CHAPTER 4

(1451 B.C.)

GODS LAW

¹Now therefore hearken, O Israel, unto the Statutes and unto the Judgments, which I teach you, for to do them, that you may live, and go in and possess the land which the LORD God of your fathers gives you. (The Law of God was divided into three parts, the Civil, the Ceremonial, and the Moral. The truth is, due to mans fallen condition, keeping the Law of God was beyond his ability. So, the Sacrificial System served as a means to atone for sin; however, every Israelite was definitely to try to keep the Law. The only One Who kept the Law perfectly, and in every respect, was the Lord Jesus Christ, Who did it all on our behalf [Gal. 4:4].)

²You shall not add unto the Word which I command you, neither shall you diminish ought from it, that you may keep the Commandments of the LORD your God which I command you (regrettably, Israel decimated this Command; by the time of Christ, they had added over 600 oral laws to the original Law of Moses, even claiming that the oral laws were more important; diminishing the Word of God, or adding to the Word of God, or ignoring it altogether is the sin of the modern Church).

³Your eyes have seen what the LORD did because of Baal-peor: for all the men who followed Baal-peor, the LORD your God has destroyed them from among you (this should have been a lesson!).

⁴But you who did cleave unto the LORD your God are alive every one of you this day.

⁵Behold, I have taught you Statutes and Judgments, even as the LORD my God commanded me, that you should do so in the land where you go to possess it.

⁶Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these Statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. (The Law of God, devised totally by the Lord, placed Israel light-years ahead of all the surrounding nations, and in every capacity.)

⁷For what nation is there so great, who has God so near unto them, as the LORD our God is in all things that we call upon Him for? (In fact, no other nation throughout the entirety of the world was so blessed as Israel. The Lord belonged to Israel exclusively.)

⁸And what nation is there so great, that has Statutes and Judgments so righteous as all this Law, which I set before you this day? (None!)

⁹Only take heed to yourself, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things which your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life: but teach them to your sons, and your sons sons (this was the key to all continued blessings);

¹⁰Specially the day that you stood before the LORD your God in Horeb, when the LORD said unto me, Gather Me the people together, and I will make them hear My words, that they may learn to fear Me all the days that they shall live upon the Earth, and that they may teach their children.

¹¹And you came near and stood under the mountain; and the mountain burned with fire unto the midst of heaven, with darkness, clouds, and thick darkness (Moses takes Israel back, at least in their remembrance, to Mount Sinai, where the Law was originally given).

¹²And the LORD spoke unto you out of the midst of the fire: you heard the Voice of the words, but saw no similitude; only you heard a Voice (they did not see the shape of God).

¹³And He declared unto you His Covenant, which He commanded you to perform, even Ten Commandments; and He wrote them upon two tables of stone. (This was the Moral Law, and it is still in force, because Moral Law cannot change. Believers keep the Law by simply trusting Christ and what Christ did at the Cross, which gives the Holy Spirit the latitude to develop Righteousness and Holiness in ones life. The Moral Law is then kept, and kept fully, without the Believer even having to address the subject [Rom. 8:2].)

¹⁴And the LORD commanded me at that time to teach you Statutes and Judgments, that you might do them in the land where you go over to possess it (it was required of every Israelite that they understand the Law).

WARNING AGAINST IDOLATRY

¹⁵Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves; for you saw no manner of similitude on the day that the LORD spoke unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire:

¹⁶Lest you corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female (in other words, had they seen a similitude of God, they would have fashioned an idol as to what they had seen; the implication here is that God has a Spirit Body),

¹⁷The likeness of any beast that is on the Earth, the likeness of any winged fowl that flies in the air (no image is to be made of anything of this nature),

¹⁸The likeness of any thing that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the waters beneath the Earth:

¹⁹And lest you lift up your eyes unto heaven, and when you see the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, should be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the LORD your God has divided unto all nations under the whole heaven (most of the nations of the world worshipped these things mentioned here by the Lord).

²⁰But the LORD has taken you, and brought you forth out of the iron furnace, even out of Egypt, to be unto Him a people of inheritance, as you are this day.

²¹Furthermore the LORD was angry with me for your sakes, and swore that I should not go over Jordan, and that I should not go in unto that good land, which the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance:

²²But I must die in this land, I must not go over Jordan: but you shall go over, and possess that good land (how these words must have hurt Moses).

A WARNING

²³Take heed unto yourselves, lest you forget the Covenant of the LORD your God, which He made with you, and make you a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, which the LORD your God has forbidden you.

²⁴For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God (He is jealous over His People, because He loves us, and will not endure any rivalry in our affection and devotion).

