for us. A desire of forbidden knowledge was the ruin of our first parents. Those that would be wise above what is written, and intrude into those things which they have not seen, need this admonition, that they break not through to gaze. 2. Under what penalty it was forbidden, Lest the Lord break forth upon them, (v. 22··24.) and many of them perish. Note, (1.) The restraints and warnings of the divine law are all intended for our good, and to keep us out of that danger which otherwise we should, by our own folly, run ourselves into. (2.) It is at our peril, if we break the bounds that God has set us, and intrude upon that which he has not allowed us; the Bethshemites and Uzzah paid dear for their presumption, And even when we are called to approach God, we must remember that he is in heaven, and we upon earth, and therefore it behoves us to exercise reverence and godly fear.
CHAP. XX.
All things being prepared for the solemn promulgation of the divine law, we have, in this chapter, I. The ten commandments, as God himself spake them upon mount Sinai; (v. 1..17.) as remarkable a portion of scripture as any in the Old Testament. II. The impressions made upon the people thereby, v. 18..21. III. Some particular instructions, which God gave privately to Moses, to be by him communicated to the people, relating to his worship, v. 22..26.
1.AND God spake all these words, saying, 2. I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 3. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. 4. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: 5. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; 6. And showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. 7. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. 8. Remember the sabbath-day, to keep it holy. 9. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: 10. But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: 11. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath-day, and hallowed it.
Here is,
I. The preface of the law-writer, Moses; (v. 1.) God spake all these words. The law of the ten commandments is, 1. A law of God's making. They are enjoined by the infinite eternal Majesty of heaven and earth, And where the word of the King of kings is, surely there is power. 2. It is a law of his own speaking. God has many ways of speaking to the children of men; (Job 33. 14.) once, yea twice, by his Spirit, by conscience, by providences, by his voice; all which we ought carefully to attend to; but he never spake, at any time, upon any occasion, so as he spake the ten commandments, which therefore we ought to hear with the more earnest heed. It was not only spoken audibly, (so he owned the Redeemer by a voice from heaven, Matth. 3. 17.) but with a great deal of dreadful pomp. This law God had given to man before; (it was written in his heart by nature;) but sin had so defaced that writing, that it was necessary, in this manner, to revive the knowledge of it.
II. The preface of the Law-Maker; (v. 2.) I am the Lord thy God. Herein, 1. God asserts his own authority to enact this law in general; "I am the Lord, who command thee all that follows." 2. He proposes himself as the sole Object of that religious worship which is enjoined in the four first of the commandments. They are here bound to obedience by a threefold cord, which, one would think, could not easily be broken. (1.) Because God is the Lord—Jehovah, self-existent, independent, eternal, and the Fountain of all being and power; therefore he has an incontestable right to command us. He that gives being, may give law; and therefore he is able to bear us out in our obedience, to reward it, and to punish our disobedience. (2.) He was their God, a God in covenant with them, their God by their own consent; and if they would not keep his commandments, who would? He had laid himself under obligations to them by promise, and therefore might justly lay his obligations on them by precept. Though that covenant of peculiarity is now no more, yet there is another, by virtue of which all that are baptized are taken into relation to him as their God, and are therefore unjust, unfaithful, and very unkind, if they obey him not. (3.) He had brought them out of the land of Egypt; therefore they were bound in gratitude to obey him, because he had done them so great a kindness, had brought them out of a grievous slavery into a glorious liberty; they themselves had been eye-witnesses of the great things God had done, in order to their deliverance, and could not but have observed that every circumstance of it heightened their obligation; they were now enjoying the blessed fruits of their deliverance, and in expectation of a speedy settlement in Canaan; and could they think any thing too much to do for Him that had done so much for them? Nay, by redeeming them, he acquired a further right to rule them; they owed their service to him to whom they owed their freedom, and whose they were by purchase. And thus, Christ, having rescued us out of the bondage of sin, is entitled to the best service we can do him, Luke 1. 74. Having loosed our bonds, he has bound us to obey him, Ps. 116. 16.
III. The law itself. The four first of the ten commandments, which concern our duty to God, (commonly called the first table) we have in these verses. It was fit that those should be put first, because man had a Maker to love, before he had a neighbour to love; and justice and charity are then only acceptable acts of obedience to God, when they flow from the principles of piety. It cannot be expected that he should be true to his brother, who is false to his God.
Now our duty to God is, in one word, to worship him, that is, to give to him the glory due to his name, the inward worship of our affections, the outward worship of solemn address and attendance. This is spoken of as the sum and substance of the everlasting gospel, (Rev. 14. 7.) Worship God.
1. The first commandment concerns the Object
