A Survey of the Old Testament Law--Deuteronomy 1-5 (Part 2)

Deuteronomy 4:32-35—32 “For ask now concerning the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and ask from one end of heaven to the other, whether any great thing like this has happened, or anything like it has been heard. 33 Did any people ever hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and live? 34 Or did God ever try to go and take for Himself a nation from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? 35 To you it was shown, that you might know that the LORD Himself is God; there is none other besides Him.” In the 1800s, Joseph Smith invented a “God” more to his own liking, and this “God” is worshipped by many Mormons across the globe. Temples have been built to him, universities have been built proclaiming to teach about this “God” to many unsuspecting followers. But this “God” is the invention of a man’s imagination—He doesn’t exist, He can do nothing for anyone, and the “gospel” that is offered to the followers of this “God” can save no one, as these worshippers follow a false god who does not exist, and has never existed except in the mind of a money-digging polygamist.

This “God” is one of millions of “Gods” who rule over millions of universes, and had to learn how to be a “God” himself. In what is known as the “King Follett Discourse”, Joseph Smith elaborated on what he believed and taught to be the nature and person of God, how He was once a man and progressed to godhood:

In the sermon, Joseph taught about divine nature and eternal progression. He countered the long-standing theological tradition that treated God as wholly different than humanity. He explained that “if men do not comprehend the character of God they do not comprehend themselves.” He taught that God “was once as one of us” and that “all the spirits that God ever sent into the world” were “susceptible of enlargement,” having the capacity to become like God in the eternities. Joseph also taught that a core part of each person is coeternal with God, comparing this divine core to a ring, without beginning or end. The King Follett sermon was the most direct, public explanation of these doctrines, but it was not the first time they had been introduced. The Book of Mormon and the book of Moses both contain passages that stood at odds with the theological position dominant in Joseph Smith’s day that God is “without body, parts, or passions.” Revelations received by Joseph Smith as early as 1832 taught that spirits existed “in the beginning with God” and that through the power of Jesus Christ’s Atonement, individuals could “receive their inheritance and be made equal with him,” becoming gods. Joseph Smith had elaborated on these revelations in various settings, helping others grasp the implications of his teachings.

(https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/topics/king-follett-discourse?lang=eng)

This speech was based on the famous couplet spoken by Lorenzo Snow, “As man now is, God once was: As God now is, man may be.”

The Prophet Joseph Smith himself publicly taught the doctrine the following year, 1844, during a funeral sermon of Elder King Follett: “God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! … It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the Character of God, and to know that we may converse with him as one man converses with another, and that he was once a man like us; yea, that God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ himself did.” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1938, pp. 345–46.)

(https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1982/02/i-have-a-question/is-president-snows-statement-as-man-now-is-god-once-was-as-god-now-is-man-may-be-accepted-as-official-doctrine?lang=eng)

This is nothing more than self-worship, and goes against the clear teaching of Scripture, that YYHVH alone is God, that nothing and no one can become God, and that “there is none other besides Him.” God did not have to “learn” how to become God, He has always been God. None can become God, for He alone is, was, and always will be God. This was a lesson the people of Israel would have to be reminded of many times throughout their history, and one which many humans today need to be reminded of.

In Deuteronomy 5:1-33, Moses repeats what we call the Ten Commandments, and reminds the people that these are the words of the covenant God made with them, to make them a people of God, set apart to Him, simply for His good pleasure. You will hear many today speak against the doctrine of Sovereign Election—that God chooses those whom He will save—and say that “it’s not fair!” Well, was it “fair” for God to only choose this people to receive His Law and be brought into a covenant with Him? What of the Ammonite, or the Moabite? Would it not have been “fair” for God to tell them His law and how to please Him and how to atone for their sins? Was it “fair” for God to only choose—not all the descendants to Abraham, not all the descendants of Isaac—but only the descendants of Jacob to be His people? For He did not enter into an everlasting covenant with the descendants of Ishmael; He did not enter into an everlasting covenant with the descendants of Esau; He only entered into such a covenant with the descendants of Jacob (Israel), and it was only these with whom He made a covenant that these should be His people.

And this Law that He gave—the Ten Commandments and the other 513 commands—were the rules they were to live by in order to continue to be considered His people. These commands were not burdens, they were not grievous. They were how all people should act in accordance with the holiness and righteousness of God. If someone does not want to obey these commands, they cannot be a child of God. If they want to steal; if they want to murder; if they want to defile their neighbor’s wife; if they want to commit acts of homosexuality, then they cannot be called the people of God. Because these things go against everything He is and that person will not prosper as a child of God. As it says in Deuteronomy 5:32-33—32 “Therefore you shall be careful to do as the LORD your God has commanded you; you shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. 33 You shall walk in all the ways which the LORD your God has commanded you, that you may live and that it may be well with you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which you shall possess.” I’ll finish with these words from Matthew Henry—

Seeing God had shown himself so tender of them, and so willing to consider their frame and gratify them in what they desired, and withal so ready to make the best of them, - seeing they themselves had desired to have Moses for their teacher, who was now teaching them, - and seeing they had promised so solemnly, and under the influence of so many good causes and considerations, that they would hear and do, he charges them to walk in all the ways that God had commanded them, assuring them that it would be highly for their advantage to do so. The only way to be happy is to be holy.

Deuteronomy 5:6-22—6 “' I am the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 7 You shall have no other gods before Me. 8 You shall not make for yourself a carved image--any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; 9 you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, 10 but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. 11 You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain. 12 Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the LORD your God commanded you. 13 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 14 but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your ox, nor your donkey, nor any of your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. 15 And remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. 16 Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD your God has commanded you, that your days may be long, and that it may be well with you in the land which the LORD your God is giving you. 17 You shall not murder. 18 You shall not commit adultery. 19 You shall not steal. 20 You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. 21 You shall not covet your neighbor's wife; and you shall not desire your neighbor's house, his field, his male servant, his female servant, his ox, his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's.' 22 These words the LORD spoke to all your assembly, in the mountain from the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, with a loud voice; and He added no more. And He wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me.”

Here we come to the crux of this entire study—the Law and its application to our lives today. Here we have Moses repeating the Ten Words (Ten Commandments) that God gave to him atop Mt. Sinai. These were the terms and conditions of this covenant that God made with the people of Israel. But what of the other 513 commands in the Law? Were the people to keep them too, and if they didn’t, what would happen to the people? And why were these ten given apart from the other 513? And most importantly for us, what do they mean for us today? Are we supposed to keep them? All good questions, so let’s address them.

