1And now, Israel, listen to the statutes and to the judgments which I am teaching you to do, so that you may live and go in, and possess the land which Jehovah the God of your fathers is giving to you. 2You shall not add to the Word which I command you, nor take from it, to keep the commandments of Jehovah your God which I command you. 3Your eyes have seen that which Jehovah has done in Baal-peor. For Jehovah your God has destroyed them from among you, the men that followed Baal-peor. 4And you who held fast to Jehovah your God are alive today, all of you. 5Behold, I have taught you statutes and ordinances, as Jehovah my God has commanded me, to do them, in the midst of the land where you are going in, to possess it, 6and you shall keep and do them, for it shall be your wisdom and your understanding before the eyes of the peoples who hear all these statutes. And they shall say, This great nation is a people wise and understanding. 7For who is a great nation whose God is coming near to them, as Jehovah your God is, in all our calling on Him? 8And who is a great nation whose statutes and judgments are as righteous as all this Law which I set before you today? 9Only, be on guard for yourself and keep your soul carefully, that you do not forget the things which your eyes have seen; and that they not depart from your heart all the days of your life. And you shall make them known to your sons, and to your sons' sons. 10 The day that you stood before Jehovah your God in Horeb, when Jehovah said to me, Gather the people to Me, and I will make them hear My Words, that they may learn to fear Me all the days that they live on the earth; and that they may teach their sons. 11And you drew near and stood below the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire to the heart of the heavens, darkness, cloud and thick gloom. 12And Jehovah spoke to you out of the midst of the fire; you heard the sound of words, but you did not see a form, only a voice. 13And He declared His covenant to you which He has commanded you to do, the Ten Commandments; and He wrote them on two tablets of stone. 14And Jehovah commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and ordinances, for you to do them in the land which you shall pass over to possess it. 15Therefore you shall carefully watch over your souls, for you have not seen any likeness in the day Jehovah spoke to you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire, 16that you not deal corruptly, and make for yourselves a graven image, a likeness of any figure, the form of a male or female, 17the form of any animal in the earth; the form of any winged bird that flies in the heavens; 18the form of any creeping thing on the ground; the form of any fish in the waters under the earth; 19and that you not lift up your eyes towards the heavens and shall see the sun, and the heavens, and you be drawn away and worship them, and serve them; which Jehovah your God has allotted to all the peoples under all the heavens. 20And Jehovah has taken you, and has brought you forth out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be a people to Him, an inheritance, as it is this day. 21And Jehovah was angry with me because of your words, and swore I would not pass over the Jordan, and that I might not go into the good land which Jehovah your God is giving to you as an inheritance. 22For I will not be in this land; I shall not pass over the Jordan. But you shall pass over, and shall possess this good land. 23Be on guard for yourselves, that you not forget the covenant of Jehovah your God, which He has made with you, and make to yourselves a graven image, a likeness of anything which Jehovah your God has forbidden you. 24For Jehovah your God is a consuming fire; He is a jealous God. 25When you father sons and son's sons, and you have been long in the land, and have dealt corruptly, and have made a graven image, a likeness of anything, and have done evil in the sight of Jehovah your God, to provoke Him to anger; 26I call the heavens and the earth to witness against you today that you shall soon utterly perish from off the land to which you go over the Jordan to possess it; you shall not prolong your days on it, but shall utterly be destroyed. 27And Jehovah shall scatter you among the peoples, and you shall be left few in number among the nations to which Jehovah shall lead you away. 28And there you shall serve other gods, the work of man's hands, wood and stone, which cannot see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell. 29And if you shall seek Jehovah your God from there, then you shall find Him, if you seek Him with your whole heart, and with all your soul, 30in your distress, when all these things have found you, in the latter days, then you shall return to Jehovah your God, and shall listen to His voice. 31For Jehovah your God is a merciful God. He will not forsake you, nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which He swore to them. 32For ask now of the days past which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and from the one end of the heavens to the other end of the heavens, whether there has been a thing as great as this, or has anything like it been heard. 33Has a people heard the voice of God speaking from the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and lived? 