The Pulpit Commentary — Deuteronomy — Section 445

,ers. 22-28.-171e stranger's wonder. The state of the Holy Land- I. .AN EVIDENCE OF THE TRUTH OF REVELATION. The sterility of Palestine has been urged in disproof of Dible representations of its former fruitfulness and plenty. It should rather be remembered that, were the Holy Land in a less desolate state than it is, Dible predictions would not have been fulfilled-revelation would have been discredited. II. .A WO:t,"DER TO THE STRANGER. "Great God I" exclaims Volney, the unbeliever, "from whence proceed such melancholy revolutions? For what cause is the fortune of these countries so strikingly changed? w·hy are so many cities destroyed? Why is not that ancient population reproduced and perpetuated? " (' Ruins,' eh. ii.) ill .A JUST RETRillUTION FOR SIN-pointing a warning to ourselves.-J. 0. Ver. 29-Secret things. The" secret things" of this verse were the things which God had not revealed regarding Israel's future-especially the time and manner of the fulfilment of those promises and threatenings which were made contingent on their obedience or disobedience. The things which had been revealed whetted their appetite to know more (cf. Dan. x.iL 8; John xxi. 21). Moses in this verse discourages the prying of a too eager curiosity into things purposely kept secret, while d\recting t~e people to the thiucrs 0 revealed as containing all that was necessary for the domg of their duty. The truth to be drawn from the passage is, that the Bible is primarily a Book for practical guidance, not for solution of speculative difficulties or gratification of a vain curiosity. L DuTY NOT CURIOUS SPECULATION. The difficulties and mysteries inherent in the scheme of ;evela.tion are acknowledged. They may be usefully distributed into three classes. 1. Those which are not peculiar to the Bible, but inhere in all our thinking about the facts of existence. The Bible did not create, if it does not undertake to solve, the mysteries of the origin and existence of evil, of the suffering of the innocent with the guilty, of free-will and necessity, of the reconcilahility of man's freedom with God's foreknowledge and foreordination. These are difficulties of all religion and philosophy, as well as of the Bible. 2. ·Those which are peculiar to the Bible-which emerge in connection with the scheme and process of revelation itself. Such are the doctriries of the Trinity, of the incarnation, of the atonement, of regeneration- doctriries all light and comfort to us on the practical aide, and yet on the speculative side iD.volviDg much that is baffling to the reason. 3. 17iose which arise from our Oil, XXIX, 1~29.J 'rtlE BOOK OF DEUTERONOMY. 4:i7