Deuteronomychapter 10
22 verses · Moses, by tradition · 15th to 13th century BC · The Law
Key verse
Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and stiffen your necks no more.
It stands in Circumcise your heart; love the stranger, verses 12 to 22.
The chapter
Chapter summary
The second tables and the Levites. Moses hewed two tables like the first; the LORD wrote the ten words upon them; they were put in the ark Moses had made. The Levites set apart to bear the ark and to minister. Then the grand summary: ‘what doth the LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul’. Circumcise the foreskin of your heart; stop being stiffnecked. The God who is God of gods loves the stranger; love the stranger because you were strangers in Egypt. The moral argument is grounded in memory.
Context
Law · Moses · Deuteronomy overview
The world behind this chapter
Deuteronomy 10The history
The chapter is Moses speaking in the first person, and the events he reports are his own. He had broken the first pair of tablets, and he is the man who went back up the mountain and stayed forty days a second time.
The speech falls in the fortieth year after the Exodus, at about 1406 BC on the frame this site keeps. The events reported in verses 1 to 11 happened about forty years before the speech.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
The place of the speech is the plain east of the Jordan, opposite Jericho. The place of the events is the mountain called Horeb here and Sinai elsewhere, and the wilderness camps named at verses 6 and 7.
The occasion is the covenant put again to a generation that had not stood at the mountain as adults. Chapter 9 has just rehearsed the golden calf, and this chapter reports the mercy that followed it.
A first hearer knew what an ark was for. A chest that held the terms of an agreement stood at the centre of the arrangement, and the book itself orders the law laid beside the ark at 31:26. He also knew that a tribe without land had no living of its own, which is why verse 9 reads as provision rather than as loss.
He knew what circumcision marked, since it had been the sign of the people since Genesis 17. The demand at verse 16 for a circumcised heart landed on a rite he carried in his body.
He knew what a bribe did in a court. A gift to a judge was ordinary practice in the region, so the claim at verse 17 that God accepts none of it was a claim about a court unlike the ones he had seen.
What it meant to them
The people listening were the children of the men who made the calf, and they were being told that the tablets were cut a second time and kept.
The demand of verse 12 came to them as the whole law in five verbs, and verse 13 said the commandments were for their own good.
The census at verse 22 gave them the arithmetic of the promise. Seventy went down into Egypt, and the crowd standing on the plain was the answer to the oath sworn to Abraham.
Sources cited
- The site's published exposition of Deuteronomy 10, in the store
- Meredith G. Kline, Treaty of the Great King: The Covenant Structure of Deuteronomy , 1963
- Kenneth A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament , 2003
Where the chapter sits
Deuteronomy 10 falls in Second sermon, the law restated (chapters 5–26). The Decalogue repeated; the Shema; laws for the land, for worship, for kingship, for war, for the poor. The covenant's central exposition.
Before it: First sermon, retrospective, chapters 1–4. After it: Third sermon, blessings and curses, chapters 27–30.
The whole shape of Deuteronomy→The structure of this chapter
Places1
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A. Two new tables in a wooden ark
1. (vv. 1-3)
Deuteronomy 10:1
“At that time the Lord said unto me, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first--It was when God had been pacified through the intercessions of Moses with the people who had so greatly offended Him by the worship of the golden calf.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Deuteronomy 10:1
“These verses are closely connected with the preceding chapter, and state very briefly the results of the intercession of Moses recorded in Deu 9:25-29. The people are reminded that all their blessings and privileges, forfeited by apostasy as soon as bestowed, were only now their own by a new and most unmerited act of grace on the part of God, won from Him by the self-sacrificing mediation of Moses himself Deu 10:10. Deu 10:1-5. The order for making the ark and tabernacle was evidently given before the apostasy of the people (Exo.”
Deuteronomy 10:2
And I will write on the tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest,.... (a) Though they were hewn by Moses, the writing on them was the Lord's; and the very same laws, in the same words, without any alteration or variation, were written by him on these as on the former; partly to show the authenticity of them, that they were of God and not Moses, of a divine original and not human; and partly to show the invariableness of them, that no change had been made in them, though they had been broken by the people; of which Moses's breaking the tables was a representation: and thou shall put them in the ark; which being a type of Christ may signify the fulfilment of the law by him, who is the end, the fulfilling end of the law for righteousness to every believer; and that as this was in his heart to fulfil it, so it is in his hand as a rule of faith and conversation to his people. (a) See a Sermon of mine on this text, called, "The Law in the Hand of Christ."
