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.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Deuteronomy 5-7.

Moses recounts here how God spoke the Ten Commandments to the Children of Israel and how they were frightened by His voice.  Moses reminds them that God had spoken to them in order to incline their hearts to fear Him and obey His commands.  It is good for us to think about the times when God has done things which have led us to fear Him.  But we also need to remember why God wanted the Children of Israel, and us, to both fear and obey Him: so that it might go well for them (and us) and their children.  Moses goes on to emphasize the importance of loving God and obeying Him because we love Him.  We should write His commandments (or, perhaps, request that He write them) on our hearts.  We should talk about them when we are at home, and when we are not at home, when we get up in the morning, and when we lie down again.  Let us write them out in the open, so that others will know that we intend to obey them, and can call us to account when we fail to do so.  Moses gives the people, and us, two more reasons to make sure that God’s commands are written upon us and around us.  If we have references to God’s commands written upon the spaces we occupy (our homes, our cars, perhaps even our workspaces) we will be less likely to forget God when we receive His blessings.  And, if we have references to God’s commands written where others can see them, they may be drawn to obey them as well.

Moses also speaks here of another thing which is closely related to the above.  The Lord our God is the One and Only God.  There is no other.  Therefore, we must not allow ourselves to be drawn into the worship practices of those around us who serve other gods.  They will try to draw us into their worship.  Let us be on guard to not allow that to happen.  But, even when they do not seek to draw us in, we may be tempted by their practices.  Let us not give into that temptation and be drawn away from God.  Let us not desire the fruits of those practices, even those which appear pleasurable.  And let the only pity we feel for them when they suffer the consequences of their sin be that which inspires us to call them to turn to God and to obey His commands.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Deuteronomy 3-4.

Moses reminded the Children of Israel to be careful and make sure that they did not forget the things which they had seen.  Let us do the same.  We also need to be careful and not forget the things which we have seen.  I have seen God do many wonderful things.  I assume that most, if not all, of you who are reading this blog have done likewise.  If you have not seen God do wonderful and marvelous things, I beseech you to call out to Him and ask Him to reveal Himself to you.  God showed Himself to the Children of Israel, and to each of us, so that we might know that He alone is God and there is no other like Him.  The Lord is God in heaven above and on earth below and no other being or thing can compare.  No other being or thing can claim sovereignty over heaven or earth from Him.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Deuteronomy 1-2.

The Book of Deuteronomy declares itself to be what Moses told the Israelites as they camped on the eastern side of the Jordan.  There would be two reasons for repeating the Law which God had given Moses for the Israelites in this way.  First, except for Moses, Joshua, and Caleb, all of those who had been adults when God first gave them His Law had died and all of the remaining people had been too young to fully comprehend the Law when Moses first relayed it to them.  Second, over the course of their wandering in the wilderness, things had happened which led to clarifications on how to apply the Law.  So, Moses repeated the Law, with all of those clarifications included, to the Israelites.  There are scholars who believe that this book was composed at a much later time.  I believe that it was indeed initially composed before the Israelites entered the Promised Land (although I hold no opinion as to whether it was first written down then, or merely passed along orally for some time).  One thing which makes me believe that is what is written in chapter 1 verse 37.  There Moses says that it was because of the rebelliousness of the Israelites that God became angry with him and would not allow him to enter the Promised Land.  Yet, in Numbers 20 we are told that God said that Moses would not enter the Promised Land because he had struck the rock when God had told him just to speak to it.  What is written here sounds like something a person like Moses would say, while a third party writing later would have been more careful to align what they wrote with the earlier account.  I am not suggesting that Moses spoke deceptively here, merely shortening the account to keep from distracting from his primary message.  I also believe that some of the later scribes who transcribed this (either those who first wrote it down, or some of those who copied it for future generations) added editorial comments.  It seems to me unlikely that Moses would have bothered to make the comments about previous inhabitants of the land of the Moabites and the land of the Ammonites which we see in chapter two (and which the NIV puts in parenthesis).

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Deuteronomy 32-34.

In many ways Moses’ song recorded here applies to us today.  God had blessed us, but we turned from Him to false gods.  After World War II, Christians used the opportunities provided by the opening of the world to bring God’s word to places where it had rarely been heard.  That message was warmly received in many of these places and people throughout the world were greatly blessed.  In the 1970s and 80s great strides were made reducing hunger throughout the world.  Then. we put our trust in things which were not God, were not even gods, and God has brought calamity upon the world.  God is challenging us to take shelter from the “gods” we have chosen, gods which cannot shelter us, and, to be perfectly clear, would not if they could.  As He said through Moses God is once more telling us:

See now that I myself am he!
There is no god besides me.
I put to death and I bring to life,
I have wounded and I will heal,
and no one can deliver out of my hand.

God is calling us once more to turn to Him, listen to His word, and obey His instructions.   Let us once more pray to God for discernment, and when He offers it to us let us follow what it tells us.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Deuteronomy 29-31.