34Or has God gone forth to take to Himself a nation from the midst of a nation, by trials, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched out arm, and by great terrors, according to all that Jehovah your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? 35 To you it was revealed, so that you might know that Jehovah is God, and no one else besides Him. 36He made you hear His voice out of the heavens, that He might discipline you; and He made you to see His great fire on earth; and you heard His Word from the midst of the fire. 37And because He loved your fathers, and chose their seed after them, and brought you out with His presence, with His great power, out of Egypt, 38in order to drive out nations greater and mightier than you from before you, to bring you in, to give their land for an inheritance, as it is this day; 39know today, and turn back your heart to it, that Jehovah, He is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath; there is no other. 40And you shall keep His statutes and His commandments which I am commanding you today, so that it may be well with you, and with your sons after you, and so that you may prolong your days on the earth, which Jehovah our God is giving to you all the days. 41Then Moses separated three cities beyond the Jordan, toward the sunrising, 42that the manslayer might flee there, he who killed his neighbor unawares, and did not hate him in times before, and that he fleeing to one of these cities might live: 43Bezer in the wilderness, in the tableland, for the Reubenites; and Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites; and Golan in Bashan for the Manassites. 44And this is the Law which Moses set before the sons of Israel; 45these are the testimonies and the statutes and the ordinances which Moses spoke to the sons of Israel when they came out of Egypt; 46beyond the Jordan in the valley opposite Beth-peor, in the land of Sihon the king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon, whom Moses and the sons of Israel struck when they came out of Egypt. 47And they took possession of his land, and the land of Og the king of Bashan, the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, toward the sunrising; 48from Aroer, which is on the edge of the river of Arnon, even to Mount Sion, which is Hermon; 49and all the Arabah beyond the Jordan eastward, even to the sea of the Arabah, under the Slopes of Pisgah.
Jamieson Fausset Brown Bible Commentary 1 AN EXHORTATION TO OBEDIENCE. (
Deut 4:1-
Deut 4:13)
hearken, O Israel, unto the statutes and unto the judgments, which I teach you--By statutes were meant all ordinances respecting religion and the rites of divine worship; and by judgments, all enactments relative to civil matters. The two embraced the whole law of God.
2 Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you--by the introduction of any heathen superstition or forms of worship different from those which I have appointed (
Deut 12:32;
Num 15:39;
Matt 15:9).
neither shall ye diminish aught from it--by the neglect or omission of any of the observances, however trivial or irksome, which I have prescribed. The character and provisions of the ancient dispensation were adapted with divine wisdom to the instruction of that infant state of the church. But it was only a temporary economy; and although God here authorizes Moses to command that all its institutions should be honored with unfailing observance, this did not prevent Him from commissioning other prophets to alter or abrogate them when the end of that dispensation was attained.
3 Your eyes have seen what the Lord did because of Baal-peor . . . the Lord thy God hath destroyed them from among you--It appears that the pestilence and the sword of justice overtook only the guilty in that affair (
Num 25:1-
Num 25:9) while the rest of the people were spared. The allusion to that recent and appalling judgment was seasonably made as a powerful dissuasive against idolatry, and the fact mentioned was calculated to make a deep impression on people who knew and felt the truth of it.
5 this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes--Moses predicted that the faithful observance of the laws given them would raise their national character for intelligence and wisdom. In point of fact it did do so; for although the heathen world generally ridiculed the Hebrews for what they considered a foolish and absurd exclusiveness, some of the most eminent philosophers expressed the highest admiration of the fundamental principle in the Jewish religion--the unity of God; and their legislators borrowed some laws from the constitution of the Hebrews.
7 what nation is there so great--Here he represents their privileges and their duty in such significant and comprehensive terms, as were peculiarly calculated to arrest their attention and engage their interest. The former, their national advantages, are described (
Deut 4:7-
Deut 4:8), and they were twofold: 1. God's readiness to hear and aid them at all times; and 2. the excellence of that religion in which they were instructed, set forth in the "statutes and judgments so righteous" which the law of Moses contained. Their duty corresponding to these pre-eminent advantages as a people, was also twofold: 1. their own faithful obedience to that law; and 2. their obligation to imbue the minds of the young and rising generation with similar sentiments of reverence and respect for it.
