“Only 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.”
My Notes
What Does Deuteronomy 10:15 Mean?
Moses reveals something about God's choice of Israel: "Only the LORD had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them." The word "only" (raq — merely, exclusively, nothing but) isolates the cause: the delight was in God alone. Nothing about the fathers earned it. The choosing was pure, unmotivated love.
The word "delight" (chashaq — to desire, to be attached to, to cling to out of love) describes emotional attachment. God didn't choose Israel out of strategic calculation or cosmic necessity. He chose them because he wanted to. His heart was drawn to the patriarchs, and the drawing produced the choosing.
The election of "their seed after them" extends the delight-based choice from the fathers to their descendants — including Moses' audience. You were chosen not because of anything you did but because God was delighted by your ancestors and extended that delight to you. The choice is entirely God's initiative, rooted in divine affection, not human merit.
Reflection Questions
- 1.How does knowing God's choice was based on delight (not merit) change your sense of spiritual security?
- 2.What does the romantic attachment language (chashaq) teach about the character of God's love for his people?
- 3.Where are you trying to earn a choosing that was already given by delight?
- 4.How does being included in a delight you didn't generate affect your approach to grace?
Devotional
God chose your fathers because he wanted to. That's the only reason Moses can identify. Not because they were impressive. Not because they were more righteous than other nations. Because the LORD had a delight — a desire, an emotional attachment — to love them. And from that delight, everything else followed.
The word "only" strips away every other possible explanation. Only the delight. Only the love. Only the divine desire that attached itself to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob for reasons that belong to God alone. The choosing wasn't earned. It wasn't predictable. It was the overflow of a divine heart that was drawn to a particular family and decided: these are mine.
The word "delight" (chashaq) is used elsewhere for romantic attachment — a man's desire for a woman (Genesis 34:8, Deuteronomy 21:11). God's choice of Israel has the character of falling in love: irrational by human standards, unexplainable by merit, driven by an attraction that the subject didn't earn and can't fully comprehend.
The extension to "their seed after them" means you were included in a delight you didn't generate. God loved the patriarchs. And from that love, he chose their descendants. Including the generation standing before Moses. Including you, if you're grafted into this tree by faith. The delight that started with Abraham reaches through the centuries to wherever you're standing right now.
The most important thing about your spiritual identity isn't what you did to earn God's attention. It's that God was delighted to give it. The choosing is his. The delight is his. The love is his. You are the object, not the cause.
Commentary
Trusted original commentary from respected historical Bible scholars and theologians.
Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them,.... Though the heavens and the earth, and all the inhabitants…
Here is a most pathetic exhortation to obedience, inferred from the premises, and urged with very powerful arguments and…
Only Heb. raḳ. The use of this restrictive adverb with disjunctive force a sharp word with the sound of a wrench in it…
Cross References
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