Deuteronomium 5:4 Kommentar

In this chapter we have the second edition of the ten commandments. I. The general intent of them; they were in the nature of a covenant between God and Israel (Deu 5:1-5). II. The particular precepts are repeated (v. 6-21), with the double delivery of them, both by word and writing (Deu 5:22). III. The settling of the correspondence thenceforward between God and Israel, by the mediation and ministry of Moses. 1. It was Israel's humble petition that it might be so (Deu 5:23-27). 2. It was God's gracious grant that it should be so (Deu 5:28-31). And hence he infers the obligation they were under to obedience (Deu 5:32, Deu 5:33).

INTRODUCTION TO DEUTERONOMY 5 In this chapter Moses, after a short preface, Deu 5:1, repeats the law of the decalogue, or ten commands, with some little variation, Deu 5:6, and then reminds the Israelites of the terrible manner in which it was delivered to them, Deu 5:22 which put them upon making a request that Moses might be a mediator between God and them, and hear what the Lord had to say, and report it to them; to which they promised obedience, Deu 5:24 and which being agreeable to the Lord was granted, Deu 5:28, and this laid them under a greater obligation to observe the commands of God, and keep them, Deu 5:32.

I stood between the Lord and you at that time,.... Between the Word of the Lord and you, as the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan; that is, about that time, not at the exact precise time the ten commandments were delivered, for these were spoken immediately to the people; but when the ceremonial law was given, which was ordained by angels, in the hand of a mediator, Gal 3:19, and which was at the request of the people as follows, terrified by the appearance of the fire out of which the moral law was delivered: to show you the word of the Lord; not the decalogue, that they heard with their own ears, but the other laws which were afterwards given, that were of the ceremonial and judicial kind: for ye were afraid by reason of the fire, and went not up into the mount; lest they should be consumed by it: and indeed bounds were set about the mount, and they were charged not to break through: saying; this word is in connection with the preceding verse, the Lord's talking out of the midst of the fire, when he said what follows.

A COMMEMORATION OF THE COVENANT IN HOREB. (Deu. 5:1-29) Hear, O Israel, the statutes and judgments--Whether this rehearsal of the law was made in a solemn assembly, or as some think at a general meeting of the elders as representatives of the people, is of little moment; it was addressed either directly or indirectly to the Hebrew people as principles of their peculiar constitution as a nation; and hence, as has been well observed, "the Jewish law has no obligation upon Christians, unless so much of it as given or commanded by Jesus Christ; for whatever in this law is conformable to the laws of nature, obliges us, not as given by Moses, but by virtue of an antecedent law common to all rational beings" [BISHOP WILSON].

The Lord talked with you face to face in the mount--not in a visible and corporeal form, of which there was no trace (Deu 4:12, Deu 4:15), but freely, familiarly, and in such a manner that no doubt could be entertained of His presence.

A. The True Essence of the Law and Its Fulfilment The exposition of the law commences with a repetition of the ten words of the covenant, which were spoken to all Israel directly by the Lord Himself.