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Deuteronomy 5 Bible study: With us, alive today
Deuteronomy 5 isn't a copy of Exodus 20. Moses tells the ten words to the next generation, "all of us here alive today" (5:3), and the Sabbath now looks back to Egypt: "remember that you were a servant in the land of Egypt" (5:15), so "that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you" (5:14).
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“Oh that there were such a heart in them that they would fear me and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them and with their children forever!”
Try it · Did you catch it?
“In Deuteronomy 5, the reason given for the Sabbath is that Israel was a servant in Egypt and the LORD brought them out.”
Is that in Deuteronomy 5, or not? Make your call.
What's really going on
Spoken to the next generation
Moses is speaking "In the fortieth year" (1:3), after "all the men of war were consumed and dead from among the people" (2:16). Yet he says, "The LORD our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. The LORD didn’t make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive today" (5:2-3). He goes on, "The LORD spoke with you face to face on the mountain out of the middle of the fire" (5:4), and adds in the same breath, "I stood between the LORD and you at that time, to show you the LORD’s word; for you were afraid because of the fire" (5:5). Then he repeats the words the LORD spoke, beginning as the LORD began: "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage" (5:6). Exodus 20 teaches the ten words themselves. This chapter is worth reading for what Moses says differently when he tells them again.
Where it leads to Jesus
Written on their heart
Deuteronomy 5:29leads toHebrews 8:6-10
"Oh that there were such a heart in them that they would fear me and keep all my commandments always" (5:29). Hebrews calls Jesus "the guarantee of a better covenant" (Hebrews 7:22), says "he is also the mediator of a better covenant" (Hebrews 8:6), and quotes the promise of a new covenant made through Jeremiah, "not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt" (Hebrews 8:9): "I will put my laws into their mind; I will also write them on their heart" (Hebrews 8:10). Hebrews doesn't cite Deuteronomy 5:29, so this link is a reading: some hear in the LORD's wish at Horeb the need that the promise of laws written on the heart answers; others read the wish in 5:29 within Deuteronomy itself, beside Moses' call, "Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart" (10:16), and the LORD's promise, "The LORD your God will circumcise your heart" (30:6), and don't link it to Hebrews 8.
Honest questions
Questions people ask about Deuteronomy 5
That was a taste
The rest of Deuteronomy 5 is waiting in Favor
- The Sabbath, told from Egypt
- The last word, reordered
- "We will hear it, and do it"
- "They have well said", again
- The commandment with a promise
- Two differences only the Hebrew shows
- 12 questions as you read
- 12 more Hebrew words
- A short check at the end
- Your notes, saved as you go
Favor reads the Bible in order, so you'll reach Deuteronomy 5 with everything before it in view. First week free, then $10 a month per person.
The Hebrew word behind it
שָׁמַרshamarsay sha-MAR
Strong's: "properly, to hedge about (as with thorns), i.e. guard". Brown-Driver-Briggs: "keep, watch, preserve". It runs through the chapter from first to last: "that you may learn them, and observe to do them" (5:1), "those who love me and keep my commandments" (5:10), "Observe the Sabbath day" (5:12), "keep all my commandments always" (5:29), "You shall observe to do therefore" (5:32). In the Sabbath command it takes the place of Exodus's "Remember" (Exodus 20:8). In the Hebrew, Deuteronomy uses this verb 73 times, more than any other book of the Hebrew Bible. Its first use in the Hebrew Bible is in the garden, where the man is put "to cultivate and keep it" (Genesis 2:15).
For your group
Deuteronomy 5 Bible study questions
- 1Moses told a people, many of whom had been children at the mountain (1:39), that the covenant was made "with us, even us, who are all of us here alive today" (5:3). What changes when you hear God's words as spoken to you today, and not only to people long ago?
- 2"That your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you" (5:14); "You shall remember that you were a servant in the land of Egypt" (5:15). Who depends on you for their rest, and how does remembering what God has brought you out of change the way you treat them?
- 3The people said, "we will hear it, and do it" (5:27), and the LORD said, "Oh that there were such a heart in them" (5:29). Where is there a gap this week between what you say to God and where your heart is?
Leading a group? In Favor, everyone reads Deuteronomy 5 during the week and answers these questions privately. Answers stay sealed until you meet, then appear together, and you can print the week's sheet.
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What is Favor?
Favor is a Bible study app that explains every chapter as you read: the Hebrew and Greek behind the words, the details most readers miss, and how each part of the Bible leads to Jesus. Read on your own, or start a Bible study with friends, family or your church.
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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Hebrew and Greek words are checked against the original-language texts and public-domain lexicons. What we believe · Favor home