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From: Deuteronomy 30:10-14

Restoration After Repentance (Continuation)

(Moses said to the people, ) [10] “If you obey the voice of the Lord your God, to
keep his commandments and his statutes which are written in this book of the
law, if you turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

The Law of God is Accessible to All

[11] “For this commandment which I command you this day is not too hard for
you, neither is it far off. [12] It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will
go up for us to heaven, and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ [13]
Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will go over the sea for
us, and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ [14] But the word is very
near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.”

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Commentary:

30:11-14. What this passage directly refers to is how privileged Israel was to
have the Law. The sacred writer puts it very beautifully, by using two nice meta-
phors in a passage that has a certain poetic rhythm to it. St. Paul, in his Letter
to the Romans (10:6-8), uses this passage, applying it not to knowledge of the
Law but to “the word of faith” that is preached by the apostles: it is now that
word (as previously it was the Law) that makes manifest the precepts and com-
mandments of God and (like the Law in its time, too) it should be constantly on
our lips and in our heart. Theodoret of Cyprus (commenting on the Greek Septua-
gint version, which adds in v. 14 “and in your hands”) says: The mouth stands for
meditation on the divine words; the heart, readiness of spirit; the hands for doing
what is commanded” (”Quaestiones in Octateuchum”, 38).

The Christian people, who possess the New Law and the New Covenant, are in
an even better position than the people of old, for they have been given the grace
of Christ. And so the Council of Trent teaches that “God does not command im-
possible things; when he makes a commandment he is telling you to do what
you can and ask (his help) as regards what is beyond you, and he helps you to
fulfill it” (De Iustificatione”, 11). In the Old Law, even though the Israelites did not
have available to them the grace won by Christ, divine Providence helped them
to do what was required of them in anticipation of that grace.

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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.