has to do with a god whose wrath is a capricious thing, coming upon men they know not why. So conceived God cannot be loved. It is entirely in accord with this that in the great flood epic no reason is given for the destruction of mankind save the caprice of Bel. The few expressions quoted by Sayce from a hymn to the sun-god-such as this, "Merciful God, that liftest up the fallen, that supportest the weak Like a wife, thou submittest thyself, cheerful and kindly men far and wide bow before thee and rejoice"-cannot avail to subvert a conclusion so firmly fixed. These are simply the ordinary expressions which the mere physical pleasure of the sunlight brings to the lips of sun-worshippers of all ages and of all climes. At best they could only be taken as germs out of which a loving relation between God and man might have been developed. But though they were ancient they never were developed. At the end as at the beginning the Assyrio-Babylonian religion moves on so low a level, even in its more innocent aspects, that a development like that in Deuteronomy is absolutely impossible. In its worse aspects Assyrian religion was unspeakable. The worship of Ishtar at Nineveh outdid everything known in the ancient world for lust and cruelty.
On this side too, therefore, we find no parallel to Israels new outgrowth of higher religion. Comparison only makes it stand out more boldly in its splendid originality; and we are left with the fruitful question, "What was the root of the astonishing difference between Yahweh and every other god whom Israel had heard of?" Precisely at this time and under the same circumstances, the ethnic religions around Israel were developing away from any higher elements they had contained, and were thereby, as we know now, hastening to extinction. Under the inspired prophetic influence, Israels religion turned the loss of the nation into gain; it rose by the darkness of national misfortune into a nobler phase than any it had previously known.
But perhaps the crowning merit of this demand for love of God is the emphasis it lays upon personality in both God and man, and the high level at which it conceives their mutual relations. From the first, of course, the personal element was always very strongly present in the Israelite conception of God. Indeed personality was the dominating idea among all the smaller nations which surrounded Israel. The national god was conceived of mainly as a greater and more powerful man, full of the energetic self-assertion without which it would be impossible for any man to reign over an Eastern community. The Moabite stone shows this, for in it Chemosh is as sharply defined a person as Mesha himself. The Canaanite gods, therefore, might be wanting in moral character; their existence was doubtless thought of in a limited and wholly carnal manner; but there never was, apparently, the least tendency to obscure the sharp lines of their individuality. In Israel, a fortiori, such a tendency did not exist; and that a writer of Matthew Arnolds ability should have persuaded himself, and tried to persuade others, that under the name of Yahweh Israel understood anything so vague as his "stream of tendency which makes for righteousness," is only another instance of the extraordinarily blinding effects of a preconceived idea. So far from Yahweh being conceived in that manner, it would be much easier to prove that, whatever aberrations in the direction of making God merely "a non-natural man" may be charged upon Christianity, they have been founded almost exclusively upon Old Testament examples and Old Testament texts. If there was defect in the Old Testament conception of God, it was, and could not but be, in the direction of drawing Him down too much into the limits of human personality.
But though the gods were always thought of by the Canaanites as personal, their character was not conceived as morally high. Moral character in Chemosh, Moloch, or Baal was not of much importance, and their relations with their peoples were never conditioned by moral conduct. How deeply ingrained this view was in Palestine is seen in the persistency with which even Yahwehs relation to His people was viewed in this light. Only the continual outcry of the prophets against it prevented this idea becoming permanently dominant even in Israel. Nay, it often deceived would-be prophets. Clinging to the idea of the national God, and forgetting altogether the ethical character of Yahweh, without, perhaps, conscious insincerity, they prophesied peace to the wicked, and so came to swell the ranks of the false prophets. But from very early times another thought was cherished by Israels representative men in regard to their relations with God. Yahweh was righteous, and demanded righteousness in His people.
Oblations were vain if offered as a substitute for this. All the prophets reach their greatest heights of sublimity in preaching this ethically noble doctrine; and the love to God which Deuteronomy demands is to be exhibited in reverent obedience to moral law.
Moreover, that God should seek or even need the love of man threw other light on the Old Testament religion. If, without revelation, Israel had widened its mental horizon so as to conceive Yahweh as Lord of the world, it may be questioned whether it could have kept clear of the gulf of pantheism. But by the manifestation of God in their special history, the Israelites had been taught to rise step by step to the higher levels, without losing their conception of Yahweh as the living, personal, active friend of their people. Moreover they had been early taught, as we have seen, that the deep design of all that was wrought for them was the good of all men. The love of God was seen pressing forward to its glorious and beneficent ends; and both by ascribing such far-reaching plans to Yahweh, and by affirming His interest in the fate of men, Israels conception of the Divine personality was raised alike in significance and power; for anything more personal than love planning and working towards the happiness of its objects cannot be conceived. But the crown was set upon the Divine personality by the claim to the love of man. This signified that to the Divine mind the individual man was not hid from God by his nation, that he was not for Him a mere specimen of a genus. Rather each man has to God a special worth, a special character, which, impelled by His free personal love, He seeks to draw to Himself. At every step each man has near him "the great Companion," who desires to give Himself to him. Nay, more, it implies that God seeks and needs an answering love; so that Brownings daring declaration, put into the mouth of God when the song of the boy Theocrite is no more heard, "I miss My little human praise," is simple truth.
But if the demand illustrates and illuminates the personality of God, it throws out in a still more decisive manner the personality of man. In a rough sense, of course, there never could have been any doubt of that. But children have to grow into full self-determining personality, and savages never attain it. Both are at the mercy of caprice, or of the needs of the moment, to which they answer so helplessly that in general no consistent course of conduct can be expected of them. That can be secured only by rigorous self-determination. But the power of self-determination does not come at once, nor is acquired without strenuous and continued effort; it is, in fact, a power which in any full measure is possessed only by the civilized man. Now the Israelites were not highly civilized when they left Egypt. They were still at the stage when the tribe overshadowed and absorbed the individual, as it does today among the South Sea islanders. The progress of the prophetic thought towards the demand for personal love has already been traced. Here we must trace the steps by which the personal element in each individual was strengthened in Israel, till it was fit to respond to the Divine demand.
The high calling of the people reacted on the individual Israelites. They saw that in many respects the nations around them were inferior to them. Much that was tolerated or even respected among them was an abomination to Israel; and every Israelite felt that the honor of his people must not be dragged in the dust by him, as it would be if he permitted himself to sink to the heathen level. Further, the laws regarding even ceremonial holiness which in germ certainly, and probably in considerable extension also, existed from the earliest time, made him feel that the sanctity of the nation depended upon the care and scrupulosity of the individual. And then there were the individual spiritual needs, which could not be suppressed and would not be denied. Though one sees so little explicit provision for restoration of individual character in early Yahwism, yet in the course of time-who can doubt it?-the personal religious needs of so many individual men would necessarily frame for themselves some outlet. Building upon the analogy of the relation established between Yahweh and Israel, they would hope for the satisfaction of their individual needs through the infinite mercy of God. The Psalms, such of them as can fairly be placed in the pre-Deuteronomic time, bear witness to this; and those written after that time show a hopefulness, and a faith in the reality of individual communion with God which show that such communion was not then a new discovery. In all these ways the religious life of the individual was being cultivated and strengthened; but this demand made in Deuteronomy lifts that indirect refreshment of soul, for which the cultus and the covenants made no special provision, into a recognized position, nay, into the central position in Israelite religion. The word, "Thou shalt love Yahweh thy God," confirmed and justified all these persistent efforts after individual life in God, and brought them out into the large place which belongs to aspirations that have at last been authorized. By a touch, the inspired writer transformed the pious hopes of those who had been the chosen among the chosen people into certainties. Each man was henceforth to have his own direct relation to God as well as the nation; and the national hope, which had hitherto been first, was now to depend for its realization upon the fulfillment of the special and private hope. Thus the old relation was entirely reversed by Deuteronomy. Instead of the individual holding "definite place in regard to Yahweh only through his citizenship," now the nation has its place and its future secured only by the personal love of each citizen to God. For that is obviously what the demand here made really means. Again and again the inspired writer returns to it; and his persistent endeavor is to connect all else that his book contains-warning, exhortation, legislation-with this as the foundation and starting-point. Here, as elsewhere, we can trace the roots of the new covenant which Jeremiah and Ezekiel saw afar off and rejoiced at, and which our blessed Lord has realized for us. The individual religious life is for the first time fully recognized for what ever since it has been seen to be, the first condition of any attempt to realize the kingdom of God in the life of a nation.
And not only thus does our text emphasize individuality. Love with all the heart, and all the mind, and all the soul is possible only to a fully developed personality; for, as Roth says, "We love only in the measure in which personality is developed in us. Even God can love only in so far as He is personal." Or, as Julius Muller says in his "Doctrine of Sin," "The association of personal beings in love, while it involves the most perfect distinction of the I and Thou, proves itself to be the highest form of unity." Unless other counteracting circumstances come in, therefore, the more highly developed individuality is, the more entirely human beings are determined from within, the more entirely will union among men depend upon free and deliberate choice, and the more perfect will it be. In being called to love God men are dealt with as those who have attained to complete self-determination, who have come to completed manhood in the moral life. For all that could mix love with alloy, mere sensuous sympathy, and the insistent appeal of that which is materially present, are wanting here. Here nothing is involved but the free outgoing of the heart to that which is best and highest; nothing but loyalty to that vision of Good which, amid all the ruin sin has wrought in human nature, dominates us so that "we needs must love the highest when we see it." The very demand is a promise and a prophecy of completed moral and religious liberty to the individual soul. It rests upon the assurance that men have at last been trained to walk alone, that the support of social life and external ordinances has become less necessary than it was, and that one day a new and living way of access to the Father will bring every soul into daily intercourse with the source of all spiritual life.
