Bible Commentaries

Principles and Duties

Deuteronomy 6:1-12

A wonderful change has taken place in the tone of Moses. We can tell by his very voice that he is much older than when we first knew him, and much tenderer. When we first heard his voice, we noted how singularly wanting it was in mellowness, sympathy, kindliness, such as sore and wounded hearts may recognise and bless. Throughout the Book of Exodus the tone of Moses was very high, penetrating, and commanding. Then a change took place in the whole manner of the man: he was not less in stature, not less keen of vision; yet somehow he was quieter, perhaps more indulgent, certainly mellower. In Deuteronomy all these qualities of the voice, being also qualities of the spirit, culminate; Moses exhorts, entreats, wrestles with men, that they may be wise and good; there is nothing wanting that is suggestive of ripeness of experience, depth and genuineness of sympathy. Moses becomes shepherd again, only now men and women and children, more wayward than any beasts of the earth, constitute his multitudinous and most trying flock. Read Deuteronomy immediately after Deuteronomy 6:6). We begin with words; we begin with things and with pictures, with substances and with commandments, visible and utterable; and from all these we may grow away not by an act of separation but by an act of the fulfilment which comes out of development. Christian words are to be in our heart. The heart has a memory of its own. Give into the custody of the heart some lesson, and it will be retained. Men remember what they want to remember, in all the highest relations of life. Intellectual memory is hardly called into operation in this matter of religious communion. The heart is kept alive; the fire upon the altar of the heart never goes out; the heart hears every knock upon the door; the heart sees every sign that is marked upon the spaces of the firmament; the heart overhears all that is passing which has relation to its own development and completion. We are what we are in the heart. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he."

Are the words of God to be kept in the heart as treasure may be kept in some secret and inviolable place? Is the heart the only organ that is interested in this great matter of religious information and culture? Moses gives the reply:—"And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children" ( Deuteronomy 6:7). He who teaches out of his heart will be able to speak to children, even in the simplest sense of that term. Children like teachers who talk out of their hearts. The heart knows all the little words because itself is a little word of one syllable. The heart waits for the very slowest walker in this great quest of the temple of wisdom: the heart says,—We must tarry for the cripple. When the intellect would say,—Let us urge forward,—and the imagination would step from mountain-top to mountain-top, miles at a time, the heart says,—Wait! here is a little child who cannot go at that pace; here is a poor old traveller who wants to res awhile;—stop! not one must be lost: every child and every cripple and the meanest member of the flock must be saved. There is a way of teaching the words of God: they may be so taught as to repel or discourage or affright; or they may be so taught as to allure, fascinate, entrance, and put out of view every competitive spectacle or seduction. God's word must be spoken in God's way.

Having delivered the words to the children, does the task end there? Moses says it does not end at any such point; he adds,—"and shalt talk of them"—not lecture upon them, not deliver superb and magnificent orations upon them, but "talk" of them. The very word is suggestive. The words of God are to be so thoroughly in our hearts as to become part of our life, and to mingle with our very breathing; then we may talk about them with the ease of conscious mastery, with the familiarity—not only of intellectual intimacy, but of the heart's truest friendship. Religion is not to be introduced upon state occasions, or upon great days, or even upon the Sabbath day as an exclusive period of time. The word of God is to be talked about, is to come into conversation as if it had a right to be there, to elevate the speech of social Deuteronomy 6:7). Here is a religion which covers the whole day, which belongs to every attitude of Deuteronomy 6:8). There shall be no secret religiousness, no stealthy piety, no profound consecration that wraps around itself garments which are so used by itself as not to involve particularity of devotedness. If the word is in the heart, it must also be written on the hand; if the word is part of the speech, which only a few can hear, it must be as frontlets before the eyes, that observers may note, so that men passing by may be able to say,—This man publicly acknowledges, and, perhaps, publicly worships, God.

Does Moses put a full stop here? Moses does not: Moses still finds further space—"And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates" ( Deuteronomy 6:9). Moses would have a broad religion, and would have a broad religion broadly acknowledged. The heart, the tongue, the hands, the eyes, the house,—this is most comprehensive. It Deuteronomy 6:10-12). Moses is growing old, but he is intellectually as astute as ever. It is not his soul that is growing old; it is not the perennial mind that is drying up or withering away. Mark the conception which Moses formed of all advancing civilisation. How much we have that we have not done ourselves! We are born into a world that is already furnished with the library, with the altar, with the Bible. Men born into civilised countries have not to make their own roads.

