Matthew Henry on Deuteronomy 4:1-40
This most lively and excellent discourse is so entire, and the particulars of it are so often repeated, that we must take it altogether in the exposition of it, and endeavour to digest it into proper heads, for we cannot divide it into paragraphs.
I. In general, it is the use and application of the foregoing history; it comes in by way of inference from it: Now therefore harken, O Israel, Deu 4:1. This use we should make of the review of God's providences concerning us, we should by them be quickened and engaged to duty and obedience. The histories of the years of ancient times should in like manner be improved by us.
II. The scope and drift of his discourse is to persuade them to keep close…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Deuteronomy 4:12
ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude--Although articulate sounds were heard emanating from the mount, no form or representation of the Divine Being who spoke was seen to indicate His nature or properties according to the notions of the heathen.
John Gill on Deuteronomy 4:14
And the Lord commanded me at that time,.... When the ten commandments were delivered on Mount Sinai, and Moses was ordered to come up to God in the mount:
to teach you statutes and judgments; laws ceremonial and judicial, besides the ten commands given them:
that ye may do them in the land whither ye go over to possess it; the land of Canaan, which was on the other side of Jordan, and over which they must go in order to possess it; and when they came there, they were to hold the possession of it by attending to those laws which forbad the sins for which the old inhabitants of it were expelled out of it; and besides these, there were also several laws, both ceremonial and judicial, which we…
Read the whole note in the consoleJohn Calvin on Deuteronomy 4:12-20
Deuteronomy 4:12-19, 23, 24
12. And the LORD spake unto you out of the midst of the fire: ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude; only ye heard a voice.
12. Tunc loquutus est Jehova ad vos e medio ignis: vocem verborum audistis, at formam non vidistis praeter vocem.
13. And he declared unto you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even ten commandments; and he wrote them upon two tables of stone.
13. Et exposuit vobis pactum suum quod praecepit vobis ut faceretis: nempe decem verba, quae scrip-sit super duas tabulas lapideas.
14. And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go over t…