Deuteronomy 10:3
“JOSEPHUS says that each of the tables contained five precepts. But the tradition generally received, both among Jewish and Christian writers is, that one table contained four precepts, the other six.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
God writes and Moses quarries. The first tables at Exodus 32:16 were the work of God and the writing of God, and here the man supplies the stone while the writing stays God's, which is the one part of the pair the breaking did not change. Moses also makes an ark of shittim wood before Bezaleel builds the ark of Exodus 37:1, and readers have long divided over whether this is a plain chest made to hold the tables until the tabernacle stood or the same ark told out of its order.
2. (vv. 4-5)
Deuteronomy 10:4
“Ten commandments - See the note on Exo 20:1, etc.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
3 more voices on this verse
Deuteronomy 10:4
“And he wrote on the tables according to the first writing,....”
Deuteronomy 10:4
“The orthodox Fathers aptly used this passage against the Arians; because, since Christ is everywhere called God, He is undoubtedly the same Jehovah who declares Himself to be the One God; and this is asserted with the same force respecting the Holy Spirit.”
John Calvin· Commentaries (1554)reformed
Deuteronomy 10:4
“The written word is as truly the word of God as that which he spoke to his servants the prophets. What care was taken of it. These two tables, thus engraven, were faithfully laid up in the ark.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Deuteronomy 10:5
“And I turned myself,....”
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 10:5
“That good thing which was committed to him he transmitted to them, and left it pure and entire in their hands; now let them look to it at their peril. Thus we may say to the rising generation, "God has entrusted us with Bibles, sabbaths, sacraments, &c., as tokens of his presence and favour, and there they be; we lodge them with you," 2 Tim. i.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
The ten commandments renders a Hebrew phrase that reads ten words, and Exodus 34:28 and Deuteronomy 4:13 use it of the same set. Moses says of the tables that there they be, a present tense spoken by a man standing in Moab forty years on. 1 Kings 8:9 says that when the ark came into Solomon's temple there was nothing in it save the two tables of stone, and Hebrews 9:4 names the golden pot of manna and Aaron's rod that budded along with the tables, and both stand in the canon with the difference left visible.
B. Levi set apart to bear and to bless
1. (vv. 6-7)
Deuteronomy 10:6
“But it is found in the most ancient Hebrew manuscripts, and, believing that all contained in this book was given by inspiration and is entitled to profound respect, we must receive it as it stands, although acknowledging our inability to explain the insertion of these encampment details in this place.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Deuteronomy 10:7
“From thence they journeyed unto Gudgodah,.... Which Jarchi takes to be the same with Horhagidgad, and so do most; see Num 33:32, but Aben Ezra says it is not, but is a general name, including Zalmonah, Punon, and Oboth, places the Israelites came to after they removed from Mount Hor, where Aaron died; see Num 33:41. and from Gudgodah to Jotbath, a land of rivers of waters; which the above writer takes to be the same with Beer, the well, Num 21:16 and by this description of it, it was a place where there was much water.”
These two verses break the speech and give a stretch of the wilderness record in the third person. Aaron dies at Mosera here, where Numbers 20:28 and 33:38 put his death on mount Hor, and Numbers 33:31-33 lists the same camps in the reverse order to the one given here. Keil reads Mosera as the district at the foot of Hor, Benjamin Kennicott held the passage to be out of its place, and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown say plainly that they cannot account for the insertion at this point. The accounts stand together and the difference is named rather than settled.
2. (vv. 8-9)
Deuteronomy 10:8
“Hence the angels are said to stand, 2Chr xviii, 18 Luke i, 19. To bless - The people, by performance of those holy ministrations for the people, and giving those instructions to them, to which God's blessing was promised; and this they did in God's name, that is, by command, and commission from him.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Deuteronomy 10:9
“The Lord is his inheritance - That is, the Lord's portion, namely, tithes and offerings, which belong to God, are given by him to the Levites for their subsistence, from generation to generation.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Levi is given three offices in one verse, to bear the ark, to stand before the Lord and minister, and to bless in his name, and the blessing is the one put into their mouths at Numbers 6:23-27. The tribe that drew the sword at Exodus 32:26-28 is the tribe handed the ark to carry. Verse 9 pays them by taking their land away, since the Lord is his inheritance, which Numbers 18:20 records as God's own word to Aaron.
3. (vv. 10-11)
Deuteronomy 10:10
“Moses here resumes his address, and having made a passing allusion to the principal events in their history, concludes by exhorting them to fear the Lord and serve Him faithfully.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Deuteronomy 10:11
“Take thy journey before the people - 'Twas fit that he who had saved them from ruin by his intercession, should have the conduct and command of them. And herein he was a type of Christ, who, as he ever lives to make intercession for us, so has all power in heaven and in earth.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
This picks up the second forty days of 9:18 and gives the answer to the prayer of 9:25-29. What Moses asked there was that God would not destroy the people, and the reply comes back in his own words, that the Lord would not destroy thee. The march resumes on a command, and the ground given for the land is an oath sworn to the fathers rather than anything the generation at Sinai had done.
