Bible Commentaries

Deuteronomy 1:31

These words are part of a discourse delivered by Moses to all Israel, in the plain over against the Red Sea. Some of the most tender Divine utterances are to be found in the books of Moses. As we find flowers skirting the ice and frost of the Alpine glaciers, so in these books we find encouragements surrounding commandments and great promises sanctioning strong precepts.

The subject of the text is the paternal upholding of God.

I. Glance first at what we may call our history. There is a history appertaining to each of us, a story of our life. It has been written, though not with a pen, and it is inscribed on the mind of God. There is no story that we should read so often as our own. We study the biographies of others, and neglect the story of our own lives.

II. The next thing is, God in our history. The chief agents in our history are God and ourselves. From no portion of the story of life can we exclude God. His purpose, and thought, and will are in each part and in the whole. Every step that we take works out some part of the plan of life which He has laid down for us; so that God is in our history, in a certain sense, far more than we ourselves are in it.

III. Our history shows God's upholding of us. God bears thee when thou seemest to thyself to walk alone. "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him."

IV. The Divine upholding is paternal. "The Lord thy God doth bear thee as a man doth bear his son," but much more wisely, more lovingly, more patiently, more paternally.

V. There are obligations and duties which spring from these truths. (1) If God thus bears us, we should "be quiet from fear of evil;" (2) we should be careful for nothing; (3) we should lovingly trust Him.

S. Martin, Westminster Chapel Pulpit, 5th series, No. xxiv.

References: Deuteronomy 1:32.—Parker, vol. v.,p. 1. Deuteronomy 1:38.—J. S. Howson, Good Words, 1868, p. 490; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. ix., No. 537; Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 263. Deuteronomy 1:39.—Parker, vol. v., p. 1. Deut 1-30.—W. M. Taylor, Moses the Lawgiver, p. 408; J. Monro Gibson, The Mosaic Era, p. 321. Deuteronomy 2:7.—J. Kennedy, Christian World Pulpit, vol. ix., p. 17; A. Raleigh, Thoughts for the Weary, p. 46 (see also Good Words, 1877, p. 430); G. Matheson, Moments on the Mount, p. 173; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xx., No. 1179. Deuteronomy 2:36.—Parker, vol. v., p. 2. Deut 2—Parker, vol. iv., p. 83. Deuteronomy 3:23-27.—S. Cox, Expositions, 3rd series, p. 181. Deuteronomy 3:24.—Parker, vol. v., p. 2.