As the Israelites prepared to cross the Jordan River into the land of Canaan, and Moses prepared for his death, they renewed the covenant which they had made with God at Mount Sinai.  A key part of that covenant was a warning that anyone who thought that they could gain the benefits of this covenant while continuing (or beginning) to worship other gods would suffer grievously.   This warning applies today to those who wish to gain the benefits of following Christ without giving up the idolatrous sinfulness they followed before coming to know Him.  Later in the passage, Moses tells the Israelites that he, and God, knows that they will break the covenant.  However, Moses had also told them that if they turned back to God after their rebellion He would hear them and bring them back to Himself.  The lesson here is that it is never too late, but that works both ways.  It is never too late for us to turn back to God, and we can never “rest on our laurels” and say, “Well, I obeyed God yesterday, so I don’t have to now.”  Today we have the choice of either life and prosperity, or death and destruction, the choice between obedience or disobedience.  There is one final piece to the message of this passage which I want to write about.   Moses told the Israelites that knowing God’s will was not difficult; God had written His Laws on their hearts, and on our hearts.  If we wish to do God’s will, we only need to examine our hearts to know what it is.  But we must truly desire to do His will and not pretend that our desires are His desires.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Deuteronomy 27-28.

Today’s passage describes the first of several altars which Moses instructed the Israelites to set up in the land to remind them of what God had done in giving them the land.  They were to build an altar on Mount Ebal and write the words of the Law on it.  After they had built the altar half of the Israelite were to stand on Mount Gerizim and half on Mount Ebal.  Those on Mount Gerizim were to speak the blessings which come from following God’s Law while those on Mount Ebal were to speak the curses which would come upon those who disobeyed God’s Law.  Reading the blessings and curses described here I get the same sense that I got when I read Deuteronomy 11-13: the blessings and curses are built into the way in which God created the world to work.  Those who obey God’s commands will be blessed because that is how He created the world to work.  Those who disobey God’s commands will be cursed because they have done things which result in those bad things happening to them.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Deuteronomy 24-26.

This passage contains multiple miscellaneous laws.  However, many of them have a similarity: do not mistreat the foreigner, the fatherless, or the widow.  Those three have one thing in common, they would have had little to no power to defend themselves.  Which gives us a theme running through most of these laws, do not take advantage of those weaker than yourself.

• Do not take advantage of hired workers who are poor and needy, pay them promptly
• Do not deny the foreigner or the fatherless of justice
• When harvesting, leave the hard to gather crops for the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow
• When making a loan to a neighbor, if they are poor return their pledge to them before you go to sleep that night.
• When making a loan to a neighbor, do not enter their house to retrieve their pledge.  Wait for them to bring it out to you.
• When making a loan, do not take as security the tools the person uses to earn an income.

At several points the passage tells the Israelites to remember that they were slaves in Egypt.  We too should remember when we, or our ancestors, suffered hard times.  We should remember that, but for the grace of God, we too might be dealing with being weak and having trouble providing for ourselves.  Let us treat those weaker than ourselves as we would wish to be treated if we were in their circumstances.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Deuteronomy 18-20.

Moses warned the Israelites against imitating the “detestable ways” of the people already living there.  To make sure we would know what he meant describes those “detestable ways”.  First, he calls sacrificing their children detestable.  Then he lists a bunch of methods for either determining or controlling the future: divination, sorcery, interpreting omens, witchcraft, casting spells, consulting the dead.  We have long considered sacrificing children to be something horrific (although I would argue that many today no longer do so as long as the sacrifice takes place before birth), but dismissed the others as relatively minor misdeeds by the uneducated.  However, this is not the only place in the Bible where we are told such acts are serious sins, comparable to sacrificing a child.  We must place our faith in God.  When He desires for us to know more about the future than what He has revealed in the Bible He will raise up a prophet to give us His message.  We will know that such prophets are from God because the message they give us will be consistent with what He has already revealed and the predictions which they make will come to pass.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Deuteronomy 14-17.

Moses laid out God’s rules for canceling debts every seven years.  First, he specifies that all debts should be canceled in the seventh year.  Then he talks about being openhanded and generous towards the poor.  Jesus was referring to this passage when He said that we would always have the poor among us, but this passage also tells us to act so as to aid the poor.  Throughout this passage we are told to provide for those who cannot provide for themselves.  Earlier the passage speaks about taking a tenth of our harvest and consuming it as a celebration before God, but a third of that tithe should be given to those who do not have sufficient to feast themselves.   It speaks of freeing those who sold themselves into servanthood because they could not care for themselves.  However, it is not enough that they be freed, those who own them are instructed to send them away with the supplies which they need to make a new start for themselves.

Moses also lays down instructions for judges and rulers.  He instructed judges to judge fairly and to not pervert justice.  The passage describes two ways in which justice might be perverted: showing partiality and accepting bribes.  But the passage makes clear that any other perversion of justice should be avoided as well.  The passage goes on to lay out rules for kings, but I think these rules provide good guidelines for anyone in authority.  In particular, the passage instructs kings to make their own copy of the Book of the Law by copying an existing copy with their own hand.  Then, once they have written out their own copy, they  were to keep that copy with them and read from it regularly.  From this study, the king, or any other ruler, should strive to follow God’s commands and not consider himself better than others.

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