Four* Pointer

A Survey of the Old Testament Law--Deuteronomy 12 (Part 1)

noreply@blogger.com (Four Pointer) — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 16:12:31 +0000

Deuteronomy 12:1-4—1 “These are the statutes and judgments which you shall be careful to observe in the land which the LORD God of your fathers is giving you to possess, all the days that you live on the earth. 2 You shall utterly destroy all the places where the nations which you shall dispossess served their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree. 3 And you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, and burn their wooden images with fire; you shall cut down the carved images of their gods and destroy their names from that place. 4 You shall not worship the LORD your God with such things.” Again, Moses is telling the people to remember and to do all the commands that were given to him by God. And here he is telling the people to utterly do away with all vestiges of pagan worship they will encounter when they enter into Canaan, specifically where the worship of these idols took place. “On the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree.” For the people of Israel there was but one place where the true worship of the one true God was to take place, and this was at the Tabernacle of Meeting. Idolaters had their own places where they worshipped their idols. Here is an example of a “high place”, this is the one found in Megiddo:

One of the places for pagan worship was “on the high mountains and on the hills.” We read many places in the books of the Kings and the Chronicles that a king, no matter how he walked in the ways of God, did not remove the high places where pagan worship took place (see, for example, 1st Kings 15:14, 1st Kings 22:43; 2nd Kings 12:3, 2nd Kings 14:4, 2nd Kings 15:4, 2nd Kings 15:35) or the kings who did not walk in the ways of God sacrificed at the high places (see 1st Kings 12:31, 1st Kings 14:23, 1st Kings 16:4, 1st Kings 17:11; 2nd Kings 17:29, 2nd Kings 21:3; 2nd Chronicles 21:11, 2nd Chronicles 28:4, 2nd Chronicles 28:25, 2nd Chronicles 33:3), or even some who followed God still built the high places for pagan worship (see 1st Kings 3:3). The reason for these high places was simple: they thought it would bring them closer to whatever god they worshipped. It was only natural for them to believe this way, as many times we read of worship and communicating with and sacrificing to YHVH taking place upon a mountain. Genesis 22:2—Then [God] said, "Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you." 1st Samuel 9:19—Samuel answered Saul and said, “I am the seer. Go up before me to the high place, for you shall eat with me today; and tomorrow I will let you go and will tell you all that is in your heart.” In Exodus 19, Moses hears from God from atop Mt. Sinai. In 1st Kings 18 Elijah confronts the prophets of Ba'al atop Mt. Carmel.

Another reason they were commanded to remove all the high places was because of what happened at Babel. Genesis 11:3-4—3 Then they said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They had brick for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar. 4 And they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth." This tower was probably what we now call a ziggurat and was built high because the people thought this would make them closer to their “god”. And it may have looked something like this:

But what were these people worshipping? Self. “Let us make a name for ourselves.” These people were not looking to make a way to be closer to God, but to be closer to god—the god of self. Matthew Henry:

It seems designed for an affront to God himself; for they would build a tower whose top might reach to heaven, which bespeaks a defiance of God, or at least a rivalship with him. They would be like the Most High [see Genesis 3:5—ed.], or would come as near him as they could, not in holiness but in height. They forgot their place, and, scorning to creep on the earth, resolved to climb to heaven, not by the door or ladder, but some other way. They hoped hereby to make themselves a name; they would do something to be talked of now, and to give posterity to know that there had been such men as they in the world. Rather than die and leave no memorandum behind them, they would leave this monument of their pride, and ambition, and folly.

“But what of the injunction about destroying the trees? If the people thought that worshipping on a hill brought them closer to their god, why would they worship under trees?” Trees were another place where God met His people. Genesis 12:6—Abram passed through the land to the place of Shechem, as far as the terebinth tree of Moreh. Genesis 13:18—Then Abram moved his tent, and went and dwelt by the terebinth trees of Mamre, which are in Hebron, and built an altar there to the LORD. Genesis 21:33—Then Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, and there called on the name of the LORD, the Everlasting God. In the account of Gideon, it is said in Judges 6:11—Now the Angel of the LORD came and sat under the terebinth tree which was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon threshed wheat in the winepress. And idolaters used that principle in their worship. They thought meeting their idols on hills or under trees was adding to their worship and would make them more acceptable to their idol. Bu this was obviously not the case, since their idols were false and they were simply talking to themselves during these rituals.

But as long as the people had the Tabernacle of Meeting, that was the only place they were to come to worship God. “You shall not worship the LORD your God with such things.” They were not to seek hills and mounds and trees as places to worship. They were to worship at the one place God had directed them to worship, and that was at the Tabernacle. Exodus 29:43-44—43 “And there I will meet with the children of Israel, and the tabernacle shall be sanctified by My glory. So I will consecrate the tabernacle of meeting and the altar. I will also consecrate both Aaron and his sons to minister to Me as priests.” And it was there they were to worship God and God alone. They were not to entertain any thoughts of any other gods which were not gods, but idols of man’s imagination. They were to pay tribute and honor only to the one God who brought them out of Egypt and made them His people. Keeping in mind this covenant was a suzerainty contract (see part 1 of the introduction to Deuteronomy). And as such, the people were beholden to God and God alone to be their superior. In his commentary on Deuteronomy, Meredith Kline says:

"The centralization requirement must also be understood in terms of Deuteronomy's nature as a suzerainty treaty. Such treaties prohibited the vassal's engaging in any independent diplomacy with a foreign power other than the covenant suzerain. In particular, the vassal must not pay tribute to any other lord. Similarly, all the requirements and prohibitions of Deuteronomy 12 were calculated to secure for the Lord all Israel's tributary sacrifice and offering. Israel must not pay any sacrificial tribute to other gods, for such an impossible attempt to serve two masters would be rebellion against the great commandment of God's covenant."

To breach the terms that God laid out for the people was to rebel against God and to put them in danger of being left out of the collective of His people, and risk destruction.

This is a message for us still today. How many times do we see a church bring elements of the world into a worship service today? Last year, there was a church that kicked a Bible across the stage in a celebration of the Super Bowl. Yes, you read that right. A “Christian” church’s pastor kicked a Bible.

[“Pastor” Alli] Patterson is then seen taking a few steps back as another pastor squares up the Bible — which had a football-style book cover on it — before kicking the Bible off the stage and into the crowd. Patterson then high-fives her colleague in celebration. “Patterson back with the kick ... Oh my goodness!” the announcer is heard saying over the PA. “For the first time in 18 years, there’s a touchback for the kickoff.” In another sequence, the Bible is kicked yet again — this time a shorter distance — as the rest of the “players” on stage jump on top of the book as they tackle one another. “We’re gonna get some emails; here we go,” the announcer remarks. (ibid.)

How low does one’s view of God’s word have to be to kick it like a football? Think you’d ever see a Muslim kick a copy of the Qur’an? Or an LDS kick a copy of the Book of Mormon? Do you think a Jew would kick a copy of the Mishnah? Or a Buddhist kick a copy of the Bhagavad Gita? No other religion would kick a copy of their texts across the room like this “Christian pastor”. That is nothing short of mocking God. He was using the world’s methods to somehow make church “fun”:

In an introduction to the video, Andy Reider, community pastor for Crossroads Anywhere, the church’s mobile app, offers a greeting — and a disclaimer — warning viewers the church service has “little to nothing to do with actual football or the Super Bowl.”

“Today, you are tuning in for a church service that is unlike any other,” said Reider. “Disclaimer: it has little to nothing to do with actual football or the Super Bowl, but no matter what you believe, you're going to laugh. No matter what you believe, you might be a little confused at some point, but I believe you will and can experience God and church in a fresh new way.” Reider also acknowledged the question many viewers of the service likely had. “You might be wondering why on Earth would we do something like this,” he said. One of the reasons, said Reider, was because “we believe that church can and should be fun. You're going to experience hilarious commercials filled with middle school humor, really great music and some good old-fashioned smack talk,” he added. “But secondly, we believe that there are spiritual truths and realities that can be drawn out from sports and that's what each of our teachers are going to be doing today.” (ibid.)

Should a church service be a dark and dreary and dour thing? Should we dread going because we will sit there bored while some guy stands on a platform and speaks us into boredom? No. But here’s the thing: when we go to church, we are going to hear the word of God preached, to pay reverence to the very God who created the universe, created us, and it should be, truly, a service of worship of God, not simply something to do on Sunday morning. And it certainly should not be a place (as there is no place) where we should kick a Bible. Listen to what English clergyman Henry Alford had to say about this sacred text:

The Christian Church throughout the world is now the guardian of the Holy Scriptures. All that the Jews had, we have, with the inestimably precious addition of the New Testament of our Lord Jesus Christ. These Scriptures all Christians regard as the revelation of God to man. Other works rise and are built up from below: this alone we receive as let down upon us from above. All art, all science, all theology, which is but a system built up by inferences from Scripture, these are of man, and constructed on earth. They may rise higher, and become truer, as one race is advanced in skill or in knowledge; but they began below, and will ever carry with them the infirmity of all that is born on earth. Whereas the sayings and the lessons of this book are not of man, nor did they take their beginnings here. They have come to us indeed through human words, and by means of human action; but they did not arise originally in the breasts of men; they came from Him who is Himself the first spring of morals and the highest fountain of truth…because this Book is unlike all other books, because its voice comes to us from another place, and is heard in deeper and more secret chambers of our being than all other voices, because its sayings have for our humanity a searching and conserving and healing power which none other possess, therefore it is that to keep these Holy Scriptures in all their integrity as delivered down to her is the solemn trust of the Church throughout the world: a trust simple, direct, indefeasible [i.e., not able to be lost].

We are entrusted with this very book that God gave us, spoken to men to write down and pass along to other men and women. It is by this book that we know God, that we know His Christ, that we know how to please Him and how we know what things displease Him. It is how we know the way of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ and His glory. It is by reading it and meditating on it that we grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is not a football. A church service is not a game. Neither should be treated as such!

Part 2 next week

Jesus Christ is Lord.

Amen.

A Survey of the Old Testament Law--Deuteronomy 11 (Part 2)

noreply@blogger.com (Four Pointer) — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 13:42:06 +0000

Deuteronomy 11:16-32—16 “Take heed to yourselves, lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them, 17 lest the LORD's anger be aroused against you, and He shut up the heavens so that there be no rain, and the land yield no produce, and you perish quickly from the good land which the LORD is giving you. 18 "Therefore you shall lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 19 You shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. 20 And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, 21 that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land of which the LORD swore to your fathers to give them, like the days of the heavens above the earth. 22 For if you carefully keep all these commandments which I command you to do—to love the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways, and to hold fast to Him—23 then the LORD will drive out all these nations from before you, and you will dispossess greater and mightier nations than yourselves. 24 Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours: from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the River Euphrates, even to the Western Sea, shall be your territory. 25 No man shall be able to stand against you; the LORD your God will put the dread of you and the fear of you upon all the land where you tread, just as He has said to you. 26 Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse: 27 the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you today; 28 and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside from the way which I command you today, to go after other gods which you have not known. 29 Now it shall be, when the LORD your God has brought you into the land which you go to possess, that you shall put the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal. 30 Are they not on the other side of the Jordan, toward the setting sun, in the land of the Canaanites who dwell in the plain opposite Gilgal, beside the terebinth trees of Moreh? 31 For you will cross over the Jordan and go in to possess the land which the LORD your God is giving you, and you will possess it and dwell in it. 32 And you shall be careful to observe all the statutes and judgments which I set before you today.” 24 Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours: from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the River Euphrates, even to the Western Sea, shall be your territory.

What is the chant we here from the Pro-Palestinian crowd today? “From the River to the Sea/Palestine shall be free!” What do they mean by this? That there will be a partition of land for Palestinians separate from the nation of Israel? No. The goal is the elimination of Israel. All this started with the attacks on October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists attacked innocent Israelis and killed hundreds and took another >100 hostage. For these attacks, Israel retaliated against Gaza, which is home to the Hamas terrorist organization. Yet the cry of the Hamas sympathizers is against Israel for doing what any nation would do when their people were attacked. (Note to Hamas: if you don’t want to be killed in a war with Israel, don’t start a war with Israel!) So what is the goal of the Hamas sympathizers? A portion of land where they can live side-by-side with Israel? No. “From the River to the Sea/Palestine shall be free!” This is what they mean:

[Hamas] in early 2006 won legislative elections in the Palestinian territories, ending the secular Fatah party’s hold on the Palestinian Authority and challenging Fatah’s leadership of the Palestinian nationalist movement. HAMAS continues to refuse to recognize or renounce violent resistance against Israel and in early 2008 conducted a suicide bombing, killing one civilian, as well as numerous rocket and mortar attacks that have injured civilians. The US Government has designated HAMAS a Foreign Terrorist Organization. (https://www.dni.gov/nctc/groups/hamas.html)

Does this look familiar? It should. This is the nation of Israel, which Hamas has vowed to “push into the sea.” Hamas doesn’t want a two-state solution. They don’t want Israel to exist any longer, and will fight until Israel does not exist anymore. “Well, they don’t believe that anymore!” Yes, they do. Look at the picture above, and consider their violent and inhumane attacks on Israeli civilians and one cannot come to any other conclusion but that Hamas wants to end Israel once and for all. We must not let that happen. Israel is the only nation in the Middle East that is keeping the Muslim terrorist organizations in check.

Now, let’s focus on another passage in this section. Deuteronomy 11:26-29—26 “Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse: 27 the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you today; 28 and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside from the way which I command you today, to go after other gods which you have not known. 29 Now it shall be, when the LORD your God has brought you into the land which you go to possess, that you shall put the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal.” We will get to the blessings and curses and the geography of Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal when we get to chapters 27-28. For now, let’s focus on the words spoken here by Moses. It’s real simple: live by the commandments of God, or perish when you turn away from them. FB Meyer wrote, “All along our lives are Ebals and Gerizims, with their ‘Come, ye blessed’ and ‘Depart, ye cursed.’ Always we are arriving at the crossways, on the one of which lies the smile, and on the other the frown, of God. Let us be attracted by the one and dissuaded from the other, till we climb the spiral staircase into the land where there is no cooling love or faltering faith.” We are, in this life, always beset on all sides by blessings and cursings. Helping the poor is a blessing; ignoring the poor is a curse. Fleeing sexual immorality is a blessing, giving in to it is a curse. Loving your neighbor is a blessing; hating your neighbor is a curse. As we walk through life, we will find myriad opportunities to be a blessing and myriad opportunities to be a curse. Thus Jesus said to those who were a blessing by helping the neighbor, “‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world’” (Matthew 25:34) and to those who were a curse by ignoring the plight of their neighbor, “‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels’” (Matthew 25:41).

But now here’s a curious thing: today, the Old Testament Law is a curse. It has been done away with in Christ, and now those who seek to keep it are still under the curse—the Law now has no blessing for those who seek to be righteous by keeping it, but are only cursed. Galatians 3:10—For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse. Nowhere in the New Testament is anyone who seeks to keep the Law called “blessed”. Why? Because the Law was not meant to make anyone righteous; its only intent was to show how sinful we are and prescribe remedies for when we do sin. Romans 3:20—Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. What did Paul say later in the same epistle? Romans 7:7—I would not have known sin except through the law. Does a child know that if he touches a hot stove he will suffer burns if he has never been told? Probably not. All he knows is that he feels heat from the hot stove. If he gets near it, he may sense heat, but does not think any more about it. So his parents warn him, saying, “Don’t touch this stove when it is hot, or you will get burned.” So what happens in the child’s mind? His curiosity has been aroused, and he now wants to touch the stove. Has his parents’ warnings dissuaded him from touching the stove? No, it has made him now want to touch the stove. So he does, and what happens? His hand is burned, and he feels the pain that has befallen him because of his decision to go against the warnings of his parents and do what they warned him not to do.

This is the Law. God warned us not to partake of certain things because they are sinful and can have negative repercussions. There are certain things that we do not know are sinful, but our Father warns us about them. Does this warning prevent us from doing these things? No, in fact it gives us a curiosity about these things, and our flesh is stimulated to do these things. Romans 7:9—I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. Sin revived. Henry Alford says “sin sprang to life”. That sin that was lurking under the surface came to life when he heard the words “you shall not covet.” Paul may have thought within himself, “What does it mean to covet? Does it mean to want to buy something that is for sale? Or does it mean to harbor a desire for something I should not have?” So he pondered the meaning, and learned that these words meant that he should not desire something that belongs to another and that is not available to him to have. And the desires of his flesh welled up inside of him, and he felt an urge to have those things which he could not have—his neighbor’s wife, his neighbor’s servants or ox or donkey. The desire to have these things became strong within him, and the lusts of his flesh led him to desire these things more and more. But…

Romans 7:10-12—10 And the commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death. 11 For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed me. 12 Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good. This is the curse of the Law. Is the Law good? Yes. Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good. “But the commandment brought sin to life in his flesh.” Yes, it did. But is that the fault of the Law and the commandment? Certainly not! The commandment [against coveting is] holy and just and good. The Law of God is good, but we are not. We are flesh, and our flesh is sinful. Does this negate the righteousness of the Law? If you drive a good nail into a rotting board, and the board fails and falls, is it the fault of the nail? Or the board? The nail was good, and was driven in properly. It was the board that was rotten, and it failed for that reason. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed me. It is sin in us that kills us, using the Law to do so, being incited by prohibitions and regulations and commandments to do things that are contrary to the Law of God. The sin that dwells within us sees and hears of these things which are sinful and wells up in us, and tells us that we want to do these things. Romans 7:13—Has then what is good become death to me? Certainly not! But sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful. Notice Paul says that sin brought forth death by the righteous commandment given by God. The commandment told him to not do a particular thing. His flesh, rebellious like the flesh of all of us, decided it knew better than God, and led him to do that thing. Was it the fault of the Law of God? Or was it the fault of his flesh? Well, was it the fault of the good nail that the rotten board failed, or was it the fault if the rotten board? When God commanded Adam to not eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, was it the command that was evil, or was it Adam’s act of eating that fruit that plunged all humanity into sin? That, of course, is a rhetorical question. It is sin—the flesh—that produces death in us by using what is good against us. Was God’s command to Adam good? Yes. “Don’t eat of the tree and you won’t die.” But Adam went against the good command of God—and when you go against good, that is evil and sin. So that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful. Martyn Lloyd-Jones explains this part of the verse thus:

Here we meet with a great problem, of course. Why did the holy God allow sin to do this with His Law, which is "holy, and just, and good?" The Apostle's answer is that this was allowed in order that sin might appear sin, which means, that sin might be "shown up for what it really is." The difficulty with sin is to recognize it for what it is. Sin is deceitful, sin is very clever, sin is like a fisherman who hides himself and conceals the bait. Sin has to be shown up in order that it might appear sin, that it might be "shown" to be sin.

“Hath God indeed said?” Yes, He hath said. And what He hath said is good and just and holy. It is sin that makes it appear as though God is keeping the best from us. This is the cry of the atheist, that belief in God is just a tool to keep us stupid people in line. To keep us dependent upon the preacher to tell us what is right and wrong and that truth is up to each individual person, because there is no absolute truth. The atheist author, whether Voltaire or Bertrand Russell or Neitzsche or Christopher Hitchens or Neil deGrasse Tyson, think they have the only truth because they don’t believe in some “Sky Daddy”®. They only believe in science, in things we can touch and see and feel. We can't see God, so He must not exist. “We want something we can know is real and know by the senses! Show me; prove to me your god is real! You can't do it, so I won’t believe he exists! And I hate him!” Psalm 14:1 (Young’s Literal Translation)—A fool hath said in his heart, 'God is not'. The one who does not believe in God is the fool, for he thinks that all creation just appeared and, as the fool Carl Sagan once said, “The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be.” Those, my friend, are the words of a fool.

Who do these people sound like? They sound just like the worshippers of Ba'al and Ashtoreth. They sound like those who carve images of wood and who fashion idols of gold and silver, who form statues of Mary and the saints and bow down to them and do reverence to them as though these icons were real. But we who know the true God know better. We do not worship a god made by human hands. We worship a God who is grander than all of His creation. We worship a God who made all things, both visible and invisible. We know that His commands are good and holy and just, and that in these feeble houses of flesh we will never even begin to live up to the righteousness His Law demands. Romans 8:3—For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin. The Law was weak because our flesh is weak. The Law is a good nail, we are rotting wood. That Law became a curse to us, since none could fulfill it. But hang on, that is not the end of the story. That Law was fulfilled by our great Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who fulfilled every jot and tittle of that Law and became righteousness for us, and by our faith in Him we become the righteousness of God (2nd Corinthians 5:21). And now instead of being a curse, we can now be called “Blessed”. Blessed are the meek, the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the merciful, the peacemakers, the pure in heart, those who are reviled and persecuted, and they who hunger and thirst for righteousness—the righteousness found only in Jesus Christ our Lord!

Jesus, Thou art my Righteousness,/For all my sins were Thine:

Thy death hath bought of God my peace,/Thy life hath made Him mine.

Forever here my rest shall be,/Close to Thy bleeding side;

This all my hope, and all my plea:/For me the Saviour died.

My dying Saviour and my God,/Fountain for guilt and sin.

Sprinkle me ever with Thy Blood,/And cleanse and keep me clean.

Jesus, my Strength, my Life, my Rest,/On Thee will I depend,

Till summoned to the marriage-feast,/Where faith in sight shall end.

(“Jesus, Thou Art My Righteousness” by Charles Wesley)

Jesus Christ is Lord.

Amen.

A Survey of the Old Testament Law--Deuteronomy 11 (Part 1)

noreply@blogger.com (Four Pointer) — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 14:10:48 +0000

Again, the material contained in Deuteronomy 11:1-7 we have already talked about, so we will move on to verse 8.

Deuteronomy 11:8-11—8 “Therefore you shall keep every commandment which I command you today, that you may be strong, and go in and possess the land which you cross over to possess, 9 and that you may prolong your days in the land which the LORD swore to give your fathers, to them and their descendants, 'a land flowing with milk and honey.' 10 For the land which you go to possess is not like the land of Egypt from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and watered it by foot, as a vegetable garden; 11 but the land which you cross over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water from the rain of heaven.

In Egypt, water was abundant. Every spring the Nile River would overflow its banks, watering the ground surrounding it. The Egyptians built irrigation canals to bring that water further out from the river banks. Thus we see a difference between the people’s time in Egypt and their time in Canaan. Whereas during their time in Egypt they depended upon human labor for their water, now going into the land of Canaan they would be fully dependent on God providing rain to make their crops grow and to water their flocks and herds. We could almost—almost—say this is an allegory for the difference between the two covenants, that in the first they were depending on the works of their hands for their salvation and by the second one was all grace. It would be tempting to say that, but I won’t go that far. Suffice it to say it is an apt picture of the two covenants.

At any rate, God was leading the people into a land that was unusually arid, with not much rain. So they would have to learn to depend on God to send the rain at its due time in order to water the land and the animals. (We are no different today. We are still dependent on God for our food and water, even though we don’t acknowledge enough our thanks to Him for these things. Does the sun shine, keeping us warm? Let us thank God. Do we have food, even though it may not be a lot and some may have to get it from a local food pantry? Let us thank God. Does the rain fall, watering the vegetable plants that we use for food? Let us thank God. Are we still on this side of the dirt? Let us thank God. In all things, let us thank God. And if we are not thankful enough, let us ask God to grant us the thankfulness to Him that He deserves.) While it did not rain very much in Egypt, they had the water from the Nile River to rely on. In the land of Canaan, it would (and still does) rain about 12-40 inches per year. And in some of the drier areas, the yearly rainfall total was TWO INCHES! So the land would “drink” (verse 11) the rain—as soon as the rain fell on the hot, dry land, it would disappear, soaked in by the thirsty land. Ever spill some water on the sidewalk in the middle of summer? How quickly does it disappear? It’s gone almost instantaneously. The same is true of a desert land. As soon as the rain ends, there is no visible evidence that it ever fell. So the people would have to watch for the rain to come and be ready for when it did come, that they could gather some up to have something for them and for their animals to drink.

Another option for drinking water was the digging of wells. In the movie “Lawrence of Arabia” we first meet Omar Sharif’s character Sharif Ali bin el Kharish when he kills TE Lawrence’s guide for drinking from Ali’s well without permission or payment. This was not uncommon in desert lands.

Many quarrels and feuds arose from people of one tribe or nation drinking water from a well of another tribe or nation. In Genesis 26:18-21, Isaac’s servants argued with the herdsmen of Gerar over some wells which Abraham had dug but the Philistines had stopped up. Isaac and his servants did the work of reopening the wells, and the herdsmen of Gerar said, “Hey, wait a minute! Those are OUR wells!” Even though they had left them stopped up, and it was Isaac and his servants who reopened them. Genesis 26:18-21—18 And Isaac dug again the wells of water which they had dug in the days of Abraham his father, for the Philistines had stopped them up after the death of Abraham. He called them by the names which his father had called them. 19 Also Isaac's servants dug in the valley, and found a well of running water there. 20 But the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac's herdsmen, saying, "The water is ours." So he called the name of the well Esek (עֵשֶׂק [eseq], “contention”), because they quarreled with him. 21 Then they dug another well, and they quarreled over that one also. So he called its name Sitnah (שִׂטְנָה [sitnah], “strife”). After this quarrel, Isaac took his servants elsewhere, and they dug again another well, in an area over which there was no strife. Genesis 26:22—And he moved from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it. So he called its name רְחֹבוֹת (Rehoboth, “wide places or streets”) because he said, "For now the LORD has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land." Later in the chapter, Abimelech finds Isaac and makes an oath of truce with him. Isaac’s servants tell him of the well they dug, and Isaac names it שִׁבְעָה (shebah, “an oath”), and names the nearby city בְּאֵר שֶׁבַע (Beer Sheba, “city of the sevenfold oath”). Genesis 26:32-33—32 It came to pass the same day that Isaac's servants came and told him about the well which they had dug, and said to him, "We have found water." 33 So he called it Shebah. Therefore the name of the city is Beersheba to this day. This would eventually become the southern border of the nation of Israel, and you see many times that the entirety of the whole nation of Israel is described in ten verses as “from Dan to Beersheba”.

In Genesis 21 we see another instance of such a disagreement. Genesis 21:25—Then Abraham rebuked Abimelech because of a well of water which Abimelech's servants had seized. If you remember when we talked about Numbers 20, when the people of Israel were coming upon the land of Edom, and they sought permission to pass through the land, they promised “We will not pass through fields or vineyards, nor will we drink water from wells” (Numbers 20:17). “So how did people know where to dig a well?” Good question. People would see a place where birds and other animals would congregate, or where trees were growing, go to that spot (for it would usually be a place where there was water which these animals would drink and which would provide water for plants), and start digging until they got deep enough where they would find water. They would then shore up the walls of where they were digging, and build a support for a bucket they would lower into the hole and use to draw out the water. So you see now how precious commodity water was (and still is) in those places.

Deuteronomy 11:12-15—12 “A land for which the LORD your God cares; the eyes of the LORD your God are always on it, from the beginning of the year to the very end of the year. 13 And it shall be that if you earnestly obey My commandments which I command you today, to love the LORD your God and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul, 14 then I will give you the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your grain, your new wine, and your oil. 15 And I will send grass in your fields for your livestock, that you may eat and be filled.'”. Ever hear of someone talking about a desert or a wilderness and call it “God forsaken”? This appellation is far from the truth. God cares about every inch of creation, including the desert and the wilderness. “A land for which the LORD your God cares; the eyes of the LORD your God are always on it, from the beginning of the year to the very end of the year”. Do you see much plant life in the desert? Not really, But you will occasionally see a tree growing up out of the rock. “How does it grow through the rock?” God gives it the strength to do so. Jonah 4:5-6—5 So Jonah went out of the city and sat on the east side of the city. There he made himself a shelter and sat under it in the shade, till he might see what would become of the city. 6 And the LORD God prepared a plant and made it come up over Jonah.

“Well, how does it grow with so little rain?” God has made it to require only as much water as He causes to fall from the sky. Matthew 6:28-30—28 “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; 29 and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?” Worried about everyday life? Don’t be. God makes all the flowers and trees and bushes and vines to grow by His perfect care. Will He not much more take care of you? Matthew 5:44-45—44 “But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” God takes care of all life. He causes good things to happen to bad people, and He causes bad things to happen to less-bad people (yeah, there are no “good” people. There is none good but God, see Matthew 19:17; Mark 10:18; Luke 18:9). He also causes bad things to happen to bad people and good things to happen to less-bad people. God is the Cause and Creator of everything, visible and invisible, living and non-living.

Even the rain. The rain that falls from the sky is at the beck and call of our Omnipotent Creator. He can shut off the water works if He decides to (Leviticus 26:19; 1st Kings 8:35; 2nd Chronicles 6:26). And Moses reminds the people of this in Deuteronomy 11:16-17—16 Take heed to yourselves, lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them, 17 lest the LORD's anger be aroused against you, and He shut up the heavens so that there be no rain, and the land yield no produce, and you perish quickly from the good land which the LORD is giving you. Drought in the land was considered a curse from God (much like barrenness in women), and was usually preceded by widespread sin among the people. “But there wasn’t drought in the land of the Assyrians or the Hittites. And they were sinful nations.” But they were not God’s chosen people. This is an example of the rain falling on the unjust—to show them that He is God and is the Source of every blessing. If God caused it to rain on them—well. He would give them temporal blessings, but in the end they would be counted as unrighteous. And they would suffer eternal punishment for their sins. But if the people that God chose out of all the people—the people upon whom God would place His name—if they sinned a grievous sin against Him (in this case, the sin of idolatry), He would withhold the rain, and the drought in their land would certainly be a curse from God.

“And you perish quickly from the good land which the LORD is giving you.” Death comes quickly in the desert when there is no water. On average, a human being can survive up to 7 days without drinking water. This is owing to the fact that our bodies are 70% water, and if needed can wring out whatever water it needs to at any time. In the elderly this decreases to 3-5 days. In the desert, with no water to drink, the time it takes for even a healthy person to die without adequate hydration is about 1-2 days. What happens when someone dies of dehydration? Well, first the cells in the body will start to shrivel (usually in the limbs, since they are expendable. Skin will also shrivel). Water will be taken out of the blood to keep the organs functioning, which will make it harder for the heart to push the blood through the vessels. Because of the depleted volume of blood, the blood pressure will drop and cause the heart rate to increase to get the blood through the body. The kidneys will also be adversely affected, since the body will shunt most water away from them so as not to waste it, and the kidneys will begin to fail and will eventually shut down. The desert heat, coupled with the decreased blood volume, will make it difficult to breathe. The eyes will also experience a loss of fluids (since you don’t need your eyes to live), and will shrivel up. As blood is shunted to the brain and the core of the body (the heart and the lungs), the hands and feet will feel colder. Eventually the decreased fluid level in the body will cause brain cells to shrivel up and die, causing delirium. All these organ failures reach critical levels, which are incompatible with human life, bringing about death. In a day or two. Or as it says, “And you perish quickly.” (see https://www.popsci.com/dehydration-death-thirst-water/) This will not be the case in Hell. For the one who does not know Christ, their spirit will be surrounded by eternal flames, will not shrivel up and die, but will be in conscious torment for all eternity, with no hope of relief. What would take 1-2 days to accomplish in the body will last forever in Hell.

If the drought came because of the nation’s sin, there was a remedy—the manifold mercy of God. He is a merciful God, pardoning sins for no other reason than the sinner asking for forgiveness. Many times we read in the book of Judges how the nation would sin a grievous sin, God would allow them to be defeated by an evil nation, the people would cry out to God, and He would deliver them. God told Solomon the very same thing in 2nd Chronicles 7:13-14—13 “When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people, 14 if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” What did the people have to do? Did they have to go into years of self-flagellation and darkness? Did they have to kill and burn thousands of bulls and goats? No. All they had to do was “Humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways”. This was the encouragement the prophet Joel gave the people in Joel 2:23—Be glad then, you children of Zion, and rejoice in the LORD your God; for He has given you the former rain faithfully, and He will cause the rain to come down for you—the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month. And why would He do so? Because after He sent the judgment of the locusts upon the people and their crops, they would call upon Him because they would see their sin and repent of it. Joel 2:13—So rend your heart, and not your garments; return to the LORD your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness; and He relents from doing harm.

Good is the heavenly King,/Who makes the earth his care,

Visits the pastures every spring,/And bids the grass appear.

Like rivers raised on high,/The clouds, at thy command,

Pour out their blessings from the sky,/To cheer the thirsty land.

The hills, on every side,/Rejoice at falling showers;

The meadows, dressed in all their pride,/Perfume the air with flowers.

The ridges drink their fill,/And ranks of corn appear;

Thy ways abound with blessings still,/Thy goodness crowns the year.

(“The Blessings of Spring” by Isaac Watts)

Part 2 next week

Jesus Christ is Lord.

Amen.

A Survey of the Old Testament Law--Deuteronomy 10

noreply@blogger.com (Four Pointer) — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 16:10:54 +0000

We have discussed everything contained in Deuteronomy 8:1 through Deuteronomy 10:13 at various times, so we will not tread that ground again, but will pick up Moses’ narrative at Deuteronomy 10:14.

Deuteronomy 10:14-22—14 “Indeed heaven and the highest heavens belong to the LORD your God, also the earth with all that is in it. 15 The LORD delighted only in your fathers, to love them; and He chose their descendants after them, you above all peoples, as it is this day. 16 Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be stiff-necked no longer. 17 For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality nor takes a bribe. 18 He administers justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing. 19 Therefore love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. 20 You shall fear the LORD your God; you shall serve Him, and to Him you shall hold fast, and take oaths in His name. 21 He is your praise, and He is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome things which your eyes have seen. 22 Your fathers went down to Egypt with seventy persons, and now the LORD your God has made you as the stars of heaven in multitude.”

