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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Deuteronomy 30:11 - 30:11
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The fulfilment of this condition is not impossible, nor really very difficult. This natural though leads to the motive, which Moses impresses upon the hearts of the people in Deu 30:11-14, viz., that He might turn the blessing to them. God had done everything to render the observance of His commandments possible to Israel. “This commandment” (used as in Deu 6:1 to denote the whole law) is “not too wonderful for thee,” i.e., is not too hard to grasp, or unintelligible (vid., Deu 17:8), nor is it too far off: it is neither in heaven, i.e., at an inaccessible height; nor beyond the sea, i.e., at an unattainable distance, at the end of the world, so that any one could say, Who is able to fetch it thence? but it is very near thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart to do it. It not only lay before the people in writing, but it was also preached to them by word of mouth, and thus brought to their knowledge, so that it had become a subject of conversation as well as of reflection and careful examination. But however near the law had thus been brought to man, sin had so estranged the human heart from the word of God, that doing and keeping the law had become invariably difficult, and in fact impossible; so that the declaration, “the word is in thy heart,” only attains its full realization through the preaching of the gospel of the grace of God, and the righteousness that is by faith; and to this the Apostle Paul applies the passage in Rom 10:8.