John Calvin Commentary Deuteronomy 5

And Moses called all Israel. Since the plan and order of exposition which I have adopted required that this same preface, as it is repeated word for word in Deuteronomy, should also be read here together, I have thought it appropriate to also insert the five verses which in this place precede it.

In the first verse, Moses exhorts the people to hear the judgments and statutes of God, which he sets before them. He likewise states the object of this: that they should keep²²² them, so as to do them.

This is as if to say that he was not offering them mere empty speculations, which it was enough to understand with the mind and to talk about, but that the rule for ordering their lives was also contained in his teaching. Therefore, it urgently demands their serious meditation.

The Lord our God. In these words he commends the Law, because it must be considered a special blessing and a very high honor to be taken into covenant by God. Therefore, so that they may diligently prepare themselves to embrace the Law, he says that what was above all things to be desired, had been freely offered to them: namely, that they should be united in covenant with God.

In the next verse he still further magnifies this advantage by comparison, because God had given more to them than to their fathers. This removes all excuse from them, unless, for the sake of showing their gratitude, they give themselves up entirely to God and in return worship with sincere affection Him whom they have experienced to be so bountiful a Father.

Those who would paraphrase this sentence, “Not only with our fathers, but also with us,” pervert its proper meaning. The reason for their mistake is that God had formerly made a covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But this may be easily refuted, because the name of “fathers” does not refer to these; rather, he means by it those who had died in Egypt during the last 200 years. He justly prefers the case of the surviving people, with whom the ancient covenant had been renewed, to theirs.

Now, this reference to time was significantly calculated to stimulate and arouse them to obedience. For it would have been disgraceful for them not to acknowledge that they were honored more than their fathers by this special privilege, in order that they should excel them in their earnest zeal for God’s service.

Christ uses the same argument with His disciples: Blessed are the eyes which see the things that you see, and the ears which hear the things that you hear, etc.,²²³ (Matthew 13:16; Luke 10:23) “many Prophets and kings have desired,” etc. The sum is that the more bountifully God deals with us, the more heinous and intolerable is the crime of ingratitude, unless we willingly come to Him when He calls us and submit ourselves to His instruction.

Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them. Idolaters in vain try to evade this second point with their foolish quibbles; as among the Papists, that trivial distinction is commonly put forward, that only λατρεία,⁸¹ and not δελεία, is prohibited. For Moses, first of all, generally includes all the forms and ceremonies of worship, and then immediately adds the word עבד, gnabad, which properly means to serve.

Therefore, we conclude that they make a childish attempt at evasion when they pay only the honor of service to pictures and statues. But if we grant them what they desire, even then they will not escape, because the prohibition is equivalent to God declaring that He will not be worshiped in wood and stone, or in any other likeness.

For unbelievers have never been carried away to such a degree of folly as to worship mere statues or pictures; they have always alleged the same pretext that is common today in the mouths of the Papists, namely, that not the image itself was actually worshiped, but what it represented. But the Spirit everywhere rebukes them for worshiping gods of wood and stone, since God rejects that carnal worship that unbelievers offer before stocks and stones.

If anyone were to ask them whom they intend to worship, they will immediately reply that they offer to God the honor they pay to pictures and statues. But this frivolous excuse amounts to nothing, because to set up the idol before which they prostrate themselves is really to deny the true God. Therefore, it is no wonder that He declares that unbelievers worship wood and stone, when they worship in that wood and stone phantoms of their own imagination. And we have already said that all rites that do not align with the spiritual worship of God are forbidden here: and this is enough, and more than enough, to dispel all such vague ideas (nebulas).

For I the Lord thy God. He partly terrifies them with threats and partly attracts them with sweet promises to keep them in the way of duty. In the preceding words, He convicts them of ingratitude if they prostitute themselves to idolatry, when they had been chosen to be a unique and holy people. He then inspires them with terror by denouncing punishment and, finally, allures them with the hope of reward if they obediently continue in the pure worship of God. He does not affirm that He will be severe or kind to individuals only, but extends both to their descendants, although, as we will see later, not equally. I have indeed assigned another place to the promises and threats by which the authority of the whole Law is sanctioned; but since this clause is attached to a particular Commandment, it could not be conveniently separated from it.