C. Circumcise your heart; love the stranger
1. (vv. 12-13)
Deuteronomy 10:12
“God seeks from us and entreats us, not because he needs something that we have to give him but, after we have given it to him, he will account that very thing to us for our salvation.”
Origen of Alexandria· written before 253· HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF LUKE 39.6patristic
Deuteronomy 10:13
“To keep the commandments of the Lord, and his statutes,.... Both the ten commands and all others: which I command thee this day for thy good; promises of temporal good things, introduction into the land of Canaan, possession of it, and continuance in it, being made to obedience to them.”
2 more voices on this verse
Deuteronomy 10:13
“Hence it is more evident why He has just declared that there is One God, viz., that He alone may be undividedly worshipped; for unless our minds are fixed on Him alone, religion is torn, as it were, into divers parts, and this is soon followed by a labyrinth of errors. But, first, he calls for reverence, and then for the worship which may testify and demonstrate it.”
John Calvin· Commentaries (1554)reformed
Deuteronomy 10:13
“Having given up ourselves to his service, we must make his revealed will our rule in every thing, perform all he prescribes, forbear all the forbids, firmly believing that all the statutes he commands us are for our good. Besides the reward of obedience, which will be our unspeakable gain, there are true honour and pleasure in obedience.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
And now turns the chapter from what God has done to what Israel owes, and the question is answered in a single sentence with five verbs: fear, walk, love, serve and keep. Micah 6:8 asks the same question in nearly the same words and answers it with three things, to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God, and the two answers repay being read side by side. Love sits in the middle of the list as a thing commanded, as at 6:5, and the last clause says the commandments are for thy good, so the demand and the benefit are named in one breath.
2. (vv. 14-15)
Deuteronomy 10:14
“Behold, the heaven, and the heaven of heavens, are the Lord's thy God,.... Made and possessed by him; the airy and starry heaven, the third heaven, which is the heaven of heavens, the seat of the divine Majesty, the habitation of angels and glorified saints: the earth also, with all that therein is; that is his property, and at his disposal, being made by him, and all that is upon it, or contained in it, even whatsoever is on or in the whole terraqueous globe; see Psa 115:15.”
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 10:14
“Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens - All these words in the original are in the plural number: הן השמים ושמי השמים hen hashshamayim, ushemey hashshamayim; behold the heavens and the heavens of heavens. But what do they mean? To say that the first means the atmosphere, the second the planetary system, and the third the region of the blessed, is saying but very little in the way of explanation.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Deuteronomy 10:15
“Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them,....”
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 10:15
"He had a delight in thy fathers, and therefore chose their seed." Not that there was any thing in them to merit his favour, or to recommend them to it, but so it seemed good in his eyes.
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
The verse hands God everything, the heaven, the heaven of heavens, the earth and all that is in it, and Solomon uses the same phrase at 1 Kings 8:27 to say that the heaven of heavens cannot contain him. Verse 15 then narrows all of that to one family, and the only reason offered is that the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them. Deuteronomy 7:7 puts it from the other side, that the choice fell on the fewest of all people, so the text keeps merit out of the account twice over.
3. (v. 16)
Deuteronomy 10:16
“Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart--Here he teaches them the true and spiritual meaning of that rite, as was afterwards more strongly urged by Paul (Ro 2:25, 29), and should be applied by us to our baptism, which is "not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God" [1Pe 3:21].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 10:16
“Circumcise - the foreskin of your heart - A plain proof from God himself that this precept pointed out spiritual things, and that it was not the cutting away a part of the flesh that was the object of the Divine commandment, but the purification of the soul, without which all forms and ceremonies are of no avail. Loving God with all the heart, soul, mind, and strength, the heart being circumcised to enable them to do it, was, from the beginning, the end, design, and fulfillment of the whole law.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
The act is commanded of the people here, and the same act is promised as God's own work at 30:6, where the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart. Twenty chapters separate them, and the second is the shape of the whole book, since what the stipulations demand the closing chapters undertake to supply. Jeremiah 4:4 repeats the command and Romans 2:29 makes circumcision of the heart the thing that counts, while Stephen puts both halves of this verse together at Acts 7:51 when he calls his hearers stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears.
4. (vv. 17-19)
Deuteronomy 10:17
“God of gods, and Lord of lords - That is, He is the source whence all being and power proceed; every agent is finite but himself; and he can counteract, suspend, or destroy all the actions of all creatures whensoever he pleases. If he determine to save, none can destroy; if he purpose to destroy, none can save. How absolutely necessary to have such a God for our friend! A great God - mighty - האל הגבר hael haggibbor, the mighty God; this is the very title that is given to our blessed Lord and Savior, Isa 9:6.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Deuteronomy 10:18
“He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow,....”
