OT Study: Deuteronomy Pt. 2

III. General Stipulations ()

Main point

The main point of this section is to establish the heart of God’s commandments and the proper response God’s people should have to them. 

Overview 

Ten Commandments ()

The Shema - Fear God (

Warning to not be Proud: -:20)

Warning to not be Self-Righteous ()

Exposition

1. Ten Commandments ()

A. Prologue: Privilege and Accountability (5:1-5)

1And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, “Hear, O Israel, the statutes and the rules that I speak in your hearing today, and you shall learn them and be careful to do them. 2The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. 3Not with our fathers did the Lord make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us here alive today. 4The Lord spoke with you face to face at the mountain, out of the midst of the fire, 5while I stood between the Lord and you at that time, to declare to you the word of the Lord. For you were afraid because of the fire, and you did not go up into the mountain. 

Moses begins the covenant treaty between God and Israel by reminding them of Sinai. It was there that God made a covenant with the nation that He delivered out of Egypt. Notice how Moses declares that God made the covenant with them, the second generation. Obviously, Moses knows that most of the second generation was not there at Sinai. What he is saying here is that God didn’t just make the covenant with their fathers. He made it with them as well. It is as if God had spoken to you that day. 

B. Ten Commandments (5:6-21)

i. The First Table of the Law - vs 6-15

He said 6“ ‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 7“ ‘You shall have no other gods before me. 8“ ‘You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 9You shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 10 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. 11“ ‘You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. 12“ ‘Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. 13Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 14but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant, or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. 15You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. 

It is important that we remember from that these 10 commandments have a crucial tie back to . At its core these commandments are to teach the creature how to live in light of the Creator. Also remember from that there are two divisions in the 10 commandments. The First Section of the Law contains commands 1-4 and deals with how man is to relate to God - they are vertical in their nature.  

Specific and fundamental ways in which Israel lives out theology of .

For us - we don’t have to keep them but we will if we are in Christ

1. No Other gods before me - vs 7

The first command is to recognize and worship God alone. He alone is the Creator and in creating the World He demonstrated that He is the Supreme Being in the universe. He is exclusive as God for He alone existed before all that He had made. If He did not create the universe and did not exist before its creation, He would not be God. Because of this fact, His creatures must worship Him alone, for He is the only God. This is a matter of internal disposition. They must understand and know that everything else is not God and they must treat Him as He ought to be treated.  

2. Do not make images or likeness - vs 8-10

See here how God demands that man not bring God down to the level of creature. God is YHWH and you must not make Him into something He is not. This command also demands that they do not make an image of another creature in order to worship it. This goes back to the theology of commandment 1: God alone is to be worshipped. As we see in verse 9, to worship an idol instead of YHWH is an act of hatred towards Him. This command is incredibly serious and the violation of this command will cause consequences so severe that they will impact multiple generations. The internal disposition of commandment one leads to an external action in commandment two. They must act in a way that treats God alone as Creator. 

3. Don’t take His name in vain - vs 11

Remember that God’s act of creating the World was a revelation of who He is, God’s Name is the essence of His Person. So then, to take God’s name in vain is to violate who He has revealed Himself to be as Creator God. He is sovereign over creation, He is holy, and He alone is judge. As God’s Holy Nation, Israel was to represent God’s name to the surrounding nations. Not only were they to honor God’s name in the oaths they made but in the way that they lived. 

4. Remember the Sabbath - vs 12-15

The connection between this command and is clear, God rested after creating the world in 6 days. This rest wasn’t just a break. It was a moment of perfect enjoyment between God and all His creation. Furthermore, this is the first command in which there is a distinction between what is given here in Deuteronomy compared to the Exodus account. Here in Deuteronomy the motivation for keeping the Sabbath is that God has delivered them from constant slavery in Egypt. While in Egypt there were no days of rest but now, because of God’s deliverance, they can experience the rest that God  prescribed. In the Exodus account we see that keeping the Sabbath was a celebration of God’s creation. Here we see that in addition, the Sabbath was a celebration of God’s redemption. Ultimately this looks forward to God’s work of redeeming His people and His creation to a New Creation. 

ii. The Second Table of the Law - vs 16-21

16“‘Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God commanded you, that your days may be long, and that it may go well with you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. 17“ ‘You shall not murder. 18“ ‘And you shall not commit adultery. 19“ ‘And you shall not steal. 20“ ‘And you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. 21“ ‘And you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. And you shall not desire your neighbor’s house, his field, or his male servant, or his female servant, his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.’

