Day 074 (Deuteronomy 11-13) - Year 7
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Hey, Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for The Bible Recap. Today we drop back in on Moses' parting words to the Israelites before his death. And he starts with a command we've heard often, but we've never really drilled down on it. God has commanded us to love Him. The word love here indicates emotion. It's action-adjacent, but it's emotion-specific. How do you command a feeling?

Jen Wilkins says,

Moses speaks specifically to the adults among the crowd who were alive even when the exodus happened, and he reminds them again to remember who God is and what he has done for them. In 11.16, he tells them to pay attention to their hearts. There are things around them that will entice them to worship them, and they have to be vigilant to not be led astray by these new shiny things. If they stay faithful to God, no nation will overtake them. God has already proven that he can defeat bigger armies.

There's an interesting image at the end of chapter 11. He tells them to choose between blessing and cursing, represented by two different mountains, Mount Gerizim, the Mount of Blessing, and Mount Ebal, the Mount of Cursing. The Israelites will perform the ceremony he commands for this later in Deuteronomy, so we'll just put a pin in it for now, but know that we're coming back to it.

Moses continues to warn against idolatry, and if it's starting to feel like he's repeating himself, it's because he is. First of all, he's old, and old men tend to repeat themselves a lot. But second, and most of all, that's what we all do when something is important. This is the theme of Deuteronomy. Moses is very concerned about their faithfulness to God. And it's good for us to read these things as well, because we all need daily reminders of who God is.

God called them to remember his word when they sit and when they walk, when they lie down and when they stand, which happens lots of times a day. So surely we can read it once a day. He tells them again to destroy all the paraphernalia of worship to other gods, and he includes a word we've seen a few times but haven't talked about yet. The word is Asherah. Asherah was a fertility goddess, and the Canaanites worshipped fertility. Let's be honest, the Israelites kind of seemed to as well, but in their own way.

The asherim are wooden poles with a figure of asherah on them. God commanded them to destroy these when they entered Canaan. Another phrase you may see referenced sometimes when we're talking about idolatry is the term high places. Most of the pagan worship sites were set up on hills and on mountaintops or under especially distinct trees. So anytime you see God telling them to destroy the high places or the trees, he's talking about destroying the places of Canaanite worship.

Moses also reveals that there will be a major shift in how some of the laws and sacrifices work once they get into the Promised Land. First, in 12.5, he says there will be one specific place in the Promised Land where God will make his dwelling place.

This is nothing new, really. The manifest presence of the Lord dwells above the Ark of the Covenant in the tabernacle, but the tabernacle will no longer be in the midst of the encampment. It will be in the midst of a whole new land, and they're going to be spread out over that land, which is the size of the state of New Jersey. There will be Levites allotted to live among each tribe, but the tabernacle, wherever it goes, is the only place where they can offer burnt offerings.

Moses says that all the Israelites will travel to that one place, even if their allotment of land is far away. And when they go, that's where they will worship God and make their sacrifices to him. I don't know how you felt reading this, but I kind of panicked. If I had been an Israelite and I wasn't in the tribe that got the tabernacle, I would be scrambling to marry into whichever tribe did. Not because I don't like to travel, but because I would want to be as close as possible to wherever that mercy seat was going to be.

I cannot imagine having to move away from the presence of God. But one thing they all get to start doing once they enter Canaan is eating meat whenever they want. And even the people who are unclean can eat meat too. What this likely implies is that up to this point, the only meat anyone could eat was meat that had been offered to God. And since having that offering come in contact with an unclean person would make it unclean, then unclean people had to be vegetarians by default.

So now with this new situation unfolding where they'll all be spread out instead of living in one encampment, they'd have to travel a long way to make sacrifices, which would mean they'd only get to eat meat when they made that trip. With this new addendum, God is basically saying, you can eat meat in your own land anytime you want. It doesn't have to be sacrificed to me first.

Moses warns them not to add or subtract from anything God has commanded. And he gives them a heads up that there could be people who will mingle the truth with lies as a means of enticing them in little by little. For instance, in 13, 1-2, he gives the example of a false prophet or a diviner who provides some correct insights, but who uses that wow factor to lure people away from Yahweh. Just because someone speaks truth, that doesn't make them a prophet of Yahweh.

Even a false prophet can be right, but it doesn't mean we should follow them or seek truth from them. Moses said God may sometimes use this kind of thing to reveal their hearts to them, and then God commands that the false prophet or diviner get the death penalty. Not only because that's what is required of the covenant when someone breaks the first commandment, but also as a means of protecting their covenant community from further spread of the lies.

God demands this kind of allegiance to himself over strangers and even over friends and family members who try to lure them into apostasy. These are intense preventative measures. But these laws are supposed to deter people from rebelling or enticing others into rebellion. And they're a necessary step in God's plan to restore humanity in relationship with himself. This is a protective measure for everyone. Where did you see God's character on display today? What was your God shot?

There was a subtle thing that showed up three times in chapter 12, verses 7, 12, and 18, that really sets Yahweh apart from all the other false gods. In each of those verses, he says something like, You shall bring your burnt offerings and sacrifices, and there you shall rejoice.

When people made their sacrifices to false gods, it was to appease them or entice them to give them what they wanted. It was an attempt at initiating some kind of response, either, hey, please stop punishing me, or hey, please give me what I'm asking for. But with our God, none of that is how we approach him. Our offerings to him are a response to his initiation. And it's not about appeasing him. It's about rejoicing in his provision and relationship with us.

What a great contrast to every other god. All those worshippers of false gods are missing out on the rejoicing, because Yahweh, He's where the joy is. Grocery shopping may be a boring weekly routine for you, but all you savvy Sam's Club shoppers know that the fun stuff is in the middle of the store, and that's where you can find us.

While you're out there browsing splurge items like clothes and snacks, go ahead and grab a copy of TBR Deluxe and TBR for Kids. We are so thankful that Sam's Club carries these books because it helps us get the Bible recap into the hands of more people. So if you're a Sam's Club member and you're looking for a copy of TBR Deluxe or TBR Kids, pick it up there. That will help us stay on the shelves longer so that more people bump into Scripture while they're on the hunt for rotisserie chicken.