Brief summaries of Sermons 4 - 6 from An Exposition of Deuteronomy 33

Chapter summaries from Sermons 4 through 6 from An Exposition of Deuteronomy 33, by William Parkinson:

Sermon 4: “The Love of God Manifested to Israel,” p. 139-164;

Sermon 5: “The Mosaic Law an Inheritance to Israel,” p. 165-192;

Sermon 6: “Moses was King in Jeshurun,” p. 193-216.

In sermon 4, Parkinson now moves to verse 3 of Deuteronomy 33, “Yea, he loved the people: all his saints are in thy hand: and they sat down at his feet; every one shall receive of thy words.” In this text, Moses is especially affected with God’s manifested love for his people. As Parkinson explains, the change “of the pronoun from the third to the second person, is not an instance of ‘verbal confusion,’ but a special evidence of divine inspiration; the Holy Ghost thus leading the prophet to recognize the important fact, that God, in order to render the Israelites the more evidently and eminently a type of his elect, had committed them to the providential hand of his divine Son. And the passage, so understood, instead of being ‘obscure and equivocal,’ is one of the most perspicuous illustrations of God’s favor to his Israel, both national and spiritual.”

In sermon 5, in moving on to verse 4, “Moses commanded us a law: even the inheritance of the Congregation of Jacob,” Parkinson expounds the text in an interesting manner, which includes a lengthy discussion of the federal headship of Adam and the contrasts with the headship of Christ in a footnote. The law as given to Israel was indeed a valuable inheritance, for it was “to them in general, an infallible rule of moral duty toward God and one another; and, to the regenerate among them, it served to discover their sinfulness of nature and life, and the need of the righteousness and atonement of the Messiah, the promised Seed.”

In sermon 6, the focus is now on verse 5, “And he was king in Jeshurun, when the heads of the Tribes of Israel were gathered together.” Parkinson writes, “As in the preceding verse, Moses speaks of himself as a law-giver, so, in this verse, he speaks of himself as a King. . . .In the official promotion of Moses, therefore, we behold a most happy illustration of the official promotion of Christ. In his divine nature, indeed, Christ, in common with the Father and the Holy Ghost, ‘is over all, God blessed for ever’. . . .The administration of Moses was of short duration; but that of Christ is unceasing.”