Chapter By Chapter: Deuteronomy
Introduction of Deuteronomy: speaker (Moses); timing (almost forty-one years since leaving Egypt); location (the Arabah, the Jordan Valley near the Dead Sea); and purpose (preach the law).
It took Israel forty years and eleven months to make an eleven-day journey because of their failure to enter the land when the spies first returned, and they are still not yet in the Promised Land (they are still “beyond the Jordan”).
5: Beyond the Jordan, in the land of Moab, Moses undertook to explain this law, saying…
Recounting of Israel’s peaceful passage through Edom, Moab, and Ammon, and their conquest of King Sihon of Heshbon.
Moses reminds the people of God’s providence in keeping His promises despite their disobedience and consequent punishment.
7: “For the Lord your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. He knows your going through this great wilderness. These forty years the Lord your God has been with you. You have lacked nothing.”
Israel defeats King Og of Bashan and distributes the territory of Sihon and Og to Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh. God prohibits Moses from entering the Promised Land (Moses blames the people of Israel).
When Israel is attacked by the people of the land they travel through, they are victorious; when they attack against God’s will, they lose.
18: “And I commanded you at that time, saying, ‘The Lord your God has given you this land to possess. All your men of valor shall cross over armed before your brothers, the people of Israel.’”
Moses exhorts Israel to remember and obey the laws God has given so that they will prosper in the Promised Land.
No god has done what God did for Israel: rescue them from a land of oppression and bring them into an inheritance. Israel should respond with praise and obedience.
40: “Therefore you shall keep his statutes and his commandments, which I command you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may prolong your days in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for all time.”
Moses recounts the Ten Commandments and reminds Israel that they asked him to stand between God and them to relay His commands, and they promised to hear and obey.
The Ten Commandments are a summary of the covenant God made with Israel through Moses, and Moses reminds the people they are still bound by it.
1: And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, “Hear, O Israel, the statutes and the rules that I speak in your hearing today, and you shall learn them and be careful to do them.”
Moses gives one of the two great commandments (to love the Lord with all you are), encourages Israel to obey, and warns them not to disobey. He reminds them to teach their children the commandments.
Moses’s speech works from the general (Ten Commandments in the last chapter and this commandment) to the specific in later chapters. Verse 4 is known as the Shema and is a critical part of Jewish daily prayers.
5: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
Moses reminds Israel that God is unique and His covenant with Israel is unique. He instructs them to completely destroy the nations they will conquer in Canaan.
God is exclusive to Israel, so Israel must be exclusive to God. It was nothing Israel did to deserve His favor, but solely because He chose them that they are special and other nations are not.
6: “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.”
Moses reminds Israel that God protected and provided for them in the wilderness, and He will do so in the Promised Land too. They should not forget and think that they were the reason for their prosperity.
The reason for the manna was to teach Israel that “man does not live by bread alone” but by God’s provision; Jesus rebuked Satan with these words when He was in the wilderness as Israel had been.
3: “And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”
Moses reminds Israel that God, not they, will drive out the nations living in Canaan. He recounts the golden calf incident to remind them that God loves them in spite of their disobedience, not because of their righteousness.
God’s love is particular and unconditional; He did not stop providing for and protecting Israel when they went astray, even though they did so repeatedly.
6: “Know, therefore, that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stubborn people.”
Moses finishes the story of the golden calf and the two new tablets and the ark. He encourages Israel to respond to God’s love and justice with love and justice of their own.
We do not praise God so He will be good to us; rather, He has already shown His power, justice, mercy, and love, and we should respond with praise and thanksgiving.
21: “He is your praise. He is your God, who has done for you these great and terrifying things that your eyes have seen.”
Moses reminds Israel that they are entering a fertile land infinitely better than the land of Egypt, where God will provide food and drive out their enemies. If they obey God, He will bless them; if they disobey, He will curse them.
Although God’s love is unconditional, His patience is not infinite. He protects and provides, but if Israel turns to other gods, He will punish.
26: “See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse…”
Moses says that in the Promised Land there will be exactly one place to worship the Lord and make offerings to him, and that all other altars and holy places should be destroyed.
The story of all the kings of Israel is the struggle to follow this command: to maintain the temple of God and to remove the holy places of idols.
5: “But you shall seek the place that the Lord your God will choose out of all your tribes to put his name and make his habitation there. There you shall go…”
Moses discusses three ways Israelites might be convinced to worship other gods, and he instructs them to put the idolaters to death and return to God.
This instruction is the national version of Jesus’s requirement that, if your eye or hand causes you to go astray, you cut it off to save the rest of the body.
4: “You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him.”
Moses gives laws about clean and unclean foods as well as tithing and how to do it.
The food laws make Israel distinctive among the nations. Tithing is known as far back as Abraham and Melchizedek, but Moses puts some structure around it.
2: “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.”
Moses introduces the sabbatical year, every seventh year, when loans between Israelites must be forgiven and Israelite slaves must be set free.
The radical concept of total debt forgiveness and emancipation adds to the distinctives of Israel among its neighbors. They help spread the blessings of the Promised Land to all Israelites.
1: “At the end of every seven years you shall grant a release.”
Moses details the three primary feasts of the calendar: Passover, the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost), and the Feasts of Booths. All must be celebrated at the temple, no matter where you live.
These feasts represent the blessings of God: the escape from Israel, the grain harvest, and the fruit harvest. The giving of these laws promises that Israel will inherit the land.
12: “You shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt; and you shall be careful to observe these statutes.”
Moses gives laws for justice, for trials of idolatry, for local courts, for a central court co-located with the temple, and for kings.
Putting the high court near the temple reminds us that God is just. Solomon breaks exactly these laws about kings. Jesus responds to the law about stoning with, “whoever is without sin, cast the first stone.”
