For this commandment which I command you today is not too difficult for you, nor is it out of reach (Deuteronomy 30:11).

This translation is a little misleading. It gives the impression that God was saying to the Israelites that the Law was not difficult to obey. This is probably not the meaning here. The point is that God's commandments were not too difficult to understand. What is more, it was readily accessible to them, for Moses would write it down for them, and it would be preached to them on a regular basis by the Levites. Consider these observations by the renowned Old Testament commentators Keil & Delitzsch:

This commandment (used as in Deuteronomy 6:1 to denote the whole law) is "not too wonderful for thee," i.e., is not too hard to grasp, or unintelligible (vid., Deuteronomy 17:8), nor is it too far off: it is neither in heaven, i.e., at an inaccessible height; nor beyond the sea, i.e., at an unattainable distance, at the end of the world, so that any one could say, Who is able to fetch it thence? but it is very near thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart to do it. It not only lay before the people in writing, but it was also preached to them by word of mouth, and thus brought to their knowledge, so that it had become a subject of conversation as well as of reflection and careful examination. But however near the law had thus been brought to man, sin had so estranged the human heart from the word of God, that doing and keeping the law had become invariably difficult, and in fact impossible; so that the declaration, "the word is in thy heart," only attains its full realization through the preaching of the gospel of the grace of God, and the righteousness that is by faith; and to this the Apostle Paul applies the passage in Romans 10:8.

So Paul writes, "By the works of the Law no flesh will be justified" (Galatians 2:16). The reason he gives is that a law-based justification requires perfect obedience to the Law, which every living being falls short of achieving:

For as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, to perform them” (Galatians 3:10).

This is more confirmation that what was meant in Deuteronomy 30:11 was not that the Law was "not too difficult to obey" but rather that it was "not too difficult to understand."

Now, Keil and Delitzsch above argue that the words "this commandment" is a reference to the whole Law, as opposed to individual commandments within the Law. They cite Deuteronomy 6:1 as another reference with the singular number "commandment." There are other references as well. This may very well be the case; however, I discovered something interesting.

Within the Book of Deuteronomy there are numerous references to "commandments" but only one unequivocal reference to "the commandment." For instance, even in Deuteronomy 6:1, as well as other passages like it, the KJV always translates what the NASB renders singular (i.e. "commandment") as plural ("commandments"). Now, these translations are sourced in different manuscript traditions, but there is no disagreement where Deuteronomy 30:11 is concerned. Every tradition renders the Hebrew as the singular "commandment". Therefore, there is something uniquely significant about the reference to "this commandment" in Deuteronomy 30:11 that sets it apart from all the other commandments of the Law of Moses.

What is more, contrary to the conclusion by Keil and Delitzsch, consider Joshua 22:5

Only be very careful to observe the commandment and the law which Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, to love the Lord your God and walk in all His ways and keep His commandments and hold fast to Him and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul.

Joshua writes "the commandment and the law" as separate things. If the singular "commandment" is meant to represent the whole Law, what does "the law" reference?

What I'm suggesting is that the singular "commandment" may be qualitatively different from the "commandments" in the Law of Moses.

In Romans 10:5–10 Paul cites Deuteronomy 30:11–14, but rather than seeing "this commandment" as a reference to the Law of Moses, he writes of it as a reference to "the word of faith":

For Moses writes that the man who practices the righteousness which is based on law shall live by that righteousness. But the righteousness based on faith speaks as follows: “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ (that is, to bring Christ down), or ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’ (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).” But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart”—that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him; for “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Romans 10:5–13).

Moses wrote that "this commandment" was not "out of reach" so that someone would say, "Who will go up to heaven for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it" (Deuteronomy 30:12). Again, he writes, no one needs to say, "Who will cross the sea for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it" (Deuteronomy 30:13). Again, a third time, Moses writes, "But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may observe it" (Deuteronomy 30:14). All of these references have obedience as their common objective.

