Moses exhorts Israel to follow God’s law
4
📚So now listen, O Israel, to the statutes and to the judgments, which I teach you to do, so that you may live and go in and possess the land which the LORD God of your fathers gives you.2 📚You must not add to the word which I command you, or take away anything from it, so that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.
3 📚Your eyes have seen what the LORD did because of Baal of Peor; for the LORD your God destroyed all the men who followed Baal of Peor from among you. 4 📚But each one of you who held fast to the LORD your God is alive this day.
5 📚See, I have taught you statutes and judgments, just as the LORD my God commanded me, so that you should do so in the land where you are going to possess it. 6 📚Therefore keep them and do them; for this will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, who will hear all these statutes, and say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people”. 7 📚For what nation is there so great, who has God so near to it, as the LORD our God is to us in everything for which we call on him? 8 📚And what nation is there so great, that has statutes and judgments so righteous as this whole law which I set before you this day?
9 📚Only watch yourselves and keep guard over your souls carefully, so that you do not forget the things which your eyes have seen, and so they do not depart from your heart all the days of your life 📖; but teach them to your sons, and your sons’ sons 📖. 10 📚The day you stood before the LORD your God in Horeb, the LORD said to me, “Assemble the people for me, and I will cause them to hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth, and so that they may teach their children”.
11 📚And you came near and stood below the mountain; and the mountain burned with fire to the heart of the heavens, with darkness, clouds, and thick gloom. 12 📚And the LORD spoke to you from the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of the words, but saw no form; you only heard a voice. 13 📚And he proclaimed his covenant to you, which he commanded you to put into practice, the ten commandments 📖. And he wrote them on two tablets of stone. 14 📚And at that time the LORD commanded me to teach you statutes and judgments, so that you might behave in accordance with them in the land which you are crossing over to possess.
15 📚Therefore watch yourselves carefully (for you saw no kind of form on the day that the LORD spoke to you in Horeb from the midst of the fire) 16 📚so that you do not corrupt yourselves and make an idol, the form of any image, any male or female form, 17 📚the form of any animal that is on the earth, the form of any winged bird that flies in the air,
4:15-17 Verse 12; Isa 40:18.⚜
18 the form of any thing that creeps on the ground, the form of any fish that is in the waters below the earth; 19 📚and so that you do not raise your eyes to the heavens and see the sun and the moon and the stars, the whole host of the heavens, and be enticed into worshipping them and serving them, which the LORD your God has allotted to all nations under the whole heaven.
4:19 Deut 17:3; Gen 2:1; 2 Kings 17:16; 21:3; Job 31:26-28; Rom 1:25. God forbids sun worship and calls it detestable (Deut 17:4). But Israel later practiced it and paid the penalty for their sin – Ezek 8:15-16, 18.⚜
20 📚But the LORD took you and brought you from the iron furnace, from Egypt, to be the people of his inheritance, as you are this day.
21 📚Also the LORD was angry with me on your account, and took an oath that I would not go over the Jordan, that I would not go into that good land which the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance; 22 📚But I must die in this land; I must not go over Jordan; but you will go over, and possess that good land. 23 📚Watch yourselves so that you do not forget the covenant of the LORD your God which he made with you, and make an idol for yourselves or the form of anything. The LORD your God has forbidden you this. 24 📚For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.
Warning about the future in Canaan
25 📚When you beget children and grandchildren, and you remain in the land for a long time, and corrupt yourselves and make an idol or the form of any thing, and do evil in the sight of the LORD your God provoking him to anger 📖, 26 📚I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that you will surely perish quickly from off the land which you are crossing over the Jordan to possess; you will not live long in it, but will quickly be destroyed. 27 📚And the LORD will scatter you among the nations, and you will be left few in number among the peoples where the LORD will drive you. 28 📚And there you will serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which do not see or hear or eat or smell. 29 📚But there if you seek the LORD your God, you will find him, if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul.
30 📚When you are in tribulation and all these things have come on you in later days, if you turn to the LORD your God and become obedient to his voice,
4:25-30 A dire warning fulfilled centuries later. See 2 Kings chapter 17 and 2 Chronicles chapter 36.⚜
31 📚he will not forsake 📖 you or destroy you or forget the covenant of your fathers which he swore to them. For the LORD your God is a merciful 📖 God.
The God of Israel alone is the true God
32 📚For ask now about former days, which were before you, from the day that God created man on the earth; ask from the one side of heaven to the other, whether there has been anything as great as this thing, or whether anything like it has been heard. 33 📚Did people ever hear the voice of God speaking from the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and live? 34 📚Or has God attempted to go and take for himself a nation from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched out arm, and by great terrors, in accordance with all that the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?
35 📚That was shown to you so that you might know that the LORD is God; there is no one else besides him. 36 📚He caused you to hear his voice from heaven so that he might instruct you. And on earth he showed you his great fire, and you heard his words from the midst of the fire. 37 📚And because he loved your fathers, he chose their offspring after them, and brought you from Egypt in his sight with his mighty power, 38 📚to drive out nations greater and more powerful than you from before you, to bring you in, to give you their land as an inheritance, as it is this day.
39 📚Therefore this day know, and consider it in your heart, that the LORD is God in heaven above, and on the earth below; there is no other.
4:32-39 The events in the books of Exodus and Numbers are absolutely unique in the history of the world. God’s dealings with Israel were for three clear reasons – for their knowledge (vs 35,39; Ex 8:10; 9:4; Isa 43:10-12; 44:6-8; 45:5-7), for their discipline (v 36; Deut 8:5; 2 Sam 7:14; Prov 3:12; Heb 12:6; Rev 3:19), and for a demonstration of God’s love (v 37; Deut 7:7-8; 10:15; 33:3).⚜
40 📚Therefore you must keep his statutes and his commandments which I command you this day, so that it may go well with you, and with your children after you, and that you may live long in the land which the LORD your God gives you forever.
Cities of refuge east of the Jordan
41 📚Then Moses set apart three cities on this side of the Jordan toward sunrise, 42 📚so that the one who commits manslaughter, who kills his neighbour unintentionally, and did not hate him previously, might flee there, and fleeing to one of these cities might live: 43 📚Bezer in the wilderness, on the plateau, for the Reubenites, and Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites, and Golan in Bashan for the Manassites.
44 📚And this is the law which Moses set before the children of Israel; 45 📚these are the testimonies and the statutes and the judgments which Moses spoke to the children of Israel after they had come from Egypt, 46 📚on the east side of the Jordan, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, in the land of Sihon king of the Amorites. He lived at Heshbon and Moses and the children of Israel defeated him, after they had come from Egypt, 47 📚and they took possession of his land, and the land of Og king of Bashan, two kings of the Amorites, who were on this side of the Jordan toward sunrise, 48 📚from Aroer which is on the bank of the river Arnon, to mount Sion 📖, which is Hermon, 49 📚and all the plain on the east side of the Jordan to the sea of the plain, below the springs of Pisgah.