1 And Moses sent for all Israel, and said to them, Give ear, O Israel, to the laws and the decisions which I give you today, and give attention to them so that you may keep and do them.
2 The Lord our God made an agreement with us in Horeb.
3 The Lord did not make this agreement with our fathers but with us, who are all living and present here today.
4 The word of the Lord came to you face to face on the mountain, out of the heart of the fire,
5 (I was between the Lord and you at that time, to make clear to you the word of the Lord: because, through fear of the fire, you did not go up the mountain;) saying,
6 I am the Lord your God, who took you out of the land of Egypt, out of the prison-house.
7 You are to have no other gods but me.
8 You may not make for yourselves an image in the form of anything in heaven or on earth or in the waters under the earth:
9 You may not go down on your faces before them or give them worship: for I, the Lord your God, am a God who will not give his honour to another; and I will send punishment on the children for the wrongdoing of their fathers, to the third and fourth generation of my haters;
10 And I will have mercy through a thousand generations on those who have love for me and keep my laws.
11 You are not to make use of the name of the Lord your God for an evil purpose; whoever takes the Lord's name on his lips for an evil purpose will be judged as a sinner by the Lord.
12 Keep the Sabbath day as a holy day, as you have been ordered by the Lord your God.
13 On six days do all your work:
14 But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; on that day do no work, you or your son or your daughter, or your man-servant or your woman-servant, or your ox or your ass or any of your cattle, or the man from a strange country who is living among you; so that your man-servant and your woman-servant may have rest as well as you.
15 And keep in mind that you were a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord your God took you out of that land by his strong hand and his stretched-out arm: for this reason the Lord has given you orders to keep the Sabbath day.
16 Give honour to your father and your mother, as you have been ordered by the Lord your God; so that your life may be long and all may be well for you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you.
17 Do not put anyone to death without cause.
18 Do not be false to the married relation.
19 Do not take the property of another.
20 Do not give false witness against your neighbour;
21 Or let your desire be turned to your neighbour's wife, or his house or his field or his man-servant or his woman-servant or his ox or his ass or anything which is your neighbour's.
22 These words the Lord said to all of you together on the mountain, out of the heart of the fire, out of the cloud and the dark, with a great voice: and he said no more; he put them in writing on the two stones of the law and gave them to me.
23 And after hearing the voice which came out of the dark while the mountain was burning with fire, all the heads of your tribes and your chiefs came to me,
24 And said, The Lord has let us see his glory and his power, and his voice has come to us out of the fire: today we have seen that a man may go on living even after hearing the voice of God.
25 Why then is death to be our fate? For if the voice of the Lord our God comes to us any more, death will overtake us, and we will be burned up in this great fire.
26 For what man is there in all the earth, who, hearing the voice of the living God as we have, out of the heart of the fire, has been kept from death?
27 Do you go near: and after hearing everything which the Lord our God has to say, give us an account of all he has said to you, and we will give ear, and do it.
28 Then the Lord, hearing your words to me, said to me, The words which this people have said to you have come to my ears: what they have said is well said.
29 If only they had such a heart in them at all times, so that they might go in fear of me and keep my orders and that it might be well for them and for their children for ever!
30 Now say to them, Go back to your tents.
31 But as for you, keep your place here by me, and I will give you all the orders and the laws and the decisions which you are to make clear to them, so that they may do them in the land which I am giving them for their heritage.
32 Take care, then, to do whatever the Lord your God has given you orders to do; let there be no turning away to the right hand or to the left.
33 Go on walking in the way ordered for you by the Lord your God, so that life may be yours and it may be well for you, and your days may be long in the land of your heritage.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Deuteronomy 5
Commentary on Deuteronomy 5 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 5
De 5:1-29. A Commemoration of the Covenant in Horeb.
