The big picture
Mercy follows the plea of Moses, Israel's leader, after the people worship a calf image. Israel, the people God chose and rescued, was not destroyed. New stone tablets replaced the broken ones, and the people were directed onward. Moses turns from that renewed beginning to what God requires: love, obedience, an end to stubbornness, and care for people without protection. The God who rules everything also provides food and clothing for the stranger.
In this chapter
- New Tablets Preserve the Same Commands Deuteronomy 10:1-5
Two new stone tablets and a wooden chest are required when God speaks to Moses again.
- Priestly Service and the Advance Continue Deuteronomy 10:6-11
The account recalls travel through several stopping places and the death of Aaron, the priest.
- God Seeks Hearts That Stop Resisting Deuteronomy 10:12-16
Moses asks what God requires of Israel and answers with fear, love, service, and obedience involving the whole person.
- God's Greatness Includes Care for the Stranger Deuteronomy 10:17-22
Moses describes God as supreme in power and authority, yet free from favoritism and bribery.
Central truth
God renews the covenant after Israel's rebellion and calls for wholehearted loyalty expressed in obedience, fairness, and care for people without protection.
Scripture beside the summary
Deuteronomy · King James Version · 22Deuteronomy 10:1-5
New Tablets Preserve the Same Commands
Two new stone tablets and a wooden chest are required when God speaks to Moses again. Moses prepared them and went up the mountain. God wrote the same ten commandments that he had spoken to the gathering from the fire. Moses brought the tablets down and placed them in the chest as instructed. The broken tablets did not mean a different set of terms replaced the old ones. God's mercy allowed the covenant to continue, with the original commands preserved among the people in a place prepared for them.
In everyday life
The executor enters a bank vault and replaces a fire-damaged agreement using the signed copy kept in a safe box. She checks that every term remains the same before placing it in a new storage box. A damaged document has not cancelled the duties it records. God himself renews these tablets after rebellion, not an accident with papers.
Notice
Deuteronomy 10:4 The new writing repeats the first commandments. Renewal does not mean God lowers the requirements to make the people's earlier disobedience acceptable after the fact.
Deuteronomy 10:1-5
King James Version1At that time the LORD said unto me, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first, and come up unto me into the mount, and make thee an ark of wood.
2And I will write on the tables the words that were in the first tables which thou brakest, and thou shalt put them in the ark.
3And I made an ark of shittim wood, and hewed two tables of stone like unto the first, and went up into the mount, having the two tables in mine hand.
4And he wrote on the tables, according to the first writing, the ten commandments, which the LORD spake unto you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly: and the LORD gave them unto me.
5And I turned myself and came down from the mount, and put the tables in the ark which I had made; and there they be, as the LORD commanded me.
Deuteronomy 10:6-11
Priestly Service and the Advance Continue
The account recalls travel through several stopping places and the death of Aaron, the priest. His son Eleazar serves in his place. Levi, the tribe set apart for sacred service, is assigned to carry the covenant chest, serve before God, and bless in his name. It receives no separate territorial inheritance like the other tribes because its place is bound to God's service. Moses also recalls that God heard his plea during forty days on the mountain. Instead of destroying Israel, God told him to lead the people onward into the promised land.
In everyday life
The hospice chaplain's successor takes the visitor list from a drawer after her predecessor's death. Families still need visits, and the next round begins despite the empty chair. The work passes to another person without erasing the loss. Levi's service and Israel's advance rest on God's renewed covenant, not continuity within a care team.
Notice
Deuteronomy 10:10 God's decision not to destroy the people is explicitly connected with hearing Moses. The continued advance comes after mercy, not after a claim that the offense never mattered.
Deuteronomy 10:6-11
King James Version6And the children of Israel took their journey from Beeroth of the children of Jaakan to Mosera: there Aaron died, and there he was buried; and Eleazar his son ministered in the priest’s office in his stead.
7From thence they journeyed unto Gudgodah; and from Gudgodah to Jotbath, a land of rivers of waters.
