Deuteronomy 5:1-5 comments: Israel is called to hear, learn, keep, and do God's commandments

 

Deuteronomy 5:1 ¶  And Moses called all Israel, and said unto them, Hear, O Israel, the statutes and judgments which I speak in your ears this day, that ye may learn them, and keep, and do them. 2  The LORD our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. 3  The LORD made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day. 4  The LORD talked with you face to face in the mount out of the midst of the fire, 5  (I stood between the LORD and you at that time, to shew you the word of the LORD: for ye were afraid by reason of the fire, and went not up into the mount;) saying,

 

Moses calls the Israelites to hear and keep all of God’s commandments for them. This is an important lesson on the use of the word Hear in the Bible. When you actually hear something you learn it, you keep it, and you do it.

 

Psalm 18:44  As soon as they hear of me, they shall obey me: the strangers shall submit themselves unto me.

 

The concept of hearing and learning will be repeated in Deuteronomy 31.

 

Deuteronomy 31:12  Gather the people together, men, and women, and children, and thy stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn, and fear the LORD your God, and observe to do all the words of this law: 13  And that their children, which have not known any thing, may hear, and learn to fear the LORD your God, as long as ye live in the land whither ye go over Jordan to possess it.

 

Hearing and keeping what you are told is also a priority Biblically.

 

Luke 11:28  But he said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.

 

Revelation 1:3  Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.

 

Moses speaks of the covenant God made with the Israelites at Sinai. Remember what I said about Horeb and Sinai.

 

“Exodus 3:1 ¶  Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb.

 

Moses leads the priest of Midian’s flock to a remote part of the wilderness, the backside of the desert. The mountain of God, even to Horeb shows that by connecting with the word even that Horeb is the mountain of God.

1Kings 19:8  And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God.

Sinai was the name of the area.

Exodus 19:1  In the third month, when the children of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the same day came they into the wilderness of Sinai. 2  For they were departed from Rephidim, and were come to the desert of Sinai, and had pitched in the wilderness; and there Israel camped before the mount.

So, Sinai and Horeb will be used interchangeably for the name of this mountain.

1Kings 8:9  There was nothing in the ark save the two tables of stone, which Moses put there at Horeb, when the LORD made a covenant with the children of Israel, when they came out of the land of Egypt.

Exodus 31:18  And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God…32:4  And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.

Psalm 106:19  They made a calf in Horeb, and worshipped the molten image.

Malachi 4:4 ¶  Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments.”

Verse 3 shows us that this covenant, this agreement, made at Mount Sinai between the Israelites and God was unique to that generation. The Law will be fulfilled completely in Christ and we are not under the Law given to Moses as it does not justify us before God.

Galatians 3:24  Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 25  But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.

 

Neither was the Law given to the Israelites’ ancestors although there must have been some understanding of God’s standard. We’ve seen that Job and Abraham and even a heathen king of the Philistines knew something of God’s standards but the Law itself was not laid bare to them.

 

Verses 4 & 5 call to mind;

 

Exodus 20:18 ¶  And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar off. 19  And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die. 20  And Moses said unto the people, Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not. 21  And the people stood afar off, and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was.