We are born into the possession of riches. The poorest man in the land is an inheritor of all but infinite wealth, in every department of civilisation. In the very act of complaining of his poverty he is acknowledging his resources. His poverty is only poverty because of its relation to other things which indicate the progress of the ages that went before. Young men come into fortunes they never worked for; we all come into possessions for which our fathers toiled. We could not assemble in God's house in peace and quietness today if the martyrs had not founded the Church upon their very blood. Men today enjoy the liberty for which other men paid their lives. It is ungrateful to forget that every liberty we enjoy, every security we boast, is the result of suffering too poignant to be expressed adequately in words. Coming into a civilisation so ripe and rich, having everything made ready to our hands, the whole system of society telephoned so that we can communicate with distant friends and bring them within hearing, the table loaded with everything which a healthy appetite can desire,—all these things constitute a temptation, if not rightly received. Moses drew the picture, and then said—"Beware." In the time of prosperity, and fulness, and overflow—"then beware lest thou, forget the Lord, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage" ( Deuteronomy 6:12). Prosperity has its trials. "How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." Poverty may be a spiritual blessing. The impoverishment and punishment of the flesh may be religiously helpful. There are anxieties connected with wealth as well as with poverty. The high and the mighty amongst us have their pains and difficulties as well as the lowliest and weakest members of society. Ever let men hear this word of caution—"beware." When the harvest is the best harvest that ever was grown in our fields, then—"beware." When health is long-continued and the doctor an unknown stranger in the house, then—"beware." When house is added to house and land to land, then—"beware." Many men have been ruined through prosperity.

Selected Note

"Frontlets between thine eyes" ( Deuteronomy 6:8).—The practice of using phylacteries was founded on a literal interpretation of that passage where God commands the Hebrews to have the law as a sign on their foreheads, and as frontlets between their eyes. It is probable that the use of phylacteries came in late with other superstitions; but it should be remembered, that our Lord does not censure the Pharisees for wearing them, but for making them broad out of ostentation; and it is still uncertain whether the words referred to ought not to be taken literally. One kind of phylactery was called a frontlet, and was composed of four pieces of parchment, on the first of which was written Exodus 13:1-10; on the second, Exodus 13:11-16; on the third, Deuteronomy 6:4-9; and on the fourth, Deuteronomy 11:13-21. These pieces of parchment, thus inscribed, they enclosed in a piece of tough skin, making a square, on one side of which was placed the Hebrew letter shin (‏ש‎), and bound them round their foreheads with a thong or riband when they went to the synagogue. Some wore them evening and morning, and others only at the morning prayer.

As the token upon the hand was required, as well as the frontlets between the eyes, the Jews made two rolls of parchment, written in square letters, with an ink made on purpose, and with much care. They were rolled up to a point, and enclosed in a sort of case of black calf-skin. They then were put upon a square bit of the same leather, whence hung a thong of the same, of about a finger in breadth, and about two feet long. These rolls were placed at the bending of the left arm, and after one end of the thong had been made into a little knot in the form of the Hebrew letter yod (‏י‎), it was wound about the arm in a spiral line, which ended at the top of the middle finger.

Questions and Answers

Deuteronomy 6:20-25

Questions upon religious subjects will be asked, and we ought to be prepared to answer them in some degree at least. We are not called upon to be irrational—that Deuteronomy 6:21). Speak about yourselves, about your own vital relation to the historical facts. The history is not something outside of you and beyond you: it is part and parcel of your own development, and your development would have been an impossibility apart from the history; let us, therefore, know what this history has done for you. The answer will be poor if it be but a recital of circumstances and occurrences and anecdotes,—a vague, although partially reverent, reference to ancient history. The man who speaks must connect himself with the thing which is spoken. Christianity, in its incarnations, is not the recital of a lesson: it is the embodiment and vitalisation of a truth. We may repeat the history all day long, and who will care? But give it personality, show how it bears upon the individual life and the personal witness, include and involve your own integrity in the story which you recite,—then the man who hears it has two things to do: not only to disprove the history but to disprove your testimony. Suppose, then, we could speak thus in reply: We perused the history; it seemed strange to us; many a question was excited by the perusal; sometimes our faith was in the ascendant, sometimes doubt seemed to break our wings so that we could not fly heavenward: we fell to the earth enfeebled and distressed; but we returned to the history and considered it deeply; in the first instance we felt our own need of something of the kind; the miracles bewildered us, but when we came to the offer of salvation, when a Man called Jesus stood up before us and said, "I will give you rest"—we said within ourselves,—Rest is what we need: we are restless; we are killed all the day long; the burden of life is heavy over us, and the accusations of life bear down upon us like a final judgment;—then we began to see that perhaps this Man is the very man we needed; we trusted him; we began shamefacedly at first: we were almost afraid to be caught in the company of the Man or listening to his doctrine; but as he advanced we wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth; we turned aside and said to one another,—He knows us altogether: he has plumbed the depth of our necessity; hear how he speaks!—with what wisdom! with what grace! with what sympathy!—he will cast none out; now we begin to see a new light shining upon the miracles; we could have doubted them; we could have brought them altogether in one view and written our denial across them; but, becoming familiar with the Miracle-worker himself, getting to know somewhat of his spirit, feeling in some degree the fascination of his sympathy, we were enabled to go farther, and we stood before the Cross: we watched the whole tragedy; and as we looked upon him we said to one another, "Truly this Man was the Son of God;"—our reason could not go much further, but a new faculty was called into operation, a faculty called faith—trust, confidence, an outleaping of the heart towards outstretched arms; we were enabled to cast ourselves into the arms of Jesus Christ, and having done so rest came into our souls, a sense of pardon made us glad; we entered into the mystery of spiritual peace; then we were stirred towards beneficence of ministry: we became eyes to the blind, and ears to the deaf, and a tongue to the man that was silent; and we followed Christ step by step, doing as he did according to the measure of our power; and now we feel the energy of God in the soul, renewing us every day, drawing us forward by gracious compulsion to nobler life. That is our answer to any man who asks us, What mean ye by this Christian profession and activity?

