Ver. 27. For it hath heard all the words, &c.— "If ever you so far forget yourselves, as to act as if you had not this day chosen the Lord for your God, this stone shall convince you of falsehood, and shall witness as strongly against you, as if it had heard all that I have been saying to you, and all that you have replied in answer; and had assumed a voice to contradict you to your face." How strongly figurative soever this discourse may appear, it is not too much so for the taste of the orientals, with whom it is common to give sentiments to the most insensible creatures, and, as it were, to animate all nature by their expressions. See for instance, Deuteronomy 4:26; Deuteronomy 32:1.Psalms 19:1.Isaiah 1:2.Jeremiah 22:29. Luke 19:40.
Note; (1.) If the service of God be not our deliberate choice, from conviction of its blessedness, and experience of its comfort, a constrained profession will last but a short time. (2.) Those who count the denial of their corrupt affections hard, and the restraints of religion burthensome, have already rejected the Lord from being their God. (3.) A good and great example is very influential. (4.) They who resolve to serve God themselves, cannot but labour that all who are under their care may do so too. (5.) They, who are faithful to God, fear not to be singular, though all others are ashamed of his religion, or live a dishonour to it; their houses shall be the temples for daily prayer and praise, and their ways unconformed to the wicked world around them. (6.) We can never hesitate whose service to prefer, God or the world, Christ or Belial, if our minds are freed from the delusions of Satan, and the bias of corrupt affections.