²⁵When you shall beget children, and childrens children, and you shall have remained long in the land, and shall corrupt yourselves, and make a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, and shall do evil in the sight of the LORD your God, to provoke Him to anger (while those in the modern Church do not make graven images of sorts, still, idolatry, sadly, is alive and well; anything that we place before Christ and Him Crucified becomes an idol; to be sure, such provokes the Lord to anger):

²⁶I call Heaven and Earth to witness against you this day, that you shall soon utterly perish from off the land whereunto you go over Jordan to possess it; you shall not prolong your days upon it, but shall utterly be destroyed (the warning is clear!).

²⁷And the LORD shall scatter you among the nations (and thats exactly what happened), and you shall be left few in number among the heathen, whither the LORD shall lead you (whatever nation that the Israelites found themselves in, they would always be in the minority, and treated accordingly).

²⁸And there you shall serve gods, the work of mens hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.

²⁹But if from thence you shall seek the LORD your God, you shall find Him, if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul. (What a beautiful Promise! If honesty and sincerity find lodging in the heart of any person, irrespective as to what they have done, if the Lord is sought, He will be found.)

³⁰When you are in tribulation, and all these things are come upon you, even in the latter days (actually refers to the coming Great Tribulation [Mat. 24:21]), if you turn to the LORD your God, and shall be obedient unto His Voice;

³¹(For the LORD your God is a merciful God;) He will not forsake you, neither destroy you, nor forget the Covenant of your fathers which He swore unto them (ultimately, the Lord will bring the Jews back to their rightful place, with every Promise being kept, which will take place at the Second Coming [Zech. 13:6]).

ISRAEL CHOSEN BY GOD

³²For ask now of the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man upon the Earth, and ask from the one side of heaven unto the other, whether there has been any such thing as this great thing is, or has been heard like it? (The Lord delivered Israel out of Egyptian bondage and, as well, was with Israel through the entirety of the past forty years, performing miracles on a daily basis; no, there had never been anything like it.)

³³Did ever people hear the Voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and live?

³⁴Or has God assayed to go and take Him a nation from the midst of another nation, by temptations, 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 the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?

³⁵Unto you it was shown, that you might know that the LORD He is God; there is none else beside Him (there is no other God).

³⁶Out of Heaven He made you to hear His Voice, that He might instruct you: and upon Earth He showed you His great fire; and you heard His Words out of the midst of the fire.

³⁷And because He loved your fathers (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, etc.), therefore He chose their seed after them, and brought you out in His Sight with His mighty Power out of Egypt;

³⁸To drive out nations from before you greater and mightier than you are, to bring you in, to give you their land for an inheritance, as it is this day.

³⁹Know therefore this day, and consider it in your heart, that the LORD He is God in Heaven above, and upon the Earth beneath: there is none else.

⁴⁰You shall keep therefore His Statutes, and His Commandments, which I command you this day, that it may go well with you, and with your children after you, and that you may prolong your days upon the Earth, which the LORD your God gives you, for ever. (The Expositors say, The sum of this whole exhortation is, first of all, to acknowledge and lay to heart that God is the Alone God of the universe, in Heaven and on Earth; hence, as well, to be obedient to His Laws; and so, to have, as a recompense, a happy continuance in the beloved land.)

CITIES OF REFUGE

⁴¹Then Moses severed three cities on this side Jordan toward the sunrising (as cities of refuge);

⁴²That the slayer might flee thither, which should kill his neighbour unawares, and hated him not in times past; and that fleeing unto one of these cities he might live (not for murderers, but for those who would kill accidentally):

⁴³Namely, Bezer in the wilderness, in the plain country, of the Reubenites; and Ramoth in Gilead, of the Gadites; and Golan in Bashan, of the Manassites.

THE MOSAIC LAW

⁴⁴And this is the Law which Moses set before the Children of Israel:

⁴⁵These are the Testimonies, and the Statutes, and the Judgments, which Moses spoke unto the Children of Israel, after they came forth out of Egypt,

⁴⁶On this side Jordan, in the valley over against Beth-peor, in the land of Sihon king of the Amorites, who dwelt at Heshbon, whom Moses and the Children of Israel smote, after they were come forth out of Egypt:

⁴⁷And they possessed his land, and the land of Og king of Bashan, two kings of the Amorites, which were on this side Jordan toward the sunrising;

⁴⁸From Aroer, which is by the bank of the river Arnon, even unto Mount Sion, which is Hermon,

⁴⁹And all the plain on this side Jordan eastward, even unto the sea of the plain, under the springs of Pisgah.