Let’s start with verse 14 because it is absolutely mind blowing! “Indeed heaven and the highest heavens belong to the LORD your God, also the earth with all that is in it.” Everything, everywhere, in all of creation belongs to God. Our sun has a mass 330,000 times that of Earth and its diameter is 109 times that of Earth’s. The star PZ Cassiopeiae has a radius 1200 times that of our sun. In fact, there are believed to be about 200 trillion billion stars in the known universe. That is the number 200 with TWENTY ONE ZEROES after it! Or 200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. And guess who owns them all? God. There are other objects in space—asteroids, comets, meteors, and these are innumerable—and guess who owns each and every single one of them? God. And how big is the universe? It is 93 billion light years in EACH DIRECTION from one end to the other (if there is an end to it). And how many miles is that? 546,700 with EIGHTEEN ZEROES behind it. That is 546,700,000,000,000,000,000,000 . And God owns every single square inch of it! And as big and as huge and as vast as all that is, what does Solomon say about it? 1st Kings 8:27—“Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You.” 546 sextillion by 546 sextillion by 546 sextillion miles—1.63398183X10^71 cubic miles—cannot contain God. And it all belongs to Him! (And I won't even begin on how He owns time!) Even those things we cannot see belong to God. Laws and principles of math, logic, physics, chemistry, gravity. Thoughts, emotions, feelings, desires. Kingdoms, lordships, powers. All these things belong to God. Because they were created by God. Colossians 1:16—For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. Who is “Him”? That would be Christ Jesus. John 1:4—All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. That includes you.

And what is the best response we can come up with? “Wow!” And I don’t say this to belittle God, but to praise Him. Because that is the best we can do, when our feeble little minds try to grasp even a whisper of the greatness of God. The greatest and grandest words we can use to extol the hugeness and awesomeness and majesty of God don’t even come close. And guess what? He chose the nation of Israel to be His. He chose to place His name in Jerusalem. He chose to dwell in the temple there. Before the temple, he dwelt in the Tabernacle between the cherubim atop the Ark of the Covenant in a part of that Tabernacle measuring 30’ X 30’. “Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You.” 1.63398183X10^71 cubic miles of space cannot contain Him, yet He chose to dwell within a 30’ X 30’ room! And you know what? If you have faith in Christ as your Lord and Savior, He will take up residence within you! Romans 8:9-10—But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 1^st Corinthians 6:19—Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? 2nd Timothy 1:14—That good thing which was committed to you, keep by the Holy Spirit who dwells in us. Colossians 1:27—To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. God, who is bigger than all the 1.63398183X10^71 cubic miles of space in the universe chooses to dwell within those who have faith in Christ! And guess what? He owns you, too! You have been bought with a price (1st Corinthians 7:23), and He doesn’t issue refunds!

15 “The LORD delighted only in your fathers, to love them; and He chose their descendants after them, you above all peoples, as it is this day. 16 Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be stiff-necked no longer.” God had given to Abraham the sign of circumcision of the foreskin (Genesis 17:10-11). But Moses was telling the people here that it was not only their foreskin that needed to be removed, but the fleshly covering of their hearts—their wants and desires that were against the holiness of God. Because God had chosen them (and not because they had chosen God), Moses commands them to put off the desires of their hearts and to bow their hearts to God. You see, one could have their foreskin circumcised, and that was good, it was the sign that the person was of the people that God chose. But what good would that circumcision be if the person walked in the ways of the pagans and worshipped their idols? If that person committed murder or adultery? That person would be as one who was not circumcised, and he would suffer whatever penalty God’s Law determined. Jeremiah repeats this warning in the word he received from God in Jeremiah 4:4—“Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, and take away the foreskins of your hearts, you men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, lest My fury come forth like fire, and burn so that no one can quench it, because of the evil of your doings.” They had circumcised their foreskins but their hearts were still made of stone. They were stiff-necked and refused to bow under the hand of God. It wasn’t only the circumcision of Abraham God wanted to see, it was the taking away of their fleshly desires, the wantonness of their hearts, the desires of their flesh He wanted them to cut away. But because they wouldn’t do that He told them, through Jeremiah’s contemporary Ezekiel that He would make a new covenant with them, in which He would do it, and give them a new heart that was tender toward Him. He would bring them back from their exile, He would do a work in them that He had never done before, and He Himself would give them a new heart.

Ezekiel 36:19-27—19 So I scattered them among the nations, and they were dispersed throughout the countries; I judged them according to their ways and their deeds. 20 When they came to the nations, wherever they went, they profaned My holy name—when they said of them, 'These are the people of the LORD, and yet they have gone out of His land.' 21 But I had concern for My holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the nations wherever they went. 22 Therefore say to the house of Israel, 'Thus says the Lord GOD: "I do not do this for your sake, O house of Israel, but for My holy name's sake, which you have profaned among the nations wherever you went. 23 And I will sanctify My great name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst; and the nations shall know that I am the LORD," says the Lord GOD, “when I am hallowed in you before their eyes. 24 For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land. 25 Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.” He had caused them to go into exile because they had not circumcised their hearts, but now He was saying He would give them a new heart, one that He Himself would circumcise, and that they would walk according to His ways and be stiff-necked no longer. This is why Paul tells us in Romans 2:25—For circumcision is indeed profitable if you keep the law; but if you are a breaker of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. Paul wrote Romans to both Jews and Gentiles in Rome. So the Jews would have known exactly what Paul was saying, and the Gentile believers could have learned about circumcision from their Jewish brethren. And they could show their Gentile brothers and sisters that even though they had been born with a heart that wanted to go its own way, that God would give them a heart that would gravitate toward Him.

17 “For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality nor takes a bribe. 18 He administers justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing. 19 Therefore love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” God does not take a bribe because there is nothing we could bribe Him with, since He owns every single thing in the universe He created. He looks with pity upon those who can do nothing for themselves, and sets His eyes against those who would do them harm. This is the attitude we are to have as well—to help those who cannot help themselves. You’ve heard the old saying “God helps those who help themselves.” Now, forget that saying because it is not true. What is true is saying that “God helps those who cannot help themselves.” If one can help themselves, they will start to believe that they do not need God, and live their lives as though He does not exist at worst, or at best that they can live their lives without Him. Neither way is any way to live. This is the definition James gives of true religion. James 1:27—Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. The word translated “religion” here is the Greek θρησκεία (threskeia, “ceremonial observance—religion, worshipping”). In other words, if one is to say they are truly worshipping God and doing those things He commands, they must help the widows and orphans—those who can do nothing for themselves. This was one of the things the people of Israel got hung up on before their exile—the rich would become richer at the expense of the poor, they would take advantage of those who could least afford it, and they would eat while the poor went hungry.

This was the sin of the rich man in Luke 16:15, 19-21—15 And He said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God…19 There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day. 20 But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who was laid at his gate, 21 desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table. Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.” (This was a different Lazarus than the brother of Mary and Martha, whom He raised from the dead in John 11.) This rich man had all he would ever need (and maybe more), yet Lazarus only wanted some scraps of food the rich man did not eat. But the rich man said “Eh, go, be warmed, be filled” (see James 2:16). Or as we would say today, “I’ll pray for ya.” And even though this rich man could have brought him out a plate of food, he simply sent him the gristle and waste from what he ate. Even the dogs had more pity on this poor man, because they licked the sores that covered his body! Jesus had some harsh words for men like this in Matthew 25:41-46. And He certified the words He said there, by telling the people of the eternal fate of this rich man, Luke 16:22-23—22 So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. “Was the fact that Lazarus was a beggar the reason he went to Abraham’s bosom?” No, it was because he depended on God to provide even the leftover scraps of the rich man’s meals, indicating that he relied on God for his very existence. “Was the rich man’s wealth the cause of him going into Hades?” Yes, because he relied on his wealth to sustain him, and did not share it with those who needed it.

A Worldling, wretched, vile and base,/Not subject to restraining grace;

But yielded to his lusts and pride,/And set all fear of God aside.

Though he had riches laid in store,/Yet no compassion on the poor!

A beggar in a helpless state,/Found no assistance at his gate.

The worldling spent his precious days,/In Luxuries, in sports and plays—

While the poor beggar lay distress'd,/With poverty and sores oppress'd.

But to them both it proved strange,/To meet with such a sudden change;

The worldling sent to endless pain,/The beggar plac'd with Christ to reign.

(“A Worldling, Wretched, Vile and Based” by Paul Henkel)

The poorest 5% of Americans have higher incomes than about 95% of all people who have ever lived. May we always seek to use what we have been given by God to help those less fortunate than us, remembering that we are less fortunate than others. I remember hearing Paul Harvey relate a story about how when he was a kid, his church raised funds to help a family that was having financial troubles. So his family went out and raised money for them; week after week they would collect cans and return them for the deposit, they would go door-to-door to collect money for them, and when the end of the fund raising campaign came, they took all they collected to the church for the family. A few days later his family got a knock at the door. It was the church pastor. And he said to the father that the church was raising money for a family in need. It was his family they were raising money for. His family realized that even with as little as they had, they were still blessed by God. If I can find the story I will post it here.

20 “You shall fear the LORD your God; you shall serve Him, and to Him you shall hold fast, and take oaths in His name.” Fearing God is the first thing we must do if we are to think ourselves wise. Solomon tells us this in Proverbs 1:7, 9:10. That the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom. How can a man think himself wise if he does not even understand—first that God exists—and that He is the Almighty Ruler, King, Lord, Sovereign Potentate, and that He is above all and holds the entire creation in His hands? He spoke and all was created. He probably used more words than He needed to. And if He wanted to, He could end it all with a snap of His fingers. He is bound by nothing but His own holiness. He never fails, He never sleeps, anything and everything He wants to come to pass will come to pass. Those who scoff at the idea of the Virgin birth of Christ do not realize what an easy thing it was for God to do so. And by minimizing the Almighty power of God, they elevate man to a state he does not deserve. Was Man the crown of all of God’s creation? Yes. But he is still a part of creation, we are not God no matter what Steven Furtick or Creflo Dollar say.

First, Steven Furtick:

It’s always been in you. There’s nobody who can leave my life who can keep God from keeping his covenant with me. I’m not in covenant with a person. I’m not in covenant with a political party. I’m in covenant with God Almighty! I am God Almighty!

Creflo Dollar:

When the devil shows up in the wilderness experience of your life, then you’ll act just like Jesus. You’ll say, “Get thee behind me, Satan, because I am the Lord Your God!” Hallelujah! “I have authority over you…” It’s time for us to go and dominate this world! It’s time for the body of Christ to start gathering up what belongs to us!

We laugh at these men (and others like them) when they say such heretical things, but it is sad. Because they are influential to a great many people—people who refer to themselves as Christians (whether they are or not, God knows). And these men are leading these poor people away from the true God and into the worship of themselves by teaching these things. Bottom line—we are not God! We can never be God. We occupy an infinitesimal piece of a little planet in the 1.63398183X10^71 cubic miles of all creation, and to think that we could rule over this creation is ludicrous! I won’t even get started on the many blasphemous ideas about who God is because, quite frankly, even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. So let us remember this one thing—YHVH is God. He alone is God, and there is no other. There can be no other. Because even the 1.63398183X10^71 cubic miles of all creation cannot contain Him, and to think that we could ever have any power to rival His in truly insane. We should fear Him, serve Him, and hold fast to Him. He is our anchor, He is the one who supplies our needs, He is the One who fights for us, He is the one who raises up kings and brings them down. He turns their hearts in whichever direction He decides.

21 “He is your praise, and He is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome things which your eyes have seen. 22 Your fathers went down to Egypt with seventy persons, and now the LORD your God has made you as the stars of heaven in multitude.” Think about the whole of Christian history. All of human history is Christian history because all of creation belongs to Christ. For Christ—according to the flesh—is descended from our first father Adam. From Adam came a long list of descendants including Noah, his son Shem, then Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Judah, then Obed, Jesse, David, Solomon, etc., until that night when Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem. All of human history belongs to Christ. He created it, He sustains it, and one day He will return and lay final claim to it. He is our praise. He is our God. The Early Church Father Melito of Sardis said as much in 180AD:

He that hung up the earth in space was Himself hanged up; He that fixed the heavens was fixed with nails; He that bore up the earth was born up on a tree; the Lord of all was subjected to ignominy in a naked body—God put to death! ... [I]n order that He might not be seen, the luminaries turned away, and the day became darkened—because they slew God, who hung naked on the tree.... This is He who made the heaven and the earth, and in the beginning, together with the Father, fashioned man; who was announced by means of the law and the prophets; who put on a bodily form in the Virgin; who was hanged upon the tree; who was buried in the earth; who rose from the place of the dead, and ascended to the height of heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father.

Who else but God could live a sinless life on this planet? Who else but God could refuse to repay those who did evil to Him? Who else but God could endure all that Christ endured on the earth, then set His face like flint to go to the cross and die an ignominious death for all the world to see? When you read the passages about how the soldiers mocked Him, how the Jews rejected Him, how Herod wanted to see Him perform some parlor trick for his amusement, how those who saw Him on the cross shook their heads and wagged their tongues at Him and ridiculed Him, remember one very important thing—they were doing these things to God! Let me share a few verses from Scripture, edited to show the truth about these things. Matthew 27:29-30—When they had twisted a crown of thorns, they put it on God’s head, and a reed in God’s right hand. And they bowed the knee before God and mocked Him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” Then they spat on God, and took the reed and struck Him on the head. Mark 15:24—And when they crucified God, they divided His garments, casting lots for them to determine what every man should take. Matthew 27:39—And those who passed by blasphemed God, wagging their heads. You see now how much more grave their blasphemies and insults were! The God of all creation and of all history, and these people rejected, mocked, and blasphemed Him to His face!

This is the God of all. This was the God who called Abraham out of a city in the Chaldees, showed him the land his descendants (who were still several generations away) would dwell in, caused Joseph to be sold into Egypt, brought about a famine that drove his father and 11 brothers to Egypt, kept them there for 430 years, led them out of their slavery with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and would eventually conquer the people dwelling in the Land of Promise by the power of God. Seventy people went down to Egypt, and when they came out 430 years later, they were a nation—a relatively small nation, but a nation nonetheless. By the time they conquered Canaan they had grown in number. Were there 200 trillion billion of them? Of course not. But they had grown to a number previously unimaginable. And it all started with 70 people who went to Egypt. More precisely, it started with one man who came out of Ur of the Chaldees!

Jesus Christ is Lord.

Amen.

A Survey of the Old Testament Law--Deuteronomy 7 (Part 2)

noreply@blogger.com (Four Pointer) — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 15:23:38 +0000

Deuteronomy 7:7-26—7 “The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; 8 but because the LORD loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9 Therefore know that the LORD your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments; 10 and He repays those who hate Him to their face, to destroy them. He will not be slack with him who hates Him; He will repay him to his face. 11 Therefore you shall keep the commandment, the statutes, and the judgments which I command you today, to observe them. 12 Then it shall come to pass, because you listen to these judgments, and keep and do them, that the LORD your God will keep with you the covenant and the mercy which He swore to your fathers. 13 And He will love you and bless you and multiply you; He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your land, your grain and your new wine and your oil, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flock, in the land of which He swore to your fathers to give you. 14 You shall be blessed above all peoples; there shall not be a male or female barren among you or among your livestock. 15 And the LORD will take away from you all sickness, and will afflict you with none of the terrible diseases of Egypt which you have known, but will lay them on all those who hate you. 16 Also you shall destroy all the peoples whom the LORD your God delivers over to you; your eye shall have no pity on them; nor shall you serve their gods, for that will be a snare to you. 17 If you should say in your heart, 'These nations are greater than I; how can I dispossess them?'—18 you shall not be afraid of them, but you shall remember well what the LORD your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt: 19 the great trials which your eyes saw, the signs and the wonders, the mighty hand and the outstretched arm, by which the LORD your God brought you out. So shall the LORD your God do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid. 20 Moreover the LORD your God will send the hornet among them until those who are left, who hide themselves from you, are destroyed. 21 You shall not be terrified of them; for the LORD your God, the great and awesome God, is among you. 22 And the LORD your God will drive out those nations before you little by little; you will be unable to destroy them at once, lest the beasts of the field become too numerous for you. 23 But the LORD your God will deliver them over to you, and will inflict defeat upon them until they are destroyed. 24 And He will deliver their kings into your hand, and you will destroy their name from under heaven; no one shall be able to stand against you until you have destroyed them. 25 You shall burn the carved images of their gods with fire; you shall not covet the silver or gold that is on them, nor take it for yourselves, lest you be snared by it; for it is an abomination to the LORD your God. 26 Nor shall you bring an abomination into your house, lest you be doomed to destruction like it. You shall utterly detest it and utterly abhor it, for it is an accursed thing.”

This is a long passage, but it is actually pretty simple to pull apart. First we see that God did not choose these people because they were the biggest and greatest nation, but because they were actually the least (Verses 7-8). Then we see the faithfulness and the severity of God (Verses 9-10). Then Moses tells the people that it is for this reason if they are mindful to obey God and keep the statutes He is giving them, He will cause them to prosper (Verses 11-15) and drive out their enemies from before them (Verses 16-26)

7 “The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; 8 but because the LORD loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.” God had sworn an oath to Abram that his descendants would one day be a nation, although Abram was just one man and did not have any sons at the time (Genesis 15:1-5). He led Abram out of Ur of the Chaldees, a region in what is now known as Mesopotamia (Acts 7:2)—he was one man living in a sinful nation, but God would raise up of this one man a people who would become a mighty nation before Him. The nations around him were already established, but Israel had not yet arisen. Eventually, Abraham would father Isaac, after that Isaac would father Jacob, and after that Jacob would have 12 sons who would go down to Egypt and would have sons who would become numerous. So numerous, in fact, that a Pharaoh who came generations after them would fear their numbers and put them under bondage to him. This people would cry to God, who would hear their pleas and bring them out of Egypt into a land they did not know. But even then they would not be established as a nation; this would not happen until they conquered Canaan under the leadership of Joshua and divided the land among their 12 tribes. God could have used any nation that was already established, but how would that prove to the people of the world that He was a mighty God? How would that nation learn to depend on God for their very being? He did not choose another nation because these nations already had idols they worshipped, and He wanted to establish a nation that worshipped Him and Him alone. “But could He not have simply changed the hearts of the people of another nation?” Yes, He could have done so. But that was not what He wanted to do. He wanted to make for Himself a nation full of those who knew Him and Him alone as God.

9 “Therefore know that the LORD your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments; 10 and He repays those who hate Him to their face, to destroy them. He will not be slack with him who hates Him; He will repay him to his face.” God will repay those who hate Him directly. “But what of those today who hate and despise Him? They do not die instantly?” This is true. Or is it? Did Adam die the moment he ate of the forbidden fruit? No, but he began the process of dying. The literal reading of the last part of Genesis 2:17 is “dying, thou dost die” (see Young’s Literal Translation). The cells in his body, which before his sin would not see decay, began the process of death, and needed to be replaced. Even though he lived for 930 years, he still died (Genesis 5:5). He repaid Adam for his sin beginning that very day. In Genesis 20, when Abimelech takes Sarah to be a wife (after Abraham told him she was his sister, which wasn’t a lie but wasn’t the whole truth), God tells him in Genesis 20:3—“Indeed you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man's wife.” He had already stricken Abimelech with some sort of terminal disease, even though he took Sarah in innocence, not knowing Sarah was Abraham’s wife. But even though this offence was committed in ignorance, still aroused the anger of God, and He punished Abimelech with some sickness, for it says in Genesis 20:17—So Abraham prayed to God; and God healed Abimelech. God had repaid Abimelech to his face for his sin.

The same is true for those who hate God today. Romans 1:21—Because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. This describes people who know, somewhere inside them, that God is real, but they don’t want to admit it. So they deny Him, and squash the light of God, and devise their own ideas about God, or that there is no God. And if they persist in their efforts, what does God do? Just as He hardened Pharaoh’s heart (Exodus 7:13, 9:12, 10:1, 10:20, 10:27, 11:10, 14:8), so will He harden the hearts of those who deny Him. Romans 1:24, 26, 28—24 Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness …26 For this reason God gave them up to vile passions…28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind. He is thus repaying to these who deny Him to their face for their hatred of Him. John Calvin:

What He says, however, as to taking vengeance without delay, does not seem to accord with other passages of Scripture, in which He declares Himself to be slow to anger, kind, and long-suffering. Besides, it seems also to be contradicted by experience, since He does not immediately hasten to inflict punishment, but proceeds slowly, so as to compensate by His severity for the slowness with which He acts. But we must remember what He says in Psalm 90:4, that a thousand years in His sight are but as a single day; and consequently, when we think that He delays, He is, in His infinite wisdom, hastening as much as is necessary. He seems, indeed, to take no notice for a time, that He may thus invite men to repent; but still He declares that He will not delay, but that He will come suddenly, like a whirlwind, to hasten His judgments, lest the ungodly should grow drowsy from their security. Let us, therefore, learn quietly and patiently to wait for the fit season of His vengeance.

God’s vengeance may seem slow to us, but it is immediate to Him, and He will repay those who despise Him.

11 “Therefore you shall keep the commandment, the statutes, and the judgments which I command you today, to observe them. 12 Then it shall come to pass, because you listen to these judgments, and keep and do them, that the LORD your God will keep with you the covenant and the mercy which He swore to your fathers. 13 And He will love you and bless you and multiply you; He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your land, your grain and your new wine and your oil, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flock, in the land of which He swore to your fathers to give you. 14 You shall be blessed above all peoples; there shall not be a male or female barren among you or among your livestock. 15 And the LORD will take away from you all sickness, and will afflict you with none of the terrible diseases of Egypt which you have known, but will lay them on all those who hate you.” God is faithful (1st Corinthians 1:9; 2nd Corinthians 1:18). If He makes a covenant, He will keep it. In fact, if He says anything you can believe it is true. But there came a time when God told the people that their sins and their idolatry had gone on for too long, and that they had broken the covenant beyond repair. Hosea 1:8-9—8 Now when she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, she conceived and bore a son. 9 Then God said: “Call his name Lo-Ammi, for you are not My people, and I will not be your God.” But these people were the people that God set aside for Himself, and were a holy nation to Him. He had sworn that they would be His people forever. And in the next verses in Hosea, he says just that. Hosea 1:10-11—10 “Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them, 'You are not My people,' there it shall be said to them, 'You are sons of the living God.' 11 Then the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together, and appoint for themselves one head; and they shall come up out of the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel!” This last part of verse 11 speaks of the time when God will sow the seeds of the faithful (“Jezreel” is Hebrews for “God will sow”). God sows seed where He will (Matthew 13:3; Mark 4:3; Luke 8:5). This is how He keeps the covenant with Israel—the new and everlasting covenant, the one which the people of God will not break, for we shall always be His people. “And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them, 'You are not My people,' there it shall be said to them, 'You are sons of the living God.'” We are both, Jew and Gentile, of one olive tree, grafted together by Christ (Romans 11:15-36). “But all the people of Israel won’t be saved, because many reject Jesus as Messiah!” But read what John the Baptist tells them in Matthew 3:9-10 (repeated in Luke 3:8)—9 “Do not think to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. 10 And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” What are the trees he is talking about? He is talking about the natural olive tree Paul speaks of in Romans 11:24.

Even though the people of Israel grumbled against God and did not show gratitude for His manifold mercies, but were a stiff-necked people and many times bucked against His authority, He did not forget the covenant He made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Nehemiah 9:28-33—28 “But after they had rest, they again did evil before You. Therefore You left them in the hand of their enemies, so that they had dominion over them; yet when they returned and cried out to You, You heard from heaven; and many times You delivered them according to Your mercies, 29 and testified against them, that You might bring them back to Your law. Yet they acted proudly, and did not heed Your commandments, but sinned against Your judgments, 'Which if a man does, he shall live by them.' And they shrugged their shoulders, stiffened their necks, and would not hear. 30 Yet for many years You had patience with them, and testified against them by Your Spirit in Your prophets. Yet they would not listen; therefore You gave them into the hand of the peoples of the lands. 31 Nevertheless in Your great mercy You did not utterly consume them nor forsake them; for You are God, gracious and merciful. 32 Now therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and awesome God, who keeps covenant and mercy: do not let all the trouble seem small before You that has come upon us, our kings and our princes, our priests and our prophets, our fathers and on all Your people, from the days of the kings of Assyria until this day. 33 However You are just in all that has befallen us; for You have dealt faithfully, but we have done wickedly.” Nehemiah was speaking to the people after they had returned from their exile in Babylon. Why did they go into exile? To punish them for constantly breaking the covenant God made with them. Their kings had fallen down before idols; the rich were oppressing the poor; men were going into their neighbors’ wives. They had to be cleansed. Even more than during the forty years when they wandered in the wilderness, this was not only a cleansing for the people, it was a Sabbath for the land (2nd Chronicles 36:21). The grumbling in the wilderness happened because the people had to understand that God is God and provides for His people. When they were taken as captives, they had already known this truth for centuries and decided to turn a blind eye. Even still, God did not forget that He had promised that the seed of Abraham would be as the sand of the sea (Genesis 22:17, 32:12). Thus, when the 70 years of their captivity was finished, He brought them back and made them, once again, a great nation.

16 “Also you shall destroy all the peoples whom the LORD your God delivers over to you; your eye shall have no pity on them; nor shall you serve their gods, for that will be a snare to you. 17 If you should say in your heart, 'These nations are greater than I; how can I dispossess them?'—18 you shall not be afraid of them, but you shall remember well what the LORD your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt: 19 the great trials which your eyes saw, the signs and the wonders, the mighty hand and the outstretched arm, by which the LORD your God brought you out. So shall the LORD your God do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid. 20 Moreover the LORD your God will send the hornet among them until those who are left, who hide themselves from you, are destroyed. 21 You shall not be terrified of them; for the LORD your God, the great and awesome God, is among you. 22 And the LORD your God will drive out those nations before you little by little; you will be unable to destroy them at once, lest the beasts of the field become too numerous for you. 23 But the LORD your God will deliver them over to you, and will inflict defeat upon them until they are destroyed. 24 And He will deliver their kings into your hand, and you will destroy their name from under heaven; no one shall be able to stand against you until you have destroyed them. 25 You shall burn the carved images of their gods with fire; you shall not covet the silver or gold that is on them, nor take it for yourselves, lest you be snared by it; for it is an abomination to the LORD your God. 26 Nor shall you bring an abomination into your house, lest you be doomed to destruction like it. You shall utterly detest it and utterly abhor it, for it is an accursed thing.”

It was not up to the people to defeat their enemies—their job was simply to fight them, God would give them victory as He did against the Amalekites (Exodus 17:10-16) and against Sihon the king of the Amorites (Numbers 21:24-25) and Og of Bashan (Numbers 21:33-35). And it was certainly not the strength of the people of Israel that brought them out of Egypt, but the mighty hand of God who smote Pharaoh and all of Egypt with plagues which the sorcerers of Egypt could not overcome, each one worse than the one previous. When Hezekiah was king, was it the strength of the people that slew 185,000 Assyrians, or was it the hand of God? (2nd Kings 19:35; Isaiah 37:36) Likewise, is it up to us to defeat sin in our lives, or is it by the power of God and the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ? We cannot defeat Satan in our own strength—we must seek help from God. For it is Christ who gives us victory over Satan and sin (Romans 8:37; 1st Corinthians 15:57).

O victory in Jesus, my Savior, forever!

He sought me and bought me with His redeeming blood;

He loved me ere I knew Him, and all my love is due Him.

He plunged me to victory beneath the cleansing flood

(“Victory in Jesus” by EM Bartlett)

And because God has given us victory over Satan, we should cleanse ourselves from everything that opposes God, get rid of the idols in our lives and seek to live for Him. For everything that is under the power of Satan will seek to drag us away from God and into service to Satan. Even as Achan, who kept for himself accursed things from Jericho which the people were commanded to place under the חֵרֶם (cherem, “ban”) (Joshua 7:1). But his eyes let him be carried away by how pretty the things were, and the lust of his eyes caught him in a snare and he took from the battle the accursed things. Joshua 7:1—But the children of Israel committed a trespass regarding the accursed things, for Achan the son of Carmi…took of the accursed things; so the anger of the LORD burned against the children of Israel. Notice the sin was Achan’s, but God was angry with all Israel. One man sinned, but the whole body suffered. Why? Because they were all accounted as one, and as such were all accountable to one another in the things of God. From The Biblical Illustrator:

This is here attributed to the whole people, which was really the act of but one man or one family. This is not because of any guilty participation in this trespass by others; there is no intimation that any others of the people were involved in a like crime. Nor is there any implication that others were privy to the crime of Achan, and by concealment of the fact became its abettors and sharers in its guilt. In all probability his act was not known or suspected beyond the limits of his own family. Nevertheless, Israel was one people, and it is here dealt with as one corporate body. There was criminality in the midst of them. And it was necessary that it should be disavowed and punished, in order that the people might be freed from all complicity and connection with it.

(From the sermon “Corporate Responsibility” by W. H. Green, D. D. Cited in The Biblical Illustrator)

If one person bowed down to an idol, or held an accursed thing, the penalty for that person’s sin was visited upon the entire camp. How many times do we read about the sins of Jeroboam, which he had sinned and by which he had made Israel sin? It was Jeroboam who sinned, but his sin affected the entire nation. Did all of Judah sin and rebel against God and against King Nebuchadnezzar? Or was it King Zedekiah? Yet the entire nation was taken into exile. One man’s sin doomed the entire nation to captivity in Babylon. (The Northern Kingdom of Israel—yes, the entire nation was corrupt because of the sin of Jeroboam and was taken to Assyria first.) Did we sin against God by eating of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil? No. But that sin is on us because of Adam. Likewise today, when one Christian sins, it is a mark against the entire body of Christ, and we are all members of each other (Romans 12:5; Ephesians 4:25). Let us put away all things which God considers to be sin—lying, anger, murder, wrath, adultery and the like. May we not bring shame to the body of Christ, knowing that we are knit together with Him (Ephesians 4:16) and we are one with Him.

Jesus Christ is Lord.

Amen.

A Survey of the Old Testament Law--Deuteronomy 7 (Part 1)

noreply@blogger.com (Four Pointer) — Sat, 18 Jul 2026 19:37:25 +0000

Deuteronomy 7:1-6—1 “When the LORD your God brings you into the land which you go to possess, and has cast out many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than you, 2 and when the LORD your God delivers them over to you, you shall conquer them and utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them nor show mercy to them. 3 Nor shall you make marriages with them. You shall not give your daughter to their son, nor take their daughter for your son. 4 For they will turn your sons away from following Me, to serve other gods; so the anger of the LORD will be aroused against you and destroy you suddenly. 5 But thus you shall deal with them: you shall destroy their altars, and break down their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images, and burn their carved images with fire. 6 For you are a holy people to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth.”

The people of Israel were to be separate and unique from the tribes and nations around them. The Israelites were not to marry into their families, they were not to adopt their customs. Why? Because if they did, the pagans would lead them into worshipping their gods, and this was the worst thing they could do. Which is why Paul said in 1^st Corinthians 15:33 (ESV)—Do not be deceived: "Evil company corrupts good habits." It is easier for a moral and upright person to be influenced and led away by the immoral than for the immoral to be swayed by good habits. If you’ve read your Bible, which do you see happen more often? Do the Canaanites gravitate toward worshipping YHVH? Or do the Israelites begin to worship Ba'al? We human beings are a curious lot—we would rather chase after some fleeting pleasure that is no lasting good, than to wait upon something that will benefit us more in our later lives but will bring no immediate pleasure. Such was the mind of the Israelites (we see this in Numbers 25).

2 “When the LORD your God delivers them over to you, you shall conquer them and utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them nor show mercy to them.” It was not by their might or their power that they would conquer the tribes of the Promised Land—it was God who would deliver them. And when He would conquer these tribes, they were not to forget the fiery hot indignation which God had toward them. They were not to simply subdue their armies, but they were to completely and utterly (and literally) wipe them off the face of the Earth. They were not to leave one single vestige of these armies alive, but were to slay every man of these armies. They were not to enter league with them, they were not to do business with them, they were not to show any mercy toward them, for these were peoples who worshipped idols made with hands, who practiced all kinds of wickedness in their religious rituals, and who did all kinds of things contrary to the righteous requirements of God. So Moses instructs them to wipe out every member of these armies and to not leave a one of them breathing.

3 “Nor shall you make marriages with them. You shall not give your daughter to their son, nor take their daughter for your son. 4 For they will turn your sons away from following Me, to serve other gods; so the anger of the LORD will be aroused against you and destroy you suddenly.” Moses commanded the Israelites to not allow their children to marry any of the sons or daughters of the people who lived in the land they were to possess. Why? “For they will turn your sons away from following Me, to serve other gods.” He knew that any intermarriage with these peoples would cause the Israelites to stumble into worshipping the idols these peoples worshipped and by doing so would lead them away from giving God the glory and honor due His name. And He would not tolerate that, for these people were a nation holy and set apart to God by God (see Exodus 19:6). If they mingled with these peoples, and worshipped the idols they worshipped, they would not be unique as a people, and would not be seen as any different from them. And that was not what God commanded—He commanded that they be different from the peoples around them.

See, marriage is not something to be entered into lightly. When you marry someone, you are taking all that person is and joining it to everything you are. Genesis 2:24—Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. When you get married, you and your spouse become one flesh. You are joined to her and she is joined to you. And when you take your vows you are saying that you accept everything that person is. Including their belief (or unbelief) in God. If you are in Christ, do you want to become one with a person who does not believe in God? Are you willing to say that you love this person—who denies the reality of God—that you can simply overlook their unbelief with a wink and a nod, and that this is attractive to you? 2^nd Corinthians 6:14-18—14 Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? 15 And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? 16 And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they shall be My people." 17 Therefore " ‘Come out from among them and be separate’, says the Lord. ‘Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you.’" 18 "I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the LORD Almighty."

