Deuteronomy 10:14

10:12-22 We are here taught our duty to God in our principles and our practices. We must fear the Lord our God. We must love him, and delight in communion with him. We must walk in the ways in which he has appointed us to walk. We must serve him with all our heart and soul. What we do in his service we must do cheerfully, and with good will. We must keep his commandments. There is true honour and pleasure in obedience. We must give honour to God; and to him we must cleave, as one we love and delight in, trust in, and from whom we have great expectations. We are here taught our duty to our neighbour. God's common gifts to mankind oblige us to honour all men. And those who have themselves been in distress, and have found mercy with God, should be ready to show kindness to those who are in the like distress. We are here taught our duty to ourselves. Circumcise your hearts. Cast away all corrupt affections and inclinations, which hinder you from fearing and loving God. By nature we do not love God. This is original sin, the source whence our wickedness proceeds; and the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be; so then they that are in the flesh cannot please God, Ro 8:5-9. Let us, without delay or reserve, come and cleave to our reconciled God in Jesus Christ, that we may love, serve, and obey him acceptably, and be daily changed into his image, from glory to glory, by the Spirit of the Lord.

Consider the greatness and glory of God; and his goodness and grace; these persuade us to our duty. Blessed Spirit! Oh for thy purifying, persevering, and renewing influences, that being called out of the state of strangers, such as our fathers were, we may be found among the number of the children of God, and that our lot may be among the saints.

Behold, the heaven, and the heaven of heavens, are the Lord's thy God,.... Made and possessed by him; the airy and starry heaven, the third heaven, which is the heaven of heavens, the seat of the divine Majesty, the habitation of angels and glorified saints: the earth also, with all that therein is; that is his property, and at his disposal, being made by him, and all that is upon it, or contained in it, even whatsoever is on or in the whole terraqueous globe; see Psalm 115:15.

Verses 14, 15. - To love and serve the Lord, Israel was specially bound, because of God's love to them and choice of them to be his people. He, the Lord and Proprietor of the universe, was free to choose any of the nations he pleased, and needed not the service of any, but of his free grace he chose Israel, in whose fathers he had delight, to love them (cf. Exodus 19:5 ). The heaven and the heaven of heavens ; the highest heavens, all that may be called heaven, with all that it contains. Delight ("set his eve upon," Deuteronomy 7:7 ); literally, cleaved to , was attached to. "Affection, love, choice, the three moments prompting from the innermost impulses to the historical act" (Lange). Deuteronomy 10:14

The heaven; the airy and starry heaven. The heaven of heavens; the highest or third heaven, 1 Kings 8:27 2 Corinthians 12:2 , called the heaven of heavens for its eminency, as the song of songs , king of kings , holy of holies , &c. The earth also, with all creatures and all men, which being all his, he might have chosen what nation he pleased to be his people.

After these emphatic warnings against self-righteousness the principal topic is resumed from Deuteronomy 6 , and this division of the discourse is drawn to a conclusion in the next two chapters by a series of direct and positive exhortations to a careful fulfillment of the duties prescribed in the first two of the Ten "Words." Deuteronomy 10:12 What doth the Lord thy God require ... - A noteworthy demand. God has in the Mosaic law positively commanded many things. However, these relate to external observances, which if need be can be enforced. But love and veneration cannot be enforced, even by God himself. They must be spontaneous. Hence, even under the law of ordinances where so much was peremptorily laid down, and omnipotence was ready to compel obedience, those sentiments, which are the spirit and life of the whole, have to be, as they here are, invited and solicited.

14 . This and the next v . state motives for the fear and love just enjoined: for fear , because He is the greatest God, to whom all things belong; for love because, though He is such, He yet loved Israel’s fathers and chose their posterity, even those whom Moses is addressing. the heaven , etc.] A characteristic deuteronomic accumulation. heaven of heavens ] i.e. the highest heavens (the same idiom as in Deuteronomy 10:17 ). Whether this idiomatic superlative (first here and then echoed in later passages, 1 Kings 8:27 ; 2 Chronicles 2:6 ; Nehemiah 9:6 ; Psalm 68:33 ; Psalm 148:4 ) or the plural positive heavens was the germ of the later idea of the plurality of heavens (in the Jewish apocalyptic books and the N.T., e.g. 2 Corinthians 12:2 ; Ephesians 4:10 R.V.) is uncertain; but the development of the idea was due to the influences of Babylonian and Persian cosmologies and eschatologies. See S. D. F. Salmond, art. ‘Heaven’ in Hastings’ D.B. , and Charles, Secrets of Enoch , 30–47.

This obligation the Lord had laid upon Israel by the love with which He, to whom all the heavens and the earth, with everything upon it, belong, had chosen the patriarchs and their seed out of all nations. By "the heavens of the heavens," the idea of heaven is perfectly exhausted. This God, who might have chosen any other nation as well as Israel, or in fact all nations together, had directed His special love to Israel alone.

10 . The rest is to be a general one: no work is to be done either by the Israelite himself, or any member of his household (including his servants), or by his cattle, or by the ‘sojourner’ settled in his cities. in it] LXX. Pesh. Vulg. express this; Sam. and the Nash papyrus read it. manservant … maidservant ] bondman … bondmaid : the meaning is (as always) male and female slaves. Cf. Exodus 21:2 ; Exodus 21:7 . stranger ] sojourner , or foreigner settled in Israel (see on Exodus 12:48 ): he also is to enjoy rest from his toil on the sabbath. Cf. the injunction not to oppress him ( Exodus 22:21 , with the note). For the enumeration, cf. Deuteronomy 12:12 ; Deuteronomy 12:18 ; Deuteronomy 16:11 ; Deuteronomy 16:14 . thy gates ] i.e. thy cities, a distinctively Deut. expression, occurring 26 times in Dt., and only 1 Kings 8:37 = 2 Chronicles 6:28 (Deut. compiler) besides; comp. esp. (with ‘within‘) Deuteronomy 12:12 ; Deuteronomy 12:18 ; Deuteronomy 14:21 ; Deuteronomy 14:27 ; Deuteronomy 14:29 ; Deuteronomy 16:11 ; Deuteronomy 16:14 ; Deuteronomy 24:14 ; Deuteronomy 31:12 . In Deuteronomy 5:14 a clause is added, emphasizing the humanitarian purpose of the observance; cf. Deuteronomy 12:7 ; Deuteronomy 12:12 ; Deuteronomy 14:29 .