(Deuteronomy 10:6) And the children of Israel took their journey from Beeroth of the children of Jaakan to Mosera; there Aaron died, and there he was buried; and Eleazar his son ministered in the priest's office in his stead. (7) From there they journeyed to Gudgodah, and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, a land of rivers of water.
In the last post Moses was making a speech to the people about how unrighteous they were, and that it was only by the mercy and grace of God, and because of the wickedness of the nations they were going in to possess, that they were being given that great land, certainly not for any righteousness of their own. This verse and the next few seem to be a parenthetical pause in Moses's speech to the people. Perhaps Moses was stating this in his speech, as he had been relating historical events, but it appears parenthetical nonetheless, whenever Moses said or wrote it.
The children of Israel had taken their journey from Beeroth to Mosera where Aaron died and was buried. Mosera is said to be the desert of Mount Hor, where Aaron was said to have died and was buried according to Numbers 20:23-28. Eleazar succeeded his father as high priest. Some of the names of the other places don't exactly line up with the list of stations in Numbers 33, but most can be explained as in the case of Mosera and Mount Hor, that in one place a city may be mentioned and in another account the region of that city.
In the last chapter and post, Moses had related how the people had made the golden calf, and that God had been angry enough to destroy them all, and He had also been very angry with Aaron. Verse 6 shows that the Lord had been gracious in answering Moses's prayers and had reconciled with His people. He continued to lead them on their journeys, and although Aaron had died, the Lord perpetuated the priest's office through Aaron's son who then became high priest in Aaron's place. Then the Lord continued guiding His people in their journeys.
(8) At that time the LORD separated the tribe of Levi to bear the ark of the covenant of the LORD, to stand before the LORD to minister to Him and to bless in His name, to this day. (9) Therefore Levi has no portion nor inheritance with his brethren; the LORD is his inheritance, according as the LORD your God promised him.
These two verses are a continuation of the parenthetical pause. Either meaning about that time, or perhaps when Eleazar became priest in Aaron's place, there was a renewal of the separation of the Levites to bear the ark of the covenant and to minister to the Lord in the priest's office. The tribe of Levi had no portion or inheritance in the land of Canaan. The Lord was the Levites' inheritance, and the Lord's portion, the tithes and offerings which belong to God, were given by Him to the Levites for their subsistence, from generation to generation.
(10) "And I stayed in the mount, according to the first time, forty days and forty nights; and the LORD hearkened to me at that time also, and the LORD would not destroy you."
Verse 10 returns to the words of Moses. He spoke of the time he had received the second two tablets back from the Lord written by His finger. He had stayed on the mountain another forty days and nights as he had the first time he had received the original tablets. He commented that the Lord had listened to his prayer, as He had done many times before, and had relented from His plan to destroy them.
(11) "And the LORD said to me, 'Arise, take your journey before the people, that they may go in and possess the land which I swore to their fathers to give them.’"
Answering Moses's prayer and having relented of His plan to destroy His people, the Lord then told Moses to go on before the people and lead them onward to the land the Lord had promised their forefathers.
(12) “And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, (13) To keep the commandments of the LORD, and his statutes, which I command you this day for your good?"
Moses posed the question what did the Lord ask in return for all His mercy and forgiveness of their sins, and for His renewal of His promise to their forefathers? Just that they turn to Him and obey Him--have a reverential fear of God as the Lord of life and all within the universe, to walk in the ways He told them to walk in His commandments, to love Him, and serve Him, and to keep all the commandments and statutes that Moses was now giving them again. All these things were for their own good, as the ways of God meant life, and transgressions against His laws meant death.
(14) "Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the LORD'S your God, the earth also, with all that is in it."
Moses reasoned that after all, God was indeed the maker and possessor of heaven and all the universe of heaven beyond what was seen and known by them; the earth was His and all that was in the earth, as well.
(15) "Yet the LORD had a delight in your fathers to love them, and He chose their descendants after them, you above all people, as it is this day."
Even though the entire universe and all that was in it was His, the Lord delighted in their forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and loved them, and chose their descendants after them, these children of Israel, to be His very own people, above all other people, as it still was to that day Moses was speaking to them.
(16) “Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be stiff-necked no more."
