05 - Deuteronomy

Introduction

Deuteronomy means second (deutero) law (nomy). It is the second-law given by Moses after the first covenant the Lord ratified after the Exodus. This is situated 40 years after the Exodus, and ends with Moses’ death. The historical context is of Israel at the plains of Moab, within eyesight of the promised land.

The book gives a distinct Mosaic code, different from the laws of Exodus, Numbers, and Leviticus that pertain more to ethical, cerimonial, and worship laws, instead focusing on civic laws.

In structure, it closely resembles the Near Eastern vassal treaty, especially the Hittite model (circa 1400-1200 BC).

Structure:

1. Preamble (1:1-5)
2. Historical prologue (1:6-4:43)
3. Stipulations, rules of the covenant (4:44-26:19)
4. Sanctions, blessings and curses for obedience and disobedience (27:1-30:20)
5. Succession arrangements (31:1-34:12)

Chapter 1

Key themes:

1. Situates the narrative story as being in the first day of the eleventh month in the fortieth year, in the land of Moab, after having defeated the Amorites and Bashan.
2. God calls Israel to take the promised land.
3. Remembers the appointment of the Heads of the Tribes.
4. Israel didn’t want to go to the land of the Amorites, doubted God, thinking that He hated them, and was giving them to be destroyed by the Amorites.
5. God punished Israel’s rebellion by not giving the land to their generation and to Moses.
6. Israel was presumptuous and thought that they could fight the Amorites without the presence of God, but they were defeated.

Moral sense:

1. We cannot fight our spiritual warfare against sin without God.

Chapter 2

Key themes:

1. Israel wandered in the desert for forty years, and in the mean time, passed through the lands of Esau, Moab, and Ammon. After the whole generation of men fit for war died, God commanded them to take land, starting with Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, totalling destroying them and destroying every city, men, women, and children.
2. The Lord has blessed other people and has given them land, which Israel should not take. Esau got Mount Seir; The sons of Lot (Moab) got Ar and the land of the sons of Ammon;

Chapter 3

Key themes:

1. The conquest of Og, the King of Bashan, destroying every city, men, women, and children.
2. Moses gives the conquered land to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and to Manasseh.
3. Moses asks to God to go to the promised land, but God denies him (do not know the exact reason), but allows him to see the land standing upon a hill, and commands him to not ask anymore.

Chapter 4

Key themes:

1. Following the Lord is wise and good. Moses prophesy an apostasy that will lead to Israel being scattered among the rival nations, but if they obey God again, as He is merciful, He will forgive them.
2. Reason for the graven image commandment (Dt 4:15-16): “Since you saw no form, …”. Thus, the Incarnation changes this.
3. Didn’t understand the cities of Dt 4:41-43.

Chapter 5

Key themes:

1. Repeats the telling of the Ten Commandments, and how the people asked Moses to be a mediator between them and the Lord.

Chapter 6

Key themes:

1. The great commandment (Deut 6:4-5): “The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might”.
2. Be careful to not forget the Lord in the midst of material success, especially achieved with the divine help.
3. Instructions on explaining to future generations why we keep the commandments. (Deut 6:20-25)

It would be interesting to have a paragraph on explaining the Gospel in a succinct way.

Chapter 7

Key themes:

1. When Israel enters the promised land, they must utterly destroy the 7 great rival nations that are bigger than them. There can be no negotiation or marriage, as they will lead their descendants astray from God.
2. The Lord has chosen Israel not because they where a great people, in fact, they were the smallest, but because the Lord loves them.
3. God is faithful to those who keep His commandments.

Allegorical sense:

1. We must destroy and root out sin from our life. The seven great rival nations are a prefiguration of the seven capital sins. (Deut 7:1-5)
2. It is not because of our own merit that God comes to rescue us, but because of love. It is because of His love that we are redeemed from the bondage of sin. (Deut 7:6-11)
3. It is not by our own power that we defeat sin, but through divine grace and help.
4. Sanctification and the battle against sin are a gradual process, be careful to not fight too many things at once, lest we be overwhelmed by them. (Deut 7:22)
5. Avoid occasions of sin. (Deut 7:26)

Chapter 8

Key themes:

1. A sermon on how God has taken care of the people, and how He is delivering them to “dream” promised land. The people should be faithful to God, and not forget Him when they have abundant material wealth, lest they perish like their enemies.

