Deuteronomy 4 Study Notes

4:23-24 God is never envious of anyone or anything, but he emphatically states and defends his right to exclusive worship by his people (6:14-15).

4:25-26 This is the first of several such warning passages in the book (see 28:15-68; 29:22-28; 31:16-29). Since humans are not qualified to certify the durability and reliability of God’s promises, and since no other gods exist to serve as witnesses, Moses invoked heaven and earth to serve that function (30:19; 31:28; cp. note at Gn 22:15-18).

4:27 The peoples and nations most immediately in view are the Assyrians and Babylonians, who took Israel and Judah captive in 722 and 586 BC, respectively. Since then, Greece, Rome, and other world powers have successively uprooted the Jewish people for various reasons, including their violation of the covenant the Lord made with them (vv. 23,25; cp. 2Kg 17:7-41; 2Ch 36:15-19).

4:28 In a foreign land, they will have to do what they had previously chosen to do.

4:29-31 When Israel went into exile they would find the Lord when they sought him with all their heart and soul. Yet the promise is clear that this would happen, because they would in fact return to the Lord in the future. The Lord’s promises to his chosen people must come to pass because he has sworn by his own reputation to make it so (30:6-10; Gn 17:3-8; Jr 31:31-34; Ezk 36:24-30; Rm 11:1-2,25-26). He thus provides the grace by which Israel can believe, repent, and return (Rm 11:28-32).

4:32-34 The event in view is the whole complex of God’s election of Abraham to establish a nation, the deliverance of that nation from Egyptian bondage (v. 34), his gracious act of making covenant with them (v. 33), and his care for them ever since. This event was unique in the history of the world (cp. 32:9; 33:29).

4:35-40 The Lord’s mighty acts in history on Israel’s behalf were designed to demonstrate his sovereignty and uniqueness. In v. 37 loved and chose are virtually synonymous. The exodus deliverance was predicated on Israel’s prior election by the Lord.

4:41-43 Before Moses’s death and the conquest of Canaan, he selected three cities as places of refuge for people accused but not convicted of manslaughter (see 19:2-13): one in the territory of Reuben, one in the territory of Gad, and the third in the allotment of Manasseh (4:43). These verses, together with vv. 44-49, serve as a double introduction to the following division—one to the address and the other to the covenant document more specifically.

4:42 Manslaughter is qualified here as the killing of a person accidentally without previously hating him. If the accused hated the victim, there might be cause to suspect him of premeditated murder, in which case no refuge could suffice. Manslaughter today is defined similarly as accidental or “without malice aforethought.”

4:44-49 The law is literally “the Torah.” The term usually refers to the Pentateuch, but here to the full collection of principles and stipulations about to be promulgated by Moses. The verb proclaimed suggests these verses were added after Moses had finished the address. What follows is a historical recapitulation of events already described. See Dt 29:7; 31:4; Jos 2:10; 9:10; Neh 9:22; Ps 135:11.