Deuteronomychapter 5
33 verses · Moses, by tradition · 15th to 13th century BC · The Law
Key verse
The LORD spoke these commandments in a loud voice to your whole assembly out of the fire, the cloud, and the deep darkness on the mountain; He added nothing more. And He wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me.
It stands in You speak to us, and we will hear, verses 22 to 33.
The chapter
Chapter summary
The Decalogue restated. The LORD's covenant at Horeb with ‘us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day’. The ten words again, with slight differences (the Sabbath now grounded in Egyptian deliverance as well as creation; covetousness phrased with wife first). The people's plea: ‘let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die not’. Moses as mediator receives the covenant's expansions. ‘O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always’. The second sermon begins.
Context
Law · Moses · Deuteronomy overview
The world behind this chapter
Deuteronomy 5The history
Moses speaks as the man who stood between the LORD and the people at Horeb, which verse 5 states inside a parenthesis. He is giving the ten words a second time to people who were children when they were first spoken.
The ten words were the core stipulations of the covenant, and the way they were kept follows the practice of the day. In the treaties of that world each party held a full copy of the whole document, so the two stone tablets are most likely two complete copies deposited together rather than a division of the ten across two stones.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
A first hearer knew what was unusual in the Sabbath command. Exodus 20:11 grounds the day in creation and verse 15 here grounds it in slavery, and verse 14 extends the rest to the son and daughter, the manservant and maidservant, the ox and the donkey and the foreigner inside the gates. Adam Clarke counts three ends for the day and names the rest of the servants as one of them. A rest day that covered the whole labour force was unknown elsewhere in that world.
A first hearer also knew what honouring father and mother carried. In a society with no written records and no public provision, the old depended on their grown children, and the household was the school where the law was passed on. John Gill reads the ox and the donkey of verse 14 by their work, the one for ploughing and treading out corn and the other for carrying burdens.
The scene at the mountain is given in physical terms, fire, cloud, deep darkness and a voice. The people asked Moses to go up and listen for them because they were sure that hearing God again would kill them. That request is how Israel came to have a mediator, and verse 28 records that God called it well said.
What it meant to them
The line that lands hardest is verse 3, that the covenant was made with all of us who are alive here today. The generation that could have called Horeb their parents' business is told the words are addressed to them.
The Sabbath clause reminded them what kind of God they had. They had been the unpaid labour of an empire, and they were handed a law that protected the people who worked for them.
Sources cited
- Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible , 1832, on Deuteronomy 5:15
- John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament , 1748 to 1763, on Deuteronomy 5:14
- Kenneth A. Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament , 2003
- Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions , 1961
Where the chapter sits
Deuteronomy 5 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
People1
Places1
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A. Not with our fathers, but with us
1. (vv. 1-3)
Deuteronomy 5:1
“And Moses called all Israel, and said - Hear, etc. - 1. God speaks to the people. 2. The people are called to hear what God speaks. 3. To learn what they heard, that they may be thoroughly instructed in the will of God. 4. To keep God’s testimonies ever in mind, and to treasure them up in a believing and upright heart. 5. That they might do them - obey the whole will of God, taking his word for the invariable rule of their conduct. Should not all these points be kept in view by every Christian assembly?”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Deuteronomy 5:1
“And Moses called all Israel,....”
Deuteronomy 5:1
“He refers them to the covenant made with them in Horeb, as that which they must govern themselves by. See the wonderful condescension of divine grace in turning the command into a covenant, that we might be the more strongly bound to obedience by our own consent and the more encouraged in it by the divine promise, both which are supposed in the covenant.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Deuteronomy 5:2
“The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. Which is Sinai, as Aben Ezra observes; it being the same mountain, only it had two tops, which bore these different names; for certain it is that the decalogue after repeated was given at Sinai, and had the nature and form of a covenant; see Exo 24:7.”
Deuteronomy 5:3
“The “fathers” are, as in Deu 4:37, the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. With them God did indeed make a covenant, but not the particular covenant now in question. The responsibilites of this later covenant, made at Sinai by the nation as a nation, attached in their day and generation to those whom Moses was addressing.”
2 more voices on this verse
Deuteronomy 5:3
“See how distinctly he alludes to this [Mosaic] covenant when he says God did not give the same covenant to their fathers [Abraham and Noah]. For if he had said that absolutely no covenant was given to their fathers it would have been a false statement. For Holy Scripture testifies that a covenant of some kind was given both to Abraham and Noah. And so Moses adds that one "not the same" was given to their fathers. This points to that other greater and glorious covenant, by which all of these were shown forth as friends of God.”
Eusebius of Caesarea· written before 339· PROOF OF THE GOSPEL 1.6patristic
Deuteronomy 5:3
“Not with our fathers - Only: but with us, who are all alive - He saith not, that all who made the covenant at Sinai are now alive, but this covenant was made with all that are now alive; which is most true, for it was made with the elders in their persons, and with the rest in their parents, who covenanted for them.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
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.