But this demand, in affirming personality of so high a kind, also re-created duty. Under the national dispensation the individual man was a servant. To a large extent he knew not what his Lord did, and he ruled his life by the commands he received without understanding, or perhaps caring to understand, their ultimate ground and aim. Much too of what he thus laid upon himself was mere ancient custom, which had been a protection to national and moral life in early days, but which had survived, or was on the point of surviving, its usefulness. Now, however, that man was called upon to love God with all his heart and mind and soul, the step was taken which was to end in his becoming the consciously free son of God. For to love in this fashion means, on the one hand, a willingness to enter into communion with God and to seek that communion; and on the other it implies a throwing open of the soul to receive the love which God so persistently has pressed upon men. In such a relation slavery, blind or constrained obedience, disappears, and the motives of right action become the purest and most powerful that man can know.
In the first place, selfishness dies out. Those to whom God has given Himself have no more to seek. They have reached the dwelling "of peace imperturbable," and know that they are secure. Nothing that they do can win more for them; and they do those things that please God with the free, uncalculating, ungrudging forgetfulness of self, which distinguishes those fortunate children who have grown up into a perfect filial love. Of course it was only the elect in Israel who in any great degree realized this ideal. But even those who neglected it had for a moment been illuminated by it; and the record of it remained to kindle the nobler hearts of every generation. Even the legalism of later days could not obscure it. In the case of many it bore up and transfigured the dry details of Judaism, so that even amid such surroundings the souls of men were kept alive. The later Psalms prove this beyond dispute, and the advanced view which brings the bulk of the Psalter down to the post-exilic period only emphasizes the more this aspect of pre-Christian Judaism. In Christianity of course the ideal was made infinitely more accessible: and it received in the Pauline doctrine, the Evangelical doctrine, of Justification by Faith, a form which more than any other human teaching has made unselfish devotion to God a common aim. It would hardly be too much to say that those philosophical and religious systems which have preached the unworthiness of looking for a reward of well-doing, which have striven to set up the doing of good for its own sake as the only morality worthy of the name, have failed, just because they would not begin with the love of God. To Christianity, especially to Evangelical Christianity, they have assumed to speak from above downwards; but it alone has the secret they strove in vain to learn. Men justified by faith have peace with God, and do good with passionate fervor without hope or possibility of further reward, just because of their love and gratitude to God, who is the source of all good. This plan has succeeded, and no other has; for to teach men on any other terms to disregard reward is simply to ask them to breathe in a vacuum.
In the second place, those who rose to the height of this calling had duty not only deepened but extended. It was natural that they should not seek to throw off the obligations of worship and morality as they had been handed down by their ancestors. Only an authoritative voice which they were separated from by centuries could say, "It hath been said by them of old time…but I say unto you"; and men would be disposed rather to fulfill old obligations with new zeal, while they added to them the new duties which their widened horizon had brought into view. It is true that in course of time the Pharisaic spirit laid hold of the Jews, and that by it they were led back into a slavery which quite surpassed the half-conscious bondage of their earlier time. It is one of the mysteries of human nature that it is only the few who can live for any time at a high level, and hold the balance between extremes. The many cannot choose but follow those few; and the dumb, half-reluctant, half-fascinated way in which they are drawn after them is a most pathetic thing to see. But too often they avenge themselves for the pressure put upon them, by taking up the teaching they receive in a perverted or mutilated form, dropping unawares the very soul of it, and suiting it to the average man. When that is done the bread from heaven becomes a stone; the message of liberty is turned into a summons to the prison house; and the darkness becomes of that opaque sort which is found only where the light within men is darkness. That tragedy was enacted in Judaism as rarely elsewhere. The free service of sons was exchanged for the timorous, anxious scrupulosity of the formalist. How could men love a God whom they pictured as inexorable in claiming the mint and cumin of ceremonial worship, and as making life a burden for all who had a conscience? They could not, and they did not. Most substituted a merely formal compliance with the externalities of worship for the love to God and man which was the presupposition of the true Israelites life, and the mass of the nation fell away from true faith. Strangely enough, therefore, the strength of mens love for God, and of their belief in His love, gave an impulse to the legalistic Pharisaism which our Lord denounced as the acme of loveless irreligion.
But it was not so perverted in all. There always was an Israel within Israel that refused to let go the truths they had learned, and kept up the succession of men inspired by the free spirit of God. Even among the Pharisees there were such-witness St. Paul-men who, though they were entangled in the formalism of their time, found it at last a pedagogue to bring them unto Christ. We must believe therefore that at the beginning the attainment marked by the demands of Deuteronomy and the Law of Holiness existed and was carried over into the daily life. As the national limits of religion were broken down, the word "neighbor" received an ever-wider definition in Israel. At first only a mans fellow-tribesman or fellow-countryman was included; then the stranger; later, as in Jonahs picture of the conduct of the sailors, it was hinted that even among the heathen brethren might be found. Finally, in our Lords parable of the Good Samaritan the last barrier was broken down. But it needed all St. Pauls lifework, and the first and most desperate inner conflict Christianity had to live through, to initiate men into anything like the full meaning of what Christ had taught. Then it was seen that as there was but one Father in heaven, so there was but one family on earth. Then too, though the merely ceremonial duties by which the Jew had been bound ceased to be binding on Christians, the sphere for the practice of moral duty was immensely widened. Indeed, had it not been for the free, joyous spirit with which they were inspired by Christ, they must have shrunk from the immensity of their obligation. For not only were mens neighbors infinitely more numerous now, but their relations with them became vastly more complicated. To meet all possible cases that might arise in the great and elaborate civilizations Christianity had to face and save, our Lord deepened the meaning of the commandments; and so far from Christians being free from the obligation to law, immeasurably more was demanded of them. To them first was the full sweep of moral obligation revealed, for they first had reached the full moral stature of men in Jesus Christ.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 CRITICAL NOTES.—Moses had rehearsed the law, reminded the people…
CRITICAL NOTES.—Moses had rehearsed the law, reminded the people of the circumstances in which it was given, and now he sets forth its essential and fundamental doctrines, the nature and attributes of God and the mode of worshipping Him.
Deu_6:1. Commandments. lit., commandment (sing. noun), equivalent to “the law,” cf. Deu_4:44, i.e., the sum and substance of all that Jehovah had given (cf. Keil). Statutes, etc., explanatory of the command.
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Deu_6:2. Reason for giving law to awaken fear and obedience to every injunction.
Deu_6:3. Constant fear of God would result in prosperity and increase of the nation. of Gen_12:1; Gen_17:6; Exo_3:8; Exo_3:17.
Deu_6:4-9. The exposition now begins with a declaration concerning Jehovah (Elohim plu.). This “does not relate to the unity of God, but simply states that to Him alone, the name Jehovah rightfully belongs, as the one absolute God to whom no other Elohim can be compared, cf. Zec_14:9.”—Keil.
Deu_6:5. To this one God, who is Israel’s God, a love must be given, with the heart, seat of feeling and affection; the soul, thy breath, the vital spirit, or rational soul, capable of intelligence and thought, Mat_22:37; Mar_12:30; Luk_10:27; strength of body and soul.
Deu_6:6-7. True love will be regulated by regard to the commandments, which must be laid up in the heart, ever present to thought and will; taught to children, and talked about on all fitting occasions. Teach, lit., whet or sharpen, a figure for earnest and frequent instruction.
Deu_6:8. Sign, token, memorial, as rings used on wrists and fingers containing religious sentiment, Joh_3:33; 2Ti_2:19. Frontlets, Exo_13:16. Moses here turns to good account usages prevalent in his times, and still common in the East. (See Speak Com.)
Deu_6:9. Posts, Exo_12:7; Deu_11:20; Job_19:23; Job_19:25.
Deu_6:10-15. After specific duties, Moses gives warnings and cautions against dangers to which prosperity would expose them, viz., of forgetting God and His mercies. Entrance into Canaan brought them into possessions for which they did not labour with their own hands; beautiful towns, houses full of good things, wells of water, vineyards and olive plantations. Swearing (Deu_6:13) refers to judicial oaths in court. “Moses refers to legal swearing; our Lord to swearing in common conversation,” God’s worship precludes idolatry (Deu_6:14-15), which a jealous God will not endure, but punish with destruction from the face of the earth.
Deu_6:16-19. Tempting God by murmuring and unbelief as at Massah, i.e., Rephidim (Exo_17:1-7), is forbidden; diligent observance of commandments and right-doing are urged. To cast out, (Deu_6:19) the casting out, the result of obedience. Exo_23:27; Exo_34:11.
