Deuteronomy 4 – A Call to Obedience

A. Moses challenges the nation to obedience.

1. (1-4) Moses challenges Israel to learn from the example of Baal-Peor.

“Now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I teach you to observe, that you may live, and go in and possess the land which the LORD God of your fathers is giving you. You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you. Your eyes have seen what the LORD did at Baal Peor; for the LORD your God has destroyed from among you all the men who followed Baal of Peor. But you who held fast to the LORD your God are alive today, every one of you.

a. Now, O Israel, listen: Moses had reminded Israel of their many rebellions against God in the wilderness (Deuteronomy 1:19-46). Now, as they were ready to enter the Promised Land, Moses wanted them to think about their need for present obedience in consideration of their past rebellions.

i. One of Satan’s more effective strategies is to make believers remember what they should forget and forget what they should remember. If God’s people don’t remember their past sins and rebellions against God, they can easily repeat them, falling into the same sinful patterns and traps.

b. That you may live: In the larger sense, spiritual life and death depended on Israel’s obedience. Yet also in the more immediate sense, physical life and death depended on their obedience. Israel was about to attack a strong people and displace them from the Promised Land. If Israel didn’t have the blessing of the LORD upon them, they would soon suffer great losses and be expelled from Canaan.

i. Israel’s first military loss in the Promised Land (Joshua 7) came specifically because they had disobeyed God. A battle was lost, and 36 men died at Ai because one man in Israel (Achan) did not obey the command of the LORD.

c. You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it: This is an important principle regarding God’s word. God’s people are not to add to it (in the sense of making the traditions and opinions of men equal to the law of God), nor are they to take from it (by bad teaching, explaining away passages, or declaring some biblical authors to be unreliable or uninspired). This idea is repeated in Revelation 22:18-19.

d. Your eyes have seen what the LORD did at Baal Peor: At Baal Peor, Israel sinned by committing both sexual and spiritual immorality with the women of Moab and Midian (Numbers 25:1-9). This catastrophe resulted in the death of several thousand under God’s judgment and had happened within a few months before Moses spoke the words of Deuteronomy to Israel.

i. Moses warned those alive today, those who held faithful and did not fall under God’s judgment at Baal Peor, that they must continue in that faithfulness.

2. (5-8) Moses speaks of Israel as a great nation, with a great God and His great law.

“Surely I have taught you statutes and judgments, just as the LORD my God commanded me, that you should act according to them in the land which you go to possess. Therefore be careful to observe them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes, and say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’

“For what great nation is there that has God so near to it, as the LORD our God is to us, for whatever reason we may call upon Him? And what great nation is there that has such statutes and righteous judgments as are in all this law which I set before you this day?

a. Surely I have taught you statutes and judgments: An important part of the leadership of Moses was to teach Israel God’s law and how it applied to their everyday life. Obedience to God’s law in the land that they would possess was essential to them being blessed and flourishing in the land.

b. Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people: This is what Israel’s neighbors would say about an Israel that was blessed and flourishing because of their obedience to God’s law. God’s intention was that through Israel’s obedience to the covenant, He would exalt them among the nations and make them a witness. This was so that foreigners, like the queen of Sheba who visited Solomon at the height of his glory, would see that the LORD God of Israel was indeed the LORD God (1 Kings 10).

c. For what great nation is there that has God so near to it: By most measures, Israel was not a great nation, as they were not especially large in territory or in population. Yet as they were obedient to the covenant, they would enjoy the blessings God promised and avoid the curses He warned them of (Leviticus 26, Deuteronomy 27-28). This would make them a great nation.

i. Another reason Israel was such a great nation was that they had received God’s word, God’s law (statutes and righteous judgments as are in all this law). God committed His oracles, His word – to Israel (Romans 3:2).

ii. This was a gift not only to Israel, but to all humanity. “Almost all the nations in the earth showed that they had formed this opinion of the Jews, by borrowing from them the principal part of their civil code. Take away what Asia and Europe, whether ancient or modern, have borrowed from the Mosaic laws, and you leave little behind that can be called excellent.” (Clarke)

3. (9-14) Moses challenges Israel to learn from the example at Mount Sinai (Horeb).

