Deuteronomy 12

Jim ButlerDeuteronomy 12

Deuteronomy 12 grounds the second commandment in the concrete realities of conquest and worship: God not only names himself as the sole object of worship but strictly regulates the manner of approach, permitting nothing that originates in pagan practice. The chapter moves from the mandate to obliterate Canaanite religion and its very names from the land, through the prescription of a central place where God sets his name to dwell, to practical rules distinguishing sacrificial from non-sacrificial meals. The governing principle — 'whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it' — is the Old Covenant grounding of the regulative principle of worship, as binding in substance for the new covenant church as it was for Israel on the plains of Moab.