The Second Table of the Law contains commands 5-10 and deals with how man is to relate to his neighbor, these commands are horizontal in nature. Remember that in Exodus we saw that commands 5-10 are linked to commands 1-4. In this we will see that the vertical relationship with God must impact our horizontal relationships with each other  

5.  Honor Father and Mother - vs 16

This Commandment parallels commandments 1&2. Because God is supreme and He is the ultimate authority, you must honor the human authority that He has sovereignly placed over you. To underline this, there is a motivation given to obey this command, they were to  do so as the Lord your God commanded.

6. Do not Murder - Preserve human life - vs 17

The next four commandments parallel commandment 3. Remember that to take God’s name in vain was to live in such a way that directly contradicted who He revealed Himself to be at Creation. God is the author of all life. Therefore, to destroy life is to directly contradict who He is. 

7. Do not commit Adultery - Preserve human marriage - vs 18

In , we see that God blessed creation and made it Holy. He is Holy and pure and in the beginning He made marriage a holy union between Adam and his wife. Therefore, to commit adultery is to make unholy that which God made holy. It is not only a violation of one’s spouse but a violation of God’s name. 

8. Do not Steal - Preserve human possessions - vs 19

Because God created all things, He then owns all things. In , God gave man access to all of creation except for the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve violated the command of God and stole a fruit from this tree and ate it. In stealing, one performs the same act that caused the fall but in honoring human possessions, Israel demonstrates that it is an anti-fall nation. 

9. Do not bear false witness -  Preserve human integrity - vs 20

In God declared what was good and not good. In doing so He demonstrated that He is the ultimate Judge over creation. Furthermore, in , He exacted just punishment on Adam, Eve and the Serpent for their actions in the Fall. To bear false witness is to pervert justice, which is a direct contradiction to the name of God.

10. Do not Covet - Be content - vs 21

The mention of a male servant, female servent and livestock was a direct allusion to Commandment 4 (vs 14). In commandment 10, these things are repeated in order to indicate the connection to remembering the sabbath. Remember that honoring the sabbath carries with it a submission to God’s agenda for your daily life. By coveting what God has not given you, you are demonstrating that you do not wish to be submissive to God’s rule over your life. This commandment’s link back to Genesis is found in , where the word used to describe Eve’s desire for the forbidden fruit is the same word used here for covet.

C. Proper Response (5:22-33)

22“These words the Lord spoke to all your assembly at the mountain out of the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, with a loud voice; and he added no more. And he wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me. 23And as soon as you heard the voice out of the midst of the darkness, while the mountain was burning with fire, you came near to me, all the heads of your tribes, and your elders. 24And you said, ‘Behold, the Lord our God has shown us his glory and greatness, and we have heard his voice out of the midst of the fire. This day we have seen God speak with man, and man still live. 25Now therefore why should we die? For this great fire will consume us. If we hear the voice of the Lordour God any more, we shall die. 26For who is there of all flesh, that has heard the voice of the living God speaking out of the midst of fire as we have, and has still lived? 27Go near and hear all that the Lord our God will say, and speak to us all that the Lord our God will speak to you, and we will hear and do it.’ 28“And the Lord  heard your words, when you spoke to me. And the Lord said to me, ‘I have heard the words of this people, which they have spoken to you. They are right in all that they have spoken. 29Oh that they had such a heart as this always, to fear me and to keep all my commandments, that it might go well with them and with their descendants forever!

After restating the 10 commandments for the 2nd generation, Moses recounts how their parents responded to God with reverence and fear. They were in awe of God’s presence and of the fact that God spoke to them and they lived. This motivated them to declare that they would hear what the Lord said to Moses and that they would do it. In Numbers we learned that this was an empty promise from an unfaithful generation. In verse 29, we see that in order to fear God and keep His commandments one must have the right heart. God expressed His desire that they would forever have that same heart that they had that day. This desire is important to keep in mind as we progress through the book. 

