The Pulpit Commentary — Deuteronomy — Section 225

Vers. 1-32.-Regulations for Divine worship: specific rules embodying permanent principles. With this twelfth chapter an entirely new set of instructions begins. Up to this point the exhortations have been for the most part moral: now they are positive. Hitherto the precepts have been, speaking generally, concerning duties which God commanded because they were right; but from this point they concern duties which became right because God had commanded them. Of all specific directions which Moses gave to Israel, none could possibly be more important than those which had to do with the Divine worship. A true, wise, spiritual worship, established and maintained, would do very much to ensure Israel's weal in every other respect; while if corruption was admittecl and tolerated here, its ill effects would soon be seen through the length and breadth of their land. In dealing homiletically with this chapter, we must take it as a whole. 'l'o sever it into paragraphs would be tocon<;eal its unity; taking it, however, as one, we shall see how very far more than is generally supposed, the observance of God's worship among the Hebrews was based on everlasting principles both as to its matter and its manner; and that while there was much ritual in external forms, yet Judaism was not ritualistic in any sense which would imply the efficacy of ritual by itself to bring about spiritual results. Let us enumerate the principles which here are em- bodied in the directions for the worship of God. The forms in which the principles are expressed may change; the principles themselves, never! l. REDREW WORSHIP WAS TO BE IN ALL RESPEOTS A PROTEST AGAINST SURROUNDI:xG IDOLATRY. (Vers. 2, 3, 29-31.) They were not only to carry out a policy of destruc- tion, in sweeping from the land every vestige of ancient heathen worship (see Homily on eh. vii. 1-11), but were to avoid everything like imitation of it. Theirs was a new nationality, a new deliverance, a new faith, and it must be a new kind of worship, corresponding in its purity to the holiness of Jehovah, and in its intelligence to that knowledge of him which they were expected to cultivate in themselves and hand down to others. And so now, if there are corrupt forms of worship, such as Rome's pagan ceremonies baptized with the Christian name, the worship of God's true Church must needs be a protest against it, and a contention for "the simplicity which is in Christ." II. I-r WAS TO BE ACCORDING TO DIVINE DIRECTION. They might not consult their own reli~ious sentiments, as the heathen did, in choosing e.g. the tops of the hills for worship, because they thought so to get nearer God. Israel must consult revelation, and follow it. So with the Church of God now. True, we have not such minute rites enjoined as Israel had, for we need them not now. But in our New Testament writings all needful instructions are given for those who would worship the Father in spirit and in truth. III. 'l'HE DIVINE RULES WERE TO BE PRECISELY ADHERED TO. They might not be swerved from, tiithor by addition or dim~nution (ver, 32), This ia indeed but an 218 TRE BOOK OF DEUTERONOMY. tcH, lUI, 1-32,