Lecture

In this lecture, number 22, we shall discuss further the preparations of the Israelites to enter the land of Canaan. Some of this material is in the last chapters of the book of Numbers, and the rest is in Deuteronomy.

Israel was camped, remember, in the plains of Moab, the territory of Transjordan. We learn from Numbers 32 that Reuben, Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh asked to settle in Transjordan. Moses first questioned them, then he was satisfied that they were not dropping out of the program, and he agreed. Some time was spent in their settling this large and important territory. This territory went all the way from the Arnon Gorge, we remember, up north through what was called Gilead and up into Bashan. A good part of the kingdom of Jordan, which now extends way out into the desert, the kingdom of Jordan, and also the southern part of the kingdom of Syria today.

Then the threat of a Moabite war was averted, as we have seen, through God’s control of Balaam, Balak’s diviner. And I say God’s control of Balaam because I do believe that here we have an example of a heathen diviner who was overcome by the word of God and made to serve in the interests of the children of Israel. But trouble did arise from the quarter of the Midianites who were infiltrating the camp after the Balaam incident, as we shall see.

In chapter 26, the Israelites were numbered again, or better they were mustered, that is, in preparation for the wars of Canaan – 601,730 fighting men, just a few more than forty years before. We have discussed these large numbers, and I have emphasized that the land of Sinai would be able to take care of this large group of Israelites if they fanned out over the desert. I think we should avoid the tendency that we find in some quarters to restrict the number of the children of Israel to a small group. Actually, if they were just a small group, it is hard to see how they would have been able to conquer as much country as they did. They conquered the Transjordan territory of powerful kingdoms and then left two and a half tribes there on that side of the Jordan, and then went on to the other side and conquered a rather considerable territory. It took a lot of men to do this fighting and also to hold the ground that had been conquered already.

The Midianite war of Numbers 31 has been a problem to many. Many were killed in this bloody conflict, and it brings up the problem of the later bloody wars of Canaan. In these bloody wars of Canaan, an example of which would be Jericho, all of the people were to be killed. This, we may remark, was the rule right down during the Middle Ages. A city that resisted siege was consigned to flames, and when the city was breached, it was the rule of war that everyone in there – men, women, and children – should be killed, and they often were.

I’ve discussed this problem of the wars of Canaan further in my book referred to previously, Man, God’s Eternal Creation, pages 156 to 159. A few things can be said. First, we might remark that even Albright has emphasized the moral degeneracy of the Canaanites. Albright, from the archeologist’s point of view, has shown that the examples that we have of Canaanite worship of Canaanite idols and Canaanite altars in Palestine are dedicated to the fertility goddess and to all kinds of excesses. And also, the material of the Ugaritic tablets shows something of the depraved worship of the people of Canaan. He remarks that their degeneracy furthered their defeat.

Then again, he reminds us that we have ourselves reverted to the concept of total war. Bombs do not distinguish in favor of innocent women and children who, after all, are not always so innocent. The argument is that one bomb on Hiroshima will shorten the war and will save the lives of many because people will refuse to fight, and the invading armies will not be killed either. And it is probable that if we were there and would ask Moses and Joshua, that they would give a similar argument.

The Midianites were a relatively smaller group of wandering tribesmen apparently. They were nomads like the Israelites themselves, and they were a constant problem. Just as the Amalekites in the days of Saul would raid the people of Judah from the south again and again, until finally it seemed as if a stop must be put to it by decisive action, so the Midianites were a problem for the children of Israel. And if the Midianites were exterminated, then the Moabites would not try again to attack on Joshua’s rear.

The Canaanites across the Jordan, of course, heard about the movement of this strange group of people from the desert. And the Canaanites, if they heard about the extermination of the Midianites, they would flee rather than fight. To an extent, this is what happened. The Gibeonites, we remember, when the Israelites were encamped down by Jericho, after the successful conquest of Jericho and finally of Ai, the Gibeonites sought peace. And there were many other Canaanites, probably, who just retreated before the advancing Israelites. Some of them were moved to stand and fight, and in the providence of God, this was done in order to judge the Canaanites; but many of the other Canaanites, being not a very stable civilization, the Canaanites could quickly pick up their few belongings and leave. The people in ancient times could do that better than those today, and they could simply be displaced persons. They would have retreated to distant quarters.

