How God's acts were to be A. M. 2553. B. C. 1451. 19 To cast out all thine ene- | Pharaoh, and upon all his houseAn. Ex. Isr. 40. mies from before thee, as the hold, before our eyes: Sebat. 20 And LORD hath spoken. e 23 And he brought us out A. M. 2553. An. Ex. Isr. 40. when thy son asketh thee in from thence, that he might bring us in, to time to come, saying, What mean the testi- give us the land which he sware unto our monies, and the statutes, and the judgments, which the LORD our God hath commanded you? Verse 20. And when thy son asketh thee, &c.] "Here," as Mr. Ainsworth justly remarks, "followeth a brief catechism, containing the grounds of religion." What mean the testimonies, &c.] The Hebrew language has no word to express to mean or signify, and therefore uses simply the substantive verb what is, i. e., what mean or signify, &c. The seven thin ears are, i. e., signify, seven years of famine. This form of speech frequently occurs. Verse 25. It shall be our righteousness] The evidence that we are under the influence of the fear and love of God. Moses does not say that this righteousness could be wrought without the influence of God's mercy, nor does he say that they should purchase heaven by it; but, God required them to be conformed to his will in all things, that they might be holy in heart, and righteous in every part of their moral conduct. 1. On a very important subject in this chapter, it may be necessary to make some farther observations. A most injurious and destructive maxim has lately been advanced by a few individuals, which it is to be hoped is disowned by the class of Christians to which they belong, though the authors affect to be thought Christians, and rational ones too; the sum of the maxim is this: "Children ought not to be taught religion for fear of having their minds biassed to some particular creed, but they should be left to themselves till they are capable of making a choice, and choose to make one." This maxim is in flat opposition to the command of God, and those who teach it show how little they are affected by the religion they profess. If they felt it to be good for any thing, they would certainly wish their children to possess it; but they do not teach religion to their children, because they feel it to be of no use to themselves. Now the Christian religion properly applied saves the soul, and fills the heart with love to God and man; for the love of God is shed abroad in the heart of a genuine believer, by the Holy Ghost given to him. These persons have no such love, because they have not the religion that inspires it; and the spurious religion which admits of | fathers. 24 And the LORD commanded us to do all these statutes, i to fear the LORD our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as it is at this day. 25 And m it shall be our righteousness, if we observe to do all these commandments before the LORD our God, as he hath commanded us. Ver. 2. k Chap. x. 13; Job xxxv. 7, 8; Jer. xxxii. 39. Chap. iv. 1; viii. 1; Psa. xli. 2; Luke x. 28.- m Lev. xviii. 5, chap. xxiv. 13; Rom. x. 3, 5. the maxim above mentioned, is not the religion of God, and consequently better untaught than taught. But what can be said to those parents who, possessing a better faith, equally neglect the instruction of their children in the things of God? They are highly criminal; and if their children perish through neglect, which is very probable, what a dreadful account must they give in the great day! PARENTS! hear what the Lord saith unto you: Ye shall diligently teach your children that there is one Lord, Jehovah, Elohim; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost and that they must love him with all their heart, with all their soul, and with all their might. And as children are heedless, apt to forget, liable to be carried away by sensible things, repeat and re-repeat the instruction, and add line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little, carefully studying time, place, and circumstances, that your labour be not in vain : show it in its amiableness, excite attention by exciting interest; show how good, how useful, how blessed, how ennobling, how glorious it is. Whet these things on their hearts till the keenest edge is raised on the strongest desire, till they can say, "Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth I desire besides thee!" See the notes on chap. iv. 9, and on Gen. xviii. and xix. at the end. 2. Without offence to any, I hope, a few words more may be said on the nature of an oath, in addition to the note on ver. 13. The matter is important, and perhaps not well understood by many. The making an appeal to the