“What of the other 513 commands in the Law? Were the people to keep them too, and if they didn’t, what would happen to the people? And why were these ten given apart from the other 513?” First, let’s talk about these ten in relation to the entirety of the 613 commandments contained in the Law. The Ten Commandments were given to all the people atop Sinai as the cornerstone of the entire Law. But these Ten Commandments don’t include the commands against homosexuality, bestiality, and incest. The Ten Commandments were the first ten spoken by God to the people, and written by God onto tablets of stone. Moses then brought these tablets down to the people, who said “It is enough! You alone go up and speak with God! We will wait down here! We are frightened by the voice of God.” So Moses went back up Sinai to receive the rest of the Words spoken by God. And what we have as Exodus 20:22-Leviticus 27:34 (with the exception of a few places) was the other 513 commandments, also spoken to Moses by God within that same time frame. So really, all 613 Commandments of the Law were given to Moses upon Mt. Sinai within those 40 days and 40 nights that Moses was at the summit. And the penalties for breaking these commands, which were included with the giving of the commands, were to be carried out against the violators of the commands—whether considering the person unclean until sundown, or cutting the person off from the people, or the death of the perpetrator.

“So why does Moses only mention the Ten Commandments here?” Two reasons. First, these were the only ten that the people heard spoken at the mountain before they got scared of hearing God’s voice, so Moses received the other 513 commandments after he ascended back up the mount. Exodus 21:1—“Now these are the judgments which you shall set before them.” God continued giving His law to Moses even after the people said they did not want to hear the voice of God lest they be consumed (Exodus 20:18-21). The other reason Moses only restated the Ten Commandments was for the sake of time. Do you think it would have behooved Moses to speak the entirety of the book of Leviticus at this time? To again write all the words he wrote in that book? No, it was sufficient for him to only speak and write the words which the people heard, as they could understand the rest when he later wrote Deuteronomy.

“So what does this mean for us today? Are we supposed to keep the entire Law, or just the Ten Commandments?” This is where we need to slow down and let the Scriptures speak. These were the words of the covenant that God made with the people of Israel, the covenant which they broke (Jeremiah 31:32). Once this covenant was broken, God would make a new covenant (Jeremiah 31:31). So God began preparing the way for the new and better covenant to come into being. Malachi 3:1—"Behold, I send My messenger, and he will prepare the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple, even the Messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight. Behold, He is coming," says the LORD of hosts. This is speaking of John the Baptist (see Matthew 3:3). He would announce to the people of Israel that the time of the establishment of the New Covenant was at hand, that God was going to establish a new Way for the people’s sins to be forgiven. John 1:29—“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” No longer would the people have to bring bulls and goats to the temple of God for them to be slaughtered and butchered in a particular way. God was providing His own Lamb, upon whom the sins of all the believing would be laid, and He would take those sins to God for them to be expiated. And in this new covenant, there were not 613 commandments which were to be followed to the letter, but rather only two simple commands. Matthew 22:36-40—36 "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?" 37 Jesus said to him, "'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets." Whereas the Torah observant Jews were trying to keep the covenant that their fathers had already broken, Jesus was going forth announcing a new covenant which they refused. While the old covenant was mediated by Moses (Galatians 3:19), this new covenant would be mediated by God Himself—the Second Person of the Godhead, Jesus Christ our Lord (Hebrews 8:6, 9:15, 12:24). And just as at the base of Mt. Sinai the people did not want to hear the voice of God lest they be consumed, now they did not want to hear the voice of God because it spoke against them and their inability to uphold the covenant that God made with their fathers.

So Jesus spilt His blood, ushering in the New Covenant. Now, what did this New Covenant say about the Old Covenant? It says that a new and better covenant may be established, that the Old Covenant is ready to be done away with (Hebrews 8:13). Included in that Old Covenant that is being done away with are the commandments contained therein—the Old Testament Law. “So you’re saying this Law was done away with?” Yes, that is what I am saying—but only for those who believe. There are many who are afraid to say that, thinking that saying this will give people carte blanche to act however they want to according to their desires. But let’s discuss this for a minute. First, what else would the apostle Paul mean when he said in Romans 6:14, when he said For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace? His words are clear, that the Law does not hold sway over us as believers in Christ. You are not under law. Plus, when we are saved, the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in us, leading us in the ways of righteousness, and convicting us of sin, so that if we do sin our hearts will be heavy and we will go to God and ask for forgiveness, which will be provided to us through Jesus Christ our Lord.

“Yes, but in Romans 6:14, when Paul uses the word ‘you’, he is writing to believers. We believers are not under law, but what of unbelievers?” The unbeliever is still under that Law, and it will hold him accountable to God. “Explain.” I will. He writes to Timothy in 1^st Timothy 1:9-10—9 Knowing this: that the law is not made for a righteous person, but for the lawless and insubordinate, for the ungodly and for sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, 10 for fornicators, for sodomites, for kidnappers, for liars, for perjurers, and if there is any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine. The Law will judge those who continue to commit sin and whose sins are not taken away by the blood of Christ. If your sins have been paid for by Christ, they will not again be brought up before God when you die—You are not under law—the blood of Jesus has taken away those sins, and you will stand righteous and accepted by God  (Psalm 103:12; Micah 7:19). But if Christ’s blood has not washed away one’s sins, and one dies in those sins, how is God to judge that person for those sins? What standard is He to use? He will use His Law. The law is not made for a righteous person, but…for sinners. The sinner, in the New Testament, is one who does not have faith in Christ as His payment for sins. That is who the Law is now for—the one who stands naked and open to God, their sins still clinging to them like refuse, and that person will be judged by His Law.

Paul says in another place, What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions (Galatians 3:19). God gave His Law because of sins. He did not give the Law in order to make people righteous, but rather because people are unrighteous. He gave it to the people of Israel because He chose them, out of all the people in the world. He did not give it to the Edomites. He did not give it to the Amalekites. He did not give it to the Hivites or the Perizzites or the Girgashites. He gave it to the Israelites, not because they were any better than their neighbors, but to show their neighbors how sinful those neighbors were. Moses would tell the people in Deuteronomy 9:4-6—4 “Do not think in your heart, after the LORD your God has cast them out before you, saying, 'Because of my righteousness the LORD has brought me in to possess this land'; but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD is driving them out from before you…6 Therefore understand that the LORD your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people.” That must have been a blow to their pride. And this is the effect the Doctrine of Election should have on us. That God chose us, not because we were good enough or righteous enough—for we are neither, at heart—but because we are unrighteous, there being nothing in us that would commend us to God. But we are all, each and every human being, a stiff-necked people that shrink away from God every chance we get.

And it is this Law that shows us so. In our unregenerated state, we want nothing to do with God. We make for ourselves idols that we will desire against and above God. We want what we want, and we will kill and steal and covet until we have it. “But what about people that do not kill and steal?” James 2:10-11—10 For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. 11 For He who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not murder." Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. Do they believe in God? No? Then they have created for themselves a God they worship even if they don’t believe they do. They say they do not believe in any gods, but they do. If they believe that the human race is the pinnacle of everything, then they believe that the human race created itself, thus setting up the human race as their god. These are the people that the Law will condemn when they stand before God on the last day.