2. The Shema - Fear God ()

A. Introduction to the Shema (6:1-3)

1“Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the rules—that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it, 2that you may fear the Lord your God, you and your son and your son’s son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. 3Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.

This chapter defines how God desires to be loved by His people. To love Him is to put Him in a prized position on your heart so that you do what He commands and you fear Him as your God. The chapter begins with the similar call to hear and do the commandments of God. 

B. The Shema (6:4-9)

4“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7You 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. 8You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

These 6 verses have come to be known as the Shema (hebrew for “hear”). It is in this section that God establishes His people’s statement of faith. The Shema was to be something every one of God’s people knew and believed. In the Shema  God defines His core nature for His people as well as how they are to love Him. God begins by declaring His exclusivity as God. YHWH is one YHWH - there is only One God. This phrase is also a description of God’s unity. The phrase “is one” has the same wording as the “one flesh” union that described Adam and Eve’s intimacy in marriage. God is exclusively God and God is 3 persons unified as One God. Verse 5 defines how God’s people should live in light of His divine reality: they are to love him with all that they are. They were to love Him with their desires, with their thoughts and their actions.

 These two verses about who God is and how His people should love Him were to be engraved permanently on the hearts of His people. Moreover, they were to have external reminders of the Shema. In verse 7 these verses were to be the primary thing they talked about with their family. These verses were to be the primary thought whenever they got up or sat down. They were to be reminded of these verses by using their bodies, their clothing and their property. In summary, loving God is choosing to prize Him with all your personhood, with every relationship, with every action and all that you own. However, what this assumes is that they had a heart that loved God and His Law. These external actions were empty without the proper internal motivation. The question is - does Israel have the right heart to comprehend God truly and to love God how He commands to be loved? Next we will see three specific examples of how to choose to love God. Each example will begin with the word “when” 

C. Do not forget - the danger of Apathy (6:10-19)

10“And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—with great and good cities that you did not build, 11and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant—and when you eat and are satisfied, 12then take care lest you forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 13It is the Lord your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear. 14You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you— 15for the Lord your God in your midst is a jealous God—lest the anger of the Lord your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth. 16“You shall not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah. 17You shall diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God, and his testimonies and his statutes, which he has commanded you. 18And you shall do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord, that it may go well with you, and that you may go in and take possession of the good land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers 19 by thrusting out all your enemies from before you, as the Lord has promised.

God is going to bring them into the Promised Land and give them all these blessings that they will inherit when they get there. When they get there  and eat of the land and are satisfied, they must be careful to not forget YHWH who brought them from slavery to this promised Land. He redeemed them from slavery to Egypt to be His slaves so then they should fear Him and shall serve Him alone. If they forget, then they will move God out of His position of Lord, and instead of fearing Him and serving Him alone they will go after other gods. To do this would be to put the jealous God to the test, just as the first generation did in . It was at Massah and Meribah that they thirsted in the wilderness and doubted the very existence of God saying, “Is the Lord among us, or not?”” (). They totally forgot who God was and that He was their Master. They put God to the test that day, which is why that place is called Massah (Heb. for “testing”). If instead of forgetting, they feared and obeyed God by diligently keeping His commandments, He would bless them in the Land. 

E. Teach future generations (6:20-25)

20“When your son asks you in time to come, ‘What is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the rules that the Lordour God has commanded you?’ 21then you shall say to your son, ‘We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt. And the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. 22And the Lord showed signs and wonders, great and grievous, against Egypt and against Pharaoh and all his household, before our eyes. 23And he brought us out from there, that he might bring us in and give us the land that he swore to give to our fathers. 24And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lordour God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as we are this day. 25And it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to do all this commandment before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us.’

The second example for how to love God is given here in vs 20-25. Loving God involves understanding what God commands. God gives the example of when their children ask them what is the meaning of God’s commandments. Notice that the answer isn’t that God’s commandments aren’t do’s and don’ts. The answer is framed within God’s loving act of deliverance from Egypt. God loved them and then instructed them to do His commandments and to fear the Lord for their good, for the preservation of their lives and to accomplish His plan of making them righteous before their Lord. 