Those who are in Christ have the Holy Spirit—that is, God Himself—dwelling within them. Will that person join themselves to one who hates God? Will they become one with a person who worships a god of human invention? And if so, why? Sometimes believers think “Oh, if I love them enough, and I show how genuine my faith is, then eventually they will believe as well!” This is called “conjugal evangelism”, and is a popular notion that the unbelieving will grow towards God when in truth, it leads the follower of Christ further away from God. In an interview about his book “Surviving a Spiritual Mismatch”, Lee Strobel said:

Conjugal evangelism is trying to convert someone through marriage. It’s knowingly dating a non-Christian; the hope and belief that you will influence that person to become a Christian. Through interviewing lots of people for this book, we’ve found it’s more likely the woman is the Christian in these situations. She is more likely to lose her faith than the man is likely to gain faith. Often you have a reverse evangelism taking place. That’s a dangerous position. A Christian shouldn’t want to put themselves in to. We think conjugal evangelism is very dangerous. You deceive yourself into thinking the other person might be more spiritually receptive than they might be because your judgment might be clouded by romantic feelings or chemistry with the other person. Our counsel is that Christians should not even consider that. I’ve found even after we speak on this topic and we talk about all the turmoil, pain and conflict Leslie and I had when I was an atheist and she was a Christian, people will still come up afterwards and say, “I understand that. That’s really important, but I’m dating this guy and we’ll be married soon and he’s really close to becoming a Christian and I think if we just get married I’ll be able to influence him.” I want to shake them and say, “Read my lips: Do not become unequally yoked with a non-believer!” The bible says it for a reason; to protect us from the kind of pain and heartache Leslie and I endured for two years of our marriage.

(https://www.marriagetrac.com/lee-strobel-interview-2/)

It is a dangerous thing for the Christian to even date someone who is not a Christian. You are becoming intimate with one who has no interest in God, and will (more than likely) drag you away from Christ, rather than you bringing the unbeliever closer to Christ “But isn’t that kind of thinking showing a lack of faith in God? Who’s to say the unbeliever won’t be converted?” My friend, I did not write the words of 2^nd Corinthians 6:14-18, the apostle Paul did. And he got those words from none other than the Holy Spirit himself. He said again, in another place, 15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Certainly not! 16 Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For "the two," He says, "shall become one flesh" (1^st Corinthians 6:15-16). If you are in Christ, every single part of you belongs to God. Shall you then become one flesh with a harlot, one who does not believe in God but rather openly mocks God? Is that the message you want to be showing the world? Would it not rather be more beneficial—for you and for the body of Christ—to become one with a person who knows God and loves Christ? To take as your own flesh and blood one who knows what it is like to walk the paths of righteousness with God as their guide? If you take one who does not know God, and something happens and you need godly guidance, will the unbeliever be able to help? Can two walk together, unless they are agreed? (Amos 3:3). But the one who knows God can help you up, bring you close to God when you need Him, and help you limp along until you are back on the path and standing strong again. You are one flesh with your spouse, and if you are walking with God, and your spouse is walking with God, then you and your spouse—being one flesh—and God, could rightly be called the two spoken of here in Amos.

5 “But thus you shall deal with them: you shall destroy their altars, and break down their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images, and burn their carved images with fire. 6 For you are a holy people to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth.” How many times did some of the kings of Israel and Judah depart from worshipping God and turn to worshipping idols? Jeroboam, Nadab, Baasha, Elah, Zimri, Omri, Ahab, Ahaziah, Joram, Jehoash, Jeroboam II, Zechariah, Shallum, Menachem, Pekiah, Pekah, and Hoshea in the northern kingdom of Israel; Rehoboam, Abijam, Jehoram, Ahaziah, Athaliah, Ahaz, Amon, Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah in Judah. All these did wickedly before the LORD, and built altars and high places and images to Ba'al and Ashtoreth. (Even some of the “good” kings weren’t always good. Nevertheless, God did not wipe out the people for the sake of His servant David (see 2^nd Kings 8:19).)

But this was not what God commanded, and certainly not what He wanted. “You shall destroy their altars, and break down their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images, and burn their carved images with fire.” Just as they were to obliterate the armies of the peoples they were to encounter, so they were to obliterate the idols these peoples worshipped. God will not tolerate the worship of false gods (Exodus 23:13, 34:14; Jeremiah 44:5). And either in this life, or in eternity, God will punish those who do so. Because there is but one God over all creation, and He will not acknowledge the existence of other gods. This was the first command in the Decalogue, “You shall have no other gods before Me” (Exodus 20:3). He and He alone is God (Psalm 86:10), and should be worshipped as such. When we dabble into looking at other gods and being fascinated by them, we are on a road that can lead to our destruction. The same thing happened to the people of Israel. Moses, in Deuteronomy 32:15-17, would call to their minds the time when they provoked God by worshipping other gods. And why did they do that? Because they had grown as a nation, they thought that it was because of they themselves that they had thus grown. They forgot that it was God who made them grow bigger—that it was God who had supplied their needs, and that they had done nothing of themselves to make themselves more than they were. Deuteronomy 32:15-17—15 “But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked; you grew fat, you grew thick, you are obese! Then he forsook God who made him, and scornfully esteemed the Rock of his salvation. 16 They provoked Him to jealousy with foreign gods; with abominations they provoked Him to anger. 17 They sacrificed to demons, not to God, to gods they did not know, to new gods, new arrivals that your fathers did not fear.” (Note: “Jeshurun” is a poetical name for Israel, and is rendered ἠγαπημένος [egapemenos, “the beloved one”] in the Septuagint. It carries the same sort of connotation as Αββα [Abba, “Dad”] in the New Testament). Notice in Verse 17 he calls them “demons”. The Psalmist uses the same language in Psalm 106:37—They even sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons. All who believe in and love God should also consider anything that exalts itself as God, but is not God, to be nothing more than a fabrication of Satan, and a demon. For who is the liar, and father of it (John 8:44)? Who told the first lie in Genesis 3:1? Who is it that wants to destroy everything about God, to lead His children away from the truth, and to keep them in chains forever? It is this same Satan.

Today, however, we have a new demon to beware of. It is not Ba'al or Ashtoreth, which are no more. It is not Dagon, who is nothing more than a whisper of a thought today. And yes, we do have the false gods like Allah or the “God” of Mormonism. But this god is more crafty than these, for it is one we use every day, and need to use every day. That god is money, more specifically the love of it. Now, money may not seem to be a god or something people worship, but it can be. If one stores up for themselves more money than a thousand people can spend in a lifetime, for no other reason than to say they have it, that is when it becomes an idol. 1^st Timothy 6:9-10—9 But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Can a person have a billion dollars when not originally intending to do so? Well, yes. I don’t think Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg thought their businesses would become as lucrative as they have become. But when one sets out to have a billion dollars and that is their main goal in life, it distracts them from the one thing that is more important than anything else—God, and the worship of Him. “So I’d like to have a billion dollars, what’s the harm?” Ah, but how would you go about getting that billion dollars? And would that pursuit of that billion dollars take your mind away from God, and cause you to want to defraud your neighbor? That, my friend is covetousness, which is idolatry (Colossians 3:5). Jesus even warns us about coveting wealth, first in Matthew 6:19,21—19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal…21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” A few verses later He tells us in Matthew 6:24 (repeated in Luke 16:13)—“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” In other words, is your heart with stuff and things and money, or is it with God? Will you serve God or wealth?

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast/save in the death of Christ, my God!

All the vain things that charm me most,/I sacrifice them through his blood.

Were the whole realm of nature mine,/that were a present far too small.

Love so amazing, so divine,/demands my soul, my life, my all.

(Isaac Watts, “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross”)

Let not your heart be set on this worlds or the things of it. Think of Christian in John Bunyan’s “The Pilgrim’s Progress”, how he set down his burden when he came to the cross:

He ran thus till he came to a place somewhat ascending; and upon that place stood a cross, and little below in the bottom, a sepulchre. So I saw in my dream, that just as Christian came up with the cross, his burden loosed from off his shoulders, and fell from off his back; and began to tumble, and so continued to do so until it came to the mouth of the sepulchre, where it fell in, and I saw it no more.

1^st Timothy 6:8—And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content. Philippians 4:11-12—11 Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content: 12 I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. Friend, if God has given you the things you need, do not go chasing after the world or the things the world says you need. For we need nothing other than Christ. He is the only thing we truly need. Let our prayer rather be like the words of Proverbs 30:7-9—7 Two things I request of You (Deprive me not before I die): 8 Remove falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches—feed me with the food allotted to me; 9 lest I be full and deny You, and say, "Who is the LORD?" or lest I be poor and steal, and profane the name of my God. (You probably won’t hear Kenneth Copeland or Paula White preach that passage!)

Part 2 next week

Jesus Christ is Lord.

Amen.

A Survey of the Old Testament Law--Deuteronomy 6 (Part 3)

noreply@blogger.com (Four Pointer) — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 16:06:54 +0000

Deuteronomy 6:13-19—“13 You shall fear the LORD your God and serve Him, and shall take oaths in His name. 14 You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are all around you 15 (for the LORD your God is a jealous God among you), lest the anger of the LORD your God be aroused against you and destroy you from the face of the earth. 16 You shall not tempt the LORD your God as you tempted Him in Massah. 17 You shall diligently keep the commandments of the LORD your God, His testimonies, and His statutes which He has commanded you. 18 And you shall do what is right and good in the sight of the LORD, that it may be well with you, and that you may go in and possess the good land of which the LORD swore to your fathers, 19 to cast out all your enemies from before you, as the LORD has spoken.” As we saw in Numbers 30, the taking of an oath in the name of YHVH was a serious thing. And we talked at length about that there. We have also seen many times the trouble the people found themselves in when they went after other gods. We will instead look at verse 16. “You shall not tempt the LORD your God” (“You shall not put the LORD your God to the test” [ESV, NASB]. I like these renderings a bit better). Now, you may recognize this verse from when Jesus was tempted by Satan in the wilderness (Matthew 4:7; Luke 4:12). Satan was also trying God’s patience, by challenging Jesus to throw Himself off the top of the Temple. Matthew 4:5-6—5 Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6 and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: 'He shall give His angels charge over you,' and, 'In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone.'" He wasn’t showing Jesus that God would protect His Anointed, but rather he wanted to push God’s buttons and make Him do his (Satan’s) will. (It also shows us that Satan, too, knows Scripture) And Jesus saw through his act, and quoted Scripture back at him. Matthew 4:7—Jesus said to him, "It is written again, 'You shall not tempt the LORD your God.'"

Moses says this to the people so they do not go chasing after other gods and risk incurring His wrath. We test things to see how far we can go with them before they will break. But it is not something we want to do with God, because even though His patience is infinite, there does come a time when He says “ENOUGH!” (See Numbers 14:22). And Moses was warning the people that they did not want to see how far they could push God until He had enough. And we do not want to do that, either. But many do. They get as close as they can to the line they should not cross, they push God’s patience and they find out, the hard way, that He will only allow them to go so far. John Wesley wrote: “Sinners, especially presumptuous sinners, are said to tempt God, that is, to make a trial of God, whether he be, so wise as to see their sins, so just and true and powerful as to take vengeance on them, concerning which they are very apt to doubt because of the present impunity and prosperity of many such persons.” They will push God to the very limit, and will receive the recompense for their actions.

Deuteronomy 6:20-25—20 “When your son asks you in time to come, saying, 'What is the meaning of the testimonies, the statutes, and the judgments which the LORD our God has commanded you?' 21 then you shall say to your son: 'We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, and the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand; 22 and the LORD showed signs and wonders before our eyes, great and severe, against Egypt, Pharaoh, and all his household. 23 Then He brought us out from there, that He might bring us in, to give us the land of which He swore to our fathers. 24 And the LORD commanded us to observe all these statutes, to fear the LORD our God, for our good always, that He might preserve us alive, as it is this day. 25 Then it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to observe all these commandments before the LORD our God, as He has commanded us.'” This passage is recited by Jews every year during Passover. And they do not change the “we” and “us” to “they”. These are kept intact the way they were written by Moses. For the Jew today is descended from the Jew then. Their history is history, and the Exodus is still just as vivid in the memory of a Jew today as it was so many centuries ago. And it is broken up so that the children ask the questions and the adults answer. And it plays upon the natural curiosity of a child, who will constantly ask “why?” The question Moses tells the people that the children will ask is “why?” “Why all the commandments?” “Why all the statutes and judgments?” “And why do you follow them and keep them?” The answer is simple. “Because God looked favorably upon us when we were slaves in Egypt, and He brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. And because of His love for us, we reciprocate that love by listening to and obeying all that He has asked of us.”

?מה נשתנה הלילה הזה

Ma nishtana halaila hazeh?

Why is this night unlike all others?

.שבכל הלילות אנו אוכלין חמץ ומצה

הלילה הזה כולו מצה

Shebechol haleilot, anu ochlin chametz umatzah.

Halaila hazeh, kulo matzah.

On all other nights we eat either leavened or unleavened bread.

On this night, why do we eat only unleavened matzah?

Answer: To remind us of the haste with which our ancestors left Egypt.

.שבכל הלילות אנו אוכלין שאר ירקות

הלילה הזה מרור

Shebechol haleilot, anu ochlin she’ar yerakot.

Halaila hazeh, maror.

On all other nights we eat all kinds of herbs. On this night, why only bitter herbs?

Answer: To remind us of the bitterness of slavery.

.שבכל הלילות אין אנו מטבילין אפילו פעם אחת

הלילה הזה שתי פעמים

Shebechol haleilot, ein anu matbilin afilu pa’am echat.

Halaila hazeh, shtei fe’amim.

On all other nights we do not dip our herbs even once. On this night, why do we dip them twice?

Answer: Some say to remind us of our coming and going from Egypt.

.שבכל הלילות אנו אוכלין בין יושבין ובין מסובין

הלילה הזה כולנו מסובין

Shebechol haleilot, anu ochlin bein yoshvin uvein mesubin.

Halaila hazeh, kulanu mesubin.

On all other nights we eat sometimes sitting and sometimes reclining. On this night, why do we all recline?

Answer: To remind us of how free people relax.

(https://pjlibrary.org/beyond-books/holidays-for-kids/passover-hub/articles/teaching-kids-to-say-the-four-questions)

And this should be remembered by even us Christians. We were in bondage to Satan and sin. We were his slaves, and did his bidding. But God sent His Messiah, His Anointed One, as He promised, to deliver us from the chains of sin and that He might usher us into His glorious kingdom. We are saved, not by obeying rules and commandments. But we obey the rules and commandments because we love the LORD our God, and want to please Him and do right by Him. John 14:21—“He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me.” 1st John 5:2-3—2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. It should be our delight to keep the commandments of God, as He gave us His Son so that we might be reconciled to Him. He watched His Son as He had spikes driven through His wrists and His ankles; He watched as the crowds reviled Him and spit on Him and mocked Him; He laid all the sins of the elect on His Son, as He had to do for those sins to be forgiven; He watched as all this transpired and His Son, with whom He had spent eternity with and loved above all else, was made sin so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2nd Corinthians 5:21). This is why we keep His commandments—not because we loved Him first, but because He first loved us. And His Son loved us enough to endure all these things that we might be with Him in eternity! I’ll end with the words of Robert Hawker—

What a most delightful subject seems to be opened to us in these verses. The Jewish children are naturally supposed to enquire into the peculiarities of their fathers’ faith. And the fathers are supposed as naturally to be earnest in gratifying their infant minds in the information of the truth. Oh! That all Christian parents, and masters of families, were but alive to this most interesting business! Reader! Do turn to the gospel, and take a view of the children in the temple, when, under the divine teaching of the HOLY GHOST, they were saluting the blessed Redeemer with Hosannas. This will afford somewhat of an idea of the loveliness of early piety. (See Matthew 21:9; Matthew 21:16; Psalm 8:2). I only detain the Reader, just to observe, what Moses saith of the conduct of Israel, that it shall be their righteousness, (an imputed righteousness implied,) meaning, no doubt, that all their acceptance would be in GOD their Savior, and in his complete righteousness; for the apostle tells us, that CHRIST is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. Reader! Do not fail to consult the apostle upon this important subject.

Jesus Christ is Lord.

Amen.

A Survey of the Old Testament Law--Deuteronomy 6 (Part 2)

noreply@blogger.com (Four Pointer) — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 14:23:21 +0000

Deuteronomy 6:5—“You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.” This is the First Commandment. It is on this commandment that all the others are predicated. For if you love God with your whole being, you will want to obey all the other commands in the Law. This is the foundation, not only of the Old Covenant, but the New Covenant as well. Love for God should be the foundation of our lives entirely. After all, He chose those who would be His when He did not have to. Should we not reciprocate that love to Him, seeing that He had mercy on us and plucked us out of the Hell we deserved? This is the principle laid out in the first four commands in the Tables of the Law that God gave to Moses on Mt. Sinai. Exodus 20:3-11—3 “You shall have no other gods before Me. 4 You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; 5 you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. 7 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. 8 Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.” Notice what it says in verse 6. “But showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.” He will be merciful to those who love Him. And how do we show we love Him? By keeping His commandments. We will have no other gods. We will not make for ourselves any carved images. We will not take His name in vain (this does not only mean using His name as a cuss word, but taking to oneself the title of “Christian” when one is not).

“But what about keeping the Sabbath? Should we not hallow the seventh day and rest on that seventh day?” This is a question that is still being bandied about to this day, that the seventh day (Saturday) is still the Sabbath. The answer is this: The Sabbath was a sign of the Covenant between God and the people of Israel. Exodus 31:16-17—16 “Therefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant. 17 It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever.” Ezekiel 20:19-20—19 “I am the LORD your God: Walk in My statutes, keep My judgments, and do them; 20 hallow My Sabbaths, and they will be a sign between Me and you, that you may know that I am the LORD your God.” The command not only included the people, but their sons, their daughters, their servants and their cattle, and the stranger within their gates (Exodus 20:10). So as long as this Covenant was in place, the people of Israel were obliged to keep the Sabbath as the token of that Covenant. “But what about today?” Well, are we still under that Covenant? No, we are now under the New Covenant, and the blood of Christ is the sign of this New Covenant (Matthew 26:28; Mark 14:24; Luke 22:20). And our eternal rest in Christ is now our Sabbath rest.

The writer of Hebrews tells us this. When they were writing the New Testament, the writers came as close as they could to saying certain things without explicitly saying them. This is one of those places, this time talking about the Sabbath and how we in the church are to understand it. He equates the seventh-day rest of God with the people of Israel falling in the Wilderness, and their leader Joshua giving them rest from their enemies. And he does so very concisely, telling us that our rest is not the seventh day, nor was it when Joshua led them in conquering the tribes in the land of Canaan, but it is found by faith in Christ. Hebrews 4:3-11—3 For we who have believed do enter that rest, as He has said: "So I swore in My wrath, ' They shall not enter My rest,'" although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. 4 For He has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way: "And God rested on the seventh day from all His works"; 5 and again in this place: "They shall not enter My rest." 6 Since therefore it remains that some must enter it, and those to whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience, 7 again He designates a certain day, saying in David, "Today," after such a long time, as it has been said: "Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts." 8 For if Joshua had given them rest, then He would not afterward have spoken of another day. 9 There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. 10 For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His. 11 Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience. Notice in verses 4-5 The Writer speaks of God resting after Creation on the seventh day, then comparing it with the rest given to the people by Joshua. 4 For He has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way: "And God rested on the seventh day from all His works"; 5 and again in this place: "They shall not enter My rest." What do these verses have to do with the seventh-day Sabbath? This: that we who believe in Christ are, by virtue of our faith in Christ, now resting in our Sabbath rest, which is Christ. For we who have believed do enter that rest. Did not Christ Himself say that He would give us rest? Matthew 11:28—“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” The Writer of Hebrews picks up on this principle in Hebrews 4:9-10—9 There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. 10 For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His. Those of us who have come to Christ for salvation are already in the Sabbath of God, as we who have entered into the rest provided by Christ have entered into that Sabbath rest, and we have taken our Sabbath as God did on that seventh day!

Your earthly Sabbaths, Lord, we love/But there's a nobler rest above;

To that our lab'ring souls aspire/With ardent hope and strong desire.

In your blest kingdom we shall be/From ev'ry mortal trouble free:

No sighs shall mingle with the songs/Resounding from immortal tongues.

No rude alarms of raging foes/No cares to break the long repose,

No midnight shade, no waning moon/But sacred, high, eternal noon.

O long-expected day, begin/Dawn on these realms of woe and sin!

Break, morn of God, upon our eyes/And let the world's true Sun arise!

(“Lord of the Sabbath, Hear Us Pray” by Philip Doddridge)

Not only do we show love for God by keeping His commandments, we also show we love Him by trusting Him. What was the theme throughout the book of Numbers? The people were grumbling and complaining. And why were they grumbling and complaining? Because they did not trust God to provide for them. And yet He did. Whether it was manna or quail or water from a rock, God always provided for them. But time after time after time (in fact, ten times according to Numbers 14:22)Him.

they did not trust God and they put Him to the test. And every time He showed them that He is the God who cares and will always provide, as He provided the ram for Abraham when he trusted God in Genesis 22:14 and called the name of the place where he was to sacrifice Isaac יְהוָה יִרְאֶה (YHVH Jireh, “God Provides”). When we are faced with a sore temptation, and we think there is no way out of it and we must give in, God has promised us that He will provide a way out. 1^st Corinthians 10:13—No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it. There is no temptation that no man has seen before. “But you don’t understand…!” Someone does. Someone had been through the exact thing you’re going through. And God has prepared a way through it; we must only trust Him and enter through that way. When we and/or our family is hungry, God will provide food. Psalm 37:25—I have been young, and now am old; yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his descendants begging bread. Do you have to get the store brand instead of the name brand? God has provided that. Do you have to put back an item you want but don’t necessarily need? You can do that. Do you have to go to a food pantry to get the things you need? God has provided that too. In the end, God has provided for your needs, you only have to be humble enough to accept it. That is how you show that you trust God and by so doing, you show that you love Him.

Deuteronomy 6:6-12—6 “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. 10 So it shall be, when the LORD your God brings you into the land of which He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give you large and beautiful cities which you did not build, 11 houses full of all good things, which you did not fill, hewn-out wells which you did not dig, vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant—when you have eaten and are full—12 then beware, lest you forget the LORD who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.” The command was not simply to passively listen while Moses was speaking, and not only to take them into their heart, but to make them a part of their daily life. They were to talk with others about them, they were to teach them to their children, they were to write them everywhere and on everything. What better way to remember something than to read it and speak it—and write it—repetitively? They were to remember these words with every breath of their being, as Moses told them, “lest you forget the LORD who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.”

“You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.” These became known as “phylacteries”. They were (and still are) leather boxes worn on the arms and the heads of the Jewish people. Of course, by the times that Jesus walked the earth, the Pharisees had made it a practice to make these phylacteries as large as they could, so they may be seen by others and the person wearing them would be thought of as more pious than other men. Matthew 23:5—“But all their works they do to be seen by men. They make their phylacteries broad and enlarge the borders of their garments.” They did not enlarge their phylacteries and the borders of their garments out of piousness and love of God. They enlarged them out of a sense of self-righteousness. Today, the Mishna—known as a kind of “oral Torah”—lists several requirements for the phylacteries—their dimensions, the material they are to be made from, etc.

From JewishEncyclopedia.com:

Phylacteries, as universally used at the present time, consist of two leathern boxes—one worn on the arm and known as "shel yad" (Men. iv. 1) or "shelzeroa'" (Miḳ. x. 3), and the other worn on the head and known as "shel rosh"—made of the skins of clean animals (Men. 42b; Sanh. 48b; "Yad," l.c. iii. 15). The boxes must be square (Men. 35a); their height may be more or less than the length or the width ("Yad," l.c. iii. 2); and it is desirable that they be black (Shulḥan 'Aruk, Oraḥ Ḥayyim, 32, 40). The boxes are fastened on the under side with square pieces of thick leather (; Men. 35a) by means of twelve stitches made with threads prepared from the veins of clean animals (Shab. 28b), and are provided with loops (; Men. 35a) at the ends, through which are passed leathern straps () made of the skins of clean animals (Shab. 28b) and blackened on the outside (Men. 35a; comp. "Sefer Ḥasidim," ed. Wistinetski, § 1669). The strap that is passed through the head-phylactery ends at the back of the head in a knot representing the letter ד; the one that is passed through the hand-phylactery is formed into a noose near the box and fastened in a knot in the shape of the letter ש (comp. Heilprin, "Seder ha-Dorot," i. 208, ed. Maskileison, Warsaw, 1897, where a wonderful story in relation to the laws governing the making of these knots is told). The box containing the head-phylactery has on the outside the letter ש, both to the right (with three strokes: ש) and to the left (with four strokes: ש; Men. 35a; comp. Tos., s.v. "Shin"; probably as a reminder to insure the correct insertion of the four Biblical passages); and this, together with the letters formed by the knots of the two straps, make up the letters of the Hebrew word "Shaddai" ( = "Almighty," one of the names of God; Men. 35b; Rashi, s.v. "Ḳesher"). The measurements of the boxes are not given; but it is recommended that they should not be smaller than the width of two fingers ('Er. 95b; Tos., s.v. "Maḳom"; Men. 35a; Tos., s.v. "Shin"). The width of the straps should be equal to the length of a grain of oats. The strap that is passed through the head-phylactery should be long enough to encircle the head and to allow for the knot; and the two ends, falling in front over either shoulder, should reach the navel, or somewhat above it. The strap that is passed through the hand-phylactery should be long enough to allow for the knot, to encircle the whole length of the arm, and then to be wound three times around the middle finger ("Yad," l.c. iii. 12; Oraḥ Ḥayyim, 27, 8, 11).

(There are many more rules for their construction and contents. See more at https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12125-phylacteries)

WHOO! That’s a lot! God was not concerned about what they were made from (as long as it wasn’t an unclean animal), or how big they were, etc. He only cared that they were made and that the people used them to remind themselves of the words spoken to them by Moses, the words of the Covenant. These were to be used as teaching tools and reminders, not as ways for people to appear more pious by how big the phylacteries were.

Part 3 next week

Jesus Christ is Lord.

Amen.

A Survey of the Old Testament Law--Deuteronomy 6 (Part 1)

noreply@blogger.com (Four Pointer) — Sat, 27 Jun 2026 13:39:35 +0000

Deuteronomy 6:1-3—1 “Now this is the commandment, and these are the statutes and judgments which the LORD your God has commanded to teach you, that you may observe them in the land which you are crossing over to possess, 2 that you may fear the LORD your God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments which I command you, you and your son and your grandson, all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged. 3 Therefore hear, O Israel, and be careful to observe it, that it may be well with you, and that you may multiply greatly as the LORD God of your fathers has promised you—'a land flowing with milk and honey.'” Now that Moses has reviewed the people’s history up to this point, it is time to move forward and see what it will mean for the people. As Moses says in verse 1, this is a prologue to the First Commandment in all the Law. All the 613 commands are but evidence to show that the people are obeying this First Commandment. The Commandment is found in verse 5, which we will reach shortly.

Many people today think that following God is a recipe for a dull and boring life, that it means following a bunch of rules and regulations, and that missing even one such regulation even once means eternal exclusion from the presence of God in the fires of Hell. And this is really backwards thinking. We do not keep commandments in order to love God—we strive to keep His commandments because we love Him. Think of your own relationship with your parents. Do you obey them in order to develop a kind of love for them? No. You love them, and because you love them you try to obey them. If you mess up, and stay out past your curfew one night, do they banish you from the family forever? No. You are chastened, as any good parent would do, because they give you rules so that you will not fall into ruin.

That was the reason God gave these people the commands. He did not do it in order to make their lives more wearisome and dreadful, He gave them commands so He could show them wat it meant to be a child of God. And these commands were not boulders to be strapped onto the people’s backs—they were so the people could know what it means to please Him. 1st John 5:3—For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome (KJV—grievous). And what would be the result of following these commands? “That your days may be prolonged…that it may be well with you, and that you may multiply greatly as the LORD God of your fathers has promised you.” If one were to follow these commands, they would be in good standing with God, and He would look favorably on that person, and extend their life. Also these commands would keep the person away from those things which shorten their lives.

On the authorship of this passage, The Expositor’s Bible says—

To some readers in our day this repetition, and the renewed postponement of the main subject of the book, have seemed to justify the introduction of a new author here. They are scornfully impatient of the repetition and delay, especially those of them who have themselves a rapid, dashing style; and they declare that the writer of the laws, etc., from chapter 12 onwards cannot have been the writer of these long double introductions. They would not have written so; consequently no one else, however different his circumstances, his objects, and his style may be, can have written so. It is true, they admit, that the style, the grammar, the vocabulary are all exactly those of the purely legal chapters, but that matters not. Their irritation with this delay is decisive; and so they introduce us, entirely on the strength of it, to another Deuteronomist, second or third or fourth-who knows? But all this is too purely subjective to meet with general acceptance, and we may without difficulty decide that the linguistic unity of the book, when chapters 6 to 12 are compared with what we find after 12, is sufficient to settle the question of authorship.

Deuteronomy 6:4-9—4 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one! 5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. 6 And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” Verse 4 in Hebrew reads שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהוָה אֶחָד (Shema Yisrael: YHVH Elohenu, YHVH echad). Verses 4-9 are part of a prayer that is still being recited to this day by observant Jews. If you notice, the Tertragrammaton (יְהוָה, YHVH) is used twice here, and these days Jews do not pronounce this, but rather substitute the word אֲדֹנָי (Adonai, “Lord”) or הַשֵּׁם (HaShem, “The Name”). They feel that they have lost the true pronunciation of the word, and rather than offend the Sovereign and mispronounce His name, they use a word which describes Him as Lord of all Creation without mispronouncing His name. At any rate, the passages that make up the Shema are Deuteronomy 6:4-9; Deuteronomy 11:13-21 and Numbers 15:37-41. These passages are combined into one long prayer, and is recited in the morning and in the evening.

Verses 4-5 are recited by Jesus when He is asked which is the greatest commandment in the Law (Matthew 22:37-38; Mark 12:29-32). When asked by one who wanted to know what he had to do to inherit eternal life, and He asked what it said in the Law, the person quoted verse 5 and Jesus said "You have answered rightly; do this and you will live." (Luke 10:28). This passage has always been important to the Jew, for this is the cornerstone of their faith, that God is One. So let’s look at these verses one by one

Deuteronomy 6:4—4 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one!” The first word, “Hear” is the Hebrew שְׁמַע (Shema, lit., “hear”). Moses was commanding the people to listen to what he was saying, as this would be the foundation of their faith. They were not to just sit idly by while he spoke. They were to actively listen to his words. He was not speaking just to hear himself talk, he was imparting to the people what they needed to know in order to rightly believe in the God who brought them out of Egypt and to trust in Him and Him alone. “Hear”. A word we should remember today when the truth of God is being spoken. We should be hearing what our preacher is saying, and even more than that we should be listening. We can hear all kinds of things, that is the nature of that physical sense. But do we really listen? Do we actively take in what he is saying, and apply it in our lives? Or do we simply show up so we can say we have “done our duty and went to church”? Strong’s defines the word שְׁמַע (Shema) thus:

To hear intelligently (often with implication of attention, obedience, etc.; causatively to tell, etc.): attentively, call (gather) together, carefully, certainly, consent, consider, be content, declare, diligently, discern, give ear, (cause to, let, make to) hear (harken, tell), indeed, listen, make (a) noise, (be) obedient, obey, perceive, [proclaim or make a proclamation], publish, regard, report, shew (forth), (make a) sound, surely, tell, understand, whosoever [heareth], witness.

Does this sound like a passive hearing of what is spoken, or do you get the sense that more is involved? As we will see in Verses 7-9 it involves not only hearing, but also listening, considering, pondering and telling, repeating and publishing publicly. As we are to do with our faith in Christ. We should not let our salt lose its savor, but use it to season the world with our faith (Matthew 5:13; Mark 9:50; Luke 14:34). We are not to hide our light under a basket, but let it shine forth into the world, that they may see the true light, which is Christ (Matthew 5:14). “Hear”–listen, consider, meditate on the Lord and His word, and publish it forth, let the light you have been given shine forth into this world of darkness!

“The LORD our God…” YHVH was their God. Not one of many gods they were to worship, but THE God, the only one to whom they were to devote their lives and their devotion and their worship to. The only One who had done for them and the only One who could do anything for them. What could idols and images do for them? As he said just a few verses prior, Deuteronomy 4:27-28—27 “And the LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the LORD will drive you. 28 And there you will serve gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell.” The gods of the pagans—the Canaanites and the Amorites and the Moabites and the Ammonites—these could do nothing, as they were simply images made by the hands of men, and had no sense of sight, smell, hearing, touch or taste. They were simply statues and poles, which could not be animated and which could not animate. But YHVH, He was—and is and always will be—the God who is, the God who has been since eternity past and will always be until eternity future. He formed the Earth, He created the stars and the moons and all the planets—not only in our Solar System, but throughout the Universe—He gave us not only the brains to think, but also the ability to think. He gave us emotions to feel. He alone is God, has always alone been God, and always will be the only God who does. Ba'al cannot see, Chemosh cannot feel, Ashteroth cannot guide into the right ways. Buddha cannot save, Allah cannot deliver, none of the Hindu gods are alive and can do anything. YHVH is our God, the only One to whom we may look for salvation and deliverance.

“…the LORD is one!” Many are the ones who take this verse to mean that only the Father is God, and to deny the deity of Christ (like Jehovah’s Witnesses). Still others use it as the basis of Modalism, and to say that God only appears as the Father in the Old Testament, the Son in the Gospels, and the Holy Spirit today. This was the theory posited by Sabellius (and before him the Monarchians) and promulgated today by the Modalists like TD Jakes. But this is to deny the truth of the Tri-unity of God—that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, all at the same time.

