Charles Ellicott Commentary Deuteronomy 26:16-19

"This day Jehovah thy God commandeth thee to do these statutes and ordinances: thou shalt therefore keep and do them with all thy heart, and with all thy soul. Thou hast avouched Jehovah this day to be thy God, and that thou wouldest walk in his ways, and keep his statutes, and his commandments, and his ordinances, and hearken unto his voice: and Jehovah hath avouched thee this day to be a people for his own possession, as he hath promised thee, and that thou shouldest keep all his commandments; and to make thee high above all nations that he hath made, in praise, and in name, and in honor; and that thou mayest be a holy people unto Jehovah thy God, as he hath spoken." — Deuteronomy 26:16-19 (ASV)

Deuteronomy 26:16–19. CLOSE OF THE EXHORTATION.

This day the Lord thy God hath commanded thee. These words are not to be taken as part of the service described in the previous verses, but as the words of Moses in bringing his exhortation to a close. Rashi says, “Every day these commandments shall be new before your eyes, as though on that very day you had received them.”

Thou shalt therefore keep and do them. It is a beautiful thought that the form of this command (as of many others) makes it prophetic of its own fulfillment. “It is the voice from heaven blessing you,” says Rashi. (Deuteronomy 30:8.)

Thou hast avouched ... and the Lord hath avouched. The Hebrew word is simply the ordinary word for “to say.” “You have said,” and “He has said.” There is no distinctive word for “to promise” in Hebrew. “To say” is sufficient. “Hath He said, and shall He not do it?” “Let your yea be yea, and your nay nay,” like His. But Rashi says there is no exact parallel to this use of the verb in the Old Testament, except, perhaps, in Psalm 94:4, where it means, “they boast themselves.” Let Israel boast in God, and God will boast Himself of them, as His peculiar people.

And to make thee high. Literally, most high; Hebrew, ‘Elyôn, a well-known name of God. Here, and in Deuteronomy 28:1, it is (prophetically and in the Divine purpose) applied to Israel. “Thou shalt put my Name upon the children of Israel” was the law of blessing for the priests (Numbers 6:27).

In praise, and in name, and in honour. Perhaps, rather, to be a praise, and to be a name, and to be an honour, and to become a people of holiness to Jehovah. There is an allusion to this in Jeremiah 33:9, “And it shall be to me a name of joy, a praise, and an honour before all the nations of the earth;” and in Isaiah 62:6-7, “Ye that make mention of the name of the Lord, keep not silence, and give Him no rest, till He establish, and till He make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.”

But if, as some would have us believe, the Book of Deuteronomy draws these things from the prophets, rather than the prophets from Moses, how is it that there is not the faintest allusion in Deuteronomy to Jerusalem, which in the days of the prophets had become the center of all these hopes?