Thus the answer is, in the first instance, broadly historical—a mere outline of facts, the facts being well-nigh innumerable, and so striking in many instances as to be almost incredible. Then the answer is distinctly and definitely personal. We had to deal with the facts, to weigh them and consider their value. We adopted that course, and the outcome of the process was faith in the Lord Jesus Christ,—a tender, vital clinging to the Saviour's Cross. So far we feel the solidity of our ground. The ground would not have been solid to us if the history had not been personalised, vitalised, adopted by the individual man himself so that he who went through the process of conversion becomes an annotator upon the page of the history, and where there was difficulty before there is light now. The answer is still incomplete. It is broadly historical, and therefore can be searched into by men who care for letters and events and ancient occurrences; the answer is definitely personal, and therefore the character of the witness has to be destroyed before any progress can be made with his particular view of the history; now the answer must, in the third place, be made vitally experimental. The twenty-fifth verse thus defines this conclusion: "And it shall be our righteousness, if we observe to do all these commandments before the Lord our God, as he hath commanded us." One targum says, "it shall be our merit." The general meaning would seem to be,—"it shall be accounted unto us for righteousness:" the attention and the service shall not be disregarded or put down into any secondary place, but what we do in the way of attention and observance and duty and service shall be reckoned unto us as a species of righteousness. What is the meaning to us in our present state of education and our present relations to one another? The meaning is that out of the history and out of the personal relation to that history there will come a quantity which is called character. God is all the while forming character. His object has been to do us "good always, that he might preserve us alive, as it is at this day." Without the righteousness where is the history? Without the character what is the value of our personal testimony? We may be speaking from a wrong centre—from mental invention, from intellectual imagination, from spiritual impulse, from moral emotion; we may not be standing upon vital facts and spiritual realities. The outcome, then, is righteousness, character, moral manhood, great robustness and strength, and reality of life. The Christian man's history is to himself worthless if it be not sealed by character. The speaker's eloquence is as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal if it be not followed by solid and invincible character—not the kind of character that is mechanically arranged, one part being beautifully consistent with another but so beautiful as to be suspicious; it may be a rugged character, but in the centre of it is a burning fire, a desire after God and God's holiness. The character is not a neatly trimmed and dressed arrangement: it is a spirit, a meaning, a high and noble purpose in life; the word is a bond; the outputting of the hand is an oath; an assurance is a pledge that cannot be broken. The man who is thus righteous may die, but will never break his word; he may suffer much, but he will never falter in his testimony; he may be marked by a thousand defects as to action, attitude, and temporary relation, but his soul is alive with God and his life is consecrated to his Saviour. Who adds righteousness to the good-doer? Not himself. If the man made record of his own actions and totalised them into some nameable virtue, his diary and his reckoning would throw suspicion upon his motive. God is not unrighteous to forget your work of faith and labour of love. It is God who imputes righteousness. It is God who says,—"Well done, good and faithful servant." It is the Father who says,—"Bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat and be merry: for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found"—make the house thrill with music, for there is a birth in it of manhood and immortality. So, we must have no mongering in virtue, no dealing and tricking and arranging in nice little actions and pat little circumstances, having upon them the bloom of a bastard piety. We must keep up the history, relate ourselves personally to it, turn it into character, and leave God to count the righteousness and to number up our actions and to put a value upon them. Character involves solidity, hope, recompense, reality. A man cannot pretend to character who may lay some little claim to reputation. Reputation is but expressive of appearances, superficial estimates; but character is the man, the man's very soul, the man's very self, without which he would seem to have no existence. So then, there is a doctrine of virtue, a doctrine of works, a doctrine of legal values. The fatal mistake upon our part would be if we set ourselves to its adjustment and determination. We have really nothing to do with it. We begin with duty, we continue with duty; we add nothing to God's Word: we obey it by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ; and at last we shall be startled and gladdened by finding that all our life long we have by the grace of God been building up into heaven.