9 thou dost not bow thyself to them nor serve them, for I Jehovah thy God `am' a zealous God, charging iniquity of fathers on children, and on a third `generation', and on a fourth, to those hating Me;
keeping kindness for thousands, taking away iniquity, and transgression, and sin, and not entirely acquitting, charging iniquity of fathers on children, and on children's children, on a third `generation', and on a fourth.'
for ye do not bow yourselves to another god -- for Jehovah, whose name `is' Zealous, is a zealous God.
`Thou dost not make to thyself a graven image, or any likeness which `is' in the heavens above, or which `is' in the earth beneath, or which `is' in the waters under the earth. Thou dost not bow thyself to them, nor serve them: for I, Jehovah thy God, `am' a zealous God, charging iniquity of fathers on sons, on the third `generation', and on the fourth, of those hating Me, and doing kindness to thousands, of those loving Me and keeping My commands.
Jehovah `is' slow to anger, and of great kindness; bearing away iniquity and transgression, and not entirely acquitting, charging iniquity of fathers on sons, on a third `generation', and on a fourth; --
Doing kindness to thousands, and recompensing iniquity of fathers into the bosom of their sons after them; God, the great, the mighty, Jehovah of Hosts `is' His name,
And I pray to Jehovah my God, and confess, and say: `I beseech Thee, O Lord God, the great and the fearful, keeping the covenant and the kindness to those loving Him, and to those keeping His commands; we have sinned, and done perversely, and done wickedly, and rebelled, to turn aside from Thy commands, and from Thy judgments: and we have not hearkened unto Thy servants, the prophets, who have spoken in Thy name unto our kings, our heads, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. `To Thee, O Lord, `is' the righteousness, and to us the shame of face, as `at' this day, to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, who are near, and who are far off, in all the lands whither Thou hast driven them, in their trespass that they have trespassed against Thee. `O Lord, to us `is' the shame of face, to our kings, to our heads, and to our fathers, in that we have sinned against Thee. `To the Lord our God `are' the mercies and the forgivenesses, for we have rebelled against Him,
that on you may come all the righteous blood being poured out on the earth from the blood of Abel the righteous, unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the sanctuary and the altar: verily I say to you, all these things shall come upon this generation.
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.