These are the statutes, &c.— See the note on the first verse of the next chapter.
REFLECTIONS.—While there is life there is hope. It is never too late to return to God. The greatness of our provocations, or the length of our rebellions, prevent not his compassions towards us. May such patience and goodness of God lead us to repentance!
1. Their repentance is here described. They must confess their sins, and acknowledge God's hand in their visitation. Deep humiliation of heart must accompany these penitent acknowledgments, in the view of their baseness and ingratitude to their gracious God, with humble acquiescence in their punishment, glorifying God in the justice of it. Note; (1.) The great evil of sin is the opposition of the heart to God. This carnal mind is the heaviest burden to the awakened soul. (2.) When God's grace joins with his afflictive providences, then the convinced soul is softened to sensibility, and bowed into the dust of humiliation. (3.) The humble soul will ever bear the miseries that sin has brought upon it with patience, and be more solicitous to have the end of the visitation answered, than the burden of it removed.
2. Mercy promised to them on returning to their God: not indeed for their sake, but because of that covenant which God had established with their fathers. He will remember mercy in the midst of judgment, and, as a tender father, extend to them that favour which they had so justly forfeited. Note; It is for Jesus's sake, not our own, that the least regard can be shewed us; and in him there is such fulness of merit, and freedom of promise, that none need despair.
Thus Moses concludes his message from God, and Israel are to prove their obedience. While they do so, God will be in the midst of them, and they shall experience the blessings of fidelity.