Supreme Being, and calling him to witness and record, constitutes the spirit and essence of an oath. It is no matter in what form this appeal is made, whether by putting the hand under. the thigh, as among the patriarchs; by the water of the Ganges, as among the Hindoos; on a surat or chapter of the Koran, as among the Mohammedans ; on a Hebrew Pentateuch, as among the Jews; on the form of the cross, as among the Roman Catholics; kissing the New Testament, as among Protestants in general; or holding up the hand, and making affirmation, as among the people called Quakers; still the No covenant or alliances to DEUTERONOMY. be made with the Canaanites. oath is the same, for the appeal is made to God. On punisher of perfidy and wickedness. Swear by my this ground (and this is the true ground) the holding name-bind thyself to me; take me for witness to all up of the hand in a court of justice, is as perfect, as thy actions; and act in all things as having me contisubstantial, and as formal an oath, as kissing the New nually before thine eyes, and knowing that for every Testament. Why then so many objections against act and word thou shalt give account to me in the day taking an oath in a court of justice by any one parti- of judgment. Our Lord's command, Swear not at all, cular form, when the same thing is done in spirit, es- can never relate to an oath in a civil cause, taken acsence, and substance, when God is called to witness cording to the definition above given profane and and record, though the form be different? When God common swearing, with all light, irreverent oaths and says, Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and shalt imprecations, and all such oaths as are not required by swear by his name, he says, in effect, Thou shalt have the civil magistrate, in cases where the Lord is supposed no god besides me; thou shalt consider me the foun- to be witness, are certainly intended in our blessed Lain of truth, the rewarder of righteousness, and the Lord's prohibition. See on chap. iv. 26. CHAPTER VII. With the seven nations that God shall cast out, 1, they shall make no covenant, 2, nor form any matrimonial alliances, 3; lest they should be enticed into idolatry, 4. All monuments of idolatry to be destroyed, 5. The Israelites are to consider themselves a holy people, 6; and that the Lord had made them such, not for their merits, but for his own mercies, 7, 8. They shall therefore love him, and keep his commandments, 9-11. The great privileges of the obedient, 12-24. All idolatry to be avoided, 25, 26. B. C. 1451. An. Ex. Isr. 40. A. M. 2553. WHEN the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebuzites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou; 2 And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them. с 3 Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughters shalt thou take unto thy son. Chap. xxxi. 3; Psa. xliv. 2, 3.- - Gen. xv. 19, &c.; Exod. xxxiii. 2.- C Chap. iv. 38; ix. 1.- d Ver. 23; chap. xxiii. 14. e Lev. xxvii. 28, 29; Num. xxxiii. 52; chap. xx. 16, 17; Josh. vi. 17; viii. 24; ix. 24; x. 28, 40; xi. 11, 12.- Exod. xxiii. 32; xxxiv. 12, 15, 16; Judg. ii. 2; see chap. xx. 10, &c.; Josh. NOTES ON CHAP. VII. Verse 1. Seven nations greater and mightier than thou] In several places of the Hebrew text, each of these seven nations is not enumerated, some one or other being left out, which the Septuagint in general supply. How these nations were distributed over the land of Canaan previously to the entering in of the Israelites, the reader may see in the note on Josh. iii. 10. Verse 2. Thou shalt smite them, &c.] These idolatrous nations were to be utterly destroyed, and all the others also which were contiguous to the boundaries of the promised land, provided they did not renounce their idolatry and receive the true faith: for if they did not, then no covenant was to be made with them ii, 14; ix. 18; Judg. i. 24. - Josh. xxiii. 12; 1 Kings xi. 2; on any secular or political consideration whatever; no mercy was to be shown to them, because the cup of their iniquity also was now full; and they must either embrace, heartily embrace, the true religion, or be cut off. Verse 3. Neither shalt thou make marriages, &c.] The heart being naturally inclined to evil, there is more likelihood that the idolatrous wife should draw aside the believing husband, than that the believing husband should be able to bring over his idolatrous wife to the true faith. Verse 6. Thou art a holy people] And therefore should have no connection with the workers of iniquity. A special people] segullah,-Septuagint, 200v Tepovolov,—a peculiar people, a private property. The The great privileges A. M. 2553. B. C. 1451. Sebat. A. M. 2553. B. C. 1451. Sebat. 