These are the words which Moses spoke to all Israel on this side the Jordan, in the wilderness, in the plain, opposite to Suph, between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab.
Israel is camped east of the Jordan. Forty years of wandering lie behind them, and the promised land lies just across the river. The opening line of Deuteronomy fixes who is speaking, to whom, and where. Everything in the book flows from that setting: a nation about to enter the land, and a string of place names that map the past.
The very first phrase sets this book apart from the books before it. There the refrain is that the LORD spoke to Moses. Here the words are Moses' own.
What marks this book out is its opening sentences. They make Moses' words the subject: no longer the LORD's words through him, and not, strictly speaking, the law itself, but Moses explaining the law and pressing it home. All this sits in a frame of circumstances that set it off and impress you with its importance.
That does not make the book any less the word of God. Deuteronomy itself forbids adding to or taking from what Moses commands:
So in Deuteronomy we find, "These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel" (Deut. 1:1), and then, "You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you" (Deut. 4:2). Is it true? If so, the commandments in the last four books are the word of God, and so is the history — the two cannot be separated. If not, there is no revelation in the Pentateuch at all. The whole must stand or fall together.
The book's Greek name suggests a repeat. One writer warns against reading it that way:
True, the Greek title of the book means the law a second time. That might seem to suggest it is only a recap of what has gone before. But we may be sure it is not. Indeed it would be a very grave mistake to think so. The book has its own specific place. Its scope and object are as distinct as possible. The great lesson it teaches from first to last is obedience. Not obedience in the bare letter, but obedience in the spirit of love and fear.
The tone matches the moment. One writer describes the change of voice this brings:
It is rather a talk given by the lawgiver, before the whole nation gathered to hear him. It deals with their past history — their travels, fortunes, and conduct — as well as with their laws, ordinances, and hopes. It is full of affectionate appeal, earnest encouragement, and holy, serious warning. You hear the father speaking rather than the lawgiver, urging as well as directing the people in the way of obedience and blessing.
The address is to the nation as a whole, and that shapes the book.
The book urges obedience again and again, and the spirit of it in the heart. So it speaks directly to the people as a whole, about the land they hold and the responsibility that goes with it. Teaching by types and pictures is less common here; moral teaching fills the book, with prophecy too, mostly at the close.
The verse pins down the location with unusual care.
The inspired writer takes care to give us, in the most exact way, all the bearings of the place where these words were spoken in the hearing of the people. Israel had not yet crossed the Jordan. They were right beside it, opposite the Red Sea, where God had displayed His mighty power so gloriously nearly forty years before. The account describes the whole position in such detail that we see how fully God entered into everything that concerned His people. He was interested in all their movements and in all their ways. He kept a faithful record of all their camping places.
(Where the ESV reads "opposite Suph," older translations read "over against the Red Sea.") Commentators are cautious about the other names. One notes that they cannot be stops on the road from Sinai, even though two match known camping places and two more resemble them; in the end, little can be said about them for certain.
Some have used the phrase "beyond the Jordan" to argue Moses could not have written the book. That argument rests on the translation:
The English translation here is grammatically fine. The Hebrew word can rightly be translated "on this side" or "on that side." By itself it settles nothing about whether the place is east or west of the Jordan… So anything built on the meaning of this word, to discredit Moses as the real writer of Deuteronomy, must fall to the ground.
- Words — the book gives Moses' own addresses rather than fresh law dictated to him. Yet Deuteronomy 4:2 treats them as commands no one may add to or cut down.
- Speaker — Moses speaks as a father, not just as a lawgiver, appealing and encouraging as well as directing.
- Audience — "all Israel" hears it, so the whole nation carries the responsibility to obey in the land.
- Place — the detailed geography is not filler. It shows a God who kept a faithful record of every camping place.
- Purpose — not the law a second time, but obedience pressed home in the spirit of love and fear.
There are eleven days' journey from Horeb by the way of mount Seir to Kadesh-barnea.
Moses opens his final speeches with a note about distance. Horeb to Kadesh-barnea, at the southern edge of the promised land, is an eleven-day walk. The people listening to him had taken forty years, and that gap is the point of the verse.
The verse breaks into the introduction with a travel measurement. Readers have long felt the sting in it.
We would call the reader's attention to verse 2. It is certainly a very remarkable parenthesis. "It is eleven days' journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir to Kadesh-barnea." Eleven days! And yet it took them forty years! How was this? Alas! we need not travel far for the answer. It is only too like ourselves. How slowly we get over the ground! What windings and turnings! How often we have to go back and travel over the same ground again and again. We are slow travellers, because we are slow learners. We may feel inclined to wonder how Israel could take forty years to finish a journey of eleven days. But we have much more reason to wonder at ourselves. Like them, we are held back by our unbelief and slowness of heart. But there is far less excuse for us than for them, since our privileges are so much higher.