Is this too hard a thing to believe? That Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is also God who appeared in the flesh and dwelt among men? John says as much, in John 1:1, 14—1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory. “Well, John 1:1 says the Word was with God. That means the Logos was a separate being from God.” To that I would say See my post concerning John 1:1 here. The idea of the Trinity was not one that (as is supposed by some) was invented by Constantine and the Council of Nicea (for all the great things this Council did and spoke, it is treated by many as the moment when Christianity, and all things pertaining to it, were invented). The Trinity, and the deity of Christ, was something believed by the Early Church (Ante-Nicene) Fathers, even in the 100s and 200s AD. Ignatius, in his “Epistle to the Ephesians” (chapter XIX) wrote the following:

Hence every kind of magic was destroyed, and every bond of wickedness disappeared; ignorance was removed, and the old kingdom abolished, God Himself being manifested in human form for the renewal of eternal life. And now that took a beginning which had been prepared by God. Henceforth all things were in a state of tumult, because He meditated the abolition of death.

In his “Dialog With Trypho” (chapter CXXVIII), Justin Martyr wrote:

And that Christ being Lord, and God the Son of God, and appearing formerly in power as Man, and Angel, and in the glory of fire as at the bush, so also was manifested at the judgment executed on Sodom, has been demonstrated fully by what has been said.

Hippolytus, in “Refutation of All Heresies” (Chapter X):

The Logos alone of this God is from God himself; wherefore also the Logos is God, being the substance of God.

“Well, that’s all well and good. But these are simply men, who were not writing under the inspiration and direction of the Holy Spirit. Besides, they were writing long after the death and resurrection of Jesus. Is there any Scriptural proof?” As a matter of fact, yes, there is. Titus 2:10, 13—10 not pilfering, but showing all good fidelity, that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things…13 looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. 1st Timothy 2:3—For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior. “But the people of Israel did not believe in a Savior besides the Father.” But that does not mean that the Son was not their Savior. 2nd Samuel 22:3—The God of my strength, in whom I will trust; my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold and my refuge; my Savior. Isaiah 45:15—Truly You are God, who hide Yourself, O God of Israel, the Savior! “Okay, so what does that mean? It is God who saves through Jesus Christ.” Read Titus 2:13 again. Jesus is referred to as our Savior and as our God! To say that Jesus is a separate Savior from God is to deny the words spoken by God in Hosea 13:4—“Yet I am the LORD your God Ever since the land of Egypt, and you shall know no God but Me; for there is no savior besides Me.” 2nd Peter 1:11—For so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. God is the only Savior, and yes, He does save through Jesus Christ our Lord. That is because Jesus is the Word of God, the Son of God, the Lamb of God—in short, Jesus is God!

This also speaks to something Jesus said, in John 17:11 (ESV)—“Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me (“which” refers to those whom the Father gave Him), that they may be one, even as we are one.” The Mormon, the Jehovah's Witness, the Modalist, the denier of the Trinity will try to say “This just means they were unified in purpose. This is no ‘proof text’ for the Trinity! Are you trying to say that Peter and Thaddeus were one being?” Yes, that is what I am saying. “HUH?” 1st Corinthians 10:16-17—16 The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? 17 For we, though many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread. 1st Corinthians 12:12-14—12 For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. 13 For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. 14 For in fact the body is not one member but many. If we are in Christ, then we are one body, members of one another. Romans 12:4-5—4 For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, 5 so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. Ephesians 4:25—Therefore, putting away lying, "Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor," for we are members of one another. So yes, we are one with the other members of Christ—same flesh, same blood, same essence, same everything. We all share in the one body, which we are in Christ. And just as God is One—the Father being the First Person, the Son the Second Person, the Holy Spirit the Third Person, but all these are one—so should we, though being different members of the Body of Christ, be One in Love, in Fellowship, and in Purpose. Charles Spurgeon—

Hence the diversity. If the hand were made exactly like the foot, it would not be a tenth part as useful; and if the eye only had the same faculty as the ear, it would not be able to see, and the whole body would be a loser thereby. Do we begin to compare eyes, and ears, and feet, and hands, and say, “This is the better faculty”? No. They are each one needful. So do not compare yourselves among yourselves, for if you are in the body of Christ, you are each one needful, and the peculiarity which you possess, and the peculiarity which your brother possesses, have their place in the body corporate, and must be precious before God.

Part 2 next week

Jesus Christ is Lord.

Amen.

A Survey of the Old Testament Law--Deuteronomy 1-5 (Part 2)

noreply@blogger.com (Four Pointer) — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 14:56:23 +0000

Deuteronomy 4:32-35—32 “For ask now concerning the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and ask from one end of heaven to the other, whether any great thing like this has happened, or anything like it has been heard. 33 Did any people ever hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and live? 34 Or did God ever try to go and take for Himself a nation from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? 35 To you it was shown, that you might know that the LORD Himself is God; there is none other besides Him.” In the 1800s, Joseph Smith invented a “God” more to his own liking, and this “God” is worshipped by many Mormons across the globe. Temples have been built to him, universities have been built proclaiming to teach about this “God” to many unsuspecting followers. But this “God” is the invention of a man’s imagination—He doesn’t exist, He can do nothing for anyone, and the “gospel” that is offered to the followers of this “God” can save no one, as these worshippers follow a false god who does not exist, and has never existed except in the mind of a money-digging polygamist.

This “God” is one of millions of “Gods” who rule over millions of universes, and had to learn how to be a “God” himself. In what is known as the “King Follett Discourse”, Joseph Smith elaborated on what he believed and taught to be the nature and person of God, how He was once a man and progressed to godhood:

In the sermon, Joseph taught about divine nature and eternal progression. He countered the long-standing theological tradition that treated God as wholly different than humanity. He explained that “if men do not comprehend the character of God they do not comprehend themselves.” He taught that God “was once as one of us” and that “all the spirits that God ever sent into the world” were “susceptible of enlargement,” having the capacity to become like God in the eternities. Joseph also taught that a core part of each person is coeternal with God, comparing this divine core to a ring, without beginning or end. The King Follett sermon was the most direct, public explanation of these doctrines, but it was not the first time they had been introduced. The Book of Mormon and the book of Moses both contain passages that stood at odds with the theological position dominant in Joseph Smith’s day that God is “without body, parts, or passions.” Revelations received by Joseph Smith as early as 1832 taught that spirits existed “in the beginning with God” and that through the power of Jesus Christ’s Atonement, individuals could “receive their inheritance and be made equal with him,” becoming gods. Joseph Smith had elaborated on these revelations in various settings, helping others grasp the implications of his teachings.

(https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/topics/king-follett-discourse?lang=eng)

This speech was based on the famous couplet spoken by Lorenzo Snow, “As man now is, God once was: As God now is, man may be.”

The Prophet Joseph Smith himself publicly taught the doctrine the following year, 1844, during a funeral sermon of Elder King Follett: “God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! … It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the Character of God, and to know that we may converse with him as one man converses with another, and that he was once a man like us; yea, that God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ himself did.” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1938, pp. 345–46.)

(https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1982/02/i-have-a-question/is-president-snows-statement-as-man-now-is-god-once-was-as-god-now-is-man-may-be-accepted-as-official-doctrine?lang=eng)

This is nothing more than self-worship, and goes against the clear teaching of Scripture, that YYHVH alone is God, that nothing and no one can become God, and that “there is none other besides Him.” God did not have to “learn” how to become God, He has always been God. None can become God, for He alone is, was, and always will be God. This was a lesson the people of Israel would have to be reminded of many times throughout their history, and one which many humans today need to be reminded of.

In Deuteronomy 5:1-33, Moses repeats what we call the Ten Commandments, and reminds the people that these are the words of the covenant God made with them, to make them a people of God, set apart to Him, simply for His good pleasure. You will hear many today speak against the doctrine of Sovereign Election—that God chooses those whom He will save—and say that “it’s not fair!” Well, was it “fair” for God to only choose this people to receive His Law and be brought into a covenant with Him? What of the Ammonite, or the Moabite? Would it not have been “fair” for God to tell them His law and how to please Him and how to atone for their sins? Was it “fair” for God to only choose—not all the descendants to Abraham, not all the descendants of Isaac—but only the descendants of Jacob to be His people? For He did not enter into an everlasting covenant with the descendants of Ishmael; He did not enter into an everlasting covenant with the descendants of Esau; He only entered into such a covenant with the descendants of Jacob (Israel), and it was only these with whom He made a covenant that these should be His people.

And this Law that He gave—the Ten Commandments and the other 513 commands—were the rules they were to live by in order to continue to be considered His people. These commands were not burdens, they were not grievous. They were how all people should act in accordance with the holiness and righteousness of God. If someone does not want to obey these commands, they cannot be a child of God. If they want to steal; if they want to murder; if they want to defile their neighbor’s wife; if they want to commit acts of homosexuality, then they cannot be called the people of God. Because these things go against everything He is and that person will not prosper as a child of God. As it says in Deuteronomy 5:32-33—32 “Therefore you shall be careful to do as the LORD your God has commanded you; you shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. 33 You shall walk in all the ways which the LORD your God has commanded you, that you may live and that it may be well with you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which you shall possess.” I’ll finish with these words from Matthew Henry—

Seeing God had shown himself so tender of them, and so willing to consider their frame and gratify them in what they desired, and withal so ready to make the best of them, - seeing they themselves had desired to have Moses for their teacher, who was now teaching them, - and seeing they had promised so solemnly, and under the influence of so many good causes and considerations, that they would hear and do, he charges them to walk in all the ways that God had commanded them, assuring them that it would be highly for their advantage to do so. The only way to be happy is to be holy.

Deuteronomy 5:6-22—6 “' I am the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 7 You shall have no other gods before Me. 8 You shall not make for yourself a carved image--any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; 9 you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, 10 but showing mercy to thousands, to 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. 13 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 14 but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your ox, nor your donkey, nor any of your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. 15 And remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. 16 Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD your God has commanded you, that your days may be long, and that it may be well with you in the land which the LORD your God is giving you. 17 You shall not murder. 18 You shall not commit adultery. 19 You shall not steal. 20 You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. 21 You shall not covet your neighbor's wife; and you shall not desire your neighbor's house, his field, his male servant, his female servant, his ox, his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's.' 22 These words the LORD spoke to all your assembly, in the mountain from 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.”

Here we come to the crux of this entire study—the Law and its application to our lives today. Here we have Moses repeating the Ten Words (Ten Commandments) that God gave to him atop Mt. Sinai. These were the terms and conditions of this covenant that God made with the people of Israel. But what of the other 513 commands in the Law? Were the people to keep them too, and if they didn’t, what would happen to the people? And why were these ten given apart from the other 513? And most importantly for us, what do they mean for us today? Are we supposed to keep them? All good questions, so let’s address them.

“What of the other 513 commands in the Law? Were the people to keep them too, and if they didn’t, what would happen to the people? And why were these ten given apart from the other 513?” First, let’s talk about these ten in relation to the entirety of the 613 commandments contained in the Law. The Ten Commandments were given to all the people atop Sinai as the cornerstone of the entire Law. But these Ten Commandments don’t include the commands against homosexuality, bestiality, and incest. The Ten Commandments were the first ten spoken by God to the people, and written by God onto tablets of stone. Moses then brought these tablets down to the people, who said “It is enough! You alone go up and speak with God! We will wait down here! We are frightened by the voice of God.” So Moses went back up Sinai to receive the rest of the Words spoken by God. And what we have as Exodus 20:22-Leviticus 27:34 (with the exception of a few places) was the other 513 commandments, also spoken to Moses by God within that same time frame. So really, all 613 Commandments of the Law were given to Moses upon Mt. Sinai within those 40 days and 40 nights that Moses was at the summit. And the penalties for breaking these commands, which were included with the giving of the commands, were to be carried out against the violators of the commands—whether considering the person unclean until sundown, or cutting the person off from the people, or the death of the perpetrator.

“So why does Moses only mention the Ten Commandments here?” Two reasons. First, these were the only ten that the people heard spoken at the mountain before they got scared of hearing God’s voice, so Moses received the other 513 commandments after he ascended back up the mount. Exodus 21:1—“Now these are the judgments which you shall set before them.” God continued giving His law to Moses even after the people said they did not want to hear the voice of God lest they be consumed (Exodus 20:18-21). The other reason Moses only restated the Ten Commandments was for the sake of time. Do you think it would have behooved Moses to speak the entirety of the book of Leviticus at this time? To again write all the words he wrote in that book? No, it was sufficient for him to only speak and write the words which the people heard, as they could understand the rest when he later wrote Deuteronomy.

“So what does this mean for us today? Are we supposed to keep the entire Law, or just the Ten Commandments?” This is where we need to slow down and let the Scriptures speak. These were the words of the covenant that God made with the people of Israel, the covenant which they broke (Jeremiah 31:32). Once this covenant was broken, God would make a new covenant (Jeremiah 31:31). So God began preparing the way for the new and better covenant to come into being. Malachi 3:1—"Behold, I send My messenger, and he will prepare the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple, even the Messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight. Behold, He is coming," says the LORD of hosts. This is speaking of John the Baptist (see Matthew 3:3). He would announce to the people of Israel that the time of the establishment of the New Covenant was at hand, that God was going to establish a new Way for the people’s sins to be forgiven. John 1:29—“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” No longer would the people have to bring bulls and goats to the temple of God for them to be slaughtered and butchered in a particular way. God was providing His own Lamb, upon whom the sins of all the believing would be laid, and He would take those sins to God for them to be expiated. And in this new covenant, there were not 613 commandments which were to be followed to the letter, but rather only two simple commands. Matthew 22:36-40—36 "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?" 37 Jesus said to him, "'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets." Whereas the Torah observant Jews were trying to keep the covenant that their fathers had already broken, Jesus was going forth announcing a new covenant which they refused. While the old covenant was mediated by Moses (Galatians 3:19), this new covenant would be mediated by God Himself—the Second Person of the Godhead, Jesus Christ our Lord (Hebrews 8:6, 9:15, 12:24). And just as at the base of Mt. Sinai the people did not want to hear the voice of God lest they be consumed, now they did not want to hear the voice of God because it spoke against them and their inability to uphold the covenant that God made with their fathers.

So Jesus spilt His blood, ushering in the New Covenant. Now, what did this New Covenant say about the Old Covenant? It says that a new and better covenant may be established, that the Old Covenant is ready to be done away with (Hebrews 8:13). Included in that Old Covenant that is being done away with are the commandments contained therein—the Old Testament Law. “So you’re saying this Law was done away with?” Yes, that is what I am saying—but only for those who believe. There are many who are afraid to say that, thinking that saying this will give people carte blanche to act however they want to according to their desires. But let’s discuss this for a minute. First, what else would the apostle Paul mean when he said in Romans 6:14, when he said For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace? His words are clear, that the Law does not hold sway over us as believers in Christ. You are not under law. Plus, when we are saved, the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in us, leading us in the ways of righteousness, and convicting us of sin, so that if we do sin our hearts will be heavy and we will go to God and ask for forgiveness, which will be provided to us through Jesus Christ our Lord.

“Yes, but in Romans 6:14, when Paul uses the word ‘you’, he is writing to believers. We believers are not under law, but what of unbelievers?” The unbeliever is still under that Law, and it will hold him accountable to God. “Explain.” I will. He writes to Timothy in 1^st Timothy 1:9-10—9 Knowing this: that the law is not made for a righteous person, but for the lawless and insubordinate, for the ungodly and for sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, 10 for fornicators, for sodomites, for kidnappers, for liars, for perjurers, and if there is any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine. The Law will judge those who continue to commit sin and whose sins are not taken away by the blood of Christ. If your sins have been paid for by Christ, they will not again be brought up before God when you die—You are not under law—the blood of Jesus has taken away those sins, and you will stand righteous and accepted by God (Psalm 103:12; Micah 7:19). But if Christ’s blood has not washed away one’s sins, and one dies in those sins, how is God to judge that person for those sins? What standard is He to use? He will use His Law. The law is not made for a righteous person, but…for sinners. The sinner, in the New Testament, is one who does not have faith in Christ as His payment for sins. That is who the Law is now for—the one who stands naked and open to God, their sins still clinging to them like refuse, and that person will be judged by His Law.

Paul says in another place, What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions (Galatians 3:19). God gave His Law because of sins. He did not give the Law in order to make people righteous, but rather because people are unrighteous. He gave it to the people of Israel because He chose them, out of all the people in the world. He did not give it to the Edomites. He did not give it to the Amalekites. He did not give it to the Hivites or the Perizzites or the Girgashites. He gave it to the Israelites, not because they were any better than their neighbors, but to show their neighbors how sinful those neighbors were. Moses would tell the people in Deuteronomy 9:4-6—4 “Do not think in your heart, after the LORD your God has cast them out before you, saying, 'Because of my righteousness the LORD has brought me in to possess this land'; but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD is driving them out from before you…6 Therefore understand that the LORD your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people.” That must have been a blow to their pride. And this is the effect the Doctrine of Election should have on us. That God chose us, not because we were good enough or righteous enough—for we are neither, at heart—but because we are unrighteous, there being nothing in us that would commend us to God. But we are all, each and every human being, a stiff-necked people that shrink away from God every chance we get.

And it is this Law that shows us so. In our unregenerated state, we want nothing to do with God. We make for ourselves idols that we will desire against and above God. We want what we want, and we will kill and steal and covet until we have it. “But what about people that do not kill and steal?” James 2:10-11—10 For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. 11 For He who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not murder." Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. Do they believe in God? No? Then they have created for themselves a God they worship even if they don’t believe they do. They say they do not believe in any gods, but they do. If they believe that the human race is the pinnacle of everything, then they believe that the human race created itself, thus setting up the human race as their god. These are the people that the Law will condemn when they stand before God on the last day.

A Survey of the Old Testament Law-- Deuteronomy 1-5 (Part 1)

noreply@blogger.com (Four Pointer) — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 01:15:11 +0000

Chapters 1-5 consist mostly of Moses recounting everything that happened to the people and the events that took place from the time they were camped at Sinai until the events recorded at the end of Numbers. So we will kinda fast forward through these chapters and just kinda hit the highlights.

Deuteronomy 1:1-5—1 These are the words which Moses spoke to all Israel on this side of the Jordan in the wilderness, in the plain opposite Suph, between Paran, Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab. 2 It is eleven days' journey from Horeb by way of Mount Seir to Kadesh Barnea. 3 Now it came to pass in the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, that Moses spoke to the children of Israel according to all that the LORD had given him as commandments to them, 4 after he had killed Sihon king of the Amorites, who dwelt in Heshbon, and Og king of Bashan, who dwelt at Ashtaroth in Edrei. 5 On this side of the Jordan in the land of Moab, Moses began to explain this law.

When it says this side of the Jordan, it is referring to the land east of the Jordan, across the river from Canaan. As many who deny the truth of the Bible will tell you, it is an eleven day journey by foot from Mt. Sinai (Mt. Horeb) to Kadesh Barnea. And they will use this fact to scoff the fact that it took forty years for this journey to be accomplished. But this is where their ignorance is shown, as it was not simply trekking by foot that took forty years, but the command of God because of the complaining of the people that God commanded them to wander in the wilderness for forty years (Numbers 14:29-35). Had they simply obeyed God and not grumbled over every inconvenience and hardship they felt they suffered, the generation that came from Mt. Sinai could have been in the Promised Land within days. But they wanted everything the way they wanted it, and because God did not give them every whim of their heart the way they wanted it, they complained and cried out to go back to the slavery they endured in Egypt, thinking that would be better than being free and provided for by God. So that generation was consumed in the desert, and their children entered into the land of promise rather than they.

This address takes place in the eleventh month, שְׁבָט (Shevat) on the first day of the month. It is given in a place referred to by Moses as in the plain opposite Suph, between Paran, Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab.. The Paran and Hazeroth here mentioned are not the Paran and Hazeroth where the people wandered and encamped (respectively) after leaving Sinai, but are different places with the same names, as was common at that time. This was in an area now called Arabah, which encompasses the Jordan valley between the Sea of Galilee all the way to the Gulf of Aqabah, the northeastern arm of the Red Sea.

(https://www.ldolphin.org/crew/fig01.jpg)

The names of the places in our text pinpoint the location where Moses spoke these words, and was likely the area known as Heshbon, which was due east of Jericho. It was at this place where Moses spoke to the people the Law he had received from God on Mt. Sinai as recorded in Exodus and Leviticus. Until this time, the people did not know this Law or what it contained. All they knew was that God spoke to Moses on the mountain and at various times thereafter, but the substance of those conversations they were not privy to. Now that Moses was speaking these words to the people, they would be without excuse, and would be expected to learn these commands and follow them as they were told.

In Deuteronomy 1:6-46, Moses recounts their journeying and their grumbling about the land the 12 spies had seen, and even about his own denial into Canaan because of his own disobedience. He continues this narrative in Deuteronomy 2:1-7, recalling how they passed by the land of their brethren Edom, the descendants of Esau. Deuteronomy 2:1-7—1 “Then we turned and journeyed into the wilderness of the Way of the Red Sea, as the LORD spoke to me, and we skirted Mount Seir for many days. 2 And the LORD spoke to me, saying: 3 'You have skirted this mountain long enough; turn northward. 4 And command the people, saying, "You are about to pass through the territory of your brethren, the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir; and they will be afraid of you. Therefore watch yourselves carefully. 5 Do not meddle with them, for I will not give you any of their land, no, not so much as one footstep, because I have given Mount Seir to Esau as a possession. 6 You shall buy food from them with money, that you may eat; and you shall also buy water from them with money, that you may drink. 7 For the LORD your God has blessed you in all the work of your hand. He knows your trudging through this great wilderness. These forty years the LORD your God has been with you; you have lacked nothing."'” This is another place where the skeptic would point to and say “Contradiction!” For if you remember, Numbers 20:14-21 recounts when the people asked for passage through the land of their brethren and were denied. But here in Deuteronomy it says they would buy food and water from them. So how do we reconcile these two things? Easily. While the king of Edom did not permit them to pass through the land, the Edomites nevertheless sold them food and water for their journey. “That still doesn't answer the contradiction!” There is no contradiction. It’s simple. While it is true the camp of Israel did not pass through the land of Edom, there were most likely small groups of people who ventured into Edom to buy food and water.

Deuteronomy 3 continues the narrative, recounting the battles the people had with Sihon king of the Amorites and Og of Bashan, and how God went before them and defeated these kings, and how God denied Moses entry into Canaan, despite his pleadings, for his disobedience at the rock of Meribah.

Deuteronomy 4:1-4—1 “Now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I teach you to observe, that you may live, and go in and possess the land which the LORD God of your fathers is giving you. 2 You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you. 3 Your eyes have seen what the LORD did at Baal Peor; for the LORD your God has destroyed from among you all the men who followed Baal of Peor. 4 But you who held fast to the LORD your God are alive today, every one of you.” We humans need to be reminded so many times of so many things. Which is why Moses reminded them of what happened at Ba’al-Peor (Numbers 25:1-18). The women of Moab enticed the men to lay with them in sexual idolatry of the pagan gods. And in one day 24,000 died of the plague that God sent upon them for their idolatry. “Well, that’s pretty memorable; I don’t think anybody could forget that!” Remember that in Numbers 11:1 the people complained, God burned up the outskirts of their camp, then just three verses later they complained about the manna that came down from Heaven! These were people with a very short attention span, and needed constant reminders about the power of God. So Moses reminds them of this episode where so many died because of their idolatry, and constrains them to listen to and obey the commands from God “which I teach you to observe, that you may live, and go in and possess the land which the LORD God of your fathers is giving you.” He was not simply talking just to hear his own voice, but showed his genuine concern for the people and for the name of God by entreating the people to listen to and obey the words which he was giving them. These were God’s chosen people, and how would the neighboring nations think of the name and reputation of God if these people carried on with worshipping the idols of these neighboring nations? They would not think very highly of Him if He chose people who would abandon Him.

Deuteronomy 4:5-20—5 “Surely I have taught you statutes and judgments, just as the LORD my God commanded me, that you should act according to them in the land which you go to possess. 6 Therefore be careful to observe them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes, and say, 'Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.' 7 For what great nation is there that has God so near to it, as the LORD our God is to us, for whatever reason we may call upon Him? 8 And what great nation is there that has such statutes and righteous judgments as are in all this law which I set before you this day? 9 Only take heed to yourself, and diligently keep yourself, lest you forget the things your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. And teach them to your children and your grandchildren, 10 especially concerning the day you stood before the LORD your God in Horeb, when the LORD said to me, 'Gather the people to Me, and I will let them hear My words, that they may learn to fear Me all the days they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children.' 11 Then you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire to the midst of heaven, with darkness, cloud, and thick darkness. 12 And the LORD spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of the words, but saw no form; you only heard a voice. 13 So He declared to you His covenant which He commanded you to perform, the Ten Commandments; and He wrote them on two tablets of stone. 14 And the LORD commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that you might observe them in the land which you cross over to possess. 15 Take careful heed to yourselves, for you saw no form when the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, 16 lest you act corruptly and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of any figure: the likeness of male or female, 17 the likeness of any animal that is on the earth or the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, 18 the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground or the likeness of any fish that is in the water beneath the earth. 19 And take heed, lest you lift your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, you feel driven to worship them and serve them, which the LORD your God has given to all the peoples under the whole heaven as a heritage. 20 But the LORD has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be His people, an inheritance, as you are this day.” No other nation in the history of planet Earth was ever called by name by the God of all creation. No other nation was given His Laws, His sacrifices, or a way to be reconciled to Him other than the people of Israel. God made no covenant with any other particular nation on Earth other than Israel. He did not covenant with the Hittites, or the Amorites, or the Canaanites or the Egyptians or the Babylonians. Only with the Israelites. This is a great thing to consider. That the God of all Creation would make a covenant with a people who were not even a nation! And if the people walked in His statutes and obeyed His commandments, the neighboring nations would consider them wise and understanding. For who has wisdom but God? Wisdom was the first of His creation (see Proverbs 8:22-31). It is God alone who gives wisdom to men; it is God alone whose wisdom created the universe, so that all the planets and galaxies do not rush here and there and crash into each other. And who has understanding but God? Who can plumb the depths of all things and know exactly how they work? Who can know how the mind of man works except he who has understanding from God?

Moses spells this out in verses 15-19. If their neighboring nations saw them worshipping created beings as they worshipped, the people of Israel would be seen as no different from them, as these neighbors worshipped all kinds of things found in nature—stars, sun, moon, cattle, creeping things. All the things Paul warned us about in Romans 1:22-23. Seeking to be thought of as the wise of the world, they showed just how foolish they really were, thinking that birds and animals and insects were to be worshipped, rather than the God who created all things, visible and invisible, and who could destroy all of creation with a snap of His fingers. Are cats longsuffering? If they cry to be fed, and you do not feed them right then and there, will they understand? Can dogs create? Can moths or beetles fulfill your needs? No. Only a fool would think so. But all of these things the pagan nations believed, and gave obeisance to these things, thinking that by doing so their lives would be more at ease. But what did these things do for these people? Nothing. What did God do for the people of Israel? He did to them and for them according to their obedience or according to their defiance.

Deuteronomy 4:25-31—25 “When you beget children and grandchildren and have grown old in the land, and act corruptly and make a carved image in the form of anything, and do evil in the sight of the LORD your God to provoke Him to anger, 26 I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that you will soon utterly perish from the land which you cross over the Jordan to possess; you will not prolong your days in it, but will be utterly destroyed. 27 And the LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the LORD will drive you. 28 And there you will serve gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell. 29 But from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul. 30 When you are in distress, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, when you turn to the LORD your God and obey His voice 31 (for the LORD your God is a merciful God), He will not forsake you nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which He swore to them.” It is not long after the death of Joshua that the people do this very thing. The book of Judges is nothing but a repeating cycle of disobedience by the people, captivity of the people, the people crying out to God, Him delivering them, their repeated disobedience and captivity, them crying out and being delivered, and so on and so forth. The histories of the kings of Israel and Judah are marked by this same pattern in the books of Kings and Chronicles. In 622BC He allows the northern kingdom of Israel to be taken captive by the Assyrians. The people of Judah learned their lesson the hard way in 587BC, when after King Josiah died—the last of the godly kings of Judah—they made his son Jehoahaz king. He was quickly deposed by the conquering Egyptians who placed his brother Eliakim (whose name they changed to Jehoiakim) on the throne, and he was carried away to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar. His son Jehoiachin became king, and he too was carried off to Babylon, and Zedekiah (Jehoiakim’s brother) was installed by Nebuchadnezzar to be king of Judah. And Zedekiah did all the evils that were done by Jehoahaz, Eliakim, and Jehoiachin. These evil kings carried the people away in their sins with them, and the people were ultimately carried away to Babylon and the temple in Jerusalem was burned. And in 587BC God allows Judah to be taken into exile to Babylon because of their idolatry. And much like their time in Egypt, when they were obliged to raise monuments to the Egyptian Gods, they would serve false gods in whichever dispersion they were taken in. Keil and Delitzsch—

There among the heathen they would be obliged to serve gods that were the work of men's hands, gods of wood and stone, that could neither hear, nor eat, nor smell, i.e., possessed no senses, showed no sign of life. What Moses threatens here, follows from the eternal laws of the divine government. The more refined idolatry of image-worship leads to coarser and coarser forms, in which the whole nature of idol-worship is manifested in all its pitiableness. “When once the God of revelation is forsaken, the God of reason and imagination must also soon be given up and make way for still lower powers, that perfectly accord with the I exalted upon the throne, and in the time of pretended 'illumination' to atheism and materialism also” (Schultz).

Which is why Moses said at the beginning of verse 25, “When”, not “if”. These words were spoken to him by God, who knew the people would act corruptly, and make for themselves idols, and be carried away to a land they did not know and would serve the idols of this unknown (to them) land. And none of the idols they set up for themselves could stop what God was doing. BUT… Did God forget the covenants He made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the people? No, He did not. For as He promised, He raised up a king, Cyrus (he was king of Persia, and defeated the Babylonians in the year 539BC), who made a proclamation and gave the Jews permission to return to the land of Judah and rebuild the temple.

The warnings are no less dire to us today. If we do not worship God, if we do not give Him His due reverence, if we do not exalt Him as the High and Omniscient Potentate, we will be reduced to worshipping those things which are no gods, the fictions of men’s minds which are good for nothing but to entertain the intellect and whims of men for a moment, but in the end can do nothing for them. The new atheists—Richard Dawkins, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Christopher Hitchens—will join the older atheists, like Voltaire, and bow their knee before God and recognize Him as King of all Creation!

Part 2 next week

Jesus Christ is Lord.

Amen.

A Survey of the Old Testament Law--Deuteronomy (Introduction, Part 4)

noreply@blogger.com (Four Pointer) — Sat, 30 May 2026 15:08:19 +0000

Finishing up our review of the chapters of Deuteronomy

In Deuteronomy 12, we see the command to utterly destroy the images of the pagans and to not use them in worshipping God. This would become a stumbling block to many kings who walked in the ways of God, but did not remove high places established for the worship of pagan gods. We see this happen also today, when “churches” will use some sort of worldly thing in their “worship” of God. How many times do we see these gatherings do a series entitled “At the Movies” or “The Gospel According to…” some secular book or musical group. They come out with some kind of worldly entertainment and attach God onto the end of it, and claim they are using it to glorify God. But here, God is saying “don’t do that”. The same is true with many Roman Catholic practices, which are simply pagan practices they have co-opted into their idea of worshipping God (making Mary the “Queen of Heaven”, for example). Then Moses goes onto to regulations about eating—where you are to eat, where you can eat, who can eat, etc. We won’t go over those here because they are rather specific, but will address them at their proper time.

In Deuteronomy 13 we see what to do with someone who claims they are a prophet—“If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or a wonder…” (Deuteronomy 13:1). This person, who has not been called as a prophet by God is usually one who calls on a different god, one whom the people have not known, and their only goal is to drag people away from worshipping the one, true, living God and into the worship of a false deity. That person is to be stoned until dead, the city and all its inhabitants and even its livestock are to be destroyed and the city’s goods to be burned with fire. Unfortunately, we are not strong enough to do that today. We are told by the progressives not to judge the person and their intent, because, well, they are just trying to do good. We don’t really know their heart. And they are just sharing with us a word they got from God, and who are we to judge, anyway? Or some such gobbledygook. In other words, instead of marking those who claim to be a prophet and a dreamer of dreams and judging their words against the word of God and tossing them out on their keester, we give them a TV show and send them money (I’m talking to you, Benny Hinn and Paula White and Jesse Duplantis and Rodney Howard Browne et al.).

In Deuteronomy 14:1-21 we see another list of unclean animals the people were not to eat. These were likely animals that were being eaten by the pagans, and possibly even used in some of their pagan rituals. Many hypotheses have been given for this list by many different scholars, but the truth is we do not know why these animals were chosen as unclean. One thing we do know for sure is, God told the people to not eat them, thus they were prohibited by God from eating them. Then in the rest of the chapter we read about different tithes—how much they were to be, where they were to be given, to whom they were to be given, etc. One is even to be eaten by the tither! (Won’t hear about this one from the “beat the people over the head with Malachi” crowd). The “give 10% or you’re not saved” crowd doesn’t like to tell you about this one, for fear that you will actually do it and deteriorate their income. But in all actuality, the total of the yearly tithe was closer to 30% rather than 10%. And one tithe, you actually ate!

Deuteronomy 15 talks about the seventh-year release of slaves and debts which we discussed in Leviticus 25, so while we will discuss a bit of it I will point you to the proper site.

Deuteronomy 16 talks about the Passover and the three times in the year when the people of Israel are to appear before God.

