Chapter 4
2021 - Moses finishes his travelogue of the nation of Israel from the time they left Egypt until the present day at the end of chapter 3. Now he revisits the laws God has given them. This reads very much like the verse in Revelation, and I believe the theme shows up in several other places:
2 You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you. [Deu 4:2 ESV] There is that discourse of Jesus in Matthew 23 I believe it is where he reproaches the Pharisees for the bending and twisting they've done to the law. Following the "God's word sacred" chain in TCR, next is 12:32, which repeats the injunction against adding or subtracting from the word.
Moses tells the people to obey all the laws from God when they enter Canaan. Their rules will show them wise, and will set them apart from the people in that land. This verse:
8 And what great nation is there, that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today? [Deu 4:8 ESV]
Israel was unique in the world as to it's statutes and laws and sacrifices. Nothing like it had existed before. God was now dealing with a nation, rather than with individual men - Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God is doing a new thing here, never before seen. Take God out of the picture, and you have to ask how such a unique set of commandments and laws could have arisen in the middle of a planet populated by idol worshipers? Where could the idea of one and only one God have come from, and how could it ever have "stuck"?
Moses reminds them that when God spoke, it was only a voice, not a form. Therefore, no images are to be made and worshiped of anything that lives - man, beast, sea creatures, bugs - nor of any heavenly bodies like the sun or stars. These verses are also interesting:
12 Then the LORD spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of words, but saw no form; there was only a voice. 13 And he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, that is, the Ten Commandments, and he wrote them on two tablets of stone. 14 And the LORD commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and rules, that you might do them in the land that you are going over to possess. [Deu 4:12-14 ESV]
This confirms that the 10 were not given to Moses alone, up on the mountain, and then he brought them down and read them to the people. God spoke the 10 commandments to that whole nation from a mountain on fire. Each one heard God's voice pronounce that these were His rules. The old movie gets it wrong. Completely wrong.
2021 - This answers the "why no idols" question:
15 "Therefore watch yourselves very carefully. Since you saw no form on the day that the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, 16 beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves, in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, 17 the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, 18 the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth. [Deu 4:15-18 ESV] If that first phrase about any figure includes crosses, then we have some problems. I note also that there is nothing about carved stars, suns, or moons here, yet we know these are included. There are several places that give injunctions against idols. I know that in Kings or Chronicles it talks about sun and star worship and forbids them. Ahhh! In fact this injunction is just a little further along in the reading....
And as to worshiping idols, no carved images of anything alive on the earth were allowed, nor were they allowed to worship these created things. And this about the heavens:
19 And beware lest you raise your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and bow down to them and serve them, things that the LORD your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven. [Deu 4:12-19 ESV]
Worshiping something like the sun, that gives heat and light to all, makes no distinction between the righteous and the wicked, and cannot be persuaded with prayer and sacrifice to do anything other than it already does, not only shouldn't be worshiped, but obviously would just be ridiculous to worship. Ahh...here is something science has done for us, and should get some credit for doing! Science has shown that the sun is not a god, nor are any stars gods, and so on. It shows us that animals are just animals, running on instinct, and completely unable to do anything for us no matter how much we pray to them. Science has proved that nothing on earth, and nothing tangible in heaven, has the characteristics of a god, and most certainly not the characteristics of The God.
Possible FB post.
2021 - Just to be complete about carved images of things in the sky, there is this, in the next chapter:
8 "'You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. [Deu 5:8 ESV] This leaves out nothing at all.
The penalty for carving idols is severe. The covenant with this nation is conditional on them NOT doing that - among other things. Moses puts it this way:
25 "When you father children and children's children, and have grown old in the land, if you act corruptly by making a carved image in the form of anything, and by doing what is evil in the sight of the LORD your God, so as to provoke him to anger, 26 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will soon utterly perish from the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess. You will not live long in it, but will be utterly destroyed. [Deu 4:25-26 ESV]
And this is what happens. The sins of King Manasseh and the idol worship that he supports finally takes Israel so far from God's commandments that God reaches the end of his patience with them. Assyria comes, and then Babylon, and finally Rome, leaving Israel desolate, broken, not a nation or a people, and from 70 AD to now they have had neither King or High Priest. This is why Israel is set aside for now - for the Age of the Gentiles - and will not be restored until the end, when God keeps the promises first made to Abraham.