Yet, the larger context finds Moses repeatedly pointing out that Israel will fail to keep the Law. And He does not point this out as merely a possibility but as a certainty. God tells him this will be the case. How can he, on the one hand, speak of "this commandment" as something not too difficult to understand and readily accessible to obey, yet, on the other hand, prophesy that Israel will certainly violate the "commandments" in the Law and incur the wrath of God?

To Paul's point, "this commandment," "the word," that Moses writes of, is something different from the Law of Moses. It is the "word of faith," which God gives according to His sovereign choice. It does not depend on human effort but on God's grace. Perhaps this is why Moses begins this section with the promise of God in Deuteronomy 30:6,

Moreover the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.

What will God do? He will circumcise their heart. To what effect? It will cause them to love the Lord their God with all their heart and with all their soul. To what benefit? They will live! Isn't this a foreshadowing of the promise of the New Covenant?

Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord. “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the Lord, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the Lord, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more (Jeremiah 31:31–34).

Theologians observe that even in the dispensation of Law, grace was not absent. When Paul speaks of faith, he goes all the way back to Abraham, whose faith was "reckoned to him as righteousness". Thus, the message of faith was present during the period of the Mosaic Law. Could this reference to "this commandment" and to "the word" be a reference to "the word of faith," which foreshadowed the promise of the New Covenant, whereby God would write His laws upon the hearts of His people? Thus, even in the days of Moses, Israel would have had some sense of salvation by grace, even though the way of faith was somewhat shrouded by the requirements of the Law.

Friends, I encourage you to always be ready to think outside the box. I find most commentators and theologians will unquestioningly follow the lead of renowned scholars like Keil and Delitzsch. While this is usually a right course, it may not always be right, for we are all fallible men. Even as I share on these topics, I hope that you will search these matters out for yourselves and come to your own conclusions. After all, we are all accountable for ourselves, and we will not be acquitted before God because we followed someone else's wrong teaching.

What I believe about the sovereignty of God in election and the depravity of man comes from my own studies in the Scripture, not from what preachers or teachers have told me. I pray that you will also take such an approach to things.

AI-Expanded Reflection

Deuteronomy 30 places the nearness of God's command beside a promise of heart transformation. Israel need not send someone to an inaccessible realm to discover what God requires; the word has been brought near through revelation. Yet the chapter also anticipates exile, return, and the Lord's work of circumcising the heart. Accessibility and inward renewal belong together. Knowing the command is necessary, but the covenant story exposes how deeply the people need the God who enables love and obedience.

The original makes a valuable distinction between understanding a command and fulfilling it perfectly. A direction may be plain while the heart resists it. Nevertheless, Deuteronomy 30:14 explicitly connects nearness with doing, so the passage should not be reduced to an assurance about intellectual comprehension alone. Moses presents God's word as available for a real response. Its language of choosing life and clinging to the Lord is not merely an abstract lesson about inevitable failure. The tension between command and promised transformation is part of the chapter's theological force.

The quoted discussion by Keil and Delitzsch offers one Christian reading of that tension, connecting the word's fullness in the heart with the gospel. It should be received as commentary rather than as the only possible lexical explanation. Their treatment can be consulted in the commentary on Deuteronomy 30. The author's willingness to examine their proposal is appropriate, provided that an alternative receives the same scrutiny.

The argument from singular “commandment” needs particular correction. The Hebrew of Deuteronomy 6:1 also has a singular form, even where an English translation uses a plural to express its collective sense. This does not require a different manuscript tradition. A translator can render the same Hebrew construction differently according to its understood reference. Nor is “tense” the relevant grammatical category for a noun; the distinction is number. The Hebrew text of Deuteronomy 6:1 directly displays the singular form. Consequently, singular wording in 30:11 does not by itself identify a separate, otherwise hidden commandment of faith.