I think we should remember that in a pitched battle, when the record says that so many thousands were smitten – we have this example during the judges when Gideon smote the Midianites. The word in the Hebrew is naka, and this is a word that is used widely and in various contexts. We have a great number of Midianites in the battle one day, and they were defeated and were smitten, and I think the figures are 120 thousand in battle at one day, and then the next day 15 thousand were left. Well, it does not follow that all of these people who were “smitten” were killed. We would more likely call them in modern war casualties; that is, they were killed, wounded, and missing in action; and, particularly, they were missing in action. Many times a battle would be decisively finished when some champion would win an important sector, and if the battle went against the enemy, the enemy would flee. And so thousands would take to their feet, “vote with their feet,” as they say, and they would move off to distant territories.

Unfortunately, in later years, the Israelites did not carry out this principle of total opposition. The Israelites occupied some of the land, especially on the mountains of Palestine. The cities had been opened to them, but they did not occupy them fully, and the Canaanites filtered back into the cities and sometimes took over the cities. The result was that the Canaanites mingled with the Israelites, and the sad result of this misplaced mercy is given in Psalm 106:34-38. There it says that the Israelites finally mingled with the Canaanites, intermarried with them, and took up the worship of their gods, and, at last, sacrificed their children to the gods of Canaan. And here the Israelites, who had been too merciful to the Canaanites, were too cruel to their own children, and the innocent suffered instead of the guilty.

So here we come to the end of the book of Numbers, and this is really the end of the history of the period. Notice that already in Numbers 27, verse 15 and following, God instructed Moses to ordain Joshua as his successor. This, of course, is where the book of Deuteronomy also ends. There is some extra material in the book of Numbers that we cannot take time for. We’ve mentioned particularly the settling down of the children of Israel in Transjordan, with the names of some of these cities, and also the emphasis on the cities of refuge.

Here, also, we have a reference to the daughters of Zelophehad. The daughters of Zelophehad got a promise from Moses that they also would have a territory allotted to them because there were no men in their line. Zelophehad had only daughters, and the rule was given that these girls also should inherit along with the brethren of the other tribes. This promise was fulfilled later on when the children of Israel settled in the land of Canaan.

We begin now on the book of Deuteronomy. As we’ve said already, Deuteronomy means “second law.” It is a book of repetition. It is in the form of speeches. Deuteronomy is a collection of Moses’ final speeches, and in these speeches he reminded them of many things. He reminded them of their experiences, and he reiterated many of their laws, and finally he concludes with extensive warnings and blessings.

As an outline of the book, we can say that the first eleven chapters deal, in general, with the history of the movement of the Israelites from Sinai up to the plains of Moab. There is a good bit of review of the history, and then there is also a review of the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments found in Exodus 20 are repeated almost verbatim in Deuteronomy chapter 5. And in connection with that repetition, there is a description of the experience of Moses and the children of Israel there at Mount Sinai, how they saw the LORD, and how they heard the LORD speaking to them. But Moses makes quite a point that they did not see any similitude and, therefore, they should make no idol, because any likeness that they would make of God would drag down God from heavenly realities to earthly figures.

Then the great body of the book of Deuteronomy – chapters 12 to 26 – gives us a summary of the laws on many things. We should try to go over those and give some details. Some of these laws have been mentioned already, and a number of them can stand further elaboration. In chapters 27 to 28, Moses commands the people, when they get over on the other side of the river, that they should repeat the law and that they should affirm their allegiance to it. This is the incident when he tells them that they should write the laws on plastered stones there by Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim. Ebal and Gerizim are two facing mountains near the town of Shechem, modern Nablus. There they were to, in antiphonal response, affirm their understanding of the law and curse on those who violate it and a blessing on those who stand by the law of the living God.

The following chapters, 29, 30, and 31, give further warnings. Moses again reviews the past, and he calls for decision, and he promises them that if they would be true to the LORD that He would bless them. Striking verses in chapter 30, verse 6, that “the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.” Here he emphasizes the spiritual nature of God’s covenant with the children of Israel and puts it side by side with that great commandment to love the LORD thy God with all thy heart and soul and strength and mind, which is given also more fully in what is called the Shema of Israel in Deuteronomy 6:4. The words in Hebrew begin Sh’ma Yisre’eil Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad, the “Hear, O Israel.” And then here this chapter 30, verse 6, alludes to that great command and puts it side by side with the promise that the circumcision will be a real circumcision of heart, and not just of flesh.

Other things in here include his last counsels to Joshua and his warnings that the children of Israel must be instructed in the law of the Lord. There is much emphasis here in chapter 31, verse 10 and following, of the reading of the law of the LORD and the feast of tabernacles every seven years in the sabbatical year. And in chapter 31, verse 24, also it tells how Moses had written this law in a book. Here we have quite an emphasis upon the written Word of God.

