Lecture

In this twenty-third lecture, we shall go over the first part of the book of Deuteronomy. As explained before, Deuteronomy covers material already given in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, but it is presented here in sermonic form, and sometimes with a spiritual application, that has made Deuteronomy a favorite book to many hearts. Actually, Deuteronomy is quoted very often in the New Testament. The books in the Old Testament most often quoted in the New are Deuteronomy, Isaiah, and the book of Psalms. These are the same three books that are quoted most frequently in the Qumran material found around the Dead Sea. And just as the New Testament and the Dead Sea Scroll people found this book a favorite one, so probably Christians in general would hold these three books of the Old Testament as their favorites—Deuteronomy, Psalms, and Isaiah. We shall not consider all of the material in Deuteronomy, but try to pick out the significant points where the wording of Deuteronomy adds material of special interest and value.

Moses’s first speech extends through the first three chapters and gives the history of the journey from Sinai to Kadesh Barnea, the rebellion there at Kadesh, the time in the wilderness, and then the conquest of Transjordan. The first chapter tells in general about the journey and makes the remark in chapter 1, verse 2 that is eleven days’ journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir to Kadesh Barnea. He tells how on that trip, the children of Israel became such a burden for him that he said to the Lord that he could not bear them alone, referring to an incident that is reported of course in the book of Numbers. “So I took the heads of your tribes,” he says, “wise men, and known, and made them heads over you, captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, and captains over fifties, and captains over tens, and officers among your tribes.” So here, the children of Israel were organized: organized both for purposes of war and, also, for purposes of administration. Two million people in the desert, even with the tribal organizations of the heads of the tribes and the clans, needed judges to hear the cases between the brethren.

Well, he tells how they came to Kadesh Barnea and the Children of Israel rebelled against the Lord, and then the Lord swore that no one of that evil generation would see the good land, except Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, and also, of course, Joshua, the two faithful spies. Also, he reminds them in 1:37 that the Lord was “angry with me (Moses) for your sakes, saying, ‘Thou shalt not go in there.’” Now this is typical. In the book of Deuteronomy, there is a reference to this statement of the Lord’s anger with Moses. The details are not given in Deuteronomy, but if we turn back to the historical books to Numbers, we find that it was the time that Moses smote the rock and said to them, “Must I fetch water out of this rock for you rebels?” And the Lord told Moses that he had not given Him the glory and that he could not go into the Promised Land. The Lord had other reasons, of course, as I have explained before; it was time, indeed, for Moses to lay down his work and for Joshua to take over, and this is stated in 1:38, “Joshua, the son of Nun,…he shall cause Israel to inherit the land.”

He goes on to speak in chapter 2 of the “journey into the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea…and we compassed mount Seir many days. And the LORD spoke unto me saying, ‘You have compassed this mountain long enough: turn you northward.’” Here in just one verse we have summarized the wanderings of forty years in the wilderness.

I’ve explained before about this wilderness wandering. The tabernacle was taken from place to place according to the itinerary as given in Numbers chapter 33, but here none of the details are given and Moses is interested only in bringing out the lessons of these experiences of the past. He omits also the war with Arad in South Canaan. You’ll remember at the time when the Israelites were about through with their forty years of wandering, the Canaanites came out and attacked them, and they conquered the Canaanites in the South, but did not follow up that advantage; instead they turned and went by the way of the Edomites over around to the eastern gateway into the Promised Land across the Jordan River near Jericho.

Here we have a statement about the travel of the children of Israel through the land of Edom. Apparently, they came up from Ezion-Geber, which is also called Elath in the Old Testament, Eilat in modern terminology, the eastern arm of the Red Sea. And they went directly north, at least at one time in their wanderings, went directly north through that valley that goes from the city of Ezion-Geber straight north up to the Araba and the southern shore of the Dead Sea. This is a valley and there are mountains to the left, the mountains of Sinai, and to the east, the mountains of the plateau of Transjordan, and there are several springs in the valley. It’s not a very lush valley and not many springs, but there are some. Travelers, tourists there can see to this day a spring called ‘Ain Musa down near Petra. This spring is a rather strong spring. From this spring, water is taken over to the town of Ma’an on the old railroad going north and south and back in the desert. This is called the spring of Moses as you’ll see ‘Ain Musa. And the pipe that carries this water over is, I would judge, a good four-inch pipe. There is a good bit of water there. And there are other springs in this valley. They are detailed, by the way, in a recent book by Dr. Elmer Smick called the Archaeology of the Jordan Valley. A very helpful book with maps giving the details of this southern part of the wilderness.

There is one town in that valley that is called Punon in the wilderness wanderings in Numbers 33, and probably is to be identified with a place that is called by the Arabs Faynan. The Arabic F is equal to the old Hebrew P and so Punon/Faynan really is the same name. And remarks that they crossed the brook of Zered thirty-eight years after they had left Mount Sinai. Thirty-eight years, that’s in chapter 2, verse 14, leaves two years, you see, for the further travels and the conquest Transjordan, forty years in all of wilderness wanderings before they entered the Promised Land.

