Bible Commentaries
Deuteronomy 29

Verse 10

Deuteronomy 29:10

Intense in their significance, fresh in their solemnity, as when Moses uttered them to the listening multitudes on the farther shores 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: (1) 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. (2) 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. (3) 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. (4) 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. (5) 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.

F. W. Farrar, In the Days of thy Youth, p. 1.

Reference: Deuteronomy 29:18 . Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xii., No. 723.

Verse 19

Deuteronomy 29:19

Certain temptations assail us as powerfully through the imagination as if they assumed the most distinctly palpable and tangible form. Eve was assailed through her imagination when the devil said to her, "Ye shall be as gods;" and Jesus Christ was assailed through His imagination when the "kingdoms of the world and the glory of them" were offered to Him.

I. If temptation were to come to us in all its grossness, and force upon the calm, steady eyes of our reason its vilest aspect and purpose, it would have small chance with us. But it comes through an imagination which throws its hideousness into perspective and creates a halo around its immediate advantages. So we dupe our own hearts, and light our way with the lamp of fancy into the darkness where no lamp can burn.

II. It is imagination, too, that supplies a ready answer to the reproaches of conscience. Good is to come out of the evil. Imagination pleads that its purpose has in some way miscarried, or the evil would certainly have been less.

III. The sinful exercise of the imagination is not the less, but probably the more, aggravated because of its supposed secrecy.

The subject thus opened reminds us: (1) of the intense and awful spirituality of God and His judgment; (2) of the wonderful provision He has made for the cleansing and inspiration of our innermost thoughts.

Parker, The Ark of God, p. 296.

Verse 29

Deuteronomy 29:29

I. There are certain domains of thought and government accessible to none but God.

II. Impenetrable secrecy is compatible with paternal benevolence.

III. Divine secrecy is no plea for human disobedience. In the words of our text we have: (1) an acknowledgment of a Divine revelation "the things which are revealed." (2) A definition of the relationship in which God stands to humankind "all the words of this law." Then God is our Lawgiver. (3) A distinct recognition of man's power to obey the law "that we may do all the words."

IV. Inquisitiveness into secret things will necessarily produce great unrest.

Parker, Hidden Springs, p. 172 (see also The City Temple, vol. iii., p. 325).

The fact that there are some mysteries which are insoluble is attested: (1) by the long and painful experience of mankind; (2) by the teaching of the materialistic thinkers of the day. The text recognises alike the spirit of uninquiring reverence and of rational freedom.

I. Some men say, "We cannot accept revelation. We accept the excellent moral teachings of the Bible, because they commend themselves to our reason and to the reason of the race; but what we cannot accept are these mysteries which are revealed in the New Testament." In answer to this we reply, A mystery is not a revelation. It is the very opposite of a revelation. We freely admit that there are mysteries confronting us in the Old and New Testaments. Truths are intimated, suggested, pointed at, dimly outlined, like a mountain castle scarce seen through the mists of evening which fill the valley; but, inasmuch as they are not clear, to that extent they cannot be said to be revealed. These things are beyond us. They are Divine mysteries which it is reverent for us to place with the secret things which belong unto the Lord God.

II. There are those who say they cannot receive a revelation on the ground that it is supernatural, that they only know that which comes through the mind of man and is capable of justifying itself to the human reason. Now we affirm that the Bible revelations have come through the mind of man. They were convictions, certainties, in some man's mind, which he declared to his fellows. A truth of inspiration is no truer than a truth of induction or demonstration. Truth is simply truth wherever it may come from or however it may be demonstrated. Revelation is natural and at the same time supernatural. It comes from the mind of man; it comes according to the mind and demonstration of God.

III. The one ever-speaking revelation of the mind of God is the history of man. "If we miss the truth," says Jeremy Taylor, "it is because we will not find it, for certain it is that all the truth which God hath made necessary He hath also made legible and plain; and if we will open our eyes, we shall see the sun, and if we will walk in the light, we shall rejoice in the light."

W. Page Roberts, Liberalism in Religion, pp. 28, 38.

References: Deuteronomy 29:29 . G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 193; R. Macellar, Memorials of a Ministry on the Clyde, p. 81; Parker, vol. iv., p. 324.Deuteronomy 30:6 . Sermons for the Christian Seasons, 1st series, vol. iv., p. 73.Deuteronomy 30:11-14 . S. Cox, Expositions, 2nd series, p. 350. Deuteronomy 30:14 . J. E. Vaux, Sermon Notes, 1st series, p. 10.