Deuteronomy 13:4

Deu 13:4 Ye shall walk after the LORD your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him.

Ver. 4. Ye shall walk after the Lord.] A special antidote against apostasy from the truth, {2Pe 3:17-18} whereas those that have "put away a good conscience, do, as concerning faith, easily make shipwreck." {1Ti 1:19}

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Deu_13:4

Ye shall walk after the Lord your God.

With, before, after

(with Gen_5:22; Gen_17:1):--You see that these three fragments, in their resemblances and in their differences, are equally significant. They concur in regarding life as a walk--a metaphor which expresses continuity, so that every mans life is a whole, which expresses progress, and which implies a goal. They agree in saying that God must be brought into a life somehow, and in some aspect, if that life is to be anything else but an aimless wandering, if it is to tend to the point to which every human life should attain. But then they diverge, and, if we put them together, they say to us that there are three different ways in which we ought to bring God into our life. We should walk with Him, like Enoch; we should walk before Him, as Abraham was bade to do; and we should walk after Him, as the command to do was given to all Israel.

I. Enoch walked with God. Two men travelling along a road keep each other company. How can two walk together except they be agreed? The Companion is at our side all the same, though the mists may have come down and we cannot see Him. Enoch and God walked together, by the simple exercise of the faith that fills the Invisible with one great, loving face. The one thing that parts a man from God, and makes it impossible for a heart to expatiate in the thought of His presence, is the contrariety to His will in our conduct.

II. And now take the other aspect suggested by the other little word God spoke to Abraham: I am the Almighty God, walk before Me and be thou perfect. That suggests, as I suppose I do not need to point out, the idea not only of communion, which the former phrase brought to our minds, but that of the inspection of our conduct. As ever in the great Taskmasters eye, says the stern Puritan poet, and although one may object to that word Taskmaster, yet the idea conveyed is the correct expansion of the commandment given to Abraham. Observe how walk with me is dovetailed, as it were, between the revelation I am the Almighty God and the injunction be thou perfect. This thought that we are in that Divine Presence, and that there is silently, but most really, a Divine opinion being formed of us, consolidated, as it were, moment by moment through our lives, is only tolerable if we have been walking with God. We must first walk with God before the consciousness that we are walking before Him becomes one that we can entertain and not go mad. When we are sure of the with we can bear the before. A masters eye maketh diligent servants. Walk before Me and you will be perfect. If you will walk before Me you will be perfect.

III. Lastly, take the other relation, which is suggested by the third of my texts, where Israel as a whole is commanded to walk after the Lord their God. In harmony with the very frequent expression of the Old Testament about going after idols, so Israel here is to go after God. What does that mean? Communion, the consciousness of being judged by God will lead on to aspiration and loving, longing effort to get nearer and nearer to Him. My soul followeth hard after Thee, said the Psalmist, Thy right hand upholdeth me. That element of yearning aspiration, of eager desire to be closer and closer, and liker and liker, to God must be in all true religion. And I need not do more than remind you of another meaning involved in this same expression. If I walk after God, then I let Him go before me and show me my road. Do you remember how, when the ark was to cross Jordan, the commandment was given to the Israelites to let it go well on in front, so that there could be no mistake about the course, for ye have not passed this way heretofore. Do not be in too great a hurry to press upon the heels of God, if I may so say. Do not let your decisions outrun His providence. Keep back the impatience that would hurry on, and wait for His ripening purposes to ripen and His counsels to develop themselves. Walk after God, and be sure you do not go in front of your Guide, or you will lose both your way and your Guide. I need not say more than a word about the highest aspect which this third of our commandments takes: His sheep follow Him, leaving us an example that we should follow in His steps. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

The ladder of attainment

From these words we gather that many expressions were needed to describe the true disposition and attitude of the mind of Israel toward God. Each expression denotes something different, and each seems to make a progressive advance.

I. Ye shall walk after the Lord your God. This means follow Him, i.e. go whither He would have you go. We must follow as the sheep follows the shepherd. But, again, we are not simply like sheep. When Israel came out of Egypt the trumpets were blown, and all followed in order behind them. This is of the first importance, that men should joyfully obey the cry. Follow Him--follow after Jesus!

