Deuteronomy 5:2

The LORD our God made a covenant with us in Horeb.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(2) The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb.—It must never be forgotten that the Law is a covenant in its very form. (See Note on Deuteronomy 5:6.)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

5:1-5 Moses demands attention. When we hear the word of God we must learn it; and what we have learned we must put in practice, for that is the end of hearing and learning; not to fill our heads with notions, or our mouths with talk, but to direct our affections and conduct.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Sion must not be confounded with Zion (compare Psalm 48:2.).

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

CHAPTER 5

De 5:1-29. A Commemoration of the Covenant in Horeb.

1. Hear, O Israel, the statutes and judgments—Whether this rehearsal of the law was made in a solemn assembly, or as some think at a general meeting of the elders as representatives of the people, is of little moment; it was addressed either directly or indirectly to the Hebrew people as principles of their peculiar constitution as a nation; and hence, as has been well observed, "the Jewish law has no obligation upon Christians, unless so much of it as given or commanded by Jesus Christ; for whatever in this law is conformable to the laws of nature, obliges us, not as given by Moses, but by virtue of an antecedent law common to all rational beings" [Bishop Wilson].

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. Which is Sinai, as Aben Ezra observes; it being the same mountain, only it had two tops, which bore these different names; for certain it is that the decalogue after repeated was given at Sinai, and had the nature and form of a covenant; see Exodus 24:7.

Geneva Study Bible

The LORD our God made a covenant with us in Horeb.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

2. covenant] See Deuteronomy 4:13.

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 2, 3. - Not with our fathers, the patriarchs (cf. Deuteronomy 4:37.) The covenant to which Moses refers is not that made with Abraham, but that made at Sinai, with Israel as a people; and though the individuals who were then present had all perished with the exception of Moses, Joshua, and Caleb, the nation survived, and as it was with the nation as an organic whole that the covenant had been made. it might be with propriety said that it was made with those whom Moses addressed at this time, inasmuch as they constituted the nation. Deuteronomy 5:2

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

"Jehovah our God made a covenant with us in Horeb; not with our fathers, but with ourselves, who are all of us here alive this day." The "fathers" are neither those who died in the wilderness, as Augustine supposed, nor the forefathers in Egypt, as Calvin imagined; but the patriarchs, as in Deuteronomy 4:37. Moses refers to the conclusion of the covenant at Sinai, which was essentially distinct from the covenant at Sinai, which was essentially distinct from the covenant made with Abraham (Genesis 15:18), though the latter laid the foundation for the Sinaitic covenant. But Moses passed over this, as it was not his intention to trace the historical development of the covenant relation, but simply to impress upon the hearts of the existing generation the significance of its entrance into covenant with the Lord. The generation, it is true, with which God made the covenant at Horeb, had all died out by that time, with the exception of Moses, Joshua, and Caleb, and only lived in the children, who, though in part born in Egypt, were all under twenty years of age at the conclusion of the covenant at Sinai, and therefore were not among the persons with whom the Lord concluded the covenant. But the covenant was made not with the particular individuals who were then alive, but rather with the nation as an organic whole. Hence Moses could with perfect justice identify those who constituted the nation at that time, with those who had entered into covenant with the Lord at Sinai. The separate pronoun (we) is added to the pronominal suffix for the sake of emphasis, just as in Genesis 4:26, etc.; and אלּה again is so connected with אנחנוּ, as to include the relative in itself.