Deu_6:20-25. Directions for the instruction of children more fully given than in Deu_6:7. Signs (22) and wonders, cf. Deu_4:34. Mighty hand, exercise of great power. Psa_105:23; Psa_105:28. ur good, (24), first reason for serving God, it is right; other blessings follow. Righteousness, i.e., observance of law constitutes their title to the land and gives them acceptance with God. Before the Lord, in his right and according to his judgment, cf. Psa_56:13; Psa_116:9.
THE FEAR OF GOD THE END OF THE COMMANDMENTS.—Deu_6:1-3
Two objects are indicated in these verses as sought by the Law-giver in thus expounding anew these important duties. He aims at awakening a holy fear of God in the heart of his people; a fear which shall manifest itself in steadfast fulfilment of the covenant; and he seeks no less the temporal prosperity of Israel, which is shown as a certain result upon such fidelity. Thus the glory of God and the welfare of man are seen to be the grand ends he has in view.—Speak. Com.
I. The Commandments of God should be the rule of Life. “That ye might do them.” Plato and other philosophers taught that perfection consisted in conformity to certain forms or ideas laid down for man by his Creator. But for one thing to be the standard or measure of another it must be fixed and true. Sophists would persuade us that there is nothing fixed and permanent. Our senses deceive us, the laws of nature change, right and wrong, virtue and vice, are fancies and vary with individual feelings and tastes. But God’s law is unchangeable, His truth is sure and eternal. He has given rules for moral life and conduct. Our own sensations must not be set forth, our own opinions exalted into standards of truth. “Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.”
II. The fear of God is the most powerful principle to produce obedience to this rule. Love to the Lawgiver begets respect for his law. We cannot honour a master, nor be happy in his service without love for his character. Affection influences the will and prompts to happy obedience. Service from any other motive would not be disinterested and true, either in religion or daily life. The fear, or the love of God in the heart therefore, is the only power to produce loyal obedience to God.
“I cannot worship what I cannot love.”
III. To beget this obedience is the design of religious instruction. “The Lord your God commanded to teach you.” We must know a person before we can love and serve him; so the law of God must be known before it can be observed. The people must be taught the character and will of God. The children must he trained and educated, not for their own glory, nor that of their parents, but for the service and glory of God. Obedience to God’s law must be the design of family training and economy. “Gather the people together, men and women, and children, and thy stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn and fear the Lord your God, and observe to do all the words of this law.”
IV. The results of religious instruction and obedience to God’s law will be beneficent. Since the law of God consults our highest good, obedience will always be to our interest. God mercifully teaches what is good, and promises to bestow that good upon us. In various ways, personal and social, temporal and spiritual, benefits come to help us to remember Him who is “the highest good,” “God over all, and blessed for evermore.”
1. In personal happiness. “Well with thee” in body, mind, and estate. “Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him” (Isa_3:10). “But it shall not be well with the wicked because he feareth not before God” (Ecc_8:13).
2. In length of life. “That thy days may be prolonged.” “The wicked shall not live out half their days.”
3. In the increase of posterity. “That ye may increase mightily.” Virtue always tends to promote health, material prosperity, and national welfare. Without recognition of God and obedience to His commands, we cannot secure earthly or heavenly inheritance “in the land that floweth with milk and honey.”
DIVINE REQUIREMENTS.—Deu_6:4-5
These verses assert that Jehovah is one, indivisible and supreme God, and worthy of love supreme and undivided. It is not enough to hear, we must obey and obey with all the heart and soul.
I. God is worthy of our love and service. We love a person for what he is in himself and for what he does to others. God is excellent and exalted in himself. He alone is God, and therefore deserves our homage. Goethe taught that “beauty, truth and goodness” are the objects of human worship. But this is “the religion of culture,” the worship of the “creature rather than the Creator,” and does not satisfy personal wants. God is a Living Being, on whom we can think and with whom we can converse—the centre and cause of all beauty, goodness and truth. In Him these are objects for worship, and subjects for enjoyment. He does good, makes good and communicates His blessings unto His creatures. “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power.”
II. God requires us to love and serve Him with entire self-surrender. The terms used to indicate this are most comprehensive.
1. Affectionately, “with all thine heart,” without indolence, unfaithfulness or half-heartedness. With fervent, undivided affection. If the heart, the whole heart be withheld, apostacy will be the result.
2. Intelligently, “with all thy mind,” (Mar_12:30; Luk_10:27). The intellect and understanding must be concerned as well as the heart. God’s service is not a blind, unreasonable service. “We know what we worship.”
3. Energetically, “with all thy might” of will and active powers. If not free and cheerful, it is slavish and irksome. “If ye be willing and obedient,” (Isa_1:19).
4. Entirely, “with all thy soul.” It must be sincere and constant, not superficial but “rooted in love,” (Eph_3:17). God must be loved above all creatures, with all our powers and with all the energy of those powers. “The royal law according to the scripture.”
III. God’s relationship to us is a motive to prompt this required service. “The Lord thy God.” Jehovah was Israel’s God and had shown Himself such. Nothing can touch the will, and excite to motion which we do not perceive and appreciate. What is out of the view of mind and heart cannot affect them. God’s presence had been seen and His goodness displayed in wonderful ways. He made a covenant with Israel, claimed them for His people, and gave them every reason to honour and obey Him. “I am the Lord thy God.”
HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Deu_6:3. Hearing and doing. “Hear O Israel and observe to do it.”
1. The Word heard. Man deaf and blind in spiritual things. “Having ears, he hears not; having eyes he sees not.” Only when God speaks does the heart open (Lydia) with new power of attention and interest.” “Be more ready to hear.”
2. The Word considered. “Observe”—attendance is not attention—eyes and ears must be open. “In order to learn,” says Coleridge, “we must attend; in order to profit by what we have learnt, we must think.” “Take heed how ye hear.”
3. The Word obeyed. “Do it.” We look for novelty and not for edification. “Our great object is to be impressed and affected, and to have old and new truths reduced to experience and practice.”—Judge Hale.
Deu_6:4. The unity of God.
1. The centre of Israel’s belief. How sound in principle, elevated in tone and powerful in moral influence, compared with heathen religions!
2. The foundation of Israel’s polity. Polytheism was the basis of other social fabrics. “This clause not merely forbids polytheism, but also syncretism, which reduces the one absolute God, as King over all the earth, to a national deity, a Baal (Hos_2:18), and in fact every form of theism and deism, which creates for itself a supreme God according to philosophical abstractions and ideas” (Keil).
3. The law of harmony in our moral constitution. The mind is not capable of containing more than one object at a time. The heart and affections can only be loyally attached to one Sovereign, and fully developed by one person.
Deu_6:4; Deu_5:1. The command. “Hear, O Israel.” God seeks to make us attentive to what He is in Himself, and what He is to us—to check our presumption—kindle our affection and dissipate our fear.
2. The duty. Love God with all thine heart. First the heart and then the deed. We must first be right before we can do right. “It is greater to conquer by means of the heart, than to conquer the heart,” says Schiller. “Give me thine heart.”
3. The method of performing this duty. (a) Willingly. God sometimes accepts the will for the deed; never the deed without the will. (b) Sincerely. Amaziah did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, but not with a perfect heart (2Ch_25:2). (c) Constantly. “Blessed is he that doeth righteousness at all times” (Psa_106:3).
Moral life proceeds from the heart, and manifests itself without, in the three forms of activity indicated. The impulse Godward proceeds from the heart, and is realised in the life through the affection, which feeds on that supreme object; through the will, which consecrates itself actively to the accomplishment of His will; and through the mind which pursues the track of His thoughts in all His works.—Godet.
THE METHOD OF PRESERVING THE DIVINE LAW.—Deu_6:6-9
To keep a sense of duty in their minds, it was ordered that Israel should carry great principles into daily life. A system of parental instruction was instituted, and provision was made for the remembrance of the commandments in most familiar and oft-recurring scenes of life. The means of preserving religion are minutely specified.
I. In personal experience. “Shall be in thine heart.” The memory may be good and the tongue glib without any feeling of heart. The truth must not only be received by the mind, but deposited and warmed by the heart. We must understand, value and love the Bible. Since we are in danger of losing the things, if we forget the words: “these words” must be matters of experience and conversation. Our soul must be brought under their influence and direction. “The law of God is in his heart, none of his steps shall slide” (Psa_37:31.
II. In home training. “Thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children. Children are ignorant and self-willed. They will never instinctively or intuitively develop into saints. And while their secular education must not be forgotten their religious training must be first and most diligent. This may be given.
1. In various ways. In domestic intercourse, “when thou sittest in thine house;” in ordinary walking, “when thou walkest by the way;” in the times of the day, “when thou liest down and risest up;” by common representations, “for signs and frontlets,” and by constant writing, “thou shalt write them.”
2. In diligent methods. “Diligently,” sharpen up the children by earnest, assiduous and repeated instruction. As tools are prepared for work, so children should be taught for God and prepared for life.
III. In Religious Conversation. “Talk of them.” In the present age knowledge is spread by writing more than by speech. In earlier ages oral communications were the means of instruction. The living voice is still a great power in the world, and its mighty influence will be felt in future generations. Conversation was one of the methods employed by Jewish doctors and Jesus Himself, for imparting knowledge. Among friends and companions, in the domestic and social circle, in walking in a journey and in retiring to rest, we may converse about Divine things. “I will speak of Thy testimonies also before kings, and will not be ashamed.” Psa_119:46.
