_MOSES' FAREWELL SPEECHES_
DEUT. iv. 1-40, xxvii.-xxx.
With the twenty-sixth chapter the entirely homogeneous central
portion of the Book of Deuteronomy ends, and it concludes it most
worthily. It prescribes two ceremonies which are meant to give
solemn expression to the feeling of thankfulness which the love of
God, manifested in so many laws and precepts, covering the commonest
details of life, should have made the predominant feeling. The first
is the utterance of what we have called the "liturgy of gratitude"
at the time of the feast of firstfruits; and the second is the
solemn dedication of the third year's tithe to the poor and the
fatherless, and the disclaimer of any misuse of it. Further notice
of either after what has already been said in reference to them
would be superfluous. The closing verses (16-19) of the chapter are
a solemn reminder that all these transactions with God had bound
the people to Yahweh in a covenant. "Thou hast avouched Yahweh this
day to be thy God" and, "Yahweh hath avouched thee this day to be a
peculiar people ('_am segūllāh_) unto Himself." By this they were
bound to keep Yahweh's statutes and judgments, and do them with
all their heart and with all their soul, while He, on His part,
undertakes on these terms to set them "high above all nations which
He hath made in praise, and in name, and in honour," and to make
them a holy people unto Himself.
But the original Deuteronomy as read to King Josiah cannot have
ended with chapter xxvi., for the thing that awed him most was
the threat of evil and desolation which were to follow the
non-observance of this covenant. Now though there are indications of
such dangers in the first twenty-six chapters of Deuteronomy, yet
threats are not, so far, a prominent part of this book. The book
as read must consequently have contained some additional chapters,
which, in part at least, must have contained threats. Now this is
what we have in our Biblical Deuteronomy. But in chapters xxvii. and
xxviii. there are reduplications which can hardly have formed part
of the original author's work. An examination of these has led every
one who admits composite authorship in the Pentateuch to see that
from chapter xxvii. onwards the original work has been broken up
and dovetailed again with the works of JE and P; so that component
parts of the first four books of the Hexateuch appear along with
elements which the author of Deuteronomy has supplied. We have,
in fact, before us, from this point, the work of the editor who
fitted Deuteronomy into the framework of the Pentateuch; and it is
of importance, from an expository point of view even, to endeavour
to restore Deuteronomy to its original form, and to follow out the
traces of it that are left.
As we have said, we must look for the threats and promises which
undoubtedly formed part of it. These are contained in chapters
xxvii. and xxviii. But a careful reader will feel at once that
chapter xxvii. disturbs the connection, and that xxviii. should
follow xxvi. In chapter xxvii., vv. 9 and 10 alone seem necessary
to give a transition to chapter xxviii.; and if all the rest were
omitted we should have exactly what the narrative in Kings would
lead us to expect, a coherent, natural sequence of blessings and
curses, which should follow faithfulness to the covenant, or
unfaithfulness. The rest of chapter xxvii. is not consistent either
with itself or with Josh. viii. 30, where the accomplishment of
that which is commanded here is recorded. In vv. 1-3 Moses and the
elders command the people to set up great stones and plaister them
with plaister and write upon them all the words of this law, on
the day when they shall pass over Jordan, that they may go in unto
the land. In ver. 4 it is said that these stones are to be set up
in Mount Ebal, and there an altar of unhewn stones is to be built,
and sacrifices offered, "and thou shalt write upon the stones very
plainly." From the position of this last clause and the mention of
Mount Ebal, the course of events would be quite different from that
which vv. 1-3 suggest. The stones were, according to the verses 4
ff., to be set up in Mount Ebal; out of these an altar of unhewn
stones was to be built; and on them the law was to be inscribed, and
this is what Joshua says was done. But if we take all the verses,
1-8, together, we can reconcile them only by the hypothesis that
the stones were set up as soon as Jordan was crossed, plaistered,
and inscribed with the law; that afterwards they were removed to
Mount Ebal and built into an altar "of unhewn stone," upon which
sacrifices were offered. But that surely is in the highest degree
improbable; and since we know that in other cases two narratives
have been combined in the sacred text, that would seem the most
probable solution here. Verses 4-8 will in that case be a later
insertion, probably from J. In the same connection vv. 15-26 contain
a list of crimes which are visited with a curse and no blessings;
this cannot be the proclamation of blessing and cursing which is
here required. Further, this list must be by a different author,
for it affixes curses to some crimes which are not mentioned in
Deuteronomy, and omits such sins as idolatry, which are continually
mentioned there. This section must consequently have been inserted
here by some later hand. It must probably have been later even than
the time of the writer of Josh. viii. 33 ff., since the arrangement
as reported there differs from what is prescribed here. Moreover, as
there is nothing new in these sections, and all they say is repeated
substantially in chapter xxviii., we may give our attention wholly
to chapter xxviii. 1-68, as being the original proclamation of
blessing and curse.
