Deuteronomy Chapter 4 verse 1 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerses 1-40. - ADMONITIONS AND EXHORTATIONS. Moses, having presented to the people certain facts in their recent history which had in them a specially animating and encouraging tendency, proceeds to direct his discourse to the inculcation of duties and exhortations to obedience to the Divine enactments. This portion also of his address is of an introductory character as well as what precedes. Verses 1-8. - Exhortation to the observance of the Law generally. The Law was to be kept as a complete whole; nothing was to be taken from it or added to it; it comprised the commandments of Jehovah, and therefore they were not only to do it as what Moses, their leader and lawgiver, had enjoined, but to keep it as a sacred deposit, not to be altered or tampered with, and to observe it as what God their Sovereign had enacted for them. The dignity and worth of the Law are here asserted, and also its completeness as given by Moses. Any addition to it, no less than any subtraction from it, would mar its integrity and affect its perfection. Altered circumstances in process of time might, indeed, lead to the desuetude of some parts of the Mosaic enactments, and new institutions or laws might be required to meet a new condition of things, or even in that new condition to fence and sustain the primitive code; but that cede was to remain intact in the Statute-Book, and no alterations were to be made upon it that should affect its substance or nullify any of its principles. New laws and institutions appointed by God would, of course, have the same authority as those originally ordained by Moses; and such, it can hardly be doubted, were in point of fact under the Hebrew monarchy introduced by the prophets speaking in the name of God. The Law, nevertheless, was kept substantially entire. Even under the new dispensation, the Law has not been abolished. Christ, as he himself declared, came not to destroy the Law and the prophets, but to fulfill them (Matthew 5:17). The sin of the Pharisees, for which they were censured by our Lord, lay in this, that they taught for doctrines the commandments of men (Matthew 15:9), and had "made the commandments of God of none effect by their traditions" (Matthew 15:6). Verses 1, 2. - Now therefore; rather And now. With this Moses passes from referring to what God had done for Israel to admonish Israel as to what they had to do as the subjects of God and the recipients of his favor. They were to give heed to all the statutes and judgments which Moses, as the servant of God, had taught them, in order that they might do them. Statutes (חֻקִּים), the things prescribed or enacted by law, whether moral, ritual, or civil; judgments (מִשְׁפָטִים), rights, whether public or private, all that each could claim as his due, and all he was bound to render to God or to his fellow-men as their due. These two comprehend the whole Law as binding on Israel. On the doing of these by the people depended life; these had been made known to them, not merely for their information, but specifically that they might do them, and thereby have life; not long life in the Promised Land alone, though this also is included (ver. 40; Deuteronomy 5:33; Deuteronomy 6:2, etc.), but that higher life, that life which man lives "by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord" (Deuteronomy 8:3; cf. Leviticus 18:5; Ezekiel 20:11; Matthew 4:4), that spiritual life which is in God's favor (Psalm 30:5). Enjoying this life as the fruit of obedience, they should also possess as their inheritance the laud promised to their fathers.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English ReadersIV.(1) Now therefore hearken.--The whole point of the exhortation in this chapter is the same which we find in Joshua's address to the people (Joshua 24), that they should serve Jehovah. And the ground of the exhortation is His revelation of Himself in Horeb as their God.The statutes . . . and the judgments.--Perhaps we should say "institutions and requirements" in modern language. For "judgments," see Exodus 21-23.That ye may live, and go in.--Life is put before possession. The penalty of the broken law is death.