Tag Archives: Ten Commandments

Matthew 5: 21-32 Law and Relationships in the Kingdom

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James Tissot, Sermon on the Beatitudes (1886-96)

Matthew 5: 21-32

Parallel Mark 9: 43-48; 10: 11-12; Luke 12: 57-59; 16:18

Highlighted words will have comment on translation below

21 “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ 22 But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire. 23 So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. 25 Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. 26 Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.

27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell.

31 “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32 But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

This is the first half on six examples that Jesus provides his new followers of how to interpret scripture, live according to a law that has been fulfilled and points to the type of community the kingdom of heaven embodies. Often these are heard as moralistic, as Jesus intensifying the commandment to the point where no mere mortal could keep it and as an unattainable goal that we are expected to reach to appease God. I do believe there is much to be gained in wrestling honestly with these words and trying to discern how they may indeed be a gift to the community of disciples and how they may point to a life that is worth striving for. These commandments and their interpretation are a gift that point to a type of society embodied in the kingdom of heaven. As mentioned before, I do believe that Jesus is operating out of a hermeneutic of mercy and I do believe that, especially as these words go against the ways often practiced in society and church, that they do point towards a type of community that would be visible in the midst of the world around them because of their actions toward others in the community, those outside the community and even those who would label the members of this community as enemies. It is a community in which anger is overcome, lust does not dominate our relations with one another, language is simple and truthful, retaliation is renounced and even enemies are met with love rather than hatred. (Hays, 1996, p. 321)

Jesus takes up the mantle of Moses both from his position on the mountain and the articulation of the commandments, but he also boldly goes beyond the commandments of Moses by following each commandment with, “But I say to you.” The first command that receives interpretation is the commandment related to murder or killing (Exodus 20: 13, Deuteronomy 5:17) and the additional line about whoever murders shall be liable to judgment probably refers to the expansion on the commandment on murder in Exodus 21: 12-27 and in Exodus and Deuteronomy the commands related to murder are to create a society where my neighbor’s life is more important than any grievance I may have with my neighbor. I don’t think any rational person wants a society where the killing of one’s neighbor is permitted but Jesus points towards a society where not only my neighbor’s life but my neighbor’s reputation and my relationship with my neighbor are to be protected. I was brought up with the proverb that, ‘sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me,’ and those who have been in any community I’ve served have heard my reshaping of this proverb to, ‘sticks and stones may break my bones but words will send me to therapy.’ Words can indeed wound and can not only damage my neighbor’s standing in the community but also my neighbor’s relationship to me. Matthew wants us to understand the importance of reconciliation in the community and he will also have us hear Jesus teaching on this in Matthew 18.

I have struggled with several of the passages in the Sermon on the Mount because I heard them as articulating a type of moralistic perfection which I have never been able to practice. While I can agree with Proverbs that, “Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but one who has a hasty temper exalts folly.” (Proverbs 14: 29) I’ve come to accept that anger is a necessary and sometimes helpful emotion when it helps us realize when something is unjust or when it helps to signal something that is unhealthy for us. Hearing this interpretation of the commandment through the lens of moralistic perfection my practice was to suppress anger but that is also an extremely unhealthy practice which has consequences for relationships and for physical health. It is possible that Jesus is articulating a commandment which forbids some of our most basic and primal emotions, many have interpreted Jesus this way, but I do think the direction of this command is towards the life of the community.

If I allow myself to remain in a place of anger towards my brother or sister without working toward reconciliation, then I do place myself in a position of being liable to judgment. If my words spoken in anger or judgment towards my neighbor cause loss of status in the society or create emotional wounds that they have to bear I am responsible for attempting to reconcile their position in the society and to attempt to heal the wounds I have caused. With the prophets and the psalms, we hear in Jesus that our life in the world is our preparation to be in place to offer sacrifice. As is Psalm 24,

“Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place? Those who have clean hands and pure hearts, who do not lift up their souls to what is false, and do not swear deceitfully.” (Psalm 24: 3-4)

For Jesus reconciliation with my neighbor whom I have offended or wounded is more important than any act of sacrifice or worship. Relationships are at the center of this kingdom of heaven which has come near in Jesus. This way of life also extends beyond the boundaries of the community toward those who do not practice it. Those who would bring me to court over my actions are practicing the litigious practices of the world in which the disciples will find themselves in, but the disciples are instructed to work towards reconciliation even with those who view litigation as the default method of handling differences.

The commandment on adultery is also expanded in a similar manner to now include looking at a woman with lust in one’s eyes. It is possible that Jesus is declaring that men are not to desire women sexually and there are those who interpreted this commandment in terms of an interim ethic of physical and spiritual celibacy but again this would articulate a type of moralistic perfection that I have never been able to practice. I do believe that we were created for connection and that our sexuality is a part of the gift that God has granted us and yet it is a gift that has an impact on the way we interact in community. Sexuality is a highly charged topic of discussion both within religious communities and throughout society and for many what happens in the bedroom should stay in the bedroom but as uncomfortable as these discussions may be they are necessary to our life of faith.

As a starting point for this discussion of Jesus’ interpretation of the commandment on adultery let’s begin with the dehumanizing experience of sexual harassment. As I mentioned above in the discussion on the commandment to murder, one doesn’t need to physically wound someone to either emotionally wound a person or damage their place within the community. Women (and men although less frequently) may be viewed as sexual objects rather than people worthy of respect and dignity. In the kingdom of heaven men and women are viewed instead as people set apart as treasured possessions, a nation of priests and chosen people. The relationships between women and men are to be different than those embodied in the community around them where women, in particular, may be not be valued as full citizens of the kingdom.

The Sermon on the Mount is about creating a community that embodies the kingdom of heaven, and relationships within that community are essential. Sexuality is a powerful part of the relationship we share with others in the community. While the commandment on adultery is primarily viewed in the Hebrew Scriptures as protecting the male in the relationship, polygamy was practiced and if a woman was not married or promised then there were provisions to bring her into the relationship with the person who had intimate relations with her (desired or undesired, see for example Deuteronomy 22: 15-30) but now the command places the responsibility upon the male not to objectify the woman as an object of desire.

We live in a world where women do have rights and protections that did not exist in the time of Jesus, however wrestling with how we as a community embody this commandment are as important today as they have been at any point in our history. The ‘me too’ movement and the exposure of a number of prominent men (and a few women) who have used their power and authority to sexually harass, abuse and assault employees, co-workers and relations should be a clarion call for we as a community of Christ to talk about what healthy sexuality looks like. In addition, we live in a time where sexuality has become highly commercialized and readily available. One of the risks to relationships in our digital age is the easy availability of sexually explicit imagery on the internet. If men and women are being conditioned to look at other bodies as sexual objects rather than a gift for relationship then we have moved far away from the vision of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. There are powerful forces behind the way sexuality is used and misused in our society. As Stephanie Coontz could state prior to the internet:

 “the consumerist values that had already made sex a marketable commodity” were increasingly applied to female and gay sexuality as well as to traditional gender roles and marriage, for purposes dictated by the multi-billion-dollar sex industry, not for the aims of personal liberation or social transformation. (Coontz, 1992, p. 265)

The kingdom of heaven is about communal liberation and social transformation and it is not for commercial gain. It is about relational reconciliation rather than sexuality exploitation. It is about a community that embodies a different way of modeling the relationships between men and women. Yet, I think it is important to remember that this is about something different than moralistic perfection, in our individualistic world we many ask, “What should I do?” but the kingdom of heaven is about a community where we can ask, “What should we do?” What kind of community could we imagine where we can talk to young men and women, and adults as well, about how we relate to one another sexually while valuing one another’s place within the community. Perhaps the easier road is the one of celibacy which Jesus discusses in Matthew 19: 10-12 but not everyone, myself included, could accept this teaching.

