Introduction
‘Now, Israel, hear the decrees and laws I am about to teach you. Follow them so that you may live and may go in and take possession of the land the LORD, the God of your ancestors, is giving you. Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it but keep the commands of the LORD your God that I give you. You saw with your own eyes what the LORD did at Baal Peor. The LORD your God destroyed from among you everyone who followed the Baal of Peor, but all of you who held fast to the LORD your God are still alive today. See, I have taught you decrees and laws as the LORD my God commanded me, so that you may follow them in the land you are entering to take possession of it. Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations, who will hear about all these decrees and say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.” What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the LORD our God is near us whenever we pray to him? And what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today?’ Deuteronomy 4:1-8
Obedience Commanded
The first commandment from God was that Israel must listen to God and carry out His will. They need to do more than just listen, they must do as God says, James 1:22.
The decrees, that is, statutes, were the initial revelations of God that were written and established as principles by which everyone must live.
The laws, that is, judgments, were the revealed decisions of God concerning specific matters as to how Israel carried out the written statutes of God in their lives.
The commandments were all direct instructions of God concerning the conduct of people’s lives, that is, things they should and shouldn’t do.
Notice Israel were instructed, ‘do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it.’
Moses repeats this principle later in Deuteronomy 13:1, and it was so important that even the prophets repeated this command, Proverbs 30:6 / Jeremiah 26:2, and the Scriptures themselves end with these same words, Revelation 22:18-19. No one has the right to add or remove anything from God’s word.
When Moses spoke he spoke divine commandments from God, Numbers 12:7-8. The commandments of God save the soul. Israel had tried their hand at reinterpreting God’s word, Numbers 16:3, and rebelled against God’s commandments, Deuteronomy 1:26, none of which helped them, Proverbs 14:34.
We can only be saved from sin through following and obeying God’s commands, Daniel 5:27 / Hosea 5:10-11 / Amos 7:7-8 / Matthew 7:21-24 / Ephesians 2:20 / Ephesians 4:1-6.
It’s God’s word which exposes our real identity, 1 Corinthians 14:24-25 / Hebrews 4:12-13. God’s word never changes, Malachi 3:6 / Matthew 24:35 / Hebrews 13:8, even though we may change, Jonah 1:1-2 / Jonah 3:1-10 / Malachi 1:6-8 / Malachi 3:7-10. It’s God’s word which will judge us in the end, John 12:46-50 / Colossians 2:23.
Israel looked and saw God’s wrath poured out upon the disobedient at Baal-Peor. Israel had committed fornication with the daughters of Moab and the Midianites and even worshipped their gods, Numbers 25:1-18.
The Lord’s anger was aroused and 24,000 Israelites were killed before the zeal of Phinehas stopped the plague with the act of conviction. Those not involved in the sin at Baal-Peor could look to their current state of life and realise that it was due to God’s will for the obedient.
Now, remember that before the Hebrews entered the Promised Land, the Lord God warned them against worshipping the Canaan’s gods in Deuteronomy 6:14-15, but Israel turned to idolatry anyway.
Baal was the name of the supreme god worshipped in ancient Canaan and Phoenicia. The practise of Baal worship infiltrated Jewish religious life during the time of the Judges, Judges 3:7.
It wasn’t long before it became widespread in Israel during the reign of Ahab according to 1 Kings 16:31-33, and also affected Judah, 2 Chronicles 28:1-2.
The word Baal means ‘lord’, the plural is Baalam and in general, Baal was a fertility god who was believed to enable the earth to produce crops and people to produce children. Different regions worshipped Baal in different ways, and Baal proved to be a highly adaptable god.
Various areas emphasised one or another of his attributes and developed special doctrines of Baalism. For example, Numbers 25:3 refers to Baal of Peor and later it is known as Baal-Berith in Judges 8:33, in other words, it became a localised deity.
According to Canaanite mythology, Baal was the son of El, the chief god, and Asherah, the goddess of the sea. Baal was considered the most powerful of all gods, eclipsing El, who was seen as rather weak and ineffective. In various battles, Baal defeated Yamm, the god of the sea, and Mot, the god of death and the underworld.
Baal’s sisters were Ashtoreth, a fertility goddess associated with the stars, and Anath, a goddess of love and war. And as we know the Canaanites worshipped Baal as the sun god and as the storm god. He’s usually depicted holding a lightning bolt, which defeated enemies and produced crops.
They also worshipped him as a fertility god who provided children. Baal worship was rooted in sensuality and involved ritualistic prostitution in the temples. At times, appeasing Baal required human sacrifice, usually the firstborn of the one making the sacrifice as we see in Jeremiah 19:5.
