Deuteronomy 26:16-19. CLOSE OF THE EXHORTATION.

(16) This day the Lord thy God hath commanded thee.--These words are not to be taken as part of the service described in the previous verses, but as the words of Moses in bringing his exhortation to a close. Rashi says, "Every day these commandments shall be new before thine eyes, as though on that very day thou hadst received them."

Thou shalt therefore keep and do them.--It is a beautiful thought that the form of this command (as of many others) makes it prophetic of its own fulfilment. "It is the voice from heaven blessing thee," says Rashi. (See also Deuteronomy 30:6; Deuteronomy 30:8.)

(17, 18) Thou hast avouched . . . and the Lord hath avouched.--The Hebrew word is simply the ordinary word for "to say." "Thou hast said," and "He hath said." There is no distinctive word for "to promise" in Hebrew. "To say" is sufficient. "Hath He said, and shall He not do it?" "Let your yea be yea, and your nay nay," like His. But Rashi says there is no exact parallel to this use of the verb in the Old Testament, except, perhaps, in Psalm 94:4, where it means, "they boast themselves." Let Israel boast in God, and God will boast Himself of them, as His peculiar people.

(19) And to make thee high.--Literally, most high; Heb., 'Elyon, a well-known name of God. Here, and in Deuteronomy 28:1, it is (prophetically and in the Divine purpose) applied to Israel. "Thou shalt put my Name upon the children of Israel" was the law of blessing for the priests (Numbers 6:27).

In praise, and in name, and in honour.--Perhaps, rather, to be a praise, and to be a name, and to be an honour, and to become a people of holiness to Jehovah. There is an allusion to this in Jeremiah 33:9, "And it shall be to me a name of joy, a praise, and an honour before all the nations of the earth;" and in Isaiah 62:6-7, "Ye that make mention of the name of the Lord, keep not silence, and give Him no rest, till He establish, and till He make Jerusalem a praise in the earth."

But if, as some would have us believe, the Book of Deuteronomy draws these things from the prophets, rather than the prophets from Moses, how is it that there is not the faintest allusion in Deuteronomy to Jerusalem, which in the days of the prophets had become the centre of all these hopes?

Verse 16. - This day. This refers generally to the time when this discourse was delivered.

26:16-19 Moses here enforces the precepts. They are God's laws, therefore thou shalt do them, to that end were they given thee; do them, and dispute them not; do them, and draw not back; do them, not carelessly and hypocritically, but with thy heart and soul, thy whole heart and thy whole soul. We forswear ourselves, and break the most sacred engagement, if, when we have taken the Lord to be our God, we do not make conscience of obeying his commands. We are elected to obedience, 1Pe 1:2; chosen that we should be holy, Eph 1:4; purified a peculiar people, that we might not only do good works, but be zealous in them, Tit 2:14. Holiness is true honour, and the only way to everlasting honour.This day the Lord thy God hath commanded thee to do these statutes and judgments,.... These are the words of Moses, as Aben Ezra rightly observes, and refer not only to the laws last mentioned, but to all others which he had repeated, or the Lord by him had ordered to be observed, recorded in this book: and though it is very probable Moses had been several days repeating former laws, and acquainting them with new ones; yet this being the last day, in which the whole account was finished, they are said to be commanded that day, and though commanded that day were to be observed and done every day; for, as Jarchi says, every day was to be considered and reckoned as new, as if on that day they were commanded them:

thou shall therefore keep and do them with all thy heart, and with all thy soul; cordially, readily, willingly, sincerely, constantly, and to the utmost of their abilities.