Deuteronomy 4:19

And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the LORD thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(19) The sun, and the moon, and the stars.—The purest worship of antiquity—that which we find among the Persians—hardly escaped this snare.

Which the Lord thy God hath divided unto all nations.—The heavenly bodies could never be regarded as special protectors of any one nation. But Jehovah was pledged to be the God of Israel. This appears to be the argument of Deuteronomy 4:19-20.

Benson Commentary

Deuteronomy 4:19. Lest thou shouldest be driven — Strongly inclined; to worship them. Which the Lord hath divided unto all nations — Which are not gods, but creatures, made not for worship, but for the use of men; yea, of the meanest and most barbarous people under heaven, and therefore cannot, without great absurdity, be worshipped, especially by you, who are so much advanced above other nations in wisdom and in knowledge, and in this, that you are my peculiar people.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

4:1-23 The power and love of God to Israel are here made the ground and reason of a number of cautions and serious warnings; and although there is much reference to their national covenant, yet all may be applied to those who live under the gospel. What are laws made for but to be observed and obeyed? Our obedience as individuals cannot merit salvation; but it is the only evidence that we are partakers of the gift of God, which is eternal life through Jesus Christ, Considering how many temptations we are compassed with, and what corrupt desires we have in our bosoms, we have great need to keep our hearts with all diligence. Those cannot walk aright, who walk carelessly. Moses charges particularly to take heed of the sin of idolatry. He shows how weak the temptation would be to those who thought aright; for these pretended gods, the sun, moon, and stars, were only blessings which the Lord their God had imparted to all nations. It is absurd to worship them; shall we serve those that were made to serve us? Take heed lest ye forget the covenant of the Lord your God. We must take heed lest at any time we forget our religion. Care, caution, and watchfulness, are helps against a bad memory.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Divided - i. e., "whose light God has distributed to the nations for their use and benefit, and which therefore being creatures ministering to man's convenience must not be worshipped as man's lords."

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

16-19. Lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image—The things are here specified of which God prohibited any image or representation to be made for the purposes of worship; and, from the variety of details entered into, an idea may be formed of the extensive prevalence of idolatry in that age. In whatever way idolatry originated, whether from an intention to worship the true God through those things which seemed to afford the strongest evidences of His power, or whether a divine principle was supposed to reside in the things themselves, there was scarcely an element or object of nature but was deified. This was particularly the case with the Canaanites and Egyptians, against whose superstitious practices the caution, no doubt, was chiefly directed. The former worshipped Baal and Astarte, the latter Osiris and Isis, under the figure of a male and a female. It was in Egypt that animal-worship most prevailed, for the natives of that country deified among beasts the ox, the heifer, the sheep, and the goat, the dog, the cat, and the ape; among birds, the ibis, the hawk, and the crane; among reptiles, the crocodile, the frog, and the beetle; among fishes, all the fish of the Nile; some of these, as Osiris and Isis, were worshipped over all Egypt, the others only in particular provinces. In addition they embraced the Zabian superstition, the adoration of the Egyptians, in common with that of many other people, extending to the whole starry host. The very circumstantial details here given of the Canaanitish and Egyptian idolatry were owing to the past and prospective familiarity of the Israelites with it in all these forms.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Driven to worship them, i.e. strongly inclined, and in a manner constrained, partly by the glory of these heavenly bodies, which may seem to be made for higher purposes than to enlighten this lump of earth; partly from that natural propension which is in men to idolatry. Or, shouldest be driven or thrust, to wit, out of the way of the Lord, (as it is more fully expressed, Deu 13:5) or be seduced, or led aside, as silly sheep easily are, and worship them. Or, shouldest be cast down, or throw down thyself and worship them, i.e. worship them by falling down before them.

Unto all nations, which are not gods, but creatures, made not for the worship, but for the use of men, yea, of the meanest and most barbarous people under heaven, and therefore cannot without great absurdity be worshipped, especially by you who are so much advanced above other nations in wisdom and knowledge, and in this, that you are my peculiar people.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven,.... The starry heaven, which to do in itself is not sinful; and may be lawfully and commendably done, to raise admiration at the wonderful works of God in them, and lead to adore the author of them: but if not guarded against may be ensnaring:

and when thou seest the sun and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven; those bright luminaries, so glorious to behold, and so useful and beneficial to the earth, and the inhabitants of it:

shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them; should have an impulse on their minds and their hearts, be inclined and drawn to the worship of them, partly by considering their splendour, glory, and usefulness, and partly by the example of others; for the worshipping of these seems to be and is the first kind of idolatry men gave into, at least it was very ancient; see Job 31:26,

which the Lord thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven; the sun and the moon by their constant revolutions visit all the parts of the world, and stars are fixed in both hemispheres, so that all nations of the earth receive the benefit and advantage of all these heavenly bodies; but were never designed to be the objects of their worship, as might be learnt from their being divided to them, sometimes one part of the earth enjoying them, and then another, and not present with them all at one and the same time, which, if deities, would have been necessary; see Psalm 19:6.

Geneva Study Bible

And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the LORD thy God hath {m} divided unto all nations under the whole heaven.

