Holly Bible - KJV with Concise Commentaries by Z Selam - HTML preview
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largest in the decalogue, so they are most frequently insisted on in other parts of the law. As, when a master has given many things in charge to his servant, he concludes with the repetition of those things which were of the greatest importance, and which the servant was most in danger of neglecting, bidding him, whatever he did, be sure to remember those, so here God by Moses, after many precepts, closes all with a special charge to observe these two great commandments.
1. "Be sure you never worship images, nor ever make any sort of images or pictures for a religious use," Le 26:1. No sin was more provoking to God than this, and yet there was none that they were more addicted to, and which afterwards proved of more pernicious consequence to them. Next to God's being, unity, and universal influence, it is necessary that we know and believe that he is an infinite Spirit; and therefore to represent him by an image in the making of it, to confine him to an image in the consecrating of it, and to worship him by an image in bowing down to it, changes his truth into a lie and his glory into shame, as much as any thing.
2. "Be sure you keep up a great veneration for Sabbaths and religious assemblies," Le 26:2. As nothing tends more to corrupt religion than the use of images in devotion, so nothing contributes more to the support of it than keeping the Sabbaths and reverencing the sanctuary. These make up very much of the instrumental part of religion, by which the essentials of it are kept up. Therefore we find in the prophets that, next to the sin of idolatry, there is no sin for which the Jews are more frequently reproved and threatened than the profanation of the sabbath day.
3 If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do
them;
4 then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her
increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.