Deuteronomy
Deuteronomy 4
1Now, Israel, listen to the statutes and to the ordinances which I teach you, to do them; that you may live, and go in and possess the land which Yahweh, the God of your fathers, gives you. 2You shall not add to the word which I command you, neither shall you take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of Yahweh your God which I command you. 3Your eyes have seen what Yahweh did because of Baal Peor; for Yahweh your God has destroyed all the men who followed Baal Peor from among you. 4But you who were faithful to Yahweh your God are all alive today. 5Behold, I have taught you statutes and ordinances, even as Yahweh my God commanded me, that you should do so in the middle of the land where you go in to possess it. 6Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who shall hear all these statutes and say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.” 7For what great nation is there that has a god so near to them as Yahweh our God is whenever we call on him? 8What great nation is there that has statutes and ordinances so righteous as all this law which I set before you today?
9Only be careful, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things which your eyes saw, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life; but make them known to your children and your children’s children— 10the day that you stood before Yahweh your God in Horeb, when Yahweh said to me, “Assemble 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.” 11You came near and stood under the mountain. The mountain burned with fire to the heart of the sky, with darkness, cloud, and thick darkness. 12Yahweh spoke to you out of the middle of the fire: you heard the voice of words, but you saw no form; you only heard a voice. 13He declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even the ten commandments. He wrote them on two stone tablets. 14Yahweh commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and ordinances, that you might do them in the land where you go over to possess it. 15Be very careful, for you saw no kind of form on the day that Yahweh spoke to you in Horeb out of the middle of the fire, 16lest you corrupt yourselves, and make yourself a carved image in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, 17the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the sky, 18the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth; 19and lest you lift up your eyes to the sky, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, even all the army of the sky, you are drawn away and worship them, and serve them, which Yahweh your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole sky. 20But Yahweh has taken you, and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be to him a people of inheritance, as it is today. 21Furthermore Yahweh was angry with me for your sakes, and swore that I should not go over the Jordan, and that I should not go in to that good land which Yahweh your God gives you for an inheritance; 22but I must die in this land. I must not go over the Jordan, but you shall go over and possess that good land. 23Be careful, lest you forget the covenant of Yahweh your God, which he made with you, and make yourselves a carved image in the form of anything which Yahweh your God has forbidden you. 24For Yahweh your God is a devouring fire, a jealous God. 25When you shall father children and children’s children, and you shall have been long in the land, and shall corrupt yourselves, and make a carved image in the form of anything, and shall do that which is evil in Yahweh your God’s sight to provoke him to anger, 26I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will soon utterly perish from off the land which you go over the Jordan to possess it. You will not prolong your days on it, but will utterly be destroyed. 27Yahweh will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where Yahweh will lead you away. 28There you shall serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell. 29But from there you shall seek Yahweh your God, and you shall find him when you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul. 30When you are in oppression, and all these things have come on you, in the latter days you shall return to Yahweh your God and listen to his voice. 31For Yahweh your God is a merciful God. He will not fail you nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which he swore to them. 32For ask now of the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and from the one end of the sky to the other, whether there has been anything as great as this thing is, or has been heard like it? 33Did a people ever hear the voice of God speaking out of the middle of the fire, as you have heard, and live? 34Or has God tried to go and take a nation for himself from among another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, by war, by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, according to all that Yahweh your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? 35It was shown to you so that you might know that Yahweh is God. There is no one else besides him. 36Out of heaven he made you to hear his voice, that he might instruct you. On earth he made you to see his great fire; and you heard his words out of the middle of the fire. 37Because he loved your fathers, therefore he chose their offspring after them, and brought you out with his presence, with his great power, out of Egypt; 38to drive out nations from before you greater and mightier than you, to bring you in, to give you their land for an inheritance, as it is today. 39Know therefore today, and take it to heart, that Yahweh himself is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath. There is no one else. 40You shall keep his statutes and his commandments which I command you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which Yahweh your God gives you for all time.
41Then Moses set apart three cities beyond the Jordan toward the sunrise, 42that the man slayer might flee there, who kills his neighbor unintentionally and didn’t hate him in time past, and that fleeing to one of these cities he might live: 43Bezer in the wilderness, in the plain country, for the Reubenites; and Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites; and Golan in Bashan for the Manassites.
