Deuteronomy Overview

Dave Demchuk

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Transcript

What is the book about?

In order to understand what is going on in Deuteronomy, we have to understand what has happened previously:

-Rescue from Egyptian Slavery

-Wilderness Wanderings

-Constant back and forth between faithfulness and unfaithfulness

-Nation had lost a generation (including Moses) to the Wilderness.

As Moses approaches his final days, he gives a series of addresses to this new generation- the people who were going to be entering the Promise Land.

Deuteronomy takes us all the way up to his eventual death.

Now- this leads us to an interesting First consideration regarding theme: How do you prepare the next generation to carry out the responsibility of the nation?

Preparing the ones to come

It is clear when reading Deuteronomy that there is a sense of urgency in it.

Moses had seen the constant stresses of what happens when the people of God are unfaithful, and so his tone is possibly best summarized in Deuteronomy 30:19-20

Deuteronomy 30:19–20 ESV

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.”

So we know that he gives a series of speeches. We also know that these speeches are targeted towards preparation (Learn from our mistakes). So let’s break down the book.

Structure

1-11: In his first speech, Moses gives the nation the story so far. He does so hilighting the constant challenge of the people’s rebellion vs. God’s grace.

Now, obviously there is much to summarize here, but the pinnacle of this speech comes in a prayer that is referred to as the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4-7

Deuteronomy 6:4–7 ESV

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.

(Have someone read)

There are two key instructions that start this prayer off:

-To hear

-To Love

Now we have to ask ourselves- in our modern language hearing and loving mean one thing, but for the Hebrews, there is a bit more involved:

To hear: Hearing + Respinding

To Love : Emotion + Decision

So the call of Israel is to follow, and when they do- they will show the world the wisdom and the justice of God, which takes us back to their calling to be a “Kingdom of Priests/A Holy Nation”

From there, we get the largest portion of this text: 12-26

Think of this section as the guidelines of worship/law and leadership.

Again, expanding on what it means to be a kingdom of priests.

But here’s the part that I find most fascinating. In my research on this book- one thing that I came across is the struggle that most people have when it comes to reading the laws.

So when you are reading these laws, we often look at them through our own experience… We call this the world in front of the text. Your worldview, the culture that you live in, etc.

Now, when we look at the law, and what the entire pentateuch says about the law- we have to realize that the law was meant to guide and equip Israel in being “set apart” from other nations. So in order to really understand why the law was the way it was, we first have to understand what the nation was being set apart from… The law was meant to be compared to their neighbours and to be an example of justice, mercy and love.

So some of those laws that really make us go “huh?” are best understood when you look at the surrounding cultures and how they lived.

How the book concludes

Ch 27-34 chronicles Moses’ final speech which will link us to what has yet to come. In it, we need to return to 30:15-20 to catch the importance:

Deuteronomy 30:1-6 (ESV)

Deuteronomy 30:1–6 ESV

“And when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God has driven you, and return to the Lord your God, you and your children, and obey his voice in all that I command you today, with all your heart and with all your soul, then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have mercy on you, and he will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you. If your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there he will take you. And the Lord your God will bring you into the land that your fathers possessed, that you may possess it. And he will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers. And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.

Jeremiah 31:33–34 ESV

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

Ezekiel 36:26 ESV

And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

Romans 2:25–29 ESV

For circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision. So, if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? Then he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the law will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision but break the law. For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.

As Moses prepares people for the promis land, we have to realize that the ultimate goal was not specific practices- it was the transformation of the person.