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The Pulpit Commentary
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 30:1-10
Israel's restoration. The blackness of the picture of Israel's rejection and desolation is relieved by this rim of gold on the further edge. The verses seem to teach, not only that if Israel repent, mercy awaits it, but…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 30:1-10
Divine discipline founded on known principle. Human anger is often an uncontrollable passion. God's anger is directed, not so much against the man, as against his sin. God's anger is the acting of sound principle—a part…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 30:1-10
The restoration of the Jews. So certain is the apostasy and the judgment on the land, that Moses assumes it as an accomplished fact, thereupon proceeding to predict a restoration of the "scattered nation" in case of the…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 30:1-10
Dispersion not rejection. It is very comforting to pass from so gloomy a chapter as the twenty-eighth to such a paragraph as this. In this thirtieth chapter, the onlook and outlook of Moses are much more extended than b…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 30:2
And shalt return unto the Lord thy God; retrain from the worship of false gods to worship and serve Jehovah the one true God, the God of their fathers, and the God whom as a nation they had before wet-shipped (cf. Nehem…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 30:3
The Lord thy God will turn thy captivity. This does not mean will cause thy captives to return, for Deuteronomy 30:4, Deuteronomy 30:5 Consequent on this deliverance would be the gathering of Israel from all the places…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 30:6
(comp. with Jeremiah 30:1-24 :31-34, and Hebrews 8:6).— The old and new covenants. It may not be uninstructive at this stage of homiletic teaching upon this book, to place on record the points of comparison and of contr…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 30:6
The Lord will circumcise thine heart; "when thou wilt become better, God will help thereto (cf. Deuteronomy 10:16)" (Herxheimer). When Israel should return to the Lord, he would take away from them the evil heart of unb…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 30:10
Israel would then be restored to the full enjoyment of privilege, would again enter into covenant union with the Almighty, and would be enriched with all the blessings of his favor (cf. Deuteronomy 28:11, Deuteronomy 28…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 30:11-14
The word of faith. Paul, in Romans 10:6-10, applies these words to the "righteousness of faith," and contrasts them with the voice of the Law, which is, "The man which doeth those things shall live by them" (Romans 10:5…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 30:11-14
The revelation at man's door. We have a very beautiful thought inserted by Moses regarding the proximity and handiness—if we may be allowed the thought—of God's commandments. It is used by Paul in the same connection, a…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 30:11-14
Revealed truth clear and available. Dishonest minds are wont to plead that religious truth is recondite, self-contradictory, hard to be understood. Its obligations too, they aver, are impracticable, beyond the power of…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 30:11-14
The fulfillment of this condition was not impossible or even difficult; for God had done everything to render it easy for them. The commandment of God was not hidden from them; literally, was not wonderful to them; i.e.…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 30:11-14
(comp. with Romans 10:6-13).— The word of faith. No Christian preacher is likely ever to deal with these words of Moses without setting by the side thereof the words of the Apostle Paul respecting them, in which, indeed…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 30:15-20
A dread alternative. While handling substantially the same momentous themes, the aged lawgiver, as if the thought were oppressing him that he should very soon speak his last word, becomes more and more intensely earnest…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Moses concludes by solemnly adjuring the people, as he had set before them, in his proclamation of the Law and in his preaching, good and evil, life and death, to choose the former and eschew the latter, to love and ser…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 30:15-20
A last word. I. AN ALTERNATIVE. Life and death; good and evil (Deuteronomy 30:15); blessing and cursing (Deuteronomy 30:19). An alternative for the nation, but also for the individual. "Life" is more than existence—it i…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 30:15-20
An alternative choice. The prophet's power to persuade and influence a people is great—unspeakably great; yet it is not irresistible. It has its limits. After all that has been said to him, a man feels that the determin…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Death and life set before the people. In this earnest word which concludes a section of his address to the people, Moses is summing up his deliverance. It has been called by Havernick "the classic passage" upon the subj…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 30:17
(Cf. Deuteronomy 4:19.)
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 30:19
(Cf. Deuteronomy 4:26.)
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 30:19
Nature a witness. (See for other instances, Deuteronomy 4:26; Deuteronomy 31:28; Deuteronomy 32:1; Isaiah 1:2.) The invocation of heaven and earth as witnesses turns on deep principles. They are "called to record"— I. B…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 30:20
For he is thy life; rather, for this is thy life; to love the Lord is really to live the true, the higher life (cf. Deuteronomy 4:40; Deuteronomy 32:47). HOMILETICS
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 31:1-30
PART IV.—FAREWELL ADDRESS OF MOSES, WITH HIS PARTING SONG AND BENEDICTION. CHAPTERS 31-33. EXPOSITION Moses had now finished his work as the legislator and ruler and leader of Israel. But ere he finally retired from his…