Moses exhorted the people to circumcise their hearts, by removing whatever was sinful to the Lord, all transgressions of the heart, all idolatry, etc., and to no longer be a stubborn people. When Jesus came and told people He had not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it, and began to teach the spirit of the law, we see here that this spirit is what God intended all along with His laws. It was not enough to merely circumcise the flesh, which was but an outward sign of purification, but they must purify their hearts and souls. As Adam Clarke wrote so beautifully in his Commentary on the Bible, "Loving God with all the heart, soul, mind, and strength, the heart being circumcised to enable them to do it, was, from the beginning, the end, design, and fulfillment of the whole law."
(17) “For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and terrible, who shows no partiality nor takes a reward."
Moses further extolled the Lord as God and Lord of all, the one and only true God, almighty and with awesome terror, who showed no partiality to any particular sort of person, and never exchanged favors for bribes, but was merciful and gracious according to His own pleasure and will, having nothing to do with any works of man, for after all, "There is none who does good, no, not one" (Psalm 14:3).
(18) "He does execute judgment for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing."
God's providence and judgment extends to all; He is Father to the fatherless, Protector and Provider for the widow, and loves the stranger, giving life and provision to all, even to the Gentiles, strangers to Israel. As Jesus said in Matthew 6:26, “Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?" God provides not only for His own people, and for the strangers, but to all living creatures.
(19) “Therefore love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt."
Moses exhorted the children of Israel to love the stranger, remembering that they were once strangers in the land of Egypt. Jesus gave us that Golden Rule, “Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets" (Matthew 7:12).
(20) “You shall fear the LORD your God; you shall serve Him, and to Him you shall cleave, and swear by His name."
Moses further exhorted the people to have a reverential fear of the one true God, and to serve Him, clinging only to Him, and not turning aside to follow false idols, and to swear by His name only.
(21) “He is your praise, and He is your God, who has done for you these great and terrible things which your eyes have seen."
Their Lord God was the object and deserver of all praise. He alone was the one who had done all the mighty and awesome wonders which they themselves had personally witnessed.
(22) “Your fathers went down to Egypt with seventy persons, and now the LORD your God has made you as the stars of heaven in multitude."
From so small a beginning, when Jacob went into Egypt with a total of seventy people, including himself (Genesis 46:27), the children of Israel had been multiplied to more than 600,000 (Numbers 26:51), as numerous as the stars appeared in heaven.
(Deuteronomy 11:1) “Therefore you shall love the LORD your God, and keep His charge, His statutes, His judgments, and His commandments always."
Chapter 11 of Deuteronomy begins with Moses summing up the reasoning for loving the Lord and always keeping His commandments, because of who He was, and because of all the great and miraculous things He had done for them, including the multiplication of their numbers, the last thing he mentioned at the end of chapter 10.
(2) "And know this day that I do not speak with your children, who have not known and who have not seen the chastisement of the LORD your God, His greatness, His mighty hand, and His stretched out arm, (3) And His miracles, and His acts, which He did in the midst of Egypt to Pharaoh the king of Egypt, and to all his land."
Moses exhorted the people to take notice that he did not speak to them as their descendants who had not personally seen the chastening of the Lord, or His mighty power and miracles that He had done in Egypt to Pharaoh. It may be that Moses was only addressing the elders at this point, because the adult generation that had come out of Egypt had died in the wilderness. However, their children, who would at this time be an elder generation, would have witnessed all the things that took place in Egypt.
(4) "And what He did to the army of Egypt, to their horses and to their chariots; how He made the water of the Red Sea overflow them as they pursued after you, and how the LORD has destroyed them to this day."
Moses continued describing the miraculous works of their Lord that these people would have witnessed themselves, when they came through the Red Sea parted by the Lord, and then He caused the sea to overflow the Egyptian armies of horses and chariots that had pursued them. The effects of the destruction of Egypt were felt to that day.
(5) "And what He did for you in the wilderness until you came to this place."
They had seen all the ways the Lord had provided for them in the wilderness, leading them, feeding them with manna from heaven, providing water, etc.
(6) “And what He did to Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, the son of Reuben: how the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, and their households, and their tents, and all the substance in their possession, in the midst of all Israel."
They had also witnessed the chastisements of the Lord, how He opened the earth to swallow up Dathan and Abiram and all their households and belongings, openly before all Israel. These chastisements were always for Israel's welfare, just as God's provisions were acknowledged to be. The dangerous rebellion of Dathan and Abiram and Korah and his company threatened to destroy the entire nation of Israel if it had not been immediately crushed by the hand of the Lord.
(7) "But your eyes have seen all the great acts of the LORD which He did."
Moses summed up what he started in verse 2. He was not speaking to their children, who did not personally witness all these things, but he spoke to the people who had personally known all these great acts of the Lord.
