the book of Deuteronomy the epic conclusion to the Torah and...Spoiler
Alert: "Moses is going to die!" Now in order to understand this book we need to
remember the story so far so Israel has escaped from slavery in Egypt then
they spend one year at Mount Sinai this is where they made the covenant
with God to obey all of these laws and then they wander around the desert for 40 years
before they make it to the Jordan River which is right across from the land God
promised them. They are ready to go in this is where the book of Deuteronomy begins and
what this book is really is a speech Moses gives these final words like a pep
talk to the new generation of Israel that's about to go into the land and the
speech, it's broken up into three large sections. So Moses begins the first part of
the speech with somber tone because he's highlighting Israel's rebellion and
resistance which has been going on for the last forty years and that sets up
the rest of the opening section which is Moses challenge to this new generation
to be different from their parents and to respond to God's grace with love and
obedience
so he reminds them of the ten commandments like the basics of the covenant and then
he gives them this very famous line listen oh Israel the Lord is our God
the Lord alone love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul
and with all your strength. Now in Jewish tradition this is called the Shema
because the first Hebrew word in this line is Shema Israel and this became a
very important prayer in judaism said twice a day
and it emphasizes the Israelite's exclusive commitment to their God the
one true God who loved them who rescued them from slavery because they're about
to go into a land where people are worshipping many other gods and Moses
thinks that loyalty to the Lord their God is the only way to life now notice,
these keywords in the Shema: listen and love you are going to find these words all
over this opening section of the speech the word 'listen' in hebrew means more
than just let sound waves come into your ears it includes the idea of responding
to what you hear so for Israel this means responding to God's grace by
obeying the laws of the covenant and then listen as always followed by love
ya so love is the true motivation for obeying the laws. Israel won't obey
without love and they don't truly love if they don't obey. So there's this tight
connection between loving and listening their runs through the entire book so
Moses tells them that if they do listen and love they will fulfill their
original calling as the family at Abraham to show all of the nation's the wisdom
and justice of God and so become a blessing to them. The second big section
in Deuteronomy is a large block of laws and commands and this is where the
book gets its name
Deuteronomy means a second law and it's because many of these laws we've heard
before in fact in the first line of the book we're told that Moses is here
explaining clarifying the laws so he's repeating an expanding on the laws
making them relevant to this new generation there's laws about how
israel's to worship God, laws about their leadership structure, laws about social justice
and then some more laws about their worship
now after all of the laws of Moses warns Israel of the consequences of their
obedience or disobedience or in his words the blessing for the curse if they
listen and love they will experience blessing and abundance in the land and if
they don't there's going to be famine plagues and they'll be forced off their
land into exile and that brings us to the final section of his speech. Here
Moses says I set before you today
life or death blessing or curse so choose life but then things get really
interesting because after forty years with these people, Moses knows they're not
going to obey and so he predicts their failure and even their future exile from
the promised land and he focuses on what he thinks is the true source of the
problem that they have hired and selfish hearts it's as if israel is incapable of
truly loving God in a way that brings about obedience, but this problem isn't
unique to Israel. Yeah, in fact
Moses when he's using this language about blessing and curse he's tying
Israel's story all the way back to all humanity's story from Genesis 1 through 3 so Adam
and Eve they were blessed by God just like Israel and given a choice to trust
and obey God like Israel and then they rebelled and brought a curse on the land
like Moses knows israel is going to do. And so these stories there about Israel's hard
heart but they're actually a window into the universal human condition. But Moses
doesn't give up hope entirely that's right he says that somehow on the other
side israel's exile God promises to transform their heart so that one day
they truly can listen
and love. In the final chapters joshua has appointed as the new leader of
israel and then Moses takes the entire law code, the one he just predicted Israel
would break. Thats right and he put it into the ark of the covenant and then Moses
hikes up to the top of a mountain so we can see the promised land from afar
and then he dies and that's how the torah ends which is a strange place to
end a story and it's right there at the climax will they obey the laws and live
faithfully in the land or not. Well the story does continue right into Joshua the next
book of the Bible but this is the end of the Torah and it's been ended here for a
reason
the Torah is written for people who are either outside of the land or who are
still waiting for the fulfillment of God's promise to bless the whole world
and so now as each generation reads the torah they find themselves called to
hope in what Moses hoped for: a new and transformed heart that one day can truly
listen and love.
Guys with this video the Torah series is complete it was two years in the making
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