Ver. 1-4. If there arise among you a prophet, &c.— The divinity of their religion, and its peculiar opposition to idolatry, having been fully shewn,
Moses now proceeds to put the strongest case possible; acquainting them, that if any prophet or dreamer of dreams, any person pretending to supernatural inspiration, should give them a sign or a wonder, should predict or perform any thing extraordinary, and make that the ground of drawing them aside from the worship of their God to that of idols, they should utterly disregard any such sign or wonder, nor be at all influenced by it to hearken to the words of the deluder; assured that he could not be commissioned by God, who, being always the same, can never contradict himself: and in this confidence, though perhaps they might not be able to discover the mode of his deceit, or the method by which he was able either to foretel or to perform any thing extraordinary; though they could not tell whether he did it by mere juggling, or by communications with evil spirits; yet they were absolutely to put such a person to death, infallibly assured that no messenger from God could ever attempt to seduce them from the worship of that God. From the 3rd verse one may be led to believe, that, as the Almighty sometimes permits other evils for the same end of proving his people, so he thought fit to allow among the Jews such persons as are here spoken of to perform things really stupendous and miraculous; and how far he may have permitted evil spirits to assist such persons is not for us to determine. This, however, by no means impugns his wisdom or goodness; for as, in the present case, he gave the Israelites such an infallible criterion whereby to determine, so, in all cases, we may be assured that he will either vouchsafe to mankind such criterions, or give to the miracles which real prophets perform such evident marks of divinity and superiority over those of others, as shall never leave the human mind in doubt. Indeed, were we not infallibly assured of this from the very nature of God, we could have no sure foundation whereupon to build our faith, nor any infallible test whereby to prove the truth of a revelation. This subject has been completely handled by Dr. Chapman, in his excellent work called Eusebius, chap. 2. Those, however, who desire to see more and different opinions, may consult Bishop Stillingfleet's Origines Sacrae, lib. ii. c. 10, where he speaks of discerning true miracles from false; Wells's Sermons at Boyle's Lecture, and Bishop Chandler's Defence. Mr. Locke very well observes upon the subject, that "since God's power is paramount to all, and no opposition can be made against him with a force equal to his; and since his honour and goodness can never be supposed to suffer his messenger and his truth to be borne down by the appearance of a greater power on the side of an impostor, and in favour of a lie; whenever there is an opposition, the signs which carry with them the evident marks of a greater power will always be a certain evidence that the truth and divine mission are on that side on which they appear. For, though the discovery, how the lying wonders are or can be produced, be beyond the capacity of the ignorant, and often beyond the conception of the most knowing spectator, yet he cannot but know that they are not seals set by God to his truth for the attesting of it; since they are opposed by miracles, which carry the evident marks of a greater and superior power, and therefore they cannot at all shake the authority of one so supported. God can never be thought to suffer that a lie, set up in opposition to a truth coming from him, should be backed with a greater power than he will shew for the confirmation and propagation of a doctrine which He has revealed to the end it might be believed."
And giveth thee a sign or a wonder— Le Clerc thinks, that sign and wonder here signify nearly the same thing: but Houbigant asserts, that the particle או ou, rendered or, is disjunctive in the Hebrew; and that, consequently, these two words denote different things. Accordingly, he thinks that a wonder is something more than a sign: the latter signifying a miracle subjected to the human sight, the former such a one as affects man; of which kind were the Egyptian plagues. Both kinds, however, here mean true miracles, things supernatural; for the original words are never used in sacred writings for the jugglings and fallacies of diviners, and therefore the miracles of Moses and Aaron are never expressed by any other words. In the 2nd verse, there is a transposition very frequent in Scripture; the two verses may be read together thus: If there arise among you a prophet, &c. saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, (had no communication with, or intelligence of,) and let us serve them; and shall give you a sign or a wonder, which shall come to pass, according to what he spake unto thee, &c.