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27,299 commentary entries
The Pulpit Commentary
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 1:10
Notwithstanding the cruel oppression to which they were subjected in Egypt, the Israelites had so increased in numbers that they went out of the house of their bondage a mighty host. Ye are this day as the stars of heav…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 1:11
It was not the vast increase of the people in numbers that distressed Moses, rather was this to him a matter of rejoicing, and his desire was that their increase might become still greater, even a thousandfold. But he f…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 1:12
Moses appeals to the good sense of the people themselves: How can I myself alone bear your cumbrance, and your burden, and your strife? Cumbrance: this is a just rendering of the Hebrew word מֹרֲח, from טָרַח, which, th…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 1:13
Take you; literally, give to you or for you, i.e. yourselves. The selection was to be made by the people themselves. Jethro, in giving Moses the advice on which he thus acted, described the men who were to be selected a…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 1:16
Hear between your brethren, i.e. hear impartially both parties, and judge righteously between man and man, whether both parties are Israelites, or one of the parties a stranger.
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 1:17
Ye shall not respect persons; literally, look at or regard aces, i.e. ye shall not deal partially, favoring the one party rather than the other (comp. Exodus 23:2, Exodus 23:3; Le Exodus 19:15); the small as well as the…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 1:19-33
Sending the spies. This paragraph contains a brief review of events which are recorded in Numbers 13:1-33; Numbers 14:1-45. Israel had left the wilderness of Sinai; the cloud now rested in the wilderness of Paran. At th…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 1:19-46
EXPOSITION
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 1:19-33
The unbelief in sending and in hearkening to the spies. Moses reminds his audience of the conduct of their fathers at Kadesh-barnea, when exhorted to go up and possess the land. Duty was clear. They had been brought up…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 1:19-23
Here Moses passes from the judges to the people at large; from charging officials to judge righteously, to reminding the people that they also had received from him commandments which they had to obey. The "things" refe…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 1:19-26
That great and terrible wilderness: the desert forming the western side of the Stony Arabia. It bears now the name of Et-Tih, i.e. The Wandering, a name "doubtless derived from the wanderings of the Israelites, the trad…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 1:19
That great and terrible wilderness. An emblem of the rough and afflictive way by which God leads his people to the higher rest. I. THE FACT OF THIS WILDERNESS DISCIPLINE. We need not exaggerate. We admit all that can be…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 1:19-46
Irrecoverableness of wasted opportunity. I. THE CULMINATION OF OPPORTUNITY OFTEN FINDS A MAN UNPREPARED TO OCCUPY IT. The point of time referred to here was the supreme moment in Israel's history. They had relinquished…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 1:21
Courage. "Fear not, neither be discouraged" (cf. Joshua 1:7, Joshua 1:9). I. GOD'S WORK NEEDS COURAGE. 1. The enemies are many. 2. The enemies are strong. 3. Humanly speaking, we are feeble in comparison with them. Dist…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 1:22-32
The mission of the spies. We see from two instances in this chapter how God's plans leave wide room for the independent action of the human mind. Moses got the suggestion of appointing judges from Jethro; the idea of se…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 1:27
Ye murmured in your tents; an allusion to what is recorded in Numbers 14:1, etc. Moses addresses the people then with him as if they had been the parties who so rebelled and murmured at Kadesh, though all that generatio…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 1:28
Our brethren have discouraged our heart; literally, hate melted or made to flow down our heart ( הֵמַסּוּ, Hiph. cf מָסַס, to flow down or melt), have made us fainthearted. The cities are great and walled up to heaven;…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 1:29-40
Moses endeavored to rouse the drooping courage of the people, and persuade them to go up by reminding them that God, who was with them, would go before them, and fight for them as he had often done before; but without s…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 1:31
Not only at the Red Sea did God appear for the defense of his people and the discomfiture of their enemies, but also in the wilderness, which they had seen (as in Deuteronomy 1:19), where ( אֲשֶׂר, elliptically for אֲשֶ…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 1:31-33
Love in the wilderness. A beautiful passage, laden with God's compassions. We have in it— I. TENDER LOVE. The love is likened to that of the best of fathers to a son (cf. Psalms 103:13). The New Testament goes further.…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 1:32-35
The grievous consequences of unbelief. Moses rehearses in the hearing of Israel the strange story of "their manners in the wilderness," and reminds them how their unbelief had provoked the Lord to anger, and had deprive…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 1:34-46
The heirs of promise. We have in this passage the result of unbelief. The dread of the people was lest their little ones should become a prey to their gigantic foes in Canaan. The Lord now declares that these little one…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 1:34-40
The excluded and the admitted. I. THE EXCLUDED. 1. That whole unbelieving generation, with two excerptions (Deuteronomy 1:35). Note: 2. The holy Moses (Deuteronomy 1:37; cf. on Deuteronomy 3:26; Deuteronomy 4:21; Deuter…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 1:34
And the Lord heard the voice of your words, and he was wroth, and sware, etc. (comp. Numbers 14:21-24). Deuteronomy 1:35, Deuteronomy 1:36 They were all, the whole generation of them, evil, and therefore not a man of th…