Joshua 22:5 likewise uses several overlapping expressions for covenant fidelity. Placing “commandment” beside “law” does not prove that they refer to mutually exclusive bodies of revelation. Biblical discourse can accumulate related terms for emphasis. The author is asking a legitimate question, but the proposed distinction must be established from context rather than inferred solely from the presence of two nouns.

Paul's use of Deuteronomy in Romans 10 is nonetheless profoundly important. He describes Christ as already come and raised; the saving message does not require a heroic human expedition to bring him within reach. The proclaimed gospel is near, calling for faith and confession. Paul reads Israel's Scripture in the light of Christ's accomplished work. This Christ-centered use need not mean that Moses' original audience was being given a different command concealed by a singular noun. It can disclose the deeper fulfillment of the graciously given word.

The strongest foundation for the reflection's concern is therefore Deuteronomy 30:6 itself, together with Jeremiah 31's promise of inwardly written instruction and forgiven sin. God's grace reaches the heart, making covenant fidelity more than external conformity. Christians who affirm sovereign election can develop that conviction from these and related passages without requiring an uncertain grammatical argument. Intellectual independence is worthwhile when joined to linguistic discipline, openness to correction, and respect for other careful readers. We study neither to defend a commentator's prestige nor to prize novelty for its own sake, but to hear the near word faithfully and respond to the God who speaks it.

Deuteronomy 30:6 says the LORD will change the heart of His people and of all their descendants, so that they will love Him with all their heart and soul and so may live.

In today's reading we get a preview of the New Covenant. It was given not as a present promise but a future one, in which God would change hearts in such a way that the people could and would obey. Until then, this was their condition: to this day the LORD had not given them minds that understand, eyes that see, or ears that hear (a reference to Deuteronomy 29:4).

I draw attention to these Scriptures so that we might understand that we have no claim on God, and that salvation is His undeserved gift. When God gives us minds to understand, eyes to see, ears to hear, and changes our hearts, it is then that we can love God with all our heart and soul. Although we cannot fully put this perfection into practice in this life because of our sinful nature, we gain its benefits by the Spirit.

AI-Expanded Reflection

The connection between Deuteronomy 29:4 and 30:6 is well drawn, and the two verses are doing something together: the first names a lack, the second promises its remedy, and both attribute the supply to God. Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36 pick up the same language, and Paul's argument about the Spirit writing on hearts rather than tablets draws on it directly.

This comment describes that change as accomplished unilaterally and applied to a chosen few. That is the Reformed reading and it is seriously held. Other traditions read the same promise as describing what God does for all who come, with the enabling grace genuinely offered rather than selectively applied, and they point to the fact that Deuteronomy 30 continues by setting life and death before the people and calling them to choose (30:19). Both readings take the heart-change language as necessary and divine in origin; they differ on its scope and resistibility.

Deuteronomy 30:19–20 has Moses calling heaven and earth as witnesses, setting life and death, blessing and curse before Israel — urging them to choose life, so they and their children may live, loving the LORD, listening to His voice, and holding fast to Him (a paraphrase).

I now question whether it was actually possible for Israel to "choose life." In the previous chapter, Moses tells them that despite seeing everything the LORD did to Pharaoh and Egypt with their own eyes — the great trials, signs, and wonders — the LORD still hadn't given them a mind that understands, eyes that see, or ears that hear, even to that very day (a paraphrase of Deuteronomy 29:2–4). Unless God Himself opens their minds, eyes, and ears, they simply can't grasp truth sitting directly in front of them.

Paul makes the same point in Romans 11. Addressing whether God rejected His people, he emphatically says no, noting he's an Israelite himself, and that a remnant remains, chosen by grace. What Israel as a whole sought so earnestly, they didn't obtain — only the elect among them did, while the rest were hardened, given, as it's written, a spirit of stupor, eyes that couldn't see and ears that couldn't hear, to this very day (a paraphrase of Romans 11:1–8). Those who did follow the LORD, like Moses and Joshua, did so because of God's election — the rest simply couldn't, since their hearts were hardened.

