Deuteronomy chapter 4
Study the Commandments and do them. Live as monotheists. There is ONE God. Cities of Refuge east of the Jordan. Conclusion.
STUDY THE COMMANDMENTS AND DO THEM
VERSE 1. Now, Israel, listen to the statutes and to the ordinances which I teach you, to do them; that you may live, and go in and possess the land which the LORD, the God of your fathers, gives you.
To choose the way of life means to learn from the Bible and act upon it. Blessings and wisdom will follow. As for you and your house, will you serve the LORD? Read more »
VERSE 2. You shall not add to the word which I command you, neither shall you take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.
This verse is fantastic! Would you consider memorizing it? More great verses to memorize from the Book of Deuteronomy and from the entire Bible.
The Bible has severe warnings against adding to it. And against subtracting from it. Yet we do those things all the time. Read more »
VERSE 3. Your eyes have seen what the LORD did because of Baal Peor; for the LORD your God has destroyed all the men who followed Baal Peor from among you.
VERSE 4. But you who were faithful to the LORD your God are all alive today.
There is a law of “sowing and reaping” throughout the Bible. How shall we reconcile it with grace and mercy? Here are the verses we’ve found »
VERSE 5. Behold, I have taught you statutes and ordinances, even as the LORD my God commanded me, that you should do so in the middle of the land where you go in to possess it.
VERSE 6. Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who shall hear all these statutes and say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.”
Keep therefore and do them. To choose the way of life means to learn from the Bible and act upon it. Blessings and wisdom will follow. As for you and your house, will you serve the LORD? Read more »
We Christians say salvation is by faith. Yet the New Testament calls us to put our faith into action. Otherwise our faith is worthless. Read more »
VERSE 7. For what great nation is there that has a god so near to them as the LORD our God is whenever we call on him?
VERSE 8. What great nation is there that has statutes and ordinances so righteous as all this law which I set before you today?
VERSE 9. Only be careful, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things which your eyes saw, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life; but make them known to your children and your children’s children—
lest you forget. Spiritual insights are important. We can cherish them for a lifetime.
As we Explore the Faith together, by God’s grace we’ll learn lots of valuable things.
More importantly, we will be crafted into a people who are more fully in love with God the Father, more fully the disciples of Jesus Christ, more filled with the Holy Spirit.
We are being blessed with insights for a lifetime!
VERSE 10. the day that you stood before the LORD your God in Horeb, when the LORD said to me, “Assemble the people to me, and I will make them hear my words, that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children.”
learn to fear me. To grow in relationship with the LORD God is a process. It is not merely a decision made one day. Rather, it is the journey of a lifetime.
teach their children. If you walk with the LORD God, you have special knowledge. It is important for you to pass it on to others. That is the Ministry of Discipleship.
VERSE 11. You came near and stood under the mountain. The mountain burned with fire to the heart of the sky, with darkness, cloud, and thick darkness.
darkness, cloud, and thick darkness. We want to see God. But we are unable to apprehend the LORD God in all his glory. So at the great moments of biblical history, he appears in the hidden form of a Cloud. Read more »
VERSE 12. The LORD spoke to you out of the middle of the fire: you heard the voice of words, but you saw no form; you only heard a voice.
VERSE 13. He declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even the ten commandments. He wrote them on two stone tablets.
VERSE 14. The LORD commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and ordinances, that you might do them in the land where you go over to possess it.
LIVE AS MONOTHEISTS
VERSE 15. Be very careful, for you saw no kind of form on the day that the LORD spoke to you in Horeb out of the middle of the fire,
you saw no kind of form. The LORD God is an infinite mystery. He is without form. He is beyond gender. We don’t even know how to pronounce his name.
VERSE 16. lest you corrupt yourselves, and make yourself a carved image in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female,
corrupt yourselves. The Israelites were called to strict monotheism.
a carved image. For monotheists, to have an image is to corrupt yourself.
VERSE 17. the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the sky,
any animal that is on the earth. We humans are members of the Animal Kingdom. We are an animal on the earth.
We should not have statues of humans. Yet Christians had the way in making statues of humans.
Some Christians bow down to a statue of their favorite saint. Or even kneel before it.
VERSE 18. the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth;
VERSE 19. and lest you lift up your eyes to the sky, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, even all the army of the sky, you are drawn away and worship them, and serve them, which the LORD your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole sky.
VERSE 20. But the LORD has taken you, and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be to him a people of inheritance, as it is today.
to be to him a people of inheritance. The Israelites are the LORD God’s chosen people.
