Moses promised the Jews that if they trusted in God, they would be a strong, happy, and prosperous people. On the other hand, he warned them that if they forgot the Lord their God, poverty, misery, and ruin would surely fall upon them.
That this last was no empty threat is proved by the plain facts of the sacred history. For they did forget God, and worshipped Baalim, the sun, moon, and stars; and ruin of every kind did come upon them, till they were carried away captive to Babylon.
I. The thought that the God whom they worshipped was the one true God must have made His worship a very different, a much holier and deeper, matter to the Jews than the miserable, selfish thing which is miscalled religion by too many people nowadays, by which a man hopes to creep out of this world into heaven all by himself, without any real care or love for his fellow-creatures or those he leaves behind him.
An old Jew's faith in God and obedience to God was part of his family life, part of his politics, part of his patriotism. The duty he owed to God was not merely a duty which he owed his own conscience or his own soul; it was a duty which he owed to his family, to his kindred, to his country. It was not merely an opinion that there was one God, and not two; it was a belief that the one and only true God was protecting him, teaching him, inspiring him and all his nation.
II. God's purpose has come to pass. The little nation of the Jews, without seaport towns and commerce, without colonies or conquests, has taught the whole civilised world, has influenced all the good and all the wise unto this day so enormously, that the world has actually gone beyond them and become Christian by fully understanding their teaching and their Bible, while they have remained mere Jews by not understanding it. God's revelation to the Jews was His boundless message, and not any narrow message of man's invention.
C. Kingsley, Gospel of the Pentateuch,p. 184.
References: Deuteronomy 4:32-40. Parker, vol. iv., p. 118. Deuteronomy 4:39. Ibid.,p. 126; C. Kingsley, Gospel of the Pentateuch,p. 222.Deuteronomy 4:40. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. viii., p. 220. Deuteronomy 4:41; Deuteronomy 4:42. E. Blencowe, Plain Sermons, 2ndseries, p. 305.Deuteronomy 4 Parker, vol. iv., pp. 97, 104.Deuteronomy 5:1-21. J. Hamilton, Works,vol. v., p. 214.Deuteronomy 5:3. Parker, vol. v., p. 5.Deuteronomy 5:6; Deuteronomy 5:7. J. Oswald Dykes, The Law of the Ten Words,p. 19. Deuteronomy 5:8-10. Ibid.,p. 53.Deuteronomy 5:11. Ibid.,p. 71.Deuteronomy 5:12. Ibid.: Old Testament Outlines,p. 45.Deuteronomy 5:12-15. R. Lee, Sermons,pp. 399, 411, 421; J. Oswald Dykes, The Law of the Ten Words,p. 87; S. Leathes, Foundations of Morality,p. 128. Deuteronomy 5:13; Deuteronomy 5:14. A. C. Tait, Lessons for School Life,p. 258.