And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and Judgments so righteous?
A righteous Bible
The appeal of Moses is the eternal appeal of the Bible. That is the appeal to common sense and to common honesty. The commandments are not described as eloquent, marvellous intellectual conceptions, great advances in ethical thinking. Moses asks, What other nation can produce a Bible so righteous! Any Bible must go down that is not righteous above all other things, how high soever the varied attributes by which any book may be characterised. What is the moral tone of the Bible? Pure, righteous, true, holy. What are the great commandments of the Book? “Love,” “love,”--twice love. The first object?--“God”; the second?--“thy neighbour.” This is the strength of the Bible; and we can all begin at this point to inquire into the remainder of the Book. Men may ask bewildering questions about the archaeology and the so called science of the Bible, and may even puzzle the uncultured reader with many a question relating to spiritual mysteries; but taken from end to end, the Bible is charged with righteousness: it will have the neighbour loved as the man himself; it will have the harvest like the seed time; it will insist upon right balances and full weights; it will have no concealed iniquities; it carries its candle of flame with fire never kindled upon earth into the secrets of the mind and the chambers of the soul and the hidden places of motive and purpose and ultimate, but unexpressed, intent. The Word of God is sharp, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the dividing asunder of the joints and marrow. It is a righteous Word. The Bible has a thousand weapons in its armoury: not the lightest, not the weakest is its magnificent morality, its heavenly righteousness, its incorruptible integrity. It shakes off the wicked man; it will have no communion with darkness; it strikes the liar on the mouth; it avoids the unholy follower. This is--let us repeat--the argument of Moses, and it is the eternal argument of Christianity. (J. Parker, D. D.)
The Bible and civilisation
Wendell Phillips once said: “The answer to the Shaster is India; the answer to Confucianism is China; the answer to the Koran is Turkey; the answer to the Bible is the Christian civilisation of Protestant Europe and America.” (J. S. Gilbert, M. A.)
The national utility of the Bible
It is impossible to estimate the amount of evil which mankind would experience in their civil capacity were the Scriptures no longer considered of Divine origin, nor constituted the ultimate standard of all moral and political obligation. All reverence for the laws would cease, for the lawgiver would have only his own authority, or the mere glimmerings of the law of nature, to enforce his commands; while those who had to obey the laws would soon have every just and equitable principle banished from their minds, and every sacred feeling obliterated from their bosoms. The whole fabric of society would soon go to pieces if men were removed beyond the sphere of the public and private sanctions of scriptural morality. (J. Blakey.)
The glory of Israel
Moses reminds the people that God has chosen them as His special possession, and that this had been shown during forty years, and that if they would remain a people forever blessed it must be under the protection and blessing of God. They were highly favoured above all other peoples--for Jehovah the true God was theirs, and would be known among His people by this gracious name. And all the peoples around saw how great things God had done for Israel--how gloriously and graciously He had led His people. This was one reason why Israel should cleave to the Lord, who would plainly thus reveal Himself as the true God, the Holy One of Israel. From all this Israel should have learned--
I. To prize highly their relation to God.
1. They should have learned to realise what it was to be under the peculiar care of God, and how great and glorious was their fellowship with Him. Theirs was not merely to be a great and glorious history in the past. God was not merely to be the God who had mightily manifested Himself to their fathers, and then withheld His presence. Rather there was the promise that if they continued to call upon Him wonderful manifestations of grace and help would be given.
2. How blessed Israel was so long as they continued to call on God, prayed for His protection in faith, and kept in the way of His commandments! It was no hard thing to draw near to God. Priest and prophet were given to prepare the way, and each Israelite might experience the truth of the text for himself. But it was otherwise with Israel. In them we see--
II. The danger of neglecting to call upon God.
1. Israel went on their own way, according to their own will; and in order that they might not be stopped by listening to the voice of reason they no longer called upon God; they no longer sought His near presence.
2. Therefore, however He would have been pleased to draw near to them, He could do so no more, because they desired it not. Thus did Israel, and even when they inquired of His way they did not follow it.
3. How speedily, therefore, were they brought low; for all depended on their calling on God, and Him alone.
III. The spiritual Israel must call on God.
1. Even among the early believers to whom with visible manifestation the Holy Ghost came, whose voice and counsel they might ever hear, there was the temptation to walk more according to the flesh than according to the Spirit. Some neglected to hear His voice, and gave themselves up to the lusts of the flesh.
2. Then true believing calling on God ceased, the Lord came no more nigh to them, and the Holy Ghost was grieved.
3. Let us learn in simple faith to pray to and call upon Him. Then should we hope that all things would again become new in us, would be otherwise with us; and how glorious could our lives become! (J. C. Blumhardt.)