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That thou mayest love the Lord - Without love there can be no obedience.

Obey his voice - Without obedience love is fruitless and dead.

And cleave unto him - Without close attachment and perseverance, temporary love, however sincere and fervent - temporary obedience, however disinterested, energetic, and pure while it lasts - will be ultimately ineffectual. He alone who endures to the end, shall be saved. Reader, how do matters stand between God and thy soul? He cannot persevere in the grace of God whose soul is not yet made a partaker of that grace. Many talk strenuously on the impossibility of falling from grace, who have not yet tasted that the Lord is gracious. How absurd to talk and dispute about the infallibility of arriving safely at the end of a way in which a man has never yet taken one hearty step! It is never among those that have the grace of God, but among those that have it not, that we find an overweening confidence.

Ignorance of the requirements of the law cannot be pleaded Deuteronomy 30:10-14; hence, Deuteronomy 30:15-20 life and death, good and evil, are solemnly set before the people for their own choice; and an earnest exhortation to choose the better part concludes the address.

Deuteronomy 30:11-14. “The righteousness which is of faith” is really and truly described in these words of the Law; and, under Paul‘s guidance (see marginal references) we affirm was intended so to be. For the simplicity and accessibility which Moses here attributes to the Law of God neither is nor can be experimentally found in it except through the medium of faith; even though outwardly and in the letter that Law be written out for us so “that he may run that readeth,” and be set forth in its duties and its sanctions as plainly as it was before the Jews by Moses. The seeming ease of the commandment, and yet its real impossibility to the natural man, form part of the qualifications of the Law to be our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ.

Deuteronomy 30:11

Not hidden from thee - Rather, not too hard for thee, as in Deuteronomy 17:8.

Neither is it far off - Compare Luke 17:21.

Deuteronomy 30:13

The paraphrase of this verse in the Jerusalem Targum is noteworthy, and should be compared with Paul‘s rendering in Romans 10:7: “Neither is the law beyond the great sea, that thou shouldest say, Oh that we had one like Jonah the prophet who could descend into the depths of the sea and bring it to us!”

Deuteronomy 30:14

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

Deuteronomy 30:20

That thou mayest love the Lord - Compare Deuteronomy 6:5. Love stands first as the essential and only source of obedience.

He is thy life - Or, “that” (i. e., “to love the Lord”) “is thy life;” i. e., the condition of thy life and of its prolongation in the promised land. Compare Deuteronomy 4:40; Deuteronomy 32:47.

By the Spirit of Inspiration, looking far down the ages, Moses pictured the terrible scenes of Israel's final overthrow as a nation, and the destruction of Jerusalem by the armies of Rome: “The Lord shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand; a nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of the old, nor show favor to the young.” PP 467.1

The utter wasting of the land and the horrible suffering of the people during the siege of Jerusalem under Titus centuries later, were vividly portrayed: “He shall eat the fruit of thy cattle, and the fruit of thy land, until thou be destroyed.... And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high and fenced walls come down, wherein thou trustedst, throughout all thy land.... Thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters, which the Lord thy God hath given thee, in the siege, and in the straitness, wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee.” “The tender and delicate woman among you, which would not adventure to set the sole of her foot upon the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye shall be evil toward the husband of her bosom, ... and toward her children which she shall bear: for she shall eat them for want of all things secretly in the siege and straitness, wherewith thine enemy shall distress thee in thy gates.” PP 467.2

Moses closed with these impressive words: “I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live: that thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey His voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto Him : for He is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.” Deuteronomy 30:19, 20. PP 467.3

The more deeply to impress these truths upon all minds, the great leader embodied them in sacred verse. This song was not only historical, but prophetic. While it recounted the wonderful dealings of God with His people in the past, it also foreshadowed the great events of the future, the final victory of the faithful when Christ shall come the second time in power and glory. The people were directed to commit to memory this poetic history, and to teach it to their children and children's children. It was to be chanted by the congregation when they assembled for worship, and to be repeated by the people as they went about their daily labors. It was the duty of parents to so impress these words upon the susceptible minds of their children that they might never be forgotten. PP 467.4

The long-lost manuscript was found in the temple by Hilkiah, the high priest, while the building was undergoing extensive repairs in harmony with King Josiah's plan for the preservation of the sacred structure. The high priest handed the precious volume to Shaphan, a learned scribe, who read it and then took it to the king with the story of its discovery. PK 393.1

Josiah was deeply stirred as he heard read for the first time the exhortations and warnings recorded in this ancient manuscript. Never before had he realized so fully the plainness with which God had set before Israel “life and death, blessing and cursing” (Deuteronomy 30:19): and how repeatedly they had been urged to choose the way of life, that they might become a praise in the earth, a blessing to all nations. “Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid,” Israel had been exhorted through Moses; “for the Lord thy God. He it is that doth go with thee; He will not fail thee, not forsake thee.” Deuteronomy 31:6. PK 393.2

The book abounded in assurances of God's willingness to save to the uttermost those who should place their trust fully in Him. As He had wrought in their deliverance from Egyptian bondage, so would He work mightily in establishing them in the Land of Promise and in placing them at the head of the nations of earth. PK 393.3

The encouragements offered as the reward of obedience were accompanied by prophecies of judgments against the disobedient; and as the king heard the inspired words, he recognized, in the picture set before him, conditions that were similar to those actually existing in his kingdom. In connection with these prophetic portrayals of departure from God, he was startled to find plain statements to the effect that the day of calamity would follow swiftly and that there would be no remedy. The language was plain; there could be no mistaking the meaning of the words. And at the close of the volume, in a summary of God's dealings with Israel and a rehearsal of the events of the future, these matters were made doubly plain. In the hearing of all Israel, Moses had declared: PK 393.4