This same idea of choice appears with Joshua too. After conquering Canaan, in his final chapter, he assembles everyone and tells them to fear the LORD and serve Him with all faithfulness, throwing away whatever other gods their ancestors served — but if serving the LORD seemed undesirable, to choose for themselves that very day whom they'd serve instead, while he and his household would serve the LORD regardless (a paraphrase of Joshua 24:14–15). Israel responds that they too will choose the LORD. But Joshua immediately tells them they aren't actually able to serve the LORD, since He's a holy and jealous God (a paraphrase of Joshua 24:19) — even right after calling them to choose, he tells them they're not able to do it.

Whether Jew or Gentile, unless we're regenerated by the Holy Spirit, we can't choose God, since there's no one righteous, not even one, no one who understands or seeks Him, everyone having turned away (a paraphrase of Romans 3:10–11). In Ephesians, Paul says that because of His great love, God, rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even while we were dead in our transgressions — by grace we've been saved, through faith, and this isn't from ourselves, but God's own gift, not by works, so no one can boast (a paraphrase of Ephesians 2:4–5, 8–9). Faith itself, Paul says, isn't from us — it's God's gift.

Thank You, Lord, for regenerating us out of our unrighteousness, giving us faith to believe, and freeing us from the condemnation that comes from being under a Law that brings only death, not life — as Paul writes, he was once alive apart from the Law, but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and he died, discovering that the very commandment meant to bring life actually brought death instead (a paraphrase of Romans 7:9–10).

AI-Expanded Reflection

As with other similar comments throughout this collection, this is another forceful case for the Reformed reading of election and human inability, worth noting once more, briefly, as one serious position within a genuine, long-standing debate among faithful Christians who read passages like Joshua 24 and Romans 9–11 somewhat differently regarding how human choice and divine grace actually relate. What's worth adding regardless of that underlying debate: Joshua's blunt "you are not able" is a striking piece of pastoral honesty either way it's read — rather than accepting the crowd's confident, easy promise at face value, he immediately complicates it, refusing to let a quick emotional commitment substitute for the far harder reality of sustained covenant faithfulness.

Israel is just about to enter the Promised Land, flowing with milk and honey, and what they hear from God instead is a storm of coming curses they'll bring on themselves. God says He already knows what they're inclined to do, even before bringing them into the land promised on oath (a paraphrase of Deuteronomy 31:21). Yet God faithfully carries out His promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob anyway, bringing this rebellious people into the land even knowing exactly what they'll do. They've seen God's mighty signs and wonders, been reminded of His Word, and disciplined for forty years in the wilderness — how do they never learn? God says that once they eat their fill and thrive, they'll turn to other gods and worship them, rejecting Him and breaking His covenant (a paraphrase of Deuteronomy 31:20). We were all running toward destruction ourselves, whether we realized it or not — often numb to God, indulging in material blessing exactly as Israel did once they ate their fill and turned away. Since His Spirit dwells in us, let's be captivated by who our God actually is, rather than merely what He gives or is capable of giving. I see how easily prosperity gospel distorts this truth and misleads people. I wonder how many times material blessing is actually promised in the New Testament based on our own performance? He's given us faith, which promises eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Hallelujah!

AI-Expanded Reflection

God's foreknowledge of Israel's coming failure, spoken directly before they've even entered the land, is worth sitting with as a genuine demonstration of grace rather than resignation — He isn't simply predicting an inevitable outcome from a distance, He's still choosing to fulfill His covenant promise to Abraham's descendants despite already knowing exactly how they'll respond. That combination — full knowledge of coming unfaithfulness paired with continued, deliberate faithfulness anyway — is precisely the pattern this comment's own closing point about grace over performance is reaching toward: God's blessing was never really contingent on Israel's future behavior turning out well, since He was already moving forward with the promise before that behavior had even happened.