PARENTAL OBLIGATION.—Deu_6:7-8
In these verses it appears—
(1) That parents are bound to give their children a religious education, to sow in their hearts the seeds of scriptural truth, to teach them the elements of christrian doctrine, to inculcate upon them the observance of moral duties, and to beget in them an attachment to the ordinances of religion, in their attendance on which we may expect the communication of the grace of the Holy Spirit, to render the word of truth, the power of God unto their salvation.
(2) God’s testimonies must not only be taught to our children, but the utmost diligence must be used to make them understand them. “Thou shalt teach them diligently.” That is, again and again, as one who whets a blunt instrument in order to sharpen it, which is done by reiterated friction or grinding. This part of parental duty is a most difficult task, and it requires much patience, much prudence, much judgment and much piety in the parents, to enable them to do this good, this most important work, in the best and most effectual manner.
(3) Parents are required to embrace every opportunity of inculcating the Divine commands upon their children.
1. This duty must be performed at home and abroad; “When thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way.”
2. It must be done in the night season and in the daytime; “when thou liest down and when thou risest up.”
(4) This command shows that every father had access to scripture, in a language which he and his children understood. Moses entertained no fear that the people would misinterpret it, or wrest it to their destruction. It is probable that many a Jew did so; nevertheless, that was no reason against every Jew possessing a copy of the law. The fact is, that under the Jewish law, the scriptures were put into the hands of all kinds of persons, young and old, male and female, learned and unlearned, priest and people with a command to read them and teach them to others, so that faith of all might rest on the foundation.—Rev. J. Wilson.
HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Deu_6:6-7. The Bible—the Family Book. To be read and taught in the family to promote personal piety and religious education. “The most precious legacy you can leave your children is a thoroughly sound Christian education. This will never be finally and for ever forgotten for in the worst and most distant aberation from God, some early light struck out in the early years of childhood, will leap like a live spark from memory, as was the case with John Newton, when a prodigal at the helm in a tempestuous sea—the text forgotten for twenty years, but taught him by his mother in the nursery, was the first on which turned his everlasting and happy destiny.—Dr. Cumming.
Deu_6:7. Children should be taught the principles which they understand not.
(1.) That they might have occasion much to think of the things that are so much and commonly urged.
(2.) That if any extremity should come, they might have certain seeds of comfort and direction to guide and support them.
(3.) That their condemnation might be more just, if having these so much in their mouths, they should not get something of them into their hearts.—Trapp.
Deu_6:9. “Write them upon the posts.”
1. At the time this command was given there were few written copies of the whole law, and the people had it read to them only at the feast of tabernacles. God, therefore, seemed to have appointed, at least for the present, that some select sentences of the law should literally be written upon their gates and walls, or on slips of parchment, to be worn about their wrists, or bound upon their foreheads.
2. The spirit of the command, however, and the chief thing intended, undoubtedly was that they should give all diligence, and use all means to keep God’s laws always in remembrance; as men frequently bind something upon their hands or put something before their eyes, to prevent forgetfulness of a thing that they much desire to remember. But the Jews, forgetting the spirit and design of this precept, used these things as superstitious people do amulets or charms. They used also to put these slips of parchment into a piece of cane, or other hollow wood, and fasten that to the door of their houses, and of each particular door in them, and as often as they go in and out they make it a part of their devotion to touch the parchment and kiss it.—J. Wilson.
THE DANGERS OF PROSPERITY.—Deu_6:10-12
Moses anticipates the time when Israel will come into possession of Canaan with all the good promised. But he also sees the dangers to which this prosperity will expose them—forgetfulness, idolatry (Deu_6:14) and distrust (Deu_6:16). He warns them against these dangers, and describes the remedy. “Forewarned, forearmed.”
I. Prosperity renders the heart insensible when we should be grateful “When thou shalt have eaten and be full; then beware lest thou forget the Lord.” In poverty we despond, murmur or blaspheme; in prosperity we deny God (Pro_30:9). “Prosperity doth best discover vices,” says Bacon. Exaltation often intoxicates, and blessings easily gained are not often valued. We are most sensible of things which cost us dearly; but unmindful of the giver when the gifts come easily and freely. We riot in carnal luxuries, and the heart becomes effeminate and self-indulgent, hardened to the reproofs of the Divine law and to the goodness and claims of the Lawgiver. “They did eat, and were filled, and became fat (senseless, doltish, cf. Isa_6:10), Neh_9:25.
II. Prosperity begets pride when we should be humble. Man depends upon God for everything, yet often casts off God, expects nothing and fears nothing from Him. He is proud of rank, talent, and acquisitions, like Nebuchadnezzar (Dan_4:30). We forget our need of God, our obligations to Him, and become self-sufficient instead of humble. “In all time of our wealth, Good Lord deliver us.”
III. Prosperity lulls into carnal security when we should be watchful. “Beware” of the danger and guard against it. A self-indulgent life, incapacitates for vigourous watchful obedience to God’s commands. Nature is subdued by that which feeds it, its sensitiveness and spirituality die away, and carnal security leads to ease and perfect indifference.
“O souls! In whom no heavenly fire is found,
Fat minds and ever grovelling on the ground.”—Dryden.
FORGETFULNESS OF GOD.—Deu_6:12-15
When we give our thoughts and hearts to the world God is soon forgotten. He is displaced and ignored, and we become guilty of ingratitude, robbery, and idolatry.
I. The danger pointed out. “Beware, lest thou forget God.”
1. Non-recognition of God’s presence. Even amid sensible and awful displays of that presence “they forgot God and His wonders that He had showed them.” Disregard of God’s providence. “Which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt.” A providence most constant and striking, yet despised when they should have remembered it most.” They remembered not the multitude of thy mercies; but provoked Him at the sea, even at the Red Sea (Psa_106:7). Disobedience to God’s law. We cannot serve and obey those whom we forget. God has the greatest claim upon our gratitude and love. But “when the danger is past God is forgotten.” Men cry for mercy in trouble and adversity, but when these are changed for sunshine and substance “they forsake God who made them, and lightly esteem His law.”
“Satan now is wiser than of yore,
And tempts by making rich, not making poor.”—Pope.
II. The Method of avoiding this danger specified. God provides safeguards against dangers into which we are apt to fall. Some are given in these words:
1. The fear of God. “Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God.” Reverence for God is the great preservative from sin. On this principle Abraham educated his children and governed his household. Joseph feared to offend God and was directed to wisest counsels. “Happy is the man that feareth alway.”
2. Obedience to God. “Serve Him.” We cannot forget God if we walk with Him and continually obey His will. Servants must not neglect their master’s commands, nor soldiers rush out of the ranks. Disobedience is disrespectful, disloyal, and insolent. “Be not hasty to go out of his sight.”
3. non-conformity to evil customs. “Ye shall not go after other Gods, of the gods of the people which are round about you,” (Deu_6:14.) Israel would be tempted by the license and indulgence of idol worship around them. Numbers influence and attract men. The fashions, the principles, and the maxims of the world govern many professors. But we must not join a majority in any sinful cause, however prevalent and popular. “Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil.”
4. Public confession of God. “And shalt swear by His name.” God is the source of truth and the avenger of wrong. In all covenants and appeals we must regard Him. In ordinary intercourse and in common affairs of life we must be truthful. We must recognise the presence and majesty of God and not assert anything but what is right. God in the fulfilment of His word must be recognised as our example of faithfulness. “He that sweareth in the earth, shall swear by the God of truth” (lit. the God of Amen, i.e., firm and true, cf. Rev_3:14; Rev_19:11) Isa_65:16.
THE FORBIDDEN PATH.—Deu_6:14-15
In all our hearts there is a tendency to depart from God, to forget what He commands, “to go after” what He forbids. This forbidden path is described—
1. It is entered by many. The path of “the people,” “the gods” of the age. But the vox populi is not always the vox Dei. Idolatry of every kind is the root and nourisher of error and superstition—the expression and epitome of human nature—the foul dishonour to God and His supremacy. “Go not after other gods to serve them and to worship them” (Jer_25:6).
2. It is offensive to God. It stirs up God’s anger and rouses His jealousy. Bp. Patrick observes, that we never find in law or prophets, anger, or fury, or jealousy or indignation, attributed to God, but upon occasion of idolatry.
3. It is destructive in its end. “Destroy thee from off the face of the earth.” Idolatry corrupts the holy and petrifies the heart. Like a withering mildew it overspreads the earth and blights the nations. God has condemned and cursed it, and will punish all who are guilty. The warning voice from above should be heard; “Ye shall bear the sins of your idols, and ye shall know that I am the Lord God.”
HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Deu_6:13. Threefold characteristics of God’s service.
1. God to be honoured.
2. God to be feared.
3. God to be served. “Not forgetting” is described from a positive point of view as fearing God, serving Him, and swearing by His name. Fear is placed first, as the fundamental characteristic of the Israelitish worship of God. It was no slavish fear, but simply the holy awe of a sinner before the holy God, which includes love rather than excludes it. “Fearing” is a matter of the heart; “serving,” a matter of working and striving; and “swearing in His name,” the practical manifestation of the worship of God in word and conversation.—Keil.
Deu_6:13 to Deu_16:1. The fear of God the principle of service.