8 But because the LORD loved diseases of Egypt, which thou An. Ex. Isr. 40. you, and because he would keep knowest, upon thee; but will lay An. Ex. Isr. 40. P the oath which he had sworn them upon all them that hate thee. unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9 Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations: 10 And repayeth them that hate him to their face, to destroy them: " he will not be slack to him that hateth him, he will repay him to his face. if 11 Thou shalt therefore keep the commandments, and the statutes, and the judgments, which I command thee this day, to do them. 12 Wherefore it shall come to pass, ye hearken to these judgments, and keep and do them, that the LORD thy God shall keep unto thee the covenant and the mercy which he sware unto thy fathers: 13 And he will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee: he will also bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy land, thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep, in the land which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee. Chap. x. 15.- -P Exod xxxii. 13; Psa. cv. 8, 9, 10; Luke i. 55, 72, 73.—9 Exod. xiii. 3, 14. Isa. xlix. 7; 1 Cor. i. 9; x. 13; 2 Cor. i. 18; 1 Thess. v. 24; 2 Thess. iii. 3; 2 Tim. ii. 13; Heb. xi. 11; 1 John i. 9. Exod. xx. 6; chap. v. 10; Neh. i. 5; Dan. iv. 4. Isa. lix. 18; Nah. i. 2. Chap. xxxii. 35. Lev. xxvi. 3; chap. xxviii.. - Heb. because. * Psa. cv. 8, 9; Luke. i. 55, 72, 73.- -y John xiv. 21. - Chap. xxviii. 4. a Exod. xxiii. 26, &c.- b Exod. ix. 14; xv. 26; chap. xxviii. 27, 60, words as they stand in the Septuagint are quoted by the apostle, 1 Pet. ii. 9. Verse 8. But because the Lord loved you] It was no good in them that induced God to choose them at this time to be his peculiar people: he had his reasons, but these sprang from his infinite goodness. He intended to make a full discovery of his goodness to the world, and this must have a commencement in some particular place, and among some people. He chose that time, and he chose the Jewish people; but not because of their goodness or holiness. 16 And thou shalt consume all the people which the LORD thy God shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them: neither shalt thou serve their gods; for that will be a snare unto thee. f 17 If thou shalt say in thine heart, These nations are more than I: how can I dispossess them? 18 Thou shalt not be afraid of them: but shalt well remember what the LORD thy God did unto Pharaoh, and unto all Egypt; 19 The great temptations which thine eyes saw, and the signs, and the wonders, and the mighty hand, and the stretched-out arm, whereby the LORD thy God brought thee out: so shall the LORD thy God do unto all the people of whom thou art afraid. 20 Moreover the LORD thy God will send the hornet among them, until they that are left, and hide themselves from thee, be destroyed. 1 21 Thou shalt not be affrighted at them: for the LORD thy God is among you, ma mighty God and terrible. 22 And the LORD thy God will • put out those nations before thee by little and little: thou mayest not consume them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee. 23 But the LORD thy God shall deliver them " unto thee, and shall destroy them with a mighty destruction, until they be destroyed. 24 And he shall deliver their kings into thine hand, and thou shalt destroy their name from under heaven: there shall no e Ver. 2. Chap. xiii. 8; xix. 13, 21; xxv. 12.- Exod. xxiii. 33; chap. xii. 30; Judg. viii. 27; Psa. cvi. 36.- Num. xxxiii. 53. - Chap. xxxi. 6.- h Psa. cv. 5. Li Chap. iv. 34; xxix. 3.- - Exod. xxiii. 28; Josh. xxiv. 12.- Num. xi. 20; xiv. 9, 14, 42; xvi. 3; Josh. iii. 10.- m Chap. x. 17; Neh. i. 5; iv. 14; ix. 32. Exodus xxiii. 29, 30.0 Heb. pluck off. P Heb. before thy face; ver. 2.- Josh. x. 24, 25, 42; xii. 1, &c. Exod. xvii. 14; chap. ix. 14; xxv. 19; xxix. 20. ——————s Chap. xi 25; Josh. i. 5; x. 8; xxiii. 9. Verse 12., The Lord-shall keep unto thee the covenant] So we find their continuance in the state of favour was to depend on their faithfulness to the grace of God. If they should rebel, though God had chosen them through his love, yet he would cast them off in his justice. The elect, we see, may become unfaithful, and so become reprobates. So it happened to 24,000 of them, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness because they had sinned; yet these were of the elect that came out of Egypt. Let him that standeth take heed lest he fall. Verse 22. Put out those nations—by little and lit Obedience enforced by A. M. 2553. man be able to stand before it is an abomination to the LORD An. Ex. Isr. 40. thee, until thou have destroyed thy God. Sebat. t 26 Neither shalt thou bring an A. M. 2553. B. C. 1451. An. Ex. Isr. 40. Sebat. them. 25 The graven images of their gods shall abomination into thine house, lest thou be a ye burn with fire: thou shalt not desire the cursed thing like it but thou shalt utterly silver or gold that is on them, nor take it detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it; for unto thee, lest thou be snared therein for it is a cursed thing. Ver. 5; Exod. xxxii. 