Only take heed to yourself, and diligently keep yourself, lest you forget the things your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. And teach them to your children and your grandchildren, especially concerning the day you stood before the LORD your God in Horeb, when the LORD said to me, ‘Gather the people to Me, and I will let them hear My words, that they may learn to fear Me all the days they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children.’

“Then you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire to the midst of heaven, with darkness, cloud, and thick darkness. And the LORD spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of the words, but saw no form; you only heard a voice. So He declared to you His covenant which He commanded you to perform, the Ten Commandments; and He wrote them on two tablets of stone. And the LORD commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that you might observe them in the land which you cross over to possess.

a. Only take heed to yourself: Moses warned Israel to remember what they had seen, experienced, and learned in the wilderness years. This could refer to both the great miracles of God’s goodness and provision, and to the judgments God carried out against the unbelieving and complaining among the people of Israel.

b. The things your eyes have seen: God strongly tied the faith of Israel to historical events; to things that actually happened at a real time and a real place. Israel’s faith was not fundamentally based on speculative theologies, myths, legends, or philosophies; but on the real, historical acts of God.

i. This pattern continues and is even strengthened in the New Testament. The faith of the Christian is not based on speculative theologies, myths, legends, or philosophies; but on the real, historical acts of Jesus Christ, especially upon His death and resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:13-20).

c. Teach them to your children and your grandchildren: Israel was commanded, take heed to yourself. But they were not to think only of themselves; they were also to teach their children and grandchildren.

i. The goal of this training was that future generations would learn to fear the LORD all the days they live. “The ‘fear of the Lord’ is one of the dominating thoughts of the Old Testament. It is to be recognized as the proper response of a man to God. It is God-given and enables a man to reverence God’s person, to obey his commandments and to hate evil (Jeremiah 32:40; Hebrews 5:7).” (Thompson)

d. Especially concerning the day: The teaching of their children had to include Israel’s experience with God at Horeb (Mount Sinai) – an experience some 38 years before the events of Deuteronomy, an event most of those present knew only as children, if at all (Exodus 19:17-20:1)

i. At Horeb, the nation of Israel heard God speak (I will let them hear My words). This was part of the experience that they were to pass down to their children and grandchildren.

ii. Two tablets of stone: “It probably is best to see these two tablets as duplicates, with each containing all ten commandments. This would reflect the custom whereby each party to the covenant would have a copy of the document for his own archives and future reference.” (Merrill)

e. He declared to you His covenant: At Mount Sinai, Israel received God’s law, and they also entered into a covenant with Yahweh (Exodus 24:1-8). This covenant would include the promises of blessing on an obedient Israel and promises to curse a disobedient Israel (Leviticus 26).

i. The law applied to Israel in the wilderness but was ultimately given to them for life in the land of Canaan.

ii. His covenant: “This is the first explicit occurrence in Deuteronomy of berit, the fundamental term for expressing the covenant idea and relationship. It appears over three hundred times in the Old Testament, including some twenty-eight times in Deuteronomy, and can apply generically to covenants of all kinds—conditional or unconditional, bilateral or unilateral, royal grant, or suzerain-vassal—or to just an element of covenant, as here.” (Merrill)

4. (15-20) Israel’s experience at Mount Sinai was a warning against idolatry.

“Take careful heed to yourselves, for you saw no form when the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, lest you act corruptly and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of any figure: the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth or the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground or the likeness of any fish that is in the water beneath the earth. And take heed, lest you lift your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, you feel driven to worship them and serve them, which the LORD your God has given to all the peoples under the whole heaven as a heritage. But the LORD has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be His people, an inheritance, as you are this day.

a. You heard the sound of the words, but saw no form; you only heard a voice: The commands at Horeb had to be obeyed. Because they saw no form of God, therefore God commanded that they must never make an image to represent Him.

