Bible Commentaries

Deuteronomy 31:13

I. Godliness in children is accounted by Christians generally to be extraordinary, or at least uncommon, and perhaps there are but few godly children. But there is no theory of Christian doctrine with which we are acquainted which excludes children from the experience and practice of godly life. In the present state of human nature, the two fundamental principles of religious life are repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ, and there is nothing in childhood which prevents repentance and faith becoming living and abiding sources of action in children.

II. We must admit that a child's knowledge of sin is necessarily small, that its sense of sin is feeble, and its sorrow for sin shallow. But then it must be remembered that, comparatively speaking, the actual transgressions of children are but few, and that godly sorrow is a slow growth, even in the adult convert. If the understanding of a child be less enlightened, the soul is more sensitive; if the judgment be less formed, the conscience is more tender; if there be but little strength of purpose, the heart is less hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

III. If decided piety be within reach of a child, how is it that the absence of godliness from children does not more distress us, and that piety in children is not more our aim and hope, and that it is not more frequently the burden of our prayer? Because godliness is not looked for in children; it is not seen where in many cases it exists; and the signs of it are not trusted when they are clearly manifest.

IV. Godly children are God's workmanship, created by Jesus Christ, and if we would be the means of leading children into true godliness, we must bid them look to our Saviour Jesus.

S. Martin, Rain, upon the Mown Grass, p. 404.

Deuteronomy 31:14

I. Those who live chiefly for this world try not to think of death, because they would like nothing better than to live on here for ever. But the shutting of our eyes to the approach of death does not make him turn away from us, and therefore our wisest and safest course is to prepare for his coming, whether it be near or far off.

II. Death does not occupy that place in the word of God which it does occupy in that religion of ours which professes to be derived from the word of God. In the New Testament death is simply treated as an abolished thing. The second coming of Christ is always, in the exhortations of the New Testament, substituted for death. Death, in the eye of faith, is not the end, but the beginning, of all; it is the commencement of the "life that knows no ending."

III. If Christ has robbed death of its sting, it does not behove us to look at death as if He had not done so. Let us view the approach of death as something which He means should bring us nearer to Him. We must pray Him, since the days approach in which we must die, that death may not find us unprepared. And as we look forward to the future, we must commit our way and ourselves into His keeping.

F. E. Paget, Village Sermons: Advent to Whit Sunday, p. 44.

References: Deuteronomy 31:14.—Parker, vol. iv., p. 333. Deuteronomy 31:23.—I. Williams, Characters of the Old Testament, p. 138. Deut 31, Deut 32—Ibid., p. 341; J. Monro Gibson, The Mosaic Era, p. 333. Deuteronomy 32:3.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vii., No. 367. Deuteronomy 32:5.—Ibid., vol. xiii., No. 780; Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 359. Deuteronomy 32:8, Deuteronomy 32:9.—M. Dods, Israel's Iron Age, p. 172. Deuteronomy 32:8-13.—F. Whitfield, The Blessings of the Tribes, p. 247. Deuteronomy 32:9.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. viii., p. 451; Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 320; A. Maclaren, A Year's Ministry, 1st series, p. 221; W. Wilkinson, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. viii., p. 132. Deuteronomy 32:11.—G. Morrison, The House of God, p. 46.