Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Deuteronomy chapter 5

After reading chapter 5:

*Moses again summons all Israel and makes another speech. He tells the Israelites that it was not their fathers that he made his covenant with, but them, those who were alive at that moment. This is patently false. The Israelites who were alive at this time  weren't even considered adults at that time, forty years ago. Then Moses proceeds to talk to them as if it truly was they who were present at the reception of the "Ten Commandments." He reiterates the basic commands:
You shall have no other gods before me.
You shall not make and/ or worship idols.
You shall not misuse the name of Yahweh.
You shall observe the sabbath and keep it holy.
Honor your father and mother.
You shall not commit murder.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor. (It dies not say you shall not lie.)
You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor. (Thought crime.)

* In verse 22, Moses says that God gave the Ten Commandments and added nothing more, then wrote them on stone and gave them to Moses. We are skipped over the forty days Moses spent on the mountain while God gave him hundreds of other rules and regulations, before the stone tablets were given to Moses. (Exodus chapters 20-31)

*Then Moses says a lot of baloney about how these Israelites, who had to have been minors at the time, responded to Moses and God. Supposedly, after God spoke to them from the fire and cloud on the mountain top, they were sufficiently awed and frightened to freely give all authority to converse with God personally to Moses, and they agreed to obey whatever Moses would tell them that God said. So, they better be careful to do what the lord said, if they want to live long and prosper.

*Deuteronomy refers to the place these events took place as Mount Horeb, where Exodus refers to it as Mount Sinai. It appears that no one actually knows where either of those places may have originally been located, or whether they are the same place.

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