Devotionary

In Deuteronomy 22:13-21, we have yet another strange scenario presented by Moses to the people of Israel. This one involves the institution of marriage, something near and dear to the heart of God because it was His idea. As we look at this particular regulation, it is essential that we keep God’s view of the sanctity of marriage in mind. He knew full well that the Israelites, due to their sinful dispositions, would be prone to treat the marriage covenant flippantly, and to view any commitments they made as essentially non-binding. Lust would tend to overshadow love. Infidelity would become commonplace, with the all-male leadership of Israel developing all kinds of work-arounds and loopholes that would allow them to violate God’s ban on divorce with impunity. But God wasn’t going to make it easy on them. For Him, the holiness of His people was non-negotiable and the sanctity of the marriage covenant would be key to them living set-apart lives.

As Moses continues to inform the people of Israel about God’s laws regulating every aspect of life within their corporate community, the rules seem to get stranger and ever-more specific. In Deuteronomy 22:1-12, Moses deals with everything from the care of livestock and regulations concerning horticulture to, believe it or not, a ban on cross-dressing. All in the context of 12 verses. But we have to remember that God was interested in every area of Israelite life. There was to be no secular-sacred split when it came to the people of God. This lengthy list of rules and regulations was intended to provide direction for all of life, from the home to the workplace. God’s interest in Israel’s holiness was all-encompassing and non-negotiable. He refused to leave anything up to their imaginations or sinful inclinations. God’s people were expected to live according to God’s will.      

In Deuteronomy 21:22-23, Moses follows up his teaching concerning the inheritance of the firstborn son and the death of the rebellious son with a rather short instruction regarding the body of an executed criminal. This is another example of God giving very detailed laws concerning what seems to be a point of minutiae. But as always, God was concerned with every detail of the Israelites’ lives. Nothing escaped His notice and there was no activity surrounding daily life in which He did not take an interest. Including the death of executed criminals and the proper disposal of their bodies. And, as always, we’ll see that there was much more behind God’s law than met the eye. He was concerned with the holiness of His people and provided them with very detailed laws to govern every aspect of daily life. For their good and His glory.    

Today’s passage is a doozy. It deals with two potential scenarios involving the relationship between a father and his son. And these two sample situations could not be any more different or disparate in their outcome. One involves how to handle an inheritance when a man has more than one son because he has more than one wife. There was to be no place for favoritism. God had rules concerning the inheritance of the firstborn and He expected those rules to be followed. The second scenario also involves a son receiving what he justly deserves. Except in this case, rather than an inheritance, he is to receive a death sentence for his stubborn and unrepentant behavior. In one case, God is preserving the rights of the firstborn. In the other, God is preserving the spiritual integrity of the community. But in both cases, He is expecting His people to live according to His laws – for their own good.   

Reading the book of Deuteronomy can be like watching a game of Rubgy. It looks vaguely familiar but then, all of the sudden, you find yourself asking, “What in the world just happened? “This isn’t football!” you shout. “There’s no rules! It all makes no sense!” And in Deuteronomy 21:10-14, you’re going to find yourself questioning what Moses has to say to the people of Israel. He gives them some counsel that appears to contradict the expressed will of God as found in His law. Moses seems to be giving them permission to take wives from among the pagan nations they conquer. Something God has clearly forbidden them to do. So, what’s going on? Is Moses outlining the rules for a different kind of game than the one we’ve been watching? No, as we’ll see, God is consistent but He is also considerate, always taking into account the propensity of His people to give in to temptation.

In Deuteronomy 21:1-9, Moses presents a strange, yet very specific scenario involving what to do in the case of a murder where the guilty party remains unknown. Like the law of God, Moses was leaving few, if any, loopholes that would allow the Israelites to permit sin to remain in the camp. In this particular circumstance, while the name of the guilty party was not known, the guilt of their crime remained. And because God viewed the Israelites communally, He held the entire nation responsible for the crime committed. Atonement must be made. Justice must be served. And, just because the identity of the murderer remained a mystery, it did not relieve the condemnation the crime had brought upon the people of God. One man’s sin had contaminated the entire body. And it was up to them to rectify the situation by doing what was right in God’s eyes by purging the sin from their midst.  

