Bible Commentaries

Psalm 147:5). [et video verum esse, quod sapientiae ejus non est numerus.]" Enders, Luther's Briefwechsel, vol. VIII. p48.

The People of the Covenant

Deuteronomy 5:2

The idea of covenant runs through the Bible. It was a very natural figure to use to express the relationship between God and His people. Men, even in the most primitive conditions, understood a covenant to be a mutual compact of some kind. The compact need not be between equals, but applied often to the mercy extended by a conqueror to a vanquished foe, as when Ahab, after his great victory over the Syrians, made a covenant with the King Ben-hadad to let him live. With a word of such wide and elastic meaning, we can see how appropriate it was to represent the relationship in which Israel believed herself to stand towards God. Indeed all religions are more or less in the form of a covenant. The most typical of all the covenants, the one which became the very centre of the religious life of Israel, was this one at Sinai, when God entered into relationship with the whole people as a people.

I. The essential features of the thought are—(a) That God of His grace condescends to enter into this relationship. Every Divine covenant is of grace, the lovingkindness of a Father.

(b) The two parties to a covenant are free moral agents. If it is of the free grace of God, it is also of the free will of man.

(c) Since a covenant need not be between equals, and may be (as it must be when God is one of the parties to it) all giving on the one side, and all taking on the other, and yet nevertheless implies mutual freedom, it therefore implies obligation on both sides. Each party to the bargain has rights.

II. On the other side of the bargain were the conditions on which they received the Divine favours. These conditions are stated in the Ten Commandments, the words of the covenant. The people are to be separated, dedicated, consecrated. Their lives are to belong to God. It is this ethical aspect of the covenant relationship which saved it from the arrogance and national pride, and empty presuming on favour, which otherwise would soon have killed religion. Israel's privilege (the spiritual teachers never ceased to remind them) was Israel's penalty. Every right, every favour, meant a duty.

III. The fact of covenant is the very heart of religion. The Bible is the record of Divine covenant. This great figure has been too often stated merely forensically, as a legal contract. Because of this it has repelled men. But it is an eternal truth nevertheless; and you must in some way restate it spiritually to yourself before religion has its birth in you.

IV. What did this covenant relationship do for Israel? Without it there would have been no Israel. The assurance of a covenant with God brought strength to the national life. This assurance made them a nation, welded them into one, and carried them victoriously over difficulties.

V. The very real temptation which this sense of Divine favour engendered was the temptation to presumption. It overtook the Jews more than once in their later history. But that was the defect of the quality, or rather the natural temptation of the privilege. This state of presumption was common at the time of our Lord. Against this much of our Lord's teaching was directed. But He did not deny the fact upon which the presumption fed itself. He attacked the vain deduction which was drawn from the fact.

VI. Of the reality of fellowship with God every religious man is assured. Religion implies such a relationship of love and grace on the part of God. How such a consciousness brings strength and comfort to a human heart let every one who knows the power of salvation attest. Even in debased and vicious forms it can be seen to be powerful, making a man strong in a blatant land. It is seen in its debased form in such a man as Napoleon, with bis faith in his own star, feeling himself to be the man of destiny. The faith, such as it was, carried him far.

—Hugh Black, Christ's Service of Love, p292

The Terms of the Covenant

Deuteronomy 5:6-7

In the figure of covenant, which colours the whole Bible language of the relationship between God and Deuteronomy 5:22

These words may be very sad or they may be very joyous. We cannot tell what they are merely from reading them—it is needful to go a little into the circumstances in order that we may catch their precise significance. Moses has first copied down the commandments as they were given to him by the Lord, and having gone through the whole Ten Words, as these commandments were anciently called, he says: " Deuteronomy 5:22-33

"This representation of Moses," says Prof. Harper, "is not accidental. It is in complete accord with a characteristic of Israelite literature from beginning to end. In the earliest historical records we find that the chief heroes of the nation are mediators, standing for God in the face of evil men, and pleading with God for men when they are broken and penitent, or even when they are only terrified and restrained by the terror of the Lord. At the beginning of the national history we see the noble figure of Abraham in an agony of supplication and entreaty before God on behalf of the cities of the plain. At the end of it, we see the Christ, the Supreme Mediator between God and Deuteronomy 5:27

"Go thou near, and hear for us." That is an old and still abiding plea. It is born of an old and still abiding necessity. It has been the cry of the human heart in all ages in its endeavours to find God and worship Him and learn His will. As we look at Moses standing in the lurid shadow of the mountain that might not be touched, standing and listening in the place of thunder—whilst the people waited afar off not daring to draw nigh, we can see, if we will, not an incident of ancient history about which certain critical minds can grow brilliantly sceptical, but a great fact, too deeply grounded in human experience for any wise soul to doubt it. I mean the ever personal and persistent need for mediation.

God speaks to men through men. We are in this world, all resonant with His voice, to hear not only for ourselves but also for other people. Now hearing for other people suggests a task which some find by no means unpleasant or difficult, indeed a task to which they address themselves with enthusiasm and delight. "Hearing for other people" sometimes means dodging the truth with a fervent hope that it will hit some one else. It means becoming an expert in so receiving the shafts of rebuke or warning coming straight for your own conscience that they glance harmlessly aside and bury themselves in your neighbour's conscience. It is the subtle art of misapplication. And it is essentially unprofitable. The gains thereof are a heart of pride and a starved soul. There is not one of us but can ill afford to miss one of those life-enriching pains God sends to teachable and listening souls.

I. But there is a way of hearing for other people that is wholly meet and right, and that plays a necessary part in the religious education of the race. Think for a moment of music. It is a mediated treasure. There are a few great names, and we call them the masters. I think we might call them the listeners. They heard for duller ears the choral harmony that is wherever God is. Did the great poets fashion their poems out of their own vibrant and sensitive souls? If we could ask them I think they would say "No, we heard these things". The musician and the poet have been men with ears to hear. The music of the "Messiah" was waiting for Handel, the message of the hills and vales of Cumberland was waiting for Wordsworth. And through them he may hear who will.

II. Most people consider originality a very desirable thing. Strange to say, however, people often think that the short cut to originality is found by copying some one else. The attempt to be original invariably defeats itself. Yet originality is a very precious thing. It is worth a great deal to the world. And the one thing that truly develops and safeguards it in human life is the worshipping and the listening spirit. The most original man is the most devout man. The freshest thing any man can give to the world—the one thing the world can never have unless he does give it—is the word of God spoken in his own soul—the transcript of his personal experience of divinity. The hardest task a man can have in this world is to find himself. Indeed no man can make that all-important discovery unless God guides him to it.

III. The word that is given to a man thus is an authoritative word. The children of Israel said to Moses, Tell us what God shall say to you; and we will hear it, and do it. How did they know it would be God's word he would bring back to them, since they would not be present at that awful communion? Whence this readiness of theirs to obey a word not yet spoken? They knew that in this matter deception was impossible. A man can fashion many deceits, but he cannot speak God's word until he has heard it. It does not take a spiritual expert to detect a sham divinity. There is an instinct in the human heart that can always tell how far a word has travelled. Men can always tell whether your life message is an echo of the temporalities—a word picked up in the valley of time—or whether it has come through your hearts listening to the voice of the Eternal.

—P. Ainsworth, The Pilgrim Church. p117.

References.—V:29.—R. D. B. Rawnsley, A Course of Sermons for the Christian Year, p209. V:31.—J. Keble, Sermons for Easter to Ascension Day, p182.