Moral sense:

1. It is God that gives us the power to get wealth, it is not by our own hands. Be thankful and faithful.

Allegorical sense:

1. Promised land as a prefiguration of heaven, a land “in which you will lack nothing” (Deut 8:9)

Chapter 9

Key themes:

1. The Lord is driving the enemy nations out the promised land not because of Israel’s righteousness, but because of the nations’ iniquity. In fact, Israel is a stubborn people that have disobeyed the Lord many times.
2. After the molten calf incident, Moses stayed 40 days and nights without bread and without water because of their sin, and prayed for Israel and Aaron, interceding for them.

Chapter 10

Key themes:

1. The Lord gives Moses a new set of stone tables.
2. The summary of the law: love and serve the Lord with all your heart and with all your soul.

Allegorical sense:

1. Circumcision as prefiguration of baptism (Deut 10:16). Circumcision as a type of cleansing: “Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn”.

Chapter 11

Key themes:

1. A sermon that the people should keep all of the Lord’s commandments.
2. Establishes a blessing for obedience and a curse for disobedience.

Chapter 12

Key themes:

1. The Israelites should destroy the temples to idols, and be careful to only sacrifice in altars to the Lord. They should only offer offerings in the place the Lord has commanded, not anywhere.
2. The people can eat as much flesh as they want, but they cannot drink the blood, for the blood is the life.
3. The Israelites should not serve the gods of the Canaanites or repeat what they did to serve. They should serve the Lord as He has commanded. Some of the Canaanites even practiced child sacrifice.
4. Be careful to follow what the Lord has commanded, don’t add or subtract from it.

Questions:

1. “for the blood is the life”. Why? Why they cannot eat it? Is it possible to be a eucharistic reference?

Chapter 13

Key themes:

1. If a prophet or dreamer does wonder and signs, but asks to follow another god, it is a trial and a temptation, and one should not follow him.
2. Death penalty for idolatry and incentivizing people for idolatry.
3. If there is people spreading idolatry in a city under control of the people, that city shall be utterly destroyed and the inhabitants (all of them?) killed.

Chapter 14

Key themes:

1. “You shall not cut yourselves or make any baldness on your foreheads for the dead” Tattos? Shaving?
2. Regulations on clean/unclean animals.
3. You can sell unclean animals to the foreigner.
4. Rejection of pagan rituals (boiling a goat in his mother’s milk)
5. Regulations on tithe, on when you can eat the tithe, and when the levite, the fatherless and the sojourner is offered the tithe to eat. The Lord bless the work of the hand of those who tithe.

Chapter 15

Key themes:

1. Sabbatical year:
   1. Every creditor releases the lent to their neighbors (v1-3)
   2. Release Hebrew slaves (v12-18)
2. Care for the poor (Deut 15:7-11)
   1. The Lord bless those who give freely
3. Sacrifice the firstling of the flock for the Lord (v19-23)
   1. Eating as sacrifice

Chapter 16

Key themes:

1. Passover should be kept in the month of Abib. The place of sacrifice is determined by God. Eat unleavened bread for seven days.
2. Feast of weeks, a freewill offering to the Lord according to the blessing He has given you.
3. Feast of booths, for seven days, God will bless the produce and the work of their hands.
4. All offerings should be given according to ability (v17).
5. Appointment of judges:
   1. They shall not pervert justice
   2. They shall not show partiality
   3. They shall not take a bribe
   4. They shall follow only justive
6. Worship rules:
   1. Don’t plan trees as Asherah: Asherah was a Canaanite fertility goddess
   2. Prohibition on using pillars as object of worship. Ancient Near Eastern used pillars as worship objects, Jacob used it in Gen 28:18, but because now Israel was surrounded by pillars used by idolatry, it is forbidden.