The cross is barren. The tomb is empty. The Lord is risen. The price has been paid and God has been fully satisfied. Sin and death have been conquered. Salvation has been provided, and all our sins have been taken care of once and for all. Forgiveness has been made available. Mercy has been meted out. Underserved grace has been extended. Eternal life has been granted. And the unfailing love of God has been expressed to all men through the unwavering faithfulness and unquestionable sinlessness of Jesus Christ.

Reading the Old Testament can be a bit disconcerting at times. After all, within its pages are found countless stories of men perpetrating all kinds of evil against one another. And oftentimes, their seemingly godless actions are in keeping with God’s commands. They are simply doing what He has told them to do. Which can make reading the Old Testament a challenge for those of us who understand God to be a gracious and loving God. And in Deuteronomy 20:10-20, Moses gives the people of Israel some rather disturbing instructions concerning the occupants of the land of Canaan. In those areas that God had deemed as their inheritance, the people of Judah were to completely wipe out the inhabitants. No one was to be left alive. But as harsh as it all sounds, God had a method to His seeming madness.

Once the people of Israel crossed over the Jordan and entered the land of Canaan, the real work would begin. They would be expected to do battle with the current occupants of the land, defeating them and dispossessing them from their homes, villages, towns, and cities. It was going to require a great deal of effort and, as with any war, there would be casualties. So, God had Moses inform the people of Israel about a series of exemptions from battle designed to protect the family unit. While everyone would be expected to do their part in the conquering of the land, God graciously provided His people with legal exemptions from military service. At the end of the day, any victory they enjoyed would be because God was fighting for them. So, He could afford to give some of His people time off from doing battle.   

God had set apart the people of Israel, deeming them to be His treasured possession. As such, they were expected to live differently than the other nations around them. And to make sure they understood just how distinctive their lives were to be, God had given them His law as a code of conduct. He had left nothing to chance. They were not free to establish their own rules or to live according to their own standards. God had given them an extremely detailed list of rules intended to regulate every area of their lives – from the minuscule to the major and the common to the holy. And in Deuteronomy 19:14-21, Moses provides the people of Israel with some last-minute reminders about God’s law and His expectation that they hear and fear them. In other words, obey them.

Nothing surprises God. There is never a moment when He is caught off guard or finds Himself asking, “How did that happen?” And we’re going to see that truth lived out in Deuteronomy 19:1-13, as God reveals His plan for the cities of sanctuary that were to be established by the Israelites once they entered the land of Canaan. God was preparing for future events, long before they ever happened. He was lovingly protecting His people from unknowingly committing a sin. The Israelites were only human and God knew they would be prone to act according to their emotions. He knew the land of promise was going to be filled with people who could and would hurt one another – even kill one another. So, He had Moses provide them with His plan for the inevitable so that they would not do the unthinkable.

The Bible is one book that emanated from a single source: God. Yes, He used a variety of human authors to pen the words, but each did so under the influence of the Holy Spirit. The words they wrote were, as Paul put it, God-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16). And what makes the Word of God so unique is its unbelievable continuity and cohesiveness, even though its content was written over a lengthy period of time by a diverse array of individuals from different backgrounds and living in different centuries. When reading the Bible in its entirety, one is able to see the divine authorship of God as he weaves a narrative that points to His plan of redemption for mankind. And there are few places where this is made more clear than in Deuteronomy 18:15:22.

Holiness is a non-negotiable as far as God is concerned. It is not a suggestion that He has left up to our discretion or according to our definition. He has a strong opinion about what holiness is and how His people are to pursue it. And in Deuteronomy 18:9-14, Moses is going to remind the people of Israel that God had high expectations for them when it came to their lifestyle. He had set them apart as His own treasured possession, given them His law as a code of conduct, and He fully expected to live according to His standards and not those of the world. They were to live distinctively and differently. There was no room for compromise and complacency. And as God’s people, they were to resist the temptation to blend in with the world around them.

The Levites were one of the 12 tribes of Israel. But they were different from all the rest. God had set them apart and ordained them to care for the tabernacle and to meet the spiritual needs of His people. But how did this one tribe receive this illustrious responsibility? What was it about them that earned them the privilege of acting as God’s priests? To understand Deuteronomy 18:1-8, where Moses addresses the role and responsibilities of the Levites, we have to go back to the book of Genesis. This tribe, the descendants of Levi, were under a curse, pronounced on them by their own father. But it was well-deserved. Yet, God would redeem this unlikely and undeserving tribe, setting them apart for His service and honoring them with the responsibility of caring for His tabernacle and the spiritual needs of His people.

