Deuteronomy 13:6
Read Deuteronomy 13:6 Using Other Translations
What does Deuteronomy 13:6 mean?
If thy brother, the son of thy mother
A brother by mother's side, which is generally supposed to be the
nearest relation, at least most out of question, so more liable
to be regarded as being beloved:
or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy
bosom;
most dearly beloved by him, as indeed each of these relations are
by a man, there being none nearer or dearer to him:
or thy friend, which [is] as thine own soul;
as dear to him as himself, and so strictly united in friendship,
as if one soul dwelt in two bodies; such close friends were
Jonathan and David, ( 1 Samuel
18:1 ) . Some Jewish writers think the father is not
mentioned, because of the reverence of him, with which all later
dealings with him obliged to would seem inconsistent; but the
reverence of God is to be preferred to the reverence of parents;
and besides, if such near relations that are here mentioned, than
which there are none nearer, are not to be spared if guilty of
the sin after warned against, then not a father, who is in the
same transgression:
entice thee secretly;
when alone with him, which might be judged the most proper time
to work upon him, there being none to oppose the enticer, or to
assist the enticed; so Satan took the opportunity of Eve being
alone when he attacked her with his temptation, and the same
method is taken by his children:
saying, let me go and serve other gods which thou hast not
known, thou
nor thy fathers;
not even their immediate ancestors, and so the calf was not of
these gods; nor their more remote ancestors, as Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob, who were no idolaters; nor even Terah, though he was
one, yet the gods of the Canaanites and of the neighbouring
nations, which seem to be here meant, at least principally, were
such that he knew not. This circumstance may seem to carry in it
an argument rather why they should not than why they should serve
such gods; wherefore the words of the enticer seem to be only
these,
let us go and serve other gods,
and what follows are the words of the Lord, descriptive of those
gods, and so a dissuasive from serving them.