II. Fear him. Those who resolve to follow Him must so do it that they shall honour Him and remember that He has power to withstand those who oppose Him. Gods people must be filled with a sense of His greatness, majesty, and righteousness as revealed in the Redeemer. Without the sense of this, we lose the attitude of mind in which we can best honour Him. Those who seek to follow Him without this fear are likely in time to become rebels in His kingdom.

III. Ye shall keep His commandments. God has given commands Thou shalt; Thou shalt not. The fear of God impels to the keeping of these. Not a cringing dread is this fear. This would make the keeping of the commandments merely a secondary matter. God must be so feared that what He has commanded shall be our delight to perform.

IV. Ye shall obey his voice. Even when His way seems enigmatic, and also when He gives special intimations of His will besides the commands laid down, just as He led Israel by ways they knew not, etc. On the way of life we must ever be on our guard so that we may find the right way, so much the more as snares are laid in our way by the adversary--from which we cannot deliver ourselves, but which we shall be able to avoid if we listen to the voice of the Spirit, who teaches us to be circumspect, and points out the way to us.

V. Ye shall serve Him, i.e. we must not be autocrats, but servants of God only. Thus we learn to please Him in self-denial and in a jealous care for His glory. Then, too, we shall gladly be found where the honour due to Him is offered with prayer and adoration.

VI. Ye shall cleave unto him, i.e. ye shall seek His presence with burning desires, and with deepest love and warmth of heart and spirit. When we have reached thus far, that we cleave to Him and Then grow up in Him, as the branch in the vine stem, great shall be our gain I may it be said of us, Where I am, there shall also My servant be! (J. C. Blumhardt.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Genesis

WITH, BEFORE, AFTER

‘Enoch walked with God,’- Gen 5:22.

‘Walk before Me.’- Gen 17:1.

‘Ye shall walk after the Lord your God.’- Deu 13:4.

You will have anticipated, I suppose, my purpose in doing what I very seldom do-cutting little snippets out of different verses and putting them together. You see that these three fragments, in their resemblances and in their differences, are equally significant and instructive. They concur in regarding life as a walk-a metaphor which expresses continuity, so that every man’s life is a whole, which expresses progress, which expresses change, and which implies a goal. They agree in saying that God must he brought into a life somehow, and in some aspect, if that life is to be anything else but an aimless wandering, if it is to tend to the point to which every human life should attain. But then they diverge, and, if we put them together, they say to us that there are three different ways in which we ought to bring God into our life. We should ‘walk with Him,’ like Enoch; we should ‘walk before’ Him, as Abraham was bade to do; and we should ‘walk after’ Him, as the command to do was given to all Israel. And these three prepositions, with, before, after, attached to the general idea of life as a walk, give us a triple aspect-which yet is, of course, fundamentally, one-of the way in which life may be ennobled, dignified, calmed, hallowed, focussed, and concentrated by the various relations into which we enter with Him. So I take the three of them.

1. ‘Enoch walked with God.’

That is a sweet, simple, easily intelligible, and yet lofty way of putting the notion which we bring into a more abstract and less impressive shape when we talk about communion with God. Two men travelling along a road keep each other company. ‘How can two walk together except they be agreed?’ The companion is at our side all the same, though the mists may have come down and we cannot see Him. We can hear His voice, we can grasp His hand, we can catch the echoes of His steps. We know He is there, and that is enough. Enoch and God walked together, by the simple exercise of the faith that fills the Invisible with one great, loving Face. By a continuous, definite effort, as we are going through the bustle of daily life, and amid all the pettiness and perplexities and monotonies that make up our often weary and always heavy days, we can realise to ourselves that He is of a truth at our sides, and by purity of life and heart we can bring Him nearer, and can make ourselves more conscious of His nearness. For, brethren, the one thing that parts a man from God, and makes it impossible for a heart to expatiate in the thought of His presence, is the contrariety to His will in our conduct. The slightest invisible film of mist that comes across the blue abyss of the mighty sky will blot out the brightest of the stars, and we may sometimes not be able to see the mist, and only know that it is there because we do not see the planet. So unconscious sin may steal in between us and God, and we shall no longer be able to say, ‘I walk with Him.’