2024 - I would go so far as to say this is why Israel continues to be at war on every side and from within. I would say this is why her own people are often her enemy. This is also why there can be no end of this conflict. It will stay that way until vss 29 and 30 below come to pass. And look at the time frame in vs 30! In the ESV it is phrased "...in the latter days, you will return to the LORD your God and obey...". NOT UNTIL THEN! You can broaden the definition of latter days all you want and so say the reinstatement of Israel as a state and the constant migration from that time to this is the "return" spoken of here, but I do not believe that. If it was that, there would be no dispute about who's land this is.
2021 - This whole passage ought to be noted so I am putting all the verses in here. If the people worship other gods - the sin of sins really, then these verses tell what the consequence for the nation will be. Vss 25, 26 above say that they will be utterly destroyed as a nation, and then this prophetic warning that in fact unfolds the future of Israel right down to the end of the world follows in vss 27-31:
27 And the LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the LORD will drive you. 28 And there you will serve gods of wood and stone, the work of human hands, that neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell. 29 But from there you will seek the LORD your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul. 30 When you are in tribulation, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, you will return to the LORD your God and obey his voice. 31 For the LORD your God is a merciful God. He will not leave you or destroy you or forget the covenant with your fathers that he swore to them. [Deu 4:27-31 ESV]
The final restoration is prophesied in these verses:
30 When you are in tribulation, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, you will return to the LORD your God and obey his voice. 31 For the LORD your God is a merciful God. He will not leave you or destroy you or forget the covenant with your fathers that he swore to them. [Deu 4:30-31 ESV]
This is more than a warning. It is also a prophecy that Israel will turn away, but will repent during the tribulation period prior to Christ's second coming. Moses saw, this long ago, where history was going and where it would end.
The amazing thing here is that Moses was seeing beyond the Age of the Gentiles to the tribulation period at the end of the world. Surely here, in a nutshell, is an example of how the prophets of old considered the present age and the tribulation at the end as continuous. There is no word here about the Gentiles. Yet, there are prophecies about the Gentiles. There is just not enough detail to understand with foresight what seems so obvious to us in hindsight. That mystery - the events of the Age of the Gentiles - is left for Jesus to fill in during his time on earth. That is the unique ministry of Jesus- to complete the law, fulfill the law, explain the law, and tie all things together. It is important to note here that Moses is specifically addressing assembled Israel. All of them. The nation. He is not telling them what will happen individually to Israeli's in the future, but what is in store for the nation. The fate of the nation. This passage would seem to be a good argument for the continued separation of Israel as a nation, and the future fulfillment of their national promises, separately and distinctly from the fulfillment of the New Covenant. I am ever more convinced that practically no Gentiles will be saved during the final 7 years, just as only a minute fraction of the Jews are being saved today. In Tribulation, there will be really no justification at all for preserving a remnant of the Gentiles. The promises to the Gentiles are fulfilled at the rapture!!!! Oh my! This is important!
2023 - Vs 27 talks about them being scattered among the peoples, and being left few in number. Could it be that when their numbers get too big, God brings destruction to reduce their numbers back down? In WWII 6 million Jews were destroyed. Surely this was a significant portion of their worldwide population at the time. Perhaps that is why there is so much anti-Semitism - it keeps them confined and reduced and in many cases impoverished and so keeps their numbers low. I have never heard this preached or taught, but I think it makes a decent amount of sense.
2023 - Vss 32-34, Has there ever been ANY account of any god who 1, spoke to his people in a VOICE coming out of the fire? or 2, ever attempt to take a nation for himself from another nation? These two things are unique to the God of the Bible. Never ever, anywhere else, has this been recorded. So the answer to these two questions is still a resounding no. Only one God has ever done these two things.
Possible FB post.
2021 - 35 To you it was shown, that you might know that the LORD is God; there is no other besides him. [Deu 4:35 ESV].
If you don't believe in THIS God, there is no other god worthy. If this God does not meet your requirements, then you die godless, and alone, with no one to trust but yourself.
39 know therefore today, and lay it to your heart, that the LORD is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other. [Deu 4:39 ESV]
Then, this early, three Cities of Refuge are designated on the East side of the Jordan. Is this principle ignored in western law? Did John Locke not make some provision for a similar "refuge"? Or was this only necessary because of the "Avenger of Blood"? This would be a good study.