Original Meaning
THE ELEVATED STYLE OF Deuteronomy 10:12–11:1 suggests that Moses’ second address is nearing a climax.1 As in chapter 4, Moses signals the climactic moment with “and now” (weʿattâ). He is about to declare the moral and spiritual implications of the privilege of covenant relationship that he has been preaching to this point of the second address.2 Apart from this rhetorical marker, the boundaries of this unit are demarked by an opening question (10:12a) and the summary answer in 11:1. On the surface, the unit appears repetitious. However, Moses is a preacher, not an essayist. Based on the syntax, we observe that he addresses a single issue from three different but complementary angles. The relationships of the parts may be highlighted by juxtaposing more or less literal translations of each, as in the synopsis below:
The Issue | So what does Yahweh your God ask of you? (10:12a) |
The Requirement | I (10:12b–15) | II (10:16–19) | III (10:20–22) |
You shall fear Yahweh your God, walk in all his ways, love him, and serve Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and keep the commands and statutes of Yahweh, which I am commanding you today for your good. (10:12b–13) | Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn. (10:16) | You shall fear Yahweh your God. You shall serve him and hold fast to him, and by his name you shall swear. (10:20) |
The Basis of the Requirement | The Doxology | Behold, to Yahweh your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it. (10:14) | For Yahweh your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe. (10:17) | He is your praise. He is your God, who has done for you these great and terrifying things that your eyes have seen. (10:21) |
The Application | Yet Yahweh set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day. (10:15) | He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. (10:18–19) | Your fathers went down to Egypt seventy persons, and now Yahweh your God has made you as numerous as the stars of heaven. (10:22) |
The Conclusion | You shall therefore love Yahweh your God and keep his charge, his statutes, his rules, and his commands always. (11:1) |
The issue raised (v. 12a). Moses begins his reflection on the practical implications of the covenant with a question: In view of the grace that Yahweh has lavished on his people, what does he require of Israel? And with this question we realize that we are about to encounter the heart of the covenant—in Jesus’ words, “the more important matters of the law” (Matt. 23:23). Moses answers his own question from three different angles. These statements consist of doxologies of praise to Yahweh, followed by reflection on the implications of the doxological statement for Israel. The result is a glorious theology of covenant relationship built on three pillars of cosmic theology and grounded on three marvelous acts of grace.
Moses’ first answer (vv. 12b–15). Moses’ first response consists of five infinitive phrases, all of which been heard before and will be heard repeatedly hereafter: (1) fear Yahweh your God; (2) walk in all his ways; (3) love Yahweh your God; (4) serve Yahweh your God with your whole being; (5) keep the commands and decrees of Yahweh. This combination captures in a nutshell the message of this book, especially as it relates to the human response to divine grace. The common denominator is the importance of allegiance to Yahweh as the God of the covenant.3 The list consists of responses that involve fundamental dispositions (fear, love) and active expressions (walk, serve, keep). Attitude and action are interrelated. Fear is primary and love (covenant commitment) is at the core. Without these, the actions are legalistic efforts to gain the favor of God. Without the actions, fear and love are useless and dead.4
Moses signals the shift to the grounds for these demands in verse 14 with the focus particle “look” (hēn, not represented in NIV), which introduces us to Yahweh’s sovereignty over the universe as the ground for fidelity. Moses highlights the comprehensiveness of Yahweh’s rule by means of merismus (referring to polar opposites—heavens and earth) and superlative expressions.5 With “the highest heavens” Moses declares that whatever cosmic entity one may imagine to exist out there or however far one may travel in space, it all belongs to Yahweh, the God of Israel.6 But Yahweh is also sovereign over the earth and all it contains. Under this expression, Moses includes the earth’s occupants, human beings, as well as animals large and small. Yahweh owns all.
While Yahweh’s ownership of the universe might have inspired worship in and of itself in another context, verse 15 suggests that Moses has presented this doxology to set the stage for something even more dramatic and relevant to Israel’s situation: Yahweh’s election of this people. Moses hereby emphasizes that although Yahweh owns everything in the universe, out of all the peoples he chose Israel’s ancestors to be the object of his affection and love and to be his covenant people (cf. 7:6–8). In light of this gracious election, the call for total devotion in verses 12b–13 is utterly reasonable.
Moses’ second answer to the question (vv. 16–19). While Moses’ first answer called for external acts of covenant commitment, his second focuses on the internal disposition, employing a strange metaphor, the circumcision of the heart/mind. This figure of speech may have been prompted by the reference to Yahweh’s election of the ancestors, since physical circumcision represented the seal by which Israelite men declared their acceptance of covenant relationship with God (Gen. 17). Since outsiders would not see the sign, the only evidence of membership within the covenant community they would see would be the life the person lived.7 It seems odd that Moses would have introduced this metaphor here, since apparently none of the men standing before Moses had been circumcised (Josh. 5:4–7). The picture is ironic: their fathers, who came out of Egypt, apparently had all been circumcised externally (Ex. 12:43–51), but by their faithlessness they proved it was merely an external act. The people standing before Moses now were physically uncircumcised, yet by clinging to Yahweh in the face of the apostasy at Baal Peor (Deut. 4:4), they apparently proved themselves to be circumcised of heart.