(m) He has appointed them to serve man.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

19. lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven] Change to Sg., confirmed by Sam. and LXX.

and when thou seest the sun, etc.] Deuteronomy 17:3 : sun, moon or any of the host of heaven. Unlike the warnings against idolatry this one is not found in JE or P. The host of heaven was the dominant influence in Babylonian religion, and though there are traces of astral worship from the earliest times in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem (cp. Bit-Ninib in the Tell-el-Amarna Letters, Beth-shemesh, etc.), it first became an active danger to Israel, when under Ahaz Assyrian example began to tempt the people of Jehovah, and in the last days of N. Israel, 2 Kings 17:16, and in Judah under Manasseh, 2 Kings 21:3; 2 Kings 21:5; 2 Kings 23:4-5; 2 Kings 23:11, Assyria imposed on her tributaries the forms of Babyl. culture. Cp. the pre-exilic prophets Zephaniah 1:5; Jeremiah 7:18; Jeremiah 8:2; Jeremiah 19:13; Jeremiah 44:17; Ezekiel 8:16. These show that the worship was both national, in the temple, and domestic. On the temptations in Jerusalem to the worship of the heavenly host see Jerusalem, ii. 186 f. The natural seductiveness of the worship is well indicated by the successive verbs used here.

thou be drawn away] Rather reflexive, let thyself be drawn, Deuteronomy 30:4; Deuteronomy 30:17; cp. the active form, Deuteronomy 13:5; Deuteronomy 13:10; Deuteronomy 13:13 [Heb. 6, 11, 14].

worship them, and serve them,] Rather, bow down to them and worship them. Cp. Deuteronomy 5:9, Deuteronomy 8:19, Deuteronomy 11:16, Deuteronomy 17:3, Deuteronomy 29:26 (25), Deuteronomy 30:17, and the addition to E, Exodus 20:5.

which the Lord thy God hath divided unto all the peoples] Distributed, or allotted. An interesting attempt by the writer to reconcile his great truth that Jehovah is God alone with the fact that the other nations worship other gods (cp. Deuteronomy 29:26). This is part of His supreme Providence. Some find also in the words the feeling that such cults preserved the Gentiles from utter ignorance of God, and cite Clem. Alex. (Strom. vi. 14, 110 f.): the stars have been assigned to them, ἵνα μὴ τέλεον ἄθεοι γενόμενοι τελέως καὶ διαφάρωσιν, and as a guide to God Himself, ὁδὸς γὰρ αὕτη δοθεῖσα τοῖς ἔθνεσιν ἀνακῦψαι πρὸς θεόν.

The coincidence of the change of address to the Sg. with the change of subject leads some to take the verse as an intrusion by a later hand. But it may be a later addition by the author of the context himself on consideration of Deuteronomy 17:3, and as this is in the Sg. form it would account for his change to the Sg. here. But note the parallel under the whole heaven with Deuteronomy 2:25. In any case there is no need to take the passage as post-exilic; the danger it would avert was, as the passages cited show, especially strong before the exile.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 19. - Lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, etc. The worship of the heavenly bodies, especially star-worship, prevailed among the Canaanites and many of the Semitic tribes, but was not confined to them; the Egyptians also reverenced the sun as Re, the moon as Isis, and the stars as the symbols of deities. The Israelites were thus, both from past associations and from what they might encounter in Canaan, exposed to the danger of being seduced into idolatry. Shouldest be driven: shouldest be urged on, drawn, or constrained (cf. Deuteronomy 13:13). Which the Lord thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven, God had allotted (חָלַק) to all mankind the heavenly bodies for their advantage (Genesis 1:14-18; Psalm 104:19; Jeremiah 31:35); it was, therefore, not competent for any one nation to seek to appropriate them as specially theirs, and it was absurd for any to offer religious service to objects intended for the service of man. Targum: Which the Lord thy God prepared for all peoples under heaven; Vulgate: Quae creavit Dominus Deus tuus in ministerium cunctis gentibus. This seems better than the interpretation that God had "allotted them for worship, i.e. had permitted them [the nations] to choose them as the objects of their worship" (Keil, etc.); for:

1. There is no distinction here between the Hebrews and the other nations of the earth; "all nations" includes them as well as the heathen.

2. Though God permitted the heathen to worship the heavenly bodies, he never allotted these to men in order that they might worship them. "It noteth God's bounty in giving all people the use of those creatures, and the base mind of man to worship such things as are given for servants unto men" (Ainsworth). Deuteronomy 4:19

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

They were not to allow themselves to be torn away (נדּח) to worship the stars of heaven, namely, by the seductive influence exerted upon the senses by the sight of the heavenly bodies as they shone in their glorious splendour. The reason for this prohibition is given in the relative clause, "which Jehovah thy God hath allotted to all nations under the whole heaven." The thought is not, "God has given the heathen the sun, moon, and stars for service, i.e., to serve them with their light," as Onkelos, the Rabbins, Jerome, and others, suppose, but He has allotted them to them for worship, i.e., permitted them to choose them as the objects of their worship, which is the view adopted by Justin Martyr, Clemens Alex., and others. According to the scriptural view, even the idolatry of the heathen existed by divine permission and arrangement. God gave up the heathen to idolatry and shameful lusts, because, although they knew Him from His works, they did not praise Him as God (Romans 1:21, Romans 1:24, Romans 1:26).