Deuteronomy5chapter 5

Deuteronomy 5:1-3

Hear, O Israel falls four times in this book, at 5:1, 6:4, 9:1 and 20:3, and this is the first of them. Verse 3 presses the covenant onto the men standing in front of Moses, the Lord made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day. Albert Barnes reads the fathers as the patriarchs, since God did covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and what is denied is that the Sinai covenant was made with them. The phrase this day falls seventy times in Deuteronomy, and this verse is the reason.

Deuteronomy 5:4-5

Face to face at verse 4 sits beside 4:12 and 4:15, where the same speaker says they heard a voice and saw no similitude. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown take the phrase as directness of address rather than the sight of a form. Verse 5 then puts Moses between the Lord and the people inside a parenthesis and gives the reason, that they were afraid by reason of the fire and went not up into the mount. The mediation stated here in one clause is the thing the people ask for at verses 23 to 27.

Deuteronomy 5:6-7

The ten words open with a rescue that has already happened, and the commandment follows it. Exodus 20:2 gives the same preface in the same words, so the order is fixed in both accounts, what God did and then what Israel owes. House of bondage returns at 6:12, 8:14, 13:5 and 13:10, each time in a warning about forgetting him or being drawn away after other gods, so the preface becomes a refrain the rest of the book uses.

Deuteronomy 5:8-11

The second word forbids the making and the bowing, and verse 9 gives the reason out of God's own character, for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God. Third and fourth generation in verse 9 stands against thousands in verse 10, so the mercy is measured on a scale the visiting is not. Deuteronomy 24:16 later rules that the fathers shall not be put to death for the children, which governs Israel's courts, and Ezekiel 18:20 takes the question up again for the nation. Verse 11 guards the name and leaves its sanction with God, the Lord will not hold him guiltless, rather than assigning a penalty to a magistrate.

Deuteronomy 5:12-14

Exodus 20:8 reads remember the sabbath day, and this account reads keep it, with the clause as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee added. That clause falls twice in this chapter, here and at verse 16 on the honouring of parents, and in neither place in Exodus 20; John Gill takes it as pointing back to an obligation Israel already knew, and cites the manna at Exodus 16:23. Verse 14 also lengthens the household list, naming the ox and the ass where Exodus 20:10 said cattle, and it closes with a clause Exodus does not carry, that thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou.

Deuteronomy 5:15

Exodus 20:11 grounds the sabbath in the six days of creation. This account grounds it in the deliverance from Egypt, and both stand in the canon with neither replacing the other. Adam Clarke holds the two together and reads the rest given to servants and cattle in verse 14 as a third end of the day. Remember is one of the two commands that run through this book, fourteen occurrences against nine of forget, and this verse is the first of them.

Deuteronomy 5:16

Two promises hang on this commandment here, that thy days may be prolonged and that it may go well with thee, where Exodus 20:12 gives the length of days alone. Paul calls it the first commandment with promise at Ephesians 6:2 and quotes both halves at 6:3, that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth, which is the fuller Deuteronomy form. The added words as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee match verse 12 and belong to the same pair.

Deuteronomy 5:17-20

These four run to a handful of words each and cover life, marriage, property and speech. John Gill observes that in this chapter they are joined by the copulative and, where Exodus 20:13-17 sets them one after another without it, and he reads the law as one connected whole on that ground, with James 2:10 beside it. Jesus recites these words to the man who asks about eternal life at Mark 10:19, and Paul gathers them at Romans 13:9 under love thy neighbour as thyself.

Deuteronomy 5:21

The tenth word changes its order here. Exodus 20:17 names the house first and then the wife and uses one verb for both; this account names the wife first, uses desire of her and covet of the house, and adds his field to the list. John Gill reads the change as setting the person ahead of the property, and takes the added field as landed inheritance of the sort Isaiah 5:8 says was being swallowed up. Paul reaches for this commandment at Romans 7:7 as the one that showed him what sin was.

Deuteronomy 5:22

He added no more marks the end of what the whole nation heard directly. Albert Barnes reads it as the close of God's speech to the people at large, everything after it coming through Moses, and takes the two tables written by God as setting the ten words above the rest of the legislation. John Calvin fixes on the great voice and on the size of the crowd that heard it, since the witnesses cited are the whole assembly. Hebrews 12:18-21 looks back at this mountain and at the fear in it and sets Sinai against Zion.

Deuteronomy 5:23-27

The heads of the tribes and the elders come forward and ask Moses to hear for them, go thou near, and hear all that the Lord our God shall say. Exodus 20:18-21 tells the same scene with the people removing and standing afar off; this account names who approached and gives their speech at length, and both stand. What frightened them was that they had heard God and lived, verse 24, and what they fear in verse 25 is hearing him again. Deuteronomy 18:16 quotes the request back in their own words and answers it with the prophet promised at 18:15 and 18:18, which Acts 3:22 and Acts 7:37 apply to Christ.

Deuteronomy 5:28-29

God calls the request good, they have well said all that they have spoken, so the fear behind it draws no rebuke. Verse 29 is then a wish, O that there were such an heart in them, and it names the one thing obedience would need and Israel did not have. The command at 10:16 to circumcise the foreskin of the heart and the promise at 30:6 that God will circumcise it both answer this verse, five and twenty-five chapters on. Jeremiah 31:33 and Ezekiel 36:26 carry the same want forward into the prophets.

Deuteronomy 5:30-31

The people go back to their tents and Moses is told to stand by God, and that arrangement is what the rest of the book runs on. Chapters 6 to 26 are the delivery of what verse 31 promises here, all the commandments, and the statutes, and the judgments. The purpose attached is that they may do them in the land which I give them to possess it, so the law is aimed at a settled life rather than at the camp where it was given.

Deuteronomy 5:32-33

Turning aside to the right hand or to the left becomes a standing figure in this book, at 17:11 for the judges, 17:20 for the king and 28:14 for the nation, and Joshua 1:7 puts it to Joshua by name. It belongs with 4:2, ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, which is repeated at 12:32 and which Keil and Delitzsch note as a standing clause of ancient covenant documents. Verse 33 closes the chapter on the terms it opened with, life and welfare and length of days in a land Israel has not yet entered.