The word אל, el, some translate appellatively as mighty; but since God is so called from His power, I have preferred to follow this meaning,⁸² which is more suitable here. Yet I do not think that Moses used various names without reason. For when he had first used the name אלהים, elohim, he soon afterward honors God with another title and magnifies His power, so that He may be feared. And for this reason he also calls Him the Rival,⁸³ or, as some quite aptly translate it, the jealous. For to give the name of “the envious” (obtrectatoris) to God, as someone has done, is not only foolish but monstrous. This is the word by which Cicero renders ζηλοτυπίαν,⁸⁴ expressing by it the sin of guilty rivalry, when one person envies the superiority of another.

But God is here presented to us in the character of a husband who tolerates no rival. Or, if one prefers to extend the meaning of the word, He is called the assertor of His rights, since His rivalry is nothing more than retaining what is His own and thus excluding all rivals to His honor. Because His sacred covenant with the Jews has recently been mentioned, Moses seems to allude to the violation of this spiritual marriage.

But although this divine communication begins with threatening, still, far preferring mercy to His severity, He rather gently allures them than compels them by fear to allegiance. For He declares that He will be merciful even to a thousand generations, while He only denounces punishment on the third and fourth generations (for so it is literally expressed), that is, on their grandsons and great-grandsons. Therefore, to encourage His worshipers to earnest piety, He declares that He will be kind not only to them but to their descendants, even for a thousand generations.

But this is the proof of His inestimable kindness, and even indulgence: that He deigns to bind Himself to His servants (to whom He owes nothing) to such an extent as to acknowledge, in His favor toward them, their offspring also as His people. For from this it appears that it is wrong to infer merit from the promised reward, because He does not say that He will be faithful or just toward the keepers of His Law, but merciful. Let then the most perfect come forward; he can require nothing better from God than that God should be favorable to him on the grounds of His gratuitous liberality. For חסד, chesed, is equivalent to kindness or beneficence; but when it is applied to God, it generally signifies mercy, or paternal favor, and the blessings that flow from it.

Since, then, He here promises that He will show mercy, it is as much as to say that He will be beneficent, or will deal with clemency. Therefore, it follows that the main source of reward is that gratuitous beneficence with which He liberally blesses His people. Now, when it is said, unto them that love me,⁸⁵ the fountain and origin of true righteousness is expressed; for the external observance of the Law would be of no avail unless it flowed from this source. And praise is given to love rather than to fear, because God is delighted with none but voluntary obedience; He rejects that which is forced and servile, as we will see again elsewhere. But because hypocrites also boast that they love God, while their lives do not correspond with the profession of their lips, the two things are here distinctly connected: namely, that the true servants of God love Him and keep His commandments, that is, make effectual proof of their piety.

But here a difficult question arises, for the history of all ages shows that a great proportion of the descendants of the holy have been rejected and condemned, and that God has inflicted upon them heavier manifestations of His curse and vengeance than upon strangers. We must, however, observe that in these words grace is not promised individually to all the descendants of the saints, as if God were bound to each individual who may derive their race and origin from them. There were many degenerate children of Abraham for whom it profited nothing that they were called the offspring of the holy patriarch; nor indeed is the promise restricted to individuals, for many who are children according to the flesh are not counted as the seed—but God in His free election adopts whom He wills, yet so governs His judgments that His paternal favor always abides with the race of believers.

Besides, the fruits of this promised grace are manifested in temporal blessings. Thus, although God severely avenged the sins of the children of Abraham and at length, when their impiety showed itself to be desperate, renounced them, He still did not fail to be kind to them for a thousand generations. For again, God fulfills and performs what He here promised through the outward testimonies of His favor, although these may turn to the destruction of the reprobate. Thus He was merciful to the race of Abraham as long as He saw fit to leave them the Law, the Prophets, the Temple, and other practices of religion.⁸⁶

Now, again, it will be well for us to consider how far even the holiest fall short of the perfect keeping of the Law and perfect love of God. Therefore, we need not wonder if they experience in many respects the failure of this grace and only enjoy some slight taste of it. In any case, the goodness of God always superabounds, so that His grace, if it does not shine with full splendor, still appears in bright sparks to a thousand generations.

