The book of Deuteronomy is the fifth book of the Bible, and the final book of
the Torah. After the exodus from Egypt, Israel was at Mount Sinai for one year
entering into a covenant with their God. And then they had the disastrous
road trip through the wilderness and the exodus generation disqualified
themselves from entering into the land promised to Abraham. And so Deuteronomy
begins with Moses standing in front of this new generation explaining the Torah
and it's from here that the design and purpose of the book unfolds. Deuteronomy
is a series of speeches from Moses where he's calling the next generation of
Israel to be faithful to the covenant with their God. At the center of the book
is a collection of laws, which are the terms of the covenant between God and
Israel. Some of the laws are new, but many are repeated from the laws given earlier
at Mount Sinai, and that's actually where this book gets its name -from the Greek
word “deuteronomion” which means “a second law”. Now surrounding these laws are two outer
sections of Moses’ speech. Each of these are broken up into two parts themselves.
Let’s just dive in and we'll see how this whole thing works. So Moses first of
all summarizes the story so far, and he highlights how rebellious the previous
generation was in contrast with God's constant grace and provision in the
wilderness and God did bring his justice on them,
yes, but he did not abandon his covenant promises. After this comes a series of
very passionate sermons where Moses calls on this new generation to be more
faithful than their parents were to the Covenant. He reminds them of the Ten
Commandments and then the centerpiece of the section is the famous line called
the Shema. Moses says “Listen Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone, and you
shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, and
with all of your might.” This became a very important daily prayer in Judaism
and it brings all of the themes of the book together. So the word “listen”, or shema
in Hebrew, it means much more than just to hear; its meaning includes responding
to what you hear, or in English we would say obey. And the word “love” in Hebrew
also means much more than just an emotion or feeling; it’s about a decision
of wholehearted devotion to God that involves your will, and your emotions,
your mind and your heart. Now, for Israel their obedience and devotion to God
served a much larger purpose. Obedience to the laws is going to make Israel a
unique people among the nations, just like God said at Mount Sinai. They'll
become a kingdom of priests, and Moses now says how. Israel has the chance by
following the laws to show the whole world the wisdom and the justice of God.
The other key idea in the shema is that Israel was called to obey and be devoted to
the Lord alone, or literally in Hebrew it says “the Lord is one”. In context the point is
that the Lord is the one God Israel is to worship and obey. Israel's about to go
into the land of Canaan, where people worship idols gods that represent all
different aspects of creation: the sun, the weather, or sex and war. And in Moses’
view worshiping these God degrades humans and destroys communities, but worshipping
the God of Israel, who’s the Creator and the Redeemer- that will lead
to life and blessing. And so we come to the large collection of laws at the
center of the book and they're roughly arranged by topic, so the opening section
is about Israel's worship of their God. They were to have one central temple
where one God would be worshipped and also God was to be worshipped in
Israel's care for its poor. So for example, all Israelites were to set aside
one tenth of their annual income to be given to the temple, but another tenth was
to be set aside every three years and given to the poor. And these are the
kinds of laws that put Israel on the cutting edge of justice in comparison to
their ancient neighbors - and it was all bound up with their worship of God. The
next section outlines the character qualities of Israel's leaders so the
elders, the priests, the Kings, these were all placed under the authority of the
Covenant laws which God said that he would enforce by sending prophets to keep
the leaders accountable. So in contrast to Israel's neighbors where kings were
thought of as divine and a law in and of themselves
Israel's leaders were subordinate to the law and the prophets. Following this is a
large section of laws about Israel’s civil life, so rules about marriage, and family,
and business, and also about social justice - about their legal system and how
it was to protect widows,
and orphans, and immigrants. And then these are concluded by more laws about worship.
Now, here's some tips for reading all of these laws. Remember, first of all, these
are the terms of the Sinai covenant given specifically to ancient Israel
living in a culture that's very different from yours. And so, two, it's not
going to be helpful to compare these laws with modern laws from the very
different culture. Rather, these were given to set Israel apart, and so we need
to compare these laws with those of Israel's neighbors, like in Assyria or
Babylon. And when you do that all of a sudden laws that seemed harsh or bizarre
become much more clear. You see that God is pushing Israel to a higher level of
justice than was ever known before. And so finally try to discern what core
principles of wisdom or justice underlie any particular law, and you’ll discover some
really profound things. So here's an extra credit assignment: go see how
Paul the Apostle does this very thing in his first letter to the Corinthians,
chapter 9 vs nine, and he quotes a law from Deuteronomy, chapter 25 verse four,
It’s really interesting. So back to Moses - after he goes through all of the laws, he
issues a final challenge that Israel should listen to and love their God. He
first issues a warning and the ultimatum: if Israel listens to and obeys their God
everything's gonna go great- lots of divine blessing, but if they don't listen
and rebel…famine, plague, devastation, and ultimately exile from the land. And then
Moses forces a decision; he says: “Today I set before you all life or death,
blessing or curse, goodness or evil, so choose life by loving the Lord your God
and listening to him.” But then Moses says this, he says “I know that after I die
you're going to rebel and turn away from God and end up in exile.” Which is kind of
a downer, but then again, he's been with these people for decades and it becomes
clear that his hopes are not very high. But all is not lost, Moses says one day
when Israel is sitting in exile, at any point Moses says they can turn back to
their God who will, in his words, “circumcise your heart so that you may
love him with all your heart and soul
and live”. Now this is a vivid metaphor that's saying something is fundamentally wrong
with Israel's heart. It’s stubborn and hard, and it's the same thing wrong with
the heart of all of humanity.
This is going all the way back to the rebellion in the garden. Humans seized
autonomy from God; they wanted to define good and evil for themselves and they've
ruined God's good world as a result. But one day Moses says God is going to do
something to transform the hearts of his people so that they can truly listen
to and love God, from the heart, and be led back to true life. And this is the
promise that gets picked up by the later biblical prophets, Jeremiah and Ezekiel -
the hope for a new heart. So Moses ends his speech with a poem of warning, and
then a blessing, and then he walks up onto a mountain and he dies. And so the
torah draws to a close. All of the major plot tensions of the biblical story are
in place but left totally unresolved. So, when is the descendant of the woman
going to come in defeat evil? Or how is God going to rescue the whole world and
bless all nations through this family? And how can God's holiness be reconciled
with people who are continually rebellious? And how is God going to
transform the hearts of his people? You just have to keep reading to find out.
But for now, that’s what the book of Deuteronomy is all about.