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 4:20
But the Lord hath taken you, and brought you forth out of the iron furnace--that is, furnace for smelting iron. A furnace of this kind is round, sometimes thirty feet deep, and requiring the highest intensity of heat. Such is the tremendous image chosen to represent the bondage and affliction of the Israelites [ROSENMULLER].
to be unto him a people of inheritance--His peculiar possession from age to age; and therefore for you to abandon His worship for that of idols, especially the gross and debasing system of idolatry that prevails among the Egyptians, would be the greatest folly--the blackest ingratitude.
John Gill on Deuteronomy 4:22
But I must die in this land,.... The land of Moab, in a mountain in it he died, and in a valley there he was buried, Deuteronomy 32:50,
I must not go over Jordan; this he repeats, as lying near his heart; he had earnestly solicited to go over, but was denied it:
but ye shall go over, and possess that good land; this he firmly believed and assures them of, relying on the promise and faithfulness of God.
John Calvin on Deuteronomy 4:21-24
Deuteronomy 4:21, 22
21. Furthermore, the Lord was angry with me for your sakes, and sware that I should not go over Jordan, and that I should go in unto that good land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance;
21. Jehova iratus fuit contra me propter verba vestra, juravitque quod non transirem Jordanem, neque ingrederer terram bonam, quam Jehova Deus tuus dat tibi in haereditatcm.
22. But I must die in this land, I must not go over Jordan: but ye shall go over, and possess that good land.
22. Ego enim morior in hac terra, neque transeo Jordanem: vos antem transitis, ut possideatis terram istam bonam.
21. Furthermore, the Lord was angry with me. He again records that it ar…