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Kadesh-barnea was where the order came to go in, and where the people said no.
It was when Israel was in Kadesh Barnea that God told them to enter the land of Canaan and Israel refused (Num. 13:26). So this Scripture makes a point: if Israel had obeyed the Lord, they might have entered the land only eleven days after leaving Mount Horeb. Because they disobeyed, the time stretched to about forty years... This tells believers today that our wilderness history does not have to be long. But we are selfish by nature, so God has to put us through the trial of hard circumstances. That is how we learn that obedience is the only way of blessing.
The delay belongs to Israel's record, not to God's intention for them.
God's purpose then was to bring them out and to bring them in... Their sad forty years' aimless wandering in the wilderness was no part of God's purpose. Wilderness testing comes in as part of God's ways and His dealings with us. It is there so that we may learn what we are, and learn His grace and goodness... But His purpose for Israel was to bring them out of Egypt and bring them into Canaan, for He had set His heart upon them. Little more than an eleven days' journey would have been enough for this, if they had truly been set on going in.
Moses begins his review at Horeb, the mountain where the law was given. One writer sees meaning in that choice.
The purpose of the statement, "It is eleven days' journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir to Kadesh-barnea," is obvious. It is a silent comment on the twisting path we make for ourselves. Undoubtedly other thoughts are present too. In his review, Moses rightly begins with Horeb. There the people had put themselves under a legal covenant. We may say this accounts for the character of much of their later journey.
The destination's name carries its own commentary. Behind the whole journey stood an older promise, and one writer shows how Israel was to take hold of it.
"From Horeb to Kadesh-barnea" (the "sanctuary of the wanderer") is the first stage of the journey as Moses tells it. It is a history of unbelief and rebellion. That history serves only to show how useless it is to oppose the power of God. But first we have the land set before them... according to the promise to their fathers... as the last passage shows, God would fulfil this promise to them in stages, as they had faith to lay hold of it and make it their own — and they had not faith. Yet grace will not be defeated in the end, and the promise will not be left unfulfilled. The same is true of the better promise of a heavenly land, which we are told to make ours now — and how little we do.
If the forty years expose the learner, they also reveal something about the Teacher.
It is very humbling to be so slow in learning. But it is very gracious of Him to take such pains with us, to make us sure. We have to bless Him for His way of teaching, as for everything else. We bless Him for the wonderful patience with which He sits down with us over the same lesson, again and again, so that we may learn it well.
- Distance — Horeb to Kadesh-barnea is an eleven-day walk. The verse states it, and the forty years lose every excuse.
- Refusal — the delay traces to one moment at Kadesh-barnea, where God said go up and the people would not.
- Detour — the wandering formed no part of God's purpose, which was to bring them out and bring them in.
- Name — Kadesh-barnea, the "sanctuary of the wanderer" — God's holiness and Israel's straying in one place-name.
- Patience — the slow road humbles the traveller, yet grace is not defeated. The Teacher sits down over the same lesson until we learn it.
And it came to pass in the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first of the month, that Moses spoke to the children of Israel, according to all that Jehovah had given him in command to them;
Deuteronomy opens with a date, not a doctrine. Moses stands east of the Jordan with the land in sight, and the verse records both when he spoke and what he spoke: only what God had commanded him.
The date falls one month short of forty full years. The verse just before it names a far shorter route.
Verse 2 tells us that from Horeb by way of Mount Seir to Kadesh-barnea is an eleven days' journey. It was when Israel was at Kadesh-barnea that God told them to enter the land of Canaan, and Israel refused. So this Scripture stresses a point. If Israel had obeyed the Lord, they might have entered the land only eleven days after leaving Mount Horeb. Because they disobeyed, the time stretched to about forty years. Moses spoke to them here just one month before the forty years was complete.
The gap between eleven days and forty years is not just old history. One writer turns it on the reader.
Eleven days! And yet it took them forty years! How was this? We need not travel far for the answer. It is only too like ourselves. How slowly we get over the ground! What windings and turnings! How often we have to go back and travel over the same ground again and again. We are slow travellers, because we are slow learners... We, like them, are kept back by our unbelief and slowness of heart; but there is far less excuse for us than for them, since our privileges are so much higher.
Those forty years changed who was listening.
The title of this book, translated into English, is "Second-Law." That points to its character. In it Moses goes back over the whole law system to which Israel was committed and presses it home. The law was given at Horeb. The old generation that had been at Horeb had died out, and so the law had to be freshly urged on the new generation.
Yet another writer insists this book is no mere repetition of the earlier ones, and points to a later statement in it as proof.
