CHAPTER 10 Apr. 25
New Stone Tablets
At that time Yahweh said to me, Cut two tablets of stone like the first and come up to Me onto the mountain and make an ark of wood. 2I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets which you broke, and you shall put them within that ark. 3So I made an ark of acacia wood and cut two tablets of stone like the first, and went up onto the mountain, having the two tablets in my hand. 4He wrote on the tablets according to the first writing, the Ten Commandments, which Yahweh spoke to you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly, and Yahweh gave them to me. 5I turned and came down from the mountain and put the tablets into the ark which I had made, and there they are as Yahweh commanded me. 6(The children of Israel travelled from Beeroth Bene Jaakan to Moserah. There Aaron died and there he was buried, and Eleazar his son ministered in the priest’s office in his place. 7From there they travelled to Gudgodah and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, a land of brooks of water. 8At that time Yahweh set apart the tribe of Levi to bear the ark of the covenant of Yahweh, to stand before Yahweh to minister to Him and to bless in His name, to this day. 9Therefore Levi has no portion or inheritance with his brothers; Yahweh is his inheritance according as Yahweh your God spoke to him.) 10I stayed on the mountain, as at the first time, forty days and forty nights and Yahweh listened to me that time also; Yahweh would not destroy you. 11Yahweh said to me Arise, take your journey before the people, and they shall go in and possess the land, which I swore to their fathers to give to them.
Warning to Respect God
12Now Israel, what does Yahweh your God require of you, but to fear Yahweh your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him and to serve Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13to keep the commandments of Yahweh and His statutes, which I command you this day for your good? 14Behold, to Yahweh your God belongs heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth, with all that is in it. 15It’s just that Yahweh had a delight in your fathers to love them, and He chose their seed after them, even you above all peoples, as it is at this day. 16Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiff-necked. 17For Yahweh your God, He is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, the mighty and the awesome, who doesn’t respect persons nor take reward. 18He executes justice for the fatherless and widow and loves the foreigner, in giving him food and clothing. 19Therefore love the foreigner, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt. 20You must fear Yahweh your God; you must serve Him and cling to Him and you shall swear by His name. 21He is your praise and He is your God, Who has done for you these great and awesome things which your eyes have seen. 22Your fathers went down into Egypt with seventy persons, and now Yahweh your God has made you as the stars of the sky for multitude.
Commentary
10:11 Moses led God’s people to the land, the Kingdom, but couldn’t himself take them in there- rather like the Law with which he was associated revealed the Kingdom, but it needed Joshua / Jesus to actually bring them into it.
10:12 Alluded to in Mic. 6:8, where walking in God’s ways is understood as walking in humility; and ‘loving God’ is expanded into loving to show justice and mercy. We can be tempted to think that we can ‘love God’ without our own hearts by accepting His existence and reading the Bible. But it has to be more than that; to love God is to love others, to be merciful to the irritating and ungracious (:18). We cannot love God without loving our brethren (1 Jn. 3:17; 4:21). To love God in this way is in the end ‘for our own good’ (:13).
10:22 This was an initial, primary fulfilment of the promises to Abraham; we too have some foretastes of the Kingdom life even now.