Month: May 2019

There is a lot in this chapter so let’s try to break it down.  You still need to look at the map that I included in the last blog.  Moses speaks about the 10 commandments and how God gave them to Moses, but especially how the people were witnesses to the presence of God.  Moses asks the following questions in verses 32 and following: have you ever seen a god who takes personal  interest in His people like our God?  Moses describes how God is actively and tangibly a part of the life of the people of Israel and revealed Himself to them throughout history.  Who  has a God like that?  Only the God of Israel is like what is described in history.

Moses goes from the handing down of the ten commandments to describing how and why he will not be able to enter the promised land because the people of Israel made God mad.  Moses tells the people of Israel that they better keep the commandments of the Lord or else the Lord will let the people live their lives on their own.

Then we take a left turn as we describe sanctuary cities.   And you thought sanctuary cities were a 21st century invention!  Nope, they have been around for a while and Moses was the one who instituted them.  I wonder if that makes things look a little differently than what we had thought in the past.  

You can’t really understand what is happening here in Deuteronomy without at least a map to track all the people that the Israelites slaughtered.  Remember, that when it speaks about Mount  Hermon it is located in the northernmost portion of the map, so right up above to where the kingdom of Bashan is located.  I hope that as you read these accounts you are able to track and trace where the  Israelites under Moses are going. 

Notice that Moses went as far as the Jabbok River, or the Jabbok crossing and from there had to stop for the Lord promised that Joshua would enter no matter how much Moses beseeched the Lord to be able to cross over, he did not allow him.  That Jabbok river crossing we went to and we find that it is the actual border between Jordan and Israel.  This year, unlike past years, the Jordan was flooded and was quite wide at that point, where in past years it would take not much to cross, just a few strides.  

I love the detail of the iron bed of King Og which must have been quite a site.  The bed according to the measurements given was 13 feet long and close to 6 feet wide.  Now that is quite a bed!

As I walked by the welcome desk one of you who was following the 90 Day Challenge said to me: “Boy, there sure is a lot of killing in the Bible.”  I responded: “Good thing Jesus came along.”  There is a lot of killing in the Bible including as vs. 34 states: “we utterly destroyed men, women and children.  We left not a single survivor.”  This is incredibly thorough and a very tough read.

So when I hear that Islam is a religion of violence and that Muslims only have one purpose and that is to hurt and kill and take over, I have to pause and ask: “Have you read Deuteronomy lately?”  Our own Scripture contains passages that are really hard to read.  So how do we come to terms with this?  As I said before: “Good thing Jesus came along.”  Jesus showed us a new way of life which is counter-intuitive and counter-cultural.  We are to turn the other cheek.  We are to give our jacket to the one who is looking to rob us.  We are to return good for evil.  Not exactly the words of a politician, but very much the words of a Savior.

I found it interesting that the first few places God told Moses: “Do not attack these people, don’t take  their land.”  That is until he gets to the Amorites when he allows Moses to battle with them and take their land.  But then one of the people that Moses was going to pass by, didn’t let him pass by, so Moses had to destroy them with the Lord’s approval.  I have a feeling this is going to be a long book of the Bible to get through.  

Welcome to  Deuteronomy.  We begin the book of Deuteronomy with Moses who gives an account of what has already taken place in Exodus.  There is a common  misconception that Moses was  the author of the first five books of the Bible, what we call the Pentateuch.  The first verse of Deuteronomy tells us that these are the words of Moses.  He picks the story up about the Israelites from the time that the people asked for leaders who could decide disputes among them.  We find in Exodus that it was Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro, who made the suggestion, but here Moses gives credit to the people for coming up with that idea.  You can see that scene play itself out in Exodus 18.

Moses also retells the story of how they sent spies into the land and they came back with stories of plenty, but the people were terrified of the “giants” who lived in the land.  As a result they refused to follow God’s command to go into the land and take it over.  So God punished them and only chose Joshua, all the children, and Caleb who was faithful to the Lord, to be the ones to enter the promised land after 40 years.  

It is interesting how in this account Moses is depicted as being punished not for his own sin, a sin which he did commit as we find in Numbers 20:9-13 where God tells Moses that he will not bring the people into the land because he embellished the commands of the Lord.  Moses here in Deuteronomy presents himself as a bit of a martyr who is being punished as a direct result of the sins of Israel, not his own.  You see in vs.37 where Moses after recounting the sins of the people of Israel says: “even with me the Lord was angry”.  Basically, on account of your sin, I somehow inherited your sin and I was punished by osmosis.  Okay, those are my words, but that is pretty much what he said.