Ver. 1. Therefore thou shalt love the Lord.] Cos amoris amor. Ara amorem illius, saith Bernard. Not to love them that so loved us, is to be worse than a publican, more hard-hearted than a Jew. (Matthew 5:46) That the three children burned not in the furnace was a miracle, (Daniel 3:25) so it is that men so favoured love not God.
Ver. 2. And which have not seen.] “ Segnius irritant animos demissa per aures, Quam quae sunt oculis commissa fidelibua’’—Horat. He speaks unto them as to eye-witncsses; and those that have such evidence and self-experience are usually more affected than those that have things by hearsay only. “Mine eye affects my heart.” (Lamentations 3:51)
Ver. 4. Hath destroyed them unto this day,] i.e., Hath so destroyed and dismayed them, that to this day we hear no more of them: as the Romans so quailed and quelled King Attalus, that he made a law that none of his successors should make war with that state for ever.
Ver. 5. And what he did unto you.] A diary should be diligently kept of what God does for us, (Psalms 102:18) for the help of our slippery memories, and the stirring up of our dull hearts to a contention in godliness.
Ver. 6. Dathan and Abiram.] Who were Reubenites; and therefore discontented, say the Jewish doctors, because the birthright was taken from Reuben, for his incest, and given to Judah and Joseph. Korah is here, though not mentioned yet, neither excluded nor excused.
Ver. 9. And that ye may prolong.] [See Trapp on “De 4:40”]
Ver. 10. And wateredst it with thy foot.] Fetching and carrying water, called therefore the water of their feet, as our life is called, “the life of our hands,” (Isaiah 57:10) because maintained with the labour of our hands. Ver. ll. And drinketh water of the rain of heaven.] God crowning the year with his goodness, and his paths dropping fatness. (Psalms 65:10-12) In the Hebrew it is, Thy chariot-wheel tracks; for the clouds are God’s chariots, (Psalms 104:3) in which water is bound. (Job 26:8) How they are upheld, and why they fall here and now, we know not, and wonder. The Egyptians used in a profane mockery to tell other nations, that if God should forget to rain, they might chance to starve for it; they thought the rain was of God, but not their river Nile. See Ezekiel 29:3,9 Isa 19:5,6.
Ver. 12. Which the Lord thy God careth for.] Deus sic curat universa, quasi singula; sic singula, quasi sola. From the beginning of the year.] How easy were it for God to starve us all, by denying us a harvest or two! August.
Ver. 13. And it shall come to pass.] This passage of Scripture following, the Jews read daily in their families, as Maimonides reporteth.
Ver. 14. That I will give you the rain.] Rain God gives to all by a providence, (Acts 14:17 Job 38:26) but to his Israel by virtue of a promise, whereby they might “live, not as by bread only, but as by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”
Ver. 16. That your heart be not deceived.] Having first deceived itself; for “the heart is deceitful above all things,” (Jeremiah 17:9) and may say to many, as the heart of Apollonius the tyrant seemed to say to him, who dreamed one night, that he was flayed by the Scythians, and boiled in a caldro n, and that his heart spake to him out of the kettle and said, Εγω σοι τουτων αιτια, It is I that have drawn thee to all this. Those in hell cry so. Plut.
Ver. 17. And he shut up the heaven.] The keys of heaven, of the heart, of the womb, and of the grave, God keeps and carries under his own belt, as we may say.
Ver. 18. In your heart.] Yea, upon your heart, (Isaiah 47:7 57:11) so as they may sink thereinto, (Luke 9:44) as the best balm cast into water sinks to the bottom.
Ver. 19. Teach them your children.] [See Trapp on “De 6:7”]
Ver. 21. As the days of heaven,] i.e., As long as the world standeth. Hence haply we may conceive hope of the repentance of the Jews, and their re-establishment in this Promised Land.
Ver. 26. A blessing and a curse.] With the way to either, that if ye miscarry ye may have none to blame but yourselves. For oft it falls out, that whereas “the foolishness of man perverteth his way, his heart fretteth against the Lord.” (Proverbs 19:3)
Ver. 29. Put the blessing upon mount Gerizim.] That is, Pronounce it there. See Joshua 8:33. Hence the Samaritans built their temple on this mount as a blessed place, and there worshipped they knew not what (John 4:20,22) calling themselves, Those that belong to the blessed mount.