Deuteronomy 30:14

But the word is very nigh unto thee]So of God Himself, Deuteronomy 4:7, q.v., explained by what follows, in thy mouth and in thy heart(cp. Deuteronomy 6:6 f., Deuteronomy 11:18 f.), articulate, understood and familiar (especially after so much exposition of it!). The speaker does not add that it is -easy," but more justly and finely that it carries with it the conscience and provocation to its fulfilment by man: that thou mayest do it! (Cp. Isaiah 45:19 on the clearness, straightforwardness, and efficiency of God's Word.) Cp. Jeremiah 2:31. Another thought suggests itself. The local and domestic altars had been removed and God's Presence fixed at the One Sanctuary. But in the Law Israel had received that which they could carry everywhere with them, and which touched their lives and touched them to the quick at all points.

On St Paul's application of these words in the Law, to the Gospel in contrast with the Law, Romans 10:6-8, see Sanday and Headlam, Romans(Intern. Crit. Comm.) 286 290 and Denney's Romans(Expositor's Gk Test.) 670 f.: -It is irrelevant to point out that what the writer in Deut. means is that the law is not oppressive nor impracticable (as Paul in Deuteronomy 30:5 tacitly assumes it to be); the Apostle is not thinking in the least what the writer of Deut. meant; as the representative of the righteousness of faith he is putting his own thought his inspired conviction and experience of the Gospel into a free reproduction of these ancient inspired words.… There is no impossible preliminary to be accomplished before the true religion is got under way … The whole idea of the verses is that righteousness has not to be achieved but to be appropriated" (Denney).