Chapter 17

Key themes:

1. Prohibition of animal offering if there is any blemish.
2. Death penalty for idolatry. There has to be multiple witnesses, and if condemned, the witnesses should be the first to cast stones.
3. The people should submit to the authority of priests and judges in their decisions.
4. Israel will ask for a King and God will give them. But the King should be a virtuous man, not multiplying wives, gold, or leading the people back to Egypt. The king should have a copy of the law and read it everyday.

Chapter 18

Key themes:

1. The priests have no inheritance, they live by God’s providence. And the people should receive them at their homes and do their offerings as the law says.
2. Prohibition on human/child sacrifice and occultist practices.
3. Prophecy about God raising future prophets, also a messianic prophecy. If the prophet prophesy and the word doesn’t come to pass, he isn’t a real prophet.

Chapter 19

Key themes:

1. God gives provision for setting up cities where menslayers that unintentionally killed a person can flee to. Initially, three cities, but when the borders expand, other three should be set up. Intentional menslayers can’t be in these cities.
2. A single witness can’t condemn a person. There has to be two or three witness, and they appear in front of the judge and priests. False witnesses get what they intended to do to their accused.

Questions:

1. neighbor’s landmarks (?)

Chapter 20

Key themes:

1. It is by God’s help that Israel shall win its battles.
2. When warring against the Canaanite people, they should be utterly destroyed. The others, peace terms should be offered, where they will do forced labor. If they don’t agree, the males are killed, and the rest are taken as spoil.

Chapter 21

Key themes:

1. Provisions for what to do when encountering a slayed man with no witnesses to what happened.
2. Rules of what to do when marrying a foreigner woman that was taken as a captive. She shall have time to mourn the death of her family, she shall not be a slave or sold as property.
3. A man with two wives shall not give preference to the son of the loved one.
4. Death punishment for rebellious children.
5. It defiles the land to not bury on the same day a man killed by the death penalty.

Moral sense:

1. The captive woman shaving her head was a ritual of cutting away her past life in preparation for her new life in Israel. St Jerome says that we are permitted to embrace any secular wisdom as long as we cut away anything offensive to Christian truth.

Chapter 22

Key themes:

1. You shall not withhold help to your brother when dealing with lost things or his cattle.
2. Prohibition on cross dressing (v5).
3. You shall not sow a field with two kinds of seeds or clothes with mingled stuff.
4. Provisions on what to do when a husband accuses his newly wed wife of not being a virgin.
5. Provisions on what to do when a man lies with a virgin outside of marriage, be her single or betrothed.

Chapter 23

Key themes:

1. Rules on who cannot enter the assembly of the Lord: eunuchs, bastards, ammonites and moabites.
2. Israel should not abhor Edomites, because they are their brothers, and Egyptians, because they sojourned in their lands.
3. Prohibition on lending with interest to Israelites.
4. Prohibition on returning slaves that escaped their masters.
5. When you make a vow to the Lord, it is a sin to not do it.

Questions:

1. What is a cult prostitute?

Moral sense:

1. Be careful to the vows you make to the Lord, because it is a sin to breach it.

Chapter 24

Key themes:

1. If a man divorces his wife, and she marries (and consummates) another man, the first husband cannot take her back again if the other husband divorces her or dies.
2. A man cannot go to war if he is newly married, he must stay one year with his wife, to be happy. (v. 5)
3. A person cannot be found guilt by the mistakes of his parents or children. (v. 16)
4. Provisions on not doing injustice to the poor, servants, fatherless, widows, and fellow brethren.

Chapter 25

Key themes:

1. Beatings as punishments for crimes must be proportional to the offense, after the trial has concluded the man is guilty.
2. Laws on Levirate marriage.
3. v13-17, saying of two weights, two measures.
4. Vengeance against Israel’s enemies because of Amalek? v17-19.

Questions:

1. What cultural significance does a woman seizing a man by his private part has (during a fight with another man)?
2. 1. Putting her husband in a submission position?

Moral sense:

1. Death punishment is not prescribed for not wanting to take the wife in a Levirate marriage. This points to Onan’s sin being of wasting his seed.
2. Be just and act honestly.

