Deuteronomy 1-18
Introduction
This lesson begins our study of the book of Deuteronomy, whose title means that the law was given again, to the generation that would actually enter the Promised Land. It is quoted often in the New Testament, and it’s written as a formal suzerainty-vassal treaty between God and the nation of Israel. But rather than just repeating the law, it teaches as well, and includes some changes to reflect the consequences of Israel’s past failures. Please refer to these resources as well: this commentary, the NETS Bible, and this LXX Interlinear.
Deu. 1
We see in verse 3 that this is the 40th year since leaving Egypt, so it’s Moses’ last act of guidance for Israel. Constable argues that the name Yahweh appears first in this book and signifies that it is “the name most expressive of God’s covenant role with Israel”. But the Greek text simply renders it kurios ho theos (the Lord God, the existing one), and it seems reasonable to assume that if Yahweh were a formal name, they would have transliterated it as such.
As you continue reading through this chapter, you’ll recognize a summary of past events. But notice in verse 39 that it mentions children who were not old enough to know good from bad. This is commonly referred to as “the age of accountability”, and many deny that the Bible teaches it, usually out of a misuse of Psalm 51:5 where David laments that he was “sinful at birth”. But that Psalm is clearly using hyperbole to express deep repentance over sin, such as in Job 3:1 where Job cursed the day he was born. In this chapter, Moses is reminding the people of the time when their parents thought they and their children would die in the wilderness because they didn’t trust God, so the children are being declared innocent.
Deu. 2
Continuing on to ch. 2, we see in verse 11 another mention of the Raphaim, from which the Emites were descended. So while we can’t dismiss all the commands of God to wipe out even women and children as because they weren’t fully human, there certainly were quite a few who fit the description. Verse 14 tells us that the 40 years’ delay was for the military-age men to die off, so the reason for keeping them out is because they, as the army of Israel, were relying on their own strength instead of God’s demonstrated power.
Then in verse 20 we see mention of the Raphaim again, who were displaced by the Ammonites. We need to remember that history is filled with “indigenous populations” being displaced, so using that as an excuse to punish the current citizens of a land is not only ignorant but also proves that we are no better.
Deu. 3
Here we’re given a little more detail about King Og of Bashan. There is disagreement over whether verse 11 is talking about his bed or his sarcophagus, but it was over 13 feet long and 6 feet wide. Notice verse 26 where Moses asked God one too many times if he could please enter the Promised Land, and God retorts, “Enough of that!” The phrase is sometimes rendered as something like “Let it be sufficient for you”— which should sound familiar to us, since God told Paul the same thing about the thorn in his flesh in 2 Cor. 12:9. It’s possible that God was not being as gentle with Paul as we’ve always assumed. But the point is that though God is patient, that doesn’t mean there’s no limit to his patience.
Deu. 4
Now in ch. 4 we again see the conditional nature of this covenant (”so that”). So Moses has to remind them of their history with God, the God who has no equal or rival, who proved that he doesn’t play favorites when it comes to sin when he punished Moses for striking the rock instead of speaking to it, though the people provoked him.
But starting in verse 25 is a prediction as much as a warning: Should Israel stray to other gods in the future, they will be exiled from the land, but God will hear them if they sincerely repent and seek him out. The reason for this mercy is in verse 31: God keeps his promises no matter what. This is an over-arching principle forgotten and despised by replacement theologists of all kinds. The covenant God swore to keep can never be revoked, and it concerned physical descendants living on physical land. Some of those promises still remain to be fulfilled.
Starting in verse 32 is God’s own testimony of his unique relationship with this nation, proved by his actions over and over, and how this backs up his claim to be the one and only God— not one of millions as Mormonism teaches, or as all the other false religions teach. According to Constable, verse 37 is the first formal declaration of Israel as God’s chosen people— a choice not made due to their exemplary character, but to God’s unilateral promises to Abraham.
National election does not guarantee individual salvation but physical blessings and the means by which the Saviour would come. The purpose of God’s statements is to reveal the character of this perfect and holy God, who in spite of the sins and faults of his people, will keep his promises even if only a fraction of them remain in the end. Israel is under contract as a nation or one entity, though it is made up of individuals. We cannot and must not confuse the two; what God says to a group is not necessarily said to the people as individuals. We see this also in the letters to the seven churches in Revelation; they had collective issues with individual exceptions. Otherwise, Jesus would only have addressed individuals.
Deu. 5
After verse 40, Moses gives the law to the people for the last time, the final form of the legal contract. Note especially verses 2-3, where Moses states point blank that this covenant is not the one with their ancestors, but with the nation as composed of the twelve tribes who were standing there at this time. This hardly means that we can ignore the character of God and his revelation of what he wants from us, namely our willing return of his love. But it does mean that we are not under this covenant. Certainly we all know that taking what does not belong to us is against the character of God, but we are not the nation of Israel with a conditional, two-party contract.
So the over-arching lesson for everyone is to teach us what God wants from us: gratitude, humility, compassion, holiness, and consistency. This what Jesus taught: love God and people, treat others as you wish they’d treat you. And Paul, writing to the Romans, said that love fulfills the law, because love does no harm to a neighbor. Those are the universal laws, outside of any covenant. They are the underlying moral base for the national laws of Israel, but in no way does that make us Israel in any sense at all. They were charged with modeling God’s character to the other nations, to the smallest detail of their lives.
Now for some brief observations on the Ten Commandments in verse 15, since we’ve already gone over these in the study of Exodus. Constable points out a difference between the fourth Commandment here and the one in Exodus 20:11. Before, the reason for observing the Sabbath was that God made the world in six days; here in verse 15, it’s to remind them of their trek out of Egypt as another act of creation, the nation of Israel.
