Deuteronomy 6:17

_YE SHALL NOT TEMPT THE LORD YOUR GOD, AS YE TEMPTED HIM IN MASSAH._ No JFB commentary on these verses....

17-25 Moses gives charge to keep God's commandments. Negligence will ruin us; but we cannot be saved without diligence. It is our interest, as well as our duty, to be religious. It will be our life. Godliness has the promise of the continuance and comfort of the life that now is, as far as it is for God's glory. It will be our righteousness. It is only through the Mediator we can be righteous before God. The knowledge of the spirituality and excellency of the holy law of God, is suited to show sinful man his need of a Saviour, and to prepare his heart to welcome a free salvation. The gospel honours the law, not only in the perfect obedience of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ; but in that it is a plan for bringing back apostate rebels and enemies, by repentance, faith, forgiveness, and renewing grace, to love God above all things, even in this world; and in the world above, to love...

Verse Deuteronomy 6:17. _YE SHALL DILIGENTLY KEEP, C._] On this and the following verse Deuteronomy 6:3, Deuteronomy 6:3....

The Israelites were at the point of quitting a normal, life for a fixed and settled abode in the midst of other nations; they were exchanging a condition of comparative poverty for great and goodly cities, houses and vineyards. There was therefore before them a double danger; (1) a God-forgetting worldliness, and (2) a false tolerance of the idolatries practiced by those about to become their neighbors. The former error Moses strives to guard against in the verses before us; the latter in Deuteronomy 7:1. Deuteronomy 6:13 The command “to swear by His Name” is not inconsistent with the Lord’s injunction...

YOU SHALL DILIGENTLY KEEP THE COMMANDMENTS OF THE LORD YOUR GOD,.... Not only the ten commands, but all others: AND HIS TESTIMONIES, AND HIS STATUTES, WHICH HE HATH COMMANDED THEE; those of a judicial and ceremonial kind....

Deuteronomy 6:1. _Now these are the commandments, the statues, and the judgments, which the LORD your God commanded to teach you, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go to possess it: That thou mightest fear the LORD thy God, to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command thee, thou, and thy son, and thy son's son, all the days of thy life; and that thy days may be prolonged._ Obedience to God should arise from the fear of him, or from a holy awe of God felt in the heart, for all true religion must be heart work. It is not the bare action alone at which God looks, but at the motive at the spirit which dictates it. Hence it is always put, «That thou mightest fear the Lord thy God, to keep all his statutes and his commandments.» Neither are we to be content with keeping commands ourselves. It is the duty of parents to seek the good of their children to

2. THE FIRST COMMANDMENT AND WHAT IT INVOLVES CHAPTER 6 _ 1. Hear, therefore, O Israel! (Deuteronomy 6:1)_ 2. The first commandment (Deuteronomy 6:4) 3. The remembrance of these words and practical obedience (Deuteronomy 6:6) “Hear, O Israel! The LORD our God is one LORD.” Much has been made of this verse by orthodox Jews, who reverence it greatly. They call it the “Shema” after the first word “Hear.” It is often used by Jews and Unitarians to deny the three persons of the Godhead. The Hebrew word “echod” (one), however, excludes forever such a denial, for it means a compound unity. The Hebrew has another word which expresses exactly what Jews and Unitarians, who reject

DEUTERONOMY 6:16. See Exodus 17:7 *, _cf._ Matthew 4:7. TEMPT: better test; _cf._ the cognate noun (temptation = testing) in Deuteronomy 4:34 *. MASSAH (= testing) is another cognate noun (Exodus 17:7 *). The word-play is lost in the translation. Deuteronomy 6:20. See Deuteronomy 4:10....

Another interruption by the Pl. Because of this; because the reference to Massah is hardly relevant to the context, and because the perfect, _he hath commanded_, is not yet true of the separate laws; these sentences seem to be a later editorial insertion. The return to the Sg. at their close is explicable by the attraction of the Sg. in Deuteronomy 6:18....

_VER._ 16-19. _YE SHALL NOT TEMPT THE LORD,_ &C.— He had warned them, ver. 12 against the sin of ingratitude, and forgetfulness of God, to which they might be tempted by prosperity: here he cautions them against the vice that they were liable to from the other extreme, adversity; namely, distrust of Providence, and murmuring against God, which is justly termed _a tempting of God;_ for it is calling his goodness and veracity in question. In the first words of the eighteenth verse, we have the true definition of good works, and one which should be the only rule of our conduct; namely, the will of God, and not the caprices and decisions of our own will. REFLECTIONS.—1st, Moses is solicitous to approve his own fidelity to the Israelites, and to inculcate in them every command that he has received from the Lord; and he charges them to transmit them to their children's children, seeing that on...