Law Repeated
417
Since the Israelites were to be, in a special sense, the guardians
and keepers of God’s law, the significance of its precepts and the
importance of obedience were especially to be impressed upon them,
and through them, upon their children and children’s children. The
Lord commanded concerning His statutes: “Thou shalt teach them
diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in
thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest
down, and when thou risest up.... And thou shalt write them upon the
posts of thy house, and on thy gates.”
When their children should ask in time to come, “What mean the
testimonies, and the statutes, and the judgments, which the Lord our
God hath commanded you?” then the parents were to repeat the history
of God’s gracious dealings with them—how the Lord had wrought
for their deliverance that they might obey His Law—and to declare
to them, “The Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the
Lord our God, for our good always, that He might preserve us alive,
as it is at this day. And it shall be our righteousness, if we observe
to do all these commandments before the Lord our God as He hath
commanded us.”
[469]