15 See, I have put before you today, life and good, and death and evil; 16 In giving you orders today to have love for the Lord your God, to go in his ways and keep his laws and his orders and his decisions, so that you may have life and be increased, and that the blessing of the Lord your God may be with you in the land where you are going, the land of your heritage. 17 But if your heart is turned away and your ear is shut, and you go after those who would make you servants and worshippers of other gods: 18 I give witness against you this day that destruction will certainly be your fate, and your days will be cut short in the land where you are going, the land of your heritage on the other side of Jordan. 19 Let heaven and earth be my witnesses against you this day that I have put before you life and death, a blessing and a curse: so take life for yourselves and for your seed:
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Deuteronomy 30:15-19
Commentary on Deuteronomy 30:15-20
(Read Deuteronomy 30:15-20)
What could be said more moving, and more likely to make deep and lasting impressions? Every man wishes to obtain life and good, and to escape death and evil; he desires happiness, and dreads misery. So great is the compassion of the Lord, that he has favoured men, by his word, with such a knowledge of good and evil as will make them for ever happy, if it be not their own fault. Let us hear the sum of the whole matter. If they and theirs would love God, and serve him, they should live and be happy. If they or theirs should turn from God, desert his service, and worship other gods, that would certainly be their ruin. There never was, since the fall of man, more than one way to heaven; which is marked out in both Testaments, though not with equal clearness. Moses meant that same way of acceptance, which Paul more plainly described; and Paul's words mean the same obedience, on which Moses more fully treated. In both Testaments the good and right way is brought near, and plainly revealed to us.