And this is the Law. This last passage refers to the same thing, viz., that the Law was promulgated anew when the people had now reached the threshold of the promised land, in order that they might be more disposed to obedience, especially when the two tribes and a half had now, by the conquest of the Amorites, obtained a resting-place and a home; for this is the reason why their habitation is mentioned, because the taste of the favor already received ought to stir up their zeal to proceed more cheerfully. We shall elsewhere remark on the country and names of places. It is sufficient here to recollect, that the memory of the Law was renewed, after their inheritance without the promised land had been obtained by the sons of Reuben and Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh, and when their assured possession was before the eyes of the rest. But Moses shews that, although he might explain the Law at fuller length, still nothing had been added to that summary which was originally promulgated; but he rather indicates, that whatever he had taught them during the forty years, had had no other object than that they might more faithfully and exactly keep the Law of God.

These verses would be more properly assigned to the next chapter. They are intended to serve as the announcement and introduction of the address now to be commenced. Deuteronomy 4:44 gives a kind of general title to the whole of the weighty address, including in fact the central part and substance of the book, which now follows in 22 chapters, divided into two groups:
(a) Deut. 5-11,
(b) Deut. 12-26.
The address was delivered when they had already received the first-fruits of those promises Deuteronomy 4:46, the full fruition of which was to be consequent on their fulfillment of that covenant now again about to be rehearsed to them in its leading features.

And this is the law which Moses set before the children of Israel. Not the law concerning the cities of refuge, but the law of the ten commands repeated in the following chapter; so Jarchi remarks,"this which he should set in order after this section;''as he does in the next chapter, where he repeats in order the ten precepts, and makes observations on the manner of the delivery of them, and urges obedience to them.

this is the law which Moses set before the children of Israel--This is a preface to the rehearsal of the law, which, with the addition of various explanatory circumstances, the following chapters contain.

Announcement of the Discourse upon the Law. - First of all, in Deuteronomy 4:44, we have the general notice in the form of a heading: "This is the Thorah which Moses set before the children of Israel;" and then, in Deuteronomy 4:45, Deuteronomy 4:46, a fuller description of the Thorah according to its leading features, "testimonies, statutes, and rights" (see at Deuteronomy 4:1), together with a notice of the place and time at which Moses delivered this address. "On their coming out of Egypt," i.e., not "after they had come out," but during the march, before they had reached the goal of their journeyings, viz., (Deuteronomy 4:46) when they were still on the other side of the Jordan. "In the valley," as in Deuteronomy 3:29. "In the land of Sihon," and therefore already upon ground which the Lord had given them for a possession. The importance of this possession as the first-fruit and pledge of the fulfilment of the further promises of God, led Moses to mention again, though briefly, the defeat of the two kings of the Amorites, together with the conquest of their land, just as he had done before in Deuteronomy 2:32-36 and 3:1-17. On Deuteronomy 4:48, cf. Deuteronomy 3:9, Deuteronomy 3:12-17. Sion, for Hermon (see at Deuteronomy 3:9).

This is the law - More punctually expressed in the following chapter, to which these words are a preface.