Year 1, Week 22, Day 3 Bible Reading Observations

Year 1, Week 22, Day 3

I have a brief observation for today’s reading of Deuteronomy 23-24.

Today’s reading continues the re-presentation of the Mosaic Law. The new generation of Israelites, who are about to enter the Promised Land, are given afresh the statues for living as the LORD’s covenant people. Like a part of the previous day’s reading, Deuteronomy 23 continues unfolding instructions pertaining to the seventh commandment: “And you shall not commit adultery” (Deuteronomy 5:18). But Deuteronomy 23 also pertains to the eight commandment: “And you shall not steal” (Deuteronomy 5:19); while Deuteronomy 24 concerns the ninth commandment: “And you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor” (Deuteronomy 5:20).

One of the things that struck me from today’s reading was that value that the LORD places on marriage: “Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your children will be like olive shoots around your table. Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the LORD.” (Psalm 128:3-4). The statutes concerning the sanctity of marriage, which started in yesterday’s reading continue into today’s reading. Yesterday, one of the matters that had relevance for marriages was the matter of virginity: “If any man takes a wife and goes in to her and then hates her and accuses her of misconduct and brings a bad name upon her, saying, ‘I took this woman, and when I came near her, I did not find in her evidence of virginity…if the thing is true, that evidence of virginity was not found in the young woman, then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones” (Deuteronomy 22:13-14,20-21). Virginity was a serious matter in the Old Covenant. But false accusations about virginity was also a serious matter: “the father of the young woman and her mother shall take and bring out the evidence of her virginity to the elders of the city in the gate…Then the elders of that city shall take the man and whip him, and they shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give them to the father of the young woman, because he has brought a bad name upon a virgin of Israel. And she shall be his wife. He may not divorce her all his days.” (Deuteronomy 22:15,18-19).

Sanctity of marriage was also reflected in other statutes. Adultery was a serious matter: “If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel.” (Deuteronomy 22:22). Rape was a serious matter. If a man seizes a woman in open country and the woman raped was betrothed in marriage to someone else, the rapist was killed: “But if in the open country a man meets a young woman who was betrothed, and the man seizes her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die.” (Deuteronomy 22:25). If a man seizes a woman in open country and the woman raped was not betrothed to someone else, then the man must marry the woman and he has no grounds for divorce: “If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found, then the man who lay with her shall give to the father of the young woman fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife, because he has violated her. He may not divorce her all his days.” (Deuteronomy 22:28-29).

Sanctity of marriages was also reflected in the statue pertaining to divorce: “When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house…then her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after she has been defiled, for that is an abomination before the LORD” (Deuteronomy 24:1,4). Based on a matter of “indecency” divorce was permitted, but this concession was oriented by the concern to provide protection for the woman lest she lose her means to be taken care of as well as to prevent her from being treated as a commodity to be easily bought and sold. Jesus declared that the permission for divorce as a concession rooted in the hardness of the heart, and He clearly defined the “indecency” that permitted divorce: “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery” (Matthew 19:8-9). Jesus countered the entertainment of divorce with God’s design for marriage: “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” (Matthew 19:4-6).

Marriage, which is a sacred matter, is to reflect the Gospel, an even more sacred matter: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.” (Ephesians 5:31-33).

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

Pastor Joe