Deuteronomy 17 talks about

(a) The sacrifice you bring to God must be without spot or blemish

(b) What to do when you find a person in your city who is transgressing the Covenant

(d) Rules to be followed when (not ‘if’, as God knew their hearts) the people decided they want a king over them.

Of course, over time, the people got tired of having to be ruled by God (as we humans are like to do), and decided they wanted a king “like the other nations” (1st Samuel 8:6). And while they did indeed rejoice to have Saul, a man of Benjamin, of the family of Kish, to be their king, he and future kings did not subscribe to some of the regulations God laid out. Deuteronomy 17:16-20—16 “But he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses, for the LORD has said to you, 'You shall not return that way again.' 17 Neither shall he multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away; nor shall he greatly multiply silver and gold for himself. 18 Also it shall be, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write for himself a copy of this law in a book, from the one before the priests, the Levites. 19 And it shall be with him, and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God and be careful to observe all the words of this law and these statutes, 20 that his heart may not be lifted above his brethren, that he may not turn aside from the commandment to the right hand or to the left, and that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children in the midst of Israel.” David and Solomon multiplied wives (and they turned Solomon’s heart from God), Solomon multiplied gold and silver, and how many of them actually sat down with the Levites and wrote a copy of Deuteronomy (in fact, Jeroboam let any man from any tribe become a priest)?

Deuteronomy 18 is another warning against soothsayers and dreamers of dreams and what to do with them when they are found. And it is not pretty. They were not to be put on TV and sent millions of dollars for prophesying falsely. They were no better than the nations they were going in to dispossess, and God even said so. And in the middle of all this, God says something interesting. Deuteronomy 18:18—“I will raise up for them a Prophet like you from among their brethren, and will put My words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command Him.” Understanding this verse helps us to understand some verses in the Gospels. There are some places in the Gospels where the people ask John the Baptist if he is “the prophet”. Mark 6:14-15—14 Now King Herod heard of Him, for His name had become well known. And he said, "John the Baptist is risen from the dead, and therefore these powers are at work in him." 15 Others said, "It is Elijah." And others said, "It is the Prophet, or like one of the prophets." John 1:19-21—19 Now this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, "Who are you?" 20 He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, "I am not the Christ." 21 And they asked him, "What then? Are you Elijah?" He said, "I am not." "Are you the Prophet?" And he answered, "No." Both of these passages talk about someone named “the Prophet”. And in both of these instances, “the Prophet” is the one spoken of in Deuteronomy 18:18—the promised “prophet like Moses”. A Prophet who will speak the truth and only the truth, a Prophet who is like the one the apostle speaks of in 2nd Peter 2:22 (echoing Isaiah 53:9)— "Who committed no sin, Nor was deceit found in His mouth".

Deuteronomy 19 is a repeat of Numbers 35 in talking about the Cities of Refuge.

Deuteronomy 20 outlines some commands about the people going into battle. The priests were to lead the way, encouraging the people to remain steadfast, and that it was not the people who were doing the fighting, but it was God who would secure the victory. Then the officers were to ask if anyone was a newlywed or had just bought a house or who was faint-hearted, and they were to be sent home, that only experienced, valiant men were to go to battle who had no new responsibilities, lest they be divided in their heart about going in to battle. Then terms were laid out concerning whether or not the city wanted to surrender or not. If they wanted to surrender, then they would be under tribute to the people of Israel. If not, then they were to build siege mounds and encamp against it. And when it was time, they were to wipe out every man in the city. They were to leave none alive, and were to take every woman and child and livestock as plunder.

Deuteronomy 21:1-9 give the provisions for what the people were to do if they find a man slain in a field and no one saw who slayed him. They were to take a heifer, break its neck and wash their hands over it and declare themselves guilty of the bloodshed. Deuteronomy 21:10-14 cover what they were to do if they found a woman among the captives of battle and they wanted to take her for a wife (it was not as barbaric as the atheists make it sound). Deuteronomy 21:15-17 outline how a man was to treat the children of the women he was married to if he had two wives. Deuteronomy 21:18-21 command what the parents were to do if one of their children was a rebellious child. Deuteronomy 21:22-23 give the commands for what to do with the body of a man who was executed for a sin deserving of death.

Deuteronomy 22-26 give various regulations covering various issues and will be covered when we get there.

In Deuteronomy 27-30, Moses commands the people to divide the 12 tribes, with one group standing on Mount Gerizim to speak the blessings, and the other half to stand on Mount Ebal to pronounce the cursings. These two mountains formed a sort of natural amphitheater, much like the Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado. Six tribes—Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin—spoke the blessings and the other six—Gad, Asher, Dan, Naphtali, Zebulun and Reuben—spoke the curses.

Deuteronomy 31-33 is the “Song of Moses”, which he spoke to the people as a farewell address in which He recounted the goodness of God in leading the people out of Egypt and in which he told the people that Joshua would be their leader in taking the land of Canaan that God had promised them.

In Deuteronomy 34 we see the death of Moses, and his burial. Did Moses write this chapter? Probably not, it was most likely added by Joshua. We will discuss this when we get there. And that will bring an end to our study of the Pentateuch, and will close the words written by Moses. I trust it will be an interesting end to our study of the Law of God.

Jesus Christ is Lord.

Amen.

A survey of the Old Testament Law--Deuteronomy (Introduction, Part 3)

noreply@blogger.com (Four Pointer) — Wed, 20 May 2026 11:18:25 +0000

Now, onto summarizing the various chapters in Deuteronomy. This all took place in the land of Gilead, which is described many times as “across from Jericho”, it being across the Jordan River from the city of Jericho in the land of Canaan. And like Leviticus, does not speak of any transit of the people across the river, as Moses was forbidden from entering the Promised Land by God (Numbers 20:12). The people of Israel were not yet a nation in Genesis, they came out from Egypt in Exodus, then camped at the foot of Mount Sinai (Mt. Horeb) in Leviticus, moved through the wilderness in Numbers, and will now finalize their part of the covenant in Deuteronomy.

In chapters 1-4, Moses relates to the people their history since coming out of Egypt, and how God led them out “with a mighty hand and outstretched arm”. This is anthropomorphic language, to help the people reckon the power of God in ways they could understand. For God does not have a form or a body as we have (Deuteronomy 4:14; John 4:24). And he warns them that this being the case, they should take care not to attribute a form to Him as they did in Exodus 32, and make for themselves any graven image of either Him or the stars or the sun or the moon. Deuteronomy 4:14-19—14 And the LORD commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that you might observe them in the land which you cross over to possess. 15 Take careful heed to yourselves, for you saw no form when the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, 16 lest you act corruptly and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of any figure: the likeness of male or female, 17 the likeness of any animal that is on the earth or the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, 18 the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground or the likeness of any fish that is in the water beneath the earth. 19 And take heed, lest you lift your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, you feel driven to worship them and serve them, which the LORD your God has given to all the peoples under the whole heaven as a heritage. This is a principle that is taken up by the Apostle Paul when he warns the church at Rome that it is fools who turn the worship of God into the worship of corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things (Romans 1:21-32).

Moses begins his exposition on the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy 5:6-21, repeating the words spoken to him by God in Exodus 20:2-17. He reminds the people that this specific covenant was made with this specific group of people, and not with Abraham, Isaac or Jacob. “But what about the covenant God made with Abram?” That was a different covenant. In that one, God promised that Abram’s seed would live in the land of Canaan and would make his descendants as numerous as the dust of the Earth (Genesis 12:7, 13:14-16). This covenant was different. This covenant established the people as His people. This covenant could be thought of as a reworking of the Abrahamic Covenant, in not only giving the people a land, but also showing the people how to live as people of God, and the punishments that would befall any who abrogated those terms.

In chapter 6 Moses iterates how the people should remember these statutes, telling them to 7 teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates (Deuteronomy 6:7-9). “How were they supposed to fit all the words Moses would speak on something that could fit between their eyes?” These commands are not to be taken as literal, but that they should have these in mind wherever they are, whether in their house or outside their house when a visitor comes, they should be on their mind always, and they should be taught to the children diligently and constantly—they should be, in other words, all over the hearts of the people. Deuteronomy 6:4-5 is a very important passage to the Jew, it is called the “Shema” (she-MA). This title comes from the Hebrew, from the first word of verse 4, שׁמע (shema, “hear”)—4 "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one! 5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.” It is a verse that has been misused by the Jehovah’s Witnesses and others who deny the deity of Christ. They claim that this verse proves that there is but one God (which is true), and what we Christians refer to as the other two Person of the Trinity (The Son and the Holy Spirit) are not God, but are separate from God. We will delve into the mistakes this view presents when we get there.

In chapter 7 Moses tells the people how they are to deal with the pagan nations they will come in contact with—The Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites. Let’s talk a little about these nations and where they were located. The Hittites were a rather large nation, located in what was known as Anatolia, and what would later be known as Asia Minor—and is now called Turkey—and the northern part of the Levant (modern-day Israel, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan). The name of their land was Hatti, and their capital was Hatussa (modern-day Bogazkale, Turkey). The Amorites we have already discussed in Numbers 21, with Og and Bashan. The Canaanites were, of course, those who dwelt in the land of Canaan, the land that God promised the people. They were descended from Canaan, son of Ham who disgraced his father Noah. The Perizzites and Hivites also lived in the land of Canaan, but were not so much a nation as they were a people-group. The Jebusites inhabited the city of Jebus, which would later be conquered by King David and renamed Jerusalem (1st Chronicles 11:4). Moses instructs the people to wipe out all the people and peoples in the land, to not allow themselves to be tempted to worship their idols, and to show no mercy in destroying them. Deuteronomy 7:5, 16, 23-26—5 “But thus you shall deal with them: you shall destroy their altars, and break down their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images, and burn their carved images with fire…16 Also you shall destroy all the peoples whom the LORD your God delivers over to you; your eye shall have no pity on them; nor shall you serve their gods, for that will be a snare to you…23 But the LORD your God will deliver them over to you, and will inflict defeat upon them until they are destroyed. 24 And He will deliver their kings into your hand, and you will destroy their name from under heaven; no one shall be able to stand against you until you have destroyed them. 25 You shall burn the carved images of their gods with fire; you shall not covet the silver or gold that is on them, nor take it for yourselves, lest you be snared by it; for it is an abomination to the LORD your God. 26 Nor shall you bring an abomination into your house, lest you be doomed to destruction like it. You shall utterly detest it and utterly abhor it, for it is an accursed thing.” They were not to repeat the sin they committed with the Moabites at Ba'al-Peor in Numbers 25. They were to cut off any remnant of idol worship so they could remain pure in their worship of YHVH.

In Deuteronomy 8, Moses warns the people about keeping the Law of God, and that as they grow as a nation, and their goods multiply, they should not forget the reason their goods and their gold and their silver multiply. It is not because of their smarts or their cunning or their business acumen. Deuteronomy 8:11-17—11 “Beware that you do not forget the LORD your God by not keeping His commandments, His judgments, and His statutes which I command you today, 12 lest—when you have eaten and are full, and have built beautiful houses and dwell in them; 13 and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold are multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied; 14 when your heart is lifted up, and you forget the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage; 15 who led you through that great and terrible wilderness, in which were fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty land where there was no water; who brought water for you out of the flinty rock; 16 who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might test you, to do you good in the end—17 then you say in your heart, 'My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.'” This is a lesson they would forget in later centuries, when they would oppress the poor, the widow and the fatherless and God would cause the nations of Judah and Israel to be taken into exile. They forgot God, they became greedy for the wealth they had obtained, and they only wanted to obtain more. This attitude was influenced by their wicked kings, of whom we will read about.

Deuteronomy 9 continues this thought, only now talking about the people’s attitude when they drive out the nations living in the land. It starts with telling the people that they will encounter, and drive out, the very people whom the 10 spies were scared of in Numbers 13—the Anakites. These were descendants of the giant Anak, and the cowardly spies said they felt like grasshoppers compared to them and therefore tries to convince the people to return to their slavery in Egypt. Deuteronomy 9:1-2—1 “Hear, O Israel: You are to cross over the Jordan today, and go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourself, cities great and fortified up to heaven, 2 a people great and tall, the descendants of the Anakim, whom you know, and of whom you heard it said, 'Who can stand before the descendants of Anak?'” Yeah, they knew of the Anakites. They were afraid of them before, but now they would actually meet them in battle, and God told them through Moses that they would defeat them. And why would they defeat them? Was it because they were mightier or more righteous than the Anakites? No, for they were certainly not righteous, even if they were not as evil as the Anakites. Deuteronomy 9:6—“Therefore understand that the LORD your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people.” Rather, God Himself will destroy these people because of the unrighteousness of the Anakites. Moses then uses the next chapter and a half to remind the people of their rebellion against God, reminding them of why God has decided to destroy these pagans.

In Deuteronomy 11, Moses commands the people to not only hear the commandments of the Lord, but to remember them, to put them everywhere that they can see them and commit them not only to their memory but also to their heart, that they may do them and be blessed, lest they not do them and suffer the cursings. For they are going into an arid land, one which depends on the rain for water, and there are no rivers in it for irrigation. They will be completely dependent on God for the water they will need to survive. Deuteronomy 11:10-11—10 “For the land which you go to possess is not like the land of Egypt from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and watered it by foot, as a vegetable garden; 11 but the land which you cross over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water from the rain of heaven” They would be completely dependent on God for their survival, as we are even this day. Water is good and necessary, but it must come in the right amount. Not enough and the people die of thirst; too much and everything they own could be swept away. The rain that falls in the proper amount is from God, and He sends what is necessary for life to continue. Matthew 5:45—“He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” The birds of the air and the lilies of the field do not worry about how God will provide for them. They simply use what God provides for their survival as we should do, and as Moses told the people they should do. Deuteronomy 11:13-15—13 “And it shall be that if you earnestly obey My commandments which I command you today, to love the LORD your God and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul, 14 then I will give you the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your grain, your new wine, and your oil. 15 And I will send grass in your fields for your livestock, that you may eat and be filled.”

Problem was, this group was made up of human beings. And we humans don’t like to follow a bunch of rules; we would rather do our own thing. And sometimes we need to be reminded of the consequences of our wrong decision making. Which is what Moses does here. He reminds the people that not only will God bless their obedience, but will also punish them when they disobey. Deuteronomy 11:26-28—26 “Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse: 27 the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you today; 28 and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside from the way which I command you today, to go after other gods which you have not known.” Again, this prediction would prove true in 587BC, when the kings of Judah went whoring after pagan gods, and God said “Enough!” and raised up the Babylonians against them and they were taken into exile and Jerusalem as sacked (we would see it again in 70AD when Jerusalem was ravished by Rome).

Part 4 next week

Jesus Christ is Lord.

Amen.

A Survey of the Old Testament Law--Deuteronomy (Introduction, Part 2)

noreply@blogger.com (Four Pointer) — Wed, 13 May 2026 16:00:00 +0000

There has been an effort over the last few centuries to say that Moses was not the author of Deuteronomy, an effort that has been called the “Documentary Hypothesis”, or “Graf-Wellhausen Hypothesis” or JEDP (Jahwist, Elohist, Deuteronomist, Priestly source). To summarize these sources,

J documents are the sections, verses, or in some cases parts of verses that were written by one or more authors who preferred to use the Hebrew name Jahweh (Jehovah) to refer to God. It is proposed that this author wrote about 900–850 B.C.

E documents are the texts that use the name Elohim for God and were supposedly written around 750–700 B.C.

D stands for Deuteronomy, most of which was written by a different author or group of authors, perhaps around the time of King Josiah’s reforms in 621 B.C.

P stands for Priest and identifies the texts in Leviticus and elsewhere in the Pentateuch that were written by a priest or priests during the exile in Babylon after 586 B.C.

(https://answersingenesis.org/bible-characters/moses/documentary-hypothesis-moses-genesis-jedp/?srsltid=AfmBOopWjHhA1PuLmdBJluC3b-ykzK4nFgliwvXuWd5mJrWyIHwMQCmo)

This hypothesis claims that Moses did not pen this or even the other books of the Pentateuch (some add the book of Joshua to the Pentateuch to make what is called the Hexateuch), but that these were written and compiled by later authors, and these documents were combined or redacted to the form we have now. A book by Julius Wellhausen entitled the “Prolegomena to the History of Israel” first advanced this idea:

At last I took courage and made my way through Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and even through Knobel’s Commentary to these books. But it was in vain that I looked for the light which was to be shed from this source on the historical and prophetical books. On the contrary, my enjoyment of the latter was marred by the Law; it did not bring them any nearer me, but intruded itself uneasily, like a ghost that makes a noise indeed, but is not visible and really effects nothing. Even where there were points of contact between it and them, differences also made themselves felt, and I found it impossible to give a candid decision in favour of the priority of the Law. Dimly I began to perceive that throughout there was between them all the difference that separates two wholly distinct worlds. Yet, so far from attaining clear conceptions, I only fell into deeper confusion, which was worse confounded by the explanations of Ewald in the second volume of history of Israel. At last, in the course of a casual visit in G€ttingen in the summer of 1867, I learned through Ritschl that Karl Heinrich Graf placed the law later than the Prophets, and, almost without knowing his reasons for the hypothesis, I was prepared to accept it; I readily acknowledged to myself the possibility of understanding Hebrew antiquity without the book of the Torah.

(“Prolegomena to the History of Israel”, quoted at https://www.aomin.org/aoblog/reformed-apologetics/a-critical-assessment-of-the-graf-wellhausen-documentary-hypothesis/)

The form of the Documentary Hypothesis we have today was first introduced by Wellhausen and K.H. Graf in 1895, although this is merely the latest in the evolution of this hypothesis. It actually began with Jewish scholar Abraham Ibn Ezra in the 1200’s, who noted that some verses seemed out of place but did not pursue a study of them. This was picked up by a pantheist named Baruch (Benedict) Spinoza:

About five hundred years later, the famous Jewish philosopher Baruch (Benedict) Spinoza (1632–1677) picked up on what Ibn Ezra had stated and asserted that Ibn Ezra did not believe Moses wrote the Pentateuch. Others disagreed, pointing to other statements by Ibn Ezra that contradicted Spinoza’s conclusion. In his book Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (1670), Spinoza, who was a pantheist and was subsequently excommunicated from the Jewish community and denounced by Christians, argued that Moses did not write the Pentateuch. Besides using the verses noted by Ibn Ezra, Spinoza offered a few other brief arguments against Mosaic authorship, which were easily answered by Christian writers in the following few decades.

(ibid.)

Later, a man named Jean Astruc in 1753 formulated a hypothesis based on the two different names for God used in the Pentateuch (Elohim and Jahveh (YHVH)). He surmised that, based on this, different authors must have penned different parts of the Pentateuch. Based off this he wrote a book entitled “Conjectures sure les memories originauz dont il paroit que Moyse s'est servi pour composer le livre de la Génèse. Avec des remarques qui appuient ou qui éclairscissent ses conjectures” (English, “Conjectures on the original memories which Moses apparently used to compose the book of Genesis. With remarks which support or clarify his conjectures”). He questioned how Moses could have known the events we have recorded in Genesis such as the creation, the flood, the call of Abram, the events pertaining to Jacob and his sons, etc. Of course, this is easily explained by the fact that Moses was on Mount Sinai for forty days and forty nights, hearing from God Himself, during which time these things could have easily been communicated to him by God. Nevertheless, Astruc’s book led a man named Johann Eichhorn who, in his work entitled “Introduction to the Study of the Old Testament”, while still credited Moses as the author, claimed that Moses copied various parts of Genesis from various fragments of previously written Semitic histories:

The German scholar Johann Eichhorn took the next step by applying Astruc’s idea to the whole of Genesis. Initially, in his 1780 Introduction to the Old Testament, Eichhorn said that Moses copied previous texts. But in later editions he apparently conceded the view of others that the J–E division could be applied to the whole of the Pentateuch, which was written after Moses. Following Eichhorn, other ideas were advanced in denial of the Mosaic authorship of the first five books of the Old Testament. In 1802, Johann Vater insisted that Genesis was made from at least 39 fragments. In 1805, Wilhelm De Wette contended that none of the Pentateuch was written before King David and that Deuteronomy was written at the time of King Josiah.

(ibid.)

And from here the doors were flung open wide to many more doubts of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, from which the Graf-Wellhausen Hypothesis was born. And these doubts continue even to this day. Even the New American Bible (A Roman Catholic translation not to be confused with the New American Standard Bible) feeds into this corruption in its introduction to the Pentateuch:

Despite its unity of plan and purpose, the book is a complex work, not to be attributed to a single original author. Several sources, or literary traditions, that the final redactor used in his composition are discernible. These are the Yahwist (J), Elohist (E), and Priestly (P) sources which in turn reflect older oral traditions.

The process of transmission advanced by this hypothesis is summed up in the following diagram:

(https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~jtreat/rs/002/Judaism/jepd.html)

Nevertheless, this hypothesis has been refuted by many biblical scholars. For example, James Orr (author of the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia) wrote:

If Deuteronomy is a work of the age of Josiah, then, necessarily, everything in the other Old Testament books which depends on Deuteronomy–the Deuteronomic revisions of Joshua and Judges, the Deuteronomic allusions and speeches in the Books of Kings, narratives of fact based on Deuteronomy–e.g., the blessings and cursings, and writing of the law on stones, at Ebal, all must be put later than that age.

(https://www.aomin.org/aoblog/reformed-apologetics/a-critical-assessment-of-the-graf-wellhausen-documentary-hypothesis/)

James White:

It would surely be no strange thing for Hilkiah the priest to have recovered the book of Deuteronomy. As is evident from 2 Kings, both kingdoms had slipped more than once into apostasy, and it would not be surprising to learn that the Mosaic law had been lost at that time. The problem comes with then hypothesizing that this book of the law was a recent creation by the hands of the prophets to force Josiah’s hand toward reformation. This is to read more into the text than the text itself permits, and the subjective nature of such an assertion is even more obvious when the presupposition of the evolutionary nature of religion is stripped away. If the high moral nature of the Deuteronomic legislation does not necessarily place it at a late date, then there is no reason to suppose that Deuteronomy cannot be Mosaic.

(ibid.)

We read in 2nd Kings 22:8 and 2nd Chronicles 34:15 that the High Priest Hilkiah found a copy of the Book of the Law while Josiah was king of Judah. If it was written after the exile of the Jews to Babylon, how could it have been found while Josiah was priest, years before the exile? To believe the Documentary Hypothesis is to disregard the hand of God in leading Moses to write the Pentateuch, and can lead one into discounting anything contained in the Old Testament and, in toto, the entire Bible. It clouds one’s mind to the supernatural nature of the Scriptures, and has led many to believe that the Bible is nothing more than a bunch of stories invented by some uneducated Middle Eastern goat herders and in the end has led them away from God.

Now, there are some difficulties which we need to address before we move on. The first elephant in the room is Deuteronomy 34:1-12, which detail the last days and the death of Moses. How could Moses chronicle his own death and the events that followed? One possibility is this chapter was written by Joshua, and added to this final book of the Pentateuch. “But why does it say that no one knew where his grave was?” Simple. As Keil and Delitzsch write, it was God who buried Moses: “The subject in this sentence [Deuteronomy 34:5-6—5 So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD. 6 And He buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth Peor; but no one knows his grave to this day.] is Jehovah. Though the third person singular would allow of the verb being taken as impersonal (ἔθαψαν αὐτόν, lxx: they buried him), such a rendering is precluded by the statement which follows, “no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day.” This theory may explain why Deuteronomy 34:6 says And He buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth Peor; but no one knows his grave to this day. If God Himself indeed buried him, this could explain why no one knew where he was buried. Of course, as Jamieson-Fausset-Brown theorize, he could have been buried by angels, specifically Michael. This could explain why Jude says Yet Michael the archangel, in contending with the devil, when he disputed about the body of Moses (Jude 1:9).

That Joshua was the author of chapter 34 could explain Deuteronomy 34:1-2—1Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is across from Jericho. And the LORD showed him all the land of Gilead as far as Dan, 2 all Naphtali and the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Western Sea. As the land of Canaan had not yet been conquered, and the land not partitioned to the several tribes of Israel, how could Moses have known where the land of Dan was? Or Manasseh (the half-tribe that did not remain in Gilead) or Naphtali or Ephraim or Judah? That Joshua was (possibly) the author of this last chapter in Deuteronomy is thus evident. He may have even added the last phrase into Genesis 14:14, which says Now when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his three hundred and eighteen trained servants who were born in his own house, and went in pursuit as far as Dan.

Part 3 next week

Jesus Christ is Lord.

Amen.

A Survey of the Old Testament Law--Deuteronomy (Introduction)

noreply@blogger.com (Four Pointer) — Wed, 06 May 2026 15:26:45 +0000

Isaiah 66:7-8—7 “Before she was in labor, she gave birth; before her pain came, she delivered a male child. 8 Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things? Shall the earth be made to give birth in one day? Or shall a nation be born at once? For as soon as Zion was in labor, she gave birth to her children.” Israel is a unique nation. Never before—and never since—has an entire nation been made from a people group not yet a nation. A group of slaves, which had never been formed into a country, was mad a nation literally overnight. “But what about the United States? They were just a group of colonies that became a nation in the 1700s!” True, but we were a group of colonies. We were organized, set apart and we had borders and a land. The people of Israel had none of that. They were a group of people, slaves in a country that was not their own, they had no land; they only had what they carried with them out of their 430 years of slavery in Egypt. The roots of this nation, and its forming, are contained in the books of Genesis through Deuteronomy.

So now we are finally on to the fifth and final book in the Old Testament Law, or Torah, the Book of Deuteronomy. “Finally” is a curious word. It is usually used by preachers when they get to the last half hour of their sermon. And it’s really not too much different here, as there are 34 chapters in the book of Deuteronomy (we won’t go into much depth with some of these chapters, as we have already covered the ground therein). In Deuteronomy, we see the terms of the covenant God is making with the people of Israel. And this covenant reads much like a suzerainty treaty. I happened to stumble upon the term “suzerainty” this past year, and it certainly applies to the covenant. It is a contract between a nation or power and its vassal, that while the superior nation held power over the vassal, it would also defend the vassal as if the superior nation itself was being attacked. Here are the usual concepts involved in a suzerainty treaty:

· The preamble: which identifies the initiator and recipients of the covenant

· The historical prologue which recounts the past relationship between the parties

· The stipulations to maintain the treaty

· The witness(es) to the treaty

· The Document clause: provisions allowing the writing of the document for future learning and reading

· The blessings and curses as consequences for choices

(from https://thebiblesays.com/en/tough-topics/suzerain-vassal-treaties)

And we see each of these in each book of the Pentateuch.

“The preamble”: God is the initiator of the covenant, as seen in Genesis 15:12-18—12 Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, horror and great darkness fell upon him. 13 Then He said to Abram: "Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years. 14 And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions…17 And it came to pass, when the sun went down and it was dark, that behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces. 18 On the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram. Normally a covenant is made between two parties, but if you notice, Abram is asleep when God makes this covenant with him. He reestablishes this promise and solidifies His role as their superior in Exodus 20:2—“I am the LORD your God...” He doesn’t simply say that He is the God YHVH, He says “I am YHVH your God”. He is telling them that He will be the God who will go with them and protect them and provide for them.

“The prologue”: God reminds the people that He is the one who brought them out of slavery. It was not their might or their cunning that ended their 430 years of bondage to Egypt, but it was the mighty hand of God that brought them out. Exodus 20:2—“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” So many times we see this principle laid out (Exodus 29:36; Leviticus 19:36, 22:33, 23:43, 25:38, 25:42, 25:55, 26:13, 26:45; Numbers 15:41, 20:16; Deuteronomy 4:20, 4:37, 5:6, 5:15, 6:12, 6:21, 7:8, 8:14, 13:5, 13:10, 16:1, 20:1, 26:8; Joshua 24:5-7, 17; Judges 2:1, 2:12, 6:8; et. al.). So many times He reminds them that He is the One who has been with them and delivered them, starting with His calling of Abram from Ur of the Chaldees all the way through their grumbling and complaining in the wilderness.

“The stipulations to maintain the treaty”: He lays out the fact that they would be obliged to keep His commandments if they wanted to remain what God said they would be—a people unique to Him and which belonged to Him. Exodus 19:4-6—4 “'You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to Myself. 5 Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. 6 And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.'” Those stipulations were laid out in Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy. And we will see the people agree to those terms in Deuteronomy 27:15-26.

“The witness to the treaty”: The treaty was between God and the people of Israel. But there needed to be a witness, or the treaty would be no good. So who does God call as witnesses of this treaty? His Son? No, He’s the Mediator of the New Covenant (Hebrews 8:6, 9:15, 12:24). Did He call His angels? No. Deuteronomy 30:19—“I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing.” God made Heaven and Earth to be witnesses of the covenant He was establishing with the people of Israel. “That’s silly! How can clouds and dirt act as witnesses?” Remember, God gives breath to whatever He will, and if He says that Heaven and Earth will be witnesses, then they will be witnesses. We have seen anthropomorphic language used when talking about God, and that same language can be used of inanimate objects. Psalm 96:11-12—11 Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; Let the sea roar, and all its fullness; 12 let the field be joyful, and all that is in it. Then all the trees of the woods will rejoice. Psalm 114:1-4—1 When Israel went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a people of strange language, 2 Judah became His sanctuary, and Israel His dominion. 3 The sea saw it and fled; Jordan turned back. 4 The mountains skipped like rams, the little hills like lambs. Habakkuk 2:11—For the stone will cry out from the wall, and the beam from the timbers will answer it. John the Baptist told the Pharisees that God could turn stones into sons of Abraham (Matthew 3:9), and Jesus even said that if His followers were quiet, that even the stones would cry out (Luke 19:40). And don’t forget, God even spoke through a donkey (Numbers 22:28-30).

“The Document clause: provisions allowing the writing of the document for future learning and reading”: It wasn’t enough for this treaty to be written. The people had to be reminded by its reading every so often of its contents and their responsibility to maintain themselves in it. And this dictum was written in Deuteronomy 31:10-13—10 And Moses commanded them, saying: "At the end of every seven years, at the appointed time in the year of release, at the Feast of Tabernacles, 11 when all Israel comes to appear before the LORD your God in the place which He chooses, you shall read this law before all Israel in their hearing. 12 Gather the people together, men and women and little ones, and the stranger who is within your gates, that they may hear and that they may learn to fear the LORD your God and carefully observe all the words of this law, 13 and that their children, who have not known it, may hear and learn to fear the LORD your God as long as you live in the land which you cross the Jordan to possess." Why was it so important for the people to be reminded of the terms of the treaty? Because if they forgot the terms, they were likely to backslide away from the promises they made to God, forget His commandments, and suffer the consequences. Even when Moses was still alive, the people were a stiff-necked and rebellious people. (Apparently, this was neglected by the several kings of Israel and Judah for many years, perhaps decades or even centuries, judging by the high Priest’s and King Josiah’s reaction when a copy of the Law was found in the temple in 2^nd Chronicles 34:14-21).

Would they be any better after Moses was dead and buried? No. Even Moses realized this. Deuteronomy 31:24-29—24 So it was, when Moses had completed writing the words of this law in a book, when they were finished, 25 that Moses commanded the Levites, who bore the ark of the covenant of the LORD, saying: 26 "Take this Book of the Law, and put it beside the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God, that it may be there as a witness against you; 27 for I know your rebellion and your stiff neck. If today, while I am yet alive with you, you have been rebellious against the LORD, then how much more after my death? 28 Gather to me all the elders of your tribes, and your officers, that I may speak these words in their hearing and call heaven and earth to witness against them. 29 For I know that after my death you will become utterly corrupt, and turn aside from the way which I have commanded you. And evil will befall you in the latter days, because you will do evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke Him to anger through the work of your hands." And it wasn’t long after Moses died, and Joshua led them in taking the land of the promise, that the people forgot the Lord and set their hearts upon worshipping the gods of the Canaanites (compare Joshua 24:17 and Judges 2:11). Centuries later, the kings of Israel and Judah would slowly drift away from worshipping God and would turn again to the pagan idols.

“The blessings and curses as consequences for choices”: These are all laid out in Deuteronomy, specifically Deuteronomy 27:1-28:68. There are 613 commands in the Law of Moses, with their associated blessings and cursings. And the people were charged with adhering to every jot and tittle of this Law. If they broke one of these commands (apart from the commandments related to murder or sexual sins) they could bring a sacrifice, the priests and Levites could prepare it the proper way, and their sin would be covered. Well, that was good news for the people, since it is rather difficult to remember 613 commandments. On the other hand, it led the people into a lot of trouble. “What’s the point in remembering all the commands if we can just kill a bull or a goat and have our sins forgiven?” This thought process was denounced by God on more than one occasion. Isaiah 1:11-17—11 “To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to Me?" says the LORD. "I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed cattle. I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs or goats. 12 When you come to appear before Me, who has required this from your hand, to trample My courts? 13 Bring no more futile sacrifices; incense is an abomination to Me. The New Moons, the Sabbaths, and the calling of assemblies—I cannot endure iniquity and the sacred meeting. 14 Your New Moons and your appointed feasts My soul hates; they are a trouble to Me, I am weary of bearing them. 15 When you spread out your hands, I will hide My eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood. 16 Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes. Cease to do evil, 17 learn to do good; seek justice, rebuke the oppressor; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow.” And God had enough of it, so He rebuked the people. Yes, the sacrifices were there to atone for the sins of the people, but they were not to replace obedience. And here in Isaiah we see that that is exactly what had happened. The people had allowed the sacrifices to take the place of obedience. They killed calves and kids and observed the New Moons and did all the outward, ritualistic things instead of remembering what it mean to obey God. It was the people’s obedience that God wanted, not rivers of blood and mountains of dead animals. This sentiment was echoed by Isaiah’s contemporary Micah, in Micah 6:6-8—6 With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before the High God? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? 7 Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? 8 He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God? In the covenant God made with Israel, He did not bestow blessings on their sacrifices—He bestowed blessings on those who sought to honor Him with their obedience.