2. The preventative from idolatry (Deu_6:14-15).
3. The remedy for unbelief.
Deu_6:14-15. Ye shall not go after.
1. The course forbidden.
2. The warnings to keep from it; God’s anger and God’s jealousy.
3. The consequences of disregarding these warnings. “Destroy thee from off the face of the earth.” When lesser warnings will not serve, God looks into His quiver for deadly arrows.” “From hardness of heart,” etc. Serving God. Inquire—I. What it is to serve God.
1. To dedicate ourselves wholly to Him.
2. To make His law the rule of our life.
3. To endeavour to please Him in all things. II. Why should we serve Him? Because He is—
1. Our Maker.
2. Our Preserver.
3. Our Redeemer.
4. Our Master by covenant. III. The nature of the exhortation here given.
1. Directions: serve Him scripturally, obediently, willingly, cheerfully, faithfully, etc.
2. Motives: This is the end of your creation and of all God’s mercies to you; it is the work of heaven, and will be well rewarded.—Wm. Stevens.
TEMPTING GOD.—Deu_6:16
The word “tempt,” here means to try to prove; and mindful of the circumstances alluded to God was not only provoked, but “tested” in His power and goodness. This sin we are warned against, for the apostle distinctly recognises that events in Israel’s history were typical and filled with Divine purpose and warning. “All these things happened unto them for ensamples (types, patterns to admonish and instruct” 1Co_10:2.) How did Israel and how can we tempt God?
I. By doubting God’s presence and power to help. God was present with them night and day in the wonderful pillar, yet they cried, “Is the Lord among us or not?” (Exo_17:7.) God had destroyed their enemies, delivered them from famine and danger, yet they “tempted God in their hearts” and cried in unbelief, “Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?” (Psa_78:18-20.) We murmur at our daily mercies—the manna and the stream; count actual enjoyments nothing, if they do not conform to our fancy; and pine for some imaginary good. When we circumscribe to infinite wisdom, mistrust omnipotent power to accomplish His purpose, we “limit (sign, requiring miracle to satisfy us) the Holy One of Israel” (Psa_78:41.)
II. By rebelling against God’s authority. We find fault with God’s will, set up our own will instead, and thus insult God. At the Red Sea and the waters of Marah, in the wilderness of sin and in Rephidim, they provoked God their Creator and Lawgiver. They were base enough to deny His presence, doubt His power, and abuse His servant. In their wicked disposition “they sinned still,” went on sinning and rebelling, and were not “in a mood to be convinced.” “Yea, they spake against God.”
III. By provoking God’s patience. He led them in the wilderness, gave them plentiful supplies, but their gratitude was not commensurate with His goodness. “How often did they provoke Him?” Times enough did they rebel, and were as constant in provocation as God was in kindness. “They have tempted me these ten times” (i.e., often and in full measure), Num_14:22; but at last God’s patience was provoked, and they were punished for their sins. God is not insensible to our conduct. We may vex His Holy Spirit, which would have been long ago withdrawn if God had not been merciful to us. We are dependent, and need God’s guidance and grace; let us not “grieve Him in the desert.” As Israel tried God by longing for the things left behind in Egypt and distrusted for the future, so we may tempt and offend God by hankering after pleasures which are forbidden, longing for that liberty in sin from which Christ has delivered us. “Neither let us tempt Christ as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents” (1Co_10:9).
THE WAY OF LIFE AND SAFETY.—Deu_6:17-19
God is never indifferent to His claims upon us. Epicurus depicted his gods as totally regardless, and scorning the affairs of earth. But our God has “set his heart on man,” desires his eternal good, and points out the way to secure it. Amid the darkness and dangers of our journey God has provided help, “For the commandment is a lamp, and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life” (Pro_6:23).
I. A way in which God’s word must be our constant guide. “Ye shall diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God.” The way has not to be invented or found out; it is revealed. We have not to make, but keep the command. “The way of life is above to the wise.” It is of heavenly, not of earthly origin, neither devised nor discerned by foolish men. We must constantly recognise and devoutly consult God’s word as our guide in our journey.
1. Carefully, as travellers anxious to be right and not lose the way. Some give careless service to God, and careless attention to His word. There must be no cold and formal observance, but effort to please and obey.
2. Earnestly. Diligence signifies not only energy and activity, but heart and affection. Heartiness and love must be displayed (Diligently the Latin tor lovingly). When Aristotle was asked what benefit he had derived from his philosophy, he replied: “I have learnt to do without constraint that which others do from fear of the law.” “I will delight myself in thy commandments which I have loved.”
3. Constantly. Not fitful or accidental, but patient and continual regard. Many forget and forsake the law. If it is displeasing to us, we easily neglect it; but when our hearts and minds are fixed upon it, then we love and practise it continually. When governed by the Word we are wise, safe, and strong. “Happy is the mind to which the word is a special companion,” says Bernard (cf. Psa_119:7; Psa_119:24; Pro_6:22).
II. A way in which God’s will must be our constant regard. “Do that which is right and good in the sight of the Lord.” The will of God is the standard of duty, and this must not be lowered to meet the opinions and wishes of men. It is not what is useful or expedient before men, but what is right before God. That alone is right which is pleasing to Him, which He commands, and which He requires from us. Conformity to God’s will and character must be the aim of our life. In this respect Christ is our example, who came to do the will of Him that sent Him, and could say, “I do always those things that please Him” (Joh_6:29).
III. A way which leads to our present and future good. Religion confers the highest blessings upon us. The will of God is the fountain of all happiness, and the service of God the source of well being.
1. Our present good. “That it may be well with thee.” If it is not well with us, if we are not benefited by serving God, we may suspect something to be wrong. Our thoughts, employments, and pursuits may be opposed to God’s will, and then it cannot be well with us. “It shall be well with them that fear God, but it shall not be well with the wicked.”
2. Our future good. Man has a future of weal or woe. To forget this future is simply to court destruction. But continual regard to God’s will, and dependence upon God’s grace (a) will help us to overcome enemies. “To cast out all thine enemies from before thee.” We cannot overcome in our own attitude and strength. God dislodges our enemies, and clears our way to heaven (cf. Exo_23:22; Jos_24:8); (b) will secure to us the inheritance—residence on earth, progress and grace in Christian life, and heaven at length. Thus do the Scriptures set before us the way of life. Are we walking in it? “What man is he that desireth life and loveth (good days, or days of good, Seventy) many days, that he may see good” (Psa_34:12).
HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Deu_6:16. Tempting God (Psa_78:18). They tempted God, tried His patience over and over again, made as it were another experiment upon it, and, from the expression of “tempting Him in their heart,” it would seem as if they had made it a thing of mental calculation whether He would still bear with them (T. Chalmers on Psa_78:18).
1. They tempted God’s patience.
2. They tempted God’s Wisdom
3. They tempted God’s power.
4. They tempted God’s wrath. Herein, as in a mirror, we see ourselves. Israel in the wilderness acted out, as in a drama, all the story of man’s conduct towards his God.—Treasury of David.
Deu_6:17. Notice.
1. The Lawgiver. “The Lord your God.”
2. The authority interposed. Testimonies and statutes “which He commanded thee.”
3. The regard for this authority required. “Keep the commandments.”
Deu_6:17 to Deu_19:1. The end desired—“good.”
2. The method of securing it. Filial obedience to God.
3. The results which follow. “Possess the good land,” etc.
The charge of Moses to Israel. In this passage we remark—I. A solemn charge given.
1. Hear the word of the Lord.
2. Observe the word of the Lord, doctrine, precept, promise.
3. Obey the word of the Lord. II. Important benefits proposed.
1. Safety.
2. Prosperity.
3. Peaceful possession of Canaan.—Zeta.
THE RELIGION OF ENQUIRY.—Deu_6:20-25
God’s remarkable dealings with His people could not fail to excite their curiosity even to the latest generations. There was an express injunction that in every succeeding age they should carefully acquaint their children with the facts of their history. There must be a perpetual memorial of their great deliverance and a profound reverence in the mind of the nation of that Supreme Power to whom they were indebted for their civil and religious privileges. Questions were to be encouraged, parents were to answer questions by explaining divine institutions, that the laws of God might be perpetuated, family religion nourished, and national good secured.
I. The Religion of the Bible cultivates free enquiry. “When thy son asketh thee what mean the testimonies.” Man thinks. Reason is the attribute of his soul. The religion for man must not therefore overlook his intellect. Christianity is adapted to man in his capacity for knowledge and in his power to reason and conclude from that knowledge. “Come let us reason together,” is the language of our Creator. Many declare that Christianity is only fit for the ignorant and weak minded, and that it affords no scope for free enquiry. But it affords the finest scope for reason in which the mind can be exercised. Examination and enquiry are demanded from everyone. We are to “think on these things,” to “search the scriptures,” and “prove all things (test like money changers) and hold fast that which is good” (1Th_5:21).
II. God has made provision for the demands of free enquiry. We cannot help but ask “from whence am I and whither am I going?” “How can man be just with God?” “What mean the testimonies,” etc. Solemn questions will prompt themselves which neither the philosophy of man nor the light of nature can answer. But God answers man’s enquiries—
1. In the facts of history. “We were bondsmen in Egypt.” In the Bible we have a record of facts beginning with the Creation and leading us through various dispensations to the consummation of God’s purpose in the death and work of Christ. In the lives of the patriarchs, prophets and apostles, in the events of Jewish history and in the works of Jesus Christ we have grand historic facts, which are the basis of religion, the foundation of our faith, and the elements, “the rudiments of childhood’s lessons” (cf. Gal_3:24; Gal_4:3).