Matthew places between the commandment on adultery and the discussion on divorce the harsh words about removing eyes or hands to demonstrate the serious nature of relationships in the kingdom of heaven. On one hand it is important to state that this is probably not intended to be taken literally in an individualistic manner, but as a community it is important to live in a way that embodies the kingdom of heaven and there may be times where a member of the community is cut off or cast out (see Matthew 18, although the hope is also for reconciliation with the community). This is also the first time in the gospel of Matthew we encounter the concept of Gehenna, translated hell. For most Christians the term hell carries a lot of baggage and there has been a long tradition of imagining hell as a place of torture. Most of the Hebrew Scriptures do not have an equivalent concept of Gehenna or hell, Sheol is a place of the dead but not a place of condemnation. Jesus, especially in Matthew and the synoptic tradition, does include punishment for those who choose the path of the wicked. The gospels use the term Gehenna a term that originates with the valley of Hinnom, which was considered a cursed place and a place where trash from Jerusalem was burned but it also is used as the opposite of the kingdom of heaven. Choose the kingdom of heaven or choose Gehenna, it is a choice between wisdom and foolishness. I think it is difficult to argue that Jesus does not have some conception of a judgment that goes beyond this life that parallels the resurrection that also transcends this life. Yet, this choice, like the choice between wisdom and foolishness, is so that people may choose the way of this visible community that is embodying the way of life articulated in the sermon.

Finally comes the first discussion of divorce in Matthew, also addressed in Matthew 19: 3-12, which indicates this may have been an issue that Matthew’s community needed to hear addressed multiple times. Before I begin this discussion, we all are shaped by our own stories and mine includes divorce and remarriage and I have had to wrestle with this text and others in the New Testament as I attempted to walk through these as faithfully as possible. I’ve shared more on my experience of divorce here. I also serve a community where many in the community have divorce as a part of their story. I once believed that there was always something someone could do to prevent a divorce, but ultimately a modern relationship relies upon both parties investing in the relationship. Jesus lived in a time where marriage was understood differently, marriages for most of history were primarily an economic relationship arranged between families to attempt to ensure a good match for the child and the family’s economic future. Within this economic arrangement a divorce placed the woman in a tenuous situation because she was no longer a favorable match for a second partner and may not be welcomed back into their father’s home. In a world of limited economic opportunities, a woman may be reduced to begging or prostitution.

This passage refers to Deuteronomy 24: 1-4 is the only place in the law where divorce is discussed for the general population of Israel (there are provisions in Leviticus for priests). Now Jesus links this provision with the commandment on adultery. The Greek term porneia which is translated unchastity by the NRSV is open to debate about its exact meaning: illicit sexual relations with a person other than the spouse, premarital unchastity or even (in relation to Leviticus 18) being married too closely in family relations (an incestuous marriage in the eyes of the law). In Greek this term is a general term relating to sexual-misconduct but it is a different term than moicheoo which is translated adultery in this passage. Yet, when compared to its Markan parallel we see that this exception is added in Matthew’s version. As Richard B. Hays can state:

No matter what interpretation is put upon the clause, it is undeniable that we see here a process of adaptation, in which Jesus’ unconditional prohibition of divorce is applied and qualified in the interest of predicatability. Here, as elsewhere, to work out a balance between rigor and mercy, between the demands of discipleship and the realities of the community’s situation. (Hays, 1996, p. 355)

Within the New Testament divorce is addressed in Matthew, Mark, Luke and 1 Corinthians and even within the formation of the New Testament we see the community trying to find the balance between rigor and mercy, between discipleship and the reality of their community situation. Paul, for example, in 1 Corinthians has to deal with the issue of believers who are married to non-believers and whose non-believing spouses may want to terminate the relationship.

The discussions related to divorce in churches, along with other issues of sexuality, can be difficult because the issues impact people at their deepest and most intimate levels of desire for connection. In a time where marriages are based on love and emotion, I do think it is important to acknowledge the danger of this dependence on the immediacy of feeling to maintain a lifetime relationship. As Stephanie Coontz can articulate:

Our dependence on love leads us to demand the constant renewal of romance, gift exchange, and self-revelation. But as soon as we can take someone’s gifts for granted, or their novelty wears off, the love is at risk. Boredom, argues sociologist Richard Sennett, is the logical consequence of relationships constructed according to the cult of private intimacy; infidelity and planned obsolescence are consumer society’s answer to boredom: “When two people are out of revelations…all too often the relationship comes to an end.” (Coontz, 1992)

Jesus’ vision of relationships is very different that the vison of relationships articulated in our individualistic and consumeristic society. I do think Stanley Haerwas’ framing of the question differently is a helpful starting point:

In similar fashion the question is not whether a divorced woman should be allowed to marry, but what kind of community must a church be that does not make it a matter of necessity for such a woman to remarry. If Christians do not have to marry, if women who have been abandoned do not have to remarry, then such a church must be a community of friendship that is an alternative to the loneliness of the world. (Hauerwas, 2006, p. 70)

Jesus is articulating a way of being that embodies the kingdom of heaven, where relationships are central, where reconciliation is important and where men and women can dwell together in safety and love. The community of faith has rarely, if ever, fully embodied this vision and we deal with broken relationships, abused trust and hurtful words and actions. Yet, even though the accusation could be justly made that this type of vision is utopian in outlook we are talking about articulating the kingdom of heaven. Israel and now this community of disciples is intended to be an alternative community to the world around it. They are intended to be salt to preserve and light to illuminate and a city on the hill which the nations can stream to. It is a goal towards which the community of the faithful can strive towards but there also needs to be done within a way of reading that is merciful and allows a space for forgiveness.

Exodus 20- The Decalogue

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Rembrandt, Moses with the Ten Commandments

Exodus 20: 1-17 The Ten Words

 Then God spoke all these words:

 2 I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; 3 you shall have no other gods before1 me.

 4 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, 6 but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation1 of those who love me and keep my commandments.

 7 You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.

 8 Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work. 10 But the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; you shall not do any work — you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. 11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.

 12 Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.

 13 You shall not murder.1

 14 You shall not commit adultery.

 15 You shall not steal.

 16 You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. 17 You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

The Ten Commandment, or the Ten Words (Decalogue) occur both here and in Deuteronomy 5 in slightly different forms. I highlight the differences in my discussion on Deuteronomy and here I will focus more on the commandments themselves and the role they have played within both Judaism and Christianity. One of the issues that has been wrestled with across time is how to divide the list into ten with different solutions based upon one’s theology. Is verse two the first commandment of a prologue to the list of commandments (many Jewish traditions), is verse three through six all one commandment (Catholic, Lutheran traditions) or is there a break between verse three and four (Reformed traditions). Ultimately the division into ten probably serves as an easy way to remember these central precepts that all the rest of the law will unfold from and regardless of how they are divided it is ultimately the way they become internalized and lived which will become the primary goal for these words.

When historical critical methods were the favored tool scholars loved to debate whether the Ten Words evolve over time or whether they borrowed from other law codes of the ancient near east (most notably the Code of Hammurabi has been noted for some parallels between what will follow in the next chapters). Ultimately historical questions reaching thousands of years back into history become incredibly difficult to answer and what we have are the Decalogue as they have been handed down in the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy as they are in their final form. For both Jews and Christians, they have served to both pass on the faith and to give some key principles to form their ethics and life from.

The initial statement at the beginning of these words take us back into the narrative of Exodus. The LORD makes a claim upon them, the LORD is their God and the LORD is known by what has occurred. The bringing out of the people from Egypt and God’s choice of them gives the LORD sole claim upon their allegiance and worship. The existence of other gods is not denied here, in the worldview of the time it is assumed and other nations served them (the prophets will later move towards a view we would recognize as monotheistic) but these other gods are not to be worshipped or followed by the people of Israel. The people have been redeemed out of Egypt and are in a covenantal relationship with the LORD their God.