10 the day that thou stoodest before the Lord . . . in Horeb--The delivery of the law from Sinai was an era never to be forgotten in the history of Israel. Some of those whom Moses was addressing had been present, though very young; while the rest were federally represented by their parents, who in their name and for their interest entered into the national covenant.
12 ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude--Although articulate sounds were heard emanating from the mount, no form or representation of the Divine Being who spoke was seen to indicate His nature or properties according to the notions of the heathen.
15 A PARTICULAR DISSUASIVE AGAINST IDOLATRY. (Deu. 4:14-40)
Take . . . good heed . . . for ye saw no manner of similitude--The extreme proneness of the Israelites to idolatry, from their position in the midst of surrounding nations already abandoned to its seductions, accounts for their attention being repeatedly drawn to the fact that God did not appear on Sinai in any visible form; and an earnest caution, founded on that remarkable circumstance, is given to beware, not only of making representations of false gods, but also any fancied representation of the true God.
16 Lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image--The things are here specified of which God prohibited any image or representation to be made for the purposes of worship; and, from the variety of details entered into, an idea may be formed of the extensive prevalence of idolatry in that age. In whatever way idolatry originated, whether from an intention to worship the true God through those things which seemed to afford the strongest evidences of His power, or whether a divine principle was supposed to reside in the things themselves, there was scarcely an element or object of nature but was deified. This was particularly the case with the Canaanites and Egyptians, against whose superstitious practices the caution, no doubt, was chiefly directed. The former worshipped Baal and Astarte, the latter Osiris and Isis, under the figure of a male and a female. It was in Egypt that animal-worship most prevailed, for the natives of that country deified among beasts the ox, the heifer, the sheep, and the goat, the dog, the cat, and the ape; among birds, the ibis, the hawk, and the crane; among reptiles, the crocodile, the frog, and the beetle; among fishes, all the fish of the Nile; some of these, as Osiris and Isis, were worshipped over all Egypt, the others only in particular provinces. In addition they embraced the Zabian superstition, the adoration of the Egyptians, in common with that of many other people, extending to the whole starry host. The very circumstantial details here given of the Canaanitish and Egyptian idolatry were owing to the past and prospective familiarity of the Israelites with it in all these forms.
20 But the Lord hath taken you, and brought you forth out of the iron furnace--that is, furnace for smelting iron. A furnace of this kind is round, sometimes thirty feet deep, and requiring the highest intensity of heat. Such is the tremendous image chosen to represent the bondage and affliction of the Israelites [ROSENMULLER].
to be unto him a people of inheritance--His peculiar possession from age to age; and therefore for you to abandon His worship for that of idols, especially the gross and debasing system of idolatry that prevails among the Egyptians, would be the greatest folly--the blackest ingratitude.
26 I call heaven and earth to witness against you--This solemn form of adjuration has been common in special circumstances among all people. It is used here figuratively, or as in other parts of Scripture where inanimate objects are called up as witnesses (
Deut 32:1;
Isa 1:2).
28 there ye shall serve gods, the work of men's hands--The compulsory measures of their tyrannical conquerors would force them into idolatry, so that their choice would become their punishment.
30 in the latter days, if thou turn to the Lord thy God--either towards the destined close of their captivities, when they evinced a returning spirit of repentance and faith, or in the age of Messiah, which is commonly called "the latter days," and when the scattered tribes of Israel shall be converted to the Gospel of Christ. The occurrence of this auspicious event will be the most illustrious proof of the truth of the promise made in
Deut 4:31.
41 Then Moses severed three cities on this side Jordan--(See on
Josh 20:7).
44 this is the law which Moses set before the children of Israel--This is a preface to the rehearsal of the law, which, with the addition of various explanatory circumstances, the following chapters contain.
46 Beth-peor--that is, "house" or "temple of Peor." It is probable that a temple of this Moabite idol stood in full view of the Hebrew camp, while Moses was urging the exclusive claims of God to their worship, and this allusion would be very significant if it were the temple where so many of the Israelites had grievously offended.
49 The springs of Pisgah--more frequently, Ashdoth-pisgah (
Deut 3:17;
Josh 12:3;
Josh 13:20), the roots or foot of the mountains east of the Jordan.