But other entanglements follow. Chapters xxix. and xxx. manifestly
contained an adieu on the part of Moses, who turns finally to the
people with an affecting and solemn speech of farewell. That appears
in chapters xxix. and xxx. But for many reasons it is impossible to
believe that these chapters as they stand are the original speech of
Deuteronomy.[126] The language is in large part different, and there
are references to the Book of the Law as being already written out
(chap. xxix. 19 f. 26, and chap. xxx. 10). It is probably therefore
an editor's rewriting of the original speech, and from the fact
that "it contains many points of contact with Jeremiah in thoughts
and words," it is probably to be dated in the Exile. But there is
another noticeable thing in connection with it. It has a remarkable
resemblance in these and other respects to chapter iv. 1-40. That
passage can hardly have originally followed chapters i.-iii., if as
is most probable these were at first an historic introduction to
Deuteronomy. The hortative character of iv. 1-40 shows that it must
have been placed where it is by a reviser. But the language, though
not altogether that of Deuteronomy, is like it, and the thought is
also Deuteronomic. Probably the passage must have been transferred
from some other part of Deuteronomy and adapted by the editor. A
clue to its true place may perhaps be found in ver. 8, where "all
this law" is spoken of as if it were already given, and in ver. 5,
where we read, "Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments."
These passages imply that the law of Deuteronomy had been given,
and in that case chapter iv. must belong to a closing speech. We
probably shall not be in error, therefore, in thinking that chapters
iv. 1-40 and xxix. and xxx. are all founded on an original farewell
speech which stood in Deuteronomy after the blessing and the curse.
[126] Cf. Dillmann, _Deuteronomy_, pp. 178 ff.
But it may be asked, if that be so, why did an editor make these
changes? The answer is to be found in two passages in chapters xxxi.
and xxxii. which cannot be harmonised as they stand. In xxxi. 19 we
are told that Yahweh commanded Moses to write "this song" and teach
it to the children of Israel, "that this song may be a witness for
Me against the children of Israel," and ver. 22, "So Moses wrote
this song." But in vv. 28 f. we read that "Moses said, Assemble unto
me all the elders of the tribes and your officers, that I may speak
these words in their ears, and call heaven and earth to witness
against them." Obviously "these words" are different from "this
song," and are meant for a different purpose. The same ambiguity
occurs at the end of the song in vv. 44 ff., where we first read
of Moses ending "this song," and in the next verse we read, "And
Moses made an end of speaking all these words to all Israel." Now
what has become of "_these words_"? In all probability they were the
substance of chapters iv. and xxix. and xxx., and were separated
and amplified, because the editor who fitted Deuteronomy into the
Pentateuch took over the song in chapter xxxii., as well as those
passages of xxxi. and xxxii. that speak of this song, from JE. He
accepted them as a fitting conclusion for the career of Moses, and
transferred the original speech, which we suppose to have been
the last great utterance of the original Deuteronomy, putting the
main part of it immediately before the song, but taking parts out
of it to form a hortatory ending (such as the other Moses' speeches
have) to that first one which he had formed out of the historic
introduction. This may seem a very complicated process and an
unlikely one; but after the foundation had been built by Dillmann,
Westphal has elaborated the whole matter with such luminous force
that it seems hardly possible to doubt that the facts can be
accounted for only in this way. By piecing together iv., xxx., and
xxxi. he produces a speech so thoroughly coherent and consistent
that the mere reading of it becomes the most cogent proof of the
substantial truth of his argument.[127]
[127] Le _Deuteronome_ (Toulouse, 1891), pp. 62-75. The order in
which he disposes of the verses is as follows: Deut. xxxi. 24-29,
xxix. 1-15, iv. 1, 2, xxix. 16-21, iv. 3-30, xxix. 22-28, iv. 30,
31, xxx. 1-10, iv. 32-40, xxx. 11-20, xxxii. 45-47. If before this
we place xxxi. 1-13, we shall probably have the original sequence
fully restored.