One of the most famous incidents in the Bible involving Baal was during the reign of Ahab and Jezebel. At the height of Baal worship in Israel, God directly confronted paganism through His prophet Elijah.
First, God showed that He, not Baal, controlled the rain by sending a drought lasting three and a half years according to 1 Kings 17:1. Then Elijah called for a showdown on Mount Carmel to prove once and for all who the true God was.
And if you remember all day long, 450 prophets of Baal called on their god to send fire from heaven, which was surely an easy task for a god associated with lightning bolts. But as 1 Kings 18:29 tells us, “there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention.”
And after Baal’s prophets gave up, Elijah prayed a simple prayer, and God answered immediately with fire from heaven. The evidence was overwhelming, and the Bible says in 1 Kings 18:39 “the people fell prostrate and cried, ‘The LORD–he is God! The LORD–he is God!’”.
In other words, Baal was a god who didn’t exist except in the minds of those who wanted him to be real.
Judges 9:4 tells us that the Israelites were involved in worshipping Baal-Berith, which literally means ‘the Baal of the covenant’. The Israelites were supposed to be in a covenant relationship with God but they were now in a covenant relationship with Baal.
Moses encourages Israel to remain faithful to God’s commandments and that such actions are defined as being wise and full of wisdom. The nations about them will perceive that Israel is wise as they obey the Lord’s commands too.
The nations will see that God answers Israel’s prayers and is with them as they obey, Acts 17:22-31.
‘Only be careful and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them fade from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them. Remember the day you stood before the LORD your God at Horeb, when he said to me, “Assemble the people before me to hear my words so that they may learn to revere me as long as they live in the land and may teach them to their children.” You came near and stood at the foot of the mountain while it blazed with fire to the very heavens, with black clouds and deep darkness. Then the LORD spoke to you out of the fire. You heard the sound of words but saw no form; there was only a voice. He declared to you his covenant, the Ten Commandments, which he commanded you to follow and then wrote them on two stone tablets. And the LORD directed me at that time to teach you the decrees and laws you are to follow in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess.’ Deuteronomy 4:9-14
One of the dangers among people of all times is forgetting where our blessings in life come from. Israel were to have burned within their memory the 24,000 who died due to their sinful conduct. Israel were to always remember that there are consequences to disobedience.
Israel were to teach their children and their children’s children about what God had done in the past, Ephesians 6:1-3.
Israel’s personal experiences of God’s direct leading in the past were to be passed on to their children. God’s work among them in the past 40 years was to be a witness that He worked in their lives to bring them into the land of Canaan.
Israel didn’t hear the words from God, only Moses heard, but they did hear the great sound from God on the mountain, Exodus 19-20. God appeared to the people at Sinai and they saw the smoke from the fire, the thick darkness about them, and the cloud and the people were terrified at the sight.
The Lord then spoke to Israel out of the fire and thick darkness and Moses reminds the people that they ‘saw no form of any kind’ but that they only ‘heard the voice of words’.
Moses told them that they must never forget what they heard, and so, pass the awesome and terrifying experience on to the generations to come. The generations of Israel must understand that the ‘voice’ was proof that Moses didn’t invent the law of God from his own imagination. He was only the mediator through whom God spoke His laws for Israel.
Phillips, in his commentary, says the following concerning the two tablets.
‘The Commandments are not to be thought of as written partly on one tablet and partly on the other. Each tablet would have contained all the Commandments. This again reflects the normal practice of the suzerainty treaties under which one copy was retained by the suzerain and the other given to the vassal to deposit in the temple of his god. In Israel’s case, both copies were placed in the Ark, Deuteronomy 10:1-5 / Deuteronomy 31:9 / Deuteronomy 31:26.’
Idolatry Forbidden
‘You saw no form of any kind the day the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire. Therefore watch yourselves very carefully, so that you do not become corrupt and make for yourselves an idol, an image of any shape, whether formed like a man or a woman, or like any animal on earth or any bird that flies in the air, or like any creature that moves along the ground or any fish in the waters below. And when you look up to the sky and see the sun, the moon and the stars—all the heavenly array—do not be enticed into bowing down to them and worshiping things the LORD your God has apportioned to all the nations under heaven. But as for you, the LORD took you and brought you out of the iron-smelting furnace, out of Egypt, to be the people of his inheritance, as you now are. The LORD was angry with me because of you, and he solemnly swore that I would not cross the Jordan and enter the good land the LORD your God is giving you as your inheritance. I will die in this land; I will not cross the Jordan; but you are about to cross over and take possession of that good land. Be careful not to forget the covenant of the LORD your God that he made with you; do not make for yourselves an idol in the form of anything the LORD your God has forbidden. For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.’ Deuteronomy 4:15-24
Moses reminds Israel of their fearful experience at Horeb, that is, Sinai, when they heard the voice of God and received His commandments, Exodus 24:1-8.
