Deuteronomy 29:1-29 - Sutcliffe's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

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Deuteronomy 29:1. The words of the covenant; from co, con, or com; a social prefix; and venio, to come; the coming of two parties into one compact. The vendor gets the best terms he can, and the buyer aims at a bargain. Just the reverse of this is the divine covenant: frail sinful man is not exalted into co- partnership with the Almighty. The covenant is all grace to man, and dictated by the donor; man has but to consent to it with all his heart, and all his soul. The blessings and curses of this covenant are confirmed with sacrifice and with blood: they are ratified with an oath. The parties, Deuteronomy 29:10, were princes, captains, wives, children and little ones, absentees and strangers; in short, the whole nation, without a single exception. The Lord avouched them for his people, and they avouched him for their God. In Jeremiah 34. we read, that they walked between the parts of the victims, consenting to be cut in pieces like their sacrifices, if ever they violated that covenant. All these blessings were confirmed in happy ages, and all these curses inflicted in apostate times. The covenant is evidently frail with man, but sure with the Lord.

Deuteronomy 29:29. Secret things belong unto the Lord our God. Some think Moses here meant that God took upon him the punishment of all secret sins and acts of idolatry against his covenant, but that he required the people to punish all the crimes against his covenant which came to light. LUTHER renders the words, “These things were secrets known to God alone; but now they are revealed to us and to our children.” Others understand this text in a sense similar to Romans 11:33, that the secrets of providence are inscrutable; and consequently, that we should not waste our time on prophetic calculations and mysteries; but profiting by the truths plainly revealed, give up ourselves to piety, and the practice of righteousness.

REFLECTIONS.

Moses having charged Israel what to do on passing the Jordan, and recited the blessings and curses of the covenant contracted with their fathers at Horeb, could not die till he had renewed the covenant with their children. So all worthy men are wont to charge their families to keep the way of the Lord before they leave the world. With these most sanctifying views, and views becoming his high character and mission, he reserved this highest duty till nearly the last day of his public ministry. What pencil is able to trace the worth, what eloquence can describe the excellence of this venerable prophet, adorned with every virtue, and loaded with every honour heaven can give to man. Before he closed his eyes in death, he wished once more to see all Israel gathered before his face, to hear his voice, and receive his dying commands. See him ascend the throne and smile on the people, with heaven in every look and grace in all his words. See him surrounded with elders, but none so old as he. See ten thousand fathers attending with their families, as far as the eye can reach; but scarcely a grey hair, except his own, the old men having fallen for their sins. See the whole nation eager to look, and eager to hear. See them hold up their little infants, that their eyes might be blessed by a sight of Moses before he died. And oh if the sight of a prophet and a great man be so sanctifying, what must heaven be when we shall see all the patriarchs, prophets and apostles, in the kingdom of God.

Moses commenced by reciting to the young generation the words which their fathers had heard at Horeb. They occur in Exodus 19:20. 21. &c. And while Moses recited the substance of the covenant, it is highly probable that Eleazar prepared a full oblation of victims unto God, sprinkling the blood upon the people, and causing the elders to pass between the parts. Jeremiah 34:18. The oath of the covenant was next confirmed; for as the Lord sware to Abraham to bless and multiply him, so the people sware fidelity to God, saying, all that the Lord hath spoken, that will we do. How awful the nature, how solemn the ratification of the Hebrew covenant. This was in fact the christian covenant, being rounded on the promised Messiah, who was to bless all nations, to possess the gates of his enemies, and to vanquish sin and death. It is called indeed a New covenant, because the gospel realized the shadows of the law; for our High-priest, our sacrifice, our altar, our holy place, and our sprinkling of blood, far eclipse the glory of Aaron, with the blood of bulls and goats. Besides, the christian covenant is guarded with sanctions and terrors far superior to those of Sinai; for the Lord shall be revealed from heaven in flaming fire, with his mighty angels, taking vengeance on them that know not God. Moses denounced a curse against every transgressor of the law; but the gospel, richer in proclamations of pardon, anathematizes every one who loves not the Lord Jesus Christ.