Moses’ charge in verse 16 consists of two commands: circumcise the foreskin of your hearts (lēb, which also means “mind”), and stop stiffening your necks. He does not explain at this point what he means by “circumcising the heart,” except to contrast it with “stiffening the neck” in the second command. The latter expression links this statement to 9:6 and 13, where Moses had denounced his people as persistently “stiff-necked.” Mixing metaphors involving two body parts, Moses suggests that a circumcised heart/mind represents a disposition that is soft and sensitive toward Yahweh and has ceased resisting his will (cf. 30:6–8). The earliest reference to this metaphor occurs in Leviticus 26:41. Looking beyond Israel’s judgment for persistent infidelity, there Yahweh spoke of the people’s uncircumcised heart being humbled so they would make amends for their iniquity, treachery, and hostility toward Yahweh.
In verses 17–18 Moses grounds the demand for spiritual circumcision on Yahweh’s supremacy over all powers. He highlights the scope of Yahweh’s authority by ascribing to him superlative epithets, “God of gods” and “Lord of lords.” The first expression uses “gods” either as pagan deities that do not actually exist but are alive in people’s imagination, or lesser ranked supernatural beings that actually exist and are either at home in the heavens, like the “sons of God” in Job 1:6 (see NIV text note), or are opposed to Yahweh, like the “sons of God” in Genesis 6:1–4. Whether it refers to pagan deities or supernatural beings, Moses does not hereby recognize other gods alongside or equal in status to Yahweh (cf. 4:35, 39); his statement is rhetorical. If “God of gods” declares Yahweh’s supremacy over all heavenly powers, then “Lord of lords” speaks to his supremacy over earthly rulers.8
Moses also highlights the supremacy of Yahweh with the title “the great, mighty, and awesome El.”9 As we noted on 7:9, in Canaanite mythology El was the head of the pantheon—the husband of Asherah and father of seventy gods. By attaching the article to El Moses declares Yahweh to be the only El worthy of the name. He reinforces the notion of Yahweh’s supremacy with a triad of descriptors: he is “great,” “mighty,” and “awesome.”10 These expressions seem intended as a deliberate polemic against the Canaanite El, whom the thirteenth-century BC texts from Ugarit depict as an otiose and senile old deity.
Moses combines these transcendent attributes of Yahweh with four verbal declarations of his immanence (cf. Ex. 33:18–34:8). He begins with a double-barreled, thesis-type statement: Yahweh “shows no partiality and accepts no bribes” (Deut. 10:17). The first involves the idiom “to lift the face,” which is court language derived from the common though unjust practice of lifting the plaintiff’s face so the king or judge may identify him before he declares his judgment. Thus the adjudicator perverts justice by letting the identity and status of the person—whether poor or the rich (cf. Lev. 19:15)—affect the decision.
But Yahweh, who is supreme in his power, is also supreme in his justice.11 As if all who come before him have bags over their heads, he judges not by what he sees nor hears but by the objective merits of the case. The second statement reinforces this interpretation: Yahweh cannot be corrupted by bribes. The frequency with which the Old Testament speaks about bribery attests to its prevalence in ancient Near Eastern life.12 However, Yahweh’s favor cannot be bought.
Having declared in principle Yahweh’s absolute justice, in verse 18 Moses explains how this is implemented to the advantage of the vulnerable in society: the fatherless, the widow, and the alien. All three classes of people are easily preyed upon and subject to abuse because they lack a father or husband or older brother to protect and care for them.13 The picture is remarkable. The God of gods and Lord of rulers executes justice on behalf of the little people.
The term gēr (“alien”) refers to an outsider who has chosen to leave the security of family and homeland to try to make a living in a foreign context. Remarkably Yahweh, the God of Israel, is not so ethnocentric as to be blinded to the plight of the non-Israelites in their midst. Going beyond the privileges granted to resident aliens in Exodus 12:48, Moses declares that Yahweh extends to the alien the same covenant commitment (“love”) he had demonstrated toward their ancestors (4:37; 10:15). He does so not with mere words but in action, providing them with “food and clothing.” Moses had used these same words in 8:3–4 in reference to Israel, suggesting that he also thinks of this people as an alien nation.
