Deuteronomy 18:9
When you enter the land that the LORD your God is giving you, do not imitate the detestable ways of the nations there.
Sermons
Prophets and the ProphetAlexander MaclarenDeuteronomy 18:9
Divination ForbiddenR.M. Edgar Deuteronomy 18:9-14
Gross Superstition the Alternative of True ReligionD. Davies Deuteronomy 18:9-14
Heathen Abominations AvoidedJ. Wolfendale.Deuteronomy 18:9-14
MagicJ. Orr Deuteronomy 18:9-14
Magical Arts and DivinationH. Cowles, D. D.Deuteronomy 18:9-14
The Deterring Power of Divine GraceH. Melvill, B. D.Deuteronomy 18:9-14














The process of divination, in its different forms here referred to - "divination," "observing the heavenly bodies," "enchantment," "witchcraft," "charming," "consultation of spirits," "sorcery," and "necromancy" was an effort to discover secrets by unwarrantable methods. It was man's longing for revelation undergoing degradation through the imaginations of men. It had been practiced by the predecessors in Canaan, and in consequence they were being cast out. The Israelites were to deem it abomination, and unworthy of the people of God. From the succeeding verses, it is evident that it is to be contrasted with the Divine order of prophetical inspiration, and in consequence rejected with detestation.

I. OUR IDEAS OF REVELATION SHOULD BE WORTHY OF GOD. We have no right to expect God to degrade himself in the methods of revelation. Our own instincts should lead us to abhor such processes as have been adopted to secure the secrets of the Most High. All the mean and abominable ways which are here enumerated ought to have been renounced by thinking men instead of adopted. They are all unworthy channels for God's messages. Astrology, enchantment, necromancy, - all are miserable makeshifts for a decent mode of revelation. God has in "diverse manners" certainly made known his will to men (Hebrews 1:1). He has used dreams (Genesis 37:8; Job 33:15), revealing to the soul, whose avenues of sensation are temporarily closed, the information it needed. The dream was the condition of the communication (Genesis 28:12-22). God spoke when he had got man's ear shut to other things. And we can see this to be a most worthy way! Then by angelic visits he oftentimes revealed his will, instances of which are many in the Bible. This also was worthy. Last of all, by inspiring men, that is, through human nature, which is also eminently worthy of God. But the divination process is and should have been regarded as mean and contemptible.

II. IT IS EVIDENCE OF THE GREAT CREDULITY OF MEN THAT DIVINATION HAS IMPOSED UPON THEM. In connection with "spiritualism," for example, we have examples of credulity now corresponding exactly to the divination of the earlier times. As if such mean methods would be adopted by the Infinite Majesty, who has spoken in these last days by his Son! The power of belief is incalculable. Credulity is the believing power exercised on false objects and on insufficient evidence. We have ample faith in the world, if we could only get it rightly directed. And sometimes we find men who are most skeptical about religious matters, most credulous about the novelties of spiritualism. They yield to phenomena a credence that they deny to the well-authenticated Word.

III. GOD'S PRESENCE IS TO DETERMINE OUR CONDUCT. When Moses says, "Thou shalt be perfect with (עִס) the Lord thy God" (ver. 13), the idea seems to be that the overshadowing Presence is to determine our conduct before him. We will strive to be perfect as he is, and not look for mean methods from him. - R.M.E.

Thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations.
One reason to shun the practices of idolatry springs from the nature of the evils themselves.

1. They are cruel. Children "pass through the fire." "Cruelty is one of the highest scandals to piety," says Seeker. "The dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty — homesteads of violence" (Psalm 74:20).

2. They are enticing. Divination, enchanter, and witch have their spells. Idolatry, "a shameful creed of craft and cruelty," delights in what fills the sensuous imagination. "Who hath bewitched (fascinated) you, that ye should not obey the truths." (Galatians 3:1.)

3. They are defiling "abominations." Paintings and sculptures, laws and legends, reveal the awful corruptions of the heathen world.

4. They are destructive. "Because of these abominations the Lord doth drive them out." Sin drives away from God here and from heaven hereafter. The fruit of idolatry and superstitions is death (Leviticus 20:23).

(J. Wolfendale.)