A Survey of the Old Testament Law-- Deuteronomy 1-5 (Part 1)

Chapters 1-5 consist mostly of Moses recounting everything that happened to the people and the events that took place from the time they were camped at Sinai until the events recorded at the end of Numbers. So we will kinda fast forward through these chapters and just kinda hit the highlights.

Deuteronomy 1:1-5—1 These are the words which Moses spoke to all Israel on this side of the Jordan in the wilderness, in the plain opposite Suph, between Paran, Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab. 2 It is eleven days' journey from Horeb by way of Mount Seir to Kadesh Barnea. 3 Now it came to pass in the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, that Moses spoke to the children of Israel according to all that the LORD had given him as commandments to them, 4 after he had killed Sihon king of the Amorites, who dwelt in Heshbon, and Og king of Bashan, who dwelt at Ashtaroth in Edrei. 5 On this side of the Jordan in the land of Moab, Moses began to explain this law.

When it says this side of the Jordan, it is referring to the land east of the Jordan, across the river from Canaan. As many who deny the truth of the Bible will tell you, it is an eleven day journey by foot from Mt. Sinai (Mt. Horeb) to Kadesh Barnea. And they will use this fact to scoff the fact that it took forty years for this journey to be accomplished. But this is where their ignorance is shown, as it was not simply trekking by foot that took forty years, but the command of God because of the complaining of the people that God commanded them to wander in the wilderness for forty years (Numbers 14:29-35). Had they simply obeyed God and not grumbled over every inconvenience and hardship they felt they suffered, the generation that came from Mt. Sinai could have been in the Promised Land within days. But they wanted everything the way they wanted it, and because God did not give them every whim of their heart the way they wanted it, they complained and cried out to go back to the slavery they endured in Egypt, thinking that would be better than being free and provided for by God. So that generation was consumed in the desert, and their children entered into the land of promise rather than they.

This address takes place in the eleventh month, שְׁבָט (Shevat) on the first day of the month. It is given in a place referred to by Moses as in the plain opposite Suph, between Paran, Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab.. The Paran and Hazeroth here mentioned are not the Paran and Hazeroth where the people wandered and encamped (respectively) after leaving Sinai, but are different places with the same names, as was common at that time. This was in an area now called Arabah, which encompasses the Jordan valley between the Sea of Galilee all the way to the Gulf of Aqabah, the northeastern arm of the Red Sea.

(https://www.ldolphin.org/crew/fig01.jpg)

The names of the places in our text pinpoint the location where Moses spoke these words, and was likely the area known as Heshbon, which was due east of Jericho. It was at this place where Moses spoke to the people the Law he had received from God on Mt. Sinai as recorded in Exodus and Leviticus. Until this time, the people did not know this Law or what it contained. All they knew was that God spoke to Moses on the mountain and at various times thereafter, but the substance of those conversations they were not privy to. Now that Moses was speaking these words to the people, they would be without excuse, and would be expected to learn these commands and follow them as they were told.

In Deuteronomy 1:6-46, Moses recounts their journeying and their grumbling about the land the 12 spies had seen, and even about his own denial into Canaan because of his own disobedience. He continues this narrative in Deuteronomy 2:1-7, recalling how they passed by the land of their brethren Edom, the descendants of Esau. Deuteronomy 2:1-7—1 “Then we turned and journeyed into the wilderness of the Way of the Red Sea, as the LORD spoke to me, and we skirted Mount Seir for many days. 2 And the LORD spoke to me, saying: 3 'You have skirted this mountain long enough; turn northward. 4 And command the people, saying, "You are about to pass through the territory of your brethren, the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir; and they will be afraid of you. Therefore watch yourselves carefully. 5 Do not meddle with them, for I will not give you any of their land, no, not so much as one footstep, because I have given Mount Seir to Esau as a possession. 6 You shall buy food from them with money, that you may eat; and you shall also buy water from them with money, that you may drink. 7 For the LORD your God has blessed you in all the work of your hand. He knows your trudging through this great wilderness. These forty years the LORD your God has been with you; you have lacked nothing."'” This is another place where the skeptic would point to and say “Contradiction!” For if you remember, Numbers 20:14-21 recounts when the people asked for passage through the land of their brethren and were denied. But here in Deuteronomy it says they would buy food and water from them. So how do we reconcile these two things? Easily. While the king of Edom did not permit them to pass through the land, the Edomites nevertheless sold them food and water for their journey. “That still doesn't answer the contradiction!” There is no contradiction. It’s simple. While it is true the camp of Israel did not pass through the land of Edom, there were most likely small groups of people who ventured into Edom to buy food and water.

Deuteronomy 3 continues the narrative, recounting the battles the people had with Sihon king of the Amorites and Og of Bashan, and how God went before them and defeated these kings, and how God denied Moses entry into Canaan, despite his pleadings, for his disobedience at the rock of Meribah.

Deuteronomy 4:1-4—1 “Now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I teach you to observe, that you may live, and go in and possess the land which the LORD God of your fathers is giving you. 2 You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you. 3 Your eyes have seen what the LORD did at Baal Peor; for the LORD your God has destroyed from among you all the men who followed Baal of Peor. 4 But you who held fast to the LORD your God are alive today, every one of you.” We humans need to be reminded so many times of so many things. Which is why Moses reminded them of what happened at Ba’al-Peor (Numbers 25:1-18). The women of Moab enticed the men to lay with them in sexual idolatry of the pagan gods. And in one day 24,000 died of the plague that God sent upon them for their idolatry. “Well, that’s pretty memorable; I don’t think anybody could forget that!” Remember that in Numbers 11:1 the people complained, God burned up the outskirts of their camp, then just three verses later they complained about the manna that came down from Heaven! These were people with a very short attention span, and needed constant reminders about the power of God. So Moses reminds them of this episode where so many died because of their idolatry, and constrains them to listen to and obey the commands from God “which I teach you to observe, that you may live, and go in and possess the land which the LORD God of your fathers is giving you.” He was not simply talking just to hear his own voice, but showed his genuine concern for the people and for the name of God by entreating the people to listen to and obey the words which he was giving them. These were God’s chosen people, and how would the neighboring nations think of the name and reputation of God if these people carried on with worshipping the idols of these neighboring nations? They would not think very highly of Him if He chose people who would abandon Him.

