Chapter 5
A couple of interesting verses at the beginning of the chapter. First, this one:
1 And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, "Hear, O Israel, the statutes and the rules that I speak in your hearing today, and you shall learn them and be careful to do them. [Deu 5:1 ESV]
This begins Moses' second address to the assembled people. Moses calls them all, and repeats the 10 commandments for them, so that they can learn them and follow them. He knows his times is short, and rather than tell the people to look to the priests and the Levites for the rules and directions, Moses tells them to learn the law themselves, and to keep their own counsel as to these laws. They are clear enough for anyone, and no special interpreter is needed.
And then this verse:
3 Not with our fathers did the LORD make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us here alive today. [Deu 5:3 ESV]
This did not refer literally to the Dad's of those assembled. The reference is that the Sinai covenant is distinct from the promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob - from the Abrahamic Covenant. This covenant is with the nation of Israel, not with individuals. They are all a part of the covenant, but this is a national covenant. This is an extremely important distinction.
2021 - The fact that Moses is telling the people to learn the law and to be careful to do it right is a crippling blow - I think - to modern priests in the Catholic church. They have appropriated the Bible to themselves in direct contradiction of Moses' words here. There is no way Peter would have opposed Moses' direction, he was too good a Jew. Paul would also have had a huge problem with this, and he was an even better Jew. The priesthood in Moses day was there to make the sacrifices, and to liaison between man and God, because the veil was still in place. When that veil tore, there was no longer any need at all for a priest. Not of any kind. God could be approached directly for inquiry, and the last sacrifice ever needed was in the past.
The MSB note at the beginning of 5 puts 5:1-11:32 as a unit. In 5:1-33 Moses repeats the basic commands that are foundational to the Sinai Covenant. Then in 6:1-11:32, he expounds and applies the first three of the Ten Commandments to the present experience of the people.
The ten commandments are restated by Moses in vss 7-21.
This verse shows that this is not just a recounting of the 10 as from memory, but additional information - amplification if you will - of the intent of the Ten Commandments:
9 You shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, [Deu 5:9 ESV]
Here is this verse, and we see it in context. It is about idol worship, about putting faith in things man made or things in the heavens which all men can access. If you worship such things, then so will your children and their children and so on. It is in this way that our sins become the sins of our children and grandchildren. It is NOT that they go to hell for our sins, but that they might learn to sin by copying our own sins. It takes generations in most cases to overcome idolatry, and all that goes with it. 2021 - Another point here is that God only does this in response to being hated. It is not that the children out to the fourth generation are never given a chance. But so long as they hate God, then their fate is the same as their idolatrous fathers' fates. Vs 10 emphasizes this by contrasting God's dealing with those who hate him with how he deals with the thousands who love him.
This one:
16 "'Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD your God commanded you, 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. [Deu 5:16 ESV]
Here also, as in the original, the long days are in Canaan. This promise is to Israel. We always apply it as a universal. I have some doubt that it really applies in that way. But Martha straightened me out. The command is repeated in the NT, and it is Gentiles primarily that are being addressed. Those verses are here:
2 "Honor your father and mother" (this is the first commandment with a promise), 3 "that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land." [Eph 6:2-3 ESV]
2021 - And as I read this passage in Deuteronomy today, it occurs to me that if this commandment carries over after the abrogation of the law, then why wouldn't the other 9? If we read through them, it is pretty clear that they do all apply still, except for keeping the Sabbath. But why would that one be different? If the other nine carry, then we should still honor the Sabbath also, and keep it holy. That's another confusing issue that I believe has been settled for me once and for all.
2022 - The Sabbath commemorated the rest they did not get while they were slaves in Egypt. God ordained that they might rest one day a week, as a thing they could never do in Egypt while in slavery. We, Gentiles, were never brought out of slavery. All the other things are universal.
2025 - This one: 20 "'And you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. [Deu 5:20 ESV]. Technically, it does not say we are never ever to tell a lie. It says we are not to lie ABOUT our neighbor, presumably in a way that will make him at fault in some wrongdoing. We are not to say our neighbor stole something if we stole it ourselves. This is why it was ok for Hagar to lie to the King of Jericho. Had she said the spies were next door at the baker's house, she would have been crossways with this commandment.
Vs 22 confirms yet again that the Ten were spoken to the entire nation of Israel, not just to Moses on the tablets so he could bring them down and tell everyone:
22 "These words the LORD spoke to all your assembly at the mountain out of the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, with a loud voice; and he added no more. And he wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me. [Deu 5:22 ESV]
Moses recounts that the people were very afraid of God's voice, and asked Moses from that point on to do the listening, and to relay what he was told. They were afraid that if they continued to hear God directly they would die.
29 Oh that they had such a heart as this always, to fear me and to keep all my commandments, that it might go well with them and with their descendants forever! [Deu 5:29 ESV]
This was after the people said they were afraid to hear God directly, as they had at Horeb, and they asked Moses to hear for them, and they would do what God said through him. Fear and reverence. Proper fear and reverence. God is foreshadowing the continual and repeated rebellion of Israel with this statement.
Possible FB post. Will need some work.
This verse, with a point I'd never noticed before:
31 But you, stand here by me, and I will tell you the whole commandment and the statutes and the rules that you shall teach them, that they may do them in the land that I am giving them to possess.' [Deu 5:31 ESV]
So the rest of the law - besides the 10 - was just as important and just as much given by God directly to the people. It was given to Moses alone, though, at the request of the people. It would be a mistake to diminish the importance and strictness of any of the laws God gave to Moses. This makes sense in that the prescribed punishment for breaking some of those laws was death. I have always seen the 10 as having a special, more "sacred" position in the hierarchy, and the rest of the rules as lesser rules. I have been completely wrong about this.
2021 - Perhaps the distinction, and the difference, between the first 10 give to ALL the people and then the rest of the law, is that what was spoken directly to all men is binding on all men forever. The law that came through Moses was abrogated, pretty much entirely. Maybe this is the reason Paul brings forward the honor your mother and father, but never advocates for circumcision, keeping the feasts, or any of that part of the law. How interesting...