Deuteronomy 30:16

In that I command thee this day to love the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply: and the LORD thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

30:15-20 What could be said more moving, and more likely to make deep and lasting impressions? Every man wishes to obtain life and good, and to escape death and evil; he desires happiness, and dreads misery. So great is the compassion of the Lord, that he has favoured men, by his word, with such a knowledge of good and evil as will make them for ever happy, if it be not their own fault. Let us hear the sum of the whole matter. If they and theirs would love God, and serve him, they should live and be happy. If they or theirs should turn from God, desert his service, and worship other gods, that would certainly be their ruin. There never was, since the fall of man, more than one way to heaven; which is marked out in both Testaments, though not with equal clearness. Moses meant that same way of acceptance, which Paul more plainly described; and Paul's words mean the same obedience, on which Moses more fully treated. In both Testaments the good and right way is brought near, and plainly revealed to us.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

In thy mouth, and in, thy heart - Compare Deuteronomy 6:6; Deuteronomy 11:18-20.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

De 30:15-20. Death and Life Are Set before the Israelites.

15-20. See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil—the alternative of a good and happy, or a disobedient and miserable life. Love of God and compliance with His will are the only ways of securing the blessings and avoiding the evils described. The choice was left to them, and in urging upon them the inducements to a wise choice, Moses warmed as he proceeded into a tone of solemn and impressive earnestness similar to that of Paul to the elders of Ephesus (Ac 20:26, 27).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

In that I command thee this day to love the Lord thy God,.... Which is the sum and substance of the first table of the law, and includes the whole worship of God, the contrary to which are idolatry, superstition, and will worship, from which Moses had been dissuading and deterring them:

to walk in his ways; which he has prescribed, as his will to walk in, and his law directs to:

and to keep his commandments, and his statutes, and his judgments; his laws, moral, ceremonial, and judicial, Moses had been repeating and reciting:

that thou mayest live and multiply; live in the land of Canaan, and have a numerous offspring and posterity to succeed and continue in it, which is confirmed by what follows:

and the Lord thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it; with health and happiness, with an affluence of all good things, in the land of Canaan they were just entering into to take possession of.

Geneva Study Bible

In that I command thee this day {m} to love the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that thou mayest {n} live and multiply: and the LORD thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it.

(m) So that to love and obey God, is only life and happiness.

(n) He adds these promises to signify that it is for our profit that we love him, and not for his.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

16. The constr. of the Heb. is faulty but may be restored from the LXX thus: If thou hearken to the commandment of the Lord thy God which I command thee (Dillm.). For Deuteronomy 30:16 a see on Deuteronomy 13:4 (5): his commandments (wanting in LXX), Deuteronomy 4:2; statutes and judgements, Deuteronomy 4:1. On 16b, that thou mayest live, cp. Deuteronomy 4:1, Deuteronomy 30:6; on whither thou goest in to possess it (characteristic of the Sg. passages) see Deuteronomy 7:1, for the Pl. synonym see Deuteronomy 6:1.

Deuteronomy 30:16

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

In conclusion, Moses sums up the contents of the whole of this preaching of the law in the words, "life and good, and death and evil," as he had already done at Deuteronomy 11:26-27, in the first part of this address, to lay the people by a solemn adjuration under the obligation to be faithful to the Lord, and through this obligation to conclude the covenant afresh. He had set before them this day life and good ("good" equals prosperity and salvation), as well as death and evil (רע, adversity and destruction), by commanding them to love the Lord and walk in His ways. Love is placed first, as in Deuteronomy 6:5, as being the essential principle of the fulfilment of the commandments. Expounding the law was setting before them life and death, salvation and destruction, because the law, as the word of God, was living and powerful, and proved itself in every man a power of life or of death, according to the attitude which he assumed towards it (vid., Deuteronomy 32:47). נדּח, to permit oneself to be torn away to idolatry (as in Deuteronomy 4:19).