Deuteronomy 12:4

Ye shall not do so unto the LORD your God.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(4) Ye shall not do so—i.e. shall not serve Him upon the high mountains, and hills, and under every green tree, after the manner of the nations.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

12:1-4 Moses comes to the statutes he had to give in charge to Israel; and begins with such as relate to the worship of God. The Israelites are charged not to bring the rites and usages of idolaters into the worship of God; not under colour of making it better. We cannot serve God and mammon; nor worship the true God and idols; nor depend upon Christ Jesus and upon superstitious or self-righteous confidences.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

i. e., "The idolaters set up their altars and images on any high hill, and under every green tree at their pleasure, but ye shall not do so; the Lord Himself shall determine the spot for your worship, and there only shall ye seek Him." The religion of the Canaanites was human; its modes of worship were of man's devising. It fixed its holy places on the hills in the vain thought of being nearer heaven, or in deep groves where the silence and gloom might overawe the worshipper. But such superstitious appliances were not worthy of the true religion. God had revealed Himself to people in it, and manifested among them His immediate presence and power. He would Himself assign the sanctuary and the ritual of His own service.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

3. And ye shall overthrow their altars—piles of turf or small stones.

and break their pillars—Before the art of sculpture was known, the statues of idols were only rude blocks of colored stones.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

i.e. Not worship him in several places, mountains, groves, &c., which sense is evident from the following opposition.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Ye shall not do so unto the Lord your God. Not sacrifice to him on hills and mountains, and under green trees; though the Jews commonly refer this to the destruction of the names of God, and of any thing appertaining to the temple; that though the temples and the altars of the Heathens were to be overthrown, yet not a stone was to be taken from the house of God, or that belonged to it, nor any of his names to be blotted out; so the Targum of Jonathan and Maimonides (z), who also observes (a), that whoever removes a stone by way of destruction from the altar, or from the temple, or from the court, is to be beaten; so he that burns the holy wood.

(z) Yesode Hattorah, c. 6. sect. 7, 9. (a) Ibid. sect. 8.

Geneva Study Bible

Ye shall {c} not do so unto the LORD your God.

(c) You shall not serve the Lord with superstitions.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 4-6. - The heathen placed their altars and offered their worship wherever they thought fit, according to their notions of the deity and his service; but Israel was not to do so unto Jehovah their God: he himself would choose the places where he was to be worshipped, and there alone might they come with offering and service. As the revealed God - the God whose being and perfections had been made known, not by a vague revelation of him in nature merely, but expressly by his putting or recording his Name historically and locally among men (cf. Exodus 20:24) - so should there be a definite place chosen and appointed by him where he would come to receive the worship of his people, where he would record his Name, and where he would be known for a Refuge and a Helper to all who put their trust in him (Psalm 48:3; Psalm 76:1, etc.; Daniel 9:18). The Name of God is God himself as revealed; and he puts his Name on any place where he specially manifests himself as present (cf. 1 Kings 8:29), and which is consequently to be regarded as his habitation or dwelling-place. Hence the temple at Jerusalem was in later times known as the place of the Name of Jehovah (Isaiah 18:7), the dwelling-place of his glory (Psalm 26:8). But he is the God of the whole earth, and therefore, wherever he is pleased to reveal himself, in whatever place he makes his Name to be known, there he is to be worshipped. There is no reference in this passage to the temple at Jerusalem specially, as some have supposed; what is here enjoined is only a practical application of the Divine promise, that in all places where God would record his Name, there he would come to bless his people (Exodus 20:24). The reference here, therefore, is quite general, and applies to any place where, by the Divine appointment, the tabernacle might be set up and the worship of Jehovah instituted. Unto his habitation shall ye seek. To seek to any place means, primarily, to resort to it, to frequent it (cf. 2 Chronicles 1:5), but with the implied purpose of inquiring there for something, as for responses or oracles, when the place resorted to was that in which God had put his Name. Deuteronomy 12:4