The Roman Catholics talk, in their mechanical way, of bringing down all the spiritual into the material and formal, about the ‘practice of the presence of God.’ It is an ugly phrase, but it means a great thing, that Christian people ought, very much more than they do, to aim, day by day, and amidst their daily duties, at realising that most elementary thought which, like a great many other elementary thoughts, is impotent because we believe it so utterly, that wherever we are, we may have Him with us. It is the secret of blessedness, of tranquillity, of power, of everything good and noble.

‘I am a stranger with Thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were,’ said the Psalmist of old. If he had left out these two little words, ‘with Thee,’ he would have been uttering a tragic complaint; but when they come in, all that is painful, all that is solitary, all that is transient, bitterly transient, in the long succession of the generations that have passed across earth’s scene, and have not been kindred to it, is cleared away and changed into gladness. Never mind, though you are a stranger, if you have that companion. Never mind, though you are only a sojourner; if you have Him with you, whatever passes He will not pass; and though we dwell here in a system to which we do not belong, and its transiency and our transiency bring with them many sorrows, when we can say, ‘Lord! Thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations,’ we are at home, and that eternal home will never pass.

Enoch ‘walked with God,’ and, of course, ‘God took him,’ There was nothing else for it, and there could be no other end, for a life of communion with God here has in it the prophecy and the pledge of a life of eternal union hereafter. So, then, ‘practise the presence of God.’ An old mystic says: ‘If I can tell how many times to-day I have thought about God, I have not thought about Him often enough.’ Walk with Him by faith, by effort, by purity.

2. And now take the other aspect suggested by the other word God spoke to Abraham: ‘I am the Almighty God, walk before Me and be thou perfect.’

That suggests, as I suppose I do not need to point out, the idea not only of communion, which the former phrase brought to our minds, but that of the inspection of our conduct. ‘As ever in the great Taskmaster’s eye,’ says the stern Puritan poet, and although one may object to that word ‘Taskmaster,’ yet the idea conveyed is the correct expansion of the commandment given to Abraham. Observe how ‘walk before Me’ is dovetailed, as it were, between the revelation ‘I am the Almighty God’ and the injunction ‘Be thou perfect.’ The realisation of that presence of the Almighty which is implied in the expression ‘Walk before Me,’ the assurance that we are in His sight, will lead straight to the fulfilment of the injunction that bears upon the moral conduct. The same connection of thought underlies Peter’s injunction, ‘Like as He . . .is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation,’ followed immediately as it is by, ‘If ye call on Him as Father, who without respect of persons judgeth’-as a present estimate-’according to every mail’s work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear’-that reverential awe which will lead you to be ‘holy even as I am holy.’

This thought that we are in that divine presence, and that there is silently, but most really, a divine opinion being formed of us, consolidated, as it were, moment by moment through our lives, is only tolerable if we have been walking with God. If we are sure, by the power of our communion with Him, of His loving heart as well as of His righteous judgment, then we can spread ourselves out before Him, as a woman will lay out her webs of cloth on the green grass for the sun to blaze down upon them, and bleach the ingrained filth out of them. We must first walk ‘with God’ before the consciousness that we are walking ‘before’ Him becomes one that we can entertain and not go mad. When we are sure of the ‘with’ we can bear the ‘before.’

Did you ever see how on a review day, as each successive battalion and company nears the saluting-point where the General inspecting sits, they straighten themselves up and dress their ranks, and pull themselves together as they pass beneath his critical eye. A master’s eye makes diligent servants. If we, in the strength of God, would only realise, day by day and act by act of our lives, that we are before Him, what a revolution could be effected on our characters and what a transformation on all our conduct!

‘Walk before Me’ and you will be perfect. For the Hebrew words on which I am now commenting may be read, in accordance with the usage of the language, as being not only a commandment but a promise, or, rather, not as two commandments, but a commandment with an appended promise, and so as equivalent to ‘If you will walk before Me you will be perfect.’ And if we realise that we are under ‘the pure eyes and perfect judgment of’ God, we shall thereby be strongly urged and mightily helped to be perfect as He is perfect.

