Deuteronomy 30:17 MEANING



Deuteronomy 30:17
30:15-20 What could be said more moving, and more likely to make deep and lasting impressions? Every man wishes to obtain life and good, and to escape death and evil; he desires happiness, and dreads misery. So great is the compassion of the Lord, that he has favoured men, by his word, with such a knowledge of good and evil as will make them for ever happy, if it be not their own fault. Let us hear the sum of the whole matter. If they and theirs would love God, and serve him, they should live and be happy. If they or theirs should turn from God, desert his service, and worship other gods, that would certainly be their ruin. There never was, since the fall of man, more than one way to heaven; which is marked out in both Testaments, though not with equal clearness. Moses meant that same way of acceptance, which Paul more plainly described; and Paul's words mean the same obedience, on which Moses more fully treated. In both Testaments the good and right way is brought near, and plainly revealed to us.But if thine heart turn away,.... From the true God, and the right worship of him, and from his commands, statutes, and judgments:

so that thou wilt not hear; the voice of the Lord and obey it, or hearken to his laws, and do them:

but shalt be drawn away; by an evil heart, and by the ill examples of others:

and worship other gods and serve them; the gods of the Gentiles, the idols of the people, besides the one living and true God, the God of Israel.

Courtesy of Open Bible