Deuteronomy 4:5-20—5 “Surely I have taught you statutes and judgments, just as the LORD my God commanded me, that you should act according to them in the land which you go to possess. 6 Therefore be careful to observe them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes, and say, 'Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.' 7 For what great nation is there that has God so near to it, as the LORD our God is to us, for whatever reason we may call upon Him? 8 And what great nation is there that has such statutes and righteous judgments as are in all this law which I set before you this day? 9 Only take heed to yourself, and diligently keep yourself, lest you forget the things your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. And teach them to your children and your grandchildren, 10 especially concerning the day you stood before the LORD your God in Horeb, when the LORD said to me, 'Gather the people to Me, and I will let them hear My words, that they may learn to fear Me all the days they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children.' 11 Then you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire to the midst of heaven, with darkness, cloud, and thick darkness. 12 And the LORD spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of the words, but saw no form; you only heard a voice. 13 So He declared to you His covenant which He commanded you to perform, the Ten Commandments; and He wrote them on two tablets of stone. 14 And the LORD commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that you might observe them in the land which you cross over to possess. 15 Take careful heed to yourselves, for you saw no form when the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, 16 lest you act corruptly and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of any figure: the likeness of male or female, 17 the likeness of any animal that is on the earth or the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, 18 the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground or the likeness of any fish that is in the water beneath the earth. 19 And take heed, lest you lift your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, you feel driven to worship them and serve them, which the LORD your God has given to all the peoples under the whole heaven as a heritage. 20 But the LORD has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be His people, an inheritance, as you are this day.” No other nation in the history of planet Earth was ever called by name by the God of all creation. No other nation was given His Laws, His sacrifices, or a way to be reconciled to Him other than the people of Israel. God made no covenant with any other particular nation on Earth other than Israel. He did not covenant with the Hittites, or the Amorites, or the Canaanites or the Egyptians or the Babylonians. Only with the Israelites. This is a great thing to consider. That the God of all Creation would make a covenant with a people who were not even a nation! And if the people walked in His statutes and obeyed His commandments, the neighboring nations would consider them wise and understanding. For who has wisdom but God? Wisdom was the first of His creation (see Proverbs 8:22-31). It is God alone who gives wisdom to men; it is God alone whose wisdom created the universe, so that all the planets and galaxies do not rush here and there and crash into each other. And who has understanding but God? Who can plumb the depths of all things and know exactly how they work? Who can know how the mind of man works except he who has understanding from God?

Moses spells this out in verses 15-19. If their neighboring nations saw them worshipping created beings as they worshipped, the people of Israel would be seen as no different from them, as these neighbors worshipped all kinds of things found in nature—stars, sun, moon, cattle, creeping things. All the things Paul warned us about in Romans 1:22-23. Seeking to be thought of as the wise of the world, they showed just how foolish they really were, thinking that birds and animals and insects were to be worshipped, rather than the God who created all things, visible and invisible, and who could destroy all of creation with a snap of His fingers. Are cats longsuffering? If they cry to be fed, and you do not feed them right then and there, will they understand? Can dogs create? Can moths or beetles fulfill your needs? No. Only a fool would think so. But all of these things the pagan nations believed, and gave obeisance to these things, thinking that by doing so their lives would be more at ease. But what did these things do for these people? Nothing. What did God do for the people of Israel? He did to them and for them according to their obedience or according to their defiance.

Deuteronomy 4:25-31—25 “When you beget children and grandchildren and have grown old in the land, and act corruptly and make a carved image in the form of anything, and do evil in the sight of the LORD your God to provoke Him to anger, 26 I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that you will soon utterly perish from the land which you cross over the Jordan to possess; you will not prolong your days in it, but will be utterly destroyed. 27 And the LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the LORD will drive you. 28 And there you will serve gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell. 29 But from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul. 30 When you are in distress, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, when you turn to the LORD your God and obey His voice 31 (for the LORD your God is a merciful God), He will not forsake you nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which He swore to them.” It is not long after the death of Joshua that the people do this very thing. The book of Judges is nothing but a repeating cycle of disobedience by the people, captivity of the people, the people crying out to God, Him delivering them, their repeated disobedience and captivity, them crying out and being delivered, and so on and so forth. The histories of the kings of Israel and Judah are marked by this same pattern in the books of Kings and Chronicles. In 622BC He allows the northern kingdom of Israel to be taken captive by the Assyrians. The people of Judah learned their lesson the hard way in 587BC, when after King Josiah died—the last of the godly kings of Judah—they made his son Jehoahaz king. He was quickly deposed by the conquering Egyptians who placed his brother Eliakim (whose name they changed to Jehoiakim) on the throne, and he was carried away to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar. His son Jehoiachin became king, and he too was carried off to Babylon, and Zedekiah (Jehoiakim’s brother) was installed by Nebuchadnezzar to be king of Judah. And Zedekiah did all the evils that were done by Jehoahaz, Eliakim, and Jehoiachin. These evil kings carried the people away in their sins with them, and the people were ultimately carried away to Babylon and the temple in Jerusalem was burned. And in 587BC God allows Judah to be taken into exile to Babylon because of their idolatry. And much like their time in Egypt, when they were obliged to raise monuments to the Egyptian Gods, they would serve false gods in whichever dispersion they were taken in. Keil and Delitzsch—

There among the heathen they would be obliged to serve gods that were the work of men's hands, gods of wood and stone, that could neither hear, nor eat, nor smell, i.e., possessed no senses, showed no sign of life. What Moses threatens here, follows from the eternal laws of the divine government. The more refined idolatry of image-worship leads to coarser and coarser forms, in which the whole nature of idol-worship is manifested in all its pitiableness. “When once the God of revelation is forsaken, the God of reason and imagination must also soon be given up and make way for still lower powers, that perfectly accord with the I exalted upon the throne, and in the time of pretended 'illumination' to atheism and materialism also” (Schultz).

Which is why Moses said at the beginning of verse 25, “When”, not “if”. These words were spoken to him by God, who knew the people would act corruptly, and make for themselves idols, and be carried away to a land they did not know and would serve the idols of this unknown (to them) land. And none of the idols they set up for themselves could stop what God was doing. BUT… Did God forget the covenants He made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the people? No, He did not. For as He promised, He raised up a king, Cyrus (he was king of Persia, and defeated the Babylonians in the year 539BC), who made a proclamation and gave the Jews permission to return to the land of Judah and rebuild the temple.

The warnings are no less dire to us today. If we do not worship God, if we do not give Him His due reverence, if we do not exalt Him as the High and Omniscient Potentate, we will be reduced to worshipping those things which are no gods, the fictions of men’s minds which are good for nothing but to entertain the intellect and whims of men for a moment, but in the end can do nothing for them. The new atheists—Richard Dawkins, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Christopher Hitchens—will join the older atheists, like Voltaire, and bow their knee before God and recognize Him as King of all Creation!

Part 2 next week

Jesus Christ is Lord.

Amen. 

A Survey of the Old Testament Law--Deuteronomy (Introduction, Part 4)

 Finishing up our review of the chapters of Deuteronomy

In Deuteronomy 12, we see the command to utterly destroy the images of the pagans and to not use them in worshipping God. This would become a stumbling block to many kings who walked in the ways of God, but did not remove high places established for the worship of pagan gods. We see this happen also today, when “churches” will use some sort of worldly thing in their “worship” of God. How many times do we see these gatherings do a series entitled “At the Movies” or “The Gospel According to…” some secular book or musical group. They come out with some kind of worldly entertainment and attach God onto the end of it, and claim they are using it to glorify God. But here, God is saying “don’t do that”. The same is true with many Roman Catholic practices, which are simply pagan practices they have co-opted into their idea of worshipping God (making Mary the “Queen of Heaven”, for example). Then Moses goes onto to regulations about eating—where you are to eat, where you can eat, who can eat, etc. We won’t go over those here because they are rather specific, but will address them at their proper time. 

