5 I am standing between Jehovah and you, at that time, to declare to you the word of Jehovah, for ye have been afraid from the presence of the fire, and ye have not gone up into the mount; saying:
Why, then, the law? on account of the transgressions it was added, till the seed might come to which the promise hath been made, having been set in order through messengers in the hand of a mediator --
And it cometh to pass, on the third day, while it is morning, that there are voices, and lightnings, and a heavy cloud, on the mount, and the sound of a trumpet very strong; and all the people who `are' in the camp do tremble.
And all the people are seeing the voices, and the flames, and the sound of the trumpet, and the mount smoking; and the people see, and move, and stand afar off, and say unto Moses, `Speak thou with us, and we hear, and let not God speak with us, lest we die.' And Moses saith unto the people, `Fear not, for to try you hath God come, and in order that His fear may be before your faces -- that ye sin not.' And the people stand afar off, and Moses hath drawn nigh unto the thick darkness where God `is'.
and the men turn from thence, and go towards Sodom; and Abraham is yet standing before Jehovah.
and Moses hath drawn nigh by himself unto Jehovah; and they draw not nigh, and the people go not up with him. And Moses cometh in, and recounteth to the people all the words of Jehovah, and all the judgments, and all the people answer -- one voice, and say, `All the words which Jehovah hath spoken we do.'
Draw near thou, and hear all that which Jehovah our God saith, and thou, thou dost speak unto us all that which Jehovah our God speaketh unto thee, and we have hearkened, and done it.
And He saith to destroy them, Unless Moses, His chosen one, Had stood in the breach before Him, To turn back His wrath from destroying.
And he sheweth me Joshua the high priest standing before the messenger of Jehovah, and the Adversary standing at his right hand, to be an adversary to him. And Jehovah saith unto the Adversary: `Jehovah doth push against thee, O Adversary, Yea, push against thee doth Jehovah, Who is fixing on Jerusalem, Is not this a brand delivered from fire?' And Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and is standing before the messenger. And he answereth and speaketh unto those standing before him, saying: `Turn aside the filthy garments from off him.' And he saith unto him, `See, I have caused thine iniquity to pass away from off thee, so as to clothe thee with costly apparel.' He also said, `Let them set a pure diadem on his head. And they set the pure diadem on his head, and clothe him with garments. And the messenger of Jehovah is standing,
for not into holy places made with hands did the Christ enter -- figures of the true -- but into the heaven itself, now to be manifested in the presence of God for us;
For ye came not near to the mount touched and scorched with fire, and to blackness, and darkness, and tempest, and a sound of a trumpet, and a voice of sayings, which those having heard did entreat that a word might not be added to them, for they were not bearing that which is commanded, `And if a beast may touch the mountain, it shall be stoned, or with an arrow shot through,' and, (so terrible was the sight,) Moses said, `I am fearful exceedingly, and trembling.' But, ye came to Mount Zion, and to a city of the living God, to the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of messengers, to the company and assembly of the first-born in heaven enrolled, and to God the judge of all, and to spirits of righteous men made perfect, and to a mediator of a new covenant -- Jesus, and to blood of sprinkling, speaking better things than that of Abel!
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on Deuteronomy 5
Commentary on Deuteronomy 5 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
A. The True Essence of the Law and Its Fulfilment
The exposition of the law commences with a repetition of the ten words of the covenant, which were spoken to all Israel directly by the Lord Himself.
Deuteronomy 5:1-5 form the introduction, and point out the importance and great significance of the exposition which follows. Hence, instead of the simple sentence “ And Moses said ,” we have the more formal statement “ And Moses called all Israel, and said to them .” The great significance of the laws and rights about to be set before them, consisted in the fact that they contained the covenant of Jehovah with Israel.
Deuteronomy 5:2-3
“ Jehovah our God made a covenant with us in Horeb; not with our fathers, but with ourselves, who are all of us here alive this day .” The “ fathers” are neither those who died in the wilderness, as Augustine supposed, nor the forefathers in Egypt, as Calvin imagined; but the patriarchs, as in Deuteronomy 4:37. Moses refers to the conclusion of the covenant at Sinai, which was essentially distinct from the covenant at Sinai, which was essentially distinct from the covenant made with Abraham ( Genesis 15:18), though the latter laid the foundation for the Sinaitic covenant. But Moses passed over this, as it was not his intention to trace the historical development of the covenant relation, but simply to impress upon the hearts of the existing generation the significance of its entrance into covenant with the Lord. The generation, it is true, with which God made the covenant at Horeb, had all died out by that time, with the exception of Moses, Joshua, and Caleb, and only lived in the children, who, though in part born in Egypt, were all under twenty years of age at the conclusion of the covenant at Sinai, and therefore were not among the persons with whom the Lord concluded the covenant. But the covenant was made not with the particular individuals who were then alive, but rather with the nation as an organic whole. Hence Moses could with perfect justice identify those who constituted the nation at that time, with those who had entered into covenant with the Lord at Sinai. The separate pronoun ( we ) is added to the pronominal suffix for the sake of emphasis, just as in Genesis 4:26, etc.; and אלּה again is so connected with אנחנוּ , as to include the relative in itself.
