Bible Commentaries

Deuteronomy 15:7-8, Deuteronomy 15:11

I. "God has made of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell upon the face of the whole earth." This is the announcement of a grand fact, which has never yet been successfully disproved. This relates man to man everywhere, makes all the world a neighbourhood, and founds upon universal affinity a universal claim. This general law, however, must be divided into minor modifications, or it will be practically useless. Hence all private affections are recognised and hallowed, and are indeed the sources from which all public virtues spring. We are bound to love our neighbour as ourselves, and if in a contracted Hebrew spirit you are inclined to press the inquiry, "And who is my neighbour?" there comes a full pressure of utterance to authenticate and enforce the answer, Man.

II. The last clause of the text is as true to-day as in the time of its original utterance. The poor shall never cease out of the land; in every age and in every clime there are distinctions of society in the world. Society could not cohere as a union of equals; there must be graduation and dependence. In the text benevolence to the poor is positively enjoined, and enjoined because of their abiding existence as a class of the community. Once recognise the relationship, and the claim will inevitably follow; the sense of service rendered and obligation created thereby will make that claim more sacred; and Religion, attaching her holiest sanction, lifts the recognition of the claim into a duty which may not be violated without sin.

III. "Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these, ye did it unto Me." This is our Divinely furnished argument. "She hath done what she could." This is to be the measure of our giving.

W. Morley Punshon, Sermons, 2nd series, p. 25.

References: Deuteronomy 15:9.—J. Van Oosterzee, Year of Salvation, vol. ii., p. 512. Deuteronomy 15:11.—W. D. Morrice, Sermons for Sundays: Festivals and Fasts, 3rd series, p. 32. Deuteronomy 15:12-18.—Parker, vol. iv., p. 247. Deuteronomy 15:15.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxiv., No. 1406.