3. Lastly, take the other relation, which is suggested by the third of my texts, where Israel as a whole is commanded to ‘walk after the Lord’ their God.

In harmony with the very frequent expression of the Old Testament about ‘going after idols’ so Israel here is to ‘go after God.’ What does that mean? Communion, the consciousness of being judged by God, will lead on to aspiration and loving, longing effort to get nearer and nearer to Him. ‘My soul followeth hard after Thee,’ said the Psalmist, ‘Thy right hand upholdeth me.’ That element of yearning aspiration, of eager desire to be closer and closer, and liker and liker, to God must be in all true religion. And unless we have it in some measure, it is useless to talk about being Christian people. To press onwards, not as though we had already attained, but following after, if that we may apprehend that for which also we are apprehended, is the attitude of every true follower of Christ. The very crown of the excellence of the Christian life is that it never can reach its goal, and therefore an immortal youth of aspiration and growth is guaranteed to it. Christian people, are you following after God? Are you any nearer to Him than you were ten years ago? ‘Walk with Me, walk before Me, walk after Me.’

I need not do more than remind you of another meaning involved in this same expression. If I walk after God, then I let Him go before me and show me my road. Do you remember how, when the ark was to cross Jordan, the commandment was given to the Israelites to let it go well on in front, so that there should be no mistake about the course, ‘for ye have not passed this way heretofore.’ Do not be in too great a hurry to press upon the heels of God, if I may so say. Do not let your decisions outrun His providence. Keep back the impatience that would hurry on, and wait for His ripening purposes to ripen and His counsels to develop themselves. Walk after God, and be sure you do not go in front of your Guide, or you will lose both your way and your Guide.

I need not say more than a word about the highest aspect which this third of our commandments takes, ‘His sheep follow Him’-’leaving us an example that we should follow in His steps,’ that is the culmination of the walking ‘with,’ and ‘before,’ and ‘after’ God which these Old Testament saints were partially practising. All is gathered into the one great word, ‘He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk even as He walked.’

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ye shall walk after the Lord your God,.... As he has directed, according to the laws and rules which he has given, both with respect to their moral and civil conduct, and their religious worship of him; and so the Targum of Jonathan,"ye shall walk after the worship of the Lord your God:"

and fear him, and keep his commandments; fear to offend him, and so keep his commandments; or keep his commandments from or through fear; not a servile but a filial one, a reverential affection for him; this is the whole duty of man, Ecc 12:13,

and obey his voice; in his word, or by his prophets and ministers: it may very well be understood of the voice of Christ, the Angel that went before them, whose voice they were continually to hearken to and obey, Exo 23:21.

and you shall serve him, and cleave unto him; it may respect all religious worship, both private and public; the Targum of Jonathan restrains it to prayer, but it not only includes that, but all other acts of piety and devotion, and which are to be constantly performed and not departed from; for so to do is to cleave to the Lord as a man to his wife, or a woman to her husband, in which conjugal relation God and his people Israel were, he was an husband unto them, and to do otherwise is to go a whoring from him after other gods.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Ye shall serve him, to wit, only, as appears from the opposition. Compare Deu 6:13, with Mat 4:10.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

God permitted false prophets to rise up with such wonders, to try the Israelites, whether they loved Him, the Lord their God, with all their heart. (נסּה as in Gen 22:1.) אהבים הישׁכם, whether ye are loving, i.e., faithfully maintain your love to the Lord. It is evident from this, "that however great the importance attached to signs and wonders, they were not to be regarded among the Israelites, either as the highest test, or as absolutely decisive, but that there was a certainty in Israel, which was so much the more certain and firm than any proof from miracles could be, that it might be most decidedly opposed to it" (Baumgarten). This certainty, however, was not "the knowledge of Jehovah," as B. supposes; but as Luther correctly observes, "the word of God, which had already been received, and confirmed by its own signs," and which the Israelites were to preserve and hold fast, without adding or subtracting anything. "In opposition to such a word, no prophets were to be received, although they rained signs and wonders; not even an angel from heaven, as Paul says in Gal 1:8." The command to hearken to the prophets whom the Lord would send at a future time (Deu 18:18.), is not at variance with this: for even their announcements were to be judged according to the standard of the fixed word of God that had been already given; and so far as they proclaimed anything new, the fact that what they announced did not occur was to be the criterion that they had not spoken in the name of the Lord, but in that of other gods (Deu 18:21-22), so that even there the signs and wonders of the prophets are not made the criteria of their divine mission.

Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)

fear

(See Scofield "Psa 19:9").

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

You will walk after Yahweh your God

Obeying and worshiping Yahweh is spoken of as if the people were walking after or following Yahweh. AT: "You will obey Yahweh" (See: Metaphor)

obey his voice

Here "voice" represents what Yahweh says. AT: "obey what he says" (See: Metonymy)

cling to him

To have a good relationship with Yahweh and to completely rely on him is spoken of as if the person were clinging to Yahweh. AT: "rely on him" (See: Metaphor)

will be put to death

This can be stated in active form. AT: "you must kill" (See: Active or Passive)

he has spoken rebellion

The abstract noun "rebellion" can be stated as a verb. AT: "he has tried to make you rebel" (See: Abstract Nouns)

who redeemed you out of the house of bondage

Yahweh rescuing the people of Israel from being slaves in Egypt is spoken of as if Yahweh paid money to redeem his people out of slavery. AT: "who rescued you out of the place where you were slaves" (See: Metaphor)

the house of bondage

Here "house of bondage" represents Egypt where the people of Yahweh had been slaves. AT: "Egypt where you were slaves" (See: Metonymy)

draw you out of the way in which Yahweh your God commanded you to walk

How God wants a person to live or behave is spoken of as if it were a way or road on which God wants his people to walk. A person trying to cause someone else to stop obeying God is spoken of as if the person were trying to get the other person to stop walking on God's way or road. AT: "make you disobey what Yahweh your God commanded" (See: Metaphor)

So put away the evil from among you

Here "the evil" refers to the evil person or the evil behavior. This nominal adjective can be stated as an adjective. AT: "So you must remove from among the people of Israel the person who does this evil thing" or "So you must kill this evil person" (See: Nominal Adjectives)

translationWords

walk

honor

command

obey

voice

worship

die

rebel

Egypt

redeem

house

enslave

evil

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

FOR THE ETERNAL YOUR G-D TRIETH YOU. This is to state that the purport of the wonder which came to pass and which G-d showed him in his dream or [as the philosophers say] in his kahin, a term referring to the power residing in man to be able to foretell the future. It is so explained by Shmuel ibn Tibbon in his list of “Foreign words.” was G-d’s will in order to test you in your love of Him. Now I have already explained that the term “test” is derived from the point of view of the one who is being tested. It states here to know [for the Eternal your G-d trieth you ‘to know’ whether ye do love … meaning] that it became known in fact what exists in potential and is revealed [only] to Him. Thus the commandment of this entire section refers to someone who prophesies to worship the idols. But concerning one who prophesies in the name of G-d to change any of the commandments of the Torah, our Rabbis have interpreted that if he came to [completely] uproot any item from the Torah, such as permitting [the eating of] swine or [permitting] one of the adulterous relationships, according to this judgment shall it be done to him [i.e., he is liable to death as is stated here in Verse 6]. But if he declares it to be permissible only for some time as a temporary measure such as Elijah did on Mount Carmel [in permitting offerings to G-d outside of the Sanctuary in Jerusalem], 9:3). we are obligated to listen to him and to do everything that he commands us.It appears [to me] that if he prophesies in the name of G-d to command a precept that he innovates, as happened concerning reading of the Scroll [of Esther on Purim], that he is not guilty of a capital offense, only that we are not to obey him, because it is written, These are the commandments, [which our Rabbis interpret to mean]:. The reading of the Megillah (Scroll of Esther) on Purim is “a positive commandment by the authority of the Scribes” (Mishneh Torah, Hilchoth Megillah V’Chanukah 1:1). “No prophet is henceforth permitted to declare any new matter therein.” But perhaps, since we do not believe him, he is thus a false prophet and his death is by strangulation.

Ramban (Nachmanides) on the Tanakh — English translation: “Commentary on the Torah by Ramban (Nachmanides). Translated and annotated by Charles B. Chavel. New York, Shilo Pub. House, 1971-1976” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.