and from one end of the heaven unto the other, whether so great a thing has ever happened, or anything of the kind has been heard of:” i.e., the history of all times since the creation of man, and of all places under the whole heaven, can relate no such events as those which have happened to Israel, viz., at Sinai (Deu 4:33; cf. Deu 4:12). From this awfully glorious manifestation of God, Moses goes back in Deu 4:34 to the miracles with which God effected the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt. “Or has a god attempted (made the attempt) to come and take to himself people from people (i.e., to fetch the people of Israel out of the midst of the Egyptian nation), with temptations (the events in Egypt by which Pharaoh's relation to the Lord was put to the test; cf. Deu 6:22 and Deu 7:18-19), with signs and wonders (the Egyptian plagues, see Exo 7:3), and with conflict (at the Red Sea: Exo 14:14; Exo 15:3), and with a strong hand and outstretched arm (see Exo 6:6), and with great terrors?” In the three points mentioned last, all the acts of God in Egypt are comprehended, according to both cause and effect. They were revelations of the omnipotence of the Lord, and produced great terrors (cf. Exo 12:30-36).
Verse 35
Israel was made to see all this, that it might know that Jehovah was God (האלהים, the God, to whom the name of elohim rightfully belonged), and there was none else beside Him (cf. Deu 4:39, Deu 32:39; Isa 45:5-6).
Verse 36
But the Lord had spoken to Israel chiefly down from heaven (cf. Exo 20:19 [22]), and that out of the great fire, in which He had come down upon Sinai, to chastise it. יסּר does not mean “to instruct the people with regard to His truth and sovereignty,” as Schultz thinks, but “to take them under holy discipline” (Knobel), to inspire them with a salutary fear of the holiness of His ways and of His judgments by the awful phenomena which accompanied His descent, and shadowed forth the sublime and holy majesty of His nature.
verses 37-38
All this He did from love to the fathers of Israel (the patriarchs): “and indeed because He loved thy fathers, He chose his seed (the seed of Abraham, the first of the patriarchs) after him, and brought thee (Israel) out of Egypt by His face with great power, to drive out...and to bring thee, to give thee their land...so that thou mightest know and take to heart...and keep His laws,” etc. With regard to the construction of these verses, the clause כּי ותחת (and because) in Deu 4:37 is not to be regarded as dependent upon what precedes, as Schultz supposes; nor are Deu 4:37 and Deu 4:38 to be taken as the protasis, and Deu 4:39, Deu 4:40 as the apodosis (as Knobel maintains). Both forms of construction are