God is omniscient. That’s a theologian’s fancy way of saying that God knows everything. He is all-knowing. There is nothing that escapes His attention. And unlike us, God doesn’t find out about things as they happen. He knows about them in advance. So, when Moses told the people of Israel that there was a day coming when they would demand to have a king just like all the other nations had, he was letting them in on a little secret that no one but God knew. At this point, they weren’t even thinking about kings and kingdoms. They were just hoping to survive their takeover of the land of Canaan. But in Deuteronomy 17:14-25, God provides Moses with a glimpse of the future that he shares with the people of Israel. In time, the Israelites would decide they wanted a king. But God wanted them to know that He was going to be very particular about the kind of man who would rule over His chosen people.   

We live in an age when tolerance is the mantra of the day. Acceptance is the new sign of true enlightenment. There is no such thing as truth, because truth is relative. And we are told that we have no right to push our version of the truth on anyone else. But God would beg to differ. He is the one who established the rules for life and determines the basis for all truth. It is not arbitrary or left up to the imaginations of men. That’s why Moses provided the people of Israel with a much-needed reminder, encouraging them to take God’s laws seriously and to keep them diligently. In Deuteronomy 17:8-13, we find Moses urging the people of Israel to purge the evil from their midst, not tolerate it or cozy up next to it. There was no room for compromise or complacency. God was not going to allow His people to live according to their own set of standards. He had rules and He expected them to be followed.

As Moses attempted to prepare the people of Israel for their entry into the land of promise, he covered every imaginable topic. In Deuteronomy 17:1-7, he addresses the issue of committing an abomination to the Lord. But what exactly does that mean? The Hebrew word actually means “disgusting thing” and was used to refer to anything having to do with the worship of God that was unacceptable. But it also included the worship of false gods. It was an extension or elaboration of the very first commandment of God. The people of Israel were not free to worship false gods. But they were also not free to worship the true God in a false or inappropriate manner. Anyone who did so would be deemed disgusting and unacceptable by God. And the men who would be appointed as judges over the various tribes would be held accountable to deal with such people promptly and severely.

God has always chosen to use men to accomplish His will. Over the centuries, He has placed certain men in positions of leadership over His people, even though those men were far from perfect and, at times, anything but holy. They were commissioned by God to act as His representatives on earth, providing His people with leadership, direction, care, and even discipline, when necessary. And in Deuteronomy 16:18-22, Moses provides the people of Israel with God’s directives concerning the establishment of leadership once they arrive in the land of promise. Yes, God was their sovereign and the one to whom they owed their unwavering allegiance. But God wanted them to appoint judges and officers who would render righteous judgment and prevent perverted justice. They would act as His agents, dispensing His divine will at the local level and in relevant, easy-to-relate-to ways.  

Moses continues his exhortation of the Israelites to keep the various feasts and festivals instituted by God. These annual events were non-optional and every single Israelite was to participate in them, from the oldest to the youngest and the richest to the poorest. In Deuteronomy 16:9-17, Moses outlines the seven feasts that were to be celebrated each and every year. But even he was oblivious to the hidden meaning behind each and every one of these festivals. They were to act as precursors, pointing the way to the coming Messiah. In one way or another, He fulfills and completes each one of the festivals, providing mankind with more than enough cause to celebrate. At least for those who have placed their faith in Him. These feasts and festivals were to be times of joy, celebration, and thanksgiving, providing God’s people with the opportunity to rejoice in all that God had done for them, over the previous year and the many generations since He had made them His own.

Forgetfulness. We all suffer from it at one time or another. But for the people of Israel, forgetting God was going to be a constant problem. And Moses knew that it would be. So, in Deuteronomy 16:1-8, we have recorded his words warning the Israelites to never forget all that God had done for them. And the way they were to keep all His mighty acts seared into their memory was by keeping the various feasts and festivals He had prescribed for them. From the Passover to the Feast of Unleavened Bread, God had provided a host of annual commemorative ceremonies designed to keep the memory of God’s goodness alive and well. While God had great things in store for the people of Israel as they prepared to enter the Promised Land, He also wanted them to never let all His past deeds on their behalf fade from their memories. Remembering was going to be a great way of reminding the Israelites to keep trusting.