But now, we do not need to remember 613 commands and their blessings and cursings. We only need to remember one thing—to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, to remember the forgiveness He purchased on the tree of Calvary. For the former covenant could not make one righteous in the eyes of God (Galatians 3:11, Hebrews 10:4), it only covered over sins until the time came when those sins were completely done away with (Galatians 3:13). We are now under a new and better covenant, one which will never be changed, and which will bring us into God’s presence if we are faithful to the One who was faithful and just (1^st John 1:9). The first covenant was about the mere outward appearance and washings, but the second is about cleansing the inward man. Hebrews 9:9-12—9 It [the Tabernacle] was symbolic for the present time in which both gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot make him who performed the service perfect in regard to the conscience—10 concerned only with foods and drinks, various washings, and fleshly ordinances imposed until the time of reformation. 11 But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. 12 Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. Jesus has entered into the Tabernacle in the Heavens with His own blood, which does not only cover over sins, it takes them away. For how long? FOREVER!

Now, the names that we have for the first five books of the Bible are different than what they would be in the Hebrew Bible. The titles we have come from the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament. However, before then, they carried different titles for the Jews, and many Jews today still use these titles today. They are:

· Genesis—בְּרֵאשִׁית (Bereshit, “beginning”)

· Exodus— שְׁמוֹת(Shemot, "names”)

· Leviticus— וַיִּקְרָא (Vayyiqra, "and He called")

· Numbers— בְּמִדְבַּר(Bemidbar, “in the wilderness”)

· Deuteronomy—דְּבָרִים‎ (Devarim, “the words”)

The title “Deuteronomy”, from the Greek Δευτερονόμιον (Deuteronomion), is the title given to this book in the Greek Septuagint. It means “second Law”. It is the second time we see the Law, thus the title. And because this is the second time Moses is declaring God’s Law to the people, there is much material that has been covered in the previous books, and we will not tread that ground again.

Chapters 1-30 are three speeches given by Moses. In the first speech (chapters 1-4), Moses recounts the people’s journeys from Mt. Horeb (Mt. Sinai) to where they were now; in his second speech (chapters 5-26) he expounds on the commands given by God that they should live by; in his third speech (chapters 27-30) he calls the people to remember the covenant YHVH made with them. Chapters 31-33 are referred to as “The Song of Moses”, and chapter 34 tells us of the death of Moses (we will save talk of it until then).

Part 2 next week

Jesus Christ is Lord.

Amen.

A Survey of the Old Testament Law--Numbers

noreply@blogger.com (Four Pointer) — Mon, 04 May 2026 16:16:00 +0000

Introduction (Part 1)

Introduction (Part 2)

Numbers 22-24 (Part 1)

Numbers 22-24 (Part 2)

Numbers 22-24 (Part 3)

Numbers 25, 31 (Part 1)

Numbers 25, 31 (Part 2)

Numbers 25, 31 (Part 3)

Numbers 27, 36 (Part 1)

Numbers 27, 36 (Part 2)

Numbers 28-30 (Part 1)

Numbers 28-30 (Part 2)

A Survey of the Old Testament Law--Finishing Numbers (Numbers 35, Part 2)

noreply@blogger.com (Four Pointer) — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 16:00:00 +0000

Numbers 35:16-25—“16 ‘But if he strikes him with an iron implement, so that he dies, he is a murderer; the murderer shall surely be put to death. 17 And if he strikes him with a stone in the hand, by which one could die, and he does die, he is a murderer; the murderer shall surely be put to death. 18 Or if he strikes him with a wooden hand weapon, by which one could die, and he does die, he is a murderer; the murderer shall surely be put to death. 19 The avenger of blood himself shall put the murderer to death; when he meets him, he shall put him to death. 20 If he pushes him out of hatred or, while lying in wait, hurls something at him so that he dies, 21 or in enmity he strikes him with his hand so that he dies, the one who struck him shall surely be put to death. He is a murderer. The avenger of blood shall put the murderer to death when he meets him. 22 However, if he pushes him suddenly without enmity, or throws anything at him without lying in wait, 23 or uses a stone, by which a man could die, throwing it at him without seeing him, so that he dies, while he was not his enemy or seeking his harm, 24 then the congregation shall judge between the manslayer and the avenger of blood according to these judgments. 25 So the congregation shall deliver the manslayer from the hand of the avenger of blood, and the congregation shall return him to the city of refuge where he had fled, and he shall remain there until the death of the high priest who was anointed with the holy oil.’”

So if a man who killed his neighbor fled to a City of Refuge, that meant he was innocent, right? Wrong. Though a man may flee to the city, it was no guarantee that he was not guilty. Verses 16-21 are clear on that. If he hits his neighbor with an iron or a wooden implement; if he throws a stone directly at him; if he pushes him down or lies in wait to ambush him and kill him, He is a murderer. The avenger of blood shall put the murderer to death when he meets him. It would have been better for the murderer to flee into the wilderness, or to the surrounding nations, than to go to a City of Refuge where he could be found guilty and be put to death. “But what if he strangled the victim? What if…” This was not an exhaustive list of the ways one could be murdered, but was put in place to deal with someone who was thinking there was some loophole they could escape through. With God, there are no loopholes. If you killed someone intentionally, no matter how you accomplished it, you were guilty of that murder and you were put to death. As I said before, in those days murder was a very serious thing, and, as always, was taken very seriously by God.

“But what if he pushed the person out of the way of a charging bull, or a hissing snake and the person died? What about the person who was walking down the road, chucking rocks here and there, and struck someone on the head, unknowingly, and killed them?” This was taken into account, as we read in verses 22-23. These would be what we would call today involuntary manslaughter, and the case would be heard by a jury who would decide whether or not the offender should be punished or be set free. In a case such as this, the evidence pro and con would have to be weighed by the Levites, who would render their decision. This is one more reason why these cities were to belong to the Levites—so that they could steep themselves in the Law, so that when such a case arose, they would know rightly what to do. Also, they would be impartial hearers, having no allegiances to any of the other tribes. They could always be before their God, and could impartially determine guilt and innocence.

Numbers 35:24-25—24 “Then the congregation shall judge between the manslayer and the avenger of blood according to these judgments. 25 So the congregation shall deliver the manslayer from the hand of the avenger of blood, and the congregation shall return him to the city of refuge where he had fled, and he shall remain there until the death of the high priest who was anointed with the holy oil.” Joshua elaborates more on this, in Joshua 20:6—“And he shall dwell in that city until he stands before the congregation for judgment, and until the death of the one who is high priest in those days. Then the slayer may return and come to his own city and his own house, to the city from which he fled.” The accused was to remain in the City of Refuge to which he fled until the death of the High Priest. After that, he could return to his own house, with no threat of death over his head. Just as today, when the accused is acquitted by a jury, they do not fear being arrested and charged again with the same crime, as our Constitution says “…nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb…” As with our Constitution now, so it was under the Law of Moses at the time: Once the person was found not guilty, they were freed from the charges of the incident for life. “But what if the person really did kill the person intentionally and with malice aforethought? Does this mean the person gets away with it?” Well, yes. The congregation could only deal with the evidence before them. They could not go any further than what they had before them. But as now, so then, if that person was found not guilty of a crime they actually did commit, that person would have to answer to a higher level of justice than could be meted out by humans. Matthew Henry: “Murder in all its forms, and under all disguises, pollutes a land. Alas! that so many murders, under the name of duels, prize-fights, etc. should pass unpunished.” True indeed, that when men are engaged in activities that involve brutality and, in the case of duels, death, that these deaths should go unpunished.

Numbers 35:26-32—“‘26 But if the manslayer at any time goes outside the limits of the city of refuge where he fled, 27 and the avenger of blood finds him outside the limits of his city of refuge, and the avenger of blood kills the manslayer, he shall not be guilty of blood, 28 because he should have remained in his city of refuge until the death of the high priest. But after the death of the high priest the manslayer may return to the land of his possession. 29 And these things shall be a statute of judgment to you throughout your generations in all your dwellings. 30 Whoever kills a person, the murderer shall be put to death on the testimony of witnesses; but one witness is not sufficient testimony against a person for the death penalty. 31 Moreover you shall take no ransom for the life of a murderer who is guilty of death, but he shall surely be put to death. 32 And you shall take no ransom for him who has fled to his city of refuge, that he may return to dwell in the land before the death of the priest.’”

As much protection as the accused had while within the City of Refuge, that protection disappeared once the left its walls. Much like with the various extradition treaties we have today. A person guilty of a crime may flee to a country that does not have an extradition treaty with the United States, and live there safely with no threat of being returned to this country to face trial for their crimes. And as long as they remain in those countries, they are free to come and go as they please within those borders. But if they leave and fly to another country which does have an extradition treaty with the United States, they can be brought back here and face trial for their crimes, found guilty and punished. And even still, some of the countries with which we do have such treaties can, at their discretion, refuse to extradite criminals.

In our text, we find that if the accused steps outside the walls of the City of Refuge to which they have fled, and the Avenger of Blood finds them and slays them, the Avenger would not be found guilty. 26 But if the manslayer at any time goes outside the limits of the city of refuge where he fled, 27 and the avenger of blood finds him outside the limits of his city of refuge, and the avenger of blood kills the manslayer, he shall not be guilty of blood, 28 because he should have remained in his city of refuge until the death of the high priest. We find an example of a man who had not committed murder, but had assaulted King David, being confined to Jerusalem and slain when he left the city. 2nd Samuel 16:5-8, 13—5 Now when King David came to Bahurim, there was a man from the family of the house of Saul, whose name was Shimei the son of Gera, coming from there. He came out, cursing continuously as he came. 6 And he threw stones at David and at all the servants of King David. And all the people and all the mighty men were on his right hand and on his left. 7 Also Shimei said thus when he cursed: "Come out! Come out! You bloodthirsty man, you rogue! 8 The LORD has brought upon you all the blood of the house of Saul, in whose place you have reigned; and the LORD has delivered the kingdom into the hand of Absalom your son. So now you are caught in your own evil, because you are a bloodthirsty man!"…13 And as David and his men went along the road, Shimei went along the hillside opposite him and cursed as he went, threw stones at him and kicked up dust. Shimei was under the impression that David had killed Shimei’s kinsman King Saul. So when Absalom had usurped the throne from David, Shimei took the opportunity to curse and to attack David, albeit from a safe distance.

Fast forward to 1^st Kings 2, and we read that David is in his old age and near to death, and he gives his son Solomon this charge. 1st Kings 2:8-9—8 "And see, you have with you Shimei the son of Gera, a Benjamite from Bahurim, who cursed me with a malicious curse in the day when I went to Mahanaim. But he came down to meet me at the Jordan, and I swore to him by the LORD, saying, 'I will not put you to death with the sword.' [see 2nd Samuel 19:23] 9 Now therefore, do not hold him guiltless, for you are a wise man and know what you ought to do to him; but bring his gray hair down to the grave with blood." David prescribed that Shimei should be punished for his insolence. But the punishment for Shimei cursing and assaulting the king was not death, but basically “house arrest”—he was not to leave the city of Jerusalem. 1st Kings 2:36-38—36 Then the king sent and called for Shimei, and said to him, "Build yourself a house in Jerusalem and dwell there, and do not go out from there anywhere. 37 For it shall be, on the day you go out and cross the Brook Kidron, know for certain you shall surely die; your blood shall be on your own head." 38 And Shimei said to the king, "The saying is good. As my lord the king has said, so your servant will do." So Shimei dwelt in Jerusalem many days. Shimei agreed to be bound by the words of the king, to remain in Jerusalem all the remaining days of his life. And Solomon made sure to let him know that if he did leave the confines of the city, Solomon would not be responsible for his life. And after a few years, Shimei felt comfortable in Jerusalem, and thought nothing would happen if he happened to slip out of the city to wrangle up a couple of his escaped slaves. But… 1st Kings 2:39-44, 46—39 Now it happened at the end of three years, that two slaves of Shimei ran away to Achish…40 So Shimei arose, saddled his donkey, and went to Achish at Gath to seek his slaves…41 And Solomon was told that Shimei had gone from Jerusalem to Gath and had come back. 42 Then the king sent and called for Shimei, and said to him, "Did I not make you swear by the LORD, and warn you, saying, 'Know for certain that on the day you go out and travel anywhere, you shall surely die'? And you said to me, 'The word I have heard is good.' 43 Why then have you not kept the oath of the LORD and the commandment that I gave you?" 44 The king said moreover to Shimei, "You know, as your heart acknowledges, all the wickedness that you did to my father David; therefore the LORD will return your wickedness on your own head…46 So the king commanded Benaiah the son of Jehoiada; and he went out and struck him down, and he died. Just as the Avenger of Blood would slay the manslayer if he found him outside the City of Refuge, so Solomon had Shimei struck down for leaving the walls of Jerusalem after he had pledged not to leave. (This episode could also be applied to Numbers 30 and the swearing of oaths).

Shimei had polluted the land by cursing the king, especially the king that God Himself had established a covenant with. Just as murder polluted the land. Numbers 35:33-34—“‘3 So you shall not pollute the land where you are; for blood defiles the land, and no atonement can be made for the land, for the blood that is shed on it, except by the blood of him who shed it. 34 Therefore do not defile the land which you inhabit, in the midst of which I dwell; for I the LORD dwell among the children of Israel.’” Let’s go all the way back to Genesis 4. The very first murder. God was accepting of Abel’s offering, but He did not accept Cain’s. This upset Cain, and he knew of no other recourse than to slay the one that God accepted. We don’t know how he killed his brother, and it really doesn't matter. He had already shown symptoms of being cursed by the sin of Adam. And he slew his brother. What was God’s reply? Genesis 4:10-11—10 And He said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood cries out to Me from the ground. 11 So now you are cursed from the earth, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand.” When innocent blood is spilled upon the ground, that ground is polluted. Because the life of every creature is its blood (Genesis 9:4; Leviticus 17:11; Deuteronomy 12:23). And in order to cleanse the land from the innocent blood that had been spilled, the one who shed that blood was to be eliminated. For blood defiles the land, and no atonement can be made for the land, for the blood that is shed on it, except by the blood of him who shed it. There were commandments in the Law concerning bodily discharges such as urine and stool. God said these must be covered over by dirt, as He dwelt in the camp (see Deuteronomy 23:12-14). These are things that are naturally excreted from the body, and do not cause loss of life. How much more impure would the ground become if blood, which is supposed to stay within the body, is spilled on the ground?

This principle had not been abrogated. In fact, Jesus said that the innocent blood of the prophets was to be paid for. Luke 11:49-51—“49 Therefore the wisdom of God also said, 'I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and persecute,' 50 that the blood of all the prophets which was shed from the foundation of the world may be required of this generation, 51 from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah who perished between the altar and the temple. Yes, I say to you, it shall be required of this generation.” (See also Matthew 23:34-36, where Jesus says “Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets &c.”, showing that Christ Himself is the Wisdom of God.) Was the blood of the prophets who were slain ever avenged? Was the land cleansed of their innocent blood by the slaying of those who spilled it? No it has never been avenged, and the land is still polluted because of it. The blood of the martyrs slain for their witness has never been avenged. And no, the blood of Christ, the innocent Lamb of God, has never been avenged. But all this blood will be avenged one day, by the One who is closer to all of them than anyone. Ger de Koning says in his commentary (King Comments):

Those who build the tombs of the martyrs do not seem to be involved in the persecution and violence practiced by the fathers, but that is only apparent. The opposite will soon be the case. God will soon put them to the test by sending apostles and prophets, some of whom they will kill and others persecute to get rid of them somehow. Instead of being held back by the example of their fathers, they follow in their guilty footsteps. They are more to blame because they ignore such a serious warning. In the wisdom of God, the conduct of the people to whom the Lord speaks here, the measure of iniquity of “this generation”, which is this kind of hypocritical people, will be made full. God will then demand from them the blood of all prophets that through the ages has been shed by them from the very beginning. Abel is the first person whose blood was shed. We do not read from him a word he has spoken. Yet the Lord calls him here a prophet. By his way of life, which showed fellowship with God, he was a condemnation for Cain. What Abel did, casted light on Cain who rejected the light by killing Abel. Cain is the pious, legalistic Pharisee, who expresses his anger against someone who truly honors God. This generation will soon do the same with the Lord Jesus.

If Jesus said it, then it is true and will be accomplished!

To finish up this chapter—and this book—let us consider the words of the writer of Hebrews in Hebrews 6:17-18—17 Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath, 18 that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us. We are all guilty sinners. We have all, in one way or another, polluted the land with our sins. Have we all murdered? No. And yes (see Matthew 5:21-22). Have we all committed adultery? No. and yes (see Matthew 5:27-28). Have we all stolen something? Probably. But even though we not have committed these sins that are the worst of all, we have grieved God’s heart by following our own ways and doing things that He has commanded us to not do. All of us. Every single one. And what do we deserve for committing these offenses? Death. Eternal death. Being forever separated from the one true and living God, consigned to the fires of Hell. “That sounds bleak. What can we do to avoid such a fate?” There is only one thing we can do. Run. Run to Jesus. He is our City of Refuge. Run to Him, as quickly as you can, that you may not fall into the hands of our Adversary, who seeks to separate us from Him. Let us say with David, The God of my strength, in whom I will trust; my shield and the horn of my salvation, stronghold and my refuge; my Savior, You save me from violence (2^nd Samuel 22:3); and Bow down Your ear to me, deliver me speedily; be my rock of refuge, a fortress of defense to save me (Psalm 31:2); and God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble (Psalm 46:1); Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me! For my soul trusts in You; and in the shadow of Your wings I will make my refuge (Psalm 57:1); and In God is my salvation and my glory; the rock of my strength, and my refuge, is in God. Trust in Him at all times, you people; pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us (Psalm 62:7-8); He shall cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you shall take refuge; His truth shall be your shield and buckler (Psalm 91:4). Let us say with the apostle Paul But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ (Ephesians 2:13). Let us speak the words of the publican in Luke 18:13. And let us speak as did the penitent thief, who begged our Lord to remember him in His kingdom (Luke 23:42). Of this sinner Charles Spurgeon wrote in his work “The Seven Wonders of Grace”:

The lesson of our text is not merely that Christ can save in our last extremity, though that is true, but that now at this moment Jesus is able to save us, and that if saved at all, salvation must be an immediate and complete act, so that, come life or come death, we are perfectly saved. It will not take the Lord long to raise the dead—in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the dead shall be raised incorruptible; and the Lord takes no time in regenerating a soul. Dead souls live in an instant when the breath of the Spirit quickens them. Faith brings instantaneous pardon. There is no course of probation to go through, there are no attainments to be sought after, and no protracted efforts to be made in order to be saved. Thou art saved if thou believest in Jesus. The finished work of Christ is thine. Thou art God's beloved, accepted, forgiven, adopted child. Saved thou art, and saved thou shalt be for ever and ever if thou believest.

Instantaneous salvation! Immediate salvation! This the Spirit of God gives to those who trust in Jesus. Thou needest not wait till to-morrow's sun has dawned. Talk not of a more convenient season. Sitting where thou art, the almighty grace of God can come upon thee and save thee, and this shall be a sign unto thee that Christ is born in thy heart the hope of glory,—when thou believest in him as thy pardon, righteousness, and all in all, thou shalt have peace. If thou dost but trust thyself in Jesus' hands thou art a saved soul, and the angels in heaven are singing high praises to God and the Lamb on thine account.

We who have been welcomed into the City of Refuge that is our Lord Jesus Christ, let us always remember that He has welcomed us within His gates, we are His, and we shall never be cast out!

Dear Lord, thank You—thank You, thank You, THANK YOU!!!—that you did not forsake us in our sins, but that you prepared for us a Refuge that we could run to when we polluted the land with our sins. That You did not simply strike us down in Your anger, but You were patient with us, and gave us a City of Refuge that we could run to, lest our Adversary come upon us and eternally destroy us. For those who do not know Him, I pray that You would open their eyes to see their need for a Savior, which is Christ the Lord, that they may see their need to run to Your Refuge, that they may be saved.

We will begin the book of Deuteronomy next week.

Jesus Christ is Lord.

Amen.

A Survey of the Old Testament Law--Numbers 35 (Part 1)

noreply@blogger.com (Four Pointer) — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 16:44:00 +0000

Numbers 33 recounts the journey the people took through the wilderness to arrive where they are. In Numbers 34 God tells Moses how the land will be split up once they arrive in Canaan. So that leaves us with Numbers 35, and we will finish the book. In Numbers 35 we see the rules for the Levitical Cities and the Cities of Refuge.

Numbers 35:1-8—1 And the LORD spoke to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho, saying: 2 “Command the children of Israel that they give the Levites cities to dwell in from the inheritance of their possession, and you shall also give the Levites common-land around the cities. 3 They shall have the cities to dwell in; and their common-land shall be for their cattle, for their herds, and for all their animals. 4 The common-land of the cities which you will give the Levites shall extend from the wall of the city outward a thousand cubits all around. 5 And you shall measure outside the city on the east side two thousand cubits, on the south side two thousand cubits, on the west side two thousand cubits, and on the north side two thousand cubits. The city shall be in the middle. This shall belong to them as common-land for the cities. 6 Now among the cities which you will give to the Levites you shall appoint six cities of refuge, to which a manslayer may flee. And to these you shall add forty-two cities. So all the cities you will give to the Levites shall be forty-eight; these you shall give with their common-land. And the cities which you will give shall be from the possession of the children of Israel; from the larger tribe you shall give many, from the smaller you shall give few. Each shall give some of its cities to the Levites, in proportion to the inheritance that each receives.”

Remember, the Levites were not to receive any type of land inheritance, since their portion was God (Numbers 18:20-23). But the people of the twelve tribes needed priests so they could know and learn the Law and make the proper sacrifices when they breached the Law. So each of the other 11 tribes other than the Levites had to portion off a piece of land outside the cities for the Levites to dwell in, as well as common-land for the Levites to graze their flocks and herds. And again we see a perplexity, as commentators are divided on how this land was measured. Some say that for whichever city the tribe of Issachar (for example) dwelt, they were to measure from outside of the walls 1000 cubits and there would establish the villages where the Levites would dwell. Then the next 1000 cubits out from there would be the pasture land for the flocks and herds of the Levites. This would make up the two thousand cubits spoken of in verse 5. Others say that they were to measure out 1000 cubits for the Levitical cities, then measure two thousand cubits for the Levites’ pastures (the common-lands). I tend to agree with John Gill on the interpretation:

And ye shall measure from without the city on the east side two thousand cubits...Before only 1000 cubits were ordered to be measured, and now 2000, even 2000 more, which were to be added to the other, and to begin where they ended. The first 1000 were for their cattle and goods, these 2000 for their gardens, orchards, fields, and vineyards; and so the Jewish writers understand it. Jarchi observes, that 1000 cubits are ordered, and after that 2000; and asks, “how is this? or how is it to be reconciled?” to which he answers, “2000 are put to them round about, and of them the 1000 innermost are for suburbs, and the outermost (i.e. the 2000) are for fields and vineyards”; and with this agrees the Mishnah, from whence he seems to have taken it; and the same was to be on every other side of the city, south, west, and north, as follows:

and on the south side two thousand cubits, and on the west side two thousand cubits, and on the north side two thousand cubits; which, added to the other 1000 all around, must make a large circumference of land.

The Mishnah sates:

Eliezer the son of R. Yose the Galilean says, “A thousand amahs [an amah is a measurement roughly equivalent to a cubit] form the outskirts, and two thousand amahs cover the surrounding fields and vineyards.”

Whichever is the case, land was to be allotted to the priestly tribe. They were to be allotted 48 cities, 6 “cities of refuge” (which we shall talk about shortly) and forty-two regular cities. “But forty-two cities divided by eleven tribes doesn’t make an even number”. True. That is why the command was “from the larger tribe you shall give many, from the smaller you shall give few.” The larger tribes were to give the Levites more cities, the smaller tribes less. And you can read a detailed list of which cities in which tribes’ lands were given to the different families of the tribe of Levi in Joshua 21:1-45. I will allow Keil and Delitzsch to summarize:

According to Joshua 21, the Levites received nine cities in the territory of Judah and Simeon, four in the territory of each of the other tribes, with the exception of Naphtali, in which there were only three, that is to say, ten in the land to the east of the Jordan, and thirty-eight in Canaan proper, of which the thirteen given up by Judah, Simeon, and Benjamin were assigned to the families of the priests, and the other thirty-five to the three Levitical families [the families of Kohath, Merari and Gershon].

The larger tribes gave more land, the smaller tribes less. Even the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh were commanded to give land to the Levites east of the Jordan River in Gilead.

Numbers 35:9-15—9 Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 10 "Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: 'When you cross the Jordan into the land of Canaan, 11 then you shall appoint cities to be cities of refuge for you, that the manslayer who kills any person accidentally may flee there. 12 They shall be cities of refuge for you from the avenger, that the manslayer may not die until he stands before the congregation in judgment. 13 And of the cities which you give, you shall have six cities of refuge. 14 You shall appoint three cities on this side of the Jordan, and three cities you shall appoint in the land of Canaan, which will be cities of refuge. 15 These six cities shall be for refuge for the children of Israel, for the stranger, and for the sojourner among them, that anyone who kills a person accidentally may flee there.”

The rest of the chapter deals with differentiating between murder/voluntary manslaughter and involuntary manslaughter and how these cases were dealt with. If someone killed their neighbor, it had to be reckoned whether it was done intentionally or not. For us today, what is the difference between these concepts? Well, murder charges are either 1^st- 2^nd- or 3^rd-degree, while manslaughter is classed as either voluntary of involuntary. 1^st-degree murder is always premeditated. An example of 2^nd-degree murder is when two people get into a fight and the one person does not stop striking the second person until they are dead. They did not previously intend to kill the person, but once the fight was engaged, not intending to kill the person, they nonetheless did cause the person to die. Only three states—Florida, Minnesota and Pennsylvania—classify 3^rd-degree murder. This is the charge when a murder is committed, and is not premeditated, but occurs in the commission of another dangerous and potentially life-threatening action, e.g. when a bank robber kills a bank teller for pressing the silent alarm. Voluntary manslaughter is usually what is now classified as a “crime of passion”, such as when a husband comes home and finds his wife in bed with another man and kills one or both of them. Involuntary manslaughter is when a person causes a death but did not intend to. Killing a pedestrian when running a red light or stop sign; handling a gun you did not know was loaded and shooting someone—these are cases where there was a reckless action but the intent to kill was absent.

As today—and maybe even more so—murder was a very serious offence in the days of Moses. Today, thanks to TV and the movies, murder has been losing its sense of seriousness, and is often portrayed as simply a means to an end. People watch these TV shows and movies where people are murdered almost mindlessly, not considering that the victim’s life has just ended. And in the real world, that person would, in the next instant, be standing before God to be judged. But in the days of Moses it was treated more seriously. Exodus 21:12—“He who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death.” And when someone was killed by another in the cities of the people of Israel, a blood relative, more specifically, “that particular relative whose special duty it was to restore the violated family integrity, who had to redeem not only landed property that had been alienated from the family, or a member of the family that had fallen into slavery, but also the blood that had been taken away from the family by murder” (Gustav Oehler), would avenge that murder upon the perpetrator. But if someone killed another, not meaning to, and they were not worthy of having their own life taken, they could flee to the nearest of these six “cities of refuge”, and have their case heard, and could be judged to be declared not guilty of shedding innocent blood. If the victim’s blood was shed accidentally, God gave them a way to escape until he could plead his cause. Exodus 21:13—“However, if he did not lie in wait, but God delivered him into his hand, then I will appoint for you a place where he may flee.” And there were six cities—three on the west side of the Jordan River and three on the east side of the Jordan—where the accused could flee until his case was heard. Joshua 20:7-8—7 So they appointed Kedesh in Galilee, in the mountains of Naphtali, Shechem in the mountains of Ephraim, and Kirjath Arba (which is Hebron) in the mountains of Judah. [These would be the cities on the west side of the Jordan] 8 And on the other side of the Jordan, by Jericho eastward, they assigned Bezer in the wilderness on the plain, from the tribe of Reuben, Ramoth in Gilead, from the tribe of Gad, and Golan in Bashan, from the tribe of Manasseh. [These would be on the east side of the Jordan].

(https://theisraelbible.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/cities-of-refuge.jpg)

And when the manslayer (accidental perpetrator) reached one of these cities, the people were to allow the person in until their case could be heard. Joshua 20:3-6—“3 That the slayer who kills a person accidentally or unintentionally may flee there; and they shall be your refuge from the avenger of blood. 4 And when he flees to one of those cities, and stands at the entrance of the gate of the city, and declares his case in the hearing of the elders of that city, they shall take him into the city as one of them, and give him a place, that he may dwell among them. 5 Then if the avenger of blood pursues him, they shall not deliver the slayer into his hand, because he struck his neighbor unintentionally, but did not hate him beforehand. 6 And he shall dwell in that city until he stands before the congregation for judgment, and until the death of the one who is high priest in those days. Then the slayer may return and come to his own city and his own house, to the city from which he fled.” When the manslayer arrived at the gates of the City of Refuge, he was not to be treated as being guilty, but rather as simply being accused, with no guilt or innocence assigned to him by the residents of the city until he could make his case (innocent until proven guilty). He was to be allowed in, put up in a house, and was to be treated as a member of the tribe wherein this city lay. And he shall dwell in that city until he stands before the congregation for judgment. And they were to protect him from the avenger.

Remember, at the time they did not have the level of surveillance we have today. There were no cameras—no closed circuit, no cell phone cameras, no trail cams, nothing of the sort. So they could not see what had happened. They had to rely on the testimony of the manslayer and any potential witnesses. And even today, in the United States, according to our Constitution, a man or woman is (supposed to be) considered innocent until proven guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt. And there are all kinds of safeguards in place to make sure the accused is given a fair trial. Search warrants must be obtained, a jury of the accused’s peers must be installed, both sides must be given time to examine the evidence from the other side. In short, all things must be done properly to ensure the accused is not wrongly convicted (or acquitted). Today, in a court trial, all kinds of evidence can be included—and excluded—from a case by both the prosecution and by the defense. The same principles were applied in the case of the man who had killed his neighbor accidentally, and even more so, as the testimony of one witness was not enough to convict a man. In order to carry out a death sentence against a man accused of murder, there had to be two or three witnesses, and they had to testify truthfully about the matter. Deuteronomy 19:15—“One witness shall not rise against a man concerning any iniquity or any sin that he commits; by the mouth of two or three witnesses the matter shall be established.” One person holding a grudge against a man could testify, “Yeah, I saw it happen. He just up and struck the victim without warning. And, oh yeah, he hated the guy for a long time.” But this testimony alone could not convict. There had to be one or two more witnesses to corroborate this testimony.

We see a couple cases in the New Testament that carry on this principle. In the Gospel of John, we read the account of the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11). Was the woman guilty of adultery? Well, yes. Was she indeed to be stoned? Well, yes. Leviticus 20:10—“The man who commits adultery with another man's wife, he who commits adultery with his neighbor's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress, shall surely be put to death.” The fact that the woman was brought to Jesus was not the problem here. The problem was the Pharisees did not bring the man who was involved. See, the Pharisees had set up the whole situation in order to trick Jesus into betraying Himself and His God by putting Him in (what they thought was) a no-win situation. But, as always, Jesus knew what they had devised in their hearts. So what was the first thing He did? John 8:6—Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger, as though He did not hear. And when they continued to press Him, He gave His answer in John 8:7—So when they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, "He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first." And because they knew that they themselves were guilty of sharing in the adultery, they dropped their stones and walked away. So because the Pharisees were acting under false pretenses, and because they did not bring the man involved, meaning their case would be tossed out, Jesus refused to hear their case, and sent them away empty-handed.

The second case of false witnesses is, of course, when they put Jesus on trial under cover of night. Matthew 26:59-61—59 Now the chief priests, the elders, and all the council sought false testimony against Jesus to put Him to death, 60 but found none. Even though many false witnesses came forward, they found none. But at last two false witnesses came forward 61 and said, "This fellow said, 'I am able to destroy the temple of God and to build it in three days.'" There they had their two witnesses, by whose testimony they could put Jesus to death. But they had to give the accused the chance to defend themselves, so they turned the questioning on Jesus, and said in Matthew 26:61-62—62 "Do You answer nothing? What is it these men testify against You?" 63 But Jesus kept silent. And the high priest answered and said to Him, "I put You under oath by the living God: Tell us if You are the Christ, the Son of God!" They were asking Him to swear by God (in other words, by Himself) whether the things these false witnesses said were true. Jesus—God in the flesh—could not lie and, really, didn’t want to lie. For all this was done according to the eternal will of the father (Acts 2:21-23) that He should die for the sins of His people. And He did—He fulfilled what God had planned from eternity past; He gave up His life on that cross, bearing all our sin and shame, being put to death by the world, contrary to the Law of Moses that these Pharisees so staunchly claimed they were upholding. So yes, even though two or three witnesses may be found to accuse the manslayer, they could turn out to be false witnesses and lead to an innocent man being put to death. John Calvin: “[The Pharisees] had previously resolved to put Christ to death, and now they only seek a pretense for oppressing him. Now it is impossible that equity can have any place where an examination of the cause is not the first step. In seeking false witnesses, their treacherous cruelty is manifested; and when, after being disappointed of their expectation, they still do not desist, this affords a still more striking display of their blinded obstinacy. Thus, amidst the darkness of their rage, the innocence of the Son of God shone so brightly, that the devils themselves might know that he died innocent.”

Part 2 (and the end of Numbers) next week.

Jesus Christ is Lord.

Amen.

