Vcrs. 44-49.-The circumstances under which tlte Law was reiterated. These verses are manifestly introduct.ory to th~ discourse of the succeeding chapters. Moses is about to declare the "testimonies" ( n,_pr), what comes forth from God to indicate bis will; and the" ~tatutes" ( 0 ·p.~iJ), the defined duties of moral obligation; and the "ju<lgments" ( 0 •;;,~11'9,;i), or mutual rights of men. The conditions of his speech are Lere detailed. I. THE ISRAELITES HAD nECEIVED AN EARNEST OF THE PROMISED INHERITANCE. They Lad got, as we have seen, the land of the Amorites. The kingdoms of Og and of Sihon were already in the hands of the two and a half tribes. Moses bad a vantage-ground, tl,erefore, from which to plead the claims of God. And so, when we get an earnest of the promised inheritance in the gift of the Spirit, we are more likely to yield ourselves to the Divine demands (Eph. i. 14). We have an ioheritance on this side the Jordan of death, more important than the pastures of ~ashan, and God, having given us this, may well make demands upon us. 11. 'l'HE EXPERIENCE THROUGH WHICH THEY HAD PASSED WAS ALSO MOST IMPORTANT, Fur tlie temporal inheritance in Moab and Ilashan was a minor part of their gifts from on. v. 1-88,] THE BOOK 01!' DEUTERONOMY. 83
God .. Their fe~lowship at Sinai, their wanderings_ through the wilderness, the chequered exponence of Judgment and of mercy, all corn bmed to make the Israelites in Moab a favoured people. No other nation had had such an experience and history. Ill. 'J'HE nEITERATION OF THE LAW WAS IN THE MIDST OF HAPPIER CONDITIONS. At Sinai their fathers nnd themselves had witnessed awe-inspiring wonders. The mount was tho centre of quaking and fear. Even Moses had to yield to the panornma of terror, and to say, "I exceedingly fear and quake." But now in Moab all around them is bright and hopeful. Mercy encompassed them, and so they were more likely to enter into the spirit of the Law, which Moses makes out to be love (eh. vi. 1-5). IV. WE LEARN FROM THIS THAT GOD FIRST GIVES BLESSINGS AND THEN ASKS OBEDI- ENCE. It is here that we see plainly the essence of the gospel. The glad tidin,,.s consist of the offer of a full and free salvation to the sinner, on the ground that he is"a sinner and cannot save himself. '!'he salvation is saddled with no condition. This is the trouble-it is too good news to be true, in the sinner's sight. He can hardly credit such free gift-he would rather pay something for it. But God is firm, and will make no half bargains. But when the sinner has been redeemed from Egypt and brought to God, he is ex- pected in gratitude to obey God's Law. It is his rule of life, and be renders obedience to it willingly. People "put the cart before the horse," and fancy God will take somethin"' in part payment, and could not think of refusing them! Nothing is so important just now as clear views about the plan of salvation.-R. M. E,
EXPOSITION.
that the covenant bad been- made, it might OHAPTER V. be with propriety said that it was me.de with those whom Moses addressed e.t this time, THE DECALOGUE THE BA.SIS OF THE OovE- inasmuch as they constituted the nation. NANT, THE EsSENOE OF THE WHOLE LAW, Vere. 4, 5.-The Lord talked with you AND THE CONDITION OF LIFE AND face to faoe. God spoke to them immedi- FELICITY. - ately, in their presence and to their face, Vere. 1-33. from the mount, as one person might to Vere. 1-5.-Moeee reminds them of the anal.her. There is o. slight difference in malting of the covenant e.t Horeb, and of form between the phrase here and that in the revelation of the fundamental law of Exod. xxxiii. 11 anrl eh. x:uiv. 10, where it the covenant there. As he we.a about to is used in reference to Moses, but it is recapitulate the laws which God their so slight (c•ip instead of c•.i~-Si;:) that no King had enacted, it was fitting that he difference of meaning can be elicited. GoJ spake directly to the people, as he did to shouhl refer at the outset to that covenant Moses, only Moses was admitted to closer relation between Jehovah and Israel on communion with him tho.n the people were. which all the injunctions of the Law rested. This difference is sufficiently indicated in Ver. 1.-And Moses celled ell Israel [ called ver. 5, where the mediatory function of to all Israel], and said. " The calling refers Moses, in the promulgation of the Law and not to the publicity of the address, but to the making of the covenant, is described a~ the clear voice which, breaking forth from necessitated by the fear of the people, and the inmost heart of Moses, aimed at pene- their not going up into the mount (Cl'. Exod. trating, as far as possible, to all (Gen. xlix. xi.x. 19, etc.). This is referred to more fully l; John vii. 37)" (Schroeder). (Cf. also afterwards (ver. 23, etc.). I stood between the Prov. viii. 4.) Lord and· you; i.e. acted as mediator; L:XX., Vore. 2, 3.-Not with our fathers, the <l<TTf/lmv ava µ.luov ( cf. Gal. iii. 19). pat~iarchs (cf. eh. iv. 37.) The covenant to Ver. 6.-I nm Jehovah thy God. "The which Moses refers is not that made with Law, the establishing rule for men, can pro- Abraham, but that made at Sinai, with ceed only from him who alone and over all I~r~el o.e e. people; and though the in- stRnds fast; i.e. from God, specially as dtv~duals who were then present had all Jehovah. The eternal, unchangeable One, pensbed with the exception of Moses, since he demands the obedience of faith (is Jo~lma, and Caleb, the nation survived, and not merely the moral imperative), must not 11s it was with the nation as an organio whole only reveal bin1self, but in revealing bimsdt THE BOOK OF DEUTERONOMY. rcn. v. 1-33.