Friday, March 4, 2016

Deuteronomy 29

After reading chapter 29:

*  Moses calls all the Israelite people together on behalf of Yahweh to make a covenant with them in Moab. It is in addition to the one made in Horeb after they left Egypt. First he tells them that with their own eyes they saw the events of the exodus from Egypt, even though this was not true. All those who were adults when the Israelites left Egypt were now dead. (Numbers 14:26-35, 26:64-65)The Israelites had wandered in the desert for Forty years but their clothes and sandals miraculously did not wear out. Supposedly, they had also eaten no bread and had drunk no fermented drink during that whole time, even though the laws given in Exodus and Leviticus include bread and drink sacrifices. Next he tells how the Israelites conquered land on the east side of the Jordan and gave it to the Reubenites, Gadites, and the half tribe of Mannasseh, as their  part in the Israelite "inheritance."

*Moses then tells the Israelites that all the people standing there that day, including the women, children, servants, and foreigners are entering into a covenant with Yahweh. (Apparently consent didn't matter.) This is an extension of the covenant Yahweh made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. There must not be a hint of the worship of other gods. Also, just because they recieve a blessing from being present at this covenant ceremony, they shouldn't assume that they can't be thoroughly cursed some day, if they insist on doing things their own way. And what a mighty cursing it will be. When people ask,"Why is Yahweh so angry?" The answer will be,"Because these people abandoned the covenant." Verse  28 is interesting: In furious anger and in great wrath Yahweh uprooted them from their land and thrust them into another land, as it is now. As it is now? The study bible says that is just what the people would say in the future, IF the curses actually happened. It just as easily could mean that the authors wrote the book of Deuteronomy while in exile, which would have been hundreds of years after the events recorded therein.

*Then comes a statement that secret things belong to Yahweh, but revealed things belong to the Israelites and their descendants forever. (Or until someone claims that a new covenant has come.)

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