1.
These are the words of the covenant, which the LORD commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, beside the covenant which he made with them in Horeb.
2.
And Moses called unto all Israel, and said unto them, Ye have seen all that the LORD did before your eyes in the land of Egypt unto Pharaoh, and unto all his servants, and unto all his land;
3.
The great temptations which thine eyes have seen, the signs, and those great miracles:
4.
Yet the LORD hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day.
5.
And I have led you forty years in the wilderness: your clothes are not waxen old upon you, and thy shoe is not waxen old upon thy foot.
6.
Ye have not eaten bread, neither have ye drunk wine or strong drink: that ye might know that I am the LORD your God.
7.
And when ye came unto this place, Sihon the king of Heshbon, and Og the king of Bashan, came out against us unto battle, and we smote them:
8.
And we took their land, and gave it for an inheritance unto the Reubenites, and to the Gadites, and to the half tribe of Manasseh.
9.
Keep therefore the words of this covenant, and do them, that ye may prosper in all that ye do.
10.
Ye stand this day all of you before the LORD your God; your captains of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, with all the men of Israel,
STANDING BEFORE GOD
‘Ye stand this day all of you before the Lord your God.’
Deuteronomy 29:10
Intense in their significance, fresh in their solemnity, as when Moses uttered them to the listening multitudes on the farther shore of Jordan, the echo of these warning words rolls to us across the centuries. They express the formative principle, the regulating conception, the inspiring influence, of every greatly Christian life. The very differentia of such a life—that is, its distinguishing feature—is this, that it is spent always and consciously in the presence of God.
From the fact that we stand before God we gather:
I. A lesson of warning.—Surely there is a warning—for the forgetful a startling, for the guilty a terrible, even for the good man a very solemn warning—in the thought that not only our life in its every incident, but even our heart in its utmost secrets, lies naked and open before Him with whom we have to do.
II. The thought that we stand before God involves not only a sense of warning, but a sense of elevation, of ennoblement.—It is a sweet and a lofty doctrine, the highest source of all the dignity and grandeur of life.
III. A third consequence of life spent consciously in God’s presence is a firm, unflinching, unwavering sense of duty.—A life regardful of duty is crowned with an object, directed by a purpose, inspired by an enthusiasm, till the very humblest routine carried out conscientiously for the sake of God is elevated into moral grandeur, and the very obscurest office becomes an imperial stage on which all the virtues play.
IV. The fourth consequence is a sense of holiness.—God requires not only duty, but holiness. He searcheth the spirits; He discerneth the very reins and heart.
V. This thought encourages us with a certainty of help and strength.—The God before whom we stand is not only our Judge and our Creator, but also our Father and our Friend. He is revealed to us in Christ, our Elder Brother in the great family of God.
Dean Farrar.
Illustration
(1) ‘Next to the hearing of the law at the foot of Sinai, this covenant on the plains of Moab is the greatest national transaction in the whole history of Israel.’
(2) ‘Strong inducements are here presented to the people to win their obedience. The great Lawgiver, however, bitterly laments that they were deficient in those spiritual sensibilities which are so necessary to the right appreciation of God’s dealings. God would no doubt have imparted these spiritual gifts, if He had seen any desire on their part for them, or any will to receive and use them. “Keep therefore, and do; that ye may prosper” ( Psalms 1:1-3; Joshua 1:8).’
(3) ‘Our religious life should include in its influence the stranger and sojourner, the hewer of wood and drawer of water, and him that stands with us. What a striking unveiling is given of the boast of many ungodly men, “We shall have peace though we walk in the stubbornness of our hearts”! Alas! they soon discover that there is no peace to the wicked, and that men reap precisely what they sow. But these are among the secret things. God does not give His reasons to every questioner. Rich and wicked men fade away in their ways. No one knows the precise reason why their schemes miscarry and only their stump is left, but the secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him. Oh, Spirit of God! reveal to us, we beseech Thee, the secret of the Lord, what eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, but which Thou revealest.’
11.
Your little ones, your wives, and thy stranger that is in thy camp, from the hewer of thy wood unto the drawer of thy water:
12.
That thou shouldest enter into covenant with the LORD thy God, and into his oath, which the LORD thy God maketh with thee this day:
13.
That he may establish thee to day for a people unto himself, and that he may be unto thee a God, as he hath said unto thee, and as he hath sworn unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
14.
Neither with you only do I make this covenant and this oath;
15.
But with him that standeth here with us this day before the LORD our God, and also with him that is not here with us this day:
16.
(For ye know how we have dwelt in the land of Egypt; and how we came through the nations which ye passed by;
17.
And ye have seen their abominations, and their idols, wood and stone, silver and gold, which were among them:)
18.
Lest there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day from the LORD our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations; lest there should be among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood;
19.
And it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst:
20.
The LORD will not spare him, but then the anger of the LORD and his jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the LORD shall blot out his name from under heaven.
21.
And the LORD shall separate him unto evil out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant that are written in this book of the law:
22.
So that the generation to come of your children that shall rise up after you, and the stranger that shall come from a far land, shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses which the LORD hath laid upon it;
23.
And that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, like the overthrow of Sodom, and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim, which the LORD overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath:
24.
Even all nations shall say, Wherefore hath the LORD done thus unto this land? what meaneth the heat of this great anger?
25.
Then men shall say, Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them forth out of the land of Egypt:
26.
For they went and served other gods, and worshipped them, gods whom they knew not, and whom he had not given unto them:
27.
And the anger of the LORD was kindled against this land, to bring upon it all the curses that are written in this book:
28.
And the LORD rooted them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as it is this day.
29.
The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.