That useth divination
1. Different names are here assigned to persons dealing in the arts of magic. "One that useth divination"; professing to gain power and knowledge more than human. "One that practiseth augury" or covert arts. "An enchanter": the original suggesting the serpent, and implying the practice of charming serpent, yet always connected with the arts of divination. "A sorcerer": the Hebrew word signifying one who mutters incantations, but only in the bad sense of seeking help from others than God. "A charmer": a word which suggests binding as with the spell of enchantment. "A consulter with a familiar spirit": the English phrase signifies spirits who stand in such a relation to the performer that they come at his call. Of course it is pretended that these spirits are other and greater than human. The original Hebrew (Ob) comes down to us in the African "Obe-man," who still follows the same profession, by means of similar arts. "A wizard" is one who claims superhuman wisdom, the old English accurately translating the Hebrew; the distinctively wise one. The word is restricted in usage to superior wisdom gained by the arts of magic. "A necromancer": precisely the spiritist of modern times, or rather of all time, who claims to have communion with the spirits of dead men.

2. This analysis of the original words may aid toward some just conception of the associated ideas which cluster round the magic arts of the Hebrew age. Their name and their arts are legion. Think of so many classes — professions — of men and women naturally shrewd, sharp, cunning; practising upon the superstitions and fears of the million; working upon their imagination, haunting them with the dread of unknown powers, bringing up to them ghosts from the invisible world, claiming to give auguries of the future, playing in every way upon their fears and hopes, to extort their money or to make sport of their fears or to gratify their own or others' malice. A system so near akin in spirit and influence to idolatry, which so thoroughly displaces God from the hopes and fears of men, and which seeks so successfully to install these horrible superstitions in His place — a system, which perverts the powers of the world to come to subserve ungodliness, and which practically rules out the blessed God from the sphere of men's homage, fears, and hopes — this system has always been worked by wicked and never by good men, has always subserved all, iniquity, but piety and morality never — this has been a master-stroke of Satan's policy, and one of the most palpable fields of his triumph through all the ages.

(H. Cowles, D. D.)

The Lord thy God hath not suffered thee so to do.
It is recognised as a principle amongst legislators and magistrates, that the great end of punishment is the prevention of crime. And there is no doubt that, up to a certain point, this object is gained. The public execution will strike terror into many, though numbers, again, more hardened in wickedness, will depart from the spectacle, and perhaps commit the very crime for which they have just seen a fellow creature die. It is not, however, that they actually set at nought the punishment; it is rather that there are always so many chances of escape, the men transgress in the hope that they shall elude detection, The fearfulness of a threatening, even though combined with the certainty of execution, will not always, nor even commonly, deter men from violating the commandments of God. There is no need for having recourse to imagination for the destruction of a people on account of their wickedness, and their inheritance passing into the possession of others. This is only what actually occurred in the instance of the land of Canaan, whose inhabitants were exterminated because of their crimes, and it was then handed over to a new population. There was here what might strictly be called a public execution. There was no giving a secret commission to the angel of death to move through the doomed ranks, and lay them low; which might perhaps have left it doubtful whether or not there had been any judicial interference; but the Israelites were put visibly into the place of public executioners, being charged with the terrible commission — "Thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them." They were sent expressly to punish a guilty and condemned population. And the first memorable thing, if you examine the Scriptural record, is that God Himself placed no dependence on the influence and effect of the public execution; for His Word is full of warning to the Israelites, that they would fall under the like condemnation if they imitated the practices of those whom they destroyed. So far from its being reckoned on as an insupposable or even an improbable thing, that they who had been commissioned to slay multitudes on account of their sin would themselves practise the sin so fearfully and openly visited, there is the frequent repetition of energetic denunciations of that sin; and Moses is directed to urge the Israelites, with all earnestness and affection, to take heed that they provoke not the Lord by following the example of their predecessors in the land. You must be further aware, that so far from having been unnecessary, the warning actually failed in deterring the Israelites from the accursed practices; so that it was not against improbable danger that Moses directed his parting admonitions. For when the Israelites had destroyed the Canaanites, and taken possession of their land, they quickly gave in to the very abominations which had been visited with all the fearfulness of a public execution. You read of them in the earliest period of their settlement — "They forsook the Lord, and served Baal and Ashtaroth." And their whole history, up to the time when God was provoked to let loose against them the power of the Assyrian, is a record of rebellion under those special and flagrant forms which had marked the guilty career of the tribes which had perished by their sword. Where, then, was the supposed influence of a public execution? What ground is there for the imagination, that even were the Almighty visibly to interfere, and in His character of moral Governor of the universe to anticipate in certain cases those judgments which shall hereafter be poured out on the impenitent, there would be wrought any permanent effect on the great mass of men? — as though the thing wanted in order to repress the actings of unrighteousness were only a more open and express demonstration that punishment is to follow upon sin. And now you may be disposed to ask with what view we have endeavoured to show, that even what might be called a public execution, the present visible descent of the vengeance of God on the perpetrators of certain sins, would probably be ineffectual in deterring others from the practice of those sins — ineffectual even in regard of such persons as had the best means of knowing that the infliction was the direct and judicial consequence of the crime. We have but one object; not that of merely presenting a severe and repulsive picture of the depravity of our nature, but that of shutting you up to the conviction of the necessity, the indispensableness of the Divine grace, in order to your being withheld from the commission of sin. We would withdraw you, if we could, from all reliance on anything but the immediate workings of the Spirit of God, when the matter in question is the being able to resist this or that temptation, or to keep oneself undefiled by this or that wickedness. We would teach you, however harsh the teaching may sound, that there is no wickedness of which you are not capable, and that if you think yourselves secure against a sin just because the sin may be held in abhorrence, or because you may be thoroughly aware of God's purpose of visiting it with extraordinary vengeance, you display a confidence in your own resolution and strength which, as savouring of pride, can only be expected to issue in defeat. This is virtually the doctrine of our text. For you will perceive that God ascribes it wholly to Himself that the Israelites were preserved from the abominations of the heathen. "These nations hearkened unto observers of times, and unto diviners; but as for thee, the Lord thy God hath not suffered thee so to do." They would have been just as bad had they been left to themselves; but God had not suffered them to fall into such flagrant transgression. He had so acted upon them by His grace as to preserve them from sins, of which they had the seeds in their hearts, just as much as others, in whom those seeds were allowed to bring forth their fruits. And though the text speaks only of the past, making mention of preventing grace as having hitherto wrought upon the Israelites, it is clearly implied in the fact of a remonstrance against any future imitation of the heathen, that there would be no security for them except in their being still withheld by the influences of God's Spirit.