i. “Howsoever God chose to appear or manifest himself, he took care never to assume any describable form. He would have no image worship, because he is a Spirit, and they who worship him must worship him in Spirit and in truth.” (Clarke)

ii. Israel was forbidden to worship any figure or image in the likeness of male or female. Man is made in the image of God but is not God. Worship belongs to God alone, and not to any man or any woman, either in person or in likeness.

iii. Israel was forbidden to worship the creation of God. There is no animal, bird, sun, moon, or stars that are fittingly worshipped. This is worshipping the creature rather than the Creator (Romans 1:25).

b. The LORD has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace: Because God had delivered Israel, He had a claim to their devotion and allegiance. God does not deliver His people so that they can do as they please, but so that they can do as pleases Him. All humanity is obligated to honor and obey God as Creator; God’s people have the additional obligation to honor and obey God as their redeemer, He who brought them out of the iron furnace.

i. “Bringing Israel out of Egypt was like bringing her out of an iron-smelting furnace—the heavy bondage of Egypt with its accompanying difficulties and tensions being likened to the hottest fire then known.” (Kalland)

ii. “For the Lord to be able to humiliate that great empire by rescuing an impotent slave people from its grasp was ample witness to his incomparability.” (Merrill)

5. (21-24) Moses challenges Israel to learn from the example of his own failure.

Furthermore the LORD was angry with me for your sakes, and swore that I would not cross over the Jordan, and that I would not enter the good land which the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance. But I must die in this land, I must not cross over the Jordan; but you shall cross over and possess that good land. Take heed to yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of the LORD your God which He made with you, and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of anything which the LORD your God has forbidden you. For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.

a. The LORD was angry with me for your sakes: It was for the sake of Israel that God disciplined Moses, not allowing him to enter the Promised Land. Israel needed to see that no man, not even Moses, was above God’s law. They also had to understand that it was indeed better that Joshua lead them into the Promised Land instead of Moses.

b. I must die in this land…but you shall cross over and possess that good land: Moses humbly acknowledged his sin and failure before Israel back at Meribah (Numbers 20:2-13). Moses also understood that Israel would succeed in taking Canaan without him. God’s work among Israel would not end with the death of Moses. God would use Joshua to lead Israel to possess that good land.

i. Moses knew that he was replaceable. God’s workers come and go, but God’s work goes on. If a work ends with the death of the worker, it may be fairly questioned whether it was a real work of God.

c. Take heed to yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of the LORD: Israel’s success in possessing the Promised Land did not depend primarily on Joshua’s skill as a leader (though God used Joshua’s wisdom and skill as a leader). It depended more on Israel’s faithfulness to the covenant they made with God and their rejection of idolatry (a carved image).

d. For the LORD your God is a consuming fire: Moses’ idea was simply, “If God did not spare me when I sinned against Him, don’t think He will spare you if you turn to other gods. God is a consuming fire, and we must take Him and obedience to Him seriously.” This idea is quoted in Hebrews 12:29.

i. A jealous God: “The term jealous (qanna) does not connote the same as the English word, but rather an active zealousness for righteousness which arose from Yahweh’s holiness. Because of this Yahweh would not countenance Israel’s allegiance to any other God.” (Thompson)

B. Moses warns the nation about the danger of disobedience.

1. (25-28) The price of serving other gods: exile among the nations.

“When you beget children and grandchildren and have grown old in the land, and act corruptly and make a carved image in the form of anything, and do evil in the sight of the LORD your God to provoke Him to anger, I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that you will soon utterly perish from the land which you cross over the Jordan to possess; you will not prolong your days in it, but will be utterly destroyed. And the LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the LORD will drive you. And there you will serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell.

a. I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day: Moses considered Israel after being in the land for many generations, having grown old in the land. If then they started to worship a carved image or an idol, creation itself would testify against them. They would provoke God to anger and be destroyed in the land God promised to give them.

b. And the LORD will scatter you among the peoples: God gave Israel the Promised Land, but not unconditionally. If they persisted in idol worship, God would remove them from the land and scatter them among the nations.

i. This was exactly what happened some 550 years later, at the time of the Babylonian exile of Judah. However, God’s judgment against Israel, His scattering of them among the peoples, would not be forever. God would bring them back to the land, as a testimony to His enduring promise to Israel (Jeremiah 31:34-37).

c. There you will serve gods, the work of men’s hands…which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell: If Israel was scattered in exile, they would then get their fill of idols. God would put them in places filled with idols.

