Commentary - Deuteronomy 4:1-4

Bird's-eye view

In this potent opening to the fourth chapter of Deuteronomy, Moses, acting as God's covenant mediator, lays down the fundamental principle of all true religion: hear and obey. This is not a suggestion; it is the very condition for life and blessing. The passage establishes a stark antithesis between covenant faithfulness and apostasy. Faithfulness is defined as treasuring the Word of God as it is given, without human amendments, additions, or subtractions. Apostasy is illustrated with the raw and recent memory of Baal-peor, where compromise with idolatry and sexual sin resulted in a swift and lethal judgment from God. The central lesson is that God's Word is a perfect and sufficient guide, a protective hedge. To tamper with it is to invite death, while to cling to it is to secure life. This is the choice set before Israel as they stand on the cusp of the Promised Land, and it remains the fundamental choice for God's people in every generation.

Moses is not simply giving them a to-do list. He is grounding their future existence as a nation in their relationship to the revealed Word of God. Their life, their inheritance, and their identity are all bound up in whether they will treat God's commands as ultimate or as a rough draft to be improved upon. The historical example of Baal-peor serves as Exhibit A in this covenant lawsuit, demonstrating that the choice between obedience and disobedience is quite literally a matter of life and death.

Outline

Context In Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy is structured as a series of farewell addresses from Moses to the generation of Israelites poised to enter Canaan. After a historical prologue recounting their journey from Horeb (Sinai), Moses now begins the core section of the book: the exposition of the law. Chapter 4 serves as a powerful introduction to this legal section. It is a passionate exhortation to keep the covenant, framed by the memory of God's past judgments and the promise of future blessings. This passage sets the stage for the repetition of the Ten Commandments in chapter 5 and the detailed statutes and judgments that follow. The principle established here in verse 2, the sufficiency and finality of God's written Word, is a foundational theme for the entire book and, indeed, for the entire Bible.

Key Issues

The Un-editable Word

At the heart of this passage is one of the most important principles in all of Scripture. God has spoken, and man is not invited to be His editor. The command in verse 2 is an iron-clad protection around the divine revelation. God is essentially telling Israel, "I have given you a perfect rule for life. I have not stuttered, and I have not forgotten anything. Your job is not to improve upon it, but to obey it."

This strikes at the two central temptations of all fallen religion. The first is the temptation to add to God's Word. This is the sin of legalism, of the Pharisee. It says that God's commands are a good starting point, but we need to supplement them with our own traditions, our own hedges, our own clever applications, and then treat our additions as though they were divinely inspired. The second temptation is to take away from God's Word. This is the sin of liberalism, of the Sadducee. It looks at the commands of God and decides which ones are inconvenient, outdated, or offensive to the surrounding culture, and simply lops them off. Both impulses come from the same arrogant root: the belief that man knows better than God. Moses establishes from the outset that Israel's life depends on them rejecting both temptations and receiving the Word as it is given, whole and entire.

Verse by Verse Commentary

1 “So now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I am teaching you to do, so that you may live and go in and take possession of the land which Yahweh, the God of your fathers, is giving you.

The address begins with a summons to listen. In Hebrew, to listen (shema) means more than just to hear auditorily; it means to hear with the intent to obey. It is an active, engaged listening. Moses is about to lay out the covenant stipulations, the rules of the game for their life in the land. And the stakes could not be higher. The result of this obedient listening is twofold: first, that you may live. This is not just about avoiding death, but about experiencing true, flourishing, covenantal life under God's blessing. Second, it is the condition for taking possession of the land. The land is a gift, given by "Yahweh, the God of your fathers," but it is a gift to be received and held on the terms of the Giver. Obedience is the path to both life and inheritance.

2 You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of Yahweh your God which I am commanding you.

Here is the bedrock principle. The Word of God is a closed canon. It is perfect, complete, and sufficient. Man's task is not to revise it but to keep it. To add to the Word is to imply God left something important out. To take away from it is to imply God put something foolish in. Both are insults to the wisdom of God and acts of rebellion. Notice the reason given: "that you may keep the commandments." Tampering with the Word is not a way to improve obedience; it is the very thing that makes true obedience impossible. Once you grant yourself the authority to edit the commands, you are no longer obeying God; you are obeying your edited version of God. You have made yourself the ultimate authority, and that is the essence of sin.

3 Your eyes have seen what Yahweh has done in the case of Baal-peor, for all the men who walked after Baal-peor, Yahweh your God has destroyed them from among you.

Moses does not leave this as an abstract principle. He immediately provides a terrifying, concrete example from their very recent history. "You want to know what happens when you mix God's commands with the religion of the world? Remember Baal-peor." The incident, recorded in Numbers 25, was a catastrophic failure. Israelite men were seduced by Moabite women into sexual immorality and the worship of their god, Baal. It was a syncretistic disaster. And God's judgment was immediate and devastating. A plague swept through the camp, and God commanded the leaders of the idolaters to be executed. Moses says, "Your eyes have seen it." This was not ancient history; it was a fresh wound, a powerful object lesson. The men who "walked after Baal-peor" were utterly destroyed. This is what happens when you try to serve both God and Baal.

4 But you who clung to Yahweh your God are alive today, every one of you.

The contrast is sharp and glorious. On the one hand, death and destruction for the apostates. On the other, life for the faithful. The verb here is beautiful: clung. It is the Hebrew word dabaq, which is used to describe how a man is to leave his parents and "hold fast" to his wife (Gen 2:24). It speaks of a loyal, tenacious, whole-hearted attachment. It is not a casual association but a deep, covenantal bond. While some were chasing foreign women and foreign gods, this remnant clung to Yahweh. And the result? "You are alive today, every one of you." God's judgment is discriminating. He knows how to separate the chaff from the wheat. In the midst of a national apostasy and a divine plague, God preserved His faithful ones. Life is the reward for clinging to the Lord.

Application

This passage is as relevant to the church in the twenty-first century as it was to Israel on the plains of Moab. The spirit of Baal-peor is alive and well. The world constantly invites the church to compromise, to soften the hard edges of Scripture, to blend in, to be more "relevant." It tempts us to add to God's Word with therapeutic jargon, political ideologies, or seeker-sensitive gimmicks. It tempts us to take away from God's Word by ignoring the Bible's clear teaching on sexual ethics, the reality of hell, or the exclusive claims of Jesus Christ.

Every time a church revises its doctrine to accommodate the sexual revolution, it is adding to and taking away from the Word. Every time a Christian decides that the Bible's commands about money, forgiveness, or speech are no longer practical, he is setting himself up as God's editor. The warning of Moses is stark: this path leads to death. It leads to the destruction of individuals, families, and churches.

The call for us is the same as it was for Israel: to cling to the Lord our God. This means clinging to His Word as our sole and sufficient authority for faith and life. It means refusing to be seduced by the allure of cultural acceptance. It means believing that God's way is the way of life, even when it looks like the way of foolishness to the world. The faithful remnant at Baal-peor survived the plague because they refused to bow. In the same way, the church will only survive the plagues of modernity if we cling tenaciously, stubbornly, and joyfully to the un-editable Word of the living God.