Verse 1. - This day; at this time, very soon. Nations, etc. (cf. Deuteronomy 7:1). Cities (cf. Deuteronomy 1:28).

Verse 2. - Anakim (cf. Deuteronomy 1:28). It was a common saying, Who can stand before the sons of Anak? But even these gigantic foes should be unable to stand before Israel (cf. Deuteronomy 7:24):

Verse 3. - Understand therefore this day; rather, And thou knowest today or now. The expression corresponds to ver. 1, "Thou art to pass... and thou knowest." In the victory they had obtained over Sihon and Og, they had already had experience of the Lord's going before them, and leading them on in triumph. The repetition of the He in this verse is very emphatic. Consuming fire (cf. Deuteronomy 4:24). Quickly, or suddenly. There is no contradiction here of what is said in Deuteronomy 7:22; for there the reference is to the possession of the land by Israel, here it is to the destruction which was to come on the Canaanites - the former was to be by degrees, the latter was to come suddenly and overwhelmingly. As Jehovah hath said unto thee (cf. Exodus 23:23, 27, etc.; Deuteronomy 2:24, etc.).

Verses 4, 5. - Speak not thou in thine heart (cf. Deuteronomy 8:17). The distinction between righteousness and uprightness (straightness) of heart, is that the former (צֶדֶ) has reference to rectitude of conduct, the latter (ישֶׁר) to rectitude of motive and purpose. "By naming justice [righteousness], he excludeth all merit of works, and by righteousness [uprightness] of heart, all inward affections and purposes. which men might plead, notwithstanding that they fail in action. Yet these two are the chief things which God respecteth in men (Psalm 15:1, 2; 1 Chronicles 29:17)" (Ainsworth).

Verse 6. - Stiffnecked, hard of neck; stubborn, obstinate, rebellious.

Verses 7-25. - Moses reminds them of many instances of their rebelliousness by which they had provoked the Lord, from the time of their escape out of Egypt until their arrival in the plains of Moab. Their rebellion began even before they had wholly escaped from their oppressors, before they had passed through the Bed Sea (Exodus 14:11). Even at Horeb, where, amid the most affecting manifestations alike of the Divine majesty and the Divine grace, just after the Lord had spoken to them directly out of the fire, and whilst Moses had gone up to receive the tables of the Law, on which the covenant of God with Israel was based, and whilst that covenant was being struck, they had sinned so grievously as to make to themselves a molten image, which they worshipped with idolatrous rites (Exodus 31:18-32:6; cf. Deuteronomy 24:12, etc.).

Verse 9. - The clause, Then I abode... water, is a parenthesis; the sentence runs on from. When I was gone, etc., to Then [not And] the Lord delivered unto me, etc.

Verse 10. - The day of the assembly; the day when the people, called out by Moses, were gathered together in the plain at the foot of Mount Sinai (Exodus 19:17).

Verses 12-14. - (Cf. Exodus 32:7-10.) Let me alone; literally, Desist from me, i.e. Do not by pleadings and entreaties attempt to prevent me; in Exodus 32:10 the expression used is, "Let me rest; leave me in quiet (הַנָּיחָה לִי); cease to urge me."

Verse 17. - Moses cast from him the two tables of stone on which God had inscribed the words of the Law, and broke them in pieces in the view of the people, when he came down from the mount and saw how they had turned aside from the right way, and were become idolaters. This was not the effect of a burst of indignation on his part; it was a solemn declaration that the covenant of God with his people had been nullified and broken by their sinful apostasy.

Verses 18-20. - Moses interceded with God for the people before he came down from the mount (Exodus 22:11, etc.); but this he passes over here, merely referring to it in the words, "as at the first," and makes special mention only of a subsequent intercession, that mentioned in Exodus 34:28. In the account in Exodus nothing is said of Moses interceding for Aaron specially, as well as for the people generally; but prominence is given to this here, "not only that he might make the people thoroughly aware that at that time Israel could not boast even of the righteousness of its eminent men (cf. Isaiah 43:27), but also to bring out the fact, which is described still more fully in Deuteronomy 10:6, sqq., that Aaron's investiture with the priesthood and the maintenance of this institution was purely a work of Divine grace" (Keil). That Aaron, however, was regarded as especially to be blamed in this matter is clearly intimated in Exodus 32:21, 22.

Verses 22-24. - Not only at Horeb, but at other places and on other occasions, had Israel provoked the Lord to wrath by their contumacy. At Taberah, by their complaining and discontent (Numbers 11:1-3); at Massah, by their murmuring because of the want of water (Exodus 17. l, etc.); at Kibroth-hattaavah, by despising the manna, and lusting for flesh to eat (Numbers 11:4, etc.); and at Kadesh-barnea, when on the confines of the Promised Land, they distrusted God, reproached him for having brought them there to be destroyed, and sought to return to Egypt (Numbers 14:1, etc.; Deuteronomy 1:26). "The list is not arranged chronologically, but advances from the smaller to the morn serious forms of guilt: For Moses was seeking to sharpen the consciences of the people, and to impress upon them the fact that they had been rebellious against the Lord (see at ver. 7) from the very beginning, 'from the day that I knew you'" (Keil).

Verse 25-29. - Having enumerated these instances of the rebelliousness of the people, Moses reverts to the apostasy at Sinai, in order still more to impress on the minds of the people the conviction that not for any righteousness or merit of theirs, but solely of his own grace, was God fulfilling to them his covenant with their fathers. Verse 25. - Thus I fell down before the Lord forty days and forty nights, as I fell down at the first; rather, the forty days and forty nights in which I fell down. The reference is to the intercession before Moses came down from the mount, described in Exodus 32:11-13. (For the form of the expression, cf. Deuteronomy 1:46.)

Verses 26-29. - In these verses the substance of Moses' intercession is given, and it is substantially in agreement with the account in Exodus. Moses pleaded with God not to destroy that people which was his own, which he had redeemed for himself and brought out of Egypt; besought him to remember their pious ancestors, and not to look on the stubbornness and sin of the people; and urged that the Divine honor was concerned in their being conducted to Canaan, and not let perish in the wilderness.

Verse 28. - The land, that is, the people of the land, as in Genesis 41:36 - the Egyptians; the verb, accordingly, is in the plural. Were the Israelites to perish in the wilderness, the Egyptians might say that God had destroyed them, either because he was unable to obtain for them the land he had promised them, or because he had ceased to regard them with favor, and had become their enemy. Neither of these could be, for were they not the people of his inheritance, and had he not showed his power already in delivering them out of Egypt? As Moses in this chapter recalls to the remembrance of Israel this and that place, time, and occasion of their sinning, so should each one often seriously reflect on his past life. This conduces to humility, to watchfulness, and to effort at improvement (Herxheimer).