Year 1, Week 21, Day 1 Bible Reading Observations

Year 1, Week 21, Day 1

I have a brief observation for today’s reading of Deuteronomy 8-9.

Today’s reading continues the case that Moses is making for Israel to take seriously the need to love and obey the LORD. The Covenant that the LORD is renewing with the second generation of Israelites is to be kept. The LORD is stressing that while He has been faithful, Israel has not. Deuteronomy 8 emphasizes the need to not forget the LORD. As a part of the importance of remembering to not forget the LORD, Moses appealed to the challenges that they faced in the wilderness, but also warned them of the problem that abundance would present to them in the Promised Land. Deuteronomy 9 stresses to Israel that the blessings that they will face in the Promised Land are not because they were natively righteous. Moses declares that they were not righteous, but unrighteous in how they lived out the terms of the Covenant made at Mt. Sinai. However, the LORD will bless them because of the Covenant He made with Abraham: “that he may confirm the word that the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” (Deuteronomy 9:5b).

One of the things that struck me in today’s reading was the LORD stressing the importance of His people not forgetting who He was: “He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children, that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments” (Psalm 78:5-7). As Moses is preparing the people for life in the Promised Land, the most crucial reality of experiencing the good life that the LORD arranged for them in the Land was to not forget the LORD who arranged for them the life they were to enjoy. Thus, Moses warns: “Take care lest you forget the LORD your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today, lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them…then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Deuteronomy 8:11-12,14). In forgetting the LORD, they would wrongly focus on themselves: “Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’ You shall remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth,” (Deuteronomy 8:17-18a). The test that awaited Israel in the Land was if they would acknowledge the LORD when they had everything they needed. Would they forget that it was the LORD, above everything else, that they needed the most?

The LORD had attempted to teach them, while they were journeying in the wilderness that it was He whom they needed the most. The LORD had tested Israel in the wilderness by seeing how they would respond when they lacked what they needed: “And you shall remember the whole way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.” (Deuteronomy 8:2-3). The testing in the wilderness was designed to provide Israel the vital instruction they needed for learning that it was the LORD whom they needed. The LORD provided for them: “Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these forty years” (Deuteronomy 8:4); but the LORD also trained them: “Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the LORD your God disciplines you” (Deuteronomy 8:5). The training was to teach Israel to not just not forget Him, but to love and obey Him: “So you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him.” (Deuteronomy 8:6).

Israel failed to live up to the righteous requirements of the LORD: “Do not say in your heart, after the LORD your God has thrust them out before you, ‘It is because of my righteousness that the LORD has brought me in to possess this land…Not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart are you going in to possess their land” (Deuteronomy 9:4-5a). Israel possessed no righteousness on their own on the basis of keeping the Laws contained in the Mosaic Covenant. They would only obtain righteousness in the same manner that Abraham had: “And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness.” (Genesis 15:6). Righteousness is obtained through faith, not by works. But the faith that receives righteousness needs an object—someone to trust in. The only true object of faith is “Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1b). Unlike Israel’s failed test in the wilderness, Jesus’ wilderness testing was passed as He quotes from today’s reading to counter the temptation of Satan: “It is written,“‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” (Matthew 4:4).

What struck you in today’s reading? What questions were prompted from today’s reading?

Pastor Joe