Moses’ reference to the alien in verse 18 triggers a practical exhortation in verse 19. Because the Israelites know what it is like to be an alien, they should be especially sensitive to the plight of aliens in their midst (cf. Lev 19:33–34). As in his modification of the Sabbath command of the Decalogue (Deut. 5:14–15), Moses’ appeal for compassion by the Israelites is based on a memory of their own experience as aliens (cf. Ex. 22:21[20]; 23:9).14
Moses’ third answer to the question (vv. 20–22). Moses’ third answer to the demand in verse 12 consists of four statements. In each case the syntax highlights the call for unqualified devotion to Yahweh:
[Only] Yahweh your God you shall fear.
[Only] him you shall serve.
[Only] to him you shall hold fast.
[Only] by his name you shall swear (pers. trans.; cf. 6:13).
The elements in the first pair are borrowed from verses 12b–13, while the last pair involves expressions used elsewhere in Deuteronomy.15 If verses 12b–13 expand on the Supreme Command (6:5), then verse 20 clarifies the Shema proper (6:4).
Moses begins his presentation of the grounds for this demand with a third doxology: “He is your praise; he is your God” (v. 21). With the second clause he declares in second person what the Shema confesses in first person. The first clause, “He is your praise,”16 could mean either that Yahweh is the object of Israel’s praise or that when other nations look at Israel, they will praise Yahweh (cf. 33:26–29). As in 26:19, Moses’ ambiguity here is probably intentional, adding depth and perspective to his picture of divine grace.
In verse 21b Moses explains how Yahweh has manifested himself in Israel through “great and awesome” demonstrations of power. Although elsewhere such expressions refer to the events of the exodus (4:32–40) or the theophany at Horeb (4:9–14; 5:22–27), here Moses recalls Yahweh’s multiplication of Israel’s population in Egypt: Israel went down to Egypt a small clan consisting of seventy persons,17 but Jacob’s descendants stand before Moses now as a nation innumerable “as the stars in the sky.” This simile (cf. 1:10) is drawn from the patriarchal promises. Since the registration of Israel’s troops in Numbers 1–2 and 26 demonstrates that the population could still be counted, this statement is obviously hyperbolic. Nevertheless, what has happened to Jacob’s descendants can only be attributed to a marvelous work of Yahweh.
The issue concluded (11:1). Moses concludes this section by synthesizing the three answers he has given to the question raised in 10:12. He reduces the divine requirement to two simple statements, the first of which obviously abbreviates the Supreme Command (6:5), and the second reiterates the call for obedience to the revealed will of God in its entirety. However, Moses prefaces the traditional triad of familiar expressions (“his decrees, his laws and his commands”) with a new word: mišmartô (“his requirements”). Although in contexts involving tabernacle and temple personnel, the phrase šāmar mišmeret denotes “to perform guard duty,”18 here mišmeret refers to obligations and injunctions in a general sense.19 Since Moses tends to work with triplets and triads, the addition of the fourth term here completes the points of a compass. What does Yahweh require of his covenant people: obedience, no matter from which direction one approaches the issue.
Bridging Contexts
MORAL OBEDIENCE. WITH THE opening question Moses raises a subject that surfaces frequently in the Old Testament. His answers should put to rest a common misperception that under the old covenant religion was an external matter focused on sacrifices and other forms of external cultic service. Moses’ call to fear and love Yahweh, to walk in his ways and serve him, and to keep all his commands places the center of gravity on faith and covenant commitment to Yahweh. Remarkably, he omits any reference to sacrifices or other forms of worship. In placing greater stock in moral obedience than in cultic performance, Moses prepared the way for the prophets.
• Like Moses, Samuel declared, “To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams” (1 Sam. 15:22).
• Like Moses, Amos taught that the practice of “justice” and “righteousness” took precedence over the noise of festivals and offerings (Amos 5:21–25).
• Like Moses, Hosea affirmed that Yahweh found greater delight in “mercy” and personal relationship with him than in sacrifices of every sort (Hos. 6:6).
• Like Moses, in Micah’s mind true piety is demonstrated not in extravagant sacrifices but in doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God (Mic. 6:6–8).20
• Like Moses, Isaiah announced that if ethical righteousness, demonstrated especially on behalf of the marginalized, was lacking, no liturgical celebrations would impress Yahweh (Isa. 1:10–17).
• Like Moses, Jeremiah believed that acceptance with God was dependent on ethical behavior rather than attendance at the house of God (Jer. 7:1–15).
This perspective is also found in the Psalms, which emphasize that acceptable worship is preconditioned by lives that demonstrate covenant commitment to Yahweh and to one’s neighbor (Pss. 15; 24).