(H. Melvill, B. D.)

People
Levi, Levites, Moses
Places
Beth-baal-peor, Horeb
Topics
Abominable, Abominations, Detestable, Disgusting, Enter, Example, Follow, Gives, Giveth, Giving, Imitate, Learn, Nations, Practices
Outline
1. The LORD is the priests and Levites' inheritance
3. The priests' due
6. The Levites' portion
9. The abominations of the nations are to be avoided
15. Christ the Prophet is to be heard
20. The presumptuous prophet is to die

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Deuteronomy 18:9

     8217   conformity
     8449   imitating
     8739   evil, examples of

Deuteronomy 18:9-12

     4185   sorcery and magic
     4906   abolition
     7258   promised land, early history

Deuteronomy 18:9-13

     6103   abomination
     8764   forgetting God
     8807   profanity
     8831   syncretism

Library
Prophets and the Prophet
'When thou art come into the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations. 10. There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, 11. Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. 12. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord: and because of these
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Moses the Type of Christ.
"The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto Him ye shall hearken."--Deut. xviii. 15. The history of Moses is valuable to Christians, not only as giving us a pattern of fidelity towards God, of great firmness, and great meekness, but also as affording us a type or figure of our Saviour Christ. No prophet arose in Israel like Moses, till Christ came, when the promise in the text was fulfilled--"The Lord thy God," says Moses, "shall
John Henry Newman—Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII

Appendix xiv. The Law in Messianic Times.
THE question as to the Rabbinic views in regard to the binding character of the Law, and its imposition on the Gentiles, in Messianic times, although, strictly speaking, not forming part of this history, is of such vital importance in connection with recent controversies as to demand special consideration. In the text to which this Appendix refers it has been indicated, that a new legislation was expected in Messianic days. The ultimate basis of this expectancy must be sought in the Old Testament
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah

Christ's Prophetic Office
'The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet,' &c. Deut 18:85. Having spoken of the person of Christ, we are next to speak of the offices of Christ. These are Prophetic, Priestly, and Regal. 'The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet.' Enunciatur hic locus de Christo. It is spoken of Christ.' There are several names given to Christ as a Prophet. He is called the Counsellor' in Isa 9:9. In uno Christo Angelus foederis completur [The Messenger of the Covenant appears in Christ alone].
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

