John Calvin

1. Who will believe our report? This division, or rather dismemberment, of the chapter, ought to be disregarded; for it ought to have begun with the thirteenth verse of the former chapter, and these words ought to be connected with what goes before. ...

1. All the commandments. Although the first verse might have been included among the promises, whereby, as we shall hereafter see, the Law was ratified by Moses, because he here exhorts and incites the Israelites to obedience by proposing to them the...

1. Thou art to pass over Jordan this day. The whole of this passage contains an eulogy on the gratuitous liberality of God, whereby He had bound the people to Himself unto the obedience of the Law. But this (as we have already seen) ought to have bee...

10. In that day, saith the LORD of hosts, shall ye call every man his neighbour under the vine and under the fig tree. 10. In illo die, dicit Iehova exercituum, vocabitis quisque proximum suum sub vite et sub ficu. We see from this verse that a...

4. Hear, O Israel. When Moses proclaims that God is One, the statement is not confined to His sole essence, which is incomprehensible, but must be also understood of His power and glory, which had been manifested to the people; as though he had said,...

1. Therefore thou shalt love the Lord thy God. The whole address has this scope, that the people should testify their gratitude by their obedience, and thus being allured by God's bounties, should reverently embrace His Law. On this account also, he ...

29. When the Lord thy God shall cut off. This passage has some affinity to that in the eighteenth chapter of Deuteronomy, which we have already remarked on. For inasmuch as it was easy for the people to lapse into the imitation of the Gentiles, and t...

1. If there arise among you. We already perceive that the question is not respecting the falsities and errors which Satan had spread throughout the world, but respecting those which were to appear in the very bosom of the Church, as if it had been sa...

1. And the whole earth was of one language. Whereas mention had before been made of Babylon in a single word, Moses now more largely explains whence it derived its name. For this is a truly memorable history, in which we may perceive the greatness of...

1. Now the Lord had said unto Abram. That an absurd division of these chapters may not trouble the readers, let them connect this sentence with the last two verses of the previous chapter. Moses had before said, that Terah and Abram had departed from...