Deuteronomy 4:7

what nation is there so great--Here he represents their privileges and their duty in such significant and comprehensive terms, as were peculiarly calculated to arrest their attention and engage their interest. The former, their national advantages, are described (Deu 4:7-8), and they were twofold: 1. God's readiness to hear and aid them at all times; and 2. the excellence of that religion in which they were instructed, set forth in the "statutes and judgments so righteous" which the law of Moses contained. Their duty corresponding to these pre-eminent advantages as a people, was also twofold: 1. their own faithful obedience to that law; and 2. their obligation to imbue the minds of the young and rising generation with similar sentiments of reverence and respect for it.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Deu 4:7 For what nation [is there so] great, who [hath] God [so] nigh unto them, as the LORD our God [is] in all [things that] we call upon him [for]?

Ver. 7. Who hath God so nigh unto them.] Yea, this was it that made them so great a nation, who otherwise were but methe mispar, few in number. This made Moses so passionately cry out, "Happy art thou, O Israel! who is like unto thee, O people, saved by the Lord!" {Deu 33:29}

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_4:7-8

And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and Judgments so righteous?

A righteous Bible

The appeal of Moses is the eternal appeal of the Bible. That is the appeal to common sense and to common honesty. The commandments are not described as eloquent, marvellous intellectual conceptions, great advances in ethical thinking. Moses asks, What other nation can produce a Bible so righteous! Any Bible must go down that is not righteous above all other things, how high soever the varied attributes by which any book may be characterised. What is the moral tone of the Bible? Pure, righteous, true, holy. What are the great commandments of the Book? Love, love,--twice love. The first object?--God; the second?--thy neighbour. This is the strength of the Bible; and we can all begin at this point to inquire into the remainder of the Book. Men may ask bewildering questions about the archaeology and the so called science of the Bible, and may even puzzle the uncultured reader with many a question relating to spiritual mysteries; but taken from end to end, the Bible is charged with righteousness: it will have the neighbour loved as the man himself; it will have the harvest like the seed time; it will insist upon right balances and full weights; it will have no concealed iniquities; it carries its candle of flame with fire never kindled upon earth into the secrets of the mind and the chambers of the soul and the hidden places of motive and purpose and ultimate, but unexpressed, intent. The Word of God is sharp, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the dividing asunder of the joints and marrow. It is a righteous Word. The Bible has a thousand weapons in its armoury: not the lightest, not the weakest is its magnificent morality, its heavenly righteousness, its incorruptible integrity. It shakes off the wicked man; it will have no communion with darkness; it strikes the liar on the mouth; it avoids the unholy follower. This is--let us repeat--the argument of Moses, and it is the eternal argument of Christianity. (J. Parker, D. D.)

The Bible and civilisation

Wendell Phillips once said: The answer to the Shaster is India; the answer to Confucianism is China; the answer to the Koran is Turkey; the answer to the Bible is the Christian civilisation of Protestant Europe and America. (J. S. Gilbert, M. A.)

The national utility of the Bible

It is impossible to estimate the amount of evil which mankind would experience in their civil capacity were the Scriptures no longer considered of Divine origin, nor constituted the ultimate standard of all moral and political obligation. All reverence for the laws would cease, for the lawgiver would have only his own authority, or the mere glimmerings of the law of nature, to enforce his commands; while those who had to obey the laws would soon have every just and equitable principle banished from their minds, and every sacred feeling obliterated from their bosoms. The whole fabric of society would soon go to pieces if men were removed beyond the sphere of the public and private sanctions of scriptural morality. (J. Blakey.)

The glory of Israel

Moses reminds the people that God has chosen them as His special possession, and that this had been shown during forty years, and that if they would remain a people forever blessed it must be under the protection and blessing of God. They were highly favoured above all other peoples--for Jehovah the true God was theirs, and would be known among His people by this gracious name. And all the peoples around saw how great things God had done for Israel--how gloriously and graciously He had led His people. This was one reason why Israel should cleave to the Lord, who would plainly thus reveal Himself as the true God, the Holy One of Israel. From all this Israel should have learned--

I. To prize highly their relation to God.

1. They should have learned to realise what it was to be under the peculiar care of God, and how great and glorious was their fellowship with Him. Theirs was not merely to be a great and glorious history in the past. God was not merely to be the God who had mightily manifested Himself to their fathers, and then withheld His presence. Rather there was the promise that if they continued to call upon Him wonderful manifestations of grace and help would be given.

2. How blessed Israel was so long as they continued to call on God, prayed for His protection in faith, and kept in the way of His commandments! It was no hard thing to draw near to God. Priest and prophet were given to prepare the way, and each Israelite might experience the truth of the text for himself. But it was otherwise with Israel. In them we see--

II. The danger of neglecting to call upon God.

1. Israel went on their own way, according to their own will; and in order that they might not be stopped by listening to the voice of reason they no longer called upon God; they no longer sought His near presence.

2. Therefore, however He would have been pleased to draw near to them, He could do so no more, because they desired it not. Thus did Israel, and even when they inquired of His way they did not follow it.

3. How speedily, therefore, were they brought low; for all depended on their calling on God, and Him alone.

III. The spiritual Israel must call on God.

1. Even among the early believers to whom with visible manifestation the Holy Ghost came, whose voice and counsel they might ever hear, there was the temptation to walk more according to the flesh than according to the Spirit. Some neglected to hear His voice, and gave themselves up to the lusts of the flesh.

2. Then true believing calling on God ceased, the Lord came no more nigh to them, and the Holy Ghost was grieved.

3. Let us learn in simple faith to pray to and call upon Him. Then should we hope that all things would again become new in us, would be otherwise with us; and how glorious could our lives become! (J. C. Blumhardt.)

