20 `When Jehovah thy God doth enlarge thy border, as He hath spoken to thee, and thou hast said, Let me eat flesh -- for thy soul desireth to eat flesh -- of all the desire of thy soul thou dost eat flesh.
`And if Jehovah thy God doth enlarge thy border, as He hath sworn to thy fathers, and hath given to thee all the land which He hath spoken to give to thy fathers --
every place on which the sole of your foot treadeth is yours; from the wilderness, and Lebanon, from the river, the river Phrat, even unto the farther sea is your border;
and thy seed hath been as the dust of the land, and thou hast broken forth westward, and eastward, and northward, and southward, and all families of the ground have been blessed in thee and in thy seed.
My soul desired, yea, it hath also been consumed, For the courts of Jehovah, My heart and my flesh cry aloud unto the living God,
For God is my witness, how I long for you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ,
and by their supplication in your behalf, longing after you because of the exceeding grace of God upon you;
Lo, I have longed for Thy precepts, In Thy righteousness quicken Thou me,
Broken hath my soul for desire Unto Thy judgments at all times.
In that day hath Jehovah made with Abram a covenant, saying, `To thy seed I have given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Phrat, with the Kenite, and the Kenizzite, and the Kadmonite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Rephaim, and the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Girgashite, and the Jebusite.'
A Psalm of David, in his being in the wilderness of Judah. O God, Thou `art' my God, earnestly do I seek Thee, Thirsted for Thee hath my soul, Longed for Thee hath my flesh, In a land dry and weary, without waters.
and David longeth and saith, `Who doth give me a drink of the water of the well of Beth-Lehem, which `is' by the gate?'
and `the soul of' king David determineth to go out unto Absalom, for he hath been comforted for Amnon, for `he is' dead.
and `one' calleth the name of that place Kibroth-Hattaavah, for there they have buried the people who lust.
unto a month of days, till that it come out from your nostrils, and it hath become to you an abomination; because that ye have loathed Jehovah, who `is' in your midst, and weep before Him, saying, Why is this? -- we have come out of Egypt!'
`And I have set thy border from the Red Sea, even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness unto the River: for I give into your hand the inhabitants of the land, and thou hast cast them out from before thee;
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Deuteronomy 12
Commentary on Deuteronomy 12 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 12
Moses at this chapter comes to the particular statues which he had to give in charge to Israel, and he begins with those which relate to the worship of God, and particularly those which explain the second commandment, about which God is in a special manner jealous.
Deu 12:1-4
From those great original truths, That there is a God, and that there is but one God, arise those great fundamental laws, That that God is to be worshipped, and he only, and that therefore we are to have no other God before him: this is the first commandment, and the second is a guard upon it, or a hedge about it. To prevent a revolt to false gods, we are forbidden to worship the true God in such a way and manner as the false gods were worshipped in, and are commanded to observe the instituted ordinances of worship that we may adhere to the proper object of worship. For this reason Moses is very large in his exposition of the second commandment. What is contained in this and the four following chapters mostly refers to that. These are statutes and judgments which they must observe to do (v. 1),
Deu 12:5-32
There is not any one particular precept (as I remember) in all the law of Moses so largely pressed and inculcated as this, by which they are all tied to bring their sacrifices to that one altar which was set up in the court of the tabernacle, and there to perform all the rituals of their religion; for, as to moral services, then, no doubt, as now, men might pray every where, as they did in their synagogues. The command to do this, and the prohibition of the contrary, are here repeated again and again, as we teach children: and yet we are sure that there is in scripture no vain repetition; but all this stress is laid upon it,
Let us now reduce this long charge to its proper heads.