Moses calls upon Israel to think back at what they heard and saw and tells them, that they ‘saw no form of any kind’.
To carve an image out of stone or wood and call it God is idolatry. No representation of any imagined gods was to be carved in either stone or wood. No representation of the sexual organs of man or woman was to be made that would incite heathen worship and immorality.
The Egyptians worshipped all kinds of things, and they had idols set up everywhere to represent many different gods, but Israel weren’t to make any representation of any animal as an object of worship.
To look at the sun, moon, and stars and worship them is also idolatry. The Egyptians also worshipped the heavenly bodies, they worshipped the created instead of the Creator. There is one Creator and one worthy of worship, that is, the Lord God, Romans 1:13-32 / Acts 14:16-17 / Acts 17:30.
Notice Moses refers to Israel’s time in Egypt as an iron-smelting furnace, this is obviously metaphoric language for great affliction and suffering, 1 Kings 8:51 / Isaiah 48:10 / Jeremiah 11:4.
Moses reminds Israel how God’s anger was directed at him for not following through with His commandment, Numbers 20:10-13. God tells Moses that he will not be able to enter Canaan with Israel due to this act of rebellion on his part, Numbers 27:12-14.
Though Moses pleaded with God about the matter the Lord would not change His mind, Deuteronomy 3:23-29. This teaches us that no one is above God’s laws.
The proof that they forgot the covenant they made with God is seen in them making any graven image, which meant that they had created other lords, in their lives than the One who gave them laws by which to direct their lives.
God tells His people that they shouldn’t forget that He commanded them not to change any of His laws, abide in His commandments alone and that they turn to past historical events that they may know of His power and wrath against sinners.
Moses reminds Israel that the LORD your God is a consuming fire, in other words, they must take Him seriously, Hebrews 12:29.
If you look up the word ‘jealous’ in a concordance you will also come across the word ‘jealousy’, and you will be led to that striking verse which states, ‘Yahweh, whose name is Jealousy, is a jealous God’, Exodus 34:14.
The problem arises because these two words today do not mean what they meant in Old Testament times, and sustain a meaning which is different, even, from 1611, when the Authorized Version was produced.
I am sure that we have all discovered, in reading the older version that problems arise because, over the years, many words have acquired very different meanings. If we had the space to spare, this fact could very easily be demonstrated.
Today we list ‘jealousy’ among such sins as ‘envy’, ‘malice’ and ‘pride’. ln fact, the Oxford Dictionary defines the word ‘jealous’ as, resentful towards another on account of known or suspected rivalry; envious. Because of this, jealousy is the motivation behind a great many of the sins that people commit.
But the Old Testament word at which we are looking is ‘quanno’ and its basic meaning is, quite simply, ‘zeal’ and to be ‘jealous’, in the Old Testament sense was, with one or two rare exceptions, to be ‘zealous’ or enthusiastic or passionate.
It is in this sense that the prophet Elijah uses the word when he declares his enthusiasm for God, in 1 Kings 19:10. Similarly, when God declares that He is jealous, He tells us what it is that He is jealous of.
This means that when, in Exodus 20:5, He says, ‘I am a jealous God’, He’s declaring His zealousness for the protection of His own honour as the one True God, Isaiah 42:80.
‘After you have had children and grandchildren and have lived in the land a long time—if you then become corrupt and make any kind of idol, doing evil in the eyes of the LORD your God and arousing his anger, I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you this day that you will quickly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live there long but will certainly be destroyed. The LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the LORD will drive you. There you will worship man-made gods of wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or eat or smell. But if from there you seek the LORD your God, 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 have happened to you, then in later days you will return to the LORD your God and obey him. For the LORD your God is a merciful God; he will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your ancestors, which he confirmed to them by oath.’ Deuteronomy 4:25-31
Here we read of the consequences for Israel if they do forget what they had learned from Moses or God’s prophets and if they didn’t teach their children and their children’s children about God’s mighty power.
Moses calls heaven and earth in as witnesses that if such occurs God’s anger will be provoked and Israel will be consumed from off the earth.
Moses looks into the future at a day when the people of God would turn their backs on God and worship the works of their hands in the form of birds, snakes, fishes, and various forms of wood and stone, Isaiah 45:20 / Psalms 115:4-7 / 1 Corinthians 12:2.
We can imagine that these words would have haunted those Israelites who were carried away years later into the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities.
The condition for remaining in the land was their obedience to the law of the covenant. Once they rebelled against the law of God, then they had no right to the land. The consequence of their sin would be hardship and destruction because of their disobedience.
