Today, I am reading and commenting on  Deuteronomy 3-4.

Every year when I read this I am struck by the fact that Moses says that God refused to allow him to cross the Jordan into the Promised Land because of the rest of the Israelites.  I am struck by this because in Numbers 20, God told Moses that he would not enter the Promised Land because he struck the rock when God had told him to speak to it.  What Moses says here is not exactly wrong, because he struck the rock, rather than just speak to it, because of his frustration with the Israelite complaining.  I wasn’t sure where I was going with this as I wrote it, but I realized what an important lesson it is about controlling our anger.  Moses allowed his anger at the people to get the better of him, and he suffered the consequences.  Moses failed to faithfully follow God’s command, which meant that he was never able to enter the land of Canaan.  No matter how much we feel that we have been provoked, God will hold us accountable to faithfully follow His instructions.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Deuteronomy 1-2.

As the Israelites prepared to cross the Jordan River, Moses summarized what they had gone through as a people from the time they left Mt Sinai until they arrived at this place.  The first portion of this review would have been very important since those to whom Moses was speaking would have been too young to understand what was going on when these events happened.  I find it interesting that Moses here recounts how they passed Edom and Moab differently from the account in Numbers.  I don’t see these differences as being contradictory.  I see them being a more about the meaning of God’s guidance rather than about what happened.  I note with interest that Moses leaves out of this account the incident with Baal Peor, while he covers the refusal of the previous generation to enter the Promised Land.  The final piece of the passage tells us that Moses knew that Sihon would attack the Israelites before he sent the message requesting  that Sihon allow them to peacefully cross his lands.  The passage ends by recounting how the Israelites completely defeated Sihon’s people without encroaching on the land of the Ammonites, Moabites, or Edomites, who descended from Terah, Abraham’s father.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Deuteronomy 32-34.

Moses made one final prophecy to the Israelites.  He told them that when they had settled in the land and become prosperous they would turn from God, they would abandon God and worship other gods.  God would become angry and turn His back on them.  Since they had made Him jealous by worshiping that which was not a god, God would make them envious by embracing those who are not a people, and angry by giving wisdom to a nation which had no understanding.  Before I write about what I see in that I want to point out what the compiler of this book wrote at the very end.

Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, who did all those signs and wonders the Lord sent him to do in Egypt…

The man who wrote that was referring back to an earlier prophecy which Moses had made where he told the Israelites that God would raise up a prophet like him for them to follow.  The compiler was saying that Moses’ prophecy about a prophet like him had not yet been fulfilled.   Which brings me to what I believe Moses meant when he said that God wake the Israelites jealous of those who were not a people.  Through Jesus, God has taken people from all over the world, people who not only had no ties in common but instead had animosity towards one another and forged them into a nation, that nation is His Church.  God took people whose traditions did not understand God and gave them His wisdom.  God did this in the desire to draw the descendants of Jacob back to Him.  Let us seek, by our faithfulness, to draw those He first loved back to Him.

I am tempted to write more about how God desired for the Israelites to faithfully follow His commands, and thus draw all people to Him, but, knowing that would not work, instead used them to bring His Son, Jesus, to this earth.  Through Jesus, God is drawing people from every tribe and nation to Him, creating a new nation and thus draw in the Israelites as well.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Deuteronomy 29-31.

Moses tells the Israelites, and the foreigners living among them, to make sure that no one, and no group, among their number turns their heart(s) away from the Lord.  We should strive to do the same today.  However, in our society so few have actually turned the hearts to the Lord, that we should strive to turn their hearts to the Lord.  That is not something we can do with coercion and violence.  We can only get someone to turn their heart to the Lord with love and compassion.  Which brings me to the message of love and compassion we should have for people, also contained in today’s passage.  Following God’s commands leads us towards life, contentment, and prosperity, while disobeying His commands lead us towards death and destruction.  The prosperity is not that of this world, because those who follow God’s commands seek to store up wealth in heaven, not on this earth.  So, while those who follow God’s commands may acquire wealth in this world, that is not what they value, and those who follow God’s commands will acquire those things which the love of God causes them to value.  I want to circle back around to the message we should seek to communicate to those we care about: disobeying God’s commands leads to death and destruction.  Those who fail to follow His commands will find their lives empty with misery following them.  I see that in our society among those who blame their unhappiness on others, rather than recognizing that their own choices have led them into depression.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Deuteronomy 27-28.