20; chap. xii. 3; 1 Chron. xiv. 12. "Josh. vii. 1, 21; 2 Mac. xii. 40. tle] The Israelites were not as yet sufficiently numerous to fill the whole land occupied by the seven nations mentioned ver. 1. And as wild and ferocious animals might be expected to multiply where either there are no inhabitants, or the place is but thinly peopled, therefore God tells them that, though at present, by force of arms, they might be able to expel them, it would be impolitic so to do, lest the beasts of the field should multiply upon them. CHAPTER VIII. An exhortation to obedience from a consideration of God's past mercies, 1, 2. Man is not to live by bread only, but by every word of God, 3. How God provided for them in the wilderness, 4. The Lord chastened them that they might be obedient, 5, 6. A description of the land into which they were going, 7-9. Cautions lest they should forget God in their prosperity, 10-16, and lest they should attribute that prosperity to themselves, and not to God, 17, 18. The terrible judgments that shall fall upon them, should they prove unfaithful, 19, 20. A. M. 2553. B. C. 1451. An. Ex. Isr. 40. ALL the commandments which | thou wouldest keep his commandI command thee this day ments, or no. shall ye observe to do, that ye may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the LORD sware unto your fathers, 2 And thou shalt remember all the way which the LORD thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether d с a Chap. iv. 1; v. 32, 33; vi. 1, 2, 3.b Chap. i. 3; ii. 7; xxix. 5; Psa. cxxxvi. 16; Amos ii. 10.- C Exod. xvi. 4; chap. xiii. 3. NOTES ON CHAP. VIII. Verse 2.. Thou shalt remember all the way] The various dealings of God with you; the dangers and difficulties to which ye were exposed, and from which God delivered you; together with the various miracles which he wrought for you, and his longsuffering towards you. Verse 3. He suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee] Gód never permits any tribulation to befall his followers, which he does not design to turn to their advantage. When he permits us to hunger, it is that his mercy may be the more observable in providing us with the necessaries of life. Privations, in the way of providence, are the forerunners of mercy and goodness abundant. e A. M. 2553. B. C. 1451. An. Ex. Isr. 40. Sebat. 3 And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live. 4 Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, d2 Chron. xxxii. 31; John ii. 25.- e Exodus xvi. 2, 3. Exod. xvi. 12, 14, 35. Psa. civ. 29; Matt: iv. 4; Luke iv. 4. h Chap. xxix. 5; Neh. ix. 21. Verse 4. Thy raiment waxed not old, &c.] The plain meaning of this much-tortured text appears to me to be this: "God so amply provided for them all the necessaries of life, that they never were obliged to wear tattered garments, nor were their feet injured for lack of shoes or sandals." If they had carvers, engravers, silversmiths, and jewellers among them, as plainly appears from the account we have of the tabernacle and its utensils, is it to be wondered at if they also had habit and sandal makers, &c., &c., as we are certain they had weavers, embroiderers, and such like ? And the traffic which we may suppose they carried on with the Moabites, or with travelling hordes of Arabians, doubtless supplied them with the materials ; though, as they had abundance of sheep and neat cat i 2 Sam. vii. 14; Psa. lxxxix. 