1Now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I am teaching you to do, 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 am commanding you, nor take away from it, to keep the commandments of Jehovah your God which I am commanding you. 3Your eyes have seen what Jehovah did at Baal-Peor; for Jehovah your God has destroyed from among you all the men who followed Baal-peor. 4But you who held fast to Jehovah your God are alive today, every one of you. 5Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, just as Jehovah my God has commanded me, for you to do them in the midst of the land which you are going in to possess. 6Keep and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the eyes of the peoples who will hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. 7For what great nation is there whose God is near to it, as Jehovah our God is to us, in all that we call upon Him? 8And what great nation is there that has such statutes and righteous judgments as are in all this Law which I am setting before you this day? 9Only take heed to yourself and keep your soul diligently, that you not forget the things your eyes have seen, and that they not depart from your heart all the days of your life; and teach them to your children and your grandchildren. 10The day you stood before Jehovah your God in Horeb, 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 children. 11And you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire to the midst of the heavens, with darkness, cloud, and thick darkness. 12And Jehovah spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of the words, but saw no form; you only heard a voice. 13Thus He declared to you His covenant which He 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 judgments, for you to do them in the land which you are crossing over to possess. 15Take diligent heed to your souls, for you saw no form on the day Jehovah spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, 16that you not act corruptly and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of any statue: male or female figures, 17the figure of any beast on the earth or the figure of any bird that flies in the heavens, 18the figure of anything that creeps on the ground or the figure of any fish that is in the waters beneath the earth. 19And take heed, when you lift up your eyes to the heavens, and you see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the host of the heavens, that you not be driven to bow down to them and serve them, which Jehovah your God has allotted to all the peoples under the heavens. 20But Jehovah has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be His people, an inheritance, as you are this day. 21Furthermore Jehovah was angry with me on account of your words, and swore that I would not cross over the Jordan, and that I would not enter the good land which Jehovah your God is giving to you as an inheritance. 22But I shall die in this land, I shall not cross over the Jordan; but you shall cross over and possess that good land. 23Take heed to yourselves, that you not forget the covenant of Jehovah your God which He has made with you, and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of anything which Jehovah your God has forbidden you. 24For Jehovah your God is a consuming fire, a jealous Mighty God. 25When you beget children and grandchildren and have been in the land a long time, and have acted corruptly and made a carved image in the form of anything, and have done evil in the eyes of Jehovah your God to provoke Him to anger, 26I call the heavens and the earth to witness against you this day, that you shall quickly die and perish from off the land which you are crossing over the Jordan to possess; you shall not prolong your days in it, but shall be destroyed to annihilation. 27And Jehovah will scatter you among the peoples, and you shall be left few in number among the nations where Jehovah will drive you. 28And there you will serve gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell. 29But from there you will seek Jehovah your God, and you shall find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul. 30When you are in distress, and all these things have come upon you in the latter days; then when you have returned unto Jehovah your God and have obeyed His voice 31(for Jehovah your God is a merciful Mighty God), He will not forsake you nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which He has sworn unto them. 32For ask now concerning the former days, which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and ask from one end of the heavens to the other, whether any great thing like this has happened, or anything like it has been heard. 33Has any people ever heard the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and lived? 34Or has God ever tried to go and take for Himself a nation from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, according to all that Jehovah your God has done for you in Egypt before your eyes? 35To you it has been shown, that you might know that Jehovah Himself is God; there is no one else besides Him. 36Out of the heavens He has caused you to hear His voice, to instruct you; on earth He has shown you His great fire, and you have heard His Words out of the midst of the fire. 37And because He has loved your fathers, therefore He chose their seed after them and brought you out of Egypt before Him with His mighty power, 38to drive out before you nations greater and mightier than you, to bring you in, to give you their land as an inheritance, as it is this day. 39Therefore know this day, and consider it in your heart, that Jehovah Himself is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath; there is no other. 40You shall therefore keep His statutes and His commandments which I am commanding you today, that it may be well with you and with your children after you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which Jehovah your God is giving you for all time. 41Then Moses set apart three cities on this side of the Jordan, toward the rising of the sun, 42that the manslayer might flee there, who kills his neighbor unintentionally, without having hated him in time past, and that by fleeing to one of these cities he might live: 43Bezer in the wilderness on the plateau for the Reubenites, Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites, and Golan in Bashan for the Manassites. 44Now this is the Law which Moses set before the children of Israel. 45These are the testimonies, the statutes, and the judgments which Moses spoke to the children of Israel after they came out of Egypt, 46across the Jordan, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, in the land of Sihon king of the Amorites, who dwelt at Heshbon, whom Moses and the children of Israel struck when they came out of Egypt. 47And they took possession of his land and the land of Og king of Bashan, the two kings of the Amorites, who were across the Jordan, toward the rising of the sun, 48from Aroer, which is next to the River Arnon, even to Mount Sion (that is, Hermon), 49and all the plain on the east side of the Jordan as far as the sea of the plain, below 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.