2. (vv. 4-5)
Deuteronomy 5:4
“The Lord talked with you face to face in the mount--not in a visible and corporeal form, of which there was no trace (De 4:12, 15), but freely, familiarly, and in such a manner that no doubt could be entertained of His presence.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Deuteronomy 5:5
“Between the Lord and you - As a mediator between you, according to your desire. The word of the Lord - Not the ten commandments, which God himself uttered, but the following statutes and judgments.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
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.
B. The ten words spoken out of the fire
1. (vv. 6-7)
Deuteronomy 5:7
“There being little said, concerning the spiritual sense of the Ten Commandments, in the notes on the twentieth of Exodus, I think it needful to add a few questions here, which the reader may answer between God and his own soul. Thou shalt have none other gods before me - Hast thou worshipped God in spirit and in truth?”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
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.
2. (vv. 8-11)
Deuteronomy 5:8
“Thou shalt not make any graven image - Hast thou not formed any gross image of God in thy mind? Hast thou always thought of him as a pure spirit, whom no man hath seen, nor can see? And hast thou worshipped him with thy body, as well as with thy spirit, seeing both of them are God's?”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
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.
3. (vv. 12-14)
Deuteronomy 5:12
“Keep the sabbath day to sanctify it,.... Or observe it, by setting it apart as a time of natural rest, and for the performance of holy and religious exercises; see Exo 20:8, where the phrase is a little varied, "remember the sabbath day to keep it holy"; it having been instituted before: as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee; not at Sinai only, for the same might then have been observed of all the rest of the commands, but before the giving of the law, at the first of the manna; see Exo 16:23.”
Deuteronomy 5:14
“Nor thine ox, nor thine ass,.... In Exo 20:10, it is only in general said: nor thy cattle: here by way of illustration and explanation the ox and the ass are particularly mentioned; the one being used in ploughing ground, and treading out the corn, and the other in carrying burdens; and it is added: nor any of thy cattle; as their camels, or whatever else they were wont to use in any kind of service; they were none of them to do any kind of work on the sabbath day.”
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.
4. (v. 15)
Deuteronomy 5:15
“And remember that thou wast a servant - In this and the latter clause of the preceding verse Moses adds another reason why one day in seven should be sanctified, viz., that the servants might rest, and this is urged upon them on the consideration of their having been servants in the land of Egypt. We see therefore that God had three grand ends in view by appointing a Sabbath. 1. To commemorate the creation. 2. To give a due proportion of rest to man and beast.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
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.
5. (v. 16)
Deuteronomy 5:16
“Honour thy father and thy mother, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee,....”
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 5:16
“Have ye that are servants done all things as unto Christ? Not with eye-service, but in singleness of heart? Have ye who are masters, behaved as parents to your servants, with all gentleness and affection?”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
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.
6. (vv. 17-20)
Deuteronomy 5:17
“Thou shalt not kill,.... The following commands begin with the copulative "and", different from the manner in which they are expressed, Exo 20:17 which joins these together, and them with the preceding ones; hence the law is by some said to be one copulative, and may serve to illustrate a passage in Jas 2:10.”
Deuteronomy 5:18
“Hast thou used all the means which scripture and reason suggest, to prevent every kind and degree of unchastity? Hast thou laboured, by watching, fasting, and prayer, to possess thy vessel in sanctification and honour?”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Deuteronomy 5:19
“Neither shalt thou steal - Have you seriously considered, that these houses, lands, money, or goods, which you are used to call your own, are not your own, but belong to another, even God? Have you ever considered, that God is the sole proprietor of heaven and earth?”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Deuteronomy 5:20
“If I see a man do an evil thing, and tell it to another, unless from a full and clear conviction, that it is necessary to mention it just then, for the glory of God, the safety or good of some other person, or for the benefit of him that hath done amiss; and unless I then do it only so far, as is necessary to these ends, that is evil-speaking.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
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.
7. (v. 21)
Deuteronomy 5:21
“Neither shalt thou desire thy neighbour's wife,.... Here a neighbour's wife is put before his house, different from Exo 20:17 and "his field" is added, which with what follows take in everything that is a man's property; and which is not to be desired or coveted in an unlawful manner by another, and much less should any means be made use of to deprive him of it; but "lust" is the thing intended and prohibited, be it after what it may, which is another man's: see Mat 5:28, of a man's field, see Isa 5:8.”
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.
C. You speak to us, and we will hear
1. (v. 22)
Deuteronomy 5:22
“He added no more - i. e., He spoke no more with the great voice directly to the people, but addressed all other communications to them through Moses. This unique and sublime phenomenon, followed up by the inscription of the Ten Words on the two tables by the finger of God, marks not only the holiness of God’s Law in general, but the special eminence and permanent obligation of the Ten Words themselves as compared with the rest of the Mosaic enactments.”