Though they suffer the Lord stands ready and willing to forgive them of their iniquity if only they would seek His forgiveness. This promise reached far into the future when Israel would be in the bondage of Assyria and Babylon.
After their captivity, they had repented of their ways and so, God would bring a remnant of all twelve tribes back to the Promised Land in order to prepare them for the coming of the Messiah.
The LORD Is God
‘Ask now about the former days, long before your time, from the day God created human beings on the earth; ask from one end of the heavens to the other. Has anything so great as this ever happened, or has anything like it ever been heard of? Has any other people heard the voice of God1 speaking out of fire, as you have, and lived? Has any god ever tried to take for himself one nation out of another nation, by testings, by signs and wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, or by great and awesome deeds, like all the things the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes? You were shown these things so that you might know that the LORD is God; besides him there is no other. From heaven he made you hear his voice to discipline you. On earth he showed you his great fire, and you heard his words from out of the fire. Because he loved your ancestors and chose their descendants after them, he brought you out of Egypt by his Presence and his great strength, to drive out before you nations greater and stronger than you and to bring you into their land to give it to you for your inheritance, as it is today. Acknowledge and take to heart this day that the LORD is God in heaven above and on the earth below. There is no other. Keep his decrees and commands, which I am giving you today, so that it may go well with you and your children after you and that you may live long in the land the LORD your God gives you for all time.’ Deuteronomy 4:32-40
Someone once said, ‘nowhere in man’s history has there been a time when God revealed himself so much to man’. God spoke with them at Mount Sinai in the hearing of all and He performed mighty works in Egypt to get Israel out of Egypt.
We would think because of all that God had done, the Israelites would be a people who had great faith in God.
God did all these things to let Israel and the other nations, that, the Lord alone, is indeed God. However that all these things God had done for them weren’t enough to convince them and so they turn to idolatry again.
Moses tells us two things that Israel couldn’t deny, first of all, the Lord spoke to them from the mountain and they saw no form and second, the Lord humbled the mightiest nation of their day and brought His people out by divine miracles.
God gave birth to them through Abraham, brought them out of the bondage of one of the most powerful nations of the world, Egypt, and then brought them into a land that He promised them centuries before.
The undeniable fact that the Lord is the one true God was to be ‘taken to heart’, because ‘there is no other’, Deuteronomy 4:28 / Isaiah 46:8-11.
Seeing that the Lord God is the only true God and that He has delivered commandments to be followed the people ought to understand the importance of doing so.
Cities of Refuge
‘Then Moses set aside three cities east of the Jordan, to which anyone who had killed a person could flee if they had unintentionally killed a neighbour without malice aforethought. They could flee into one of these cities and save their life. The cities were these: Bezer in the wilderness plateau, for the Reubenites; Ramoth in Gilead, for the Gadites; and Golan in Bashan, for the Manassites.’ Deuteronomy 4:41-43
Moses sets up three cities of refuge on the east of the Jordan River for one to flee out of Gad, Reuben, or half the tribe of Manasseh, Numbers 35:6-34 / Deuteronomy 19:1-14 / Joshua 20:1-9.
These cities would be accessible to the tribes of Reuben, Gad and half the tribe of Manasseh who lived on the east side of the Jordan.
These words bring to an end, Moses’ first sermon.
Introduction To The Law
Second Sermon, Deuteronomy 4:44-11:32
‘This is the law Moses set before the Israelites. These are the stipulations, decrees and laws Moses gave them when they came out of Egypt and were in the valley near Beth Peor east of the Jordan, in the land of Sihon king of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon and was defeated by Moses and the Israelites as they came out of Egypt. They took possession of his land and the land of Og king of Bashan, the two Amorite kings east of the Jordan. This land extended from Aroer on the rim of the Arnon Gorge to Mount Sirion (that is, Hermon), and included all the Arabah east of the Jordan, as far as the Dead Sea, below the slopes of Pisgah.’ Deuteronomy 4:44-49
The decrees, that is, statutes, were the initial revelations of God that were written and established as principles by which everyone must live.
The laws, that is, judgments, were the revealed decisions of God concerning specific matters as to how Israel carried out the written statutes of God in their lives.
The commandments were all direct instructions of God concerning the conduct of people’s lives, that is, things they should and shouldn’t do, Deuteronomy 4:1-8.
The valley near Beth Peor was on the east side of the Jordan, Deuteronomy 1:1 / Deuteronomy 1:5 / Deuteronomy 3:29. The land was originally controlled by the Moabites, Numbers 21:26 and here it’s identified as the land of Sihon, the king of the Amorites whom Israel had just defeated.