F. Do not mix (7:1-11)

1“When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than you, 2and when the Lord your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them. 3You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, 4for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods. Then the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly. 5But thus shall you deal with them: you shall break down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and chop down their Asherim and burn their carved images with fire.

6“For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. 7 It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, 8 but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, 10and repays to their face those who hate him, by destroying them. He will not be slack with one who hates him. He will repay him to his face. 11You shall therefore be careful to do the commandment and the statutes and the rules that I command you today.

The third example for how to show love for God is to not mix with that which will lead to idolatry. God commands them not to covenant with or marry any of the Canaanite tribes for in doing so, Israel would be led into the sin of idolatry. Instead, they were to destroy them and all their temples and idols. Israel was to demonstrate their love for God by hating that which would lead to idolatry and spiritual adultery.

G. Blessings for Obedience (7:12-26)

12“And because you listen to these rules and keep and do them, the Lord your God will keep with you the covenant and the steadfast love that he swore to your fathers. 13He will love you, bless you, and multiply you. He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your wine and your oil, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock, in the land that he swore to your fathers to give you. 14You shall be blessed above all peoples. There shall not be male or female barren among you or among your livestock. 15And the Lord will take away from you all sickness, and none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which you knew, will he inflict on you, but he will lay them on all who hate you.

If Israel loved God in this way, God promises them many blessings for their obedience. Remember from Exodus that the Mosaic Covenant was a conditional covenant. They were promised blessing for obedience and here God gave them clear instructions and examples for how they were to obey Him and love Him. If they heeded His instructions He would accomplish all that He promised to them. Notice in that God is promising here to reverse the curse that was placed on mankind.. He will bless the fruit of the womb of the woman and the fruit of the ground, both of which were cursed in . It is important to note that these blessings have yet to be fully realized. They were not experienced in the time of Joshua, in the time of David or in the time of Solomon. 

3. Warning to not be Proud (8:1-20)

The Impossibility of Pride

2 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. 3And 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.

11“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, 12lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, 13and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, 14then 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, 15who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, 16who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end. 17Beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’ 18You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day. 19And if you forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. 20Like the nations that the Lord makes to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God.

God’s warning against pride starts with Him reminding Israel of how He humbled them in the wilderness. He caused them to go hungry to test their obedience to His commands, to test their dependence upon Him. He fed them manna so that they would know that it was not bread that gave them life, but it was their God who gave them the bread who is the one who sustains them. From this we see that humility is based in an understanding that we are dependent upon God to provide and sustain our very lives. In verse 12-17 we see that the proud person forgets the Lord and instead says in their heart it is by my power and my might. Whatever wealth Israel gained in Canaan was given them by God. Before God intervened on their behalf they were lowly slaves in Egypt! God is pleased when we humble ourselves who and remember Him and His wondrous salvation and His power to give us all that we are blessed with in this life. However, to the proud person who forgets the Lord, God promises that such a person shall surely perish. 

3. Warning to not be Self-Righteous ()

A. Warning: Do not Be Self-Righteous (9:1-10:11)

4“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,’ whereas it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is driving them out before you. 5Not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart are you going in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord your God is driving them out from before you, and that he may confirm the word that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. 6“Know, therefore, that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stubborn people. 7Remember and do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day you came out of the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the Lord.

11And at the end of forty days and forty nights the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant. 12Then the Lordsaid to me, ‘Arise, go down quickly from here, for your people whom you have brought from Egypt have acted corruptly. They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them; they have made themselves a metal image.’ 13“Furthermore, the Lordsaid to me, ‘I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stubborn people. 14Let me alone, that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven. And I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.’ 15So I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire. And the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. 16And I looked, and behold, you had sinned against the Lord your God. You had made yourselves a golden calf. You had turned aside quickly from the way that the Lord had commanded you.

22“At Taberah also, and at Massah and at Kibroth-hattaavah you provoked the Lord to wrath. 23And when the Lord sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, ‘Go up and take possession of the land that I have given you,’ then you rebelled against the commandment of the Lordyour God and did not believe him or obey his voice. 24You have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you.

