1 At that time the Lord said to me, Make two other stones, cut like the first two, and come up to me on the mountain, and make an ark of wood.
2 And I will put on the stones the words which were on the first stones which were broken by you, and you are to put them into the ark.
3 So I made an ark of hard wood, and had two stones cut like the others, and went up the mountain with the stones in my hands.
4 And he put on the stones, as in the first writing, the ten rules which the Lord gave you on the mountain out of the fire on the day of the great meeting: and the Lord gave the stones to me.
5 And turning round I came down from the mountain and put the stones in the ark which I had made; and there they are as the Lord gave me orders.
6 (And the children of Israel went on from Beeroth Bene-jaakan to Moserah: there death came to Aaron and he was put to rest in the earth; and Eleazar, his son, took his place as priest.
7 From there they went on to Gudgodah, and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, a land of streams of water.
8 At that time the Lord had the tribe of Levi marked out to take up the ark of the Lord's agreement, to be before the Lord and to do his work and to give blessings in his name, to this day.
9 For this reason Levi has no part or heritage for himself among his brothers: the Lord is his heritage, as the Lord your God said to him.)
10 And I was in the mountain, as at the first time, for forty days and forty nights; and again the ears of the Lord were open to my prayer, and he did not send destruction on you.
11 Then the Lord said to me, Get up and go on your journey before the people, so that they may go in and take the land which I said in my oath to their fathers that I would give them.
12 And now, Israel, what would the Lord your God have you do, but to go in the fear of the Lord your God, walking in all his ways and loving him and doing his pleasure with all your heart and all your soul,
13 Doing the orders of the Lord and keeping his laws which I give you this day for your good?
14 The Lord your God is ruler of heaven, of the heaven of heavens, and of the earth with everything in it.
15 But the Lord had delight in your fathers and love for them, marking out for himself their seed after them, even you, from all peoples, as at this day.
16 Let your circumcision be of the heart, and put away your pride.
17 For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, strong in power and greatly to be feared, who has no respect for any man's position and takes no rewards:
18 Judging uprightly in the cause of the widow and of the child who has no father, and giving food and clothing in his mercy to the man from a strange country.
19 So be kind to the man from a strange country who is living among you, for you yourselves were living in a strange country in the land of Egypt.
20 Let the fear of the Lord your God be before you, give him worship and be true to him at all times, taking your oaths in his name.
21 He is your God, the God of your praise, your God who has done for you all these works of power which your eyes have seen.
22 Your fathers went down into Egypt with seventy persons; and now the Lord your God has made you like the stars of heaven in number.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Deuteronomy 10
Commentary on Deuteronomy 10 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 10
De 10:1-22. God's Mercy in Restoring the Two Tables.
1. At that time the Lord said unto me, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first—It was when God had been pacified through the intercessions of Moses with the people who had so greatly offended Him by the worship of the golden calf. The obedient leader executed the orders he had received as to the preparation both of the hewn stones, and the ark or chest in which those sacred archives were to be laid.
3. And I made an ark of shittim wood—It appears, however, from Ex 37:1, that the ark was not framed till his return from the mount, or most probably, he gave instructions to Bezaleel, the artist employed on the work, before he ascended the mount—that, on his descent, it might be finished, and ready to receive the precious deposit.
4, 5. he wrote on the tables, according to the first writing—that is, not Moses, who under the divine direction acted as amanuensis, but God Himself who made this inscription a second time with His own hand, to testify the importance He attached to the ten commandments. Different from other stone monuments of antiquity, which were made to stand upright and in the open air, those on which the divine law was engraven were portable, and designed to be kept as a treasure. Josephus says that each of the tables contained five precepts. But the tradition generally received, both among Jewish and Christian writers is, that one table contained four precepts, the other six.
5. I … put the tables in the ark which I had made; and there they be, as the Lord commanded me—Here is another minute, but important circumstance, the public mention of which at the time attests the veracity of the sacred historian.
6-9. the children of Israel took their journey from Beeroth of the children of Jaakan to Mosera—So sudden a change from a spoken discourse to a historical narrative has greatly puzzled the most eminent biblical scholars, some of whom reject the parenthesis as a manifest interpolation. But it is found in the most ancient Hebrew manuscripts, and, believing that all contained in this book was given by inspiration and is entitled to profound respect, we must receive it as it stands, although acknowledging our inability to explain the insertion of these encampment details in this place. There is another difficulty in the narrative itself. The stations which the Israelites are said successively to have occupied are enumerated here in a different order from Nu 33:31. That the names of the stations in both passages are the same there can be no doubt; but, in Numbers, they are probably mentioned in reference to the first visit of the Hebrews during the long wandering southwards, before their return to Kadesh the second time; while here they have a reference to the second passage of the Israelites, when they again marched south, in order to compass the land of Edom. It is easy to conceive that Mosera (Hor) and the wells of Jaakan might lie in such a direction that a nomadic horde might, in different years, at one time take the former first in their way, and at another time the latter [Robinson].
10-22. Moses here resumes his address, and having made a passing allusion to the principal events in their history, concludes by exhorting them to fear the Lord and serve Him faithfully.
16. Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart—Here he teaches them the true and spiritual meaning of that rite, as was afterwards more strongly urged by Paul (Ro 2:25, 29), and should be applied by us to our baptism, which is "not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God" [1Pe 3:21].