Deuteronomy 10:19
“Love ye therefore the stranger,.... Because the Lord loves him; and another reason follows, particularly binding on the Israelites: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt; and therefore should sympathize with such, and show them compassion, relieve them in distress, and afford them whatever they want, and is in the power of their hands to communicate to them; remembering their own condition in Egypt, and how welcome such a treatment would have been to them then, as well as the kind and careful providence of God towards them at that time.”
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 10:19
“Two arguments are here urged to enforce this duty:-- (1.) God's common providence, which extends itself to all nations of men, they being all made of one blood.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
the LORD your God is God of gods: God of gods, and Lord of lords is taken up at Psalm 136:2-3 and rests on Christ at Revelation 17:14 and 19:16. The clause that follows turns the titles toward a courtroom, since a God who regardeth not persons nor taketh reward is a judge no one can buy, and Acts 10:34 and Romans 2:11 carry that phrase into the New Testament. The same God who owns the heaven of heavens is then said to feed and clothe the fatherless, the widow and the stranger, and verse 19 makes his conduct the pattern for theirs on the ground of their own years in Egypt, which is how Leviticus 19:34 grounds it as well.
5. (vv. 20-21)
Deuteronomy 10:20
“Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God,.... Which includes the whole worship of him, external and internal: him shalt thou serve; heartily and sincerely, according to his revealed will, and him only: and to him shall thou cleave; and not turn aside to follow other gods, and worship them: and swear by his name; and his only, whenever it is necessary to take an oath, which should not be done rashly or on trivial accounts; and never by any creature, but by the living God; see Deu 6:13.”
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 10:20
“We must adore his majesty, acknowledge his authority, stand in awe of his power, and dread his wrath. This is gospel duty, Rev. xiv. (2.) We must love him, be well pleased that he is, desire that he may be ours, and delight in the contemplation of him and in communion with him.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Deuteronomy 10:21
“He is thy praise - It is an eternal honor to any soul to be in the friendship of God. Why are people ashamed of being thought religious? Because they know nothing of religion. He who knows his Maker may glory in his God, for without him what has any soul but disgrace, pain, shame, and perdition? How strange is it that those who fear God should be ashamed to own it, while sinners boldly proclaim their relationship to Satan!”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Deuteronomy 10:21
“Therefore love him and serve him, because of the relation wherein he stands to thee. He is thy God, a God in covenant with thee, and as such he is thy praise," that is [1.] "He puts honour upon thee; he is the God in whom, all the day long, thou mayest boast that thou knowest him, and art known of him. If he is thy God, he is thy glory." [2.] "He expects honour from thee.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Deuteronomy 10:21
“He is thy praise,....”
Four things are asked, to fear, to serve, to cleave and to swear, and three of them were already given in these words at 6:13. Cleave is the addition, the verb used of a man and his wife at Genesis 2:24, so the tie asked of Israel is put in the language of a bond that holds. He is thy praise sets the praise on God rather than on the people who give it, and the evidence offered is what thine eyes have seen rather than what the fathers reported.
6. (v. 22)
Deuteronomy 10:22
“Thy fathers went down into Egypt with seventy persons,.... That is, in all; for there were not seventy besides Jacob and the patriarchs his sons, but with them; see Gen 46:26 and now the Lord thy God hath made thee as the stars of heaven for multitude; as he promised they should be, Gen 15:5.”
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 10:22
“With threescore and ten persons - And now, from so small a beginning, they were multiplied to more than 600,000 souls; and this indeed in the space of forty years, for the 603,000 which came out of Egypt were at this time all dead but Moses, Joshua, and Caleb. How easily can God increase and multiply, and how easily diminish and bring low! In all things, because of his unlimited power, he can do whatsoever he will; and he will do whatsoever is right.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Seventy went down and a nation came out, which is Genesis 46:27 and Exodus 1:5 answered by the promise of Genesis 15:5 that the seed would be as the stars of heaven. Stephen gives the number as seventy-five at Acts 7:14, following the Septuagint reading of Genesis 46:27, and a Dead Sea scroll of Exodus carries seventy-five too, so the difference turns on which text a speaker had in front of him. A chapter that opened on broken stone closes on a head count, and the count is the evidence Moses offers that the oath sworn to the fathers has held this far.
This page carries no textual note on Deuteronomy 10. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Calvin, Commentary on the Four Last Books of Moses Arranged in the Form of a Harmony; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.
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