VERSE 21. Furthermore the LORD was angry with me for your sakes, and swore that I should not go over the Jordan, and that I should not go in to that good land which the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance;
VERSE 22. but I must die in this land. I must not go over the Jordan, but you shall go over and possess that good land.
VERSE 23. Be careful, lest you forget the covenant of the LORD your God, which he made with you, and make yourselves a carved image in the form of anything which the LORD your God has forbidden you.
Be careful, lest you forget. It is too easy for us to forget.
We forget important spiritual lessons.We forget the Commandments.
In this verse, we forget the absolute prohibition against statues. And images.
VERSE 24. For the LORD your God is a devouring fire, a jealous God.
This verse is fantastic! Would you consider memorizing it? More great verses to memorize from the Book of Deuteronomy and from the entire Bible.
We like this phrase!
VERSE 25. When your father children and children’s children, and you have been long in the land, and then corrupt yourselves, and make a carved image in the form of anything, and do that which is evil in the LORD your God’s sight to provoke him to anger,
When. Not “if” but “when.”
make a carved image in the form of anything. The Israelites will eventually fall to the making of carved images. That will be their undoing.
VERSE 26. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will soon utterly perish from off the land which you go over the Jordan to possess it. You will not prolong your days on it, but will utterly be destroyed.
To choose the way of life means to learn from the Bible and act upon it. Blessings and wisdom will follow. As for you and your house, will you serve the LORD? Read more »
VERSE 27. The LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the LORD will lead you away.
VERSE 28. There you will serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
VERSE 29. But from there you shall seek the LORD your God, and you will find him when you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul.
Seeking the kingdom of God is to be our number one priority. Yet for many of us, our use of time and money show that it is a low priority. Read more »
VERSE 30. When you are in oppression, and all these things have come on you, in the latter days you shall return to the LORD your God and listen to his voice.
in the latter days. Biblical authors use the phrase “in the latter days.” In some cases it means “the present day.” But in other cases, it means “the future” or “The End of Days.” Read more »
VERSE 31. For the LORD your God is a merciful God. He will not fail you nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which he swore to them.
THERE IS ONE GOD
VERSE 32. For ask now of the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and from the one end of the sky to the other, whether there has been anything as great as this thing is, or has been heard like it?
VERSE 33. Did a people ever hear the voice of God speaking out of the middle of the fire, as you have heard, and live?
VERSE 34. Or has God tried to go and take a nation for himself from among another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, by war, by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?
VERSE 35. It was shown to you so that you might know that the LORD is God. There is no one else besides him.
Deuteronomy 6:4. Hear, Israel: the LORD is our God. The LORD is one.
VERSE 36. Out of heaven he made you to hear his voice, that he might instruct you. On earth he made you to see his great fire; and you heard his words out of the middle of the fire.
VERSE 37. Because he loved your fathers, therefore he chose their offspring after them, and brought you out with his presence, with his great power, out of Egypt;
VERSE 38. to drive out nations from before you greater and mightier than you, to bring you in, to give you their land for an inheritance, as it is today.
VERSE 39. Know therefore today, and take it to heart, that the LORD himself is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath. There is no one else.
VERSE 40. You shall keep his statutes and his commandments which I command you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which the LORD your God gives you for all time.
CITIES OF REFUGE EAST OF THE JORDAN
VERSE 41. Then Moses set apart three cities beyond the Jordan toward the sunrise,
VERSE 42. that the man slayer might flee there, who kills his neighbor unintentionally and didn’t hate him in time past, and that fleeing to one of these cities he might live:
VERSE 43. Bezer in the wilderness, in the plain country, for the Reubenites; and Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites; and Golan in Bashan for the Manassites.
VERSE 44. This is the law which Moses set before the children of Israel.
CONCLUSION
VERSE 45. These are the testimonies, and the statutes, and the ordinances which Moses spoke to the children of Israel when they came out of Egypt,
VERSE 46. beyond the Jordan, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, in the land of Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon, whom Moses and the children of Israel struck when they came out of Egypt.
VERSE 47. They took possession of his land and the land of Og king of Bashan, the two kings of the Amorites, who were beyond the Jordan toward the sunrise;
VERSE 48. from Aroer, which is on the edge of the valley of the Arnon, even to Mount Sion (also called Hermon),
VERSE 49. and all the Arabah beyond the Jordan eastward, even to the sea of the Arabah, under the slopes of Pisgah.
DEUTERONOMY
CHAPTERS: 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34
RESOURCES: Summary, Outline, Memorize
Unless otherwise noted, all Bible quotations on this page are from the World English Bible and the World Messianic Edition. These translations have no copyright restrictions. They are in the Public Domain.