12: “The man who acts presumptuously by not obeying the priest who stands to minister there before the Lord your God, or the judge, that man shall die. So you shall purge the evil from Israel.”
Moses explains how to provide for priests and Levites. He prohibits pagan future-telling processes and promises prophets who truly speak for God.
Just as God provides for the common people, He also provides for priests and Levites. Looking to mediums, necromancers, sorcerers, and witches instead of God betrays your trust in God. Look instead to true prophets who speak God’s words.
18: “I [God] will raise up for them [Israel] a prophet like you [Moses] from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.”
Moses gives rules about the cities of refuge, land boundaries, and witnesses in trials.
God is just. The innocent are to be protected by trials and honest witnesses; the guilty are to be punished, as are false witnesses.
15: “A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be established.”
Moses gives laws about warfare: Israel should not be afraid; recently blessed men are exempt from service; cities outside Canaan must be offered peace, but cities inside Canaan must be utterly destroyed.
God expects Israel to rely on His providence: they should not be afraid, and they do not need every man for battle (recently blessed men should enjoy the blessings of God). Whenever lives can be spared, they should be.
4: “…for the Lord your God is he who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies, to give you the victory.”
Moses gives laws for atoning for unsolved murders, marrying female captives, avoiding favoritism in marriages, dishonoring one’s parents, and leaving dead men on display.
The law against leaving dead men hanging on a tree explains Jesus’s friends’ desire to take Him down and bury Him as soon as He died.
8: “Accept atonement, O Lord, for your people Israel, whom you have redeemed, and do not set the guilt of innocent blood in the midst of your people Israel, so that their blood guilt be atoned for.”
Moses gives various laws, including caring for your neighbor and avoiding sexual immorality.
These laws seek to protect neighbors, women, animals, and fields.
4: “You shall not see your brother’s donkey or his ox fallen down by the way and ignore them. You shall help him to lift them up again.”
Moses gives laws respecting the cleanness of the worship assembly and the assembled army, as well as various laws regarding property, wages, and loans.
The wars Israel wages are holy wars commanded by God to purge the land of evil nations; therefore, it makes sense that the rules for the army camp resemble the rules for the temple.
9: “When you are encamped against your enemies, then you shall keep yourself from every evil thing.”
Moses gives laws protecting divorced women and a mix of other laws to help Israelites live well with each other and with the land.
Just as God takes care of Israel, so Israelites must take care of each other in all facets of life.
5: “When a man is newly married, he shall not go out with the army or be liable for any other public duty. He shall be free at home one year to be happy with his wife whom he has taken.”
Moses gives more laws about taking care of women and families, about justice, and about honest business.
These Levirate marriage laws ensure women whose husbands die are provided for and that inheritances stay within a family.
15: “A full and fair weight you shall have, a full and fair measure you shall have, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.”
Moses gives commands for the offerings of firstfruits and of tithes once Israel possesses the Promised Land.
The people of God are called to make offerings in response to God’s pre-existing generosity and blessing. The words of the ritual of the offering recount the whole history of the exodus.
10: “‘And behold, now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground, which you, O Lord, have given me.’ And you shall set it down before the Lord your God and worship before the Lord your God.”
Moses describes a ceremony commemorating the covenant Israel has made with God, where the Levites pronounce curses over the people should they disobey, and the people unanimously agree.
Ancient covenants always had a section of consequences: blessings for keeping the covenant and curses for breaking it. This ceremony ensures Israel knows the curses.
26: “‘Cursed be anyone who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’”
Moses details the blessings (prosperity and victory) and curses (pestilence, disease, famine, defeat, oppression, humiliation, servitude, greed, and dread) that are the consequences of the covenant.
The list of curses is far longer than the list of blessings, as if Moses knew the future of Israel and their repeated and continual disobedience of God.
64: “And the Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known.”
Moses reminds Israel of their lives in Egypt and their flight out of it. He urges them to accept and keep the covenant on behalf of themselves and future generations.
Moses knows the hardness of heart of the Israelite people, so he moves from covenant and command to exhortation, pleading with them to listen and obey.
9: “Therefore keep the words of this covenant and do them, that you may prosper in all that you do.”
Moses repeats the promises of God to bless Israel and curse their enemies, encouraging them that obedience to the covenant is available to them and possible, not out of reach.
Moses has shown Israel the blessings and the curses of their covenant with God, and he urges them to “choose life.”
19: “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live…”
Moses commissions Joshua in his place. Moses writes out the law and commands the priests to read it aloud every seven years. Moses writes a commemorative song dictated by God.
Joshua will lead Israel into the Promised Land. The people will soon forget the requirement to read the law, and later they will forget the law itself.
23: And the Lord commissioned Joshua the son of Nun and said, “Be strong and courageous, for you shall bring the people of Israel into the land that I swore to give them. I will be with you.”
Moses sings a song repeating his worries and God’s predictions that Israel will go astray despite all that God has done for them.
By putting Israel’s history alongside the covenant blessings and curses in the form of a song that God says they will remember forever, Moses gives Israel every chance to succeed.
6: “Do you thus repay the Lord, you foolish and senseless people? Is not he your father, who created you, who made you and established you?”
Moses pronounces a final blessing on Israel, referring to each tribe separately.
Moses’s blessing of Israel reminds us of Jacob’s blessing of his sons before he died.
1: This is the blessing with which Moses the man of God blessed the people of Israel before his death.
God shows Moses the extent of the Promised Land from the top of Mount Nebo. Moses dies; Israel buries him and mourns him.
The death of Moses marks the end of the Exodus; God has brought Israel to the Promised Land. Now they must go in and conquer it.
4: And the Lord said to him, “This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, ‘I will give it to your offspring.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over there.”