The worship of the LORD is unusual in the ancient world. They are not to use images to represent the LORD their God, and this will be what is at stake in the incident of the golden calf in Exodus 32. The LORD is not to be reduced to the likeness of anything in the creation. The expounding on this prohibition below in verse 23 reinforces this. There will be beauty in the space that will be constructed to worship, but nothing within that space and no other item is to contain God’s image. Perhaps there is a remembrance of the creation narrative where humanity in some manner bears the image of God, but ultimately even humanity it not to be cast in metal and lifted up as a representation of God. The LORD is an impassioned God and does not enter this covenant easily or lightly. God’s vulnerability is highlighted using the term ‘jealous’ and while we may be uncomfortable with the language of punishment we will see that the breaking of this relationship, as will be seen in Exodus 32 and in prophets like Jeremiah and Hosea, brings out an intensely emotional side of God. The LORD presented in the Hebrew Bible is never some unmoved mover or unattached stoic grandfatherly god, the LORD is a God who desires to draw near but who also is vulnerable to being wounded by the unfaithfulness of the people.

The name in the ancient world is a powerful thing. As I discussed in Exodus 3 there is both necessity in a name but especially in the ancient world there was power. The four-letter name of God, transliterated as YHWH (or Yahweh- Jehovah was an old mispronunciation of these letters) is not said by the Jewish people in their worship in respect for keeping the name holy will always say Adonai (and the vowels, which are added above and below the consonants reflect the vowels for Adonai while the consonants are YHWH), in English this is why you see LORD in all caps (frequently with ORD in a smaller font if possible). The name of God was not to be used as a magical incantation, like some other cultures would do when they called upon the names of their gods, but was to be honored and respected.

Sabbath here is linked to creation and the rhythm of the LORD’s work being a model for human life. This is one of the unique portions of the Ten Commandments, since Sabbath is primarily about rest-not worship. It also is essential in the construction of a different type of society than the Egyptian society they came out of. In Egypt they were slaves, forced to work without brake for as long as their taskmasters demanded, but here children, slaves and even animals are commanded to rest. Ultimately, they were not to place their own ability to produce at the center of their lives but they were to learn to rest and trust that the LORD would provide for them and they were to rest with the LORD on this day that has been blessed and consecrated.

The command to honor father and mother, as I mention in Deuteronomy 5, is probably less about young children being obedient to parents and more about older children continuing to respect, honor and care for their parents in their older age. There will always be the temptation to look upon those who are past their prime as a burden to society but here they are commanded to be honored.

I once heard Rolf Jacobson, who teaches Hebrew Bible at Luther Seminary, state that the Ten Commandments are not about my best life now, they are about ‘my neighbor’s best life now.’ Murder, and although I grew up with the King James ‘thou shalt not kill’ the word murder is probably a better word for what is intended, prevents my needs from becoming more important than my neighbor’s life. There are times where the Scriptures do talk about capital punishment or serving in warfare and these may be viewed within the scriptures as times where the greater community is protected by the act of the one being killed or killing others but these actions are not to be the rule of life in the community, they are the exception. Adultery, which in our current culture portrays as a crime where no one gets hurt, is taken with the utmost seriousness. The punishment for those who commit adultery will be death and this may seem in our time overly harsh. Yet, in ancient times there was, “a severe rupture of trust in family trust and structure as well as in patterns of inheritance.” (Myers, 2005, p. 176) After working with couples for years as a pastor and my own personal experiences there is wisdom to learn from the seriousness cultures took adultery. I am not advocating a return to stoning or harsh punishment, but I’ve seen too often the damage that what a person thought was a simple act of pleasure does to their health, finances, to family and to their children. Adultery is one of those acts that can shatter the trust of a family and have profound and long consequences. Similarly stealing can have life threatening consequences in a culture where people are living at a subsistence level and even in our time. In a society where neighbors relied upon one another, theft could fracture the fabric of that community. When one’s home or automobile has been broken into it feels like a violation of one’s safety and security. In some cases, the loss of security may be greater than the physical loss. In other cases, where greed or theft on a large scale has endangered a person’s retirement accounts or even the money that a person needs to pay for food or medical expenses the theft can literally steal life from another person.

For a just society one of the essential elements is truthful speech. Bearing false witness, whether in a legal setting or in casual gossip can cause heavy damage to an individual. In an age where we can see the how gossip, intentional falsehoods, and cyber-bullying in personal relationships in addition to the erosion of trust in our public institutions I do think there is a longing for truthful speech, but also there is a desire for the salacious rumor and it sometimes becomes difficult to tell the two apart. Perhaps Martin Luther’s wisdom of “interpreting my neighbor’s action in the best possible light” may be helpful here as we wrestle with finding true words in a suspicious and distrusting time.

Finally coveting, and the word for coveting is more than just the natural desire of seeing someone or something one finds attractive. Chamada, the Hebrew word behind coveting is, “an intense desire, generated by passion that is not easily controlled.” (Myers, 2005, p. 178 quoting TDOT) The word for house is more than the physical building, it is one’s household which would include the other items listed behind household: spouse, servants, livestock, etc. This type of intense and open desire would erode the trust between neighbors.

Attempting to write about the Decalogue is a challenge, partially because almost every major figure in Judaism and Christianity at some point writes in detail about the commandments. They are a source of catechetical instruction in the basics of the faith for both traditions. Here I have been in more of an exegetical mode attempting to understand and compare what the commandments meant to their original audience and compare that to our time. At other points, if I was trying to instruct someone on how the commandments would impact their faith I would probably highlight different points.

Exodus 20: 18-21 Moses the Mediator

 18 When all the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking, they were afraid1 and trembled and stood at a distance, 19 and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we will die.” 20 Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid; for God has come only to test you and to put the fear of him upon you so that you do not sin.” 21 Then the people stood at a distance, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was.

Moses by Victorvictori, permission granted by author through WikiCommons

The approach of the LORD is a powerful thing and the people are overwhelmed. Although there will be times where Moses’ role as a leader is challenged the people do not want to stand in Moses’ place before God. They desire someone to mediate the divine presence. Moses will spend his life as a person caught between God and God’s people. Even when God’s intention is to graciously draw close it can be terrifying and frequently people want a predictable and not too close God. Ultimately the God of Israel is a God who is not controllable or tame, who is passionate. Moses is somehow safer, more understandable and therefore God’s presence continues to be mediated by the messenger.

Exodus 20: 22-26 How to Worship the LORD

 22 The LORD said to Moses: Thus you shall say to the Israelites: “You have seen for yourselves that I spoke with you from heaven. 23 You shall not make gods of silver alongside me, nor shall you make for yourselves gods of gold. 24 You need make for me only an altar of earth and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your offerings of well-being, your sheep and your oxen; in every place where I cause my name to be remembered I will come to you and bless you. 25 But if you make for me an altar of stone, do not build it of hewn stones; for if you use a chisel upon it you profane it. 26 You shall not go up by steps to my altar, so that your nakedness may not be exposed on it.”

The worship of the LORD is both incredibly simple and very challenging. It is simple in the reality that they don’t need images of silver or gold to represent their God. It is challenging because the people will show that they desire some physical representation of their God they can focus on and can manipulate. Idolatry will be more than just worshipping other gods, it will also be any attempt to make an image of the imageless God of Israel. It will be any attempt to limit the ways in which God can present Godself or to even metaphorically limit God’s image to being something in heaven or on earth or in the sea. It is simple that the LORD does not require elaborate tables or structures to offer sacrifices, simply an altar of earth or unhewn stones that is not set above everyone else. The worship of the LORD is to be done at a level where the priests do not ascend above the people to offer sacrifices but stand at their level. It will be a challenge not to emulate the practices of other nations that place the divine above and have their priests ascend to offer sacrifices. It is the paradox of transcendence in the mundane parts of life. God’s desire is to come down to the people’s level and to dwell, but the desire of the people tends to be to send a representative up to mediate the space between God and themselves.

