Deuteronomy 4:8

8 For what other folk is so noble, that it hath ceremonies, and just dooms, and all the law, which I shall set forth today before your eyes? (For what other nation is so noble, that it hath statutes, and judgements, and all the law/s, which I shall set forth today before your eyes?)

Deuteronomy 4:8 Meaning and Commentary

Deuteronomy 4:8

And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and
judgments so righteous
Founded in justice and equity, and so agreeable to right reason, and so well calculated and adapted to lead persons in the ways of righteousness and truth, and keep them from doing any injury to each other's persons and properties, and to maintain good order, peace, and concord among them:

as all this law which I set before you this day?
which he then repeated, afresh declared, explained and instructed them in; for otherwise it had been delivered to them near forty years ago. Now there was not any nation then in being, nor any since, to be compared with the nation of the Jews, for the wise and wholesome laws given unto them; no, not the more cultivated and civilized nations, as the Grecians and Romans, who had the advantage of such wise lawgivers as they were accounted, as Solon, Lycurgus, Numa, and others; and indeed the best laws that they had seem to be borrowed from the Jews.

Deuteronomy 4:8 In-Context

6 and ye shall keep, and fulfill them in work. For this is your wisdom and understanding before [the] peoples, that all men hear these behests, and say, Lo! a wise people and an understanding (one)! a great folk! (and ye shall obey them, and fulfill them in work. For this shall show your wisdom and understanding to the other peoples, and when the other peoples hear of these statutes, they shall say, Lo! a wise people, a people of understanding! yea, a great nation!)
7 None other nation is so great, that hath Gods nighing to itself, as our God is ready to all our beseechings. (No other nation, no matter how great, hath gods so near to it, as our God is to us.)
8 For what other folk is so noble, that it hath ceremonies, and just dooms, and all the law, which I shall set forth today before your eyes? (For what other nation is so noble, that it hath statutes, and judgements, and all the law/s, which I shall set forth today before your eyes?)
9 Therefore keep thyself, and thy soul busily; forget thou not the words which thine eyes have seen, and fall they not down from thine heart, in all the days of thy life. Thou shalt teach those (to) thy sons, and thy sons? sons. (And so guard thyself, and thy soul; forget thou not the things which thine eyes have seen, and fall they not down from thy heart, all the days of thy life. Thou shalt teach them to thy sons and thy daughters, and to thy children's children.)
10 Tell thou to them (about) the day in which thou stoodest before thy Lord God in Horeb, when the Lord spake to me, and said, Gather thou the people to me, that it hear my words, and that it learn for to dread me in all time in which it liveth in (the) earth, and teach his sons. (Tell thou them about the day in which thou stoodest before the Lord thy God at Mount Sinai, when the Lord spoke to me, and said, Gather thou the people to me, so that they can hear my words, and that they learn to fear me/and that they learn to revere me, in all the time in which they live on the earth, and that they also teach their sons and their daughters this.)
Copyright © 2001 by Terence P. Noble. For personal use only.