44This is the law which Moses set before the children of Israel. 45These are the testimonies, and the statutes, and the ordinances which Moses spoke to the children of Israel when they came out of Egypt, 46beyond the Jordan, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, in the land of Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon, whom Moses and the children of Israel struck when they came out of Egypt. 47They took possession of his land and the land of Og king of Bashan, the two kings of the Amorites, who were beyond the Jordan toward the sunrise; 48from Aroer, which is on the edge of the valley of the Arnon, even to Mount Sion (also called Hermon), 49and all the Arabah beyond the Jordan eastward, even to the sea of the Arabah, under the slopes of Pisgah.
Commentary
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What others are saying
4 commentators · 82 notes on this chapter
Matthew Henry2
Writes as a pastor rather than a critic. Expect devotional and practical application over historical or linguistic analysis, read through a Reformed covenantal frame — and expect the Old Testament to be read forward toward Christ throughout.
Why this voice is here: The most widely read English commentary for three centuries. Included as a baseline: where Henry and a modern voice diverge, the divergence itself is usually the interesting part.
This most lively and excellent discourse is so entire, and the particulars of it are so often repeated, that we must take it altogether in the exposition of it, and endeavour to digest it into proper heads, for we cannot divide it into paragraphs. I. In…
Here is, 1. The nomination of the cities of refuge on that side Jordan where Israel now lay encamped. Three cities were appointed for that purpose, one in the lot of Reuben, another in that of Gad, and another in that of the half tribe of Manasseh, Deu…
John Gill49
The most exhaustive and the most doctrinally committed here. Expect high — even supralapsarian — Calvinism applied consistently, and unusually heavy use of rabbinic and Talmudic sources for Jewish context. Where a passage bears on election or the will, Gill will read it in one direction, and knowing that in advance is the point.
Why this voice is here: The strongest Calvinist reading available in the public domain, and the best on Jewish background. Read alongside Clarke, not instead of him — between them you get both sides of the argument.
Now therefore hearken, O Israel, unto the statutes and unto the judgments,.... The laws of God, moral, ceremonial, and judicial, which they are exhorted to attend to and obey, in consideration of the great and good things the Lord had done for them, ever…
Ye shall not add to the word which I command you, nether shall you diminish ought from it,.... Neither make new laws of their own, and join them to the law of God, and set them upon a level with it, or prefer them before it; as the Scribes and Pharisees did…
Your eyes have seen what the Lord did because of Baalpeor,.... Because of the idolatry the people of Israel fell into by worshipping that idol, being drawn into it by the daughters of Moab and Midian, through the counsel of Balaam, with whom they committed…
Keil & Delitzsch15
The technical one, and Old Testament only. Expect Hebrew grammar, textual argument, and direct engagement with nineteenth-century critical scholarship — closer to a scholarly apparatus than a devotional read. Where a modern critic claims a text is late or composite, this is where the conservative counter-argument was made.
Why this voice is here: Old Testament only, and heavy going — but the place to look when someone asserts a passage cannot mean what it appears to.
The Israelites were to hearken to the laws and rights which Moses taught to do (that they were to do), that they might live and attain to the possession of the land which the Lord would give them. "Hearkening" involves laying to heart and observing. The words…
Israel was therefore not to forget the things which it had seen at Horeb with its own eyes. Deu 4:9 "Only beware and take care of thyself." To "keep the soul," i.e., to take care of the soul as the seat of life, to defend one's life from danger and injury…
As the Israelites had seen no shape of God at Horeb, they were to beware for their souls' sake (for their lives) of acting corruptly, and making to themselves any kind of image of Jehovah their God, namely, as the context shows, to worship God in it. (On…
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown16
The concise option. Three authors split the canon, so the voice shifts between sections. Expect brief, sober, conservative notes that resolve difficulties rather than dwelling on them — useful for orientation, thinner than Gill or Clarke where a passage is genuinely contested.
Why this voice is here: The quickest way to see what the mainstream Reformed reading of a passage is. Start here, then go to Gill or Clarke when it matters.
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 (Deu 12:32; Num 15:39; Mat 15:9). neither shall ye diminish aught from it--by the neglect or…
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 25:1-9) while the rest of the people…
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…
World English Bible — Public domain