Preached at Wittenberg in 1529.
Preface about this book.
(1) We have now read four books of Moses the prophet, in which we have seen how he gave many beautiful laws to the ancient Jewish people, and how he divided them into two kingdoms, spiritual and corporal. After this we have also heard of many beautiful examples of faith and unbelief, obedience and disobedience of the old fathers and patriarchs, what and how it happened to those who transgressed such laws and ordinances; which then should be an example to us, according to which we should also judge ourselves, and follow their faith, and beware of unbelief, lest we also fall into the misfortune into which they came. For all these things are for us to
This is the example we are to follow, so that we do not fall into an ungodly way of life, as St. Paul admonishes the Corinthians [1 Ep. 10:6].
002 Now we would gladly recite unto you the fifth book of Moses also, that ye might have heard the whole of Moses. Now the fifth book of Moses is no other than a long sermon, so that before his death he blessed the people, and fasted everything in brief that had been taught by him before, and all kinds of stories that had happened, so that they might take it with them, described, into the land of Canaan, where they would go, and not forget such sermons and stories, but read them all their lives.
*) As we can see from the first words of this paper, Luther preached continuously on all five books of Moses. On December 13, 1528, he stood at your 31st chapter of the fourth book of Moses (compare Col. 1362 of this volume), during the months of April and May 1529 Luther's sermons suffered an interruption because of his hoarseness (De Wette, Vol. Ill, p. X), after his return from the conversation at Marburg, in mid-October 1529, Luther was at the 7th chapter of the fifth book of Moses (cf. in this writing Cap. 6,? 103 and Cap. 7,? 9 ff.], and on the fourth Sunday of Advent, December 19, 1529, he had reached the conclusion of the 9th chapter (Eisleben edition, vol. I, p. 555). After that, the sermons on this book were no longer continued, "because (so Aurifaber says) the Diet of Augsburg followed it in 1530. Only after Luther's death was our writing, which contains the interpretation of Deut. 1-9. (with the exception of Cap. 2 and 3, which Luther passed over because they repeat what was said in the third and fourth book), in 1564 by Aurifaber from postscripts of ltl. Georg Rörer, Ll. Anton Lauterbach, superintendent at Pirna, and Philipp Fabricius, former pastor at Ringleben. It is first found in the Eisleben edition, vol. I, p. 484; then in the "Altenburg", vol. IV, p. 707; in the Leidiger, vol. IV, p. 2VS and in the Erlanger, vol. 36, p. 164. We give the text according to the Eisleben edition.
But especially every seven years, at the feast of tabernacles, to read to all the people of Israel, as it is written in the 31st chapter [vv. 10, 11] of this book. For this reason he includes the best of the other books in this one, and at the same time makes an enchiridion or compendium, a short excerpt and summary of the four preceding books, and leaves the rest, so that one might well call Deuteronomy a lengthy sermon, in which he has abundantly deleted or interpreted the ten commandments, and among them especially the first commandment is abundantly traced. For this is the well and the main source of all commandments, laws and arts, and what flows out of this commandment and goes in again is right.
3. therefore, there must be no interpretation of the
ten commandments in the Old Testament, because Moses himself had done this with his own special book. So now we call the fifth book of Moses an extensive explanation of the ten commandments; and because you heard in the first four books a short, bad explanation of the ten commandments, and otherwise you also hear the ten commandments preached many times a year, we now want to take before us this extensive interpretation, so that you can see how far and wide their understanding extends. Let this now be the preface, that we take this book before us as an ample interpretation, especially of the first commandment. We cannot preach anything more useful than about God, whether it is about His laws and commandments, or about His gospel and promises.