And now, Israel, what doth Jehovah thy God require of thee, but to fear Jehovah thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve Jehovah thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul,
Moses has just retold the story of the golden calf, the tablets he smashed, and God's refusal to give Israel up. Then he turns from history to a question: what does God ask of a people who had just proved themselves rebels?
What God asks rests on what He has already done. He chose Israel in love, and love is the answer He looks for:
What did God require of them but a loving obedience to commandments which were always for their good? Love to One who is infinitely great, who owns heaven and earth, and who still chose them above all people in His love? This is what made them responsible beyond all others, and it should also have made their duty easy. They had only to wear the light yoke of love — and that love is the moral power of the gospel: "We love Him because He first loved us."
The first two demands are not the same thing. One describes the inner state, the other the visible life that follows from it:
"Fearing the Lord" describes a man who acts with a good conscience before Him. That is why we read, "Blessed is the one who fears the LORD always" (Proverbs 28:14). This is the man who, with holy fear, seeks grace to avoid everything that would grieve the Spirit of God. And "walking in His ways" points to the conduct that follows from fearing the Lord. It is a walk that the word of God forms and governs.
Jesus was later asked to name the first commandment of all. His answer did not come from the Ten Commandments:
One of the scribes came and asked Him which commandment was first of all. The scribes believed that the commandments differed in value, and that some were worth more than others. This time the Lord answers without turning the question back on those who asked it, to shame them. Instead He sets up the two great pillars of man's responsibility: that God is one, and that man owes a duty to Him and to his neighbour. This was Israel's faith, and his duty towards all. The Lord does not quote the ten commandments, but the great principles of the law as to the whole duty of man. He knew how to bring them out, hidden by God as they are in the books of Moses; Deut. 6:4-5; 10:12; Lev. 19:18.
What God asked was aimed at Israel's own good:
It was all for their real good, their deep, full blessing, to walk in the way of the divine commandments. The path of whole-hearted obedience is the only path of true happiness. And blessed be God, those who love the Lord can always walk it.
The demand was right. But it met a people who could not meet it:
How perfectly right it was of God to ask this of Israel! He asked them to fear Him, to walk in all His ways, to love Him, to serve Him with all their heart and soul, and to keep His commandments and statutes (vv. 12-13). Yet, weighing each of these carefully, could Israel be confident of obeying them? In fact, God's legal requirements for Israel were bound to fail from the very start, because people will never do what God requires of them. So law requires, but the grace of God provides.
The gap is sharpest at the word "love." A rule can name it but cannot produce it:
No law ever produced or called out love. It may demand but cannot create love; it is not within the nature or power of law to do so. God knew this well. In the gospel He becomes the great Agent Himself: He is the One who loves, and who gives according to the strength of that love.
God has given us more than Israel ever had. So the claim on us is greater:
God has given us His precious word, the perfect revelation of His mind. He has also given us what Israel did not have: His Holy Spirit to live in our hearts, so that we can understand and value His word. So our obligations are far higher than Israel's. Every argument that can reach the heart and the understanding binds us to a life of obedience.
- Love first. God loved and chose Israel first. What He asks back is love — a light yoke, not a heavy one.
- Love defined. Fear is a conscience kept clear before God. Walking in His ways is the conduct that follows, shaped by His word.
- Love summarised. Jesus drew the first commandment from verses like this one. It gives the whole duty of man towards God and towards his neighbour, not a ranking of rules.
- Love commanded is not love created. Law can require the heart; it cannot supply it. Law requires; grace provides.
- Love owed more. God has given us His word and His Spirit. So the claim on our obedience is higher than Israel's — and that path is the only happy one.
to keep the commandments of Jehovah, and his statutes, which I command thee this day, for thy good?
Moses has just retold Israel's worst failure. He had broken the first stone tablets, new ones replaced them, and they were stored in the ark. Now he turns from that history to what God asks. Verse 13 ends his summary with three words that change its whole tone: for your good.
This appeal comes after a long record of failure that God had borne with:
Moses' plea for the people succeeded, but that did not change the fact that they were now under the law. So Deuteronomy 10 opens by reminding us of the first stones, the stones that carried the law. Moses broke them, and new ones replaced them during his second stay on the mountain. This time they went into the ark of acacia wood, as a standing witness to God's holy demands. At that time God also appointed the tribe of Levi to their special service. That showed He still bore with Israel's failure to obey Him and to value His kindness towards them.
Jesus went back to these words of Moses when He summed up the whole duty of man:
The Lord does not quote the ten commandments, but the great principles of the law as to the whole duty of man. The Lord knew how to bring them out, hidden by God as they are in the books of Moses; Deut. 6:4-5; 10:12; Lev. 19:18.
Once love is the root, keeping the commandments is not a second, separate task. It follows:
To love God with a true heart and soul would carry with it obedience to all the commandments He gave. So Paul writes, "Love is the fulfilling of the law" (Rom. 13:10). What should have moved them was the love God had shown to their fathers, and His choice of them as His own people above all others. How much greater is the love shown to us in Christ.
These commands ran in Israel's favour, not against them:
It was all for their real good, their deep, full blessing to walk in the way of the divine commandments. The path of whole-hearted obedience is the only path of true happiness. And thank God, those who love the Lord can always walk it.
The God who gave the commands had already chosen Israel in love. That is what made their duty light:
What did God ask of them but a loving obedience to commandments that were always for their good? Love to One who is great beyond measure, who owns heaven and earth, and who still chose them above all people in His love to them? This is what made them more responsible than anyone else, and it should also have made their duty easy to carry out. They only had to wear the light yoke of love, which is indeed the moral power of the gospel: "We love Him, because He first loved us."
That is why obedience never has to feel like forced labour:
It is not a heavy yoke laid on a stiff, unwilling neck. It is a new nature that obeys from an inner principle of joyful submission to God's will. His commandments are not heavy, and they are not random. This is not forced labour, like making bricks for Pharaoh in Egypt. To anyone born of God it is a delightful path — the path Jesus Himself walked.
Israel had the commands. Those who follow Christ have been given more:
God has given us His precious word, the perfect revelation of His mind. He has also given us what Israel did not have: His Holy Spirit to live in our hearts, so that we can understand and value His word. So our obligations are far higher than Israel's were. We are bound to a life of obedience by every argument that could be brought to bear on the heart and understanding.
And the gain is real and present, not only future:
And surely it is for our good to be obedient. There is indeed "great reward" in keeping the commandments of our loving Father… Nothing in all this world is more blessed than the path and the portion of an obedient soul.
- Love first. Christ found the sum of the whole law hidden in these words of Moses — the command is love, not a list of separate duties.
- Love obeys. Loving God with heart and soul carries obedience with it; love is the fulfilling of the law.
- Love is light. They only had to wear the light yoke of love. That same love is the moral power of the gospel: we love Him because He first loved us.
- Love is for you. The commands were given for Israel's real good. Whole-hearted obedience is the only path of true happiness.
- Love now claims more. We have His word and His Spirit, which Israel did not have — so every appeal God made to them presses harder on us.