In Deuteronomy 13 we see what to do with someone who claims they are a prophet—“If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or a wonder…” (Deuteronomy 13:1). This person, who has not been called as a prophet by God is usually one who calls on a different god, one whom the people have not known, and their only goal is to drag people away from worshipping the one, true, living God and into the worship of a false deity. That person is to be stoned until dead, the city and all its inhabitants and even its livestock are to be destroyed and the city’s goods to be burned with fire. Unfortunately, we are not strong enough to do that today. We are told by the progressives not to judge the person and their intent, because, well, they are just trying to do good. We don’t really know their heart. And they are just sharing with us a word they got from God, and who are we to judge, anyway? Or some such gobbledygook. In other words, instead of marking those who claim to be a prophet and a dreamer of dreams and judging their words against the word of God and tossing them out on their keester, we give them a TV show and send them money (I’m talking to you, Benny Hinn and Paula White and Jesse Duplantis and Rodney Howard Browne et al.). 

In Deuteronomy 14:1-21 we see another list of unclean animals the people were not to eat. These were likely animals that were being eaten by the pagans, and possibly even used in some of their pagan rituals. Many hypotheses have been given for this list by many different scholars, but the truth is we do not know why these animals were chosen as unclean. One thing we do know for sure is, God told the people to not eat them, thus they were prohibited by God from eating them. Then in the rest of the chapter we read about different tithes—how much they were to be, where they were to be given, to whom they were to be given, etc. One is even to be eaten by the tither! (Won’t hear about this one from the “beat the people over the head with Malachi” crowd). The “give 10% or you’re not saved” crowd doesn’t like to tell you about this one, for fear that you will actually do it and deteriorate their income. But in all actuality, the total of the yearly tithe was closer to 30% rather than 10%. And one tithe, you actually ate! 

Deuteronomy 15 talks about the seventh-year release of slaves and debts which we discussed in Leviticus 25, so while we will discuss a bit of it I will point you to the proper site. 

Deuteronomy 16 talks about the Passover and the three times in the year when the people of Israel are to appear before God. 

Deuteronomy 17 talks about

(a) The sacrifice you bring to God must be without spot or blemish

(b) What to do when you find a person in your city who is transgressing the Covenant

(c) What kind of cases one is to bring to the Levites for them to judge, and

(d) Rules to be followed when (not ‘if’, as God knew their hearts) the people decided they want a king over them. 

Of course, over time, the people got tired of having to be ruled by God (as we humans are like to do), and decided they wanted a king “like the other nations” (1st Samuel 8:6). And while they did indeed rejoice to have Saul, a man of Benjamin, of the family of Kish, to be their king, he and future kings did not subscribe to some of the regulations God laid out. Deuteronomy 17:16-20—16  “But he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses, for the LORD has said to you, 'You shall not return that way again.' 17 Neither shall he multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away; nor shall he greatly multiply silver and gold for himself. 18 Also it shall be, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write for himself a copy of this law in a book, from the one before the priests, the Levites. 19 And it shall be with him, and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God and be careful to observe all the words of this law and these statutes, 20 that his heart may not be lifted above his brethren, that he may not turn aside from the commandment to the right hand or to the left, and that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children in the midst of Israel.” David and Solomon multiplied wives (and they turned Solomon’s heart from God), Solomon multiplied gold and silver, and how many of them actually sat down with the Levites and wrote a copy of Deuteronomy (in fact, Jeroboam let any man from any tribe become a priest)? 

Deuteronomy 18 is another warning against soothsayers and dreamers of dreams and what to do with them when they are found. And it is not pretty. They were not to be put on TV and sent millions of dollars for prophesying falsely. They were no better than the nations they were going in to dispossess, and God even said so. And in the middle of all this, God says something interesting. Deuteronomy 18:18—“I will raise up for them a Prophet like you from among their brethren, and will put My words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command Him.” Understanding this verse helps us to understand some verses in the Gospels. There are some places in the Gospels where the people ask John the Baptist if he is “the prophet”. Mark 6:14-15—14 Now King Herod heard of Him, for His name had become well known. And he said, "John the Baptist is risen from the dead, and therefore these powers are at work in him." 15 Others said, "It is Elijah." And others said, "It is the Prophet, or like one of the prophets." John 1:19-21—19 Now this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, "Who are you?" 20 He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, "I am not the Christ." 21 And they asked him, "What then? Are you Elijah?" He said, "I am not." "Are you the Prophet?" And he answered, "No." Both of these passages talk about someone named “the Prophet”. And in both of these instances, “the Prophet” is the one spoken of in Deuteronomy 18:18—the promised “prophet like Moses”. A Prophet who will speak the truth and only the truth, a Prophet who is like the one the apostle speaks of in 2nd Peter 2:22 (echoing Isaiah 53:9)— "Who committed no sin, Nor was deceit found in His mouth". 

Deuteronomy 19 is a repeat of Numbers 35 in talking about the Cities of Refuge. 

Deuteronomy 20 outlines some commands about the people going into battle. The priests were to lead the way, encouraging the people to remain steadfast, and that it was not the people who were doing the fighting, but it was God who would secure the victory. Then the officers were to ask if anyone was a newlywed or had just bought a house or who was faint-hearted, and they were to be sent home, that only experienced, valiant men were to go to battle who had no new responsibilities, lest they be divided in their heart about going in to battle. Then terms were laid out concerning whether or not the city wanted to surrender or not. If they wanted to surrender, then they would be under tribute to the people of Israel. If not, then they were to build siege mounds and encamp against it. And when it was time, they were to wipe out every man in the city. They were to leave none alive, and were to take every woman and child and livestock as plunder. 

Deuteronomy 21:1-9 give the provisions for what the people were to do if they find a man slain in a field and no one saw who slayed him. They were to take a heifer, break its neck and wash their hands over it and declare themselves guilty of the bloodshed. Deuteronomy 21:10-14 cover what they were to do if they found a woman among the captives of battle and they wanted to take her for a wife (it was not as barbaric as the atheists make it sound). Deuteronomy 21:15-17 outline how a man was to treat the children of the women he was married to if he had two wives. Deuteronomy 21:18-21 command what the parents were to do if one of their children was a rebellious child. Deuteronomy 21:22-23 give the commands for what to do with the body of a man who was executed for a sin deserving of death. 

Deuteronomy 22-26 give various regulations covering various issues and will be covered when we get there. 