1“At that time the Lord said to me, ‘Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and come up to me on the mountain and make an ark of wood. 2 And I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets that you broke, and you shall put them in the ark.’

The second warning is similar to the first. Just as the proud person claimed the glory for gaining his possessions. The self-righteous person believes that it is because of his righteousness that God has blessed Him. God had promised to give Abraham’s descendants the Promised Land. Moreover, He had promised to use Israel to drive out the nations as judgement for their own wickedness. But God did not use Israel because of their superior righteousness. Moses will next go on to list several examples of Israel’s blatant un-righteousness to illustrate the point. Moses then goes on to illustrate how they have been a rebellious people since the day they left Egypt. They rebelled at Sinai with the golden calf, they tested God by grumbling and complaining at Taberah, Massah, Kibroth Hattaavah, and then they rebelled against God by refusing to enter the promised land after the bad report of the 10 spies at Kadesh Barnea. Moses concludes that they have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you. And yet, after all of those instances, God was still gracious to continue His covenant with His people. This is most clearly demonstrated when God wrote His commandments on the tablets a second time, after Israel had repented of the golden calf. 

C. Exhortation: Be Righteous (10:12-22)

12“And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lordyour God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lordyour God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, which I am commanding you today for your good? 14Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it. 15Yet the Lord set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day. 16 Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn. 17 For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe.

20You shall fear the Lord your God. You shall serve him and hold fast to him, and by his name you shall swear. 21 He is your praise. He is your God, who has done for you these great and terrifying things that your eyes have seen. 22Your fathers went down to Egypt seventy persons, and now the Lordyour God has made you as numerous as the stars of heaven.

So then instead of being proud and self-reliant, and instead of being self-righteous, God requires them to fear Him, to walk in all his ways, to love Him, so serve Him with all that they are and to keep His commandments. He is worthy of their love for as Creator, He owns the very heavens and the earth with all that is in it. Moreover, He has chosen them to be His people, not because of their might or their righteousness but because He set His heart in love towards them. In order to love Him as He commanded they must circumcise their hearts. This phrase carried the idea of cutting away all the sin in the hearts that hindered their relationship with God and prevented them from fulfilling His law and loving Him as He desired. They were to do so for their God is Supreme and High above all other beings. He is the one true God who is great and mighty. He alone is to be feared and He alone is to be served. He was to be their God and they were to hold fast to Him. In summary they were to love and serve God with all of their being and with full obedience for  God chose them because He loved them and He alone is worthy of their love and obedience for He is the one true God of the universe. 

The Test of their Humility and their Dependence upon God (11:1-32)

10For the land that you are entering to take possession of it is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and irrigated it, like a garden of vegetables. 11But the land that you are going over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water by the rain from heaven, 1 a land that the Lord your God cares for. The eyes of the Lordyour God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. 13“And if you will indeed obey my commandments that I command you today, to love the Lordyour God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, 14he will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, that you may gather in your grain and your wine and your oil. 15And he will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and you shall eat and be full. 16Take care lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them; 17then the anger of the Lordwill be kindled against you, and he will shut up the heavens, so that there will be no rain, and the land will yield no fruit, and you will perish quickly off the good land that the Lord is giving you.

God concludes this section by declaring that Canaan will be a test of their love and obedience to Him. Egypt was a land that was cultivated  by the constant flow of the great Nile River and the complex irrigation system. On the other hand, life in Canaan is completely dependent on the rain. If Israel remembered their God, if they feared Him, if they loved Him and served Him and obeyed His commandments, God would send an abundance of rain on the land. However, if they are filled with pride and forget God and instead worship idols there would be no rain in the land and they would perish. 

Questions for Application 

Why are we tempted to make up our own definitions for what loving God means instead of following what He commands here in and then repeats in ? 

How does Jesus bring the principle of radically hating sin and killing that which would lead to sin into the church age? (Hint: see ) 

Why are we as Americans so tempted to be prideful and self-dependent? 

What should motivate our worship, obedience and love based on ?  In what ways has God shown us an even greater love than He did to Israel?