We have both the time and the place, marked with divine precision and detail. The words just quoted teach us something more. What Moses said to the people in the plains of Moab was very far from being a repetition of what has come before us in Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers. Deuteronomy 29 gives further and very clear proof of this: "These are the words of the covenant that the LORD commanded Moses to make with the people of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the covenant that he had made with them at Horeb."
The second half of the verse says what Moses spoke. One writer reads it as a rule for everyone who teaches.
These few words contain a volume of weighty instruction for every servant of God. They speak to all who are called to minister in word and teaching. Moses gave the people just what he himself had received from God, nothing more, nothing less. He brought them into direct contact with the living word of the LORD. This is the grand principle of ministry at all times. Nothing else is of any real value. The word of God is the only thing that will stand.
Another writer ties the same phrase to what Hebrews says about Moses.
His words were "according to all that the LORD had given him." All he had received from the Lord he passed on faithfully to the Lord's people. "Now Moses was faithful in all God's house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later" (Hebrews 3:5). So once more he set the words of the Lord before their hearts. This is the blessed object of ministry.
Moses was near the end of his life, and that shapes how the whole book sounds.
Moses spoke and wrote on the eve of his approaching death. This was bound to give the book an unusually earnest and solemn tone. Moral, affectionate and pleading appeals stand out here more than in the other four books of Moses. As Moses says, closing the brief preface of Deuteronomy 1:3-5, he began to declare or explain this law. Obedience is urged continually, and the spirit of it in the heart.
- Delay — Eleven days' walk became forty years of wandering. The cause was unbelief, not distance.
- Date — Moses speaks one month before those forty years run out, with the land in view at last.
- Word — He gives the people only what God gave him: nothing more, nothing less. That is the grand principle of ministry.
- Messenger — Hebrews calls Moses faithful as a servant in God's house. Only God's word will stand.
- Obedience — A dying man presses obedience from the heart on a new generation. They must not repeat their fathers' delay.
after he had smitten Sihon the king of the Amorites, who dwelt at Heshbon, and Og the king of Bashan, who dwelt at Ashtaroth [and] at Edrei.
Moses did not begin his farewell addresses in a quiet moment of retreat. He spoke as a man standing on ground he had just taken. The verse fixes the setting by naming two defeated kings and the towns they had ruled.
Moses waited until two named enemies had fallen before he opened his mouth to teach. The order matters, because the fresh defeat of Sihon and Og was itself an argument.
Moses gave these addresses only after two special enemies had been killed — Sihon and Og. The victory over these two enemies predicted further victory in the land (v.4). Israel had been afraid of entering the land before because of such enemies. Og was a giant (Deut. 3:11). Now God had given them an object lesson in experience that should encourage them.
Sihon held territory east of the Jordan; Og belonged to an older and physically larger race. Neither the reach of the one nor the size and defences of the other made any difference.
Israel had waged war with success against Sihon the Amorite king, and against Og, King of Bashan, who was of the giants. Neither could stand against them. It had been a war of complete destruction. Every man, woman, and child had been cut off, without, so far as we read, one Israelite having been wounded (Deut. 2:33-34; 3:6). The Amorites had taken part of Moab's ancient territory from them. Now they proved too weak to push Israel back from their border. And Og came from the Rephaim, an ancient and most powerful race. His fortified cities had high walls, gates, and bars. None of it gave him protection against the invading army… The Amorite territory east of the Jordan was to form part of Israel's inheritance, and God told Moses so.
The verse names Edrei as one of Og's towns. Its setting made it hard to attack:
One of the chief towns of Bashan, where the Israelites defeated Og… It is a place of great natural strength. A maze of cracks and deep splits in the rock surrounds it. The houses are of stone, with stone roofs and stone doors.
Israel did not go looking for this fight. God set the terms for how they were to treat this king.
Did He allow Israel to force Sihon with threats of vengeance or to win him by flattery? Did He offer him the book of the law with one hand and the sword with the other? Nothing of the sort… Israel kept the path of right and courtesy. Sihon rushed on them to his own ruin; and only so did Israel strike and dispossess the king of Heshbon.
Why did these nations lose their land? One writer answers with a picture from everyday life.
Every landlord has a perfect right to evict bad tenants. The nations of Canaan had not only failed to pay their rent, as we say. They had also damaged and defiled the property so badly that God could no longer put up with them… The iniquity of the Amorites had reached its highest point, and nothing remained but that judgement should take its course… He had borne with the wickedness of the seven nations until it became unbearable. The land itself could not bear it. To bear with them any longer would have meant approving the most terrible evils.
One writer reads this double victory as a pledge covering every enemy still ahead.