Deu. 6
This is where we find what Jesus called the greatest commandment: to love God with more than mere outward conformity. The heart was believed to be where our thoughts originated, the soul was the invisible source of the will and personality, and of course strength was the physical, outwardly-visible person. So this means to love God with every part of our being, to act from relationship rather than legalistic obligation.
Again, this doesn’t mean either that outward performance was optional for Israel on the one hand, or that outward performance is mandatory for the church on the other. Rather, both have one thing in common: a relationship between Creator and creature, not some cold “stimulus-response” mechanism. Actions can be done without the heart, but they will always follow the heart. Or as Jesus put it, your heart will be where your treasure is. The difference between forced and voluntary compliance is like the difference between a teacher who is only there for a paycheck, and a teacher who genuinely cares about the students and wants to see them excel. God wants our hearts, not our completed checklists.
There are some good points in Constable’s notes about practicing what we preach, and living like we have this relationship in mind. But it raises the question of passing down more than rules and traditions to the next generation; how do we pass down our convictions? It isn’t just a simple matter of making rules and following them slavishly, but of explaining why we do what we do. “Because I say so” or “It’s our tradition” are not valid explanations. There are certainly times or situations where explanations will have to wait, but we should make the best of every opportunity to give good reasons for our beliefs and actions. If what you believe and do is right, our children will pick up on that— just as they will also pick up our faults.
Deu. 7
Chapters 7-11 give practical exampes of how Israel was to carry out the covenant. Sometimes this would include some pretty harsh actions, which is part of their being “chosen”. Being chosen doesn’t mean people can do whatever they want or that they won’t have to do any unpleasant tasks— which brings us to verse 7, where God explicitly states what it means: “I didn’t choose you because of your superiority, but in spite of it.” God has shown time and again that it’s only due to his patience and mercy that they exist at all. In the same way, we as Christians should not think that we enjoy God’s blessings because we deserve them, any more than we should point fingers at the suffering of others and say they deserve it.
Deu. 8
Chapter 8 verse 3 is where we see one of the scriptures Jesus used to resist the devil during his temptation in the wilderness: “Man does not live by bread alone but by every word from the mouth of God”. Here again we see the “spirit of the law”, and the physical blessings to Israel for willing obedience— or punishment for rebellion, as a good parent disciplines their wayward children. Blessings are not to be taken for granted, nor lessons of discipline forgotten.
Deu. 9
Here God gives the justification for Israel’s impending elimination of the nations in Canaan. Verses 4-6 state that it is only because those nations are so evil that God is having Israel wipe them out, not because Israel is so good. In fact, God calls them “a stubborn people”, hardly the kind of thing a Jewish writer would invent. This brutal honesty is one of the many pieces of evidence against the claim that the Bible is fiction. This point is driven home through the end of the chapter.
Deu. 10-11
These two chapters are a reminder that Israel had broken the original covenant, but that God graciously allowed it to be repaired, albeit with some “glue” this time. He could have legally “divorced” Israel but instead chose to give them another chance, mostly due to Moses’ intercession. All he ever wanted from them is to be kind and faithful, and they had no excuse for failing to meet that demand, especially since they had seen God’s great deeds with their own eyes.
Deu. 12-14
There’s a nice chart in Constable’s notes showing how each of the Ten Commandments is fleshed out in chapters 12 through 25, which is what we’d expect of a formal suzerain treaty of the time.
Near the end of ch. 12 is another lesson for us: The Israelites were never to study the religious practices of other nations, because of the danger of adopting their practices. Many Christians have been ensnared by a morbid curiosity of other religions under the pretense of “knowing our enemy”. Entire “ministries” are devoted to the detailed study of the occult, only to subconsciously weave it into their own interpretation of scripture. Others study religions claiming to be restorations of, or improvements on, the New Testament, but they aren’t anchored strongly enough on the truth, so they compromise because they want to accept everyone.
On an individual level, we also tend to do this with relationships; we think we can change someone or overlook serious issues, and as a result we tolerate or adopt many sins. Instead of putting on the full armor of God, we wear the skin of the chameleon, and we become like the bland salt Jesus warned about. Then, when the fake prophets come along as tests from God, we fall like the house built on sand in one of Jesus’ parables. Plants that spread quickly in shallow ground are easy to pull up, and so are Christians who spend their time running from one intriguing spiritual teaching to the next.
Deu. 15-18
Another lesson can be found in verse 11, where God says that there will always be poor people in the land. Critics are quick to conclude that God is cold-hearted or powerless or imaginary, since otherwise there would never be poor, sick, or injured people. But as with false prophets, these were permitted in Israel to test the faithfulness of the better-off. Can we be like forgetful Israel and presume that God is not performing his duties properly, or that he won’t give fair compensation in the next life?
But someone will object that verse 4 says there won’t be any poor in Israel. Yet there are always conditions, per the “if” in verse 5, in this case that all Israel is living in obedience to the laws. So verse 11 simply assumes that they will fail to some degree through the generations to come.
There is another gem in 17:3, where the Bible expressly forbids the worship of the sun, moon, or anything else in the sky. Critics claim that the Bible is all about sun worship since Jesus is the “Son” of God, which even on its face is an absurd and ignorant linguistic fallacy. They ignore explicit teachings like this in favor of their cherry-picked “connect the dots” game. But it’s even more tragic that so many Christians cannot point this out, because they don’t know the scriptures any better than the critics— and sometimes, less so.