When I read today’s passage the first thing I am first struck by the idea that the curses sound like what happens when people pollute their environment, but, as I read more closely, I realize that oversimplifies things.  That being said, God told the Israelites that if they kept His commands He would bless them with a land where the environment prospered and if they did not keep His commands their land would suffer environmental devastation.   However, the blessings and the curses would be more than environmental.  Those peoples who keep God’s commands will live at peace with freedom in a land where everything prospers, their enemies will fear them.  Those who disobey God’s commands will live in a land where living things are blighted and crime is rampant, they will suffer invasion and live in constant fear of their enemies.  If a society lives according to God’s commands, its lands and its people will prosper.  If a society lives in defiance of God’s commands, its lands and its people will experience great suffering.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Deuteronomy 24-26.

Usually I read a passage, write my thoughts, and then determine what to title the days study, but today I read the passage and realized what theme I saw in the passage before I knew what I wanted to write.  In today’s passage there are numerous commands which call for protecting the dignity of the poor.  This passage contains a command not to take the tools a man uses in his trade as security against a loan.  You must leave him the means to earn the money to repay the debt (and to support himself) Another command that you not enter someone’s house to retrieve the item they have offered in security against a loan.  On the one hand, doing so might reveal how poor a person is, damaging their dignity.  On the other hand, it might reveal items a creditor might coerce the poor person into selling.  There is a command to pay a worker promptly, so that they do not need to borrow against their future earnings to feed themselves today.  Another command orders the Israelites not to harvest their fields with complete thoroughness, leaving some behind around the edges, or elsewhere that it requires extra effort to harvest so that the poor can come along behind and gather food to feed themselves.  Throughout this passage are numerous commands which tell those who are successful to leave opportunity for the poor to better their economic status.  This is the key to a truly great economy: the well off ensure that they do not block the ability of the poor to improve their economic position, they must make sure they do not crush them or their chance to make a life for themselves.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Deuteronomy 21-23.

This passage contains several commands which are designed to protect women from sexual exploitation.  The first such command concerns women captured in war.  If a man takes such a woman as a slave and intends to have sex with her, he must give her a month to mourn her family and then he can take her as his wife.  If he decides that he no longer wants her as his wife, he must set her free.  He may not sell her or treat her as a slave.  Then there is the instruction concerning a man who has two wives, of whom he only loves one.  He may not treat the children of the one he loves preferentially over the children of his unloved wife.  Continuing in the passage there are laws concerning rape which assume that sexual acts between a man and a woman to whom he is not married is rape.  These laws meant that if a man seduced a woman, he would need to take care of her economically for the rest of his life.  While in our society today, such laws would punish women for the actions of someone else, in that society they protected them from abuse.  As importantly, they reinforced the idea that having sex with someone meant that you were married to them.

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

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.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Deuteronomy 14-17.

The Israelites were commanded to put aside a tenth of what their fields produced each year and take it, along with the first born of their herds and flocks, to the central location where God had designated that all of Israel should gather to worship Him.  We tend to focus on the tithe portion of this command and not what they were supposed to do with that tithe.  God commanded that when they got to the place He had designated, they should eat that tithe in company with all of their fellow Israelites.  They were to share this feast with the Levites, who did not have any land on which to grow crops from which to tithe.  So, the purpose of setting aside this tithe was in order to have a big feast with the rest of Israel.  It was designed to bring all of the Israelites together in unity.  Further, in the next section, they were told to give generously to their fellow Israelites who were in need, but not as a gift, as a loan.  However, they were to forgive any such loans every seven years.  The Israelites were to gather on a regular basis to eat and drink together.  They were to make sure that all of their countrymen could join in this celebration.  They were not to worship any other gods, nor incorporate any of their worship practices with those commanded by God (in particular, God called out to forbid the worship practices of the fertility gods of the region).  In addition, they were not to tolerate the presence of those who worshiped other gods.  All in all the commands given in this passage seem designed to bring unity among the Israelites by making sure that they shared values and that economic stratification never lasted more than a generation.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Deuteronomy 11-13.

Moses begins today’s passage by reminding the Israelites that they were the ones who had seen God’s wondrous signs and experienced His discipline for disobedience.  We must remember this, we have seen God’s wondrous works (at least, I hope that you have, I know that I have).  Others may not have, so let us be careful about how we let them influence us.  But whether others have seen God’s great signs or not, if you have you are responsible to remember what those signs mean.  Be careful not to be enticed to worship and/or serve other gods.  Do whatever you need to do to remember, and follow, the commands which God has given to us.  If that means attaching them to you hands, or writing them on your forehead, then do so.  And let us talk about God’s commands, to our children and to our friends, when we are at home and when we are away from home.  Talk about them in the evening as you get ready for sleep, and in the morning as you prepare for the day.  In every waking moment, think about what God’s commands mean for what you do next.

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