In Deuteronomy 27-30, Moses commands the people to divide the 12 tribes, with one group standing on Mount Gerizim to speak the blessings, and the other half to stand on Mount Ebal to pronounce the cursings. These two mountains formed a sort of natural amphitheater, much like the Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado. Six tribes—Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin—spoke the blessings and the other six—Gad, Asher, Dan, Naphtali, Zebulun and Reuben—spoke the curses. 

Deuteronomy 31-33 is the “Song of Moses”, which he spoke to the people as a farewell address in which He recounted the goodness of God in leading the people out of Egypt and in which he told the people that Joshua would be their leader in taking the land of Canaan that God had promised them. 

In Deuteronomy 34 we see the death of Moses, and his burial. Did Moses write this chapter? Probably not, it was most likely added by Joshua. We will discuss this when we get there. And that will bring an end to our study of the Pentateuch, and will close the words written by Moses. I trust it will be an interesting end to our study of the Law of God.

 

Jesus Christ is Lord.

Amen.  

A survey of the Old Testament Law--Deuteronomy (Introduction, Part 3)

Now, onto summarizing the various chapters in Deuteronomy. This all took place in the land of Gilead, which is described many times as “across from Jericho”, it being across the Jordan River from the city of Jericho in the land of Canaan. And like Leviticus, does not speak of any transit of the people across the river, as Moses was forbidden from entering the Promised Land by God (Numbers 20:12). The people of Israel were not yet a nation in Genesis, they came out from Egypt in Exodus, then camped at the foot of Mount Sinai (Mt. Horeb) in Leviticus, moved through the wilderness in Numbers, and will now finalize their part of the covenant in Deuteronomy. 

In chapters 1-4, Moses relates to the people their history since coming out of Egypt, and how God led them out “with a mighty hand and outstretched arm”. This is anthropomorphic language, to help the people reckon the power of God in ways they could understand. For God does not have a form or a body as we have (Deuteronomy 4:14; John 4:24). And he warns them that this being the case, they should take care not to attribute a form to Him as they did in Exodus 32, and make for themselves any graven image of either Him or the stars or the sun or the moon. Deuteronomy 4:14-19—14 And the LORD commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that you might observe them in the land which you cross over to possess. 15 Take careful heed to yourselves, for you saw no form when the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, 16 lest you act corruptly and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of any figure: the likeness of male or female, 17 the likeness of any animal that is on the earth or the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, 18 the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground or the likeness of any fish that is in the water beneath the earth. 19 And take heed, lest you lift your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, you feel driven to worship them and serve them, which the LORD your God has given to all the peoples under the whole heaven as a heritage. This is a principle that is taken up by the Apostle Paul when he warns the church at Rome that it is fools who turn the worship of God into the worship of corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things (Romans 1:21-32). 

Moses begins his exposition on the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy 5:6-21, repeating the words spoken to him by God in Exodus 20:2-17. He reminds the people that this specific covenant was made with this specific group of people, and not with Abraham, Isaac or Jacob. “But what about the covenant God made with Abram?” That was a different covenant. In that one, God promised that Abram’s seed would live in the land of Canaan and would make his descendants as numerous as the dust of the Earth (Genesis 12:7, 13:14-16). This covenant was different. This covenant established the people as His people. This covenant could be thought of as a reworking of the Abrahamic Covenant, in not only giving the people a land, but also showing the people how to live as people of God, and the punishments that would befall any who abrogated those terms. 

In chapter 6 Moses iterates how the people should remember these statutes, telling them to 7 teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates (Deuteronomy 6:7-9). “How were they supposed to fit all the words Moses would speak on something that could fit between their eyes?” These commands are not to be taken as literal, but that they should have these in mind wherever they are, whether in their house or outside their house when a visitor comes, they should be on their mind always, and they should be taught to the children diligently and constantly—they should be, in other words, all over the hearts of the people. Deuteronomy 6:4-5 is a very important passage to the Jew, it is called the “Shema” (she-MA). This title comes from the Hebrew, from the first word of verse 4, שׁמע (shema, “hear”)—4 "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one! 5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.” It is a verse that has been misused by the Jehovah’s Witnesses and others who deny the deity of Christ. They claim that this verse proves that there is but one God (which is true), and what we Christians refer to as the other two Person of the Trinity (The Son and the Holy Spirit) are not God, but are separate from God. We will delve into the mistakes this view presents when we get there. 

In chapter 7 Moses tells the people how they are to deal with the pagan nations they will come in contact with—The Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites. Let’s talk a little about these nations and where they were located. The Hittites were a rather large nation, located in what was known as Anatolia, and what would later be known as Asia Minor—and is now called Turkey—and the northern part of the Levant (modern-day Israel, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan). The name of their land was Hatti, and their capital was Hatussa (modern-day Bogazkale, Turkey). The Amorites we have already discussed in Numbers 21, with Og and Bashan. The Canaanites were, of course, those who dwelt in the land of Canaan, the land that God promised the people. They were descended from Canaan, son of Ham who disgraced his father Noah. The Perizzites and Hivites also lived in the land of Canaan, but were not so much a nation as they were a people-group. The Jebusites inhabited the city of Jebus, which would later be conquered by King David and renamed Jerusalem (1st Chronicles 11:4). Moses instructs the people to wipe out all the people and peoples in the land, to not allow themselves to be tempted to worship their idols, and to show no mercy in destroying them. Deuteronomy 7:5, 16, 23-26—5 “But thus you shall deal with them: you shall destroy their altars, and break down their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images, and burn their carved images with fire…16 Also you shall destroy all the peoples whom the LORD your God delivers over to you; your eye shall have no pity on them; nor shall you serve their gods, for that will be a snare to you…23 But the LORD your God will deliver them over to you, and will inflict defeat upon them until they are destroyed. 24 And He will deliver their kings into your hand, and you will destroy their name from under heaven; no one shall be able to stand against you until you have destroyed them. 25 You shall burn the carved images of their gods with fire; you shall not covet the silver or gold that is on them, nor take it for yourselves, lest you be snared by it; for it is an abomination to the LORD your God. 26 Nor shall you bring an abomination into your house, lest you be doomed to destruction like it. You shall utterly detest it and utterly abhor it, for it is an accursed thing.” They were not to repeat the sin they committed with the Moabites at Ba'al-Peor in Numbers 25. They were to cut off any remnant of idol worship so they could remain pure in their worship of YHVH. 

In Deuteronomy 8, Moses warns the people about keeping the Law of God, and that as they grow as a nation, and their goods multiply, they should not forget the reason their goods and their gold and their silver multiply. It is not because of their smarts or their cunning or their business acumen. Deuteronomy 8:11-17—11 “Beware that you do not forget the LORD your God by not keeping His commandments, His judgments, and His statutes which I command you today, 12 lest—when you have eaten and are full, and have built beautiful houses and dwell in them; 13 and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold are multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied; 14 when your heart is lifted up, and you forget the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage; 15 who led you through that great and terrible wilderness, in which were fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty land where there was no water; who brought water for you out of the flinty rock; 16 who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might test you, to do you good in the end—17 then you say in your heart, 'My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.'” This is a lesson they would forget in later centuries, when they would oppress the poor, the widow and the fatherless and God would cause the nations of Judah and Israel to be taken into exile. They forgot God, they became greedy for the wealth they had obtained, and they only wanted to obtain more. This attitude was influenced by their wicked kings, of whom we will read about. 