Christian families, christian communities and nations, should most solemnly and frequently renew their covenant with God. This may be done in the closet, as well as on sacramental occasions. To review the promises and threatenings, deeply impressed with our defects, has a most sanctifying effect on the soul.

We should also devote our little ones in covenant to God by baptism, as succeeding circumcision. Colossians 2:11-12. By prayer likewise, and by a course of instruction and discipline, Ephesians 6:4; for the Lord has promised to circumcise the heart of our seed.

This glorious and everlasting covenant, as we are everywhere told, has its conditions. If a man went after other gods; if he suffered the root bearing wormwood and gall to grow, and poison all his good impressions; if he presumptuously added drunkenness to thirst, and blessed his soul with the hopes of impunity, it is said, the Lord would blot out his name from under heaven, and bring upon him all the curses of this book. And it should be well remembered, that St. Paul has given christians the same caution against this bitter root of apostasy and sin. Hebrews 12:15. Let us therefore beware lest any man fail of the grace of God, and come short of the promised rest.

Related Commentaries of Deuteronomy 29:1

Deuteronomy 29:1-29

1 These are the words of the covenant, which the LORD commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, beside the covenant which he made with them in Horeb.

2 And Moses called unto all Israel, and said unto them, Ye have seen all that the LORD did before your eyes in the land of Egypt unto Pharaoh, and unto all his servants, and unto all his land;

3 The great temptations which thine eyes have seen, the signs, and those great miracles:

4 Yet the LORD hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day.

5 And I have led you forty years in the wilderness: your clothes are not waxen old upon you, and thy shoe is not waxen old upon thy foot.

6 Ye have not eaten bread, neither have ye drunk wine or strong drink: that ye might know that I am the LORD your God.

7 And when ye came unto this place, Sihon the king of Heshbon, and Og the king of Bashan, came out against us unto battle, and we smote them:

8 And we took their land, and gave it for an inheritance unto the Reubenites, and to the Gadites, and to the half tribe of Manasseh.

9 Keep therefore the words of this covenant, and do them, that ye may prosper in all that ye do.

10 Ye stand this day all of you before the LORD your God; your captains of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, with all the men of Israel,

11 Your little ones, your wives, and thy stranger that is in thy camp, from the hewer of thy wood unto the drawer of thy water:

12 That thou shouldest entera into covenant with the LORD thy God, and into his oath, which the LORD thy God maketh with thee this day:

13 That he may establish thee to day for a people unto himself, and that he may be unto thee a God, as he hath said unto thee, and as he hath sworn unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

14 Neither with you only do I make this covenant and this oath;

15 But with him that standeth here with us this day before the LORD our God, and also with him that is not here with us this day:

16 (For ye know how we have dwelt in the land of Egypt; and how we came through the nations which ye passed by;

17 And ye have seen their abominations, and their idols,b wood and stone, silver and gold, which were among them:)

18 Lest there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day from the LORD our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations; lest there should be among you a root that beareth gallc and wormwood;

19 And it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imaginationd of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst:

20 The LORD will not spare him, but then the anger of the LORD and his jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the LORD shall blot out his name from under heaven.

21 And the LORD shall separate him unto evil out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant that are written in this book of the law:

22 So that the generation to come of your children that shall rise up after you, and the stranger that shall come from a far land, shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses which the LORD hath laid upon it;

23 And that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, like the overthrow of Sodom, and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim, which the LORD overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath:

24 Even all nations shall say, Wherefore hath the LORD done thus unto this land? what meaneth the heat of this great anger?

25 Then men shall say, Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them forth out of the land of Egypt:

26 For they went and served other gods, and worshipped them, gods whom they knew not, and whom he had not given unto them:

27 And the anger of the LORD was kindled against this land, to bring upon it all the curses that are written in this book:

28 And the LORD rooted them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as it is this day.

29 The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.