Deuteronomy 12: Expounding on the Law

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Grigory Mekheev, Exodus (2000) artist shared work under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0

Grigory Mekheev, Exodus (2000) artist shared work under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0

 Deuteronomy 12

1 These are the statutes and ordinances that you must diligently observe in the land that the LORD, the God of your ancestors, has given you to occupy all the days that you live on the earth.

                2 You must demolish completely all the places where the nations whom you are about to dispossess served their gods, on the mountain heights, on the hills, and under every leafy tree. 3 Break down their altars, smash their pillars, burn their sacred poles with fire, and hew down the idols of their gods, and thus blot out their name from their places. 4 You shall not worship the LORD your God in such ways. 5 But you shall seek the place that the LORD your God will choose out of all your tribes as his habitation to put his name there. You shall go there, 6 bringing there your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and your donations, your votive gifts, your freewill offerings, and the firstlings of your herds and flocks. 7 And you shall eat there in the presence of the LORD your God, you and your households together, rejoicing in all the undertakings in which the LORD your God has blessed you.

                8 You shall not act as we are acting here today, all of us according to our own desires, 9 for you have not yet come into the rest and the possession that the LORD your God is giving you. 10 When you cross over the Jordan and live in the land that the LORD your God is allotting to you, and when he gives you rest from your enemies all around so that you live in safety, 11 then you shall bring everything that I command you to the place that the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling for his name: your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and your donations, and all your choice votive gifts that you vow to the LORD. 12 And you shall rejoice before the LORD your God, you together with your sons and your daughters, your male and female slaves, and the Levites who reside in your towns (since they have no allotment or inheritance with you).

13 Take care that you do not offer your burnt offerings at any place you happen to see. 14 But only at the place that the LORD will choose in one of your tribes– there you shall offer your burnt offerings and there you shall do everything I command you.

15 Yet whenever you desire you may slaughter and eat meat within any of your towns, according to the blessing that the LORD your God has given you; the unclean and the clean may eat of it, as they would of gazelle or deer. 16 The blood, however, you must not eat; you shall pour it out on the ground like water. 17 Nor may you eat within your towns the tithe of your grain, your wine, and your oil, the firstlings of your herds and your flocks, any of your votive gifts that you vow, your freewill offerings, or your donations; 18 these you shall eat in the presence of the LORD your God at the place that the LORD your God will choose, you together with your son and your daughter, your male and female slaves, and the Levites resident in your towns, rejoicing in the presence of the LORD your God in all your undertakings. 19 Take care that you do not neglect the Levite as long as you live in your land.

                20 When the LORD your God enlarges your territory, as he has promised you, and you say, “I am going to eat some meat,” because you wish to eat meat, you may eat meat whenever you have the desire. 21 If the place where the LORD your God will choose to put his name is too far from you, and you slaughter as I have commanded you any of your herd or flock that the LORD has given you, then you may eat within your towns whenever you desire.     22 Indeed, just as gazelle or deer is eaten, so you may eat it; the unclean and the clean alike may eat it. 23 Only be sure that you do not eat the blood; for the blood is the life, and you shall not eat the life with the meat. 24 Do not eat it; you shall pour it out on the ground like water. 25 Do not eat it, so that all may go well with you and your children after you, because you do what is right in the sight of the LORD. 26 But the sacred donations that are due from you, and your votive gifts, you shall bring to the place that the LORD will choose. 27 You shall present your burnt offerings, both the meat and the blood, on the altar of the LORD your God; the blood of your other sacrifices shall be poured out beside the altar of the LORD your God, but the meat you may eat.

                28 Be careful to obey all these words that I command you today, so that it may go well with you and with your children after you forever, because you will be doing what is good and right in the sight of the LORD your God.

                29 When the LORD your God has cut off before you the nations whom you are about to enter to dispossess them, when you have dispossessed them and live in their land, 30 take care that you are not snared into imitating them, after they have been destroyed before you: do not inquire concerning their gods, saying, “How did these nations worship their gods? I also want to do the same.” 31 You must not do the same for the LORD your God, because every abhorrent thing that the LORD hates they have done for their gods. They would even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods. 32 You must diligently observe everything that I command you; do not add to it or take anything from it.

 

In the first eleven chapters of Deuteronomy we heard the story of the people of Israel re-narrated, the Ten Commandments re-stated and some of the central practices highlighted for the people to hear and know. Beginning in chapter twelve we begin to see these practices expanded upon and within these commandments the practices that form the people to live out of this command are expressed. The exposition of chapters 12-26 roughly follows the pattern of the Ten Commandments with twelve and thirteen referring back to having no other Gods. As the author of Deuteronomy reflects upon how the people of Israel will live out these commandments in the Promised Land they will impact the everyday life of the community. As Deanna Thompson can state, “These laws concern practical matters of worship, politics, economics, business and judicial practices, sexuality and marriage, family life and relationships.” (Thompson, 2014, p. 113)  The people of Israel were not attempting to create a community that happened to have a few religious practices but rather a community shaped by the covenant with their God and practices deriving from the Ten Commandments and the Shema where their lives are oriented around serving and loving their LORD. This is the beginning of a contextual theology where they try to understand how to form a people around these principles.

Part of covenant loyalty is celebration and feasting. It may seem strange to us that a chapter which is oriented on not worshipping other gods is so heavily concerned with eating together as a community but this is part of where identity is formed. The people are to come together for their offering and the offerings are not just burned up, they are eaten together with the priests and with others around the gathering place. Much like people gather together and tailgate before sporting events and they celebrate their common identity around a sports team, eating has always been a part of the celebrations around worship. One of the struggles of religious communities in a secular world has been the displacement of festival eating to other places, but it is not something that is gone from every religious tradition. My congregation is located next to a Hindu temple and they gather together to eat together frequently, especially on Saturdays. Orthodox Jews have a festival almost every month where they come together as community and part of that celebration is eating. Rather than allowing family and friendships to be the only places where people gather to eat if this is going to be a community that is able to love God and love their neighbor they need to come together to worship and eat together.

Priests for the Hebrew people also served a functional role as butchers in the land. Their job was not isolated from the dirty aspects of life, they may not have had farms and flocks to manage but they were woven into the agricultural system through their cultic role of preparing and offering the sacrifices of the flocks and fields. There will be stories of wandering Levites throughout the Hebrew Scriptures and while a part of their role was probably as story teller, the other part of their role is to make sure that the meat is properly prepared.

Deuteronomy also recognizes the struggle of distance in a larger community prior to the advent of motorized transportation. Most people probably did not make it in to the tabernacle or later temple for more than the occasional festival. People who lived in the rural areas certainly could not worship weekly at the tabernacle once the people were dispersed in the land. Distances made the journey impossible on foot very frequently while managing fields and flocks. So people are allowed to eat meat at times other than celebrations if it is available, and they are given only the restriction that they are not to eat the blood. These practices had less to do with health concerns and were about a recognition of their lives dependence upon the provision of the LORD. These actions have meaning assigned to them: “Only be sure that you do not eat the blood; for the blood is the life, and you shall not eat the life with the meat.” (Deuteronomy 12: 23) The blood is to be poured out before the LORD since the LORD is the source of life, but the people are not to consume the life since their life is derivative not of the animals that are killed but on the LORD their God.

