Scriptural text: Deuteronomy 5:1-3; 10:12-13;28:1-2
Lesson Context: Deuteronomy.
Deuteronomy is the fifth book of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. The name Deuteronomy comes from the Septuagint’s Greek title for the book Deuteronomion, meaning “second law” or “repeated law,” name tied to one of the Hebrew appellations for the book, Mishneh Torah.
Binding Covenant (Deuteronomy 5:1b-3).
The covenant in Horeb. Moses demands action when we hear the word of God, we must learn it; and what we have learned we must put it in practice, for that is the end of hearing and learning; not to fill our heads with notions, or our mouths with talk, but to direct our affection and conduct. Moses summons the assembly. He called all Israel; not only the elders, but, is likely, as many of the people who could come within hearing. The greatest of them were not above God’s command or the meanest of them below his cognizance: but they were all bound to do. Hear o Israel; hear and heed; hear and remember. He refers them to the covenant made with them in Horeb, as that which they must govern themselves by.
The parties to this covenant. God made it, not with our fathers, not with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; to them God gave the covenant of circumcision, but not that of the Ten Commandments.
Basic Duties (Deuteronomy 10:12-13).
Moses at this chapter comes to the particular statutes which he had to give in charge of Israel, and he begins with those which relate to the worship of God, and particularly those which explain the second commandment, about which God is in a special manner jealous. 1. They must destroy all relics and remains of idolatry (v. 1-3). ll. They must keep close to the tabernacle. The former precepts were intended to prevent all false worship, the latter to preserve the worship God instituted.
From those great original truths: There is a God, and that there is but one God, arise these great fundamental laws. That that god is to be worshipped, and he only, and that therefore we are to have no other God before him, this is the first commandment.
Broader Instructions (Deuteronomy 27:1-10).
Moses having very largely and fully set the people their duty, both to God and one another. For the helping of their memories, that they might not forget the law as a strange thing, they must write all the words of this law upon stones.