Deuteronomy 6:24

And the LORD commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the LORD our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as it is at this day.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

6:17-25 Moses gives charge to keep God's commandments. Negligence will ruin us; but we cannot be saved without diligence. It is our interest, as well as our duty, to be religious. It will be our life. Godliness has the promise of the continuance and comfort of the life that now is, as far as it is for God's glory. It will be our righteousness. It is only through the Mediator we can be righteous before God. The knowledge of the spirituality and excellency of the holy law of God, is suited to show sinful man his need of a Saviour, and to prepare his heart to welcome a free salvation. The gospel honours the law, not only in the perfect obedience of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ; but in that it is a plan for bringing back apostate rebels and enemies, by repentance, faith, forgiveness, and renewing grace, to love God above all things, even in this world; and in the world above, to love him perfectly, even as angels love him.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The command "to swear by His Name" is not inconsistent with the Lord's injunction Matthew 5:34, "Swear not at all." Moses refers to legal swearing, our Lord to swearing in common conversation. It is not the purpose of Moses to encourage the practice of taking oaths, but to forbid that, when taken, they should be taken in any other name than that of Israel's God. The oath involves an invocation of Deity, and so a solemn recognition of Him whose Name is made use of in it. Hence, it comes especially within the scope of the commandment Moses is enforcing.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

20-25. when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying—The directions given for the instruction of their children form only an extension of the preceding counsels.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The benefit of obedience is ours, not God’s Job 35:7 and therefore our obedience is highly reasonable, and absolutely necessary.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes,.... Some of which were designed on purpose to commemorate the wonderful deliverance out of Egypt, as particularly the passover; and all of them they were obliged in gratitude to obey, in consideration of such great favours bestowed upon them:

to fear the Lord our God, for our good always: as it is always for the good of men, temporal, spiritual, and eternal, to fear the Lord; for there is no want to them that fear him, nor will the Lord withhold good things from them; see Psalm 34:9,

that he might preserve us alive, as it is at this day; in bodily health and strength, and in the enjoyment of the good land, and all the blessings and benefits of it.

Geneva Study Bible

And the LORD commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the LORD our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as it is at this day.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

24. Jehovah commanded us to do all these statutes] This phrase is natural to the time and standpoint assumed throughout Deuteronomy 6:20-25, viz. those of the later generation before which the statutes will already have been published. Notice, too, how naturally Jehovah is used instead of the deuteronomic Jehovah thy God; for here we have, not Moses addressing Israel, but Moses quoting what Israel are to say to their children; so, too, Jehovah our God (thrice) is to be explained. Thus two of Steuernagel’s reasons for counting the passage as secondary (that Sg. does not elsewhere in the introductory discourses take the laws as already published and that Jehovah our God does not elsewhere occur in the Sg.) are disposed of. He has missed the standpoint of the speakers whom Moses quotes. Steuernagel’s third reason for the secondariness of the passage—that it interrupts by its emphasis on obedience the Sg. course of thought, which before and after it warns against the worship of other gods—is insufficient.

might preserve us alive] Sustain the national existence which He had begun by the redemption from Egypt (Deuteronomy 6:21). The Law is given to preserve the life born in that deed of grace. See above.

alive, as at this day] ‘It deserves attention that this points to the composition [of the passage] as pre-exilic, for the Exile was felt as death’ (Bertholet). This would be a good argument if the words were part of Moses’ direct address to Israel, but they are spoken from the standpoint of a generation settled in Palestine.

Deuteronomy 6:24

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

In Deuteronomy 6:20-25, the teaching to the children, which is only briefly hinted at in Deuteronomy 6:7, is more fully explained. The Israelites were to instruct their children and descendants as to the nature, meaning, and object of the commandments of the Lord; and in reply to the inquiries of their sons, to teach them what the Lord had done for the redemption of Israel out of the bondage of Egypt, and how He had brought them into the promised land, and thus to awaken in the younger generation love to the Lord and to His commandments. The "great and sore miracles" (Deuteronomy 6:22) were the Egyptian plagues, like מפתּים, in Deuteronomy 4:34. - "To fear," etc., i.e., that we might fear the Lord.