In the last of chapter 2, we have the offer of peace to Sihon, the king of the Amorites. They made the same offer to Sihon that they had made to Esau, to Edom, and to Moab, but in this case, the Lord did not tell them that they should not attack. The Lord had said that they should go around Edom and Moab, but as far as Sihon was concerned, he was an Amorite and no relation and no good reason why they should not conquer, and they did. They went up through the territory of Transjordan and conquered Sihon, whose capital was at Heshbon and went up north to that to Og, king of Bashan. Bashan is a very fertile plain in north Transjordan and not far from the Golan Heights where the people of Damascus have many times contested the territory. Daraa in modern times has been the checkpoint for passports between Syria and Jordan. Daraa preserves the name of ancient Edrei where the battle was fought where Moses and Joshua decisively defeated Og, king of Bashan.

That part of Transjordan is a little bit lower part of the plateau and the winds that come from the Mediterranean bearing rain, in this case, sweep across the Sea of Galilee area where there are no great mountains. The result is that whereas those winds drop their water on Jerusalem, the east side of the mountains of Jerusalem, and leave the Jordan Valley a desert. Up around the Sea of Galilee, these winds do not drop their water so quickly and carry the water back into the Transjordan area, and so the territory east of Galilee is better watered and is drained by the Yarmouk River. The Yarmouk River is not mentioned in the Bible, but it is a good size river and is used for irrigation in the north part of the Jordan Valley, and I’m told that the Yarmouk River carries down more water into the Jordan River than the northern sources of the Jordan itself carry down into the Sea of Galilee. For details on this, an interesting book and important book to read is the one by Dennis Baly, The Geography of Palestine.

Well, chapter 3 tells how Og, the king of Bashan, was defeated. All his cities were taken at that time, and they went up as far as Mount Hermon. In chapter 3, verse 9, it remarks that Hermon is called Sirion by the Sidonians; that is, the Phoenicians. And the Amorites call it Shenir. Here are three names for Mount Hermon. This is rather interesting. It gives us some idea of the trilingual nature of this whole area. This, of course, is one reason why we have different names for the same place. For instance, the Mount Sinai, which we have spoken of as Mount Sinai in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, is here in Deuteronomy often called Horeb. Now critics sometimes find in the different names, Horeb and Sinai, a trace of different documents. This is not necessary to hold at all. Moses here is speaking forty years later than the experience at Mount Sinai, and he is speaking in a different territory and background. And dialects and languages were different and styles changed to such an extent that we may well say that Horeb was simply another name used by different peoples for Mount Sinai, just as Sirion and Shenir are different names for what we now call Mount Hermon. And indeed the Arabs today have another name for it, Jabal al-Shaykh, which means really the Mountain of the Old Man. The Mountain that has snow on it most of the time—the white-haired old man mountain.

It tells us how Og was killed and the remark is made in the King James Version that Og was one of the giants. The word giants is “Rephaim”; there’s no need to suppose that it is giants at all. The Septuagint translates it that way but the “Rephaim” certainly was just a name for an ancient people. What has led to the idea that Og was a giant was because it says his bedstead was of iron and it was nine cubits long. Nine cubits, if you take a cubit as the average length of about a foot and a half, this would give you thirteen and a half feet long for a bed. This would indeed be a large man. It was also four cubits wide, a six-foot wide bed. King size, indeed, we would say.

On the other hand, this may not be a bed at all. One view, a respectable view, at least though we cannot be sure, is that this was not a bed, but a sarcophagus. Kings of ancient times thought a great deal more of their funerary arrangements than they did of their bedroom furniture. And if this was a funerary couch, a sarcophagus instead of a bedstead, we can understand why it would be so large; not because the king was big physically, but because he was wealthy and wanted a tomb in which he would place also some of his favorite equipment. Perhaps his favorite furniture, perhaps a favorite horse, perhaps, I’m sorry to say, perhaps a favorite wife or two. But at least this has given rise to the idea that Og was very large. There is nothing elsewhere that would lead us to think that.

In chapter 4, we begin another sermon of Moses, and Moses asks the people to harken under his ordinances. Chapter 4, verse 2, “You shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither should you diminish anything from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.” This is a verse that tells the Children of Israel that this is the Word of God. It does not mean that other parts of the Word of God should not be written later on, and, of course, Joshua added his part to the book of the Lord. But it does say that “this is the Word of the Lord.” It is interesting that a very similar expression is given in the end of the Bible in the book of Revelation 18 and 19. It says, “If anyone adds to the words of this book, God will add the plagues written in the book. If anyone takes away from this book, the Lord will take away his name from the Book of Life.”