2. (29-31) God’s mercy to exiled Israel.

But from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you are in distress, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, when you turn to the LORD your God and obey His voice (for the LORD your God is a merciful God), He will not forsake you nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which He swore to them.

a. From there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him: God would not totally abandon Israel in exile. When they were ready to turn back to the LORD, He would be ready to receive them.

i. “Even in the predicament of exile God may be sought and found. One feature of Yahweh’s covenant with Israel in contrast with the secular treaties was that a rebel might return (‘repent’) to Yahweh and be forgiven and thus have the prospect of beginning a new life of obedience.” (Thompson)

b. If you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul: However, if Israel was to find the LORD, they had to seek Him with all their heart and all their soul.

i. In this context, to seek God with the heart has the idea of passionately seeking Him, seeking Him out of true commitment and devotion to the LORD. Seeking God with the soul has the idea of seeking God with the mind, will, and emotions; the surrender of one’s whole being to God.

c. When you turn to the LORD your God and obey His voice: Turning to God would lead Israel to obey His voice. The true, sincere seeking of God will lead a man or woman to obey God. If Israel turned to God in obedience, God promised to remember His covenant with Israel and restore them.

i. “The Lord here encourages sinners to turn to himself, and find abundant grace. He encourages sinners who had violated his plainest commandments, who had made idols, and so had corrupted themselves, and had consequently been visited with captivity, and other chastisements — he invites them to turn from their evil ways, and seek his face.” (Spurgeon)

ii. Spurgeon noted these verses provide:

· A time mentioned (the present, from there).

· A way appointed (seek the LORD, and He alone).

· An encouragement given (He will not forsake you).

3. (32-40) The reasons for serving God.

“For ask now concerning the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and ask from one end of heaven to the other, whether any great thing like this has happened, or anything like it has been heard. Did any people ever hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and live? Or did God ever try to go and take for Himself a nation from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? To you it was shown, that you might know that the LORD Himself is God; there is none other besides Him. Out of heaven He let you hear His voice, that He might instruct you; on earth He showed you His great fire, and you heard His words out of the midst of the fire. And because He loved your fathers, therefore He chose their descendants after them; and He brought you out of Egypt with His Presence, with His mighty power, driving out from before you nations greater and mightier than you, to bring you in, to give you their land as an inheritance, as it is this day. Therefore know this day, and consider it in your heart, that the LORD Himself is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other. You shall therefore keep His statutes and His commandments which I command you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which the LORD your God is giving you for all time.”

a. For ask now: Moses asked Israel to carefully think about the days that are past and consider if God had ever dealt with any other nation the way He had dealt with Israel. Israel had a special place in the plan of God, and they needed to remember this. Israel was a uniquely blessed people, with a unique role in the unfolding plan of God.

i. Israel is a truly chosen people, but in a significant sense, not chosen for salvation. John the Baptist rightly warned the Jews that being a descendant of Abraham did not guarantee their salvation (Matthew 3:9). Israel was chosen to have a special role in God’s unfolding plan of the ages, to receive and preserve God’s revelation in the Hebrew Scriptures, to be God’s light to the nations, to receive unique blessings from God, and (most importantly) to be the people that would bring forth God’s Messiah, the Savior of the World.

b. To you it was shown, that you might know that the LORD Himself is God: Israel could know that the LORD was God, because of all the amazing things God did in the life of their nation. These included hearing the voice of God, trials, signs, wonders, war, and God’s mighty hand. All these were given to testify to Israel that Yahweh – the LORD – is God.

i. Clarke on Deuteronomy 4:34: “In this verse Moses enumerates seven different means used by the Almighty in effecting Israel’s deliverance.”

c. The LORD Himself is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath, there is no other: This was a logical, rational response to hearing what Israel heard, seeing what they saw, and experiencing what they experienced.