The worship of the LORD is contrasted with the worship of other gods in relation to their practices as well. They are to come together, to offer their first fruits, their goodwill offerings and other offerings and to eat together and enjoy they bounty of the LORD in their land. The worship is primarily a gift to the gathered people and a celebration of their unity under the LORD. The worship of other gods may have been attractive in many aspects to the Hebrew people, but ultimately those practices are not to be followed. Especially the practice of child sacrifice is lifted up as something abhorrent to their LORD. In many cases the offering of a child was viewed as offering the very best to the deity which it was offered to, but the LORD is not a God who demands child sacrifices. Even the troubling story of Genesis 22 where the LORD commands Abraham to offer Isaac ends with the angel of the LORD providing the lamb instead of Isaac for the offering.

Often our identity is formed by the things we don’t do and the things we consciously do. As people of the LORD they do:

  • Gather together at a common place of worship and offer sacrifices
  • Gather together to eat and celebrate around this worship and sacrifice
  • Bring their donations to the LORD
  • Eat meat in their communities when they desire

But there are also things they do not do:

  • They do not allow other worship sites to remain in their land
  • They do not eat blood
  • They do not worship other deities
  • They do not sacrifice children.

Deuteronomy 10- The Covenant Renewed

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Patrice Leon, (940)

Patrice Leon, (940)

Deuteronomy 10: 1-5 – A Renewed Covenant

1 At that time the LORD said to me, “Carve out two tablets of stone like the former ones, and come up to me on the mountain, and make an ark of wood. 2 I will write on the tablets the words that were on the former tablets, which you smashed, and you shall put them in the ark.” 3 So I made an ark of acacia wood, cut two tablets of stone like the former ones, and went up the mountain with the two tablets in my hand. 4 Then he wrote on the tablets the same words as before, the ten commandments that the LORD had spoken to you on the mountain out of the fire on the day of the assembly; and the LORD gave them to me. 5 So I turned and came down from the mountain, and put the tablets in the ark that I had made; and there they are, as the LORD commanded me.

 

This retelling of the second giving of the ten commandments, combines portions of Exodus 34 and Exodus 37 putting the focus on Moses. Throughout Deuteronomy, Moses is the paradigm for what the people of Israel are to be. Moses again goes up Mount Sinai/ Horeb to be in the presence of God after the people have transgressed the covenant and the original tablets have been shattered by Moses in his frustration. The second giving of the Ten Commandments after the incident with the golden calf is an opportunity at a new beginning. God has moved past the previous transgressions and grants the people a new chance to live into their identity. In a key difference in tellings, now it is Moses who creates the original ark to house the Ten Commandments rather than Bezalel and Oholiab, but this is consistent with Deuteronomy’s focus on the character and person of Moses as the paradigmatic person who embodies what the Hebrew people are called to be. The place of the Ark of the Covenant in the story of the Jewish people comes not from its skillful work or the gold or the images of the cherubim but rather from its association with the story of Moses and its place as a holder of the words of God that Moses brings to the people.

 

Deuteronomy 10: 6-9 – Side Note on the Journey and Setting Aside the Levites

 

 6 (The Israelites journeyed from Beeroth-bene-jaakan to Moserah. There Aaron died, and there he was buried; his son Eleazar succeeded him as priest. 7 From there they journeyed to Gudgodah, and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, a land with flowing streams. 8 At that time the LORD set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the covenant of the LORD, to stand before the LORD to minister to him, and to bless in his name, to this day. 9 Therefore Levi has no allotment or inheritance with his kindred; the LORD is his inheritance, as the LORD your God promised him.)

 

This is an interesting insertion into the story of the second time Moses is on the mountain with God, for it seems out of place. On the one hand the travel narrative jumps us well ahead in the story as told in Exodus and Numbers to the death of Aaron immediately prior to the second approach to the promised land and uses different names for the places in the movement, for example Moserah in Numbers is Mount Hor. Perhaps more importantly for the narrative is the removal of Aaron from the line of authority between Moses and the people. Moses becomes the link between the people and God as their leader and prophet and the Levites, and Aaron’s son Eleazar inherit the role of priests for the people. It sets the Levites up for their role once they enter the promised land but also explains their lack of an inherited land. The Levites going forward will be the ones to pass on the law that Moses receives in the narratives of Deuteronomy and Exodus, but their authority is as receivers of the law and their authority is derivative from the setting aside of God and dependent on the faithfulness of the other tribes in providing for them. The Levites become, in a sense, a permanent reminder of the people’s Exodus journey, becoming a representative people without a land dependent only upon the Lord as their inheritance.

 

Deuteronomy 10: 10-11- Back on the Mountain with God

 

            10 I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights, as I had done the first time. And once again the LORD listened to me. The LORD was unwilling to destroy you. 11 The LORD said to me, “Get up, go on your journey at the head of the people, that they may go in and occupy the land that I swore to their ancestors to give them.”

Continuing the theme from the beginning of this chapter we see a chance at a new beginning. The LORD’s anger has passed, the LORD’s promise of the land has not changed, the people’s disobedience has been consigned to the past with a new future opened up by forgiveness. Moses has intervened for the people and the LORD has listened but also the emphasis is on the LORD’s choce, “The LORD was unwilling to destroy you. Moses is reaffirmed as being the leader and is to go at the head of the people

Deuteronomy 10: 12-22 – The Choice of God

12 So now, O Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you? Only to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13 and to keep the commandments of the LORD your God and his decrees that I am commanding you today, for your own well-being. 14 Although heaven and the heaven of heavens belong to the LORD your God, the earth with all that is in it, 15 yet the LORD set his heart in love on your ancestors alone and chose you, their descendants after them, out of all the peoples, as it is today. 16 Circumcise, then, the foreskin of your heart, and do not be stubborn any longer. 17 For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, 18 who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing. 19 You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. 20 You shall fear the LORD your God; him alone you shall worship; to him you shall hold fast, and by his name you shall swear. 21 He is your praise; he is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome things that your own eyes have seen. 22 Your ancestors went down to Egypt seventy persons; and now the LORD your God has made you as numerous as the stars in heaven.

 

The people are in their position because of the choice of their God. Their response is one of obedience, respect, awe and love. They are called to commit themselves to God wholeheartedly. Working from the contrast between the smallness of the people and the vastness of God’s creation and domain they are reminded that God chose to love their ancestors and by extension them. As the previous chapters of Deuteronomy have made clear it is not their military might, their wealth, their self-righteousness or any other factor that have placed them into this covenantal relationship with their God. Rather, it is the divine choice to love this people. So the people are called to live out of this calling.

This God of Israel, the LORD, is also not primarily interested in the sacrifices or the wealth offered during the worship of God. God cannot be bribed by the produce of the land or the riches of the wealthiest kings. This is a God who may have dominion over the heavens and the heaven of heavens and the earth and all that is in it, but this is also a God who chooses to pay attention to the lost and the least of that same earth. The people are not to model themselves after an image of God who seeks the mighty and the powerful of the earth, but rather they are to model themselves on the imageless God who seeks out justice for the weakest of the community: the widow, the orphan and the stranger. The LORD who rescued them from their slavery expects them not to, in their entry into the land, to now become the oppressor and the slaveholder. As the LORD cared for them in their captivity and slavery in Egypt, the promise is that the LORD will also value the stranger, the captive, the slave and the weak in their midst.

Deuteronomy 9: The Promise of God and the Stubborn People

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Deuteronomy 9: 1-5 The Promise of God

 

Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld woodcut for "Die Bibel in Bildern" (1860) God telling Abraham to Count the Stars

Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld woodcut for “Die Bibel in Bildern” (1860) God telling Abraham to Count the Stars

1 Hear, O Israel! You are about to cross the Jordan today, to go in and dispossess nations larger and mightier than you, great cities, fortified to the heavens, 2 a strong and tall people, the offspring of the Anakim, whom you know. You have heard it said of them, “Who can stand up to the Anakim?” 3 Know then today that the LORD your God is the one who crosses over before you as a devouring fire; he will defeat them and subdue them before you, so that you may dispossess and destroy them quickly, as the LORD has promised you.

