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Deuteronomy 1-3
We are in the World Stream reading from the Common English Bible.
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Commentary by Dr. Drake Travis
Lord Jesus, May we look back over our lives and be found faithful. And may we be inspired to proceed with hearts set to serve you to the end. Amen.
The time for Moses’ departure was at hand. His 120 years were legendary beyond what any human had ever known. And since Moses who has known God, seen His deeds, and so felt His majesty since? To this day, the nations that follow what Moses laid out are prosperous and civil nations. Those who do not or will not are regions of darkness, and squalid disgust, hovels of injustice, violence, desolation, wicked and intolerable conditions unfit for healthy human living – my husband and I have been in over 70 countries between us – we’ve seen and know the stark differences. So as we launched into Moses final charge today, keep in mind that it is Moses’ last month on earth. His words, this book is his words that could be titled with the epithet, “now before I go, children, remember to…” We all remember what our parents told us right before going out, just the two of them, for the evening. They said things like “remember to finish the kitchen, homework gets finished before watching any T.V. and the TV goes off after 30 minutes. No yelling or hitting, etc.” We all still remember these mini-lectures. Well Moses has a month of final lectures to the Israelites wherein the Law is reiterated; Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers are gone over again. It is, by definition, “the second law”. That is what Deuteronomy means. Throughout this book their history is recalled and the future is laid forth before them. Their dilemma of obedience v.s. disobedience is going to be the clincher for the future of Israel. What do you think they are going to do?
1 – The setting and location of Deuteronomy are set forth and Moses gets right in to their history. They left Mt. Horeb and judges were set up so to delegate Moses’ job of settling disputes. [This was Jethro’s advice from Exodus 18.] Moses recalled for them, the spy debacle that took place in Numbers 13 & 14. It was an endeavor where God offered them a gateway into the Promised Land. Yet they chose to walk by sight, not faith, and they panicked, then disobeyed, then were barred from entering Canaan, then they pressed onward anyway [in further disobedience] and got a smack down that sent them running back to camp like “…this little piggy that went wa-wa-wa-wa all the way home.” Moses, practically tongue-in-cheek tells them they could have been at this brink 40 years prior if your fathers’ had not faltered and feared … so go forward from here [next month] without fear!”
2 – And since they initially opted to not enter the Promised Land, let’s put it this way, –> the aimless wandering had begun. God gave them 38 years to walk around. It was enough time to let all the people die who were adults in Egypt. Maybe God didn’t want any of them to spend their waning years always alluding, “well back in Egypt we used to do things this way…” or “ah, lets’ not do that – we never did that back in Egypt.” Maybe God just wanted to take in people who had no lucid memories of Egypt. This would certainly minimize troubles, eh? At any rate, they wandered up east of the Jordan. Consequently, God had it that most of the people who were there were deathly afraid of Israel. And Israel was not to initiate violence with anyone. But King Sihon, the Amorite came out looking for trouble … and he got it. God gave them decisive victory over Sihon. Here Israel was mindful to remain obedient.
3 – Then another Amorite king; Og of Bashan, attacked while they were east of the Jordan. God gave complete victory as Og’s entire population is decimated and his 60 towns are acquired by Israel along with their wealth and animals. These people east of Jordan were giants – they could have beaten the giants west of the Jordan too, but … This land east of Jordan ended up going to the Manasseh, Gad, and Reuben tribes. Now everyone take stock at these victories. God will do the same to the rest of the country too. In the excitement of new land acquired, Moses asked God again, if he may go into Canaan and God flatly rejected his request again and told him to stop asking. [Imagine and remember that this is humble Moses recalling this actual event to the Israelite people – something he would rather forget about]. Do you think Moses remained disappointed about this even after he died? Hardly. He got taken to the REAL Promised Land. But that’s at the end of Deuteronomy. Spoiler! There I go giving everything away again
