John Calvin Commentary Deuteronomy 11:1

"Therefore thou shalt love Jehovah thy God, and keep his charge, and his statutes, and his ordinances, and his commandments, alway." — Deuteronomy 11:1 (ASV)

Therefore thou shalt love the Lord thy God. The whole address has this purpose: that the people should testify to their gratitude by their obedience, and so, attracted by God’s generous gifts, they should reverently embrace His Law. For this reason also, he requires them to love God before he exhorts them to obey the Law itself.

For, although he could have commandingly and threateningly commanded them, he preferred to lead them gently to obedience by presenting to them the sweetness of His grace. In summary, he exhorts them that, invited by God’s love, they should love Him in return. Meanwhile, it is important to note that willing affection is the foundation and beginning of properly obeying the Law, for what is produced by compulsion, or slavish fear, cannot please God.

He refers to the precepts of the Law by various names, so that they might zealously and attentively apply themselves to listen to God, who has left out nothing designed to order their lives; for by this variety of words, he indicates that God had thoroughly and perfectly taught whatever was necessary.

Regarding the three latter words, “his statutes, and judgments, and commandments,” reference can be made to what I have observed in Genesis and in the Psalms. The word משמות,²⁵⁴meshamroth, or guards, (custodiae,) which appears first here, is said in praise of the Law for this reason: that it encloses our life, so to speak, with barriers, so that it will not be exposed to errors on the right or on the left.

At the end of the verse, he exhorts them to persevere, because it was not permissible for the memory of their deliverance ever to cease.

²⁵⁴ משמרת. A. V., charge. The LXX. keeps closest to the Hebrew idiom, φυλάξη τὰ φυλάγματα ἄυτου. — W.