The Inheritance
Gerhard Ter Steegen Deut. xviii. 1, 2 Am I not enough, Mine own? enough, Mine own, for thee? Hath the world its palace towers, Garden glades of magic flowers, Where thou fain wouldst be? Fair things and false are there, False things but fair. All shalt thou find at last, Only in Me. Am I not enough, Mine own? I, for ever and alone, I, needing thee?
Frances Bevan—Hymns of Ter Steegen, Suso, and Others

Meditations of the True Manner of Practising Piety on the Sabbath-Day.
Almighty God will have himself worshipped, not only in a private manner by private persons and families, but also in a more public sort, of all the godly joined together in a visible church; that by this means he may be known not only to be the God and Lord of every Singular person, but also of the creatures of the whole universal world. Question--But why do not we Christians under the New, keep the Sabbath on the same seventh day on which it was kept under the Old Testament? I answer--Because our
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

God's Last Arrow
'Having yet therefore one son, his well-beloved, he sent him also last unto them.'--Mark xii. 6. Reference to Isaiah v. There are differences in detail here which need not trouble us. Isaiah's parable is a review of the theocratic history of Israel, and clearly the messengers are the prophets; here Christ speaks of Himself and His own mission to Israel, and goes on to tell of His death as already accomplished. I. The Son who follows and surpasses the servants. (a) Our Lord here places Himself in
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The First Disciples
John i. 19 TO ii. 12 97. After the withdrawal of Jesus into the wilderness, John the Baptist continued his ministry of preaching and baptizing, moving northward up the Jordan valley to Bethany, on the eastern side of the river, near one of the fords below the Sea of Galilee (John i. 28). Here Galilee, doubtless, contributed more to his audience than Judea. It is certain that some from the borders of the lake were at this time among his constant attendants: Andrew and Simon of Bethsaida, John the
Rush Rhees—The Life of Jesus of Nazareth

Humility is the Root of Charity, and Meekness the Fruit of Both. ...
Humility is the root of charity, and meekness the fruit of both. There is no solid and pure ground of love to others, except the rubbish of self-love be first cast out of the soul; and when that superfluity of naughtiness is cast out, then charity hath a solid and deep foundation: "The end of the command is charity out of a pure heart," 1 Tim. i. 5. It is only such a purified heart, cleansed from that poison and contagion of pride and self-estimation, that can send out such a sweet and wholesome
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

The Twofold Testimony of John - the First Sabbath of Jesus's Ministry - the First Sunday - the First Disciples.
THE forty days, which had passed since Jesus had first come to him, must have been to the Baptist a time of soul-quickening, of unfolding understanding, and of ripened decision. We see it in his more emphasised testimony to the Christ; in his fuller comprehension of those prophecies which had formed the warrant and substance of his Mission; but specially in the yet more entire self-abnegation, which led him to take up a still lowlier position, and acquiescingly to realise that his task of heralding
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah

Not that Light, but a Witness.
(John I. 8.) "Nothing resting in its own completeness Can have worth or beauty; but alone Because it leads and tends to farther sweetness, Fuller, higher, deeper than its own. "Spring's real glory dwells not in the meaning, Gracious though it be, of her blue hours; But is hidden in her tender leaning To the summer's richer wealth of flowers." A. A. PROCTOR. Resentment of the Sanhedrim--The Baptist's Credentials--Spiritual Vision--"Behold the Lamb of God"--The Baptism of the Spirit The baptism and
F. B. Meyer—John the Baptist

Messiah's Entrance into Jerusalem
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: He is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass. -- And He shall speak peace unto the heathen. T he narrowness and littleness of the mind of fallen man are sufficiently conspicuous in the idea he forms of magnificence and grandeur. The pageantry and parade of a Roman triumph, or of an eastern monarch, as described in history, exhibit him to us
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 1

More Particularly, in what Respect Christ is Called the Truth.
But for further explaining of this matter, we would see more particularly, in what respects it is, that he is called the truth; and this will make way to our use-making of him. So, First, He is the Truth, in opposition to the shadows and types of him, under the law. Hence, as "the law," the whole Levitical and typical dispensation, "came by Moses, so grace and truth came by Jesus Christ," John i. 17. They were all shadows of him, and he is the substance and body of them all, Col. ii. 17; and this
John Brown (of Wamphray)—Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life