The following three chapters are indeed the conclusion of the Pentateuch. We have the “Song of Moses,” a very poetic and a very wonderful expression of his praise to God for His greatness and glory and mercy in Deuteronomy 32. And then in Deuteronomy 33, a poetic blessing for the tribes, somewhat like the blessing that Jacob gave to his twelve sons in the last chapters of Genesis, Genesis 49. And here we have a blessing of the tribes, one by one, with a wonderful statement at the end: “Who is like unto the God of Jeshurun?” – Jeshurun being the poetic name for the tribes of Israel. The word “Jeshurun” comes from the Hebrew word yashar, which means upright. And so this would mean the upright people, the people of God.

Finally, in chapter 34, we have the report of the death of Moses, and this is a very moving scene. At the same time, it is one that has occasioned considerable difficulty because some say that this proves that Moses could not have written the Pentateuch. Now I suppose, at the very most, it might prove that Moses did not write the last chapter of the Pentateuch, but to infer from that that Moses did not write the rest is quite an extension of the argument and very definitely wrong. We shall say something more about that when we discuss Deuteronomy in more detail.

We turn back now to the first chapters of Deuteronomy. The first four chapters are a speech in which Moses recalls to the children of Israel what happened. “These are the words which Moses spoke to all Israel on this side of Jordan in the wilderness,” in the Arabah u002du002d opposite Suph, “between Paran, and Tophel, Laban, and Hazeroth and Dizahab. It is eleven days’ journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir unto Kadeshbarnea.” Well, here it says that the children of Israel left Horeb or Mount Sinai and went up to Kadeshbarnea and had traveled all this way. And now they were in the plains of Moab, and he was giving them a sermon. Much of Deuteronomy is sermonic, and because of that, I suppose, it is one of the more quoted passages in the Pentateuch – a very rich book. But I imagine the parts that are most frequently quoted and best known are these exhortation parts at the beginning and the end of the book, rather than the detailed laws toward the middle, some of which are just as formal and legalistic and we might even say dry as the similar laws in Exodus and Leviticus. They were, of course, very important laws for the children of Israel in their daily life, and they have many lessons for us, too. Nonetheless, they are more of a technical nature, and these other parts of Deuteronomy are more of the nature of exhortation, and, therefore, are more famous and much more used.

I think I should say something about this first verse and the use that has been made of it. “These are the words which Moses spoke unto all Israel on this side of the Jordan.” If you turn to some of the modern translations, the Revised Standard Version takes it differently and emphasizes that this would be “on the other side of the Jordan.” And this has been a verse which has led many critics to say that Moses could not have written the book of Deuteronomy; and, of course, this has been a strong point in critical theory. The book of Deuteronomy was written late, and one reason for that is the use of this word, that the Hebrew is “on the other side of the” ______ [ever ha-Yarden]. [Ever] is a word that comes from the root ______ [aVar], which means to cross over. And so it is used sometimes to mean “on the other side of.” Therefore, the claim is that the book of Deuteronomy must have been written by somebody who was living in Palestine proper, because it refers to the plains of Moab as “across the Jordan.” If the plains of Moab are across the Jordan, the author must have been on the opposite side from the plains of Moab, and, therefore, he would have been in Palestine proper, not in Transjordan. And, therefore, he could not have been Moses, because Moses died before the children of Israel crossed the river. This is the argument.

The argument, notice, depends on the meaning of the preposition ______ [avar]. If that preposition is forced to the meaning of “across, on the other side of,” why then the King James translation, “the words which Moses spoke unto all Israel on this side” of the river – these words would seem to be a mistranslation and unfortunate. Of course, the King James translators knew something about the use of this preposition. They knew their Hebrew very well and looked it up in other passages, and if we would turn to other passages where this word is used, we will notice that the strict word-for-word translation “on the other side of” does not always fit. It seems that there is a larger use of this word. Some of the verses that bear on the subject would be Numbers 32:19. In Numbers 32:19, we have the statement that the Reubenites and the Gadites declared that they would not inherit with the rest of the children of Israel on the other side of the Jordan or beyond. This can be translated “the other side of the Jordan westward, because our inheritance has fallen to us on this side of the Jordan.” And the word is ______ [avar]. The word avar is mentioned twice in this same verse. Once it specifies “the other side of the Jordan beyond or westward.” And the other time it specifies “this side of the Jordan eastward.” Evidently, the word means “along the Jordan,” “on the shores of the Jordan:” on the shores of the Jordan, either side, east or west; and in order to be sure which side, you must specify. And so it is there properly translated, “on this side of the Jordan.” And I think that that is the case in even other modern translations.