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

Deu 4:7-8. So nigh — By glorious miracles, by the pledges of his special presence, by the operations of his grace, and particularly by his readiness to hear our prayers, and to give us those succours which we call upon him for. So righteous — Whereby he implies that the true greatness of a nation doth not consist in pomp and power, or largeness of empire, as commonly men think, but in the righteousness of its laws.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Helping us, and delivering us out of all dangers, as 2 Sam. 7:23.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

7. For what great nation … hath a god so nigh] Both noun, élohím, and adj., ḳerobim, are plural. Elohîm may signify a god, or gods, as Deu_6:14 and elsewhere; or the general idea of Deity, this chiefly but not always in the mouth of, or addressed to, the heathen, e.g. Deu_5:24, Gen_20:13, Exo_31:18; or may stand for the God of Israel (cp. the deuteronomic 2Sa_7:23). Here it is either of the first three—a god, gods or God (R.V. marg.). The rest of the verse explains what is meant by nigh: He hears prayer and answers it by actual deeds. The prophets’ contrast of Israel’s experience of God with that of other nations is constant and remarkable—a proof of the experimental, practical quality of their religion. Jeremiah insists that the gods of the heathen are vanities and do not profit them (Deu_2:8; Deu_2:11; Deu_2:13 : broken cisterns, 28, Deu_16:19 f. etc.); cp. the Prophet of the Exile (Isa_44:9 f., Isa_47:12, Isa_48:17) and his argument that Jehovah alone promises and fulfils (Isa_41:21 ff.). To all the prophets, but especially to Isaiah, God; is not only the infinitely sublime, but the infinitely near, hearing prayer, ready to help, interested, vigilant and active in all the details of their everyday life. Legal Judaism lost this sense of the constant nearness of God, and did not compensate for the loss by its apocalypses.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Not so much for their number, for they were the fewest of all people; nor for the largeness of their territories, for the land they were going to possess was but a small country; nor for their wealth and riches, and warlike exploits, though they were not contemptible in either; but for their happy constitution in church and state, being directed and governed in both by laws which came immediately from God himself; for their knowledge of divine things, and for spiritual blessings and privileges they were favoured with, of which a special instance is given:

who hath God so nigh unto them as the Lord our God is, in all things that we call upon him for? God was nigh unto them in respect of relation, being their covenant God and Father, and they his sons and daughters, to whom the adoption belonged; and with respect to place and presence, his tabernacle being in the midst of them, the seat of his Shechinah, or divine Majesty, being in the most holy place, between the cherubim over the mercy seat; and he going before them in the pillar of cloud by day, and in the pillar of fire by night, and who might be applied unto at all times for whatsoever they stood in need of; and who was always near unto them, to give them advice and counsel, help and assistance; to hear their prayers, and communicate unto them things temporal and spiritual they stood in need of: and so the Lord is nigh to all that call upon him in faith, with fervency, and in sincerity and truth; and herein the glory and greatness of a people, as of Israel, lies, in being nearly related to God, a people near unto him, both as to union and communion; and in having a communication of good things from him. God is both a God at hand and afar off, Jer 23:23.

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

Gods. Supposing they deserved that title, which of them has the power to shew their votaries such favours as the true God hath shewn to us? The idols are nothing but devils, which seek to destroy. (Calmet) --- But God had manifested his power and love to the Hebrews in the most astonishing manner. He seemed to choose his residence among them, in the tabernacle. (Haydock) --- This Jesus does in a still more wonderful manner, with respect to Christians, remaining with them in the sacrament of love. The other sacraments which he has instituted are more noble and efficacious than those of the old law. He was pleased to take our nature, (Calmet) and to dwell among us, John i. The providence of God pervades all things; and, though all live in Him, (Acts xvii. 28,) yet he shews the marks of the most paternal tenderness to his elect. (Haydock)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

God nigh unto them, by glorious miracles, by the pledges of his special presence, by the operations of his grace, and particularly, as it here follows, by his readiness to hear our prayers, and to give us those succours which we call upon him for.

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

Vers. 7, 8. Translate, For what great nation is there that hath gods that draft near to it, as Jehovah our God whenever we call upon him? And what great nation is there that hath righteous statutes and ordinances like this whole Law which I am giving before you this day? (comp. Deu_33:29; Psa_34:17-20 Psa_145:18; 1Sa_14:36 1Ki_18:26-29, 1Ki_18:37; Jam_4:8) "True right has its roots in God; and with the obscuration of the knowledge of God, law and right, with their divinely established foundations, are also shaken and obscured" (cf. Rom_1:26-32) (Keil).

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

So nigh - By glorious miracles, by the pledges of his special presence, by the operations of his grace, and particularly by his readiness to hear our prayers, and to give us those succors which we call upon him for.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

General Information:

Moses continues to speak to the people of Israel.

For what other great nation is there ... him? What other great nation is there ... today?

These rhetorical questions can be translated as statements. AT: "For there is no other great nation ... him. There is no other great nation ... today." (See: Rhetorical Question)

translationWords

nation

false god

Yahweh

God

call

decree

righteous

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

That has Hashem close to it. The reason that it is important to be particular that they should be considered clever and wise in the eyes of the nations is because Hashem is close to us in everything that we do. This will show that He chose us from all the nations. However if the nations consider you to be foolish it will profane Hashem’s name, when they say, “Are these Hashem’s people?”

Sforno on the Tanakh — English translation: “Yalkut, Sifsei Chachomim Chumash, Metsudah Publications, 2009” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.