Verse 29
“So we abode in the valley over against Beth-peor,” i.e., in the Arboth Moab (Num 22:1), sc., where we still are. The pret. ונּשׁב is used, because Moses fixes his eye upon the past, and looks back upon the events already described in Num 28-34 as having taken place there. On Beth-Peor, see at Num 23:28. Exhortation to a Faithful Observance of the Law - Deuteronomy 4:1-40
With the word ועתּה, “and now,” Moses passes from a contemplation of what the Lord had done for Israel, to an exhortation to keep the law of the Lord. The divine manifestations of grace laid Israel under the obligation to a conscientious observance of the law, that they might continue to enjoy the blessings of the covenant. The exhortation commences with the appeal, to hear and keep the commandments and rights of the Lord, without adding to them or taking from them; for not only were life and death suspended upon their observance, but it was in this that the wisdom and greatness of Israel before all the nations consisted (Deu 4:1-8). It then proceeds to a warning, not to forget the events at Horeb (Deu 4:9-14) and so fall into idolatry, the worship of images or idol deities (Deu 4:15-24); and it closes with a threat of dispersion among the heathen as the punishment of apostasy, and with a promise of restoration as the consequence of repentance and sincere conversion (Deu 4:25-31), and also with a reason for this threat and promise drawn from the history of the immediate past (Deu 4:32-34), for the purpose of fortifying the nation in its fidelity to its God, the sole author of its salvation (Deu 4:35-40).
Chap. 4
verses 1-8
The Israelites were to hearken to the laws and rights which Moses taught to do (that they were to do), that they might live and attain to the possession of the land which the Lord would give them. “Hearkening” involves laying to heart and observing. The words “statutes and judgments” (as in Lev 19:37) denote the whole of the law of the covenant in its two leading features. חקּים, statutes, includes the moral commandments and statutory covenant laws, for which חק and חקּה are mostly used in the earlier books; that is to say, all that the people were bound to observe; משׁפּטים, rights, all that was due to them, whether in relation to God or to their fellow-men (cf. Deu 26:17). Sometimes המּצוה, the commandment, is connected with it, either placed first in