4 When the LORD your God thrusts them out before you, do not say to yourself, “It is because of my righteousness that the LORD has brought me in to occupy this land”; it is rather because of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD is dispossessing them before you. 5 It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you are going in to occupy their land; but because of the wickedness of these nations the LORD your God is dispossessing them before you, in order to fulfill the promise that the LORD made on oath to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

 

In the first three chapters of Deuteronomy, Moses takes the people through a retelling of their failure the first time they explored the Promised Land and then the conquering of King Sihon of Heshbon and King Og of Bashan there is a continual reference to a fear of the Anakim, a group of people larger and stronger than the Israelites. Already in the narrative of Deuteronomy we have seen how this narrative of fear kept the people out of the Promised Land a generation before and how the people have already begun to conquer nations more powerful than themselves with great cities. Moses continues, in the narrative, to prepare the people to continue without him. Moses wants the people to understand that it is not because of their might (Deuteronomy 7) that they are chosen by God, or by their prosperity (Deuteronomy 8) or by their own righteousness or piety (Deuteronomy 9) that God is acting on their behalf. As a people their future is dependent upon their God and the promises that this God has made.

In seeking to make sense of the world the Deuteronomist provides his reason for the LORD’s action against the nations that currently occupy the land the people of Israel are preparing to occupy. It is not the righteousness of the people of Israel but the unrighteousness, or wickedness, of the people of the land. Israel has not merited God’s favor, but the nations of the land have somehow merited the divine disfavor. Much as in Romans 11, the Apostle Paul can make an argument against arrogance by the new Gentile Christians not to boast about their being grafted onto the tree of God’s faithful people, here Moses tells the people not to become arrogant over their new position in the Promised Land for their position is contingent upon God’s faithfulness to God’s promise. Moses casts back to the promise made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that their descendants would become a great nation. In Genesis 15 the LORD promises Abram (later Abraham) that his descendants shall be as numerous as the stars of heaven and in Genesis 12 there is the promise of the land to Abram’s descendants.

 

Deuteronomy 9: 6-29 An Unrighteous and Stubborn People

Antonio Molinari, Adoration of the Golden Calf between 1700 and 1702

Antonio Molinari, Adoration of the Golden Calf between 1700 and 1702

6 Know, then, that the LORD your God is not giving you this good land to occupy because of your righteousness; for you are a stubborn people. 7 Remember and do not forget how you provoked the LORD your God to wrath in the wilderness; you have been rebellious against the LORD from the day you came out of the land of Egypt until you came to this place.

8 Even at Horeb you provoked the LORD to wrath, and the LORD was so angry with you that he was ready to destroy you. 9 When I went up the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant that the LORD made with you, I remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water. 10 And the LORD gave me the two stone tablets written with the finger of God; on them were all the words that the LORD had spoken to you at the mountain out of the fire on the day of the assembly. 11 At the end of forty days and forty nights the LORD gave me the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant. 12 Then the LORD said to me, “Get up, go down quickly from here, for your people whom you have brought from Egypt have acted corruptly. They have been quick to turn from the way that I commanded them; they have cast an image for themselves.” 13 Furthermore the LORD said to me, “I have seen that this people is indeed a stubborn people. 14 Let me alone that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven; and I will make of you a nation mightier and more numerous than they.”

15 So I turned and went down from the mountain, while the mountain was ablaze; the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. 16 Then I saw that you had indeed sinned against the LORD your God, by casting for yourselves an image of a calf; you had been quick to turn from the way that the LORD had commanded you. 17 So I took hold of the two tablets and flung them from my two hands, smashing them before your eyes. 18 Then I lay prostrate before the LORD as before, forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all the sin you had committed, provoking the LORD by doing what was evil in his sight. 19 For I was afraid that the anger that the LORD bore against you was so fierce that he would destroy you. But the LORD listened to me that time also. 20 The LORD was so angry with Aaron that he was ready to destroy him, but I interceded also on behalf of Aaron at that same time. 21 Then I took the sinful thing you had made, the calf, and burned it with fire and crushed it, grinding it thoroughly, until it was reduced to dust; and I threw the dust of it into the stream that runs down the mountain.

22 At Taberah also, and at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah, you provoked the LORD to wrath. 23 And when the LORD sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, “Go up and occupy the land that I have given you,” you rebelled against the command of the LORD your God, neither trusting him nor obeying him. 24 You have been rebellious against the LORD as long as he has known you.

 25 Throughout the forty days and forty nights that I lay prostrate before the LORD when the LORD intended to destroy you, 26 I prayed to the LORD and said, “Lord GOD, do not destroy the people who are your very own possession, whom you redeemed in your greatness, whom you brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. 27 Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; pay no attention to the stubbornness of this people, their wickedness and their sin, 28 otherwise the land from which you have brought us might say, ‘Because the LORD was not able to bring them into the land that he promised them, and because he hated them, he has brought them out to let them die in the wilderness.’ 29 For they are the people of your very own possession, whom you brought out by your great power and by your outstretched arm.”

 

In C.S. Lewis’ classic book the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe there is a scene where the children are discussing Aslan, who they have not met yet, with Mr. and Mrs. Beaver. With Aslan being a lion one of the children asks if he is safe, to which Mr. Beaver replies, “Safe?…Don’t you hear anything that Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good.” In that story the lion Aslan can be fierce but also gentle but is not domesticated. The LORD that the people of Israel come to know in their story is good but certainly not safe. Their narrative reminds them that they continually tested God throughout their Exodus and there were several times where their very existence was at risk because they offended their LORD and Moses had to intervene on behalf of the people and their leaders. The people often sought in the past and will continue to seek in the future more domesticated gods that provide for them without expecting who they are to change as individuals and as people. These gods of the nations around them that are placated by various offerings and activities rather than the LORD who demands their obedience and is never safe.

The narrative of Deuteronomy reminds the people of the story of their ancestors and gives a time period to the time Moses is up on the Mountain of Sinai (Horeb) receiving the ten commandments, the regulations for the priests, the design for the tabernacle, and several other ordinances.  This part of the story where Moses receives all of these things is laid out in Exodus 20-31. This story in Deuteronomy is used to show the contrast between Moses’ faithfulness and the people’s unfaithfulness. While Moses spends the forty days on the mountain fasting and receiving the stone tablets from the LORD, the people at the base of Mount Sinai (Horeb) are violating the very heart of the commands Moses is receiving. For the LORD declares that they are not to cast images or to follow other Gods, and the LORD their God is indeed a jealous God. Wonders and signs may make the people trust in the moment but they rarely in the bible seem to create a lasting sense of trust, and so Moses takes them back to the story again so they can remember how time after time they put their own future in jeopardy in the past by trusting other gods and tries to encourage them not to repeat this practice in the future.

Moses in this story represents what Israel is to be. Moses stands between God and the people and intercedes for them, fasts for them, places his own safety at risk with this unsafe God and reminds God again of the promises God has made, of God’s reputation, and daringly calls upon God to be God.  Moses wrestles with God (which is where the name Israel comes from) on behalf of the people and on behalf of Aaron and on behalf of God as well. Moses and the people stand in sharp contrast, Moses is engaged with the one LORD while the people craft an image of gold. Moses does not eat or drink for forty days twice while the emphasis is on the people eating and drinking and reveling in Exodus 32. Moses emphasizes that both they and Aaron where close to being consumed by the LORD’s wrath before this wrath turned away. Moses also lifts up Taberah, Massah and Kibroth-hattaavah (Numbers 11: 1-3; Exodus 17: 1-7 and Numbers 11: 31-34) as well as Kadesh-barnea (which was already highlighted in Deuteronomy 1: 19-45) as additional times where the LORD’s anger was kindled and with each of these stories the people failed in their calling to trust and obey the LORD. Moses argues like a lawyer laying out the case before the people that they are far from righteous on their own, but rather they are the beneficiaries of the divine provision in spite of their and their ancestor’s stubbornness. Their reception of the land is a result of God’s promise rather than their own abilities or piety.

