Deuteronomy 29

THese are the words of the covenant These are the terms or conditions upon which God has made, i. e. renewed Covenant with you., which the LORD commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, beside the covenant (i. e.) That entring into or striking of covenant. The covenant was but one in substance, but various in the time and manner of its dispensation. which he made with them in Horeb.

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:

The great temptations which thine eyes have seen, the signs, and those great miracles:

Yet the LORD has not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day c. d This verse comes in by way of correction or exception to the foregoing clause in this manner, I said indeed, ye have seen, &c. v. 2. and thine eyes have seen, &c. but I must recal my words, for in truth you have not seen them, in seeing you have not seen, and perceiving you have not perceived them: you have perceived and seen them with the eyes of your body, but not with your minds and hearts, you have not seen them to any purpose: you have not yet learned rightly to understand the word and works of God, so as to know them for your good, and to make a right use of them, and to comply with them: Which he expresseth thus, the Lord has not given you, &c. not to excuse their wickedness, but partly to direct them what course to take, and to whom they must have recourse for the amending of their former errours, and for a good understanding and improvement of Gods works, and partly to aggravate their sin, and to intimate that although the hearing ear, and the seeing eye, and the understanding heart be the workmanship of God, Prov. 20. 12. and the effects of his special grace, Deut. 30. 6. Ier. 31. 33. and 32. 39, &c. yet their want of this grace was their own fault, and the just punishment of their former sins; their present case being like theirs in Isays time, who first shut their eyes and ears that they might not see and hear, and would not understand, and then by the tremendous, but righteous judgment of God, had their hearts made fat, and their eyes and ears closed that they should not be able to see and hear, and understand, as is manifest from the history of their carriage in the wilderness.

And I have led you fourty years in the wilderness, your cloths are not waxen old upon you, and thy shoe is not waxen old upon thy foot So far, that it was necessary for you to throw them away, and to get new ones. See on Deut. 8. 4..

Ye have not eaten bread (i. e.) Common bread purchased by your own mony, or made by your own hands, but Heavenly and Angelical bread, Deut. 8. 3. Psal. 78. 24, 25. You have subsisted without bread the staff of life., neither have ye drunk wine or strong drink But only water out of the rock., that ye might know that I am the LORD your God The Lord Omnipotent and All-sufficient for your provision without the help of any Creatures, and your God in covenant with you who has a true affection to you, and fatherly care of you even when ordinary means fail..

And when ye came unto this place, Sihon the King of Heshbon, and Og the King of Bashan came out against us unto battel, and we smote them,

And we took their land, and an inheritance unto the Reubenite, and to the Gadite, and to the half tribe of Manasseh.

Keep therefore the words of this covenant, and do them, that ye may prosper in all that ye do.

Ye stand this day all of you before the LORD your God In his presence, who sees your hearts and carriages, and before his Tabernacle, where it is probable they were now called together, and assembled for this work. See v. 2.: your captains of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, with all the men of Israel.

Your little ones, your wives, and thy stranger Such strangers as had embraced their Religion. that is in thy camp, from the hewer of thy wood, unto the drawer of thy water All sorts of persons, yea, even the meanest of them, such as these were, Ios. 9. 27. all sorts and ranks of servants..

That thou shouldest enter into covenant (i. e.) Into covenant or agreement confirmed by a solemn oath. with the LORD thy God, and into his oath (i. e.) Into covenant or agreement confirmed by a solemn oath., which the LORD thy God maketh with thee this day:

That he may establish thee to day for a people unto himself, and that he may be unto thee a God, as he has said unto thee, and as he has sworn unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

Neither with you only do I make this covenant, and this oath:

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 (i. e.) With your prosperity. For so the covenant was made at first with Abraham and his seed, by which as God engaged himself to continue the blessing of Abraham upon his posterity, so he also engaged them to the same duties and conditions which were required of Abraham. So it is even among men where a King confers an estate upon a Subject and his Heirs for ever, upon some certain conditions all his Heirs who enjoy that benefit, are obliged to the same conditions. But whatsoever becomes of mans right, God the Creatour and Soveraign Lord of all men and things has an unquestionable right and power to oblige all persons that are or shall be to such conditions as he pleaseth, and especially to such conditions as are for their own benefit, which is the present case.:

(For ye know how we have dwelt in the land of Egypt Where you have seen their Idolatries, and learned too much of them, as the Golden Calf showed, and therefore need to renew your covenant with God; where also we were in dreadful bondage whence God alone has delivered us, to whom therefore we are deeply obliged, and have all reason to renew our covenant with him., and how we came through the nations (i. e.) With what hazards, if God had not appeared for us. which ye passed by.

And ye have seen their abominations, and their idols What sorry tools they are, what senceless and ridiculous deities; so that you have great reason to value your God, and to cleave to him in covenant, and to take heed of such abominable Idolatries., wood and stone, silver and gold, which were among them.)

Lest there should be Or take heed or beware lest there be. For it seems to be an Ellipsis, or defect of a verb which is usual in Scripture, and which we have in a case parallel to this, Gen. 3. 22. And now we must take care lest he put forth, &c. Or this particle, lest, may be joyned with v. 14, 15. to this purpose, I now renew the covenant with you, and with your posterity, lest any of you or yours should be tempted to depart from God, &c. among you, man or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turneth away (i. e.) Who turneth away from God to Idols not by constraint, but by choice, and the inclination of his own heart. By this phrase he leads them to the spring of their sin and ruine, even their own hearts, which he admonisheth them hereby to look to above all things. this day from the LORD our God, to go, and serve the gods of these nations: lest there should be among you a root Either 1. An evil heart enclining you to such cursed Idolatry, and bringing forth bitter fruits. Or, rather 2. Some secret and subtil Apostate who lurks and works like a root under ground, and sliely conveighs his poison to the infection of others, for both the foregoing and following words speak of some particular person. that beareth gall and wormwood (i. e.) Which though for the present it may please your fancy, yet in the end, assure your selves, will produce bitter fruits, not only distateful to God, but also poisonful and destructive to your selves..

