So he recalls all that happened after the people left Sinai, after the giving of the Law. It’s interesting to see that, whereas Numbers says God instructed Moses to select leaders from each of the twelve tribes to serve as an exploration committee (Numbers 13:1-16), Moses is reported here as saying the people came to him and suggested that men be sent ahead to spy out the land (Deuteronomy 1:22). Perhaps it is that the people made such a request, and that the specific methodology of twelve persons, one from each tribe, came as insight from God.
In any event, the bad news is the committee voted, ten to two, to retreat from their day of opportunity. As a result, the children who at that time did not know right from wrong (1:39) are the ones who will now enter the land.
But the marvel is this: God continued to watch over the recalcitrant people who had, for all practical purposes, rejected their inheritance. Moses recalls victories over King Sihon and King Og and how he urged Joshua to move on without fear. Then Moses becomes an evangelist as he pleads with his people to be obedient to God’s Law. It is this obedience that will cause the other nations to see their wisdom and to acknowledge the wonder of God’s Law (4:6-8). This reminds us that the Israelites were a chosen people—not in the sense of enjoying special favors, though surely they were promised the blessing of God, but particularly in that they were to be a witness to the other nations of humankind.
And because their role is so crucial, God is severely demanding of them. “For the LORD your God is a devouring fire, a jealous God” (4:24). This is the quality of high love—jealous not because of a lack in the one who is jealous but because that one despises anything that might frustrate the fulfillment of the one who is beloved. Tough love indeed!
I think it is this mood that provides the setting, then, for the restating of the Ten Commandments. The commandments are to be a way of life for people in pilgrimage. If they are restrictive, it is only so that life can be made more fulfilling. And as in the presentation in Exodus, these are commandments from the One who has brought the people “out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (5:6). It is on this basis that they “shall have no other gods” (5:7) and that the moral structure of their society is ordered.
Seeing Life Through Scripture
I don’t suppose any generation has had a natural love affair with laws and commandments, but I think structures of restraint are especially unattractive to our times. It is not that we are notably worse than other generations; it is just that we have been taught to think more about our rights than about our obligations. Therefore we don’t really hear Moses when he says to his people, “And what other great nation has statutes and ordinances as just as this entire law that I am setting before you today?” (Deuteronomy 4:8).
But it is partly because we have such laws that we can expect, with Moses, that the Lord our God is “so near . . . whenever we call to him” (4:7). Yes, grace makes God accessible even when we break the commandments. But as the saints have learned all through the ages, our communion with God is at its best when we avoid transgression; and the Law is meant to help us do that. Sometimes, in our enthusiasm for the grace of God, we forget how good the Law is. It is the Law, after all, that tells us of life’s pitfalls—of those hazardous areas that can destroy us and frustrate our communion with God. The Law will not save us, but it will help us to keep saved and to enjoy the fullness of the Christian life. If we would give God’s demands a better chance, we would find him nearer; and we would understand why the psalmist said, “How I love your law!” (Psalm 119:97).
The Sum of It All
“These forty years the LORD your God has been with you; you have lacked nothing” (Deuteronomy 2:7).
| DEUTERONOMY 6–8 | Week 10, Day 1 |
It could well be argued that Deuteronomy 6 is the most important chapter of the Old Testament because of the Shema, verse 4: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone.”
Judaism identifies this sentence as the center of Jewish thought, upon which all other Jewish belief turns. No wonder, then, that the people are commanded to keep this word in their hearts, recite it to their children, talk about it, and make it an emblem on forehead and doorpost (6:7-9). There is a passion in this command that we should make our own.
There’s a toughness about Chapter 7, reminding us that love has demands. But there’s a wonder in love, too, and verses 7 and 8 celebrate it when they say, essentially, “God loves you because he loves you.” Logic can find no further explanation. Here is a precursor (as in other places in the Hebrew Scriptures) of what the New Testament will call grace.
Moses assures the people that victories and blessings await them: prosperity in their work, health of body, and conquest of even their most fearsome enemies. But with all of these favors, there is a peril. In that new land, having “eaten your fill” and when “all that you have is multiplied” (8:12-13), it will be very easy to forget “the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (8:14). How could they be so ungrateful, we wonder, until we look carefully at some of our own experiences with God.
PRAYER: In days of prosperity, let me never forget you. Amen.
What can you think of in the New Testament that might be as crucial to the Christian as Deuteronomy 6:4 (the Shema) is to the Jew?
| DEUTERONOMY 9–11 | Week 10, Day 2 |
A poet speaks of “the prophet’s righteous scorn.” This is the quality we feel in these chapters. One senses Moses’ wrath even over the stretch of the centuries and through the printed page. He remembers how he pleaded with God for this people, and he is determined that his efforts shall not have been in vain. He understands our human capacity for self-adulation. These people who “have been rebellious against the LORD from the day [they] came out of the land of Egypt” (9:7) are likely someday to think, “It is because of my righteousness that the LORD has brought me in to occupy this land” (9:4). We human beings have an astonishing ability to rationalize our past wanderings once we are on track for a brief time.
When the spies researched the land a generation before, they warned that it was a land that would eat its inhabitants. A greater hazard now faces the people, that they will be devoured by unbelief, compromise, and idolatry. Moses gives instructions that are almost fierce in their intensity, to be sure they will keep their purity. It’s all up to them: a blessing and a curse have been set before them, depending on whether or not they obey the commandments of the Lord.
You and I live in a pagan world, too. But for us, the enemy is more subtle and not so obviously threatening. Like the Israelites, we’re constantly in danger of compromising our souls.
PRAYER: Make me sensitive, O Lord, to the subtle matters that would destroy me, and draw me close to your purposes; in Christ my Lord. Amen.
There is a remarkable coming-together of personal religion, grace, and social religion in Deuteronomy 10:12-22. List the elements of faith you find in these moving verses.
| DEUTERONOMY 12–14; PSALM 50 | Week 10, Day 3 |