(8) “Therefore you shall keep all the commandments which I command you this day, that you may be strong, and go in and possess the land where you go to possess it."
Because these people had personal knowledge and experience with all the Lord was and what He did, they should know better than anyone to keep all the commandments of the Lord, that were designed for their good and would strengthen them and enable them to go in and possess their promised land.
(9) "And that you may prolong your days in the land, which the LORD swore to your fathers to give to them and to their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey."
Keeping the commandments of their Lord would allow their days to be prolonged in the land promised to their forefathers and their descendants, a land abounding in all good things.
(10) “For the land which you go in to possess is not like the land of Egypt from where you came out, where you sowed your seed and watered it by foot, as a garden of herbs."
Moses told the people the land they were going in to possess was not like the land in Egypt from where they had come. I believe the message Moses was trying to convey is that this was not like the land in Egypt where they labored to sow their seed, and carried water to water it, or used their feet to dig furrows, in a garden they planted in the midst of the dry country that rarely had rain.
(11) "But the land, where you go to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drinks water of the rain of heaven."
Unlike Egypt that was mainly flat and dry desert, the land they were going to possess was a land of hills and valleys, and was watered, refreshed, and made fruitful by rain from heaven. The Lord Himself watered this good land; the people would not have to labor so hard to bring water to their crops.
(12) "A land which the LORD your God cares for; the eyes of the LORD your God are always on it, from the beginning of the year even to the end of the year."
This special land promised by God to His people was specially cared for by Him. The eyes of the Lord were always on it from the beginning of the year to the end of it. The Lord's eyes are everywhere, and all provisions come from Him, but in Israel's case, He had given His people the best land with His special blessings, if they would but follow His instructions in order to receive the best.
An interesting side note comes from something I read by John Wesley, in his Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible. He wrote that later writers wrote what seemed to be a contradiction about the land of Canaan. They described it as a barren soil, far from a land flowing with milk and honey. As Wesley said, rather than questioning the authority of scripture, it rather confirmed it, that the land was blessed because God was in it, and barren when God was not. As Psalm 33:12 states, "Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD..."
(13) "'And it shall come to pass, if you shall hearken diligently to My commandments which I command you this day, to love the LORD your God, and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul, (14) That I will give you the rain of your land in its due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your corn, and your wine, and your oil.'"
Moses, speaking the words of God Himself, said that if the people would diligently follow His commandments, and would love and serve Him with all their hearts, He would give them rain in due season. That is, it would first rain at seed time, and later rain, as needed, before harvest. Again this rather confirms that if God did not bless the land with His rain, it would indeed be a barren land.
(15) "'And I will send grass in your fields for your livestock, that you may eat and be filled.’"
This is a continuation of the thought started in verse 13, that if they followed the Lord's commandments, they would have rain when best needed for their crops, and grass as needed for their livestock, so that they would be well fed.
(16) "Take heed to yourselves, that your heart not be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them, (17) And the LORD'S wrath be aroused against you, and He shut up the heaven that there be no rain, and the land does not yield its fruit, and you perish quickly from the good land which the LORD gives you."
Moses warned the people not to allow themselves to be deceived and turn aside to other gods. Dr. John Gill, in his Exposition of the Entire Bible, pointed out reasonably, that the people might come to observe the influence of the sun, moon, and stars, upon their land, an influence put in motion by God Himself, but the objects falsely worshiped by heathen nations. However, their hearts were just as likely to be deceived by any number of false worship they witnessed from neighboring nations. The Lord, that jealous God, ever zealous in His protection of His people, would turn from them, shutting up heaven stopping the rain, and their land would no longer yield its fruit and they would perish from the land the Lord was giving to them.
(18) “Therefore you shall lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes."
Moses exhorted the people to treasure the words he had spoken, specifically the word of God and His laws, in their hearts and in their whole being. Their eyes should constantly be fixed on the word of God; as signs bound on their hands and foreheads, they should always be in view, on their minds and in their souls.
(19) “And you shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up."
They were to teach their children God's laws, speaking about them constantly, whether in their houses or in public; they were to be an ongoing way of life--living and teaching the word of God from the moment they woke till the time they retired.
(20) “And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, (21) That your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers to give them, as the days of heaven upon the earth."
They should write the laws on the doorposts of their houses and on their gates, again as constant reminders when they were leaving and upon their return, and also as a sign to other passers by. Again they were to do all these things that their days and the days of their children might be long in the land the Lord had sworn to their forefathers before them.