Deuteronomy 9 continues this thought, only now talking about the people’s attitude when they drive out the nations living in the land. It starts with telling the people that they will encounter, and drive out, the very people whom the 10 spies were scared of in Numbers 13—the Anakites. These were descendants of the giant Anak, and the cowardly spies said they felt like grasshoppers compared to them and therefore tries to convince the people to return to their slavery in Egypt. Deuteronomy 9:1-2—1 “Hear, O Israel: You are to cross over the Jordan today, and go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourself, cities great and fortified up to heaven, 2 a people great and tall, the descendants of the Anakim, whom you know, and of whom you heard it said, 'Who can stand before the descendants of Anak?'” Yeah, they knew of the Anakites. They were afraid of them before, but now they would actually meet them in battle, and God told them through Moses that they would defeat them. And why would they defeat them? Was it because they were mightier or more righteous than the Anakites? No, for they were certainly not righteous, even if they were not as evil as the Anakites. Deuteronomy 9:6—“Therefore understand that the LORD your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people.” Rather, God Himself will destroy these people because of the unrighteousness of the Anakites. Moses then uses the next chapter and a half to remind the people of their rebellion against God, reminding them of why God has decided to destroy these pagans. 

In Deuteronomy 11, Moses commands the people to not only hear the commandments of the Lord, but to remember them, to put them everywhere that they can see them and commit them not only to their memory but also to their heart, that they may do them and be blessed, lest they not do them and suffer the cursings. For they are going into an arid land, one which depends on the rain for water, and there are no rivers in it for irrigation. They will be completely dependent on God for the water they will need to survive. Deuteronomy 11:10-11—10 “For the land which you go to possess is not like the land of Egypt from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and watered it by foot, as a vegetable garden; 11 but the land which you cross over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water from the rain of heaven” They would be completely dependent on God for their survival, as we are even this day. Water is good and necessary, but it must come in the right amount. Not enough and the people die of thirst; too much and everything they own could be swept away. The rain that falls in the proper amount is from God, and He sends what is necessary for life to continue. Matthew 5:45—“He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” The birds of the air and the lilies of the field do not worry about how God will provide for them. They simply use what God provides for their survival as we should do, and as Moses told the people they should do. Deuteronomy 11:13-15—13 “And it shall be that if you earnestly obey My commandments which I command you today, to love the LORD your God and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul, 14 then I will give you the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your grain, your new wine, and your oil. 15 And I will send grass in your fields for your livestock, that you may eat and be filled.” 

Problem was, this group was made up of human beings. And we humans don’t like to follow a bunch of rules; we would rather do our own thing. And sometimes we need to be reminded of the consequences of our wrong decision making. Which is what Moses does here. He reminds the people that not only will God bless their obedience, but will also punish them when they disobey. Deuteronomy 11:26-28—26 “Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse: 27 the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you today; 28 and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside from the way which I command you today, to go after other gods which you have not known.” Again, this prediction would prove true in 587BC, when the kings of Judah went whoring after pagan gods, and God said “Enough!” and raised up the Babylonians against them and they were taken into exile and Jerusalem as sacked (we would see it again in 70AD when Jerusalem was ravished by Rome).

Part 4 next week

 

Jesus Christ is Lord.

Amen. 

A Survey of the Old Testament Law--Deuteronomy (Introduction, Part 2)

There has been an effort over the last few centuries to say that Moses was not the author of Deuteronomy, an effort that has been called the “Documentary Hypothesis”, or “Graf-Wellhausen Hypothesis” or JEDP (Jahwist, Elohist, Deuteronomist, Priestly source). To summarize these sources,

 

    J documents are the sections, verses, or in some cases parts of verses that were written by one or more authors who preferred to use the Hebrew name Jahweh (Jehovah) to refer to God. It is proposed that this author wrote about 900–850 B.C.

    E documents are the texts that use the name Elohim for God and were supposedly written around 750–700 B.C.

    D stands for Deuteronomy, most of which was written by a different author or group of authors, perhaps around the time of King Josiah’s reforms in 621 B.C.

    P stands for Priest and identifies the texts in Leviticus and elsewhere in the Pentateuch that were written by a priest or priests during the exile in Babylon after 586 B.C.

(https://answersingenesis.org/bible-characters/moses/documentary-hypothesis-moses-genesis-jedp/?srsltid=AfmBOopWjHhA1PuLmdBJluC3b-ykzK4nFgliwvXuWd5mJrWyIHwMQCmo) 

This hypothesis claims that Moses did not pen this or even the other books of the Pentateuch (some add the book of Joshua to the Pentateuch to make what is called the Hexateuch), but that these were written and compiled by later authors, and these documents were combined or redacted to the form we have now. A book by Julius Wellhausen entitled the “Prolegomena to the History of Israel” first advanced this idea: 

 

At last I took courage and made my way through Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and even through Knobel’s Commentary to these books. But it was in vain that I looked for the light which was to be shed from this source on the historical and prophetical books.  On the contrary, my enjoyment of the latter was marred by the Law; it did not bring them any nearer me, but intruded itself uneasily, like a ghost that makes a noise indeed, but is not visible and really effects nothing.  Even where there were points of contact between it and them, differences also made themselves felt, and I found it impossible to give a candid decision in favour of the priority of the Law.  Dimly I began to perceive that throughout there was between them all the difference that separates two wholly distinct worlds.  Yet, so far from attaining clear conceptions, I only fell into deeper confusion, which was worse confounded by the explanations of Ewald in the second volume of history of Israel.  At last, in the course of a casual visit in G€ttingen in the summer of 1867, I learned through Ritschl that Karl Heinrich Graf placed the law later than the Prophets, and, almost without knowing his reasons for the hypothesis, I was prepared to accept it; I readily acknowledged to myself the possibility of understanding Hebrew antiquity without the book of the Torah.

(“Prolegomena to the History of Israel”, quoted at https://www.aomin.org/aoblog/reformed-apologetics/a-critical-assessment-of-the-graf-wellhausen-documentary-hypothesis/) 

The form of the Documentary Hypothesis we have today was first introduced by Wellhausen and K.H. Graf in 1895, although this is merely the latest in the evolution of this hypothesis. It actually began with Jewish scholar Abraham Ibn Ezra in the 1200’s, who noted that some verses seemed out of place but did not pursue a study of them. This was picked up by a pantheist named Baruch (Benedict) Spinoza: 

 

About five hundred years later, the famous Jewish philosopher Baruch (Benedict) Spinoza (1632–1677) picked up on what Ibn Ezra had stated and asserted that Ibn Ezra did not believe Moses wrote the Pentateuch. Others disagreed, pointing to other statements by Ibn Ezra that contradicted Spinoza’s conclusion. In his book Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (1670), Spinoza, who was a pantheist and was subsequently excommunicated from the Jewish community and denounced by Christians, argued that Moses did not write the Pentateuch. Besides using the verses noted by Ibn Ezra, Spinoza offered a few other brief arguments against Mosaic authorship, which were easily answered by Christian writers in the following few decades.

