Keep therefore and do [them]; for this [is] your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation [is] a wise and understanding people.
Ver. 6. For this is your wisdom.] Omnis sapientia hominis in hoc uno est, saith Lactantius, a ut Deum cognoscat et colat: hoc nostrum dogma, hac sententia est: To know and do the will of God, this is the whole of man's wisdom. "The heart of the wise man is at his right hand," Ecc 10:2 as teaching it to put things in practice, and to "prove by experience what that good, and holy, and acceptable will of God is." Rom 12:2
A wise and understanding people.] The Spaniards are said to seem wise and are fools; the French to seem fools and are wise; the Portuguese neither to be wise, nor so much as to seem so; the Italians both to seem wise and to be so. But may not that of the prophet be fitly applied to them all, "Behold, they have rejected the Word of the Lord, and what wisdom is in them?" Jer 8:9
a Lactan., Inst., lib. iii, cap. 30.