8At that time the LORD separated the tribe of Levi, to bear the ark of the covenant of the LORD, to stand before the LORD to minister unto him, and to bless in his name, unto this day.
9Wherefore Levi hath no part nor inheritance with his brethren; the LORD is his inheritance, according as the LORD thy God promised him.
10And I stayed in the mount, according to the first time, forty days and forty nights; and the LORD hearkened unto me at that time also, and the LORD would not destroy thee.
11And the LORD said unto me, Arise, take thy journey before the people, that they may go in and possess the land, which I sware unto their fathers to give unto them.
Deuteronomy 10:12-16
God Seeks Hearts That Stop Resisting
Moses asks what God requires of Israel and answers with fear, love, service, and obedience involving the whole person. The commands are given for their good. Although heaven and earth belong to God, he loved their ancestors and chose their descendants. That gift calls for a response within them. Circumcision removes the foreskin as a bodily sign of belonging. Moses applies that image to the heart: the people must remove stubborn resistance within them. Belonging to the chosen people is not enough if they keep refusing the God who chose them.
In everyday life
A newly released prisoner fastens his monitoring tag, then sits down to answer the letters he has avoided for years. The visible sign of supervision cannot make him honest with those he deceived. He begins by acknowledging one lie. Moses calls for inward loyalty to God, not compliance with the terms of release.
Notice
Deuteronomy 10:16 The command turns the bodily sign of belonging into an image for the heart. Moses immediately explains its force by telling the people to stop being stubborn.
Deuteronomy 10:12-16
King James Version12And now, Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul,
13To keep the commandments of the LORD, and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good?
14Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the LORD’s thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is.
15Only the LORD had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day.
16Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked.
Deuteronomy 10:17-22
God's Greatness Includes Care for the Stranger
Moses describes God as supreme in power and authority, yet free from favoritism and bribery. He gives justice to children without fathers and to widows, and provides food and clothing for foreigners. Israel must therefore love the stranger, remembering its own life as foreigners in Egypt. The people are to serve and hold fast to the God whose deeds they have seen. Their ancestors entered Egypt as seventy people; now they are numerous as the stars. Greatness, rescue, and growth are joined to a duty toward those without secure standing.
In everyday life
The probate clerk turns from a wealthy claimant to help a newly arrived widow complete the same forms. She gives the woman time, an interpreter's number, and the missing evidence list. A large estate does not buy a better hearing. God's impartial care includes direct provision and a command for Israel to love foreigners.
Notice
Deuteronomy 10:19 Israel's past as foreigners becomes a reason to love foreigners now. Memory of vulnerability is meant to shape how the settled people treat those without the same security.
Deuteronomy 10:17-22
King James Version17For the LORD your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward:
18He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment.
19Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.
20Thou shalt fear the LORD thy God; him shalt thou serve, and to him shalt thou cleave, and swear by his name.
21He is thy praise, and he is thy God, that hath done for thee these great and terrible things, which thine eyes have seen.
22Thy fathers went down into Egypt with threescore and ten persons; and now the LORD thy God hath made thee as the stars of heaven for multitude.
Details worth noticing
The opening image
Deuteronomy 10:1 begins with “At that time the LORD said unto me, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first, and come up unto me into the mount, and make thee an ark of wood.”
Where the chapter turns
Deuteronomy 10:13 forms a natural hinge: “To keep the commandments of the LORD, and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good?”
The final note
Deuteronomy 10:22 leaves the reader with “Thy fathers went down into Egypt with threescore and ten persons; and now the LORD thy God hath made thee as the stars of heaven for multitude.”
A word trail through the chapter
The words LORD, tables, first, mount, time, fathers help reveal the chapter’s repeated concerns.
KJV words made clear
- ark
- A wooden chest, here made to hold the stone tablets of the covenant.
Music and video connected to the passage
Related media appears when its Scripture reference overlaps this study. Music and video can illuminate a theme while the biblical text remains the foundation.