This paradigm carries through to the New Testament. Jesus castigates Jewish religious leaders for tithing mint and dill and cummin but neglecting weightier matters of Torah (i.e., love for God and one’s neighbor; Matt. 23:23; Luke 11:42). Sounding like Moses, James declares that “religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world” (Jas. 1:27). The same is true of Paul, who calls believers to offer themselves as “living sacrifices” (Rom. 12:1) and then explains what this means (12:2–15:13).
Imitation of God. In Deuteronomy 10:12–11:1 Moses not only points to the essence of grace-filled religion, but he also provides the basis for the same: knowledge of the absolute sovereignty of God over all and of his particular favor to Israel, which should inspire their own compassion toward the marginalized. Moses’ association of the notion of the supremacy of Yahweh over all with his defense of the weak and downtrodden is picked up and celebrated with great enthusiasm in Psalm 146:5–10:
Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the LORD his God,
the Maker of heaven and earth,
the sea, and everything in them—
the LORD, who remains faithful forever.
He upholds the cause of the oppressed
and gives food to the hungry.
The LORD sets prisoners free,
the LORD gives sight to the blind,
the LORD lifts up those who are bowed down,
the LORD loves the righteous.
The LORD watches over the alien
and sustains the fatherless and the widow,
but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.
The LORD reigns forever,
your God, O Zion, for all generations.
Praise the LORD.
The principle of imitatio dei, the imitation of God, represents one of the fundamental pillars of biblical ethics—Old and New Testaments. If elsewhere Yahweh calls on people to be holy as he, Yahweh their God, is holy (Lev. 11:44; 19:2; 20:7; 1 Pet. 1:16), here Moses calls on Israel to imitate Yahweh’s compassion. Just as he is distinguished for his compassion to the widow, the fatherless, and the alien, so should his people be. Jesus applied this principle to his disciples when he called on them to be covenantally committed to love one another, just as he is covenantally committed to them (John 13:34; 15:12). And the apostle builds on this notion when he challenges his readers to love one another, not only because Christ has commanded us to do so (1 John 3:23), but because God is covenantally committed to us (1 John 4:11), and the love believers demonstrate is the proof that God indwells them (1 John 4:7, 12).
Contemporary Significance
“WHAT DOES THE LORD ask of us?” In contemporary wars over worship style and worship idioms, leaders in our churches are often driven by questions like this: “What do the unchurched or marginal church members ask for?” Thus, in our efforts to fill our sanctuaries and appear successful, worship is planned to satisfy the tastes and demands of the greatest number of potential clients. A text like this reminds us how misplaced such issues may be. The principal question God’s people should always be asking is: “What does the Lord ask of us?” Like Israel, we often forget that unless we are walking in the ways of the Lord during the rest of the week, nothing we do in corporate liturgical worship on Sunday or any other day will impress God. This text reminds us again that walking in the ways of the Lord, accepting our vassal status before him, and obeying his commands are the fruit he seeks as evidence of reverent awe and covenant commitment (love) to him. Mouthing words of devotion ring hollow without the life of devotion.
Furthermore, it is tempting for evangelicals to think that creedal statements of faith provide sure tests of devotion to Christ. However, this text reminds us again that true faith is not demonstrated so much in the defense of truth as in the life of truth. God’s people refuse to bear his name in vain, which is to say, to claim they belong to him but to act as if they belong to some other god or gods. As Paul tells the Galatians, true faith will be demonstrated by a transformed life, refusing to live according to fleshly “Canaanite” values and instead yielding the fruit of the Spirit in abundance (Gal. 5:13–26).
Sadly, recent studies have shown that attitudes of professing Christians and non-Christians toward critical ethical issues like divorce, materialism, the poor, sexual immorality, and racism are scarcely distinguishable.21 The ethics of many who call themselves “Christian” look more like the ethics of the world than the ethics of Christ. The recently drafted “Evangelical Manifesto” represents a step in the right direction.22
Specifically, Moses reminds believers of every age that true faith is demonstrated especially in compassion for the socially and economically marginalized. Sadly, in North American politics evangelical Christians are associated with heartless right wing politics, which runs roughshod over the backs of the marginalized. To cite just one example, the disposition of evangelicals toward undocumented aliens in this country differs little from that of non-Christians, and in some instances the rhetoric is less compassionate. Our memories are short. Many of us are only two or three generations removed from immigrant forebears who sought refuge in North America.
More fundamentally, apart from God’s grace we are all aliens, slaves of sin and citizens of the kingdom of darkness. However, in his mercy the Lord has rescued us and made us his children and citizens of heaven. If Christians would demonstrate toward undocumented aliens and other immigrants in our communities the compassion they have freely received in Christ, outside observers would be drawn to him and glorify our Father in heaven (Matt. 5:16). For us the ethic of compassion and commitment to the well-being of the marginalized must take precedence over legality. If we heed this call, immigrants will know when they encounter us that they have crossed the border into a community of distinctively gracious people.23