An analysis of it will show this, (1) There is the introduction; up
till now the people have understood neither the commands nor the
love of Yahweh (xxix. 1-9). (2) There is the explanation of the
Covenant (xxix. 10-15); (3) A command to observe the Covenant (iv.
1, 2); (4) Warning against individual transgression, which will be
punished by the destruction of the rebel (xxix. 16-21, iv. 3, 4);
(5) Warning against collective transgression, which will be punished
by the ruin of the people (iv. 5-26). The author, from this point
regarding the transgression as an accomplished fact, announces:
(6) The dispersion and exile of the people (iv. 27, 28); (7) The
impression produced on future generations by the horror of this
dispersion (xxix. 22-28); (8) The conversion of the exiles to God
(iv. 30, 31); (9) Their return to the land of their fathers xxx.
(1-10). (10) In conclusion, it is stated that the power of Yahweh
to sustain the faith of His people and to save them is guaranteed
by the past (iv. 32-40); and there is no reason therefore that the
people should shrink from obeying the commandment prescribed to
them. It is a matter of will. Life and death are before them; let
them choose (xxx. 11-20).
The analysis of the remaining chapters is not difficult. Chapter
xxxi., vv. 14-23 and 30, form the introduction to the song, chapter
xxxii., vv. 1-43, just as ver. 44 is the conclusion of it. Both
introduction and song are extracted probably from J and E. Verses
48-52 are after P. Then follows the blessing of Moses, chapter
xxxiii. Finally, chapter xxxiv. contains an account of Moses' death
and a final eulogy of him, in which all the sources JE, P, and D
have been called into requisition. The threefold cord which runs
through the other books of the Pentateuch was untwisted to receive
Deuteronomy, and has been re-twisted so as to bind the Pentateuch
into one coherent whole. That is the result of the microscopic
examination which the text as it stands has undergone, and we may
pretty certainly accept it as correct. But we should not lose
sight of the fact that, as the book is now arranged, it has a
notable coherence of its own, and the impression of unity which it
conveys is in itself a result of great literary skill. Not only
has the editor combined Deuteronomy into the other narratives most
successfully, but he has done so not only without falsifying, but so
as to confirm and enhance the impression which the original book was
meant to convey.
We turn now to the substance of the two speeches--the proclamation
of the blessing and the curse, and the great farewell address. As we
have seen, the first is contained in chapter xxviii. If any evidence
were now needed that this chapter was written later than the Mosaic
time, it might be found in the space given to the curses, and the
much heavier emphasis laid upon them than upon the blessings. Not
that Moses might not have prophetically foretold Israel's disregard
of warnings. But if the heights to which Israel was actually to
rise had been before the author's mind as still future, instead of
being wrapped in the mists of the past, he could not but have dwelt
more equally upon both sides of the picture. Whatever supernatural
gifts a prophet might have, he was still and in all things a man.
He was subject to moods like others, and the determination of these
depended upon his surroundings. He was not kept by the power of God
beyond the shadows which the clouds in his sky might cast; and we
may safely say that if the curses which are to follow disobedience
are elaborated and dwelt upon much more than the blessings which
are to reward obedience, it is because the author lived at a time
of unfaithfulness and revolt. Obviously his contemporaries were
going far in the evil way, and he warns them with intense and eager
earnestness against the dangers they are so recklessly incurring.
But after all we have seen of the spirituality of the Deuteronomic
teaching, and its insistence upon love as the true bond between
men and God and the true motive to all right action, it is perhaps
disappointing to some to find how entirely these promises and
threats have their centre in the material world. Probably nowhere
else will the truth of Bacon's famous saying that "Prosperity is the
blessing of the Old Testament" be more conspicuously seen than here.
