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.