Expositor's Dictionary of Texts At that time the LORD said unto me, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first, and come up unto me into the mount, and make thee an ark of wood. The Test of National ProsperityDeuteronomy 10:12 The Old Testament is concerned with tribes and nations rather than with individuals. The Law of Moses deals with Israel collectively as a whole. The prophets utter their burdens of doom not against evil persons, but against wicked kingdoms like Babylon, and Moab, and Egypt, and their great messages of hope and warning and consolation are addressed to Judah or Jerusalem rather than any single Jew. In this sense it is true that no Scripture is merely of private interpretation. Redemption includes the race, or else it could not embrace the individual. The Gospel claims all mankind just as definitely as it appeals to you and me. I. Recently Englishmen have been stirred up to discuss with new eagerness the problem of our national prosperity. Are we really prosperous? How can we safeguard and develop our mercantile success? What is the secret of its continuance and its expansion? The air is thick with controversy over such questions as these. Yet the answers given are confined for the most part to material considerations. At such a time we need more than ever to remind ourselves how the Bible tests and measures prosperity. If the Old Testament applies to individuals as well as to nations, the New Testament is true for nations as well as for individuals. A nation's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which it possesseth, nor in the extent of the empire which it rules. What shall it profit a nation if it gain the whole world and lose its own soul. II. Let us be very certain that personal vices, however common and popular they become, can never be transmuted into public virtues. The same conduct which ruins an individual will in the long run wreck & state. To oppress and plunder the poor is equally accursed, whether it be perpetrated by a crowned tyrant, or carried out quietly under legal forms by a trust or a syndicate, a trade corporation or a vested interest. III. The seal of a people's unity is a sense of the Divine calling and election. It remains true in England, as it was in Israel, that a covenant with God is the one sure ground of all covenants between man and man. National sincerity and veracity are bred in a people in proportion as they recognize the judgments and the mercies of the God of truth. National loyalty depends at last on common faithfulness to our immortal and invisible King. —T. H. Darlow, The Upward Galling, p. 220. God's Requirements Deuteronomy 10:12 The vastness of God's requirements makes the despair of the morning of the Christian life, but it is the sure hope of its noon. Had He required less, this life could not be eternal. 'It is a prejudicial but too common error among Christians,' said Pascal, in a letter to Madame Perier, 'and even among those who make a profession of piety, to believe that there is a measure of perfection sufficient for safety, beyond which it is not necessary to aspire. It is an absolute evil to stop at any such point, and we shall assuredly fall below it if we aim not to advance higher and higher.' References.—X. 12.—H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Sunday Lessons for Daily Life, p. 76. X. 14-16.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vi. No. 303. X. 16.—J. Keble, Sermons for Christmas to Epiphany, p. 193. XI. 10-12.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. ii. p. 58. XI. 12.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiii. p. 728. XI. 18.—Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 2580. XI. 19.—T. Arnold, Sermons, vol. iii. p. 131. XI. 21.—G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 326. XI. 26-28.—J. S. Boone, Sermons, p. 155. XII. 8, 9.—Sermons for Ascension Day to Trinity Sunday, p. 53. And I will write on the tables the words that were in the first tables which thou brakest, and thou shalt put them in the ark.
And I made an ark of shittim wood, and hewed two tables of stone like unto the first, and went up into the mount, having the two tables in mine hand.
And he wrote on the tables, according to the first writing, the ten commandments, which the LORD spake unto you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly: and the LORD gave them unto me.
And I turned myself and came down from the mount, and put the tables in the ark which I had made; and there they be, as the LORD commanded me.
And the children of Israel took their journey from Beeroth of the children of Jaakan to Mosera: there Aaron died, and there he was buried; and Eleazar his son ministered in the priest's office in his stead.
From thence they journeyed unto Gudgodah; and from Gudgodah to Jotbath, a land of rivers of waters.
At that time the LORD separated the tribe of Levi, to bear the ark of the covenant of the LORD, to stand before the LORD to minister unto him, and to bless in his name, unto this day.
Wherefore Levi hath no part nor inheritance with his brethren; the LORD is his inheritance, according as the LORD thy God promised him.
And I stayed in the mount, according to the first time, forty days and forty nights; and the LORD hearkened unto me at that time also, and the LORD would not destroy thee.
And the LORD said unto me, Arise, take thy journey before the people, that they may go in and possess the land, which I sware unto their fathers to give unto them.
And now, Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul,
To keep the commandments of the LORD, and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good?
Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the LORD'S thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is.
Only the LORD had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day.
Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked.
For the LORD your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward:
He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment.
Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.
Thou shalt fear the LORD thy God; him shalt thou serve, and to him shalt thou cleave, and swear by his name.
He is thy praise, and he is thy God, that hath done for thee these great and terrible things, which thine eyes have seen.
Thy fathers went down into Egypt with threescore and ten persons; and now the LORD thy God hath made thee as the stars of heaven for multitude. Nicoll - Expositor's Dictionary of Texts Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com. Used by Permission. Bible Hub |
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