A Survey of the Old Testament Law--Numbers 32 (Part 2)

noreply@blogger.com (Four Pointer) — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 15:55:00 +0000

Numbers 32:16-24—16 Then they came near to him and said: "We will build sheepfolds here for our livestock, and cities for our little ones, 17 but we ourselves will be armed, ready to go before the children of Israel until we have brought them to their place; and our little ones will dwell in the fortified cities because of the inhabitants of the land. 18 We will not return to our homes until every one of the children of Israel has received his inheritance. 19 For we will not inherit with them on the other side of the Jordan and beyond, because our inheritance has fallen to us on this eastern side of the Jordan." 20 Then Moses said to them: "If you do this thing, if you arm yourselves before the LORD for the war, 21 and all your armed men cross over the Jordan before the LORD until He has driven out His enemies from before Him, 22 and the land is subdued before the LORD, then afterward you may return and be blameless before the LORD and before Israel; and this land shall be your possession before the LORD. 23 But if you do not do so, then take note, you have sinned against the LORD; and be sure your sin will find you out. 24 Build cities for your little ones and folds for your sheep, and do what has proceeded out of your mouth."

It was simple: if the tribes of Gad and Reuben and the half-tribe of Manasseh wanted to remain in Gilead, they had to cross the Jordan River and fight alongside their brethren. It was only fair. Why should they live in ease while Dan and Issachar and Judah and the rest are fighting for the land that was promised them? But such is the thought of many today: “I will believe in Christ, and take my rest in leisure. I will argue with no one, I will debate no one lest they ask a question I do not know the answer to. That is too hard for me! I will rather stay in my home and never bring up the name of Christ.” Such is the design of the monks, who squirrel themselves away in the cloisters, some even taking a vow of silence. But that is not the pattern for the Christian to follow. We are to stand up for the gospel, and proclaim it to all, whether they will hear us or not, even if they kill us. Matthew 11:12—“And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force” [literally, “the kingdom of the heavens is being forced and forceful ones are snatching her”]. There is a sister verse to this, Luke 16:16 (Revised Version)—“The law and the prophets were until John: from that time the gospel of the kingdom of God is preached, and every man entereth violently into it.” The Kingdom of God is not a place we enter into in a laissez-faire manner. The Christian life is not easy. We are beset daily by sin, and must fight against it daily. Will we stumble and fall? Yes, of course we will. We are human and as such we were born with a nature that wants what it wants, and sometimes that flesh will win some battles. So when it comes to facing those sins that seek to ensnare us, we must become violent against them and enter the Kingdom of God with a red hot hatred of sin, and be the violent men and women we should be. Jude said as much, Jude 1:3 (God’s Word Version)—Dear friends, I had intended to write to you about the salvation we share. But something has come up. It demands that I write to you and encourage you to continue your fight for the Christian faith that was entrusted to God's holy people once for all time. Other translations say “contend earnestly for the faith”. Peter tells us to always be ready to give a defense for the hope we have (1st Peter 3:15). Fight for the faith! Don’t be content to live your days in ease in Gilead. Your Father has promised you a better home, and you do not want to fall short of entering it! The old hymn does not say “Onward Christian Daffodils”. Another old hymn is not entitled “A Mighty Beach Chair Is Our God”. No! We are soldiers, and our God is a fortress! And if our adversary, who prowls about like a roaring lion, wants to ensnare us, we must fight against him, and take our position in the Kingdom of God by force if necessary, always fighting for the faith and letting our enemy know that it is by the Word of God that we have our faith, for it tells us of the mighty love and assurance we have in our risen Savior of our eternal life with God! We have been given the victory in Jesus. If we have a victory, there must have been a battle.

Am I a soldier of the cross/a foll'wer of the Lamb,

And shall I fear to own His cause/or blush to speak His name?

Must I be carried to the skies/on flow'ry beds of ease,

While others fought to win the prize/and sailed thro' bloody seas?

Are there no foes for me to face?/Must I not stem the flood?

Is this vile world a friend to grace/to help me on to God?

Sure I must fight, if I would reign/increase my courage, Lord!

I'll bear the toil, endure the pain/supported by Thy word.

The saints in all this glorious war/shall conquer, though they die;

They see the triumph from afar/by faith's discerning eye.

When that illustrious day shall rise/and all Thine armies shine

In robes of vict'ry thro' the skies/the glory shall be Thine.

(“Am I a Soldier of the Cross?” by Isaac Watts)

Numbers 32:25-33—25 And the children of Gad and the children of Reuben spoke to Moses, saying: "Your servants will do as my lord commands. 26 Our little ones, our wives, our flocks, and all our livestock will be there in the cities of Gilead; 27 but your servants will cross over, every man armed for war, before the LORD to battle, just as my lord says." 28 So Moses gave command concerning them to Eleazar the priest, to Joshua the son of Nun, and to the chief fathers of the tribes of the children of Israel. 29 And Moses said to them: "If the children of Gad and the children of Reuben cross over the Jordan with you, every man armed for battle before the LORD, and the land is subdued before you, then you shall give them the land of Gilead as a possession. 30 But if they do not cross over armed with you, they shall have possessions among you in the land of Canaan." 31 Then the children of Gad and the children of Reuben answered, saying: "As the LORD has said to your servants, so we will do. 32 We will cross over armed before the LORD into the land of Canaan, but the possession of our inheritance shall remain with us on this side of the Jordan." 33 So Moses gave to the children of Gad, to the children of Reuben, and to half the tribe of Manasseh the son of Joseph, the kingdom of Sihon king of the Amorites and the kingdom of Og king of Bashan, the land with its cities within the borders, the cities of the surrounding country.

The attitude of these two-and-a-half tribes could also be described as worry. They worried that there would not be in the land of Canaan any land to graze their flocks and herds. They were worried that God’s promises would not be enough to fulfill their perceived needs. They worried and, in a way, complained against God once again. But do we ever need to worry when it comes to God? If your answer is anything other than “no”, then you do not know God. He provides for all His children. He even cares for the birds and the flowers (Matthew 6:25-30; Luke 12:22-28). David knew this as well. Psalm 37:22-26—22 For those blessed by Him shall inherit the earth, but those cursed by Him shall be cut off. 23 The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD, and He delights in his way. 24 Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; for the LORD upholds him with His hand. 25 I have been young, and now am old; yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his descendants begging bread. 26 He is ever merciful, and lends; and his descendants are blessed. When he was in the city of Nob, and he and his men were hungry, did they not receive the Showbread from the hand of Ahimelech the High Priest? In the Magnificat, how does Mary describe God? Luke 1:50-55—50 “And His mercy is on those who fear Him From generation to generation. 51 He has shown strength with His arm; He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. 52 He has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted the lowly. 53 He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He has sent away empty. 54 He has helped His servant Israel, in remembrance of His mercy, 55 as He spoke to our fathers, ‘To Abraham and to his seed forever.’” There is no need to fear when it comes to the things God has promised. His promises are “Yes” and “Amen” (2nd Corinthians 1:20). He may not give us the biggest and shiniest of everything. But He will provide what we need. May not be what we want, but it will be what we need.

Now, if these tribes wanted to live in the lush land of Gilead, they had to fight for it. And if they didn’t fight? “But if they do not cross over armed with you, they shall have possessions among you in the land of Canaan.” Again, the choice is simple: Fight alongside your brethren and return to Gilead. Or don’t fight and you will be removed from Gilead and join your brethren in Canaan. If they wanted their life of leisure, they had to earn it. If they did not put forth the effort to earn it, they would go to Canaan. But, to their credit, they did go forth with their brethren. They crossed the Jordan River, they fought to capture the land of Canaan, and upholding the word that Moses spoke to them, Joshua released the Reubenite and the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh to go to the land of Gilead in Joshua 22:1-6—1 Then Joshua called the Reubenites, the Gadites, and half the tribe of Manasseh, 2 and said to them: "You have kept all that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded you, and have obeyed my voice in all that I commanded you. 3 You have not left your brethren these many days, up to this day, but have kept the charge of the commandment of the LORD your God. 4 And now the LORD your God has given rest to your brethren, as He promised them; now therefore, return and go to your tents and to the land of your possession, which Moses the servant of the LORD gave you on the other side of the Jordan. 5 But take careful heed to do the commandment and the law which Moses the servant of the LORD commanded you, to love the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways, to keep His commandments, to hold fast to Him, and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul." 6 So Joshua blessed them and sent them away, and they went to their tents. God gave them what they wanted, even though it was not what God intended them to have.

But He will often do that: when we want something so bad, and we don’t want to trust in the goodness of God, He will sometimes let us have our wants, just to show us that what He had in store for us was much better. This principle is summed up in the Ten Commandments. “You shall have no other gods before Me.” What can statues do for you? “You shall not steal…you shall no covet”. What God has given is sufficient; you do not need to swindle from your neighbor his possessions. “You shall not commit adultery.” Is not the wife God has given you good enough? “You shall not murder.” The life of someone who was made in the similitude of God should not be ended by someone for any mundane reason. And how do we sum up the Ten Commandments? Matthew 22:37-40—37 Jesus said to him, "'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets." The Ten Commandments—even all the Law and all the Prophets—are summed up in the phrases “You shall love the Lord your God” and “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”. Did the tribe of Gad and the tribe of Reuben and the half-tribe of Manasseh love the LORD with all their heart, soul, mind and strength? That is questionable. At the very least, they seem to have not trusted Him as well as they should have. They wanted to do things their own way; they wanted to have what was right in front of them instead of waiting on Him to fulfill His promise. But let us never do as they did. May we always remember that what God has promised, He will bring to pass. May we cry out “Onward Christian Soldiers”, and shout “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”! May we not be content to rest in Gilead, but fight in Canaan, for we have been given the victory already by our glorious Lord! I leave you with these words of the inimitable Mr. Spurgeon:

An idler is a great waster and makes others, wasters, too—his example is likely to make all around him as indolent as himself. I notice in our Churches that a few earnest men and women lead the way and others are sweetly drawn to follow them. How precious are the earnest few in a Christian community! David knew the value of the first three in his band. But if the leading spirits are dead, cold, indifferent—what happens? Why, lethargy spreads over the whole! I am sorry to say that I hear of instances in which a minister laments, "I labor with all my might, but I am persuaded that nothing will ever be done while Mr. So-and-So is here." He is often a cold-blooded deacon, or a purse-proud member. When you come to know him, you feel, "While there is such a great big iceberg floating close to the shore, the garden by the sea must be frostbitten—nothing can grow."

Jesus Christ is Lord.

Amen.

A Survey of the Old Testament Law--Numbers 32 (Part 1)

noreply@blogger.com (Four Pointer) — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 15:05:00 +0000

Numbers 32:1-5—1 Now the children of Reuben and the children of Gad had a very great multitude of livestock; and when they saw the land of Jazer and the land of Gilead, that indeed the region was a place for livestock, 2 the children of Gad and the children of Reuben came and spoke to Moses, to Eleazar the priest, and to the leaders of the congregation, saying, 3 "Ataroth, Dibon, Jazer, Nimrah, Heshbon, Elealeh, Shebam, Nebo, and Beon, 4 the country which the LORD defeated before the congregation of Israel, is a land for livestock, and your servants have livestock." 5 Therefore they said, "If we have found favor in your sight, let this land be given to your servants as a possession. Do not take us over the Jordan." Jazer was a city in the land of Gilead, and Gilead was an area to the east of the Jordan River between the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee (known at the time as Sea of Chinnereth), and laid to the south, the west, and the north of the land of Ammon. (Do not think Jazer lent its name to the Al-Jazeera media network, as it is based in Qatar on the Arabian Peninsula.) Gilead was a grandson of Manasseh (see Numbers 26:29; 1st Chronicles 2:23). The land of Gilead is mentioned several times in the Old Testament.

The first time we read of it is in Genesis 31, where we read about Jacob fleeing from Laban after Jacob had taken all the best cattle from him (Genesis 31:1-25). The next time we read of Gilead is in Genesis 37, when Joseph’s brothers sell him to the Midianites. Joseph was the next-to-last son of Jacob, and Jacob loved him more than his other sons, since he was born in Jacob’s old age. This made Jacob’s other sons jealous, and when Joseph came to them one day in the land of Gilead, they first plotted to kill him, until the words of Judah convinced them to not kill him but rather sell Joseph to the Midianites. This could have been all that we read of Joseph, if God did not use him to save the people of Israel alive. We read in Genesis 37:23-25—23 So it came to pass, when Joseph had come to his brothers, that they stripped Joseph of his tunic, the tunic of many colors that was on him. 24 Then they took him and cast him into a pit. And the pit was empty; there was no water in it. 25 And they sat down to eat a meal. This shows how cold and ruthless the brothers of Joseph were, and how much they hated Joseph. They threw him in a deep, dark pit, which had probably before been a well (And the pit was empty; there was no water in it). And what did they do after this? They sat down to eat a meal. Who could do such a thing? What would harden the heart of someone to the point that they would cast their own brother into a pit then not only sit down, but eat a meal? And while they were eating, what do they see? A band of Ishmaelites—descendants of the son of Abraham who despised Isaac—comes by and they talk about selling him into their hand. So they sold him to foreigners (note—verses 27-28 list both Ishmaelites and Midianites. Midian was another son of Abraham, the fourth son of Abraham with his second wife Keturah. The Midianites and the Ishmaelites were neighbors, both dwelling to the north of the Gulf of Aqaba, between the Arabian Peninsula and the mainland of Asia, to the southeast of modern-day Israel. So it would not be uncommon for them to be in a caravan together), thinking they would never see him again. They sold off their own flesh and blood, then he was loaded up to be carried off to who knows where? Well, God knew where they were taking Joseph. They were taking him to Egypt, where he would eventually be second-in-command to Pharaoh, and his actions would save alive Israel and his other sons, Joseph’s brothers, and all the people with them.

Joseph would show his brothers that he harbored no ill will toward them when they apologized to him and sought his forgiveness. Genesis 50:15-18—15 When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, "Perhaps Joseph will hate us, and may actually repay us for all the evil which we did to him." 16 So they sent messengers to Joseph, saying, "Before your father died he commanded, saying, 17 'Thus you shall say to Joseph: "I beg you, please forgive the trespass of your brothers and their sin; for they did evil to you. "' Now, please, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of your father." And Joseph wept when they spoke to him. 18 Then his brothers also went and fell down before his face, and they said, "Behold, we are your servants" (see Genesis 37:5-9). They realized their sin that they sinned against Joseph in selling him into slavery. But they were looking at their actions through human eyes. But God used their actions for his glory. You might even say that God planned these things. After all, they just happened to be in Gilead when Joseph just happened to come along at a certain time and the brothers just happened to throw him in a well and sit down and the band of Ishmaelites and Midianites just happened to come along at just a certain time and… You get the idea. With God, there is no such thing as coincidence. If God has a plan, He will work things to make that plan happen according to His good will and pleasure.

We read again of Gilead at the end of 1^st Samuel, and the death of King Saul. In 1^st Samuel 31, we read of the battle between the Philistines and Israel. This battle took place on Mount Gilboa, which is located in the land of Gilead. The prophet Samuel has told Saul that the kingdom would be taken away from him because of his offering that was in opposition to what God had commanded (1st Samuel 13:9), saving alive King Agag of the Amalekites and the spoils of that battle (1st Samuel 15:9) and enquiring of the Witch of Endor (1st Samuel 28:8-11). We don’t read much about this battle with the Philistines, only that they shot arrows at Saul which pierced his armor and wounded him grievously (1st Samuel 31:3). Saul would then ask his armor bearer to slay him with his sword, so that Saul may not die at the hand of the uncircumcised Philistines. The armor bearer would not harken to the command of his king, so Saul fell on his own sword and died in Gilead. The Philistines found Saul’s dead body, and strung up his head and his armor in their city. This gave great joy to the enemies of God. But isn’t that always the truth? When a person of God falls, the enemies of God rejoice. Herodias, the daughter-in-law of Herod, rejoiced when she received the head of John the Baptist (see Matthew 14:11; Mark 6:28).

And like the disciples of John the Baptist who took up the body of their teacher and buried it (see Matthew 14:12; Mark 6:29), the men of Gilead took down the body of Saul from the Philistines and buried it. 1st Samuel 31:11-13—11 Now when the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul, 12 all the valiant men arose and traveled all night, and took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Beth Shan; and they came to Jabesh and burned them there. 13 Then they took their bones and buried them under the tamarisk tree at Jabesh, and fasted seven days. As much wrong as Saul had done, he was still the king chosen by God, and his body deserved to be treated properly.

David, his successor, knew this, which is why he gave Saul and his sons a proper final burial. 2nd Samuel 21:12-14—12 Then David went and took the bones of Saul, and the bones of Jonathan his son, from the men of Jabesh Gilead who had stolen them from the street of Beth Shan, where the Philistines had hung them up, after the Philistines had struck down Saul in Gilboa. 13 So he brought up the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son from there; and they gathered the bones of those who had been hanged. 14 They buried the bones of Saul and Jonathan his son in the country of Benjamin in Zelah, in the tomb of Kish his father. David saw Saul, even in his worst actions, as the anointed of God, as did the men of Gilead.

In this ignominious fate of Saul there was manifested the righteous judgment of God in consequence of the hardening of his heart. But the love which the citizens of Jabesh displayed in their treatment of the corpses of Saul and his sons, had reference not to the king as rejected by God, but to the king as anointed with the Spirit of Jehovah, and was a practical condemnation, not of the divine judgment which had fallen upon Saul, but of the cruelty of the enemies of Israel and its anointed. For although Saul had waged war almost incessantly against the Philistines, it is not known that in any one of his victories he had ever been guilty of such cruelties towards the conquered and slaughtered foe as could justify this barbarous revenge on the part of the uncircumcised upon his lifeless corpse. (Keil and Delitzsch)

Numbers 32:6-15—6 And Moses said to the children of Gad and to the children of Reuben: "Shall your brethren go to war while you sit here? 7 Now why will you discourage the heart of the children of Israel from going over into the land which the LORD has given them? 8 Thus your fathers did when I sent them away from Kadesh Barnea to see the land. 9 For when they went up to the Valley of Eshcol and saw the land, they discouraged the heart of the children of Israel, so that they did not go into the land which the LORD had given them. 10 So the LORD's anger was aroused on that day, and He swore an oath, saying, 11 'Surely none of the men who came up from Egypt, from twenty years old and above, shall see the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, because they have not wholly followed Me, 12 except Caleb the son of Jephunneh, the Kenizzite, and Joshua the son of Nun, for they have wholly followed the LORD.' 13 So the LORD's anger was aroused against Israel, and He made them wander in the wilderness forty years, until all the generation that had done evil in the sight of the LORD was gone. 14 And look! You have risen in your fathers' place, a brood of sinful men, to increase still more the fierce anger of the LORD against Israel. 15 For if you turn away from following Him, He will once again leave them in the wilderness, and you will destroy all these people."

While the people of Israel are in Gilead in Numbers, and the last of the people that stood in the way of the people of Israel from entering Canaan had been defeated, all that was left for them to do was to cross over the Jordan River and take the land of Canaan. But the tribes of Gad and Reuben (who would be joined later by a half-tribe of Manasseh) saw that the land would be good for grazing the flocks and herds, and wanted to stay there. They did not want to go over into the land that God had promised them; they wanted to graze their animals in Gilead. They knew what God had promised them, but they did not want that. They wanted a land where they could prosper with their flocks and herds. Much like Lot, who wanted the good land (Genesis 13:10-11), not realizing how that would bring strife to the people of God for centuries to come (for the land he chose included Sodom and Gomorrah, which would be destroyed by God. After this destruction, his daughters would get him drunk and lay with him. The children born of these encounters were Ammon and Moab). And like Lot, they would be surrounded by those who despised YHVH, for this was the land of Bashan, king of the Amorites. And they would meet a not unexpected fate because of this. 1st Chronicles 5:3-26—3 The sons of Reuben the firstborn of Israel were Hanoch, Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi…6 and Beerah his son, whom Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria carried into captivity. He was leader of the Reubenites…9 Eastward they settled as far as the entrance of the wilderness this side of the River Euphrates, because their cattle had multiplied in the land of Gilead. 10 Now in the days of Saul they made war with the Hagrites, who fell by their hand; and they dwelt in their tents throughout the entire area east of Gilead. 11 And the children of Gad dwelt next to them in the land of Bashan as far as Salcah…16 And the Gadites dwelt in Gilead, in Bashan and in its villages, and in all the common-lands of Sharon within their borders…18 The sons of Reuben, the Gadites, and half the tribe of Manasseh had forty-four thousand seven hundred and sixty valiant men, men able to bear shield and sword, to shoot with the bow, and skillful in war, who went to war…23 The children of the half-tribe of Manasseh dwelt in the land. Their numbers increased from Bashan to Baal Hermon, that is, to Senir, or Mount Hermon…25 And they were unfaithful to the God of their fathers, and played the harlot after the gods of the peoples of the land, whom God had destroyed before them. 26 So the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, that is, Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria. He carried the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh into captivity. He took them to Halah, Habor, Hara, and the river of Gozan to this day.

They took their eyes off the promises of God and set their eyes on their immediate perceived needs and their immediate comfort. And because they took their eyes off God and His promises, they were indeed blessed for the time being, as their tribes and their flocks and herds grew, but ultimately they were hamstrung by their perceived needs and their comfort. They thought more about their sheep and their cattle than they thought of God and His promises. The promises of the world are fleeting; the promises of the world are here, right in front of our face, for but a moment, then are dissipated in a vapor, never to be seen again. But the promises of God are eternal, they never change, and they are sure and steadfast. That is the theme of the entire first chapter of 1^st Corinthians. The knowledge of the world is finite; the knowledge of God is infinite. The world is often unfaithful; God is forever faithful. The world is fractioned and divided; God is One. The wisdom of this world is fleeting, vanishing; the wisdom of God is greater, and ever present. The world favors the pretty, the wise, and the mighty. But God… 1st Corinthians 1:27-29—27 But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; 28 and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen…29 that no flesh should glory in His presence. The tribes of Gad and Reuben and the half-tribe of Manasseh didn’t want that ugly old land of Canaan that God had promised. They wanted the lush greenery of Gilead. They didn’t want to fight with and for the people of God, they wanted to lean back and just raise their cattle and their sheep.

But aren’t we guilty sometimes of the same thing? We don’t want to wake up on a Sunday morning and get the kids ready and shower and shave and get dressed to go hear a speech about the Bible, because that is hard. We want to sleep in; we want to relax and watch TV. We don’t want to read God’s Word, because that is hard. We would rather read a new novel or a comic book. We certainly don’t want to study the Bible, because that can take time away from our social media time. “So was there something wrong with these folks wanting a land that was suitable for grazing their animals?” No, not inherently. For they were not the only tribes to own flocks and herds. But it’s as if they did not trust the promise of God, to bring them into a land flowing with milk and honey.

And God knows what might have been their portion in the land of Canaan—it might have been even better than what they had in Gilead! 14 “And look! You have risen in your fathers' place, a brood of sinful men, to increase still more the fierce anger of the LORD against Israel. 15 For if you turn away from following Him, He will once again leave them in the wilderness, and you will destroy all these people.” In short, these people were complaining because it would be harder to cross the Jordan River and fight the people of the land of Canaan than to just stay where they were. Moses tells them as much, that this was what they wanted. They did not want to do the hard thing that would have given them something better than what they then had. They just wanted to take it easy, no matter how it turned out for the rest of the people. He even tells them that if they stayed where they were they would not turn away from the land they were promised, rather they would turn away from following Him. What was Canaan? It was the Promised Land. Who promised it to them? God. So, while it was not wrong for them to want a land where they could raise their flocks and herds, it was wrong to forego a promise made by God. As we saw before, this was the land of Bashan (land of the Amorites), and they simply stayed there, and did not drive out the inhabitants. These inhabitants worshipped Ba'al and Dagon, and would eventually entice these three tribes to worship these false gods. And because of this, God would raise up Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria, to take them away captive in the year 734BC—12 years before King Ahaz and the northern kingdom of Israel was taken captive and led into exile by Shalmaneser, and a full 147 years before the southern kingdom of Judah was taken captive and led into exile by Nebuchadnezzar.

Part 2 next week

Jesus Christ is Lord.

Amen.

A Survey of the Old Testament Law--Numbers 28-30 (Part 2)

noreply@blogger.com (Four Pointer) — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 16:04:00 +0000

Well, I jumped the gun and published Numbers 32 before I finished with Numbers 28 & 30 😕. So here is part 2 of those chapters

A wife was protected from making a rash vow by the headship of her husband. “But if her husband overrules her on the day that he hears it, he shall make void her vow which she took…and the LORD will release her.” In those days, women were beholden to their husbands. This is not to say that these women were always innocent, given that these commands were given while the people were still encamped in Moab, and were still threatened with deception by the Moabites (which may have also been taught them by the Moabites), and were learning all kinds of ways of deception. So they could have made a vow, the husbands could conceal this vow, then when the time came for the woman to make good on her vow, her husband could say “This is the first I’ve heard of it. I override her vow”. This would not be acceptable to God. John Calvin writes:

For many deceptions might have thus arisen; since it is usual with many when they wish to gratify their wives, to conceal their opinion for the time, but, when the period of actual performance arrives, to elude what may have been promised. But unless they use their privilege in proper time, God would have them bear the punishment of their servile indulgence and dissimulation; but because women are often urged to deceive by their levity and inconstancy, this danger is also anticipated.

This is not to say that all women are deceitful, or that they make vows that they do not intend to perform. But this is to say that this type of deception was anticipated by God, and He would not hold guiltless those who tried to thus deceive. Not to say that husbands could not attempt to deceive. “13 Every vow and every binding oath to afflict her soul, her husband may confirm it, or her husband may make it void. 14 Now if her husband makes no response whatever to her from day to day, then he confirms all her vows or all the agreements that bind her; he confirms them, because he made no response to her on the day that he heard them. 15 But if he does make them void after he has heard them, then he shall bear her guilt.” Some husbands could hold their peace when their wives made a vow, but if he does not overrule her on the day she made a vow, but lingers along for a time, the vow stands. And what would happen if she did not complete what she had vowed? Then the husband, being her head, would bear the punishment that she should have received. “But if he does make them void after he has heard them, then he shall bear her guilt.” This caveat not only protected the woman, but laid the onus of fulfilling that vow onto the husband.

The regulations became a little more tricky when the woman was a widow. 9 “Also any vow of a widow or a divorced woman, by which she has bound herself, shall stand against her. 10 If she vowed in her husband's house, or bound herself by an agreement with an oath, 11 and her husband heard it, and made no response to her and did not overrule her, then all her vows shall stand, and every agreement by which she bound herself shall stand. 12 But if her husband truly made them void on the day he heard them, then whatever proceeded from her lips concerning her vows or concerning the agreement binding her, it shall not stand; her husband has made them void, and the LORD will release her.” If any woman made a vow, that vow still stood even after the death of her husband, if that husband held his peace when she made the oath, she was still bound by that oath. She could not, should she remarry, cast off the vow she vowed simply because she now had a new husband. If she made a vow while still married to her first husband, and that husband did not overrule her, then she was still bound by that vow.

So what happened if someone did not fulfill their vow? Was there a penalty that could be paid or a sacrifice given? Yes. Leviticus 5:1, 4-7, 13—1 “If a person sins in hearing the utterance of an oath, and is a witness, whether he has seen or known of the matter—if he does not tell it, he bears guilt…4 Or if a person swears, speaking thoughtlessly with his lips to do evil or to do good, whatever it is that a man may pronounce by an oath, and he is unaware of it—when he realizes it, then he shall be guilty in any of these matters. 5 And it shall be, when he is guilty in any of these matters, that he shall confess that he has sinned in that thing; 6 and he shall bring his trespass offering to the LORD for his sin which he has committed, a female from the flock, a lamb or a kid of the goats as a sin offering. So the priest shall make atonement for him concerning his sin. 7 If he is not able to bring a lamb, then he shall bring to the LORD, for his trespass which he has committed, two turtledoves or two young pigeons: one as a sin offering and the other as a burnt offering…13 The priest shall make atonement for him, for his sin that he has committed in any of these matters; and it shall be forgiven him.”

Today, when someone commits a crime, and a person with that group consents to the commission of that crime (either verbally or silently), they are as guilty as the one committing that crime. Depending on their role they can be charged as either an accessory or as an accomplice. I won’t go into all the details of what each of these entail. Suffice it to say that even if they do not participate in the crime, but do not tell of the crime to the proper authorities, they can be charged, convicted and sentenced just as if they themselves had committed the crime. Likewise, if a person heard an oath being made, and the person making the vow reneged on that vow, and they say nothing, they are as guilty as the person making the oath, and they would bear the same guilt as the oath-breaker. King Zedekiah of Judah is a good example of this concept. We read of him in 2^nd Chronicles 36, and he was the last king in Judah before King Nebuchadnezzar took him and the people captive to Babylon. What did he do that was so horrendous that would God allow the people to be taken captive, the city spoiled and the temple burned? 2nd Chronicles 36:12-13—12 He did evil in the sight of the LORD his God, and did not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet, who spoke from the mouth of the LORD. 13 And he also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear an oath by God; but he stiffened his neck and hardened his heart against turning to the LORD God of Israel. Zedekiah was installed as king by Nebuchadnezzar, after many battles between Babylon and Egypt, with Babylon finally prevailing. He was not a rightful king for Judah. Nebuchadnezzar forced Zedekiah to make a vow to God, and what did Zedekiah do? He stiffened his neck and hardened his heart against turning to the LORD God of Israel. He reneged on that vow. Does the fact that Zedekiah made the vow under duress change the fact that he vowed to YHVH? No. So he should have completed that vow. But he didn’t. In addition, he allowed the house of God to be defiled, ignored and humiliated those sent by God to turn his heart to God, and filled up the measure of his sin against God, until God had no choice but to allow the nation of Judah to fall into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar for 70 years.

Today, we would do well to avoid making vows we don’t intend to fulfill. Ecclesiastes 5:4-6—4 When you make a vow to God, do not delay to pay it; for He has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you have vowed—5 Better not to vow than to vow and not pay. 6 Do not let your mouth cause your flesh to sin, nor say before the messenger of God that it was an error. Why should God be angry at your excuse and destroy the work of your hands? Ever hear someone says “I swear to God, if you…”? They have just taken a vow to God. This is another example of the Third Commandment, “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” (Exodus 20:7). Be careful when you invoke the name of YHVH in swearing or making an oath. The apostle Paul was not rash with the name of God, but he invoked it while making a case that was true. Romans 1:9—For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of His Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers. 1st Thessalonians 2:5—For neither at any time did we use flattering words, as you know, nor a cloak for covetousness—God is witness. The other writers of Scripture also noted that God is a faithful witness. 1st John 5:8-10—8 And there are three that bear witness on earth: the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three agree as one. 9 If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for this is the witness of God which He has testified of His Son. 10 He who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself; he who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of His Son. The examples give credence to another of the Ten Commandments, Exodus 20:16—“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” Jesus gave us some good advice about making oaths in His Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:33-37—33 “Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform your oaths to the Lord.' 34 But I say to you, do not swear at all: neither by heaven, for it is God's throne; 35 nor by the earth, for it is His footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. 36 Nor shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black. 37 But let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No.' For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.” When you make a vow, do not go beyond what you can fulfill, lest you become a liar in the eyes of God. If you take an oath to perform more than you can bear—or if your oath is dependent upon someone else fulfilling it—you can become guilty before God (Proverbs 6:1-2). There is One who will swear and will always fulfill. There is One who will always and forever be a true and faithful witness. There is One who will always come through when He makes a promise.

Standing on the promises that cannot fail/When the howling storms of doubt and fear assail,

By the living Word of God I shall prevail/Standing on the promises of God.

Standing on the promises of Christ, the Lord/Bound to him eternally by love's strong cord,

Overcoming daily with the Spirit's sword/Standing on the promises of God.

Standing on the promises I cannot fall/List'ning ev'ry moment to the Spirit's call,

Resting in my Savior as my all in all/Standing on the promises of God.

(“Standing on the Promises” by Russell Kelso Carter)

Jesus Christ is Lord.

Amen.

A Survey of the Old Testament Law--Numbers 28-30 (Part 1)

noreply@blogger.com (Four Pointer) — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 16:28:00 +0000

Numbers 28-29 detail offerings that were to be given at different times during the year. Numbers 28 is a recapitulation of the offerings commanded in Exodus 23:14-17; Exodus 29:38-42; Exodus 31:12-17; and Leviticus 23:1-44.

Numbers 29:1-6—1 “And in the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall have a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work. For you it is a day of blowing the trumpets. 2 You shall offer a burnt offering as a sweet aroma to the LORD: one young bull, one ram, and seven lambs in their first year, without blemish. 3 Their grain offering shall be fine flour mixed with oil: three-tenths of an ephah for the bull, two-tenths for the ram, 4 and one-tenth for each of the seven lambs; 5 also one kid of the goats as a sin offering, to make atonement for you; 6 besides the burnt offering with its grain offering for the New Moon, the regular burnt offering with its grain offering, and their drink offerings, according to their ordinance, as a sweet aroma, an offering made by fire to the LORD.”

Numbers 29 outlines the sacrifices which were to be given in the seventh Month of the religious calendar, but the first month of the secular calendar. This is known as the month Tishri. There are many “new years” in Judaism, and they are explained on the website Judaism 101:

Judaism has several different "new years," a concept which may seem strange at first, but think of it this way: the American "new year" starts in January, but the new "school year" starts in September, and many businesses have "fiscal years" that start at various times of the year. In Judaism, Nisan 1 is the new year for the purpose of counting the reign of kings and months on the calendar, Elul 1 (in August) is the new year for the tithing of animals, Shevat 15 (in February) is the new year for trees (determining when first fruits can be eaten, etc.), and Tishri 1 (Rosh Hashanah) is the new year for years (when we increase the year number. Sabbatical and Jubilee years begin at this time).