32; Prov. iii. 12; Heb. xii. 5, 6; Chap. v. 33.Rev. iii. 19. tle, they must have had much of the materials within themselves. It is generally supposed that God, by a miracle, preserved their clothes from wearing out but if this sense be admitted, it will require, not one miracle, but a chain of the most successive and astonishing miracles ever wrought, to account for the thing; for as there were not less than 600,000 males born in the wilderness, it would imply, that the clothes of the infant grew up with the increase of his body to manhood, which would require a miracle to be continually wrought on every thread, and on every particle of matter of which that thread was composed. And this is not all; it would imply that the clothes of the parent became miraculously lessened to fit the body of the child, with whose growth they were again to stretch and grow, &c. No such miraculous interference was necessary. Verse 8. A land of wheat, &c.] On the subject of this verse I shall introduce the following remarks, which I find in Mr. Harmer's Observations on the Fertility of the Land of Judea, vol. iii., p. 243. "Hasselquist tells us that he ate olives at Joppa (upon his first arrival in the Holy Land) which were said to grow on the Mount of Olives, near Jerusalem; and that, independently of their oiliness, they were of the best kind he had tasted in the Levant. As olives are frequently eaten in their repasts, the delicacy of this fruit in Judea ought not to be forgotten; and the oil that is gotten from these trees much less, because still more often made use of. In the progress of his journey he found several fine vales, abounding with olive trees. He saw also olive trees in Galilee; but none farther, he says, than the mountain where it is supposed our Lord preached his sermon. "The fig trees in the neighbourhood of Joppa, Hasselquist goes on to inform us, were as beautiful as any he had seen in the Levant. "The reason why pomegranates are distinctly mentioned, in this description of the productions of the land of promise, may be their great usefulness in forming cooling drinks, for they are used among the Asiaties nearly in the same way that we use lemons; see vol. ii., 145. "Honey is used in large quantities in these countries; and Egypt was celebrated for the assiduous care with which the people there managed their bees. Maillet's account of it is very amusing. There are,' says he, abundance of bees in that country; and a singular manner of feeding them, introduced by the Egyptians of ancient times, still continues there. Towards the end of October, when the Nile, upon its Chap. xi. 10, 11, 12.- m Heb. of olivetree of oil. decrease, gives the peasants an opportunity of sowing the lands, sainfoin is one of the first things sown, and one of the most profitable. As the Upper Egypt is hotter than the Lower, and the inundation there goes sooner off the lands, the sainfoin appears there first. The knowledge they have of this causes them to send their bee-hives from all parts of Egypt, that the bees may enjoy, as soon as may be, the richness of the flowers, which grow in this part of the country sooner than in any other district of the kingdom. The hives, upon their arrival at the farther end of Egypt, are placed one upon another in the form of pyramids, in boats prepared for their reception, after having been numbered by the people who place them in the boats. The bees feed in the fields there for some days: afterwards, when it is believed they have nearly collected the honey and wax, which were to be found for two or three leagues round, they cause the boats to go down the stream, two or three leagues lower, and leave them there, in like manner, such a proportion of time as they think to be necessary for the gathering up the riches of that canton. At length, about the beginning of February, after having gone the whole length. of Egypt, they arrive at the sea, from whence they are conducted, each of them, to their usual place of abode; for they take care to set down exactly, in a register, each district from whence the hives were carried in the beginning of the season, their number and the names of the persons that sent them, as well as the number of the boats, where they are ranged according to the places they are brought from. What is astonishing in this affair is, that with the greatest fidelity of memory that can be imagined, each bee finds its own hive, and never makes any mistake. That which is still more amazing to me is, that the Egyptians of old should be so attentive to all the advantages deducible from the situation of their country; that after having observed that all things came to maturity sooner in Upper Egypt, and much later in Lower, which made a difference of above six weeks between the two extremities of their country, they thought of collecting the wax and the honey so as to lose none of them, and hit upon this ingenious method of making the bees do it successively, according to the blossoming of the flowers, and the arrangement of nature.' If this solicitude were as ancient as the dwelling of Israel in Egypt, they must have been anxious to know whether honey, about which they took such care in Egypt, was plentiful in the land of promise; and they must have been pleased to have been assured it was. It continues to be produced there in large |