Deuteronomy 5:4-5
“ Jehovah talked with you face to face in the mount out of the midst of the fire ,” i.e., He came as near to you as one person to another. בּפנים פּנים is not perfectly synonymous with פּנים אל פּנים , which is used in Exodus 33:11 with reference to God's speaking to Moses (cf. Deuteronomy 34:10, and Genesis 32:31), and expresses the very confidential relation in which the Lord spoke to Moses as one friend to another; whereas the former simply denotes the directness with which Jehovah spoke to the people. - Before repeating the ten words which the Lord addressed directly to the people, Moses introduces the following remark in Deuteronomy 5:5 - “ I stood between Jehovah and you at that time, to announce to you the word of Jehovah; because ye were afraid of the fire, and went not up into the mount ” - for the purpose of showing the mediatorial position which he occupied between the Lord and the people, not so much at the proclamation of the ten words of the covenant, as in connection with the conclusion of the covenant generally, which alone in fact rendered the conclusion of the covenant possible at all, on account of the alarm of the people at the awful manifestation of the majesty of the Lord. The word of Jehovah, which Moses as mediator had to announce to the people, had reference not to the instructions which preceded the promulgation of the decalogue (Exodus 19:11.), but, as is evident from Deuteronomy 5:22-31, primarily to the further communications which the Lord was about to address to the nation in connection with the conclusion of the covenant, besides the ten words (viz., Exodus 20:18; 22:1-23:33), to which in fact the whole of the Sinaitic legislation really belongs, as being the further development of the covenant laws. The alarm of the people at the fire is more fully described in Deuteronomy 5:25. The word “ saying ” at the end of Deuteronomy 5:5 is dependent upon the word “ talked ” in Deuteronomy 5:4; Deuteronomy 5:5 simply containing a parenthetical remark.
In vv. 6-21, the ten covenant words are repeated from Ex 20, with only a few variations, which have already been discussed in connection with the exposition of the decalogue at Exodus 20:1-14. - In Deuteronomy 5:22-33, Moses expounds still further the short account in Exodus 20:18-21, viz., that after the people had heard the ten covenant words, in their alarm at the awful phenomena in which the Lord revealed His glory, they entreated him to stand between as mediator, that God Himself might not speak to them any further, and that they might not die, and then promised that they would hearken to all that the Lord should speak to him (Exodus 20:23 -31). His purpose in doing so was to link on the exhortation in vv. 32, 33, to keep all the commandments of the Lord and do them, which paves the way for passing to the exposition of the law which follows. “A great voice” (Exodus 20:22) is an adverbial accusative, signifying “ with a great voice” (cf. Ges.
Deuteronomy 5:24-27 contain a rhetorical, and at the same time really a more exact, account of the events described in Exodus 20:18-20 (15-17). ואתּ (Deuteronomy 5:24), a contraction of ואתּה , as in Numbers 11:15 (cf. Ewald , §184, a .). Jehovah's reply to the words of the people (Deuteronomy 5:28-31) is passed over in Ex 20. God approved of what the people said, because it sprang from a consciousness of the unworthiness of any sinner to come into the presence of the holy God; and He added, “ Would that there were always this heart in them to fear Me,” i.e., would that they were always of the same mind to fear Me and keep all My commandments, that it might be well with them and their children for ever. He then directed the people to return to their tents, and appointed Moses as the mediator, to whom He would address all the law, that he might teach it to the people (cf. Deuteronomy 4:5). Having been thus entreated by the people to take the office of mediator, and appointed to that office by the Lord, Moses could very well bring his account of these events to a close (Deuteronomy 5:32, Deuteronomy 5:33), by exhorting them to observe carefully all the commandments of the Lord, and not to turn aside to the right hand or to the left, i.e., not to depart in any way from the mode of life pointed out in the commandments (cf. Deuteronomy 17:11, Deuteronomy 17:20; Deuteronomy 28:14; Joshua 1:7, etc.), that it might be well with them, etc. (cf. Deuteronomy 4:40). וטוב , perfect with ו rel. instead of the imperfect.