1. Hear, O Israel, the statutes and judgments—Whether this rehearsal of the law was made in a solemn assembly, or as some think at a general meeting of the elders as representatives of the people, is of little moment; it was addressed either directly or indirectly to the Hebrew people as principles of their peculiar constitution as a nation; and hence, as has been well observed, "the Jewish law has no obligation upon Christians, unless so much of it as given or commanded by Jesus Christ; for whatever in this law is conformable to the laws of nature, obliges us, not as given by Moses, but by virtue of an antecedent law common to all rational beings" [Bishop Wilson].
3. The Lord made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us—The meaning is, "not with our fathers" only, "but with us" also, assuming it to be "a covenant" of grace. It may mean "not with our fathers" at all, if the reference is to the peculiar establishment of the covenant of Sinai; a law was not given to them as to us, nor was the covenant ratified in the same public manner and by the same solemn sanctions. Or, finally, the meaning may be "not with our fathers" who died in the wilderness, in consequence of their rebellion, and to whom God did not give the rewards promised only to the faithful; but "with us," who alone, strictly speaking, shall enjoy the benefits of this covenant by entering on the possession of the promised land.
4. The Lord talked with you face to face in the mount—not in a visible and corporeal form, of which there was no trace (De 4:12, 15), but freely, familiarly, and in such a manner that no doubt could be entertained of His presence.
5. I stood between the Lord and you at that time—as the messenger and interpreter of thy heavenly King, bringing near two objects formerly removed from each other at a vast distance, namely, God and the people (Ga 3:19). In this character Moses was a type of Christ, who is the only mediator between God and men (1Ti 2:5), the Mediator of a better covenant (Heb 8:6; 9:15; 12:24).
to show you the word of the Lord—not the ten commandments—for they were proclaimed directly by the Divine Speaker Himself, but the statutes and judgments which are repeated in the subsequent portion of this book.
6-20. I am the Lord thy God—The word "Lord" is expressive of authority or dominion; and God, who by natural claim as well as by covenant relation was entitled to exercise supremacy over His people Israel, had a sovereign right to establish laws for their government. [See on Ex 20:2.] The commandments which follow are, with a few slight verbal alterations, the same as formerly recorded (Ex 20:1-17), and in some of them there is a distinct reference to that promulgation.
12. Keep the sabbath day to sanctify it, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee—that is, keep it in mind as a sacred institution of former enactment and perpetual obligation. [See on Ex 20:8].
14. that thy man-servant and thy maid-servant may rest as well as thou—This is a different reason for the observance of the Sabbath from what is assigned in Ex 20:8-11, where that day is stated to be an appointed memorial of the creation. But the addition of another motive for the observance does not imply any necessary contrariety to the other; and it has been thought probable that, the commemorative design of the institution being well known, the other reason was specially mentioned on this repetition of the law, to secure the privilege of sabbatic rest to servants, of which, in some Hebrew families, they had been deprived. In this view, the allusion to the period of Egyptian bondage (De 5:15), when they themselves were not permitted to observe the Sabbath either as a day of rest or of public devotion, was peculiarly seasonable and significant, well fitted to come home to their business and bosoms.
16. that it may go well with thee—This clause is not in Exodus, but admitted into Eph 6:3.
21. Neither shalt thou desire thy neighbour's wife, … house, his field—An alteration is here made in the words (see Ex 20:17), but it is so slight ("wife" being put in the first clause and "house" in the second) that it would not have been worth while noticing it, except that the interchange proves, contrary to the opinion of some eminent critics, that these two objects are included in one and the same commandment.
22. he added no more—(Ex 20:1). The pre-eminence of these ten commandments was shown in God's announcing them directly: other laws and institutions were communicated to the people through the instrumentality of Moses.
23-28. And … ye came near unto me—(See on Ex 20:19).
29. Oh, that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me—God can bestow such a heart, and has promised to give it, wherever it is asked (Jer 32:40). But the wish which is here expressed on the part of God for the piety and steadfast obedience of the Israelites did not relate to them as individuals, so much as a nation, whose religious character and progress would have a mighty influence on the world at large.