Today, I am reading and commenting on  Deuteronomy 8-10.

As an aside from my main point I want to make a reference to an issue which causes some archeologists to say that the Exodus did not happen, at least not as described in the Bible.  They point out that one would expect a group as large as the Bible describes the Israelites being to leave a significant number of artifacts to be discovered by archeologists if that group spent 40 years in the Sinai desert.  However, what the archeologists are referring to as artifacts are the things which such a group would have thrown out.  In this passage, Moses tells us that during the forty years in the wilderness their clothing did not wear out.  If the same thing applied to pots and other items, perhaps the reason the Israelites left no archeological artifacts is because they didn’t have any trash during those forty years (or, very little).

Moses warns the Israelites against two, closely related, mistakes they might make once they entered into the land and God had driven the people living there out before them.  These are mistakes which we are prone to as well.  First, they might forget God and come to believe that they had good things because of their own abilities and strengths.  Second, they might come to believe that God had taken the land and the good things from those He had driven out because of their righteousness.  We too must be careful not to make either of these mistakes, or any of the related ones which say that we have received good things because we are more deserving of them than others.  Moses warned the Israelites to remember that the good things they received came to them from God because God had chosen to be gracious to them, not because they were such strong, or wonderful, or righteous people.  Moses told the Israelites that God would drive the people out of the land ahead of them because those people were wicked.  Then he tells them that God defends the cause of the orphan and the widow and loves the foreigners living among them.  Finally, Moses sums up the main message of this passage by telling the Israelites, and us, that we should follow God’s commands because He has given them to us for our own good.  While it is true that most of the suffering which people endure comes from their decision to do that which God has declared wicked, that does not mean we should rejoice in their suffering, or think that we are better than they.  Instead, we should show them God’s love and seek to alleviate their suffering so that they may come to turn to the Lord and enjoy the good things which come from obeying Him.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.