Deuteronomy 5:21-31

21 "You must not want to take your neighbor's wife. You must not want to take your neighbor's house or land, his male or female slaves, his ox or his donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor."

22 The Lord spoke these commands to all of you on the mountain in a loud voice out of the fire, the cloud, and the deep darkness; he did not say anything else. Then he wrote them on two stone tablets, and he gave them to me.

23 When you heard the voice from the darkness, as the mountain was blazing with fire, all your older leaders and leaders of your tribes came to me.

24 And you said, "The Lord our God has shown us his glory and majesty, and we have heard his voice from the fire. Today we have seen that a person can live even if God speaks to him.

25 But now, we will die! This great fire will burn us up, and we will die if we hear the Lord our God speak anymore.

26 No human being has ever heard the living God speaking from a fire and still lived, but we have.

27 Moses, you go near and listen to everything the Lord our God says. Then you tell us what the Lord our God tells you, and we will listen and obey."

28 The Lord heard what you said to me, and he said to me, "I have heard what the people said to you. Everything they said was good.

29 I wish their hearts would always respect me and that they would always obey my commands so that things would go well for them and their children forever!

30 "Go and tell the people to return to their tents,

31 but you stay here with me so that I may give you all the commands, rules, and laws that you must teach the people to obey in the land I am giving them as their own."

Deuteronomy 5:21-31 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO DEUTERONOMY 5

In this chapter Moses, after a short preface, De 5:1-5, repeats the law of the decalogue, or ten commands, with some little variation, De 5:6-21, and then reminds the Israelites of the terrible manner in which it was delivered to them, De 5:22,23 which put them upon making a request that Moses might be a mediator between God and them, and hear what the Lord had to say, and report it to them; to which they promised obedience, De 5:24-27 and which being agreeable to the Lord was granted, De 5:28-31, and this laid them under a greater obligation to observe the commands of God, and keep them, De 5:32,33.