Ver. 19. I call heaven and earth to record— See chap. Deuteronomy 4:26 Deuteronomy 32:1.
REFLECTIONS.—Warm and urgent when such important concerns were at stake, he seeks to fix some abiding impressions on their hearts, or at least to leave them inexcusable. 1. The case was plain, and on their choice it depended to be happy or miserable; they had every argument pressed upon them to avoid death, every motive urged to engage them to seek the life that God promised. The love of God, and obedience to his will, would infallibly procure the one; disobedience and idolatry inevitably expose them to the other. But if, under the law, where the promises and threatenings were chiefly temporal, their arguments were so strong, how much more so are they to us, before whom death and life eternal are set, according as we believe and obey, or by our disobedience and unbelief reject, the Gospel of Jesus? 2. He appeals to heaven and earth for his faithfulness, and urges them to choose the way of duty as the path of life. Those who perish will have only themselves to blame; they would not receive the knowledge of the truth, that they might be saved: whilst they, who hear and choose it, will own it to be not of themselves, but the gift of God. He that is saved, owes it to God's grace; every man who is damned has only himself to blame. 3. He again returns to exhort them to love, serve, and cleave to God, as the author of their life and all the comforts of it; that they may dwell in the land which he sware to give their fathers, and by their fidelity maintain a long and uninterrupted enjoyment of it. Thus closing with a remembrance, how much in interest, as well as duty, they are bound to obedience.