For the people of Israel the god of moralism is not to be their god. They are a covenant people claimed by the LORD, the God of Israel and to be a covenant people is to be set aside because of God’s calling. If the book of Deuteronomy is compiled in the Babylonian exile, as many scholars believe, and the people are reflecting upon how they, with the temple and a Davidic king and the land, now found themselves in exile. They are reexamine their own story critically, trying to discover where they failed in their calling as the people of the God of Israel. Perhaps in the tradition of Jeremiah they are looking toward the time when the LORD will make a new covenant with them and put the LORD’s law within them and they shall all know the LORD (see Jeremiah 31; 31-34). They are a people who are ultimately dependent on their God’s righteousness and to use Martin Luther’s famous language about this righteousness it is an ‘alien righteousness’ that is given to them but does not belong to them. They are a people constituted by God’s calling. Perhaps Moses, in Deuteronomy, like many of the great revival preachers of the 1800s is trying to call the people back to the LORD, appealing to the fear of what would happen if their covenant with the LORD is dissolved. But they stand at the edge of the Promised Land due to the favor of a good but unsafe and not domesticated God. The narrative of Deuteronomy takes the reader back to this point and leaves them in this place and begs them to live in a way that is faithful to the calling they have received and the learn to trust and obey their LORD because their lives do depend upon it.

Margaret Hofheinz-Doring, Worship of the Golden Calf (1962) shared under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0

Margaret Hofheinz-Doring, Worship of the Golden Calf (1962) shared under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0

Deuteronomy 8 The Dangers of Abundance

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Statue of Moses at the Library of Congress, Washington D.C.

Statue of Moses at the Library of Congress, Washington D.C.

Deuteronomy 8: 1-10 The LORD’s Care in the Exodus

1 This entire commandment that I command you today you must diligently observe, so that you may live and increase, and go in and occupy the land that the LORD promised on oath to your ancestors. 2 Remember the long way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments. 3 He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. 4 The clothes on your back did not wear out and your feet did not swell these forty years. 5 Know then in your heart that as a parent disciplines a child so the LORD your God disciplines you. 6 Therefore keep the commandments of the LORD your God, by walking in his ways and by fearing him. 7 For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with flowing streams, with springs and underground waters welling up in valleys and hills, 8 a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, 9 a land where you may eat bread without scarcity, where you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron and from whose hills you may mine copper. 10 You shall eat your fill and bless the LORD your God for the good land that he has given you.

 

Deuteronomy 8 breaks into two sections, one looks back and one looks forward. Looking back to the journey of the people through the wilderness, a place without the resources for easy survival of a large people migrating from one land to another, they are reminded of the way the LORD provided in the midst of their scarcity. As Luther could say in his day:

God has given me and still preserves my body and soul: eyes, ears, and all limbs and senses; reason and all mental faculties. In addition, God daily and abundantly provides shoes and clothing, fields, livestock, and all property—along with all the necessities and nourishment for this body and life. (Luther, 1994, p. 25)

In the reflective mode of book of Deuteronomy Moses reminds the people how God provided food and water, made their clothes and shoes endure the forty years, kept their bodies from showing the strain of the difficult journey and in general preserved the people through their ordeal.

The time of the Exodus was also a time of testing and discipline for the people as they slowly began to be prepared to enter the Promised Land. This chapter uses parent-child language in verse 5 to talk about the way that the LORD has been teaching the people how to live as the covenant people of God and to prepare them to live in this bountiful land. In the parental role God has attempted to provide a healthy set of boundaries and provide a pattern for their relationship with one another. In a culture where identity was inherited, passed down from parent to child, they have been in the process of constructing a new set of identities. Once their identities were fixed as slaves in Egypt because they were Hebrew and not Egyptian, now their identity is that of children of God, freed from their captivity in Egypt. Their parent’s generation was a generation in transition, continually looking back to their previous identity and being called into a new one but now this generation has to construct a new identity. Their existence has been one of wandering and relying upon God for their daily bread. Their parents and grandparents were captives, now they are to be conquerors. Now that they have grown into their role as the people of God they are ready to inherit a land rich in agricultural produce, mineral wealth and flowing stream. They are now being addressed as the grown children who, like Adam in the book of Genesis, will be called to work and tend this garden for the LORD.  They too will be tempted in their abundance and will be enticed to construct new identities other than the one they are inheriting from their parental God.

 

 

Deuteronomy 8: 11-20 The Dangers of Complacency and Affluence

11 Take care that you do not forget the LORD your God, by failing to keep his commandments, his ordinances, and his statutes, which I am commanding you today. 12 When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them, 13 and when your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, 14 then do not exalt yourself, forgetting the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, 15 who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, an arid wasteland with poisonous snakes and scorpions. He made water flow for you from flint rock, 16 and fed you in the wilderness with manna that your ancestors did not know, to humble you and to test you, and in the end to do you good. 17 Do not say to yourself, “My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.” 18 But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, so that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors, as he is doing today. 19 If you do forget the LORD your God and follow other gods to serve and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. 20 Like the nations that the LORD is destroying before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the LORD your God.

 

Martin Luther could say of this passage, “(So) where abundance prevails, do not be puffed up or carelessly forget God. Whether everything is on hand or everything is lacking, cling to your God always with the same heart.” (Thompson, 2014, p. 92) And yet the fear portrayed, and realized through the later books of the Deuteronomic history, is that the people will not cling to their God with the same heart. When they are no longer dependent upon God for their daily bread in the same manner they will quickly begin to take their own security for granted. As David Martin, when talking about modern day Pentecostalism, can state, “Unsurprisingly, given so many of them are the ‘damned of the earth’, they respond to an Old Testament emphasis on good things God has in store for the righteous.” And the narratives of Deuteronomy portray a people who had been among the ‘damned of the earth’ and may well have been compiled to be told to a people feeling they are the ‘damned of the earth’ again as they sit in exile in Babylon. The people are needing to hear a promise of what God can do but also a cautionary tale of how when they have all that they need they run the risk of losing their identity. As immigrant cultures come to the United States the first generation typically comes with the values of the homeland and the language of the homeland, but subsequent generation become further and further removed from the language, culture and values of their ancestors homes, so too in a story of the Hebrew people they will begin, in a state of relative comfort, to adapt to the culture and the values that surround them. While the Ten Commandments may call them to care for their neighbor, and earlier in Deuteronomy is the call to care for the vulnerable among the community: the orphan, the alien, the widow, slaves, etc. Yet, the gods of materialism are seductive and call the individual to seek their own best interest, to follow the gods of their stomachs and desires, and to allow their living covenant with the God of Israel to become a set of religious practices separated from the rest of their lives. Deuteronomy continually reminds the people of their relationship to the LORD that their identity is found in the covenant they have with their God and that if they lose that identity their lives, property, and security are all at risk. That they too, even when abundance prevails, are to cling to their God with the same heart knowing that their daily bread still comes from the provision of the God of their ancestors.