It is interesting also that the Jewish historian Josephus, writing about 90 AD, as I’ve already quoted him in that work of his called Against Apion, where he says that the pious Jew is trained from childhood to believe the law, the prophets, and the other books of praise to God and directions for godly living, as Josephus puts it. And the pious Jew is trained from his birth not to take away anything from this nor to add anything to this book, nor to change anything in it. So this is the attitude, of course, toward the Word of God all through the sacred history. This is the Word that is divine.

Now in the next part of chapter 4, this message, there is a great warning about idolatry, and this begins around verse 12. The Lord says, “You heard the voice of the words, but you saw no similitude; only you heard a voice.” And, therefore, he declares that when you go into the land, you should not corrupt yourselves and make you any carved image, “the similitude of any figure”. Verses [17 and 18], any beast of the earth, winged fowl that flies in the air, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water beneath the earth.

The prohibition against idolatry should be understood not just because the Lord is opposed to making images. It is not that; it is making images of God, because, you see, any image that people make of God is an image of something less than God. You stop to think of the idols. What are they? They are images of men. Men are less than God. Or they are images of snakes or bulls or cats. Again, something less than God. Because God is the Creator and He has made all these things and the things that we see around are the creation—the sun, the moon. How many people have worshiped the sun or have worshiped the moon or the stars? But these are all creatures of God. And when we bring God down into our level, we really have taken Him from His throne. Now the emphasis here is that God is a Spirit. As it is put in the Gospel of John, “They that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in truth,” because God is above His creation and is the one who guides His creation by His providence. And He is to be glorified, whereas His creation is not.

One little point here of interest, it refers to fish that are in the waters beneath the earth. Some have thought here that there is a trace of mythology and that here Moses is talking about an underground lake, a kind of a nether world, and the picture is that the cosmology of the Bible is very simple. You have a brass dome over their heads and there were holes that the rain came through, windows, and there were these waters under the earth, and this was the picture of the universe that the ancients had. Well, some of the ancients may have had queer conceptions of the universe, but I think we ought to be careful about this. The Bible does not teach any such so-called three-story universe. Modern critics, particularly [Bookman], have said that the Bible teaches a three-story universe, and, of course, with science, we know that that is not true, and therefore, we can’t believe the Bible anymore. The trouble is that these men take a few poetic passages of different parts of the Bible, fit them together, and make a cosmology of their own that Moses and David and the ancients doubtless would not recognize at all.

This idea that there were waters beneath the earth is clearly wrong. It says here that you should not make a likeness of any beast on the earth or fowl that flies in the air or of any fish that is in the water beneath the earth. I don’t happen to be very much of a fisherman, but I do know where the fish are. Maybe I can’t catch them, but I know where the fish are. They’re in the waters of lakes and rivers and oceans. You don’t go fishing for fish in waters beneath the earth.

The phrase here, “beneath the earth,” does not mean underneath the earth. There are no such waters and that’s not the place to fish. The phrase means waters beneath the shoreline. They didn’t have the concept of sea level the same as we do and that wasn’t so useful a concept here anyhow. They simply mean fish in the waters, and the waters, of course, are in the low parts. They’re in valleys and lakes and rivers and seas, and this is all that is meant in the water’s beneath the earth.

As far as the brass dome over the sky is concerned or a hard firmament, there’s nothing hard about that firmament. In Genesis 1 it says the birds fly in it and as far as openings in that firmament, I think we’ve mentioned in the flood story that they didn’t have windows that open and shut the way we do today. Anyhow, the Hebrews knew that rain came from clouds. So this false cosmology that is mentioned by [Bookman] and others is only a strawman really and should not be held and would not be held if we’re careful with our interpretation of the Scripture.

Well in chapter 5, we have a further sermon, the sermon referring to the covenant at Sinai and here there are some famous passages. In chapter 5, we have the Ten Commandments repeated, and these Ten Commandments are just about the same, even in detail, as you find in Exodus 20. Not quite word-for-word; the seventh day commandment of the Sabbath has a few other things in it. It refers to the bondservant in the land of Egypt, and this is not mentioned in the Exodus account, but the Ten Commandments are all there and expressed largely in the same words.

In chapter 6, we have another famous passage still in this sermon of Moses. This is called the Great Shema of Israel. The Hebrew word shema means to hear and this is the imperative, “Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.” This is the passage that Christ called the greatest commandment, and the second is like unto it and He quoted Leviticus 19:18, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Here is a great command that I tell you we cannot get beyond. This is a summary, indeed, of the first commandments that speak of our duty to God, and the Lord is one Lord, and this, I think, we must notice Christians believe, too; the doctrine of the Trinity does not deny the unity of God. Indeed, it affirms the unity of God.