2. In the doctrines of Scripture. Upon the facts of history the doctrines of religion are built. There is a growing tendency to take ideas without facts; to separate events from their supernatural surroundings; and to find in Scripture “a legendary summary of primitive belief.” But in the facts and doctrines of Christianity God has provided for the necessities of our nature and not left us to “cunningly devised fables.”
3. In the records of Providence. God’s power and presence were seen in His dealings with Israel. His purpose and promise have been fulfilled in the history of nations. The system of Providence is accommodatory to our nature in teaching by sensible signs and striking events. “The Lord showed signs and wonders.”
III. It is our interest to enquire and possess this Religion. The facts and doctrines of Scripture must be confirmed in our experience and traced in our life conduct. “He that believeth hath the witness in himself.” If we fear God and keep His commandments we shall realise the power of God to help; the grace of God to pardon and renew, the need of the Holy Spirit to enlighten and guide.
1. It will be for our good, Deu_6:24. To investigate truth, to follow God will not only be enjoyment but “our good.” Our views will be enlarged, our convictions deepened, and we shall find that every event of Providence and every command of God contribute to “our good always.”
2. It will be for our righteousness (Deu_6:25). Just as loyal obedience secured to Israel their standing and inheritance, so Christians can only justify their claims and position as God’s people by holy life. They are God’s peculiar people, redeemed to serve Him and to train future generations in their holy faith. Just as youth are embued with righteousness and truth, and posterity taught the will and works of God, will the Christian church and the nation have within themselves the principle of perpetuation and the security of natural life and religious position. “That they may fear me for ever, for the good of them, and of their children after them.”
A WONDERFUL HISTORY.—Deu_6:21-23
Israel’s history from first to last is a process of moral education. In its gradual progress, its divine symbols and its spiritual design, we see divine purpose comprehend in the good of the nation and the redemption of the world. In these words we have two or three remarkable epochs or displays filled with moral instruction.
I. The Great Deliverance. “The Lord brought us out of Egypt.” For generations Israel had been oppressed and held in bondage most bitter. But in “the self-same day” of promise, they were rescued without delay. Slavery ended, task-masters gone and liberty gained! Salvation most complete and joy unspeakable. All escaped. Promises and deliverance in Christ to those in bondage of sin and death. He gives life, liberty, joy and glory.
II. The wonderful way in which it was accomplished.
1. By Divine might. “With a mighty hand.” Pharaoh could not resist the omnipotence of God. The “strong man armed” can only “keep his palace” until “the stronger than he cometh.”
2. By marvellous deeds. “Signs and wonders, great and sore.” Most alarming were the judgments of God upon Egypt. God touched the support of life and the objects of worship—annoyed with pain and disease—turned the wealthy land into a wilderness. Then came the dark shadow and finally the stroke of death itself upon “the chief of all their strength.” Judgments upon sin may be light at first, but if disregarded will destroy in the end the wicked treasure, “wrath against the day of wrath,” “because of the blindness (hardness) of their hearts” (Eph_4:18).
III. The Gracious Design. “To give us the land.” Canaan, acquired, not by valour and human skill, a gift of God. “To give us.” Patriarchs had been sojourners and strangers there; now descendents in full possession.
1. An inheritance promised. “which he sware unto our fathers.” The covenant 400 years before now to be established; God never forgets. “Never think that God’s delays are God’s denials. Hold on; hold fast; hold out.” (Buffon). With Him a thousand years as one day (Psa_90:4).
2. An inheritance into which they were guided. “He brought us out, that He might bring us in.” Canaan not only offered, but Israel helped to get it. The way long, the dangers great, but the Angel of the Covenant never forsook them. God will guide us by the written word and the Holy Spirit if we follow Him. “I will instruct thee.”
HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Deu_6:20-21. Notice—
1. Divine Institutions have meaning and design.
2. Our duty to enquire al out them.
3. Children especially should be encouraged to question, etc. A Persian philosopher was asked by what method he had acquired so much knowledge, answered, “By not being prevented by shame from asking questions when I am ignorant.”
Deu_6:20. The Children’s Question.
1. Children to be encouraged to seek knowledge concerning the Bible and the Church. 2. Patiently and wisely explain, doctrines, duties and privileges.
3. Early teach children to acknowledge God and refer deliverances and all other blessings to Him.
4. Believe that the Holy Spirit will impress youthful hearts with what they see and hear in God’s house. The School in the Family, pupils, teachers, lessons to be learned, and benefit of practising them.
Deu_6:24-25. God’s commands, our life and righteousness.
1. Israel to be a separated people (Deu_6:23).
2. Their continued existence depended upon obedience to God (Deu_6:24).
3. In this continued existence would be the justification of their character and position (Deu_6:25). “Every Israelite who yielded an external obedience to the Mosaic law was termed righteous, and had a claim in virtue of that obedience, to the land of Canaan; so that doing these things, he lived by them (Lev_18:5; Deu_5:33). The import of the statement in these verses, then, is that a faithful observance of “all these commandments” should constitute their title to the promised blessings of the covenant.”—Jamieson.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 6
Deu_6:1-3. Fear. This fear of God is the foundation of religion; for the great support of virtue among men is the sense upon their minds of a supreme Governor and Judge of the universe, who will finally and effectually reward what is in itself essentially worthy of reward, and punishment what is worthy of punishment. Consequently fear brings us into subjection to God’s authority and enforces the practice of duty; for the fear of the Lord is to depart from evil. (Duty of Man) Love. Our affections are drawn to an attractive object as naturally as iron is charmed by loadstone. God made us to love; and when brought near to such an object our feelings in-twine themselves around it, as the soft and pliant tendrils of the vine do around the support it clothes with leaves, and hangs with purple clusters. Such analogy is there between the laws of mind and matter.—Dr. Guthrie.
Deu_6:4-5. One Lord. We believe God to be one, so we believe Him to be in such manner one, that there cannot possibly be another, for all things must derive their being from Him, and whatsoever being has its existence from another cannot be God, but must be a creature. This unity of God is of universal obligation to be believed that we may be fixed as to the object of our worship, and place our religious adoration there only, where it is due; and also that we may give Him that honour, which is due to Him alone; part whereof is, that we have no other Gods but one, in him only must we trust and love with all our hearts, because He only is infinite goodness, beauty and glory.
Deu_6:6-9. Write. It is now customary among the Arabs, and the Oriental nations, to write passages of the Koran, and other moral sentences, on the gates of cities, walls, and doorposts.—Dr. Boothroyd.
Teach. It was the godly practice of the patriarchs to instruct their children concerning the creation of the world, transgression of man, destruction of the old world, God’s providence, the Messiah to be revealed, and the like. The parents’ mouths were large books, in which their children did read the noble acts of the Lord. Philip was glad that Alexander was born whilst Aristotle lived, that he might be instructed by Aristotle in philosophy. It is no mean mercy that thy children are born in the days of the Gospel, a land of light, where they may be instructed in Christianity.—Geo. Swinnock.
Deu_6:10-12. Forget. Prosperity is a more refined and severe test of character than adversity, as one hour of summer sunshine produces greater corruption than the longest winter day.—Eliza Cook.
Deu_6:12-15. Forget God. Men who put their supreme idea of life in self-indulgence, cannot understand what God means, who makes self-exertion, in Himself, in angelic powers, in all His creatures, the test of real being. If men are seeking to be supine, to have infinite enjoyment without earning it, and God is determined they shall be stirred up by storms of hope and fear, pain and ease, in order that they may grow and develop, of course they cannot understand Him or His administration. The prizes in this world are placed where those men shall get them who by development, by opening and educating their powers, seek them.—Beecher.
Deu_6:14-16. Tempt. Although God cannot be tempted with evil, he may justly be said to be tempted, whensoever men, by being dissatisfied with His dealings, virtually ask that He will alter those dealings, and proceed in a way more congenial with their feelings. Suppose a man to be discontented with the appointments of Providence; suppose him to murmur and repine at what the Almighty allots him to do or to bear, is he not to be charged with provoking God to change His purposes? and what is this if it be not “tempting” God—a striving to induce Him to swerve from His plans, though every one of these plans has been settled by infinite wisdom. In short, unbelief of every kind and degree may be said to be a tempting of God; for not to believe on the evidence which he has seen fit to give, is to tempt him to give more than He has already given—offering our possible assent, if proof were increased, as an inducement to him to go beyond what his wisdom has prescribed.—H. Melvill.
Deu_6:20-25. What mean the testimonies? The mother of a family was married to an infidel, who made a jest of religion in presence of his own children; yet she succeeded in bringing them all up in the fear of the Lord. I one day asked her how she preserved them from the influence of a father whose sentiments were so openly opposed to her own? She answered: “Because to the authority of a father I did not oppose the authority of a mother, but that of God. From earliest years my children have always seen the Bible upon the table. This Holy Book has constituted the whole of their religious instruction. I was silent that I might allow it to speak. Did they propose a question; did they commit any fault; did they perform any good action; I opened the Bible, and the Bible answered, reproved or encouraged them. The constant reading of the Scriptures has alone wrought the prodigy which surprises you” (A. Monod). “Young man, attend to the voice of one who possesses certain degree of fame in the world,” said Dr. Samuel Johnson, “and who will shortly appear before his Maker—read the Bible every day of your life.”