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

"Ye shall not do so to Jehovah your God," i.e., not build altars and offer sacrifices to Him in any place you choose, but (Deuteronomy 12:5.) shall only keep yourselves (אל דּרשׁ) to the place "which He shall choose out of all the tribes to put His name there for His dwelling." Whereas the heathen seeks and worships his nature-gods, wherever he thinks he can discern in nature any trace of Divinity, the true God has not only revealed His eternal power and Godhead in the works of creation, but His personal being, which unfolds itself to the world in love and holiness, in grace and righteousness, He has made known to man, who was created in His image, in the words and works of salvation; and in these testimonies of His saving presence He has fixed for Himself a name, in which He dwells among His people. This name presents His personality, as comprehended in the word Jehovah, in a visible sign, the tangible pledge of His essential presence. During the journeying of the Israelites this was effected by the pillar of cloud and fire; and after the erection of the tabernacle, by the cloud in the most holy place, above the ark of the covenant, with the cherubim uon it, in which Jehovah had promised to appear to the high priest as the representative of the covenant nation. Through this, the tabernacle, and afterwards Solomon's temple, which took its place, became the dwelling-place of the name of the Lord. But if the knowledge of the true God rested upon direct manifestations of the divine nature, - and the Lord God had for that very reason made Himself known to His people in words and deeds as their God-then as a matter of course the mode of His worship could not be dependent upon any appointment of men, but must be determined exclusively by God Himself. The place of His worship depended upon the choice which God Himself should make, and which would be made known by the fact that He "put His name," i.e., actually manifested His own immediate presence, in one definite spot. By the building of the tabernacle, which the Lord Himself prescribed as the true spot for the revelation of His presence among His people, the place where His name was to dwell among the Israelites was already so far determined, that only the particular town or locality among the tribes of Israel where the tabernacle was to be set up after the conquest of Canaan remained to be decided. At the same time, Moses not only speaks of the Lord choosing the place among all the tribes for the erection of His sanctuary, but also of His choosing the place where He would put His name, that He might dwell there (לשׁכנו from שׁכן, for שׁכנו from שׁכן). For the presence of the Lord was not, and was not intended, to be exclusively confined to the tabernacle (or the temple). As God of the whole earth, wherever it might be necessary, for the preservation and promotion of His kingdom, He could make known His presence, and accept the sacrifices of His people in other places, independently of this sanctuary; and there were times when this was really done. The unity of the worship, therefore, which Moses here enjoined, was not to consist in the fact that the people of Israel brought all their sacrificial offerings to the tabernacle, but in their offering them only in the spot where the Lord made His name (that is to say, His presence) known.

What Moses commanded here, was only an explanation and more emphatic repetition of the divine command in Exodus 20:23-24 (Deuteronomy 12:21 and Deuteronomy 12:22); and to understand "the place which Jehovah would choose" as relating exclusively to Jerusalem or the temple-hill, is a perfectly arbitrary assumption. Shiloh, the place where the tabernacle was set up after the conquest of the land (Joshua 18:1), and where it stood during the whole of the times of the judges, was also chosen by the Lord (cf. Jeremiah 7:12). It was not till after David had set up a tent for the ark of the covenant upon Zion, in the city of Jerusalem, which he had chosen as the capital of his kingdom, and had erected an altar for sacrifice there (2 Samuel 6:17; 1 Chronicles 16:1), that the will of the Lord was made known to him by the prophet Gad, that he should build an altar upon the threshing-floor of Araunah, where the angel of the Lord had appeared to him; and through this command the place was fixed for the future temple (2 Samuel 24:18; 1 Chronicles 21:18). דּרשׁ with אל, to turn in a certain direction, to inquire or to seek. את־שׁמו שׂוּם, "to put His name," i.e., to make known His presence, is still further defined by the following word לשׁכנו, as signifying that His presence was to be of permanent duration. It is true that this word is separated by an athnach from the previous clause; but it certainly cannot be connected with תדרשׁוּ (ye shall seek), not only because of the standing phrase, שׁם שׁמו לשׁכּן ("to cause His name to dwell there," Deuteronomy 12:11; Deuteronomy 14:23; Deuteronomy 16:2, Deuteronomy 16:6, etc.), but also because this connection would give no fitting sense, as the infinitive שׁכן does not mean "a dwelling-place."