In conclusion, Moses exhorted: “Apply your hearts to all the words that I am speaking in warning to you today, that you may command your sons to take care to do all the words of this law. For it is no valueless word for you, but it means your life.”​—Deuteronomy 32:4, 46, 47.

‘Applying Their Hearts’ to God’s Word

3, 4. (a) To what were the Israelites to ‘apply their hearts,’ and what did this involve? (b) How did later generations apply Moses’ counsel?

³ Moses admonished the Israelites to ‘apply their hearts’ not only to his stirring song but to all the sacred writings. They had to “pay good heed” (Knox), “be sure to obey” (Today’s English Version), or “meditate upon” (The Living Bible) God’s Law. Only by being thoroughly familiar with it could they ‘command their sons to take care to do all the words of this law.’ At Deuteronomy 6:6-8, Moses wrote: “These words that I am commanding you today must prove to be on your heart; and you must inculcate them in your son . . . And you must tie them as a sign upon your hand, and they must serve as a frontlet band between your eyes.”

Provisions for Learning God’s Law

6, 7. (a) What provisions did Jehovah make to acquaint the Israelites with the Mosaic Law? (b) How might it also have been possible for God’s people in ancient times to become instructed in God’s Word?

⁶ How, though, could the Israelites learn the Law’s some 600 statutes? Copies of it were no doubt rare at first. The future king of Israel was to “write in a book for himself a copy of this law . . . , and he must read in it all the days of his life, in order that he may learn to fear Jehovah his God so as to keep all the words of this law.” (Deuteronomy 17:18, 19) God arranged for the Law to be read every seventh year at the Festival of Booths. (Deuteronomy 31:10-13) While such an occasion was no doubt uplifting, it was too infrequent to impart in-depth knowledge.

⁷ Jehovah also arranged for the tribe of Levi to ‘instruct Jacob in God’s judicial decisions and Israel in God’s law.’ (Deuteronomy 33:8, 10; compare Malachi 2:7.) On some occasions, the Levites carried on teaching campaigns that served the entire nation. (2 Chronicles 17:7-9; Nehemiah 8:7-9) It appears that, in time, at least portions of God’s Word were also available to people in general.* Hence, the psalmist could write: “Happy is the man . . . [whose] delight is in the law of Jehovah, and in his law he reads in an undertone day and night.” (Psalm 1:1, 2) Moses’ exhortation to ‘apply their hearts to God’s Word’ thus amounted to a command to make a diligent study of the Bible.