Deuteronomy 5: The Ten Commandments Revisited

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Rembrandt, Moses with the Ten Commandments

Rembrandt, Moses with the Ten Commandments

Deuteronomy 5: 1-21 The Ten Commandments Revisited

Moses convened all Israel, and said to them: Hear, O Israel, the statutes and ordinances that I am addressing to you today; you shall learn them and observe them diligently. 2 The LORD our God made a covenant with us at Horeb. 3 Not with our ancestors did the LORD make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us here alive today. 4 The LORD spoke with you face to face at the mountain, out of the fire. 5 (At that time I was standing between the LORD and you to declare to you the words of the LORD; for you were afraid because of the fire and did not go up the mountain.) And he said:

 6 I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; 7 you shall have no other gods before me.

 8 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 9 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me, 10 but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.

 11 You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.

 12 Observe the sabbath day and 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 a sabbath to the LORD your God; you shall not do any work– you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you. 15 Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and 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 commanded you, so that your days may be long and that it may go well with you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.

 17 You shall not murder.

 18 Neither shall you commit adultery.

 19 Neither shall you steal.

 20 Neither shall you bear false witness against your neighbor.

 21 Neither shall you covet your neighbor’s wife. Neither shall you desire your neighbor’s house, or field, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

As we have seen in previous chapters there is the continued collapse of time between the current generation hearing (or reading) these words and the generation that was present at Mount Horeb (Sinai) who heard the original ten words (commandments) delivered. The hearing and reading of this law is to bring the hearer/reader into the presence of the God of Israel speaking to them these words. They are brought into the story of the people who made the journey out of Egypt and who saw the events of the Exodus. They are now the generation receiving the Decalogue (ten words) and charged to live out of them. Moses has already become the mediator of God’s word and now Moses’ voice captured in these words mediates the voice of God to the people.

Martin Luther interpreted the first commandment, which Luther heard being the commandment to have no other gods, as meaning “we are to fear, love and trust God above all things.” (Luther, 1994, p. 13) and for Luther all the other commandments flow out of this one each beginning with “we are to fear and love God so that…” The relationship, or perhaps better the covenant with the LORD precedes the giving of these words and as Deuteronomy narrates the commandments it begins with another reference back to the Exodus, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt”. It is from this narrative and this action that the LORD has the position to speak these words that constitute them as a people.

When you look at how the commandments are structured here in Deuteronomy two commandments receive significantly more words than the others, the commandment or words dealing with making idols and the commandment/words on the Sabbath. Since Deuteronomy 4 deals heavily with not making images for God I will not recover that ground here even though it is important, but the idea of a Sabbath is one that is heavily needed in our culture.

Contrary to what many people believe, the Sabbath is not primarily about worship, it is about rest. Especially with the center of worship becoming centered in the temple in Jerusalem in ancient times it would have been impossible for the people to come together at the temple every week, but the command to rest for all people: men, women, slave and free, young and old and even animals are to be able to rest on this day. Interestingly the rationale for the Sabbath shifts in Deuteronomy from in Exodus. In Exodus 20 the rationale for the Sabbath harkens back to the creation narrative where the people are to reflect the action of God resting on the seventh day. In Deuteronomy the decisive event is the Exodus and more emphasis is placed on allowing male and female slaves to rest even if they are not Hebrews and that this commandment flows out of their experience of being liberated from being slaves in the land of Egypt.

In our time we may feel there is too much going on to take a day of rest. I think churches and religious organizations of all types often fall prey to the consumeristic drive to fill every available place and time with some activity, but there is something profoundly countercultural about taking a day of rest. Of unplugging from the unending demands of the world of commerce and work and allowing our bodies and spirits to be renewed. I struggle with this personally, I am not good at sitting and resting although I know it can be healing. Sabbath is an act of resistance to a productivity and consumer based mindset where a person’s life is defined by production and acquisition. It allows not only people but the community to breathe and listen.

The commandment on honoring the father and mother has typically been explained to me as young children honoring their parents as they grow and has been used as a tool to ensure obedience, but perhaps in our culture it is time to hear perhaps the justice based way that the commandment was originally meant to be heard in. The vulnerable in any society are the young and the old and the more I read about this commandment the more I am convinced that this refers to those parents who are now older and now rely upon their children for protection. We live in a culture that values youth and does not value the elderly in the same way and unfortunately they can become looked upon as a burden to society. In the ancient and the modern world there are the elderly who die of neglect and the lack of care, but in honoring the father and mother the working generations are called to care for those who are no longer able to care for themselves.

As a pastor in the United States I sometimes hear people state that our legal system is based upon the Ten Commandments, but it is difficult to make an argument that this is correct. The commandments against murder and stealing are a part of our legal system (and every legal system I am aware of but this doesn’t necessarily flow from the ten commandments) but for example coveting is a central part of the capitalist system, and it would be hard to make an argument that our legal system prevents us from making images, worshipping other gods, violating the Sabbath, dishonoring father and mother, committing adultery or bearing false witness. I think sometimes the commandments being displayed is a way in which people create their own images that they can honor but not necessarily follow. The Ten Commandments may be a part of the resonant images of our country’s religious past but they are not an active part of the legal framework of our system of laws.

Deuteronomy 5: 22-33 Standing Between the People and God

 22 These words the LORD spoke with a loud voice to your whole assembly at the mountain, out of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, and he added no more. He wrote them on two stone tablets, and gave them to me. 23 When you heard the voice out of the darkness, while the mountain was burning with fire, you approached me, all the heads of your tribes and your elders; 24 and you said, “Look, the LORD our God has shown us his glory and greatness, and we have heard his voice out of the fire. Today we have seen that God may speak to someone and the person may still live. 25 So now why should we die? For this great fire will consume us; if we hear the voice of the LORD our God any longer, we shall die. 26 For who is there of all flesh that has heard the voice of the living God speaking out of fire, as we have, and remained alive? 27 Go near, you yourself, and hear all that the LORD our God will say. Then tell us everything that the LORD our God tells you, and we will listen and do it.”

 28 The LORD heard your words when you spoke to me, and the LORD said to me: “I have heard the words of this people, which they have spoken to you; they are right in all that they have spoken. 29 If only they had such a mind as this, to fear me and to keep all my commandments always, so that it might go well with them and with their children forever! 30 Go say to them, ‘Return to your tents.’ 31 But you, stand here by me, and I will tell you all the commandments, the statutes and the ordinances, that you shall teach them, so that they may do them in the land that I am giving them to possess.” 32 You must therefore be careful to do as the LORD your God has commanded you; you shall not turn to the right or to the left. 33 You must follow exactly the path that the LORD your God has commanded you, so that you may live, and that it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land that you are to possess.

The writer of Deuteronomy spends a lot of time emphasizing the immediacy of these words to the hearers and again links the hearers to the generation that heard God’s words at Horeb (Sinai). Even though these words are mediated by hearing and writing across generations they bear an immediacy to the God who speaks through Moses to the people. The fear and reverence of that generation at that moment are lifted up as a positive and as the book of Proverbs will say at a different time, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.” (Proverbs 1.7)

From the mouth of the LORD we hear this lifted up and also lamented as we, and subsequent generations of hearers and readers will know, that this does not last. As the words emphasize here, “If only they had such a mind as this, to fear me and keep my commandments always, so that it might go well with them.” Deuteronomy begins a long retelling of the story of the people of Israel as they look back at how they made this journey from being a people at the edge of the promised land to being a people looking back at this lost land from their exile in Babylon and throughout the nations. Throughout Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, 1&2 Samuel and 1&2 Kings we will hear a continued narrative of how the people often did not have such a mind as this. Their time in the promise land would last for generations but not forever but whether in their tent in the Exodus or their isolation in the exile or anywhere in between or beyond they are to be a people who hear these commandments and ordinances and live out of them. When these words are read in a new generation they are once again joined to the story of the people of the Exodus who were brought out of the land of Egypt, who heard the voice of the LORD at Horeb(Sinai) and entered into the promised land.