If Israel be faithful she is promised productivity, riches, success
in war. Even when it is promised that she shall be established by
Yahweh as a holy people unto Himself, the meaning seems to be that
the people shall be separated from others by these earthly favours,
rather than that they shall have the moral and spiritual qualities
which the word "holy" now connotes. Other nations shall fear Israel
because of the Divine favour. Israel shall be raised above them all.
If it become unfaithful, on the other hand, it is to be visited
with pestilence, consumption, fever, inflammation, sword, blasting,
mildew. The earth is to be iron beneath them, and the heaven above
them brass. Instead of rain they are to have dust; they are to be
visited with more than Egyptian plagues. Their minds are to refuse
to serve them; they are to be defeated in war; their country is to
be overrun by marauders; their wives and children, their cattle
and their crops, are to fall into the enemy's hands. Locusts and
all known pests are to fall upon their fields; and they themselves
are to be carried away captive, after having endured the worst
horrors of siege, and been compelled by hunger to devour their own
children. And in exile they shall be an astonishment, a proverb, and
a by-word, and shall be ruled by oppressive aliens. Worst of all,
they shall there lose hope in God and "shall serve other gods, even
wood and stone." Their lives shall hang in doubt before them. In the
morning they shall say, "Would God it were evening," and at even
they shall say, "Would God it were morning." All the deliverance
Yahweh had wrought for them by bringing them out of Egypt would be
undone, and once more they should go back into Egyptian bondage.
All that is materialistic enough; but there is no need to make
apology for Deuteronomy, nevertheless. The prophet has taught the
higher law; he has rooted all human duty, both to God and man, in
love to God, and now he tries to enlist man's natural fear and hope
as allies of his highest principle. How justifiable that is we have
already seen in Chapter XII., pp. 231 ff.
But a more serious question is raised when it is asked, does
Nature, in definite sober truth, lend itself, in the manner implied
throughout this chapter, to the support of religious and moral
fidelity? At a time when imaginative literature is largely devoting
itself to an angry or querulous denial of any righteous force
working for the unfortunate and the faithful,[128] there can be
no question what the popular answer to such a question would be.
But from the ranks of literature itself we may summon testimony on
the other side. Mr. Hall Caine, in his address at the Edinburgh
Philosophical Institution, maintains in a wider and more general
way the essence of the Deuteronomic thesis when he says, "I count
him the greatest genius who touches the magnetic and Divine chord
in humanity which is always waiting to vibrate to the sublime hope
of recompense; I count him the greatest man who teaches men that
the world is ruled in righteousness." And his justification of
that position is too admirable not to be quoted: "Life is made up
of a multitude of fragments, a sea of many currents, often coming
into collision and throwing up breakers. We look around and see
wrong-doing victorious, and right-doing in the dust; the evil man
growing rich and dying in his bed, the good man becoming poor and
dying in the street; and our hearts sink and we say, What is God
doing after all in this world of His children? But our days are
few, our view is limited, we cannot watch the event long enough
to see the end which Providence sees." "It is the very province
of imaginative genius," he goes on to say, "to see that which the
common mind cannot see, to offer to it at least suggestions of how
these triumphs of unrighteousness may be accounted for in accordance
with the law that righteousness rules in the world." We would go
further. It is one of the main purposes of inspiration to go beyond
even imaginative genius, to point out in history not only how right
may perhaps ultimately triumph, but how it has been in reality and
must be victorious. For it will not do to shut off the world of
material things from the working of this great and universal law.
