‘To you it was shown that you might know that Yahweh, He is God; there is no other besides Him”

This chapter closes the preamble of Moses’s great exposition of the laws Israel has received since the nation’s founding at Mount Sinai. The incident with the Midianite women and their gods is a graphic the people should remember when they are tempted by the cultures of Canaan; this plague also purified Israel of unbelievers before the nation’s great test of faith and conquest. 

Moses starts by repeatedly exhorting the people to keep the Law. They are to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, and Yahweh will show the world who He is through the wisdom and righteousness and prosperity of His people. Obedience will be very difficult, as Moses again and again warns them to keep themselves by disciplining their own minds and affections with the memory of Yahweh and His works. 

Yet Yahweh is the God of the spirits of all flesh. He knows what is in man, and remarkably He knows that in the future Israel will reject Him decisively by serving other gods. The fatal consequences of this have been explained earlier (Lev 26), yet here we see truly the abundant love of God. He very well could have left them in their sin, but He will not and at the proper time the descendants Jacob will come back and be His people consummately. This should remind us of Paul’s words: But God demonstrates His love for us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 

Moses completes this preamble by recounting the still amazing events of the exodus and founding of Israel. The nation must remember, meditate and know: He is God, and there is none besides Him, therefore honor Him as God by keeping His commandments. We then see the appointment of the refuge cities in the already conquered lands, and a final description of the exact setting before the expounding of the Law begins.