Now therefore hearken, O Israel, unto the statutes and unto the judgments, which I teach you, for to do them, that ye may live, and go in and possess the land which the LORD God of your fathers giveth you.
Hearken, O Israel, unto the statutes and unto the judgments. By statutes were meant all ordinances respecting religion, and the rites of divine worship; and by judgments, all enactments relative to civil matters. The two embraced the whole law of God.
That ye may live, and go in and possess the land. The enjoyment of the temporal blessings which God had promised to Israel were not to be forfeited by any transgression, except national apostasy, sinning presumptuously, and such like breaches of the fundamental articles of the covenant. The sacred history often represents these as the causes of the divine vengeance against them, as in this context.