But if ye will not obey the voice of the LORD, but rebel against the commandment of the LORD, then shall the hand of the LORD be against you, as it was against your fathers.
But if ye will not obey the voice of the Lord ... To set before them the alternative consequences of obedience and disobedience to the authority of the divine law was, as Graves well remarks, 'A lesson peculiarly necessary at the beginning of the regal government which the people had called for, from a certain degree of impatience under that theocracy which God by Moses had established.'