Chapter 26

Key themes:

1. Ritual of offering the tithe. Remembers the redemption story from Egypt in the vocal prayer.
2. The tithe is given to the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow.

Questions: 2. (v14) seems to imply no offerings to the dead, at least no tithing to the dead.

Chapter 27

Key themes:

1. Curses for breaking the commandments and statues. Cursed be he who makes idols, dishonors his parents, steals, misleads and frauds the helpless, commits incest, bestiality, murders, takes bribe to murder, and finally, who does not do the law.

Chapter 28

Key themes:

1. The Lord attaches temporal blessings to following the commandments: blessed shall be the fruit of the body, fruit of the ground, fruit of the beasts, and increase of cattle. There will be plenty of rain.
2. The Lord also attaches temporal curses to breaking and not following the commandments. It foreshadows the suffering Israel will bear when it forsakes the Lord (I don’t know when, but it will happen).
3. The main curse for not following the commandments and statues is the demise of the people and slavery again to a foreign nation.

Moral sense:

1. Just a coincidence, but “and if you do not turn aside from any of the words which I command you this day, to the right hand or to the left” (v14) fits really well in today’s divisive political climate. It also shows how errors can be made in opposite directions.
2. Disobeying the Lord can lead to cuckolding: “You shall betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her” (Deut 28:30)

Chapter 29

Key themes:

1. One of the final sermons of Moses, briefly recounting the difficulties of the desert wanderings and the covenant the Lord is establishing with the people, and the curses for not following the commandments and statues.

Notes:

1. Deut 29:4 Theme of “eyes to see”, “ears to hear”, that is also seen in the gospels. Is it the light/gift of faith?
2. Verse 5/6: Change of speaker?
3. Deut 29:29 “The secret things belong to the Lord our God;” the mysteries, the unknown path of God’s providence

Chapter 30

Key themes:

1. Continuing Moses’ sermon. Foretells Israel disobedience and the curses scattering the people among the rival nations. But, it also foretells restoration by following God’s ways.

Allegorical sense:

1. God restoring ourselves after severing communion with God by disobeying Him (Deut 30:3) is a foreshadowing of the sacrament of reconciliation.
2. Deut 30:6 Circumcision as foreshadowing baptism, as circumcision of the flesh is only a sign of the internal circumcision of the heart.

Moral sense: 3. Deut 30:11-14 God asks us only what is possible, and gives us the means to know what to do and how to do it.

Chapter 31

Key themes:

1. Moses reveals to the people that he will not cross the Jordan, as the Lord commanded.
2. Moses wrote the law and gave them to the Levites, so that they would teach future generations about the law.
3. The Lord tells Moses that the people will disobey Him, and will commit idolatry with the gods of the nations of the land, and will suffer great hardships and evil because of it.

Chapter 32

Key themes:

1. God gives the song Moses should teach to the Israelites so that it is a witness of what happens to them when they turn their backs to God and commit idolatry by worshipping false gods.
2. Moses death is foretold by God.

Notes:

1. Deut 32:39 “There is no god beside me”

Allegorical sense:

1. Deut 32:4 “The Rock” reminds me of Peter’s confession of faith.

Chapter 33

Key themes:

1. Final blessing from Moses to the people of Israel

Questions:

1. It seems that not all tribes are mentioned, and some families which are not tribes are mentioned.

Chapter 34

Key themes:

1. Moses dies after going up the Mount Nebo, as the Lord had told him, after seeing the promised land. God buried him in a place nobody knows where is it. The chapter and the book ends with an epilogue of how great a prophet Moses was.

Reference

Deut 15:19-23 “All the firstling males that are born of your herd and flock you shall consecrate to the Lord your God; you shall do no work with the firstling of your herd, nor shear the firstling of your flock. You shall eat it, you and your household, before the Lord your God year by year at the place which the Lord will choose. But if it has any blemish, if it is lame or blind, or has any serious blemish whatever, you shall not sacrifice it to the Lord your God.”