I really think this emphasis on the Shema, and you know pious Jews say the Shema repeatedly, their phylacteries of ancient times had this verse rolled up and stuck into a little box on their forehead or on their wrist, the emphasis on reciting the Shema as a kind of a short creed I personally believe is the background of the similar custom in Islam. Mohammed had contact with Jews, if you remember. Jews even went along with Mohammed in the early days, and he hoped to have their support, but when they saw what he was really teaching, they separated themselves from him. But Mohammed had also a creed, and this creed is to be given by the pious Muslim five times a day and he’s happy if he dies with the creed on his lips. And the creed is “There is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is a prophet of Allah.” Well, it is very similar. “The LORD our God is one LORD.” And the creed is somewhat similar and the attitude toward the creed between the Orthodox Jew and the Muslim is rather similar, too, and this is not just curious. I think there is a reason for it, and that reason is to be found in the close association of Mohammed with the Jews in the early time. Now, of course, this is not just a creed to be recited. This is a great doctrine to be understood and loved, The LORD our God is God, the only God, and we are to love Him with all of our heart, and soul, and strength and might, and well can we do this because He is a God of love and a God who is altogether worthy.

In the last part of chapter 6, we have an interesting statement. Verse 20, “When thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, ‘What mean the testimonies, and the statutes, and the [judgments], which the LORD our God hath commanded you?’” These verses are used by modern Jews in the Passover service as a teaching device. The youngest son of the family is supposed to ask the question, “Father, what makes this night different from all other nights?” And this question then is answered and then, just as in the Bible, it says that the children are still to be instructed and so in the Jewish home, there is the liturgical instruction. We might question whether this is the right use of these verses. These verses are not verses that are to be repeated. Again, these are verses that are to be understood and the lessons learned from them.

In chapter 7, it goes on with more exhortation. “The Lord is God, the faithful God,” he says. And in chapter 7, verse 9, you have an interesting verse: “The Lord, the faithful God,” he says, “keeps covenant and mercy with them who love Him and keep His commandments to a thousand generations.” This is an interpretation, of course, of the commandment that speaks of “The Lord, a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of them that hate Him and showing mercy upon thousands of them.” This interprets it to mean thousands of generations of them that love Him and keep His commandments. So the mercies of the Lord are far greater than the judgments that He must sometimes give to men.

Again, in this section, chapter 8, verse 3, we have the reference to the manna. God gave them the manna, Moses said, and fed them with manna that they did not know, in order that they might know that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out the mouth of the Lord does man live. God gave them that manna, but God gave them that manna by promise. It was divine manna; and John, of course, records how Jesus said that the true manna, which came down from heaven, is not even food to sustain them in the wilderness, but the Bread of Life, and Christ said, “I am the Bread of the Life.”

He also refers in chapter 10 to the many rebellions during the wilderness experience and in Sinai he refers, for instance, to the golden calf. Here is an example where the formal discussion of Sinai in chapter 1 did not refer to the golden calf, but here in a later message he gives a brief reference to this sin of the golden calf. In short, Deuteronomy is a speech in which Moses, in this speech or another one, will give various illustrations to get across his point—that the Children of Israel were wicked, but that God was merciful and God called them back to Him. God called them back to Him and promised them in chapter 10, verse 16 that if they would do His will, He would bless them, and He calls them to “circumcise…the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked.” We mentioned in discussion of Genesis 17 where the circumcision was ordained as a covenant of the Lord; that it was not to be merely in the flesh, but that it was to be circumcision of the heart. The Old Testament is a heart religion and this is one of the great verses to show that. There is another verse like this in Deuteronomy chapter 30 and another in the book of Jeremiah.

There is a reference here also to the sin of Dathan and Abiram in chapter 11, and here then at the end of this section, we have a declaration that Moses urges the children of Israel to make a choice. This is something like Joshua, “Choose you this day whom you will serve.” Here in chapter 11, verse 26, Moses said, “Behold, I set before you…a blessing and a curse.” A curse if you will not obey the commandments of the Lord, but a blessing if you will obey. And so he says that when you go across into the land of Palestine proper that these blessings and curses shall be given antiphonally as the two parts of Israel, as they divide into two parts and stand one side on Mount Gerizim and the other side on Mount Ebal, and speak back and forth across the valley with these blessings and curses. These blessings and curses are briefly referred to here. They are more extensively given in chapter 27 where the contents of these blessings and curses are detailed. And then in the book of Joshua, we have again the reference to these blessings and curses being fulfilled when Joshua took the children of Israel up there to that place in ancient Shekam and these curses were written on plaster on the stones and were read. We can see something of the emphasis here and the solemnity of this great challenge of Moses, “Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse,” and of Joshua, “Choose you this day whom you will serve,” and it is something for us to remember. A choice is set before us and the exhortation is choose the Lord and give your heart to Christ, and this is the way of blessing; and this blessing we have the glorious privilege of proclaiming to people in our day as well.