2 more voices on this verse
Deuteronomy 5:22
“That was a dispensation of terror, designed to make the gospel of grace the more welcome, and to be a specimen of the terrors of the judgment-day, Ps. l. What other laws he gave them were sent by Moses, but no more were spoken in the same manner that the ten commandments were. He added no more, therefore we must not add: the law of the Lord is perfect.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Deuteronomy 5:22
“He adds, that it was "a great voice," i.e., a voice which had, in an unwonted manner, penetrated far and wide. Nor are the witnesses few, whom he cites, but all that vast multitude, which for the most part would have been more disposed to extinguish the glory of God, unless it had been there made known by manifest proofs.”
John Calvin· Commentaries (1554)reformed
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.
2. (vv. 23-27)
Deuteronomy 5:23
“These verses contain a much fuller narrative of the events briefly described in Exo 20:18-21. Here it is important to call attention to the fact that it was on the entreaties of the people that Moses had taken on him to be the channel of communication between God and them. God approved Deu 5:28 the request of the people, because it showed a feeling of their own unworthiness to enter into direct communion with God. The terrors of Sinai had done their work; they had awakened the consciousness of sin.”
Deuteronomy 5:25
“For who ever heard the voice of the living God, as we have, and lived? God's appearances have always been terrible to man, ever since the fall: but Christ, having taken away sin, invites us to come boldly to the throne of grace.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Deuteronomy 5:26
“If to hear the voice of God speaking is a cause of death, how will the sight of God not cause death? And why wonder? Even Moses himself says, "I am greatly terrified and trembling." What then? Would you that he who came for our salvation become a minister of destruction because men could not bear him? Or rather that he should temper his grace to our measure?”
Cyril of Jerusalem· written before 386· Catechetical Lecture 12.13-14patristic
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.
3. (vv. 28-29)
Deuteronomy 5:28
“And the Lord heard the voice of your word, when ye spake unto me,....”
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 5:28
“Their owning the necessity of a mediator to deal between them and God was well said. Their desire to receive further directions from God by Moses, and their promise to observe what directions should be given them, were well said. And what is well said shall have its praise with God, and should have with us.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Deuteronomy 5:29
“O that there were such a heart in them - Or rather, מי יתן והיה לבבם זה mi yitten vehayah lebabam zeh, Who will give such a heart to them, that they may fear, etc. They refuse to receive such a heart from me; who then can supply it? If they had not been such perfectly free agents as could either use or abuse their liberty, could God have made the complaint or expressed the earnest desire we find in this verse?”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 5:29
“Oh, that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me--God can bestow such a heart, and has promised to give it, wherever it is asked (Jer 32:40).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
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.
4. (vv. 30-31)
Deuteronomy 5:30
“Go say to them, get you into your tents again. Which they had left, being brought by Moses, at the direction of God, to the foot of Mount Sinai, to receive the law from his mouth; this being done, they are ordered to return to their tents again, to their families, wives, and children.”
Deuteronomy 5:31
“Blessed is that mind which, surpassing the nature and essence itself, deserves to hear what was said to Moses when he was separated from the people: 'But you stand with me' (Deut. V, 31)!”
Ambrose of Milan· written before 397· On Cain and Abel, Book 1, Chapter 2, Section 7patristic
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.
5. (vv. 32-33)
Deuteronomy 5:32
“Ye shall observe to do therefore as the Lord your God doth command you,.... Observe every precept, as to matter and manner, which the Lord has commanded, and that under a sense of the great obligations laid on them by him, in giving them freely so good a land to possess: you shall not turn to the right hand or to the left; but walk in the way of the commandments of God, and not depart from them at all, but follow the Lord in his own ways fully.”
2 more voices on this verse
Deuteronomy 5:32
“Ye shall observe to do - He who marks not the word of God is never likely to fulfill the will of God. Ye shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left - The way of truth and righteousness is a right line; a man must walk straight forward who wishes to go to glory; no crooked or devious path ever led to God or happiness.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Deuteronomy 5:32
“1 And Moses called all Israel, and said unto them, Hear, O Israel, the statutes and judgments which I speak in your ears this day, that ye may learn them, and keep, and do them. 2 The L ORD our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. 3 The L ORD made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Deuteronomy 5:33
“Ye shall walk in all the ways which the Lord your God hath commanded you,....”
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 5:33
“Ye shall walk in all the ways, etc. - God never gave a commandment to man which he did not design that he should obey. He who selects from the Divine testimonies such precepts as he feels but little inclination to transgress, and lives in the breach of others, sins against the grand legislative authority of God, and shall be treated as a rebel.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
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.
This page carries no textual note on Deuteronomy 5. 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.