Owing to the narrow fanaticism of science, modern men have become
sceptical, not only of miracle, but even of the fundamental truth
that righteousness is profitable for the life that now is, that in
following righteousness men are co-operating with the deepest law
of the universe. But it remains a truth for all that. It is written
deep in the heart of man; and in more wavering lines perhaps, but
still most legibly, it is written on the face of things. With the
limitations of his time and place, this is what the Deuteronomist
preaches. Doubtless he has not faced, as Job does, the whole of the
problem; still less has he attained to the final insight exhibited
in the New Testament, that temporal gifts may be curses in disguise,
that the highest region of recompense is in the eternal life, in
the domain of things which are invisible but eternal. He does not
yet _know_, though he has perhaps a presentiment of it, that being
completely stripped of all earthly good may be the path to the
highest victory--the victory which makes men more than conquerors
through Christ. Nevertheless he is, making these allowances, right,
and the moderns are wrong. In many ways obedience to spiritual
inspirations does bring worldly prosperity. The absence of moral
and spiritual faithfulness does affect even the fruitfulness of
the soil, the fecundity of animals, the prevalence of disease, the
stability of ordered life and success in war. This was visible to
the ancient world generally in a dim way; but by the inspired men
of the Old Covenant it was clearly seen, for they were enlightened
for the very purpose of seeing the hand of God where others saw it
not. But they never thought of tracing out the chain of intermediate
causes by which such results were connected with men's spiritual
state. They saw the facts, they recognised the truth, and they
threw themselves back at once upon the will of God as the sufficient
explanation.
[128] Cf. Recent fiction, _e.g. The African Farm_, _Tess of the
D'Urbevilles_, _The Heavenly Twins_.
We, on the other hand, have been so diligent in tracing out the
immediately preceding links of natural causation that, for the most
part, we have been fatigued before we reached God. We consequently
have lost view of Him; and it is wholesome for us to be brought
sharply into contact with the ancient Oriental mind as we are here,
in order that we may be forced to go the whole way back to Him. For
the fact is that much of that very process of decay and destruction
from moral causes is going on before us in countries like Turkey
and Morocco, where social righteousness is all but unknown, and
private morality is low. A truly modern mind scorns the idea that
the fertility of the soil can be affected by immorality. Yet there
is the whole of Mesopotamia to show that misgovernment can make a
garden into a desert. Where teeming populations once covered the
country with fruitful gardens and luxurious cities, there is now
in the lands of the Tigris and Euphrates a few handfuls of people,
and all the fertility of the country has disappeared. Irrigation
channels which made all things live have been choked up and have
been gradually filled with drifting sand, and one of the most
populous and fertile countries of the world has become a desert.
In Palestine the same thing may be seen. Under Turkish domination
the character of the soil has been entirely changed. In many
places where in ancient days the hills were terraced to the top
the sweeping rains have had their way, and the very soil has been
carried off, leaving only rocks to blister in the pitiless sun. Even
in the less likely sphere of animal fecundity modern science shows
that peace and good government and righteous order are causes of
extraordinary power. And the movements which are going on around us
at this day in the elevation and depression of nations and races
have a visible connection with fidelity or lack of fidelity to known
principles of order and justice. This can be said without concealing
how scanty and partial in most cases such attainments are.
Prevailing principles can be discerned in the providence which rules
the world. And these are of such a kind that the connection which
obedience to the highest known rules of life has with fertility,
success and prosperity, is constant and intimate. It is, too, far
wider reaching than at first sight would seem possible. To this
extent, even modern knowledge justifies these blessings and curses
of Deuteronomy.
