Deuteronomy 14-16 A Chosen People

posted by Jill Ice


For you are a people holy to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. -Deuteronomy 14:2

Taken from Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary:

Moses here tells the people of Israel how God had dignified them, as a peculiar people, with three distinguishing privileges, which were their honour, and figures of those spiritual blessings in heavenly things with which God has in Christ blessed us.

1. Here is election: The Lord hath chosen thee, v: 2. Not for their own merit, nor for any good works foreseen, but because he would magnify the riches of his power and grace among them. He did not choose them because they were by their own dedication and subjection a peculiar people to him above other nations, but he chose them that they might be so by his grace; and thus were believers chosen, Eph.1:4.
2. Here is adoption (v. 1): "You are the children of the Lord your God, formed by him into a people, owned by him as his people, nay, his family, a people near unto him, nearer than any other.’’ Israel is my son, my first-born; not because he needed children, but because they were orphans, and needed a father. Every Israelite is indeed a child of God, a partaker of his nature and favour, his love and blessing Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us! 
3. Here is sanctification (v. 2): "Thou art a holy people, separated and set apart for God, devoted to his service, designed for his praise, governed by a holy law, graced by a holy tabernacle, and the holy ordinances relating to it.’’ God’s people are under the strongest obligations to be holy, and, if they are holy, are indebted to the grace of God that makes them so. The Lord has set them apart for himself, and qualified them for his service and the enjoyment of him, and so has made them holy to himself.