Again, in Joshua 12, verses 1 and 7 – in verse 1 it says “these are the kings of the land, whom the children of Israel smote, and possessed their land on the other side of the Jordan toward the rising of the sun.” This is Joshua speaking, and the other side of the Jordan would be indeed Transjordan, across the river from where Joshua was. But notice they specify that it is toward the sun rising, that is east. And it is necessary to specify. Just “the other side of the Jordan” is not enough, because down in verse 7, there are other kings now listed which Joshua and the children of Israel smote in the ______ [ever ha-yarden] on the west, that is “on the other side of the Jordan, west.” And, as we have said, the ______ [ever ha-yarden], the “shores of the Jordan,” or “along the Jordan,” or “the sides of the Jordan,” may refer either to the east or west – not just depending on where you are standing. But when it says in Deuteronomy 1:1, “These are the words which Moses spoke on this side of Jordan in the wilderness,” it simply should be translated “along the Jordan in the wilderness.” That would imply the Transjordan area. So the King James translation here is indeed correct, and it is quite compatible with the Mosaic authorship of the book of Deuteronomy.

We’ve touched on this question of the Mosaic authorship of Deuteronomy in connection with the P Document. Just a few more words may be said at this time. The book of Deuteronomy is said to have been written – at least this is held by many critics to this day – in the time of King Josiah 620 BC. And the book was not written by Moses at all, but was discovered – some would think planted and then discovered – by the men of Josiah, the priests of the day who wanted to lead Josiah into a reform movement in the direction of centralizing the worship of the children of Israel at the central sanctuary. And this is supposed to be the program of the reform of King Josiah, though there is not the slightest hint of this in the book. Actually, the book of Deuteronomy goes over material that is identical with that that is found in the so-called P Document. I pointed out how the fourteenth chapter of Deuteronomy is identical in large parts with the eleventh chapter of the book of Leviticus. And they both emphasize a centralization of worship, but they centralize the worship at the tabernacle, and there is no mention of the temple. There is no mention of Jerusalem, and this surely would have been expected if the priests of the days of Josiah were writing a book that would emphasize the worship of the LORD at Jerusalem.

A later approach to this question of the date of the book of Deuteronomy is to try to find in the book of Deuteronomy a background that would fit certain times of the history of Israel. This is the principle of the situation in life or Sitz im Leben by which you may date the document. [Fonrod] has argued that Deuteronomy emphasizes the “holy war.” And the holy war, when the laypeople of Israel, particularly the Levites, would go out and fight because they would fight for their God. He says that this would be the situation in Israel toward the end of the monarchy. At the beginning of the monarchy, in the days of their greatness with Solomon and David, there would be money in the treasury, and they could hire mercenary soldiers. They did hire mercenary soldiers – the Cherethites and the Pelethites. The bodyguard of David apparently were mercenary Philistine soldiers. But at this later time, it was necessary for the citizenry to do the fighting, and this is said to be the principle of the “holy war” that would date the book of Deuteronomy toward the end of the monarchy.

Well, it may well be that the people toward the end of the monarchy were full of patriotism, and they would have subscribed to a holy war; this is not impossible. But to argue that they did not do so at the early time also is to misread the history of Israel. Even in the days of David, the mercenary soldiers were a small group, as far as we have any information. Though the idea of a “holy war” is shown very plainly, not just in the P Document but in the whole conquest narrative, and the conquest of Canaan is certainly emphasized in the P Document just as much as in the book of Deuteronomy.

So the idea that the book of Deuteronomy has to be late is aside from the plain reading of the Scripture. It depends on theory, and theory that need not be followed. Indeed, critical theories are self-contradictory in this regard. Some put the book late for one reason. Some put the book late for another reason. Indeed, some do not put it late. Some would put it after the exile, and some would put it before the days of Josiah. So there is less unanimity on the subject these days, and we may say that the basic trouble is the criteria are false, and, therefore, no positive answers can be given from the critical point of view.

I have mentioned that Martin Noth, German critic, would rip away Deuteronomy from the rest of the Pentateuch and say that the book of Deuteronomy has its closest parallels with the other books of history from Joshua to Kings. Well, there are points of similarity there, but they are not points of similarity that would point to a unified authorship. Deuteronomy has no such scheme of chronology as you find in the book of Judges or as you find in the books of Samuel or Kings. Deuteronomy is a straight story and well explained, and we take it as it stands, as a series of addresses by Moses rehearsing the history of the children of Israel down to the days of his death.