View Deuteronomy 29 in the note window.
The preface of God's covenant, ver. 1.
A recital of his dealings with them, ver. 2 - 8.
A solemn exhortation to keep covenant with God, ver. 9 - 17.
A severe threatning to them that break it, ver. 18 - 28.
The end of the revealed will of God, ver. 29.
1: These are the terms or conditions upon which God hath made,
that is renewed his covenant with you. The covenant was but one in
substance, but various in the time and manner of its dispensation.
4: Yet the Lord - That is, you have perceived and seen them with the
eyes of your body, but not with your minds and hearts; you have not yet
learned rightly to understand the word and works of God, so as to know them
for your good, and to make a right use of them, and to comply with them:
which he expresseth thus, the Lord hath not given you, &c. not to excuse
their wickedness, but to direct them to whom they must have recourse for a
good understanding of God's works; and to intimate that although the hearing
ear, and the seeing eye, be the workmanship of God, yet their want of his
grace was their own fault, and the just punishment of their former sins;
their present case being like theirs in Isaiah's time, who first shut
their own eyes and ears that they might not see and hear, and would not
understand, and then by the righteous judgment of God, had their eyes and
ears closed that they should not see and hear, and understand. God's
readiness to do us good in other things, is a plain evidence, that if we
have not grace, that best of gifts, 'tis our own fault and not his: he
would have gathered us, and we would not.
6: Ye have not eaten bread - Common bread purchased by your own
money, or made by your own hands, but heavenly and angelical bread.
Neither drank wine - But only water out of the rock.
The Lord - Omnipotent and all - sufficient for your provision without the
help of any creatures, and your God in covenant with you who hath a
true affection to you, and fatherly care of you.
11: Thy stranger - Such strangers as had embraced their religion:
all sorts of persons, yea, even the meanest of them.
12: Into covenant and into his oath - Into covenant, confirmed by a
solemn oath.
13: That he may establish thee - Here is the summary of that covenant
whereof Moses was the mediator, and in the covenant relation between God
and them, all the precepts and promises of the covenant are included. That
they should be established for a people to him, to fear, love, obey, and
be devoted to him, and that he should be to them a God, to make them
holy and happy; and a due sense of the relation we stand in to God as
our God, and the obligation we are under to him as his people, is
enough to bring us to all the duties, and all the comforts of the covenant.
And does this covenant include nothing spiritual? nothing that refers
to eternity?
15: So also - With your posterity. For so the covenant was made at
first with Abraham and his seed, by which as God engaged himself to
continue the blessing of Abraham upon his posterity, so he also engaged
them to the same duties which were required of Abraham. So it is even
among men, where a king confers an estate upon a subject and his heirs for
ever, upon some certain conditions, all his heirs who enjoy that benefit,
are obliged to the same conditions. It may likewise include those who were
then constrained to be absent, by sickness, or any necessary occasion.
Nay one of the Chaldee pharaphrasts reads it, all the generations
that have been from the first days of the world, and all that shall
arise to the end of the whole world, stand with us here this day.
And so taking this covenant as a typical dispensation of the covenant of
grace, 'tis a noble testimony to the Mediator of that covenant, who is the
same yesterday, to day, and for ever.
16: Egypt - Where you have seen their idolatries, and learned too
much of them, as the golden calf shewed, and therefore have need to renew
your covenant with God; where also we were in dreadful bondage whence God
alone hath delivered us, to whom therefore we are deeply obliged, and
have all reason to renew our covenant with him.
Through the nations - With what hazard, if God had not appeared for us!
18: A root - An evil heart inclining you to such cursed idolatry,
and bringing forth bitter fruits.
19: Of this curse - Of that oath where - in he swore he would keep
covenant with God, and that with a curse pronounced against himself if he
did not perform it. Bless himself - Flatter himself in his own eyes, with
vain hopes, as if God did not mind such things, and either could not, or
would not punish them. Peace - Safety and prosperity.
My own heart - Though I do not follow God's command, but my own devices.
To add drunkenness to thirst - The words may be rendered, to add
thirst to drunkenness, and so the sense may be, that when he hath
multiplied his sins, and made himself as it were drunk with them, yet he
is not satisfied therewith, but still whets his appetite, and provokes his
thirst after more, as drunkards often use means to make themselves thirst
after more drink.
20: Shall smoke - Shall burn and break forth with flame and smoke as
it were from a furnace.
21: Unto evil - Unto some peculiar and exemplary plague; he will make
him a monument of his displeasure to the whole land.
23: Salt and burning - Is burnt up and made barren, as with brimstone
and salt.
26: Whom God had not given to them - For their worship, but hath
divided them unto all nations, for their use and service.
So he speaks here of the sun and moon and stars, which were the principal
gods worshipped by the neighbouring nations.
29: The secret things - Having mentioned the amazing judgments of God
upon the whole land and people of Israel, and foreseeing the utter
extirpation which would come upon them for their wickedness, he breaks out
into this pathetic exclamation, either to bridle their curiosity, who would
be apt to enquire into the time and manner of so great an event; or to quiet
his own mind, and satisfy the scruples of others, who perceiving God to deal
so severely with his own people, when in the meantime he suffered those
nations which were guilty of grosser atheism and idolatry, might thence take
occasion to deny his providence or question the equity of his proceedings.
To this he answers, that the ways and judgments of God, tho' never unjust,
are often times hidden from us, unsearchable by our shallow capacities,
and matter for our admiration, not our enquiry. But the things which are
revealed by God and his word, are the proper object of our enquiries, that
thereby we may know our duty, and be kept from such terrible calamities as
these now mentioned.