The victories over Sihon and Og should have been Israel's guarantee: every human power that Satan uses to stop them reaching and possessing their inheritance would be swept away. (Compare Deut. 2:24-25; Joshua 2:9-10; see also Psalms 135 and 136.)
One writer presses the picture further, reading the meanings of Og's land, city and home:
He is king of Bashan, which means "the fertile," and his strong city is Edrei, "plenty of pasture." He lives in Ashtaroth, a city named after the Phoenician goddess Venus, whose worship involved shameful rites. The only thing left of him is a huge bed. Add that, and perhaps everything has been said about him — enough, it may be, to mark him as the spirit of luxury and self-indulgence… Sadly, we know all too well that this Og is a giant. He has brought down many a strong man.
- Timing. Moses speaks after the two kings fall — recent victory is the platform for everything he is about to teach.
- Size. Og's giant size, his walled cities and his stronghold among the rock clefts changed nothing. Neither king could stand.
- Provocation. Israel used no threats and no flattery; Sihon attacked and brought ruin on himself.
- Ground. God evicted the Amorites like tenants who had wrecked the property. He waited until their evil became unbearable.
- Guarantee. Two kingdoms already given were the pledge that every power set against the inheritance would be swept away. Yet the giant of self-indulgence still brings strong men down.
On this side the Jordan, in the land of Moab, began Moses to unfold this law, saying,
Moses speaks these words on the far side of the Jordan, in Moabite territory, with the promised land in sight and forty years of wandering behind him. He undertook not to give a new law, but to open up the one already given. Why did that need doing, and why in this place?
The opening verses mark a shift in who is speaking.
Soon Moses' voice will no longer be heard among them, and he and they both know it well. So he speaks out in a solemn last address, and the fullness of his heart overflows to the people so long in his care. The opening sentences are typical of the book. They stress that Moses' words are its subject. They are no longer Jehovah's words through him, and not the law itself as such, but Moses' explanation of the law and his pressing of it home.
The book's Greek title means "the law a second time," which invites the idea that Moses is simply repeating himself here.
True, the Greek title of the book means the law a second time. That might give rise to the idea that it is a mere recap of what has gone before. But we may be sure it is not so. It would be a very grave error to think so. The book has its own specific place. Its scope and object are as distinct as possible. From first to last the grand lesson it teaches is obedience. And not obedience in the mere letter, but in the spirit of love and fear — an obedience grounded on a relationship the people know and enjoy.
Why does the verse fix the place so exactly?
We have both time and place set out with divine precision. We also learn that what Moses said to the people in the plains of Moab was very far indeed from a repetition of Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers. Deuteronomy 29 gives further and very distinct proof of this: "These are the words of the covenant that the LORD commanded Moses to make with the people of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the covenant that he had made with them at Horeb."
The same verses recall that the land of Sihon was already taken. That detail is given a purpose:
Why this repetition? It was to remind them of the goodness and faithfulness of Jehovah, whose law they were about to hear expounded. It was to be a helpful encouragement to them and to stimulate their obedience, while it was also the pledge of greater victories and blessings to come. Jehovah would keep His promise.
So how did Israel come to enter the land at all?
They were about to enter it by special grace. It is important to keep in mind that the children of Israel did not enter the land by the covenant made at Horeb at all. If God had held to the terms of that covenant, the people could never have found their way into Canaan. But God was pleased to bring in fresh terms... Israel entered there only because of those fresh terms of mercy, which God Himself brought in of His own grace.
Moses' exposition sets one ground for entering the land and for staying in it.
This book takes up Israel just on the borders of Canaan. It insists that they keep their relationship with God faithfully and obey His commandments. That is the only ground on which Israel can enter the land and stay there. It also adds warnings about what failure in obedience will bring... At the end it clearly brings out the difference between two things: holding the land on condition of legal obedience, and holding it by the grace which accomplishes its purpose despite failure.
Long after Moab, Christ answered Satan out of this book.
There is another reason why He chose Deuteronomy in answering the Devil. As we have seen, Deuteronomy tells of obedience. So the One who had come to be obedient — yes, obedient to death, even death on a cross — went to that book which speaks of obedience. He went there to show how He submitted to the will of His Father, and to defeat Satan by it. Our Lord therefore bore witness to the very character of the book itself.
- Place — in Moab, on the edge of the land, Moses sets out a covenant distinct from the one made at Horeb.
- Words — the book's subject is Moses' own exposition of the law, not new commands through him.
- Purpose — the aim is obedience in the spirit of love and fear, not in the letter only. It rests on a relationship the people already know.
- Ground — Israel entered by grace, on fresh terms of mercy. The Horeb covenant could never have carried them in.
- Witness — the obedient One drew His answers to Satan from this book of obedience, and so honoured it.