But it may be asked, Is this all the Old Testament means by such
threats and promises? Does it recognise any even self-imposed
limitations to the direct action of Divine power? Most probably
it does not. Though always keeping clear of Pantheism, the Old
Testament is so filled and possessed by the Divine Presence that
all second causes are ignored, and the action of God upon nature
was conceived, as it could not fail to be, on the analogy of a
workman using tools. Now that the methods of Divine action in nature
have been studied in the light of science, they have been found to
be more fixed and regular than was supposed. The extent of their
operation, too, has been found to be immeasurably wider, and the
purposes which have to be cared for at every moment are now seen
to be infinitely various. As a result, human thought has fallen
back discouraged, and takes refuge more and more in a conception of
nature which practically deifies it, or at least entirely separates
it from any intimate relation to the will of God. It is even denied
that there is any purpose in the world at all, or any goal, and
to chance or fate all the vicissitudes of life and the mechanical
changes of nature are attributed. But though we must recognise, as
the Old Testament does not, that ordinary Divine action flows out in
perfectly well-defined channels, and is so stable in its movement
that results in the sphere of physical nature may be predicted with
certainty; and though we see, as was not seen in ancient days, that
even God does not always approach His ends by direct and short-cut
paths,--these considerations only make the Old Testament view more
inspiring and more healthful for us. We may gather from it the
inference that if the fertility of a land, the frequency of disease,
and success in war are so powerfully affected by the moral and
spiritual quality of a people, it is very likely that in subtler and
less palpable ways the same influences produce similar effects, even
in regions where they cannot be traced. If so, whatever allowance
may be required for the inevitable simplicity of Old Testament
conceptions on this subject, however much we miss the limitations
we have learned to regard as necessary, the Deuteronomic view as
to the effects of moral and spiritual declension upon the material
fortunes of a people is much nearer the truth than our timorous
and hesitating half-belief. To find these effects emphasised and
affirmed as they are here, therefore, acts as a much needed tonic
in our spiritual life. Coming too from a man who possessed, if ever
man did, Divinely inspired insight into the process of the world
and the ideal of human life, these promises and warnings bring God
near. They dissipate the mists which obscure the workings of God's
Providence, and keep before us aspects of truth which it is the
present tendency of thought to ignore too much. They declare in
accents which carry conviction that, even in material things, the
Lord reigneth; and for that the world has reason to be supremely
glad.
Certainly Christians now know that prosperity in material things is
by no means God's best gift. That great principle must be held to
firmly, as well as the legitimacy of the vivid hopes and fears of
Old Testament times regarding the material rewards of right-doing.
In many ways the new principle must overrule and modify for us
those hopes and fears. But with this limitation we are justified
in occupying the Deuteronomic standpoint and in repeating the
Deuteronomic warnings. For to its very core the world is God's; and
those who find His working everywhere are those whose eyes have been
opened to the inmost truth of things.
With regard to the farewell speech contained in chapters xxix.
and xxx. and the related parts of chapter iv. and chapter xxxi.
there is not much to be said. Taken as a whole, it develops the
promises and threats of the previous chapters, and repeats again
with affectionate hortatory purpose much of the history. But there
is not a great deal that is new; most of the underlying principles
of the address have been already dealt with. Taken according to the
reconstruction of the speech and its reinsertion in its original
framework, the course of things would seem to have been this. After
the threats and promises had been concluded, Moses, carrying on the
injunction of iii. 28, addressed (chapter xxxii. 8) all the people
and appointed Joshua to be his successor; then he wrote out "this
law," and produced it before the priests and elders of the people,
with the instruction that at the end of every seven years, at the
feast of release, in the feast of tabernacles, it should be read
before all Israel, men, women, and children (chapter xxxi., w.
9-13). Then he gave the book to the Levites, that they might "lay
it up" by the side of the Ark of the Covenant of Yahweh their God,
that it might be there for a witness against them when they became
unfaithful, as he foresaw they would. He next summons all Israel
to him, and delivers the farewell address contained in chapters
iv., xxix., and xxx., an outline of which has already been given
(p. 438), according to Westphal's recombination. This would seem to
indicate that Moses himself inaugurated the custom of reading the
law and giving instruction to all the people, which he prescribed
for the feast of tabernacles in the year of release. After the law
had been given he addressed the whole people in this farewell speech.
But though on the whole there is no need for detailed exposition
here, there are one or two things which ought to be noticed,
things which express the spirit of Deuteronomy so directly and
so sincerely that they can be identified as forming part of the
original Deuteronomic speech. One of these is unquestionably xxx.
11-20. At the end of the farewell address a return is made to the
core of the whole Deuteronomic teaching: "Thou shalt love Yahweh
thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy
might." This was announced with unique emphasis at the beginning; it
has lain behind all the special commands which have been insisted
upon since; and now it emerges again into view as the conclusion of
the whole matter. For beyond doubt this, and not the whole series
of legal precepts, is what is meant by "this commandment" in verse
11. Both before it, in the sixth and tenth verses, and after it, in
the sixteenth and twentieth verses, this precept is repeated and
insisted on as the Divine command. Had the individual commands or
the whole mass of them together been meant, the phrase used would
have been different. It would have been that in ver. 10, where they
are called "His commandments and His statutes which are written in
this book of the law," or something analogous. No, it is the central
command of love to God, without which all external obedience is
vain, which is the theme of this last great paragraph; and a clear
perception of this will carry us through both the obscurities of
it, and the difficulties of St. Paul's application of it in the
Romans.
