John Calvin Commentary Deuteronomy 29

Yet the Lord hath not given. By reproaching them with their past stupidity, Moses stirs up their desire for a better understanding. It is as if he had said that they had been too long indifferent to so many miracles, and therefore they should no longer delay to rouse themselves and pay greater attention to God. This was not because they had been so senseless that His acts had altogether escaped their notice, but because all acknowledgment of them had immediately come to an end.

For, just as a drunken man, or one suffering from lethargy, when he hears a cry, raises his head for a moment and opens his eyes, and then relapses into a state of torpor, so the people had never seriously applied their minds to consider God’s works. When they had been aroused by some miracle, they had immediately sunk back into forgetfulness. Therefore, there is good cause why Moses should seek to awaken them from their dullness and stupidity by various methods.

But Moses does not merely condemn their senselessness, blindness, and deafness. He declares that they were senseless, blind, and deaf because they were not inspired with grace from above to benefit appropriately from so many lessons. From this we learn that a clear and powerful understanding is a special gift of the Spirit, since people are always blind even in the brightest light, until they have been enlightened by God.

What Moses relates concerning the Israelites is unquestionably common to us all. He declares, then, that they were not induced by the conspicuous glory of God to fear and worship Him, because He had not given them either mind, or eyes, or ears. It is true that at humanity’s creation God naturally bestowed upon us a mind, ears, and eyes. However, Moses means that whatever innate light we have is either hidden or lost, so that, regarding the highest point of wisdom, all our senses lie useless.

It is true that in nature’s corruption, the light still shineth in darkness, but it is a light that is soon obscured. Therefore, the entire understanding and faculty of reason, in which people glory and pride themselves, is nothing but smoke and darkness. David may well then ask that his eyes may be opened to behold the secrets of the Law²⁵⁹ (Psalms 119:18).

Still, this defect by no means frees us from blame, because (as we are told) none have wisdom but those to whom it is given by the Father of lights; for we are ignorant²⁶⁰ through our own fault. Besides, everyone is sufficiently, and more than sufficiently, convicted by his own conscience that his ignorance is closely connected with pride and indolence, and is therefore voluntary.

The word heart is not here used for the seat of the affections, but for the mind itself, which is the intellectual faculty of the soul.

And when you came to this place. This is a third instance of God’s goodness: He had defeated the first enemies who encountered them to hinder their passage, and thus had already begun to bring them into a place of rest. For since the two and a half tribes had chosen their home here, they could see as in a mirror that the possession of the promised land awaited them.

Therefore, Moses concludes that they were under obligation to keep the law, and exhorts them to show their gratitude by faithful and sincere obedience. The object, therefore, of this account is to secure reverent attention to his doctrine, since the word שכל,²⁶¹ shakal, in Hiphil, means to act successfully as well as prudently. I have provided both readings, since they are equally suitable to the sense.

For we have seen in chapter 4 that this was the people’s only wisdom: to obey God’s statutes. Nor was their prosperity to be expected from any other source except God’s blessing, which is everywhere promised to the Israelites if they keep the law.

Ye stand this day all of you before the Lord your God. Again Moses, as God’s appointed²⁶¹ representative, sanctions the doctrine he proclaimed with a solemn charge. For this purpose, he says that the Israelites stood there not only to hear God's voice but also to enter into a covenant with Him, so that they would apply themselves seriously, and with appropriate reverence, to fulfill the promise they had made.

He not only addresses their leaders, but after beginning with the officers, the elders, and men,²⁶² he includes the little children and the wives, so that they might understand that their entire people, from the least to the greatest, were bound to keep the Law. Indeed, he adds all the foreigners who had devoted themselves to the service of the God of Israel, and states particularly that even the gatekeepers and servants²⁶³ were included in the covenant, so that the minds of those who derive their origin from the holy Patriarchs would be more solemnly impressed.

Moreover, so that they might accept the covenant with greater reverence, he says that it was established with an oath. Now, if perjury between people is detestable, it is much less pardonable to be false to what you have promised God by His sacred name.

Finally, he requires that the covenant should be reverenced, both for its advantages and its antiquity. Nothing was more advantageous for the Israelites than to be adopted by God as His people; this incomparable advantage, therefore, should rightly make the covenant pleasing. And, besides the immense greatness of this blessing, God had anticipated them with His grace many ages²⁶⁴ before they were born.

It would have been, therefore, very disgraceful not to embrace eagerly and ardently such a significant pledge of His love.

Nevertheless, the question arises here: how could the little children have entered into the covenant when they were not yet of a suitable age to learn (its contents; ²⁶⁵)? The answer is simple: although they did not receive the promised salvation by faith, nor, on the other hand, renounce the flesh so as to dedicate themselves to God, they were still bound to God by the same obligations their parents took upon themselves. For, since the grace was common to all, it was fitting that their consent to testify their gratitude should also be universal, so that when the children came of age, they would more cheerfully strive for holiness, remembering they had already been dedicated to God.

For circumcision was a sign of their adoption from their mother’s womb. Therefore, although they did not yet possess faith or understanding, God had paternal power over them because He had conferred such a great honor upon them.

Thus, nowadays, infants are initiated into the service of God,²⁶⁶ whom they do not yet know, by baptism; because He marks them as His own special people and claims them as His children when He grafts them into the body of Christ.

Moses goes further, stating that their descendants were bound by the same covenant, as if already enslaved to God. And surely, since slavery passes on by inheritance, it should not seem absurd that the same right should be assigned to God that mortal men claim for themselves. What he says, then, is equivalent to reminding the Israelites that they covenanted with God in the name of their offspring, so as to devote both themselves and those belonging to them to His service.