Posts

Who By Fire - Deuteronomy 9

Chapter 9 is a basic rehashing of some of the concepts that have been discussed repeatedly. The first is that God will go in and destroy their enemies before Israel has to fight them. There is a phrase used here that sounded familiar to me in verse 2 which says, “Who can stand before the children of Anak!” This phrase is used a couple of times in the Book of Mormon as well, once in Mormon 9:26 when Mormon asks, “who can stand against the works of the Lord?” A second time is in Ether 14:18 which is where I remembered it from, which says, “Who can stand before the army of Shiz?” It was just interesting to me that this specific phrase was used in both the Book of Mormon and the Deuteronomy and it makes me wonder if this was a common phrase used among ancient peoples in the middle east to the point that it would have been carried with the Jaredites and used a thousand years later as they were destroyed. Or was this just a common sense phrase that I’m reading too much into? The concept th...
Post a Comment
Read more

Humbling - Deuteronomy 8

One thing that I didn’t really understand until today is that if Israel had been obedient initially, they would have been able to receive the promised land only a couple of years after they left Egypt. I was always under the impression that the first generation couldn’t inherit the promised land because they were wicked but that God just instinctively knew that and walked them around for 40 years until they died. The reality is that they were given opportunities to inherit the promised land but rebelled against God repeatedly and were therefore banned from entering. It was just something I think about in my life like am I not receiving promised blessings because of my disobedience or because it is not God’s timing. Are bad things happening to me and my family because we rebelled against God like the Israelites or just because this is God’s will for it to happen? It’s been interesting to reflect why things have played out certain ways and what the consequences have been of those events,...
Post a Comment
Read more

Promises - Deuteronomy 7

7:1-8 - Today we get to have an important in depth conversation that has been touched on previously but that is overdue. In chapter 7, Moses prepares the Israelites with the knowledge that in order to take the land of Canaan, they will have to displace the current inhabitants. The descriptive header says that “Israel is to destroy the sever nations of Canaan,” but the actual word phrase used in the text is that God, not Israel, will “cast out many nations before thee.” There’s two distinctions there, God will do the work, not Israel, and it doesn’t necessarily mean that the inhabitants must be slaughtered, but instead removed. This is in line with what TB mentioned, that is the people just leave the place and give it up to the Hebrews, then they don’t have to be killed, only those who stand in opposition. In reality, however, I don’t think that very many civilizations will just walk away from their homes, especially if they think they have a chance at defeating the invading Israelites...
Post a Comment
Read more

Humility - Deuteronomy 6

There are multiple overarching concepts that are important in chapter 6. The first is verses 4 and 5 which TB says is the basis of all Judaism as well as Christianity. It’s called the Shema and it says, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one love: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.” The IM has an interesting commentary about this saying that the Shema consists Deuteronomy 6:4-9. Deuteronomy 11:13-21, and Numbers 15:37-41 in that order. These passages are to be recited twice a day by devout Jews and it also the prayer that is supposed to be said by someone who is about to be martyrs. This passage is also important because it’s the basis for what Jesus says on the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 22:36-37 which says, “Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.” This is another instance of Je...
Post a Comment
Read more

The 10 Commandments... Again - Deuteronomy 5

Chapter 5 is basically just a rehashing of the 10 commandments but there are a few points that are interesting. The first has to do with the reference in the last chapter when Moses asked the people if they heard God speak to them from fire. In verse 4 Moses reminds the people that when the original covenant was made with their parents at Mount Horeb 38+ years ago, “the Lord talked with you face to face in the mount of the midst of the fire.” Moses also reminded the people that when God spoke to them directly, they were afraid and asked Moses to intervene on their behalf and have God speak to him so that they wouldn’t have to. TB mentioned that after the people told Moses that they were too scared to hear God personally and that they wanted Moses to talk to God and just tell them what He said, the people did stick around to wait and hear what God had to say, they just packed up all their stuff and went home. That’s interesting to consider because if the God of the whole universe is spe...
Post a Comment
Read more

Scattering & Gathering of Israel - Deuteronomy 4

Chapter 4 is very long and TB makes a significant claim about it saying that Deuteronomy 4 is one of the top 10 chapters in the entire Bible that shows the nature and character of God and lectures for 2 ½ hours about it. I personally didn’t take it to be that way and I think that one of the reasons for that is because TB interprets the scattering and gathering of Israel to mean the literal dispersal of Hebrews from the land of Canaan and then the return of their DNA descendants that specific geographic space. From that perspective, yes, this chapter is very important to that narrative, I don’t share that perspective and we can talk about it later but that’s probably why I disagree with his emphasis on this chapter’s importance and I didn’t realize it until just now. Moses remind the Israelites what happened when they rebelled by committing adultery with the foreign women that infiltrated them under king Balak. The punishments for that disobedience was severe and Moses wants them to re...
Post a Comment
Read more

Recounting 2 - Deuteronomy 2 & 3

Chapters 2 and 3 are essentially Moses just rehearsing to the Israelites what they had just done as far as what their journey entailed recently. He talks about that they were supposed to pass by the Edomites and the Moabites because they are kin historically and God wasn’t going to give Israel that land anyway so don’t mess with the people. The problem became when Balak the king of Moab tried to curse Israel and ended up taking Balaam’s advice to infiltrate them and tempt them to commit sexual sin with his people so that God wouldn’t favor them anymore. To be fair, the Hebrew men shouldn’t have been tempted and shouldn’t have committed adultery with those women, but they were punished as well. The irony is that Balak was so worried about the Israelites conquering his people that he messed with the situation enough to get them destroyed even though it was never God’s intention to destroy them. Balak, with all his meddling, got his people destroyed when it wouldn’t have happened if he wo...
Post a Comment
Read more