Deuteronomy 30:13

Moses speaks these words on the plains of Moab, about 1406 BC, with Israel about to cross the Jordan into Canaan after forty years in the wilderness. The generation that came out of Egypt has passed away, and many of those listening grew up in the wilderness. In chapters 29 and 30 Moses renews the covenant with this new generation, with its blessings for faithfulness and curses for rebellion (Deuteronomy 28). Just before this passage he has told of a day when Israel, scattered in exile, would return to the LORD, be brought home, and have their heart circumcised by the LORD to love him (Deuteronomy 30:1–10). With “For” he turns from that future to the present. “This commandment which I command thee this day” belongs to the people standing in front of him, and the word “thee” speaks to each of them.

Moses says two things about it. The word behind “hidden”, pâlâʼ, describes something extraordinary, too hard or too wonderful to grasp, and Scripture often uses it of God’s miraculous acts. The commandment is plain. God has made it known to all Israel, to ordinary people as well as to priests, and Moses speaks it aloud to the whole assembly, so that no one could claim to be ignorant of it. “Far off”, râchôwq, means distant or remote, in place or in time, where it can mean “long ago”. The commandment is close at hand, within reach of the people’s understanding and of their daily life, and the next two verses picture the long journeys it would take if it were remote.

This shows us who God is. He reveals his will and makes plain what he asks of his people. That clarity is the ground of the covenant, because a people who can know his will can obey it knowingly and can rightly be held to account for it. It is also grace. God wants his people to walk in his ways and to flourish, and he gives them the guidance they need to do so.

Verses 12 and 13 put two questions into the people’s mouths and answer them before anyone can ask. “Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it unto us?” “Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us?” Each pictures a journey beyond any person’s strength, and each answers itself, because the commandment is already here. God has brought it down from heaven and across the sea to his people, so the heroic expedition the questions imagine is unneeded. Moses voices the excuse in order to take it away.

“Heaven” is shâmayim, the sky above, a word that is plural in form. Here it stands for the highest and most unreachable place a person could think of. “Sea” is yâm, the sea or any large body of water. Strong’s ties it to a root meaning to roar, from the noise of the surf, and the same word also names the bronze basin of the temple and the direction west. For Israel the sea, above all the Mediterranean, marked the edge of the known world, a place of danger and great distance, and crossing it was rare and perilous. “Go over” is ʻâbar, to cross over, a word used for every kind of crossing, literal or figurative.

The nations around Israel spoke of divine wisdom as hidden and kept for the few, to be won by heroic journeys into the heavens, the underworld or across the seas, and of gods whose will had to be found out from omens, rituals and diviners. The LORD has spoken his will openly to all his people, as he says through Isaiah: “I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth: I said not unto the seed of Jacob, Seek ye me in vain: I the LORD speak righteousness, I declare things that are right” (Isaiah 45:19).

Verse 14 turns with “But” from the imagined journeys to the truth. “The word” is dâbâr, which means word or speech, and in a separate sense a matter or thing. Here it is the whole of God’s revealed will, the covenant teaching Moses has been speaking. “Nigh” is qârôwb, near in place, time or kin, from a verb meaning to approach, and “very” is mᵉʼôd, very, greatly, exceedingly. The word is as close as it could be.

Moses names where it is near: “in thy mouth, and in thy heart”. In the mouth the word is spoken. It is talked about at home, recited together, declared in worship and taught to the next generation, in a people whose laws and history were passed on by speaking and memorizing them. Moses had already told them, “And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house” (Deuteronomy 6:6–9).

The heart, lêbâb, is the centre of the whole person in Scripture, the seat of the mind, the will, decisions and character as well as feelings. To have the word in the heart is to understand it, believe it and hold it close, so that it forms what a person wants and why. The psalmist says, “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee” (Psalm 119:11). Mouth and heart belong together, because in Scripture what a person says and what he is within are joined to what he does. Earlier in this chapter the LORD promises, “And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live” (Deuteronomy 30:6), and the word dwelling in a heart like that is where true obedience begins.

“That thou mayest do it” ends the verse with the same ʻâsâh as before. The word comes near so that it will be lived out, in daily actions, choices and dealings with others. Moses goes straight on to say what that doing looks like, “to love the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments” (Deuteronomy 30:16).

The whole chapter (Deuteronomy 30:1–20) is a call to covenant faithfulness, and these four verses stand at its turning point, between the promise of restoration and the call to decide.

Right after them Moses says, “See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil” (Deuteronomy 30:15), and he ends with his plea, “therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19–20). The nearness of the word makes that choice a real one. A just God asks his people to obey a law they can know, and so Israel’s blessing or curse in the land would follow from how they answered a will he had made plain.

Paul quotes this passage in Romans 10: “But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above:) Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.) But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart; that is, the word of faith, which we preach” (Romans 10:6–8).

Paul applies Moses’ words about a near and plain commandment to the gospel. Christ has already come down from heaven, and he has already been raised from the dead for our justification, so the climb to heaven and the descent into the deep are both finished by him. The word that is near is the message about him, and it is received with the very mouth and heart that Moses named: “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:9–10). Paul sets this righteousness of faith against the hard road of reaching righteousness by keeping the law, “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth” (Romans 10:4). The truth Moses taught, that God makes his word near, comes to its fullest meaning in salvation by grace through faith.

These verses show us a God who comes near. He did the reaching himself, bringing his word down from heaven and across every distance to his people, and in Christ he came nearest of all. We have his commands, his character and his plan of salvation set down plainly in Scripture, with the Spirit to open them to us, and the psalmist’s words hold for us as they did for Israel: “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path” (Psalm 119:105).

The word he sends also does its work. “So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it” (Isaiah 55:11). What remained for Israel remains for us, to hear his word and do it, and God, who put that word in our mouth and heart, gives through his Spirit the heart to do it.