(22) “For if you diligently keep all these commandments which I command you, to do them, to love the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways, and to cleave to Him, (23) Then will the LORD drive out all these nations from before you, and you shall possess greater nations and mightier than yourselves."
On the eve of their entering their promised land to possess it, Moses declared to the people the promise of their Lord that if they diligently kept His commandments, loved and held fast to Him, and walked in His ways, He would drive out all the nations from before them, and they would possess the nations that had been greater and mightier than they were.
(24) “Every place on which the soles of your feet tread shall be yours, from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the river Euphrates, even to the uttermost sea shall your coast be."
Every place in their promised land of Canaan that they trod upon would be their possession, from the wilderness of Paran in the south to Lebanon in the north, and from the Euphrates River on the eastern side to the Mediterranean Sea which was the western-most coast. This map shared on Pinterest shows the Promised Land as described in this verse:
(25) “No man shall be able to stand against you; the LORD your God shall lay the fear of you and the dread of you upon all the land that you shall tread upon, as He has said to you."
No man in the places within the borders of the promised land upon which they would tread, would be able to stand against the children of Israel, because their Lord would would put fear and dread upon all the inhabitants of the land, who would hear of all the mighty works of God to bring His people to this place. This was originally prophesied in the song at the Red Sea (Exodus 15:14), and the Lord had indeed told them this in Deuteronomy 2:25.
(26) “Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse; (27) A blessing, if you obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you this day; (28) And a curse, if you will not obey the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside from the way which I command you this day, to go after other gods, which you have not known."
Moses conveyed to the people that they had been presented with a choice between blessing and a curse. If they obeyed the commandments of their Lord, which were instructions for life, they would have the blessings that would naturally occur as a result of living right. That's not to say that God couldn't or wouldn't personally give them extra blessings, but the laws of God are about life and blessing, so following them and walking in the ways of God, does in itself bring blessing. The people would be choosing a curse if they chose to disobey God's commandments and turn away from Him to go after false gods they had never known, choosing to leave what is certain blessing for unknown mysteries, which always lead to depravity and death.
(29) "And it shall come to pass, when the LORD your God has brought you into the land which you go to possess, that you shall put the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal."
When the Lord had brought them into their promised land, the Israelites were to designate two mountains, one as a mountain of blessings, and the other as a mountain of cursings. These two mountains were and are parallel to each other, Mount Gerizim being southward, and Mount Ebal northward, and the valley of Shechem in between. As seen in the photo below, also shared on Pinterest, the mountains are very similar in height and shape:
"Gerizim" meant "cut off" or "cut down", by implication "cutters down" or "reapers", perhaps designating reapers of harvest from a fertile land. "Ebal" meant "bald" or "bare", surely implying a barren mountain. Although it may not be as noticeable now as it was then, Adam Clarke, who lived in the late 1700's and early 1800's, wrote, "That Gerizim is very fruitful, and that Ebal is very barren, is the united testimony of all who have traveled in those parts. See Ludolf, Reland, Rab, Benjamin, and Mr. Maundrell." How could it be that two mountains so similar in height and shape and so close together, be so different? It can only be by the providence of God that one can be so fertile, and that without God, one is cursed to barrenness.
(30) “Are they not on the other side of the Jordan, toward the setting sun, in the land of the Canaanites who dwell in the champaign opposite Gilgal, beside the plains of Moreh?"
Moses further described the location of the two mountains that would be designated as a mountain of blessing and a mountain of cursing. They were across the Jordan River in the land of Canaan in the plain opposite Gilgal beside the plains of Moreh, near Shechem, which is in the valley between the two mountains. The following map shows the location of the two mountains in Canaan:
John Wesley made an interesting observation regarding the plains of Moreh: "This was one of the first places that Abram came to in Canaan. So that in sending them thither to hear the blessing and the curse, they were minded of the promise made to Abram in that very place, Gen.12:6-7."
(31) "For you shall pass over the Jordan to go in to possess the land which the LORD your God gives you, and you shall possess it, and dwell in it."
Moses assured the children of Israel that they would indeed cross over the Jordan River and claim their promised land and would live in it.
(32) "And you shall observe to do all the statutes and judgments which I set before you this day."
Moses further proclaimed that the people would observe and follow all the Lord's statutes and judgments that Moses was giving to the people. Of course, that is the only way that ensured their continual possession of their promised land. To be able to achieve what Moses stated in verse 31 was to do what Moses said in verse 32.
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