i. “The nations of the earth might indeed have their mythic and epic traditions about the intervention of their gods on behalf of their ancestors or even themselves, but none of these can compare in the least to the act of delivering a disorganized, dispirited, militarily inexperienced horde of slaves from the dominion of the mightiest power on earth.” (Merrill)

ii. In heaven above and on the earth beneath is another way of saying that God is everywhere. “Where is God? Or rather, where is not God? He is higher than heaven, lower than hell, broader than the sea, longer than the earth…. He is nowhere, and yet everywhere; far from no place, and yet not contained in any place.” (Trapp)

d. You shall therefore keep His statutes and His commandments: Considering who God is, and all He did for Israel, obedience to His commands made perfect sense. It was simply what should be done. We are fools to disobey such a God of love and power.

i. The LORD gives man the invitation: Come now, and let us reason together, says the LORD (Isaiah 1:18). When we consider the options, serving God is the only option. We often think that it is difficult to serve the LORD, but we would be in an even worse place without Him. It has been said, “Democracy is the worst form of government ever created, except for all the others.” One could also say, “Serving God is the hardest way to live, except for all the other ways.”

4. (41-43) Moses sets apart cities of refuge in the land east of the Jordan River.

Then Moses set apart three cities on this side of the Jordan, toward the rising of the sun, that the manslayer might flee there, who kills his neighbor unintentionally, without having hated him in time past, and that by fleeing to one of these cities he might live: Bezer in the wilderness on the plateau for the Reubenites, Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites, and Golan in Bashan for the Manassites.

a. Then Moses set apart three cities on this side of the Jordan: This was part of the commanded preparation for entering the Promised Land. God commanded that three cities of refuge be readied on each side of the Jordan River (Numbers 35:14), and here, the three cities on the east side of the Jordan were appointed.

i. These verses are something of an appendix or an addition at the end of the first sermon Moses gave to Israel on the plains of Moab. They conclude this first of three sections of Deuteronomy.

b. Three cities on this side of the Jordan: Moses could not appoint all six cities of refuge, because they had not yet taken the land on the western side of the Jordan River. Still, though he could not obey all of God’s command to appoint six cities of refuge, he did what he could – and appointed the three on the east of the Jordan.

i. “Hence let us learn that, even when we cannot at once entirely carry out what God commands us to do, we are still to be by no means idle. For nothing but sheer laziness stands in our way, unless we speedily commence at God’s command what it is His will to finish.” (Calvin)

5. (44-49) Introduction to the second sermon of Moses to Israel.

Now this is the law which Moses set before the children of Israel. These are the testimonies, the statutes, and the judgments which Moses spoke to the children of Israel after they came out of Egypt, on this side of the Jordan, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, in the land of Sihon king of the Amorites, who dwelt at Heshbon, whom Moses and the children of Israel defeated after they came out of Egypt. And they took possession of his land and the land of Og king of Bashan, two kings of the Amorites, who were on this side of the Jordan, toward the rising of the sun, from Aroer, which is on the bank of the River Arnon, even to Mount Sion (that is, Hermon), and all the plain on the east side of the Jordan as far as the Sea of the Arabah, below the slopes of Pisgah.

a. This is the law which Moses set before the children of Israel: This begins the second major section of Deuteronomy, the start of the second sermon of Moses to Israel. This is the longest of the three sermons of Deuteronomy, lasting all the way through the end of Deuteronomy 26.

i. With Israel on the threshold of the Promised Land, they needed to be instructed again in the law God gave them some 38 years before at Mount Sinai. As Israel camped on the plains of Moab, Moses declared and explained the Law of God to the new generation before he died and Joshua became the new leader of Israel.

b. On this side of the Jordan: If Israel was going to take the Promised Land, they had to be trained in God’s word. They would not conquer Canaan by a do-it-yourself spirituality, but only by obedience to the eternal word of God. The same is true for believers today who will never walk in the abundant life God has for them apart from doing it by His word.

i. Mount Sion: “An alternative name is given for Mount Hermon, Sion, probably the same as Sirion in Deuteronomy 3:9 and Psalm 29:6. It is otherwise unknown.” (Thompson)

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