And it come to pass when he (i. e.) That root, or that man mentioned, v. 18. heareth the words of this curse (i. e.) of that oath mentioned v. 12. wherein he swore that he would keep covenant with God, and that with a curse pronounced against himself if he did not perform it. Now if when he reads this again, or hears of it from others., that he bless himself in his heart (i. e.) Flatter himself in his own eyes, as Psal. 36. 2. with vain conceits and hopes, as if God did not mind such things, and either could not, or would not punish them. Compare Psal. 49. 18. Ier. 2. 20. Zech. 11. 5., saying, I shall have peace (i. e.) Safety and prosperity., though I walk in the imagination of mine heart Though in my practices and worship I do not follow Gods command, but my own devices, and whatsoever my fancy best liketh, minding nothing but the gratifying of mine own fancy and humour., to add drunkenness to thirst (i. e.) Not only to satisfie his thirst, i. e. his concupiscence and inclination to wickedness, but even to exceed it, as Drunkards oft times take more than their appetite desires, and drink out of mere wantonness, or from a desire to be drunk; and as filthy persons commit lewdness with others more than their natural inclinations desire, or their strength can well bear, merely from a wicked mind, and from contempt of God, and because they will do so. The words may be rendred, to add thirst to drunkenness, the particle eth, which is a note of the Accusative Case, being joyned with thirst, and not with drunkenness, and so the sense may be this, that when he has multiplyed his sins, and made himself as it were drunk with them, yet he is not satisfyed therewith, but still whets his Appetite, and provokes his thirst after more, as Drunkards commonly will use means and temptations to make themselves thirst after more drink, that they may drink more abundantly. Or thus, to add the moist or moistening to the thirsty, (i. e.) in stead of restraining and mortifying, as he ought to do, fully and greedily to satisfy, his idolatrous or wicked inclinations, and resolvedly to give up himself to all the desires of his own heart. Compare Iob 34. 7. Prov. 23. 35. Isa. 30. 1. and 56. 12. Eph. 4. 19.:

The LORD will not spare him, but then the anger of the LORD, and his jealousy shall smoke (i. e.) Shall, burn and break forth with flame and smoak as it were from a furnace. Compare Psal. 18. 8. 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 (i. e.) destroy his person and memory from amongst men..

And the LORD shall separate him unto evil (i. e.) Unto some peculiar and exemplary plague, he will make him a monument of his displeasure to the whole land., out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant He intimates that the covenant of grace, which God made with them, has not only blessings belonging to it, as this foolish person imagined, but curses also to the transgressours of it., that are written in this book of the law:

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 The words following, v. 24, 25, &c., when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses which the LORD has laid upon it:

And that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning (i. e.) Is burnt up and made barren, as with brimstone and salt. See Iudg. 9. 45. Psal. 107. 34. Ier. 17. 6. Ezek. 47. 11., that it is not sowen, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zebojim, which the LORD overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath.

Even all nations shall say, Wherefore has the LORD done thus unto this land? what meaneth the heat of this great anger?

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.

For they went and served other gods, and worshipped them; gods whom they knew not, and whom he had not given unto them (i. e.) Whom God had not given or divided to them, as their portion, or for their worship, but has divided them unto all Nations, as it is said, Deut. 4. 19. not for their worship, but for their use and service. So he speaks here of the Sun and Moon and Stars, which were the principal Gods worshipped by the neighbouring Nations. Or, to whom none has given this, i. e. that they should be worshipped or, to whom no worship belongs. So this is an argument against Idolatry. Or, who had not given unto them, to wit, any thing: It is an Ellipsis of the Accusative, which is very frequent: gods known to them by no benefits received from them, as they had from their God, whom therefore it was the greater folly and ingratitude to forsake..

And the anger of the LORD was kindled against this land, to bring upon it all the curses that are written in this book.

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.

The secret things belong unto the LORD our God Having now mentioned the dreadful and amazing judgments of God upon the whole land and people of Israel, and foreseeing by the spirit of prophecy the utter extirpation and destruction which would come upon them for their wickedness, he breaks out into this pathetical exclamation either to bridle their curiosity, who hearing this, would be apt to enquire into the time and manner of so great an event, or to quiet his own mind, and satisfie the scruples of others, who perceiving God to deal so severely with his own people, when in the mean time he suffered those Nations which were guilty of grosser Atheisme and Idolatry, and Impiety than the generality of the Jewish people were to live and prosper in the world, might thence take occasion to deny or reproach his providence, or question the equity of his proceedings. To this he answers, that the ways and judgments of God, though never unjust, are ofttimes secret and hidden from us, and unsearchable by our shallow capacities, and are matter for our admiration, not for our enquiry.: but those things which are revealed, belong unto us, and to our children But the things which are revealed by God and his word, these are the proper object of our enquiries and studies, that thereby we may come to the knowledge of our duty by the practise whereof we may be kept from such terrible punishments and calamities as these now mentioned. for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.