11 This commandment that I'm commanding you today isn't too much for you, it's not out of your reach. 12 It's not on a high mountain - you don't have to get mountaineers to climb the peak and bring it down to your level and explain it before you can live it. 13 And it's not across the ocean - you don't have to send sailors out to get it, bring it back, and then explain it before you can live it. 14 No. The word is right here and now - as near as the tongue in your mouth, as near as the heart in your chest. Just do it!
15 Look at what I've done for you today: I've placed in front of you Life and Good Death and Evil. 16 And I command you today: Love God, your God. Walk in his ways. Keep his commandments, regulations, and rules so that you will live, really live, live exuberantly, blessed by God, your God, in the land you are about to enter and possess. 17 But I warn you: If you have a change of heart, refuse to listen obediently, and willfully go off to serve and worship other gods, 18 you will most certainly die. You won't last long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. 19 I call Heaven and Earth to witness against you today: I place before you Life and Death, Blessing and Curse. Choose life so that you and your children will live. 20 And love God, your God, listening obediently to him, firmly embracing him. Oh yes, he is life itself, a long life settled on the soil that God, your God, promised to give your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Deuteronomy 30:11-20
Commentary on Deuteronomy 30:11-14
(Read Deuteronomy 30:11-14)
The law is not too high for thee. It is not only known afar off; it is not confined to men of learning. It is written in thy books, made plain, so that he who runs may read it. It is in thy mouth, in the tongue commonly used by thee, in which thou mayest hear it read, and talk of it among thy children. It is delivered so that it is level to the understanding of the meanest. This is especially true of the gospel of Christ, to which the apostle applies it. But the word is nigh us, and Christ in that word; so that if we believe with the heart, that the promises of the Messiah are fulfilled in our Lord Jesus, and confess them with our mouth, we then have Christ with us.
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.