Commentaria in Deuteronomium
Chapter 4
Synopsis of the chapter.
In this chapter and the following, up to chapter xi, Moses, repeating the Decalogue and certain laws, stirs up the people to their observance, chiefly by recalling the benefits of God bestowed on them; hence in this whole chapter he urges the benefit of the law given on Sinai, with fire and smoke: then, verse 41, he designates three cities of refuge, for casual and involuntary homicides.
1. And now, O Israel, hear the commandments and judgments which I teach thee, that doing them, thou mayest live, and entering in mayest possess the land which the Lord the God of your fathers will give you. 2. You shall not add to the word that I speak to you, neither shall you take away from it: keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you. 3. Your eyes have seen all that the Lord did against Beelphegor, how he destroyed all his worshippers from among you. 4. But you that cleave to the Lord your God are alive all of you unto this day. 5. You know that I have taught you statutes and justices, as the Lord my God hath commanded me: so shall you do them in the land which you shall possess, 6. And you shall observe them and fulfil them in work. For this is your wisdom and understanding in the sight of nations, that hearing all these precepts, they may say: Behold a wise and understanding people, a great nation. 7. Neither is there any other nation so great, that hath gods so nigh them, as our God is present to all our petitions. 8. For what other nation is there so renowned that hath ceremonies, and just judgments, and all the law, which I will set forth this day before your eyes? 9. Keep thyself therefore and thy soul carefully. Forget not the words that thy eyes have seen, and let them not go out of thy heart all the days of thy life. Thou shalt teach them to thy sons and thy grandsons, 10. From the day on which thou stoodst before the Lord thy God in Horeb, when the Lord spoke to me, saying: Call together the people unto me, that they may hear my words, and may learn to fear me all the time that they live on the earth, and may teach their children. 11. And you came to the foot of the mount, which burned even unto heaven: and there was in it darkness, and a cloud, and obscurity. 12. And the Lord spoke to you from the midst of the fire. You heard the voice of his words, but you saw not any form at all. 13. And he shewed you his covenant, which he commanded you to do, and the ten words that he wrote in two tables of stone. 14. And he commanded me at that time that I should teach you the ceremonies and judgments which you shall do in the land which you shall possess. 15. Keep therefore your souls carefully. You saw no similitude in the day that the Lord spoke to you in Horeb from the midst of the fire: 16. Lest perhaps being deceived you might make you a graven similitude, or image of male or female, 17. The similitude of any beasts that are upon the earth, or of birds that fly under heaven, 18. Or of any creeping things that are moved on the earth, or of fishes that abide in the waters under the earth: 19. Lest perhaps lifting up thy eyes to heaven, thou see the sun and the moon, and all the stars of heaven, and being deceived by error thou adore and serve them, which the Lord thy God created for the service of all the nations that are under heaven. 20. But the Lord hath taken you, and brought you out of the iron furnace of Egypt, to make you his people of inheritance, as you are at this present day. 21. And the Lord was angry with me for your words, and swore that I should not pass over the Jordan, nor enter into the excellent land which he will give you. 22. Behold I die in this land, I shall not pass over the Jordan: you shall pass over, and possess the goodly land. 23. Beware lest at any time thou forget the covenant of the Lord thy God, which he made with thee, and make to thyself any graven similitude of those things which the Lord hath forbidden to be made: 24. Because the Lord thy God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. 25. If you shall beget children and grandchildren, and abide in the land, and being deceived shall make to yourselves any similitude, committing evil before the Lord your God, to provoke him to wrath: 26. I call heaven and earth to witness this day, that you shall quickly perish out of the land which you shall possess, when you have passed the Jordan: you shall not dwell in it long, but the Lord will destroy you, 27. And scatter you among all nations, and you shall remain but few among the nations, whither the Lord shall lead you. 28. And there you shall serve gods, that were made by the hand of men, of wood and stone, that neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell. 29. And when thou shalt seek there the Lord thy God, thou shalt find him: yet so, if thou seek him with all thy heart, and all the affliction of thy soul. 30. After all the things aforesaid shall find thee in the latter time, thou shalt return to the Lord thy God, and shalt hear his voice. 31. Because the Lord thy God is a merciful God: he will not leave thee, nor altogether destroy thee, nor forget the covenant by which he swore to thy fathers. 32. Ask of the days of old, that have been before thee, from the day that God created man upon the earth, from one end of heaven to the other, if ever there was done such a thing, or was ever known, 33. That a people should hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou hast heard, and hast lived: 34. If God hath done, to go and take to himself a nation out of the midst of nations, by temptations, by signs and wonders, by fighting, and by a strong hand, and a stretched out arm, and by horrible visions, according to all the things that the Lord your God did for you in Egypt, before thy eyes: 35. That thou mightest know that the Lord he is God, and there is no other besides him. 36. From heaven he made thee hear his voice, to teach thee, and upon earth he shewed thee his exceeding great fire, and thou didst hear his words out of the midst of the fire; 37. Because he loved thy fathers, and chose their seed after them. And he brought thee out of Egypt, going before thee with his great power, 38. To destroy very great nations and stronger than thou at thy coming in, and to bring thee in, and give thee their land for a possession, as thou seest at this present day. 39. Know therefore this day, and think in thy heart that the Lord he is God in heaven above, and in the earth beneath, and there is no other. 40. Keep his precepts and commandments, which I command thee: that it may be well with thee, and thy children after thee, and thou mayest remain a long time upon the land, which the Lord thy God will give thee. 41. Then Moses set aside three cities beyond the Jordan at the east side, 42. That any one might flee to them who should kill his neighbour unwillingly, and was not his enemy a day or two before, and that he might escape to some one of these cities: 43. Bosor in the wilderness, which is situate in the land of the plain of the tribe of Ruben: and Ramoth in Galaad, which is in the tribe of Gad: and Golan in Basan, which is in the tribe of Manasses. 44. This is the law which Moses set before the children of Israel: 45. And these are the testimonies and ceremonies and judgments, which he spoke to the children of Israel, when they came out of Egypt, 46. Beyond the Jordan, in the valley over against the temple of Phogor, in the land of Sehon king of the Amorrhites, who dwelt in Hesebon, whom Moses defeated. The children of Israel also, when they came out of Egypt, 47. Possessed his land, and the land of Og king of Basan, two kings of the Amorrhites, who were beyond the Jordan toward the rising of the sun: 48. From Aroer, which is upon the bank of the torrent Arnon, unto mount Sion, which is also Hermon, 49. All the plain beyond the Jordan to the east, unto the sea of the wilderness, and unto the foot of mount Phasga.
1. THAT DOING THEM, THOU MAYEST LIVE,—in the present life, long and prosperous. See what was said on Leviticus xviii, 5.
2. YOU SHALL NOT ADD TO THE WORD THAT I SPEAK TO YOU, NEITHER SHALL YOU TAKE AWAY FROM IT.—Heretics take these words rigidly and quite universally, and thence infer that no traditions are to be admitted, neither the decrees of Pontiffs nor the ceremonies of the Church. But they say this foolishly and thoughtlessly. Refutation. First, if this is so, then against this law Josue, the Prophets, Christ and the Apostles sinned, who added many things to Moses and the Pentateuch. Second, Moses does not say “what I write,” but “what I speak”: therefore heretics perversely twist these words to the written word of God, to exclude tradition, which is received by the living voice of the speaker, that is, by tradition.
Third, if Moses means what the heretics mean, then Moses himself fights against himself. For in chapter xvii, verse 10, he commands, under penalty of death, that the decree of the priest and pontiff be obeyed.