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 (with Mat 28:19)
Deu 6:4
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Observe:—
I. That the Scriptural Trinity implies that God is One. So far from being against the cardinal truth of God’s unity, it actually assumes it. The Trinity of our faith means a distinction of persons within one common indivisible Divine nature. If we ask, What is the chief spiritual benefit which we derive from the knowledge of the unity of God? the answer is this: The unity of God is the only religious basis for a moral law of perfect and unwavering righteousness. It is a unity of moral character in the Ruler, and therefore of moral rule in the universe. It is such a unity as excludes all conflict within the Divine will, all inconsistency in the Divine law, all feebleness in the Divine administration.
II. What religious advantages do we reap from the fresh Christian discovery of a Trinity within this unity of the Divine nature? (1) To this question we answer, that the doctrine of the Trinity has heightened and enriched our conception of the nature of God. (2) This doctrine affords a basis for those gracious relations which it has pleased God to sustain towards us in the economy of our salvation.
J. Oswald Dykes, Sermons, p. 123.
I. The belief in one God gives rest to the active man; it satisfies his intellectual, his moral, his emotional, his spiritual, being.
II. In the field of scientific research this faith inspires us with a confident hope of reducing all phenomena to law, since all proceed from one hand, and express one creative will. This faith supplies that which physical science lacks and yet requires, viz., a prime mover and a sustaining power.
III. In morals this faith acts most powerfully upon our will and rouses us to exalt the higher nature and repress the lower Polytheism deifies the human passions, and turns the wors views into acts of religion; but if there be only one God, then our highest aspirations must give us the truest image of Him.
IV. Faith in one God brings peace to the mourner and to the suffering, for we know that He who now sends the trouble is the same God whose kindness we have felt so often. Having learned to love and trust Him, we are able to accept suffering as the chastisement of a Father’s hand. If there were gods many, we could regard the troubles of life only as the spiteful acts of some malevolent deity; we must bribe his fellow-gods to oppose him.
V. Upon one God we are able to concentrate all the powers of the soul, our emotions are not dissipated, our religious efforts are not frittered away upon a pleasing variety of characters, but the image of God is steadily renewed in the soul, and communion with God grows ever closer.
F. R. Chapman, The Oxford and Cambridge Undergraduates’ Journal, Jan. 22nd, 1880.
The teaching of the text is that the "one God" must be "loved" and served by the whole man. Consider how the love of God is to be cultivated.
I. We cannot love an abstraction. God must be a personal God before we can love Him. We must have a sense of property in Him. He must be our own God.
II. Presence is essential to love, even in human love. If we have not a presence in fact, we always make it in fancy. There is an imaginary presence of the person we love always with us. God says, "My presence shall go with thee."
III. There must be prayer. Communion with the absent whom we love is essential to the existence and the growth of love.
IV. God is really a present God. Therefore we must do acts—acts which have Him in them. Acts of love make love.
V. There is no love like union—wedded union. And so through this mystery of union the love grows fond, intense, eternal. Our whole being gathers itself up to one focus, and the demand of the text becomes possible, and the duty becomes a necessity.
J. Vaughan, Sermons, 10th series, p. 6.
References: F.W. Robertson, Sermons, 4th series, p. 261; J. Oswald Dykes, The Law of the Ten Words, p. 35; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xii., p. 271. Deu 6:6, Deu 6:7.—E. M. Goulburn, Gospel of the Childhood, p. 37. Deu 6:7.—R. W. Evans, Parochial Sermons, p. 21. Deu 6:16.—J. Edmunds, Sixty Sermons, p. 205; H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 2178. Deu 6:20-25.—Parker, vol. iv., p. 145.
Deu 6:24
I. Let us examine the popular idea as to the excessive severity and formality of this law. To a transgressor who had not in him the living principle of obedience it was, no doubt, fearfully formal and stern. So is our statute-book to a felon, while on you and me it sits lightly as the air. Judaism was given from Sinai to that people for that people’s good. It was God’s best gift to them as they stood there before the mountain. Its relation to the future was their relation to the future; in training, educating, and developing them, it was making a future possible to their nation and to the world.
II. Notice that the very heart’s core of a dispensation of law is duty, and duty is the master-key to life. Law is the buttress of right; its object is to fortify the dutiful soul. The real object of law is to help men to do right, and thus most effectually restrain from wrong; unless there be a sentiment of duty latent which the law can appeal to and elicit, it is heartless and hopeless work.
III. The receiving of a law was the first step of the people in a new and glorious career of personal and national development, which, though they have missed the crown, has left them the most notable, powerful, and capable race in the world. In other words, it opened a noble man’s career to them; it will open the same to you.
IV. But, however we may magnify it, and however justly, the law is not a gospel, and can in no wise supply the place of a gospel to the world. The dispensation of law in our individual histories is but a "schoolmaster to bring us to Christ." The Gospel is the instrument of the reconciliation which the law declares to be needful, but cannot secure.
J. Baldwin Brown, The Soul’s Exodus and Pilgrimage, p. 202.
References: Deu 6:24.—A. W. Hare, Sermons to a Country Congregation, vol. ii., p. 367. Deu 7:2-4.—T. Arnold, Sermons, vol. vi., p. 24. Deu 7:6.—J. Keble, Sermons for the Christian Year: Easter to Ascension Day, p. 192. Deu 7:8.—Parker, vol. v., p. 6. Deu 7:9.—Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxi., p. 165; Parker, vol. v., p. 7 Deu 7:9, Deu 7:10.—R. D. B. Rawnsley, Village Sermons, 2nd series, p. 21. Deu 7:12, Deu 7:13.—J. Keble, Sermons for the Christian Year: Easter to Ascension Day, p. 375. Deu 7:20.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xii., p. 673.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 Practical Exhortations
Practical Exhortations
To the repetition of the Decalogue Moses adds in the following chapters a practical exhortation to obedience founded on the special relation of Jehovah to Israel as their Redeemer (6-11). Deuteronomy 6 particularly insists upon the remembrance of God's statutes and the training of the children in them.
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4, 5. Our Lord calls these words 'the first and great commandment.' They express the highest truth and duty revealed to the Hebrew nation: the truth of God's unity and uniqueness; the duty of loving and serving Him with every faculty of the being. Consequently they became the Jewish Confession of Faith; and under the name of the 'Shema' (the first word of Deu_6:4 in the Hebrew) are still recited, along with Deu_11:13-21 and Num_15:37-41, as the first act of worship in the Jewish synagogue, and twice a day by every adult male Jew.
5. Love goes deeper than fear. It is the fulfilling of all law, and includes obedience. Both in the OT. and in the New it is the effect of God's greatest love in redemption. 'We love Him because He first loved us.'
8, 9. Cp. Deu_11:18-20. From early times the Jews understood this injunction literally; and in the time of our Lord a great importance was attached to three 'memorials,' or visible reminders of this obligation to keep the Law of Jehovah. One was the 'zizith' or 'fringe' which was worn on the corners of the outer garment: see on Num_15:37-41. The others were the 'tephillin' and the 'mezuza,' the use of which was founded on this passage of Deuteronomy. The 'tephillin' were two small boxes, about a cubic in. in size, containing each a piece of parchment, on which were written in a special form of handwriting the four passages, Exo_13:1-10, Exo_13:11-16; Deu_6:4-9; Deu_11:13-21. One was fastened inside the left forearm and the other on the forehead, to be a sign upon the hand and a frontlet between the eyes. They were worn at prayer on week days, and sometimes enlarged, as by the Pharisees of our Lord's time, to suggest particular devotion to the Law (Mat_23:5). The Hebrew name 'tephillin' means 'prayers'; but they were also called in Gk. 'phylacteries' or 'protectors,' from their supposed power to ward off evil spirits. The 'mezuza' was a small oblong box containing the passage Deu_6:4-9 and was affixed to the right-hand door-post of the house and of each inhabited room, in accordance with the injunction in Deu_6:9. It had a beautiful significance as a reminder of the presence of God in the house, and the obligation of all the inmates to keep His holy law, but has also been degraded into a mere charm to keep off evil spirits during the night.
10-13. Cp. Deu_8:10-14 and see on Deu_4:25.
13. Swear by his name] Jehovah, the God of truth, is to be recognised as the unseen witness of all agreements between a man and his neighbour, and the avenger of all falsehood: cp. the Third Commandment.
16. They tempted God at Massah by insisting that He should prove His presence among them in the way that they prescribed: see Exo_17:7. But man must beware of dictating to God, in unbelief and presumption. Our Lord refused to demand from God a special token of His presence and care, and quoted this warning against the tempter: see Mat_4:7. It is to be observed that our Lord not only took all His answers from the Scriptures, but from the same portion of Deuteronomy, viz. Deuteronomy 5-10 : see Mat_8:3; Mat_6:13; Mat_10:20.
20-25. Cp. Deu_6:7. The keeping of the Law is required by the fact of redemption, and is rewarded with the divine blessing.
