March 5, 2023 Bible Study — The Israelites Warned Against Detestable Practices

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Deuteronomy 18-20.

Moses warns the Israelites against imitating the detestable practices of the people who live in the land which God is giving them.  Then he lists at least some of the detestable ways they are not to imitate.

  • sacrifice their child
  • practice divination or sorcery
  • interpret omens
  • engage in witchcraft
  • cast spells
  • be a medium, or spiritist, or in any way consult the dead

I find that to be a very interesting list, because to me everything on that list is of a “kind”, except for the first one.  Everything on that list after the first item qualifies under what we today call “doing magic”.  Whenever I read this list I wonder what it is about practicing magic, which is what I classify most of this list as, which puts it in the same category as killing one’s child.  I think this list says something about how our society’s view of abortion influences its approach to rational thought.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.