As to the opposite clause, in which God limits His vengeance to the third or fourth generation, we see how He prefers to attract people to duty by gentle invitations, rather than by terrifying threats to extort from them more than they are willing to do, inasmuch as He extends His mercy further than the severity of His judgment. We must also observe that the transgressors of the Law are called the enemies and haters of God. It is surely a horrible and almost monstrous impiety to hate God; and scarcely would anyone be found so wicked as to declare Him openly to be his enemy. Yet it is not without cause that God pronounces so harshly concerning their impiety, for since He cannot be separated from His justice, contempt for the Law convicts people of this hatred. For it is impossible that they should not wish to deprive Him of His dominion, those who do not endure Him as a Lawgiver and a Judge.

To visit iniquities is equivalent to inquiring into them, or taking notice of them, so that punishment may be inflicted in proportion to the crime. For as long as God spares people and suspends His judgment, He seems to connive at them or to pay no attention to them. Therefore, when people think that their sin is buried, He declares that He will keep it in memory. But it may be asked, how is it consistent for God to exact punishment from the children or grandchildren on account of the sins of their fathers? For nothing is more unreasonable than for the innocent and guilty to be involved in the same punishment; and the declaration of the Prophet is well known:

The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son; but the soul that sinneth, it shall die (Ezekiel 18:20).

The difficulty that arises from the words of the Prophet is easily solved, for God in them refutes the wicked protest of the people that their children, who were not at fault, were unjustly and cruelly exposed to punishment. The proverb was common: the fathers had eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth were set on edge. But God replies that not one of those with whom He was angry and severe was free from crime; and therefore, their complaint was false, since each of them received the recompense for his own iniquity. And this is most true: God’s severity never assails the innocent; and however much the world may murmur against His judgments, He will always be manifestly just in condemning this person or that.⁸⁷

But when God declares that He will cast back the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of the children, He does not mean that He will take vengeance on poor wretches who have never deserved anything of the kind; but that He is at liberty to punish the crimes of the fathers upon their children and descendants, with the condition that they too may be justly punished, as being imitators of their fathers.

If anyone should object that this is nothing more than to repay everyone according to his works, we must remember that whenever God blinds the children of the ungodly, casts them into a state of reprobation (conjicit in sensum reprobum), and strikes them with a spirit of madness or folly, so that they give themselves up to foul desires and hasten to their final destruction—in this way the iniquity of the fathers is visited on their children.

But suppose other punishments are added, all are under condemnation (convicti), so that they have no ground for murmuring against God; and even then God still proceeds to execute the vengeance that He here denounces. For, when He intends to direct one work to various objects, He uses wonderful and secret methods. When He commanded the people of Canaan to be destroyed, it is certain that those who were then living were worthy of this punishment. Yet, inasmuch as God foretold⁸⁸ that their iniquities were not yet full, we infer that He then inflicted upon them the punishment that He had deferred for 400 years. On this ground, Christ declares that the Jews of His time were guilty of all the blood that had been shed from that of Abel to the blood of Zacharias, the son of Barachias (Matthew 23:35).

But if it is not agreeable to our judgment that God should repay everyone according to his deserts, and yet that He at the same time requires the sins of their fathers of the children, we should remember that His judgments are a great depth. Therefore, if anything in His dealings is incomprehensible to us, we must bow to it with sobriety and reverence. But since this doctrine will recur elsewhere, I have thought it fitting only to touch upon it lightly here.

One question remains: how can we reconcile Paul’s statement that the fifth commandment is the first with a promise (Ephesians 6:2), whereas a promise is attached to this second commandment? The solution to this is easy. For if you consider it carefully, this promise that we have now explained is not uniquely attached to any single commandment but is common to the whole first Table of the Law, and these commandments refer to the whole service of God. But when it is said, honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long, the keeping of that commandment is particularly and specially sanctioned.