Of this then the author of Deuteronomy says: "It is not too hard
for thee, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that thou
shouldest say, Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it unto
us, and make us to hear it, that we may do it? Neither is it beyond
the sea, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go over the sea for us,
and bring it unto us, and make us to hear it, that we may do it? But
the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart,
that thou mayest do it." That is to say, there is no mystery or
difficulty about this commandment of love. Neither have you to go
to the uttermost parts of the sea to hear it, nor need you search
into the mysteries of heaven. It has been brought near to you by all
the mercy and forgiveness and kindness of Yahweh; it has been made
known to you now by my mouth, even in its pettiest applications. But
that is not all; it is graven on your own heart, which leaps up in
glad response to this demand, and in answer to the manifestation of
God's love for you. It is really the fundamental principle of your
own nature that is appealed to. You should clearly feel that life in
the love of God and man is the only fit life for you who are made in
the image of God. If you do, then the fulfilment of all the Divine
precepts will be easy, and your lives will lighten more and more
unto the perfect day.
Now, for an Oriental of the pre-Christian era such teaching is
most marvellous. How marvellous it is Christians perhaps find it
difficult to see. In point of fact, many have denied that Old
Testament teaching ever had this character. Misled by the doctrines
of Islam, the great Semitic religion of to-day, many assert that
the religion of ancient Israel called upon men to submit to mere
power in submitting to God. But the appeal of our text to the
heart of man shows that this is an error. No such appeal has ever
been made to Mohammedans. Their state of mind in regard to God is
represented by the remark of a recent traveller in Persia. Speaking
of the Persian Babis, who may be described roughly as an heretical
sect whose minds have been formed by Mohammedanism, he says: "They
seemed to have no conception of absolute good, or absolute truth;
to them good was merely what God chose to ordain, and truth what
He chose to reveal, so that they could not understand how any one
could attempt to test the truth of a religion by an ethical and
moral standard."[129] Now that is precisely the opposite of the
Deuteronomic attitude. Israel is encouraged and incited to right
action by having it pointed out that not only experience, not only
Divinely given statutes and judgments, but the very nature of man
itself guarantees the truth of this supreme law of love. The law
laid upon men is nothing strange to, or incongruous with, their own
better selves. It is the very thing which their hearts have cried
out for; when it is proclaimed the higher nature in man recognises
it and bows before it. It is not received because of fear, nor is it
bowed before because it is backed by power which can smite men to
the dust. No; even in its ruins human nature is nobler than that;
and Deuteronomy everywhere teaches with burning conviction that God
is too ethical and spiritual in nature to accept the submission of a
slave.
[129] _A Year Among the Persians_, E. G. Browne, p. 406.
This reading of our passage is plainly that which St. Paul takes in
Rom. x. 5 and 6. He perceives, what so many fail to do, that the
spirit and scope of the Deuteronomic teaching are different from
that of the purely legal sections of the Pentateuch. Paul therefore
quotes the Pentateuch as having already made the distinction
between works and faith which he wishes to emphasise, and as having
distinctly given preference to the latter. Leviticus, keeps men
at the level of the worker for wages, while Deuteronomy in this
passage, by making love to God the essence of all true observance
of the law, raises them almost to the level of sons. And just as
in those ancient days the highest manifestations of God had not to
be laboured for and sought by impotent strivings, but had plainly
been made known to them and had found an echo in their hearts, so
now the highest revelation had been brought near to men in Christ,
and had found a similar response. They did not need to seek it in
heaven, for it had been brought to earth in the Incarnation. They
did not need to descend into the abyss, for all that was needed had
been brought thence by Christ at His resurrection. And in the New
Testament as in the Old, the simplicity of the entrance into true
relations with God is emphasised. Love and faith are the fundamental
conditions. From them obedience will naturally issue, since "to
faith all things are possible, and to love all things are easy."