The Pulpit Commentary — Deuteronomy — Section 73

EXPOSITION. dispensation, the Le.w has not been o.bolished. OHAPTER lV. Christ, as he himRelf decla!ed, came not to Vera. 1-4O.-ADMONITIONS AND EXBOB- destroy the Le.w and the prophets, but to tATIONS, Moses, having presented to the fulfil them (Matt. v. 17). The sin of the people certain facts in thei~ recent_ hlst?ry Pharisees, for which they were censured by which had in them a spec1ally e.n1Watmg our Lord, lay in this, that they taught for and encouraging tendency, proceeds to direct doctrines the commandments of men (Hatt. his discourse to the inculcation of duties xv. 9), and had "made the commandments and exhortations to obedience to the Divine of God of none effect by their traditions " enactments. This portion also of his (Matt. xv. 6). address is of e.n introductory character as Vers. I, 2.-Now therefore; rather And well as whe.t precedes. now. With this Moses passes from referring Vera. I-8.-Exhortation to the observance to what God had done for Israel to admonish of the Law generally. T,he Law we.a to be Israel as to whn.t they had to do as the subjects of God and the recipients of his kept as a complete whole; nothing was to favour. They were to give heed to all the be taken from it or added to it ; it com- statutes and judgments which Moses, as the prised the commandments of Jehovah, and servant of God, had taught them, in order therefore they were not only to do it as that they might do them. Statutes (□'p.~), whe.t Moses, their leader and lawgiver, had the things prescribed or enacteu by In.w, enjoined, but to keep it as a sacred deposit, whether moral, ritual, or civil; jndg-ments (□'!?~.zi;i), rights, whether public or privn.te, not to be altered or tampered with, e.nd to all that each could claim as his due, and observe it as what God their Sovereign had all he was bound to render to God or to his enacted for them. The dignity and worth fellow-men as their due. These two com- of the Law are here asserted, and also its prehend the whole Law as binding on completeness as given by Moses. Any Israel. On the doing of these by the people addition to it, no less than e.ny subtraction depended life; these had been made knowr: to them, not merely for their information, from it, would mar its integrity and o.ft'ect but specifically that they might do them, its perfection. Altered circumstances in and thereby have life; not long life in the process of time might, indeed, lead to the promised land a.lone, though this also is in- desuetude of some parts of the Mosaic en- cluded ( ver. 40; eh. v. 33; vi. 2, etc.), but that actments, and new institutions or laws higher life, that life which man li,es "by eve~y word that proceedeth out of the mouth might be required to meet a new condition of the Loru" ( eh. viii. 3; cf. Lev. xv iii 5; of things, or even in that new condition to Ezek. xx. 11; Matt. iv. -1), tlmt spiritual life fence and sustain the primitive code; but which is in God's favour (Ps. xxx. 5). En- that code was to remain intact in the joying this life e.s the fruit of obedience, Statute-Book, and no alterntions were to be they should also possess as their iuherilanco made upon it that should affect its substance the land promised to their fathers. or nullify e.ny of its principlt:s. New laws Vers. 3, 4.-The people had hau personal experience of the de.nger, on the one ha.nd, o.nd institutions appointed by God would, of transgressing, and the benefit, on the of course, hCLve the samo nuthority as those other, of keeping God's LCIW; they bad seen originCLlly ordaineu by Moses ; and such, how those who sinned in worshipping Baa.1- it cnn hnrdly be doubted, were in point of peor were destroyed (Numb. x.xv. 3, 9), whilst fact under the Hebrew monarchy introduced those who remained faithful to the Lort.l were kept alive. This experi.ence the by the prophets speaking in the name of people hnd he.d only lately before, so th,\t God. The Ll\w, noverthaloss, WI\B kept I\ reference to it would be all the more ■ubstl\ntil\lly entire. Even under the new impressive. Be.al-peor, the idol whose cultu~  TttE nooK OF DlWTERONO'MY. (e1t. I\', 1-2-l.