The Messianic Prophecies in the Pentateuch.
In the Messianic prophecies contained in Genesis we cannot fail to perceive a remarkable progress in clearness and definiteness. The first Messianic prediction, which was uttered immediately after the fall of Adam, is also the most indefinite. Opposed to the awful threatening there stands the consolatory promise, that the dominion of sin, and of the evil arising from sin, shall not last for ever, but that the seed of the woman shall, at some future time, overthrow their dreaded conqueror. With the
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

First Withdrawal from Herod's Territory and Return.
(Spring, a.d. 29.) Subdivision B. Feeding the Five Thousand. ^A Matt. XIV. 13-21; ^B Mark VI. 33-44; ^C Luke IX. 11-17; ^D John VI. 2-14. ^c 11 But { ^a and} the multitudes heard thereof [heard of Jesus and his disciples crossing the lake], ^b 33 And they saw them going, and ^c perceiving it, ^b many knew them, ^d 2 And a great multitude followed him, because they beheld the signs which he did on them that were sick. ^b and they ran together there on foot from all the cities, and outwent them. ^a
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

The Plan for the Coming of Jesus.
God's Darling, Psalms 8:5-8.--the plan for the new man--the Hebrew picture by itself--difference between God's plan and actual events--one purpose through breaking plans--the original plan--a starting point--getting inside. Fastening a Tether inside: the longest way around--the pedigree--the start. First Touches on the Canvas: the first touch, Genesis 3:15.--three groups of prediction--first group: to Abraham, Genesis 12:1-3; to Isaac, Genesis 26:1-5; to Jacob, Genesis 28:10-15; through Jacob,
S. D. Gordon—Quiet Talks about Jesus

Balaam's Prophecy. (Numb. xxiv. 17-19. )
Carried by the Spirit into the far distant future, Balaam sees here how a star goeth out of Jacob and a sceptre riseth out of Israel, and how this sceptre smiteth Moab, by whose enmity the Seer had been brought from a distant region for the destruction of Israel. And not Moab only shall be smitten, but its southern neighbour, Edom, too shall be subdued, whose hatred against Israel had already been prefigured in its ancestor, and had now begun to display Itself; and In general, all the enemies of
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

In the Temple at the Feast of Tabernacles.
(October, a.d. 29.) ^D John VII. 11-52. ^d 11 The Jews therefore sought him at the feast, and said, Where is he? [It was now eighteen months since Jesus had visited Jerusalem, at which time he had healed the impotent man at Bethesda. His fame and prolonged obscurity made his enemies anxious for him to again expose himself in their midst. John here used the word "Jews" as a designation for the Jerusalemites, who, as enemies of Christ, were to be distinguished from the multitudes who were in doubt
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

John's First Testimony to Jesus.
(Bethany Beyond Jordan, February, a.d. 27.) ^D John I. 19-34. ^d 19 And this is the witness of John [John had been sent to testify, "and" this is the matter of his testimony], when the Jews [The term "Jews" is used seventy times by John to describe the ruling classes of Judæa] sent unto him [In thus sending an embassy they honored John more than they ever honored Christ. They looked upon John as a priest and Judæan, but upon Jesus as a carpenter and Galilæan. It is probable that
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

The Formation of the Old Testament Canon
[Sidenote: Israel's literature at the beginning of the fourth century before Christ] Could we have studied the scriptures of the Israelitish race about 400 B.C., we should have classified them under four great divisions: (1) The prophetic writings, represented by the combined early Judean, Ephraimite, and late prophetic or Deuteronomic narratives, and their continuation in Samuel and Kings, together with the earlier and exilic prophecies; (2) the legal, represented by the majority of the Old Testament
Charles Foster Kent—The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament

The Angel of the Lord in the Pentateuch, and the Book of Joshua.
The New Testament distinguishes between the hidden God and the revealed God--the Son or Logos--who is connected with the former by oneness of nature, and who from everlasting, and even at the creation itself, filled up the immeasurable distance between the Creator and the creation;--who has been the Mediator in all God's relations to the world;--who at all times, and even before He became man in Christ, has been the light of [Pg 116] the world,--and to whom, specially, was committed the direction
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

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