(ibid.) 

Later, a man named Jean Astruc in 1753 formulated a hypothesis based on the two different names for God used in the Pentateuch (Elohim and Jahveh (YHVH)). He surmised that, based on this, different authors must have penned different parts of the Pentateuch. Based off this he wrote a book entitled “Conjectures sure les memories originauz dont il paroit que Moyse s'est servi pour composer le livre de la Génèse. Avec des remarques qui appuient ou qui éclairscissent ses conjectures” (English, “Conjectures on the original memories which Moses apparently used to compose the book of Genesis. With remarks which support or clarify his conjectures”). He questioned how Moses could have known the events we have recorded in Genesis such as the creation, the flood, the call of Abram, the events pertaining to Jacob and his sons, etc. Of course, this is easily explained by the fact that Moses was on Mount Sinai for forty days and forty nights, hearing from God Himself, during which time these things could have easily been communicated to him by God. Nevertheless, Astruc’s book led a man named Johann Eichhorn who, in his work entitled “Introduction to the Study of the Old Testament”, while still credited Moses as the author, claimed that Moses copied various parts of Genesis from various fragments of previously written Semitic histories:

 

The German scholar Johann Eichhorn took the next step by applying Astruc’s idea to the whole of Genesis. Initially, in his 1780 Introduction to the Old Testament, Eichhorn said that Moses copied previous texts. But in later editions he apparently conceded the view of others that the J–E division could be applied to the whole of the Pentateuch, which was written after Moses. Following Eichhorn, other ideas were advanced in denial of the Mosaic authorship of the first five books of the Old Testament. In 1802, Johann Vater insisted that Genesis was made from at least 39 fragments. In 1805, Wilhelm De Wette contended that none of the Pentateuch was written before King David and that Deuteronomy was written at the time of King Josiah.

(ibid.) 

And from here the doors were flung open wide to many more doubts of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, from which the Graf-Wellhausen Hypothesis was born. And these doubts continue even to this day. Even the New American Bible (A Roman Catholic translation not to be confused with the New American Standard Bible) feeds into this corruption in its introduction to the Pentateuch:

 

Despite its unity of plan and purpose, the book is a complex work, not to be attributed to a single original author. Several sources, or literary traditions, that the final redactor used in his composition are discernible. These are the Yahwist (J), Elohist (E), and Priestly (P) sources which in turn reflect older oral traditions. 

The process of transmission advanced by this hypothesis is summed up in the following diagram:

(https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~jtreat/rs/002/Judaism/jepd.html) 

Nevertheless, this hypothesis has been refuted by many biblical scholars. For example, James Orr (author of the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia) wrote:

 

If Deuteronomy is a work of the age of Josiah, then, necessarily, everything in the other Old Testament books which depends on Deuteronomy–the Deuteronomic revisions of Joshua and Judges, the Deuteronomic allusions and speeches in the Books of Kings, narratives of fact based on Deuteronomy–e.g., the blessings and cursings, and writing of the law on stones, at Ebal, all must be put later than that age.

(https://www.aomin.org/aoblog/reformed-apologetics/a-critical-assessment-of-the-graf-wellhausen-documentary-hypothesis/) 

James White:

 

It would surely be no strange thing for Hilkiah the priest to have recovered the book of Deuteronomy. As is evident from 2 Kings, both kingdoms had slipped more than once into apostasy, and it would not be surprising to learn that the Mosaic law had been lost at that time. The problem comes with then hypothesizing that this book of the law was a recent creation by the hands of the prophets to force Josiah’s hand toward reformation. This is to read more into the text than the text itself permits, and the subjective nature of such an assertion is even more obvious when the presupposition of the evolutionary nature of religion is stripped away. If the high moral nature of the Deuteronomic legislation does not necessarily place it at a late date, then there is no reason to suppose that Deuteronomy cannot be Mosaic.

(ibid.) 

We read in 2nd Kings 22:8 and 2nd Chronicles 34:15 that the High Priest Hilkiah found a copy of the Book of the Law while Josiah was king of Judah. If it was written after the exile of the Jews to Babylon, how could it have been found while Josiah was priest, years before the exile? To believe the Documentary Hypothesis is to disregard the hand of God in leading Moses to write the Pentateuch, and can lead one into discounting anything contained in the Old Testament and, in toto, the entire Bible. It clouds one’s mind to the supernatural nature of the Scriptures, and has led many to believe that the Bible is nothing more than a bunch of stories invented by some uneducated Middle Eastern goat herders and in the end has led them away from God.               

Now, there are some difficulties which we need to address before we move on. The first elephant in the room is Deuteronomy 34:1-12, which detail the last days and the death of Moses. How could Moses chronicle his own death and the events that followed? One possibility is this chapter was written by Joshua, and added to this final book of the Pentateuch. “But why does it say that no one knew where his grave was?” Simple. As Keil and Delitzsch write, it was God who buried Moses: “The subject in this sentence [Deuteronomy 34:5-6—5 So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD. 6 And He buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth Peor; but no one knows his grave to this day.] is Jehovah. Though the third person singular would allow of the verb being taken as impersonal (ἔθαψαν αὐτόν, lxx: they buried him), such a rendering is precluded by the statement which follows, “no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day.”  This theory may explain why Deuteronomy 34:6 says And He buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth Peor; but no one knows his grave to this day. If God Himself indeed buried him, this could explain why no one knew where he was buried. Of course, as Jamieson-Fausset-Brown theorize, he could have been buried by angels, specifically Michael. This could explain why Jude says Yet Michael the archangel, in contending with the devil, when he disputed about the body of Moses (Jude 1:9). 

That Joshua was the author of chapter 34 could explain Deuteronomy 34:1-2—1Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is across from Jericho. And the LORD showed him all the land of Gilead as far as Dan, 2 all Naphtali and the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Western Sea. As the land of Canaan had not yet been conquered, and the land not partitioned to the several tribes of Israel, how could Moses have known where the land of Dan was? Or Manasseh (the half-tribe that did not remain in Gilead) or Naphtali or Ephraim or Judah? That Joshua was (possibly) the author of this last chapter in Deuteronomy is thus evident. He may have even added the last phrase into Genesis 14:14, which says Now when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his three hundred and eighteen trained servants who were born in his own house, and went in pursuit as far as Dan.

Part 3 next week 

 

Jesus Christ is Lord.

Amen.