25. Our righteousness] Obedience increases merit. For a particular instance see on Deu_24:13.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 2. The First Commandment and What It Involves
2. The First Commandment and What It Involves
CHAPTER 6
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1. Hear, therefore, O Israel! (Deu 6:1-3)
2. The first commandment (Deu 6:4-5)
3. The remembrance of these words and practical obedience (Deu 6:6-25)
“Hear, O Israel! The LORD our God is one LORD.” Much has been made of this verse by orthodox Jews, who reverence it greatly. They call it the “Shema” after the first word “Hear.” It is often used by Jews and Unitarians to deny the three persons of the Godhead. The Hebrew word “echod” (one), however, excludes forever such a denial, for it means a compound unity. The Hebrew has another word which expresses exactly what Jews and Unitarians, who reject the three persons in the Godhead, believe. It is the word “yochid”; this has the meaning of a single one.
“Jehovah, our Elohim is one Jehovah,” thus the name of God is used in this verse. The verse states that to Him alone the name of Jehovah (the Self-existing One) rightfully belongs, He is the one who is absolutely God. It is the testimony against the polytheism (many and different gods) of the Gentiles, which surrounded Israel on all sides. And therefore, because He is the one God, and none beside Him, He must be loved with all the heart, with all the soul, with all the might. The heart with all its affections and energies must belong to Him. To believe on Him and to know Him must ever result in giving Him the heart. Spirit, soul and body must be devoted to Him. This is the first and the great commandment (Mat 22:38; Mar 12:29-30). And we know this Jehovah as our Redeemer, who came and died in our stead. The New Testament fully reveals the claims He has on those, for whose redemption He paid the price with His own blood. “We love Him, because He first loved us” (1Jn 4:19). “And this commandment have we from Him, that he who loveth God love his brother also” (verse 21). “This is the love of God, that we keep His commandments” (1Jn 5:3). “For ye are bought with a price; therefore, glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s” (1Co 6:20).
Verses 6-9(Deu 6:6-9) are literally carried out by orthodox Jews. They write these words on parchment and put them in little boxes, which they bind with strips of leather to their foreheads and upon the hand. These are the phylacteries. They also put them in tin-boxes and nail them on the doors of their houses. All His words are worthy to be constantly remembered. The Word must be hid in the heart. It is to be in the family. It is never to be forgotten, whether we sit in the house, or walk, or rest, or rise up. Such a true spiritual remembrance of His words will increase and constantly produce devotion and obedience to the Lord. How solemn the warning not to forget Jehovah in the days of blessing and prosperity! (Deu 6:10-15) How often they did forget Jehovah in the days of peace and earthly blessing.
Deu 6:16 is of deep interest. “Ye shall not tempt the LORD your God, as ye tempted Him in Massah.” The tempting of the Lord at Massah was questioning His presence among them (Exo 17:7). Our Lord made use of this word when the devil demanded that He should cast Himself from the pinnacle of the temple. Satan then quoted Scripture in His presence. The enemy knows how to do that; but he either leaves something out from the Word or he adds something to it. In quoting from Psalm 91, he omitted seven words, “to keep thee in all thy ways.” Satan knew the obedience of Christ and he tried to make our Lord act in obedience to the Word by testing God’s Word. But such was not God’s way; it was not according to His command to cast Himself from the pinnacle of the temple. If He had done it, it would have been an act of self-will and therefore disobedience. And that is why Satan left out those seven words. But what did our Lord do? He did not call Satan to task for mutilating the Scriptures, but quoted another Scripture to show His unswerving obedience. “Again it is written, Thou shalt not tempt the LORD thy God.” He would not tempt God. He quoted the book of Deuteronomy, because it is the book of obedience, and He had come not to do His own will, but the will of Him who sent Him. He also quoted the words in 8:3 and 10:20. How this fact confirms the inspiration and genuineness of Deuteronomy, we have already mentioned in our introduction.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v1 The Emphatic Admonition
The Emphatic Admonition
v. 1. Now, these are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments, the general laws, the special ordinances which concerned Israel as the covenant people, and the observances which flow from the obligations which men owe to God and to their fellow-men, which the Lord, your God, commanded to teach you that ye might do them in the land whither ye go to possess it;
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v. 2. that thou mightest fear the Lord, thy God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments which I command thee, in his capacity of teacher, of representative of God, thou, and thy son, and thy son’s son, all the days of thy life; and that thy days may be prolonged, for the blessing of a long life often follows obedience to God’s commandments. That is the object which the Lord had in mind in giving His Law, to awaken the fear of God in the hearts and to have this faith manifest itself in good works.
v. 3. Hear, therefore, O Israel, and observe to do it, that it may be well with thee, and that ye may increase mightily, as the Lord God of thy fathers hath promised thee, Gen 15:5, in the land that floweth with milk and honey. There are three promises included in this statement: That God would surely bring the children of Israel into the land of Canaan, that they would there enjoy the rich prosperity which the fertility of the land assured, and that they would increase greatly in numbers, as the Lord had said to Abraham. Moses now formally pronounces the first and most important command, the summary of all the other commandments.
v. 4. Hear, O Israel: The Lord, our God, is one Lord, Jehovah the One. The Lord of Israel is the absolute God, and there is none other. With these words Moses opens the exposition and the inculcation of the Lord’s precepts; for unless the worshiper gives his whole heart and mind to this God alone, he cannot perform His will.
v. 5. and thou shalt love the Lord, thy God, with all thine heart and with all thy soul and with all thy might, Mar 12:30. All the powers of the inner life, of affection and will, should be centered in God, in the fulfillment of His will.
v. 6. And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart, that is the prerequisite, the condition which is necessary if the believer will do the Lord’s will: he will have the words containing His will before his mind’s eye always.
v. 7. And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, impressing and inculcating them upon their minds while they are still in the plastic state, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. They should, in other words, form the chief topic of consideration and of conversation in the Israelitish family. There is a fine hint here that home devotions and home teaching of the words and will of the Lord should be a prominent feature in every Christian family.
v. 8. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, as a reminder that they should be performed at all times; and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes, as a reminder that the words of the Lord should be the chief object of meditation in the believer. The Jews, in later times, insisted upon a literal understanding of the command, and it became the fashion among the more devout Jews to wear little cases with the Scripture-texts Exo 13:1-11; Exodus 11-17; Deu 6:4-10; Deu 11:13-26, called Tephillim, fastened to the left hand and to the forehead-the phylacteries of Mat 23:5.
v. 9. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, on the door-posts, and on thy gates. This command was later also reduced to a mere outward observance in the Jewish custom of the Mesusah, according to which a piece of parchment containing Deu 6:4-9; Deu 11:13-20 was placed in a small wood or metal case and fastened to the right door-post of the house.
v. 10. And it shall be, when the Lord, thy God, shall have brought thee in to the land which he sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give thee great and goodly cities, which thou buildedst not,
v. 11. and houses full of good things, which thou filledst not, and wells digged, which thou diggedst not, vineyards and olive-trees, which thou plantedst not; when thou shalt have eaten and be full, all of which emphasizes the rich temporal blessings which the children of Israel might expect in the land of Canaan,
v. 12. then beware lest thou forget the Lord which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. There is always this danger connected with material prosperity, that men forget and deny the Lord, Pro 30:8-9.
v. 13. Thou shalt fear the Lord, thy God, not with slavish terror, but with reverential awe, and serve Him, which follows and flows out of the true fear of the Lord, and shalt swear by His name. Note that oaths of the right kind are not forbidden, but that they must be made in the name of the true God, for as such they are a manifestation of the worship of the heart, of the proper attitude toward the one true God, namely, as the Witness of truth and the Avenger of falsehood.
v. 14. Ye shall not go after other gods, follow them like misguided sheep, of the gods of the people which are roundabout you, the various objects of worship adored by the heathen nations of Canaan,
v. 15. (for the Lord, thy God, is a jealous God among you, Exo 20:5) lest the anger of the Lord, thy God, be kindled against thee, like a fire that grows beyond control, and destroy thee from off the face of the earth. That was the punishment which He threatened in the case of gross idolatry. These admonitions apply also to us. It is our duty not only to ponder the will of the Lord in our hearts, but also to confess it with our mouth and to practice it in our life.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 4, 6, 8 General Information:
General Information:
Moses continues the speech to the people of Israel he began in Deuteronomy 5:1. Beginning in verse 2, he speaks to the people of Israel as if they were one person. (See: Forms of You)
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might keep ... to keep
"might obey ... to obey"
going over the Jordan
"going to the other side of the Jordan River"
that your days may be prolonged
Long days are a metaphor for a long life. This can be stated in active form. This can be translated similarly to "prolong your days" in Deuteronomy 4:26. AT: "that I may prolong your days" or "that I may cause you to live a long time" (See: Metaphor and Active or Passive)
translationWords
command
statute
decree
Yahweh
God
Jordan River
possess
honor
life
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 6:1-25 Moses here explains how the stipulations in the…
6:1-25 Moses here explains how the stipulations in the following sections should be applied and handed on to future generations.
6:1 Moses added commands to decrees and regulations, the usual formula for covenant stipulations (see 4:1; 5:1); commands is a general term for the whole body of instruction.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.