21. He is thy praise, and he is thy God, that hath done for thee these great and terrible things which thine eyes have seen. 21. Jehova est laus tua, et ipse est Dens qui fecit tecum magna et terribilia ista quae viderunt oculi tui. 22. 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. 22. Cum septuaginta animabus descenderunt patres tui in Aegyptum: nunc autem posuit to Jehova Deus tuus sicut stellas coeli in multitudinem. 21. He is thy praise. That he may the more easily persuade his countrymen that nothing is better, or more desirable for them than to devote themselves to God's service, Moses reminds them that they have nothing to boast of out of Him; as if he had said, that they were happy in this one respect, that God had taken them under His charge; but that if this glory were to be taken away, they would be miserable and ruined. For God is called "the praise" of His people, as being their honor and their ornament. Consequently, if they desire to enjoy true and solid blessedness, they must take care to keep themselves under His guardianship; for, if they should be deprived of this, nothing would remain to them but ignominy and shame. To the same effect, he adds, that He is their God; because nothing can be more perverse and absurd than not to receive the Creator of the world Himself, when He freely offers Himself as our God. In proof of this, he subjoins, that He has exerted His power in many miracles for His people's safety; and, in order that they might be rendered the more inexcusable, he cites their own eyes as witnesses of so many mighty acts which had been wrought in their favor. Thence he goes a step higher, (reminding them, [252] ) that their race had been wondrously increased in a short time; whence it was plain, that they had been thus incredibly multiplied by preternatural and divine influence. For assuredly the signal blessing of God was clearly manifested, in the procreation of seven hundred thousand men in less than two hundred and fifty years. [253] Those who then lived had not seen them with their own eyes; but Moses retraces God's grace to the fountainhead, that they may more fully acknowledge, that whatever good they had experienced depended on that adoption, which had made them God's people. Footnotes: [252] Added from the French. [253] D'un si petit hombre des gens. -- Fr. |
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