(https://www.jewfaq.org/rosh_hashanah)

The 1^st of Tishri was called יוֹם תְּרוּעָה (Yom Teruah, “a day of sounding the shofar”) or what we now know as רֹאשׁ הַשָּׁנָה‎ (Rosh Hashanah, “head of the year”) and is still celebrated by Jews around the world. The month Tishri falls around the Gregorian months of September and October, and the command here to celebrate is an echo of the command given in Leviticus 23:24-25—24 "Speak to the children of Israel, saying: 'In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall have a sabbath-rest, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation. 25 You shall do no customary work on it; and you shall offer an offering made by fire to the LORD.'" So how is Rosh Hashanah celebrated?

It is still observed by abstaining from work, and is still treated as sacred and holy by Jews. Another custom is dipping apples (or bread) in honey, as a symbol of the hopes that the new year will be sweet. If bread is used, it is not like the bread we would but in a loaf from a store. This bread is called “challah”, and is a round loaf, as opposed to the oval loaf it is normally made as. The round shape is to symbolize the cycle of life from one year to the next. Prayers are spoken from a prayer book called the Mahzor:

The prayer book for the High Holidays is called the Mahzor. Three unique sets of prayers are added to the morning service during Rosh Hashanah. These are known as Malkhuyot, which address the sovereignty of God, Zikhronot, which present God as the one who remembers past deeds, and Shofarot, in which we stand in nervous anticipation of the future.

(https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/rosh-hashanah-101/)

So are we as Christians, as some claim, to keep this Feast of Trumpets, this Jewish New Year? Are we to keep the feasts outlined in the Old Covenant? No we are not, for they are part of the Law, and Christ has fulfilled them all. Matthew 5:17—“Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.” There are some who claim that we are still bound by the Old Testament Law, that we are to follow every jot and tittle of it or we are damned. And they completely miss the work that Jesus did. He has set us free from that Law by fulfilling every requirement of that Law. So they work and labor and sweat for no reason, they deny themselves of different foods, they set their calendars for days and months, they bind themselves up in needless regulations instead of believing what Jesus said, that He fulfilled the Law for us. How many times do we read the words of Paul, that Hebrew of Hebrews, that we are not bound to the Law any longer. Romans 8:1-2—1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. The law could make no man righteous before God, since the Law only pointed to how sinful we are (Galatians 3:11)—it was our guide until it was fulfilled by the only one who could fulfill it (Galatians 3:24-25). Colossians 2:16-17—16 So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths,17 which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ. Romans 14:4-8—4 Who are you to judge another's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand. 5 One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. 6 He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord; and he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it. He who eats, eats to the Lord, for he gives God thanks; and he who does not eat, to the Lord he does not eat, and gives God thanks. 7 For none of us lives to himself, and no one dies to himself. 8 For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord's. What was Paul’s rebuke of Peter, recorded in Galatians 2? That while Peter was preaching freedom in Christ to the Gentiles, he was leaving them and sitting with the Jews and observing their rules when they came along (Galatians 2:11-21). There are many Peters today—those who claim to love Christ with all their heart, soul, mind and strength, yet deny the freedom He bought for us. They worship Him with their lips, but their heart is far from Him, not believing that He delivered us from a rigid obedience to new moons and Sabbaths.

“But didn’t Paul says that to the Jews and to those under the Law he became as a Jew and as one under the Law?” But what does the apostle mean by those words? Simply this: that he showed the Jews and those under the Law how the Law pointed to Christ. “But what about when he had Timothy circumcised (Acts 16:3)?” Good question. And John Gill answers it:

Wherefore having a mind to take Timothy with him to be assisting to him in the preaching of the Gospel, in point of prudence he thought it proper to circumcise him, that he might be received by them, and be the more acceptable to them; who would otherwise have taken such an offence at him, as not to have heard him: thus the apostle to the Jews became a Jew, that he might gain and save some, for they knew all that his father was a Greek; and that therefore he was not circumcised; for a woman might not circumcise, because she was not a fit subject of circumcision herself; though in case of necessity circumcision by women was allowed of

Yes, he had Timothy circumcised, but it was not because he felt obligate to under the Law, as the Jerusalem Council had just decided in Acts 15 that it was not necessary to have him circumcised. It was he might by all means save some (1st Corinthians 9:22), that by doing so he might have an audience with them and save some. He did not, as Peter, shrink away from them and live under the Law in front of the Jews, but rather showed them that Timothy was not saved by being circumcised, but that he was saved whether circumcised or not. “So if someone wants to observe Rosh Hashanah, simply because they choose to, are they not saved?” On the contrary. He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord. If one wants to observe it to celebrate the goodness of God and if it helps them in their repentance from sin, then they are free to do so. But let no one lead you to believe that you have to observe it in order to be saved, as he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it. Let us now move on to Numbers 30.

Numbers 30:1-16—1 Then Moses spoke to the heads of the tribes concerning the children of Israel, saying, "This is the thing which the LORD has commanded: 2 If a man makes a vow to the LORD, or swears an oath to bind himself by some agreement, he shall not break his word; he shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth. 3 Or if a woman makes a vow to the LORD, and binds herself by some agreement while in her father's house in her youth, 4 and her father hears her vow and the agreement by which she has bound herself, and her father holds his peace, then all her vows shall stand, and every agreement with which she has bound herself shall stand. 5 But if her father overrules her on the day that he hears, then none of her vows nor her agreements by which she has bound herself shall stand; and the LORD will release her, because her father overruled her. 6 If indeed she takes a husband, while bound by her vows or by a rash utterance from her lips by which she bound herself, 7 and her husband hears it, and makes no response to her on the day that he hears, then her vows shall stand, and her agreements by which she bound herself shall stand. 8 But if her husband overrules her on the day that he hears it, he shall make void her vow which she took and what she uttered with her lips, by which she bound herself, and the LORD will release her. 9 Also any vow of a widow or a divorced woman, by which she has bound herself, shall stand against her. 10 If she vowed in her husband's house, or bound herself by an agreement with an oath, 11 and her husband heard it, and made no response to her and did not overrule her, then all her vows shall stand, and every agreement by which she bound herself shall stand. 12 But if her husband truly made them void on the day he heard them, then whatever proceeded from her lips concerning her vows or concerning the agreement binding her, it shall not stand; her husband has made them void, and the LORD will release her. 13 Every vow and every binding oath to afflict her soul, her husband may confirm it, or her husband may make it void. 14 Now if her husband makes no response whatever to her from day to day, then he confirms all her vows or all the agreements that bind her; he confirms them, because he made no response to her on the day that he heard them. 15 But if he does make them void after he has heard them, then he shall bear her guilt." 16 These are the statutes which the LORD commanded Moses, between a man and his wife, and between a father and his daughter in her youth in her father's house.

“If a man makes a vow to the LORD, or swears an oath to bind himself by some agreement, he shall not break his word; he shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth.” When a person took a vow to the LORD, it was a very serious matter. In the tragic case of Jephthah (Judges 11:30-40), he makes a vow to YHVH that he will sacrifice the first thing that comes to meet him when he returns home. Of course his daughter meets him first, and because of the vow he made to God, he has no choice but to sacrifice her. When the Gibeonites ask Joshua and the people to make a vow to save them from harm (albeit under false pretenses) and they made said vow, they could not go back on it, since they vowed to God (Joshua 9:15-27). Even in the New Testament, we read of Jews who wanted to kill the apostle Paul, that they made a vow to God that they would neither drink nor eat until Paul was dead (Acts 23:12-24). We read there that Paul was secretly taken away safely, but we read no more about the men who bound themselves by their oath. We can only speculate that either (a) they died of thirst and starvation, or (b) they went back on their vow to God. And even today, if we take the witness stand in court, and we swear that we will “tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God”. When Presidents are sworn in to office, they take what we call the “Oath of Office”, in which they swear "that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God." Now, in each of these last two cases, these oaths have been broken by some who make these oaths, and they will have to answer to none but God for breaking these oaths.

3 “Or if a woman makes a vow to the LORD, and binds herself by some agreement while in her father's house in her youth, 4 and her father hears her vow and the agreement by which she has bound herself, and her father holds his peace, then all her vows shall stand, and every agreement with which she has bound herself shall stand. 5 But if her father overrules her on the day that he hears, then none of her vows nor her agreements by which she has bound herself shall stand; and the LORD will release her, because her father overruled her.” This passage is speaking of a girl (or woman) who makes a vow while still living under her father’s roof. Her father has the right to uphold or to nullify the vow that she has made. This does not take away the girl’s freedom to make a vow, it simply adds a layer of protection to her, for young women may make a vow rashly and later regret it. But her father can overrule her, if she vowed rashly, and nullify that vow. If, on the other hand, her father deems her vow to be legitimate, he can hold his tongue and allow her vow to stand. “So why isn’t this safeguard there for boys or men living under their father’s roof?” Because under the Law, boys were to be taught the importance of vows under the Law. Deuteronomy 6:6-7—6 “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.” Boys, being taught the Law, were expected to have a firm knowledge of the Law, and everything contained therein, and thus if they made a vow, it was binding upon them and they could not be released from it.

Girls, on the other hand, were still under the care and protection of their father, and their oath could be abrogated if their fathers decided so. Only he has to decide on the day he hears it. Why? This prevented her from seeing that the vow was too great, and she could not keep it, and the father simply saying, “Well, she can’t keep her vow, so I release her from it.” The same was true in the case of married women and their husbands. 6 “If indeed she takes a husband, while bound by her vows or by a rash utterance from her lips by which she bound herself, 7 and her husband hears it, and makes no response to her on the day that he hears, then her vows shall stand, and her agreements by which she bound herself shall stand. 8 But if her husband overrules her on the day that he hears it, he shall make void her vow which she took and what she uttered with her lips, by which she bound herself, and the LORD will release her…13 Every vow and every binding oath to afflict her soul, her husband may confirm it, or her husband may make it void. 14 Now if her husband makes no response whatever to her from day to day, then he confirms all her vows or all the agreements that bind her; he confirms them, because he made no response to her on the day that he heard them. 15 But if he does make them void after he has heard them, then he shall bear her guilt.” What are the vows we exchange when we get married? “Do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband…to love, honor, cherish and obey…’til death do you part?” In the eyes of God, when we exchange vows we are making a covenant with God that we will become one flesh with the person and we will stay in that covenant until separated by death (Which is why in a wedding the bride’s family sits on one side and the groom’s on the other, and the couple, once they are married, walks between them, thus ratifying the covenant, as a covenant in olden times was ratified by the slaying and dividing of an animal and the two parties walking between the two halves [see Genesis 15:9-21]). So in the Old Testament, the wife was to be under the care and protection of her husband. Now the husband, being cognizant of the regulations contained in the Law, was on his own when he swore a vow. “If a man makes a vow to the LORD…he shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth.”

Part 2 next week

Jesus Christ is Lord.

Amen.

A Survey of the Old Testament Law--Numbers 27 & 36 (Part 2)

noreply@blogger.com (Four Pointer) — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 16:52:00 +0000

So what happens to those who are teachers and preachers and pastors who deliberately teach wrongly, or who sully their name with some sin? They are removed from their office. In March of 2004, Carlton Pearson, a popular Pentecostal preacher, began preaching a “gospel” of universalism—that Hell is not real and that everyone will go to Heaven. He was removed from the pulpit. In the early 2000s Ted Haggard was one of the most popular preachers in America. In 2006 it was revealed that he had paid a male prostitute for sex and was using meth. He was removed from the pulpit. Also in the early 2000s, Mark Driscoll was an influential pastor at Mars Hill Church in Seattle, WA. In 2014 he was found to have committed abusive behavior in his church . He was removed from the pulpit. Time would fail us to speak of Perry Noble, Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart, Bill Hybels and Steve Lawson. Suffice it to say that these are examples of what Jesus meant when He said “2 For there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, nor hidden that will not be known. 3 Therefore whatever you have spoken in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have spoken in the ear in inner rooms will be proclaimed on the housetops” (Luke 12:2-3).

Numbers 27:15-23—15 Then Moses spoke to the LORD, saying: 16 "Let the LORD, the God of the spirits of all flesh, set a man over the congregation, 17 who may go out before them and go in before them, who may lead them out and bring them in, that the congregation of the LORD may not be like sheep which have no shepherd." 18 And the LORD said to Moses: "Take Joshua the son of Nun with you, a man in whom is the Spirit, and lay your hand on him; 19 set him before Eleazar the priest and before all the congregation, and inaugurate him in their sight. 20 And you shall give some of your authority to him, that all the congregation of the children of Israel may be obedient. 21 He shall stand before Eleazar the priest, who shall inquire before the LORD for him by the judgment of the Urim. At his word they shall go out, and at his word they shall come in, he and all the children of Israel with him—all the congregation." 22 So Moses did as the LORD commanded him. He took Joshua and set him before Eleazar the priest and before all the congregation. 23 And he laid his hands on him and inaugurated him, just as the LORD commanded by the hand of Moses. Moses shows his tender love for the people in desiring for them to have a strong leader as they go into Canaan. And that leader is Joshua, the man whose book bears his name. If you read the book of Joshua, you will see the man as the one who led Israel into battle against all the land of Canaan and subdued it (by the hand of God) and gave the people rest. And under his leadership, the land had rest from war (Joshua 14:15).

Does God like war? What is war, after all? Is it not conflict between people who are made after the similitude of God? Does it not cause death and destruction and disease? What is there to like about war? We read in 2^nd Samuel about how Abner had killed Joab’s brother Asahel, when he told Asahel to stop running after him. It does not appear that Abner wanted to kill him, but in the heat of battle it is either “kill or be killed”, and since Abner did not want to be killed, Abner struck him in the stomach with the blunt end of the spear, so that the spear came out of his back; and he fell down there and died on the spot (2nd Samuel 2:23). Asahel would not cease pursuing Abner, so Abner stuck out his spear and Asahel ran into the blunt end of it, and he was so fleet of foot that it went through his abdomen and out through his back. Abner, the son of Ner (which is what the name Abner means, literally), King Saul’s Secretary of Defense (if you will) called out to Joab, who held the same position under David, and asked him how long the bloodshed would continue between the two houses. 2nd Samuel 2:26—Then Abner called to Joab and said, "Shall the sword devour forever? Do you not know that it will be bitter in the latter end? How long will it be then until you tell the people to return from pursuing their brethren?" Abner did not want war, especially between fellow Israelites.

Sometimes, however, war is necessary. There arose a fellow in Germany in the 1930’s who wanted to spread war all across the globe in order to bring about his vision of a perfect people. Should we have not engaged in that war? Should we have let his war machine devour the planet and kill everybody who did not fit into his small vision? Does that mean God liked that the world waged war? No. But it was necessary. On the other hand, does God want us to be passive in the face of growing threats to men’s freedom? Also no. CS Lewis, in his book “Mere Christianity”, says that while he sees war as an evil, it is a necessary evil:

Does loving your enemy mean not punishing him? No, for loving myself does not mean that I ought not to subject myself to punishment—even to death. If one had committed a murder, the right Christian thing to do would be to give yourself up to the police and be hanged. It is, therefore, in my opinion, perfectly right for a Christian judge to sentence a man to death or a Christian soldier to kill an enemy. I always have thought so, ever since I became a Christian, and long before the war, and I still think so now that we are at peace. It is no good quoting “Thou shalt not kill.” There are two Greek words: the ordinary word to kill and the word to murder. And when Christ quotes that commandment He uses the murder one in all three accounts, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And I am told there is the same distinction in Hebrew. All killing is not murder any more than all sexual intercourse is adultery. When soldiers came to St. John the Baptist asking what to do, he never remotely suggested that they ought to leave the army: nor did Christ when He met a Roman sergeant-major—what they called a centurion. [. . .] We may kill if necessary, but we must not hate and enjoy it.

And if our conscience says that if a man wishes to impose his own brand of evil on the world, that man must be stopped by any means necessary. Joshua’s conscience told him that if anyone opposed God and was occupying a land that God has promised to his people, those opposed to God must be destroyed. He was commissioned to lead the people into Canaan and wipe out the peoples who inhabited it. And that is just what he did. He led the people in battle against the idolatrous people of Canaan and the people of Israel conquered the Canaanites. And Joshua gave the people rest from the pagans.

Now while Joshua gave the people rest, this was only a temporal rest, for the idolatry of the people still surrounded them. He was a type of the coming Christ, who would give the people of God eternal rest—not from the world surrounding them, for that world will always be with us. Jesus told His apostles in John 19:15—“Because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” As long as we live in this world, the world will hate us who believe in Christ. That is to be expected. The world is beholden as slaves to Satan. He has blinded the world to the truth in Christ, and they serve him and want nothing to do with God. They are as the Canaanites and Moabites and Ammonites who hated the people of Israel, and seek to destroy us out of this world. So long as we are in this world, the world will hate us as it hated Christ. But we have peace within us, because this Christ has promised us rest from our adversaries—not man’s peace, while we are in the world, but peace with God, which is the only peace that really matters in the end. JC Ryle says:

For one thing, persecution is the cup of which Christ Himself drank. Faultless as He was in everything, in temper, word, and deed,—unwearied as He was in works of kindness, always going about doing good,—never was any one so hated as Jesus was to the last day of His earthly ministry. Scribes and High Priests, Pharisees and Sadducees, Jews and Gentiles, united in pouring contempt on Him, and opposing Him, and never rested till He was put to death. Surely this simple fact alone should sustain our spirits and prevent our being cast down by the hatred of man. Let us consider that we are only walking in our Master's footsteps, and sharing our Master's portion. Do we deserve to be better treated? Are we better than He? Let us fight against these murmuring thoughts. Let us drink quietly the cup which our Father gives us. Above all, let us often call to mind the saying, "Remember the word that I spake unto you, The servant is not greater than his Master." For another thing, persecution helps to prove that we are children of God, and have treasure in heaven. It supplies evidence that we are really born again, that we have grace in our hearts, and are heirs of glory: "If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you." Persecution, in short, is like the goldsmith's Hall mark on real silver and gold: it is one of the marks of a converted man.

The writer of Hebrews says, in Hebrews 4:8—For if Joshua (KJV—Jesus) had given them rest, then He would not afterward have spoken of another day. In Hebrews 3-4 the subject is the rest for the people of God, and how the people who rebelled in the Wilderness never saw rest because of their rebellion and their hardened hearts. For forty years they wandered, all those who complained against God, and they died in that wilderness, and their children entered the land promised to them. Then when they entered that land, they had to fight against those pagans who lived in that land. But that was not an eternal rest, for they had to contend with the neighboring nations who worshipped idols and which always polluted the true worship of the True God. And as you read through the Old Testament, you see this crop up time and time and time again. There was never any rest for the people of God under their kings. Until their true King came along, who came to give them eternal rest. And if we are in Christ, we will have that rest. Hebrews 4:9-11—9 There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. 10 For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His. 11 Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience. Let us be ever diligent of the rest that Jesus has promised us—not as the temporal rest that Joshua gave them, which they soon abandoned after his death (Judges 2:10-12)—but the rest offered by our Sovereign Lord, who told us in truth that His yoke is easy and His burden is light (Matthew 11:30).

John 16:33—“In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” What words of comfort are these! That we need not attempt to overthrow the works of the wicked one ourselves, for Christ has already done so! Should we be slothful in this world, and simply lay back and let those who slander and blaspheme the name of God have their way? Should we not rather seek to tell the world of the greatness of God and show forth the goodness within us? Peter tells us in 1st Peter 3:14-16—14 But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you are blessed. "And do not be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled." 15 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear; 16 having a good conscience, that when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed. We do not seek to defend God. We seek to defend the reason of the hope that is within us. Charles Spurgeon once said, “The Word of God is like a lion. You don’t have to defend a lion. All you have to do is let the lion loose, and the lion will defend itself.” God is more than capable of defending Himself. He can (and will) bring about sore retribution to those who oppose Him. Will that dissuade them from accursing Him? No, they will still rail against the Sovereign. Revelation 16:8-11—8 Then the fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and power was given to him to scorch men with fire. 9 And men were scorched with great heat, and they blasphemed the name of God who has power over these plagues; and they did not repent and give Him glory. 10 Then the fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and his kingdom became full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues because of the pain. 11 They blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and did not repent of their deeds. These men who assailed the name of God, even after being struck with heat and pain, will not give glory to God, but will oppose Him even more because of His wrath that is poured out upon them.

“So why do we need to tell people about God if they’re only going to continue to blaspheme Him?” First, we warn them because some of God’s elect may be with them, and have not yet heard the truth of God, and if they are elect, when they hear the truth they will obey the truth. “But what will happen to those who do not obey?” What do you think will happen to them? They will face the wrath of God, and be sent to their eternal destruction. Which is why we need to let the truth of God be known, that they may rest in the eternal rest that Jesus gives us, and not the temporal rest that Joshua delivered. While Joshua did indeed work mighty works of God, he did not give them the rest that only Jesus can give. “In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” If we are in Christ, and He has overcome the world, then guess what? We too will overcome the world through Him. Like the people Joshua led into Canaan, we will be beset by those who hate and despise us for believing in God. We will be surrounded by the spiritual descendants of Canaan and Moab and the Amorites. We will not have rest in this world, but we will have eternal rest in the world to come, where we will bask in the glory of God the Father, our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.

I heard the voice of Jesus say,
“Come unto Me and rest;
lay down, thou weary one, lay down
thy head upon My breast.”
I came to Jesus as I was,
so weary, worn, and sad;
I found in Him a resting place,
and He has made me glad.

(“I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say” by Horatio Bonar)

Jesus Christ is Lord.

Amen.

A Survey of the Old Testament Law--Numbers 27 & 36 (Part 1)

noreply@blogger.com (Four Pointer) — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 15:05:30 +0000

Numbers 26 is the second census that was taken of the people of Israel, so we will skip to Numbers 27, which we will study along with Numbers 36 which brings closure to the episode cataloged in this chapter.

Numbers 27:1-4—1 Then came the daughters of Zelophehad the son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh, from the families of Manasseh the son of Joseph; and these were the names of his daughters: Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. 2 And they stood before Moses, before Eleazar the priest, and before the leaders and all the congregation, by the doorway of the tabernacle of meeting, saying: 3 "Our father died in the wilderness; but he was not in the company of those who gathered together against the LORD, in company with Korah, but he died in his own sin; and he had no sons. 4 Why should the name of our father be removed from among his family because he had no son? Give us a possession among our father's brothers." So many people who don’t want to believe the Bible like to claim that it subjugates women. On the contrary, the things contained in the Bible are for the protection of women. “Well what about in Deuteronomy 22:28 where it says that if a man rapes a virgin he is to take her as his wife? How does that protect the woman?” Good question. Basically, this command (which is an echo of Exodus 22:16) is not talking about rape. It is to prevent a man from sleeping with a damsel, knowing that he will have to pay her father and marry her, never being able to divorce her. In other words, God is telling this man “If you want her, you will have to take her for life, her and her alone.” Just look at the verses previous to this, Deuteronomy 22:25-27—25 “But if a man finds a betrothed young woman in the countryside, and the man forces her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die. 26 But you shall do nothing to the young woman; there is in the young woman no sin deserving of death, for just as when a man rises against his neighbor and kills him, even so is this matter. 27 For he found her in the countryside, and the betrothed young woman cried out, but there was no one to save her.” If the woman was not married or betrothed, the man who sleeps with her must marry her. If the woman was betrothed or married, her rapist must die. So yes, there were protections for women.

Our text today gives us another example. The daughters of a man who died without any sons to inherit his land asked what would happen to them in the Promised Land, if they would have any inheritance. After all, inheritances of land were passed down through the sons. Zelophehad was a descendant of the tribe of Manasseh, and a grandson of the man Gilead (from whom the land of Gilead gets its name). Understanding the family tree as we read it in 1st Chronicles 7:14-15 is a bit tricky. The majority of translations (including the KJV, given here) render 1st Chronicles 7:14-15 (KJV)—14 The sons of Manasseh; Ashriel, whom she bare: (but his concubine the Aramitess bare Machir the father of Gilead: 15 And Machir took to wife the sister of Huppim and Shuppim, whose sister's name was Maachah;) and the name of the second was Zelophehad: and Zelophehad had daughters. In the NKJV we read 14 The descendants of Manasseh: his Syrian concubine bore him Machir the father of Gilead, the father of Asriel. 15 Machir took as his wife the sister of Huppim and Shuppim, whose name was Maachah. The name of Gilead's grandson was Zelophehad, but Zelophehad begot only daughters. And in the NET (New English Translation) we see 14 The sons of Manasseh: Asriel, who was born to Manasseh's Aramean concubine. She also gave birth to Makir the father of Gilead. 15 Now Makir married a wife from the Huppites and Shuppites. (His sister's name was Maacah.) Zelophehad was Manasseh's second son; he had only daughters. In verse 15, the word “second” in the KJV, the word “grandson” in the NKJV and the phrase “second son” in the NET are translated from the word הַשֵּׁנִי (sheni) which usually means “second (ordinal number)”, but can also mean “another; other (something as distinct from something else)”. Scholars are divided and perplexed by the phrase “the second” (or “grandson” or “second son”). Keil and Delitzsch only guess at it; the Pulpit Commentary also. The Biblical Illustrator and even John Calvin are silent on this. Even great Jewish writers like Abraham Ibn Ezra, Maimonides and Josephus are also silent. This being the case, we cannot be dogmatic about it, but should only join these brilliant minds in their perplexity and silence.

Let us suffice it to say that the name of Gilead's grandson was Zelophehad. But Zelophehad did not have any sons, only daughters. Since daughters were not yet given the right of land inheritance, would they have anywhere to live? Would they wander around homeless? Or would they marry into another tribe, and their father’s name simply be blotted out? These daughters had questions, and they were not afraid to ask them. But they did not do so in a harsh manner, but were tender and inquisitive in their asking. These were indeed children of Israel, being of the tribe of Manasseh, the son of Joseph, the son of Jacob, and as such they deserved to be cared for as children of Israel. And their concern for their father’s name is to be commended. So Moses had a quandary to figure out. And what does he do? He did what he always did: he took the matter to the One who could give him proper counsel.

Numbers 27:5-11—5 So Moses brought their case before the LORD. 6 And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying: 7 "The daughters of Zelophehad speak what is right; you shall surely give them a possession of inheritance among their father's brothers, and cause the inheritance of their father to pass to them. 8 And you shall speak to the children of Israel, saying: 'If a man dies and has no son, then you shall cause his inheritance to pass to his daughter. 9 If he has no daughter, then you shall give his inheritance to his brothers. 10 If he has no brothers, then you shall give his inheritance to his father's brothers. 11 And if his father has no brothers, then you shall give his inheritance to the relative closest to him in his family, and he shall possess it.'" And it shall be to the children of Israel a statute of judgment, just as the LORD commanded Moses. God always has an answer, always has a solution that will work out for the good of His people—even if it does not appear to be immediately for their good. It did not seem good at the time when God caused the people of Jerusalem to be carried away captive to Babylon because they had progressed further and further into idolatry, and had broken the covenant that God made with them, and risked being cut off from Him eternally.

And He tells them through the prophet Jeremiah that this captivity will be for a short while, in order to bring them back to God. Jeremiah 27:17, 21-22—“17 Do not listen to them; serve the king of Babylon, and live! Why should this city be laid waste?...21 yes, thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, concerning the vessels that remain in the house of the LORD, and in the house of the king of Judah and of Jerusalem: 22 'They shall be carried to Babylon, and there they shall be until the day that I visit them,' says the LORD. 'Then I will bring them up and restore them to this place.'” This was for the good of Jerusalem, that the idolatry would be blotted out and the city renewed. We see later that this captivity would be but for a season, and God would raise up a king in Babylon who would set them free to return to their land and worship Him. He would later say in Jeremiah 29:10-12— 10 For thus says the LORD: “After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place. 11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.” And He did what He said He would. He raised up Cyrus, king of Babylon, who wrote a decree that all the people of Israel should return to their homeland. And here in Numbers, He gives a less severe command—He gives a command that yes, the daughters of Zelophehad should be given a portion of land among their uncles, and the inheritance that would have gone to any brothers (had they had any) would go to these daughters.

And in future cases, the same thing would happen. But if the man died childless, his land would pass to his brothers. If he had no brothers, the land would pass to his uncle(s) on his father’s side. If he had no uncles on his father’s side, it would go to a near kinsman. This, of course, brings us to the case of Ruth. A little background—Naomi and Elimelech were Ephrathites who lived in Bethlehem Ephrathah in the land of Judah. Elimelech dies, and their sons Mahlon and Chilion took for themselves wives, Moabitesses from the land of Moab—one named Orpah and the other named Ruth. “But I thought men of Israel were not supposed to marry Moabite women?” True indeed (Deuteronomy 23:3). But read on. Mahlon and Chilion died, leaving Naomi not only as a widow but also having no sons (like Zelophehad and like the Shunammite woman in 2nd Kings 4:1 and like the widow of Nain in Luke 7:12). Ruth was also made a widow by this. Does she remain in Moab as Orpah did? No. What does she tell Naomi when she said she would go with her? “For wherever you go, I will go; and wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God, my God” (Ruth 1:16). She made a vow that she would worship YHVH, Naomi’s God. In the Mishnah (a collection of rabbinical commentaries on the Old Testament) we read in Mishna Yebamot 8:3(I) that “The male Ammonite and Moabite are prohibited from entering the congregation of the Lord, and the prohibition concerning them is forever. But their women are permitted forthwith”. So the prohibition was against the Moabite males from entering the assembly of Israel, not the Moabitesses. (Remember also that the people were to bring the young women of the Midianites into the camp after they had slain the men, women and boys in Numbers 31). She returned with Naomi to Bethlehem Judah, and gleaned the wheat fields to support Naomi and possibly find a husband. A husband from the people of Israel. So God used this marriage by Naomi’s Israelite son to this Moabite woman to bring the Moabitess into the land of Israel and, as you may know, she was one of the ancestors of our Lord (Matthew 1:5).

Eventually, Ruth is smitten with a man named Boaz, a kinsman of Elimelech. And Boaz is smitten with her. And he takes Ruth to be his wife. But there is a matter of a piece of land that must be redeemed. Ruth 4:3-6—3 Then he [Boaz] said to the close relative, "Naomi, who has come back from the country of Moab, sold the piece of land which belonged to our brother Elimelech. 4 And I thought to inform you, saying, 'Buy it back in the presence of the inhabitants and the elders of my people. If you will redeem it, redeem it; but if you will not redeem it, then tell me, that I may know; for there is no one but you to redeem it, and I am next after you.'" And he said, "I will redeem it." 5 Then Boaz said, "On the day you buy the field from the hand of Naomi, you must also buy it from Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of the dead, to perpetuate the name of the dead through his inheritance." 6 And the close relative said, "I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I ruin my own inheritance. You redeem my right of redemption for yourself, for I cannot redeem it." Naomi had sold a piece of land, and since her husband and her sons were dead, and since (ostensibly) Elimelech had no brothers, the right to redeem it then went to his nearest kinsman. Since this nearest kinsman declined to purchase it (since he would also have to raise up seed with Ruth, according to the rite of the Levirate marriage [Deuteronomy 25:5-10]), he then transferred the right to redeem to the next-in-line, which was Boaz, who then raised up seed with this Moabitess. Ruth 4:13—So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife; and when he went in to her, the LORD gave her conception, and she bore a son. This son he named Obed (Ruth 4:21). Obed had a son he named Jesse. And Jesse’s son? That would be David (Ruth 4:22), who would become the favorite king of Israel, and a man after God’s own heart.

We see the inheritance given to the daughters of Zelophehad in Numbers 36:1-13—1 Now the chief fathers of the families of the children of Gilead the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh, of the families of the sons of Joseph, came near and spoke before Moses and before the leaders, the chief fathers of the children of Israel. 2 And they said: "The LORD commanded my lord Moses to give the land as an inheritance by lot to the children of Israel, and my lord was commanded by the LORD to give the inheritance of our brother Zelophehad to his daughters. 3 Now if they are married to any of the sons of the other tribes of the children of Israel, then their inheritance will be taken from the inheritance of our fathers, and it will be added to the inheritance of the tribe into which they marry; so it will be taken from the lot of our inheritance. 4 And when the Jubilee of the children of Israel comes, then their inheritance will be added to the inheritance of the tribe into which they marry; so their inheritance will be taken away from the inheritance of the tribe of our fathers." 5 Then Moses commanded the children of Israel according to the word of the LORD, saying: "What the tribe of the sons of Joseph speaks is right. 6 This is what the LORD commands concerning the daughters of Zelophehad, saying, 'Let them marry whom they think best, but they may marry only within the family of their father's tribe.' 7 So the inheritance of the children of Israel shall not change hands from tribe to tribe, for every one of the children of Israel shall keep the inheritance of the tribe of his fathers. 8 And every daughter who possesses an inheritance in any tribe of the children of Israel shall be the wife of one of the family of her father's tribe, so that the children of Israel each may possess the inheritance of his fathers. 9 Thus no inheritance shall change hands from one tribe to another, but every tribe of the children of Israel shall keep its own inheritance." 10 Just as the LORD commanded Moses, so did the daughters of Zelophehad; 11 for Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Noah, the daughters of Zelophehad, were married to the sons of their father's brothers. 12 They were married into the families of the children of Manasseh the son of Joseph, and their inheritance remained in the tribe of their father's family. 13 These are the commandments and the judgments which the LORD commanded the children of Israel by the hand of Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan, across from Jericho.

If a case like this arose in the future, and a daughter of one tribe married a son of another tribe, the land inheritance would go to any sons this couple might have, and would therefore then belong to the tribe of the man the woman married. This could lend itself to great confusion among the people, and land would be swapped among tribes until the land was nothing more than a hodge-podge of different tribes and they were all mixed up together. So to stop this from happening before it started, God gave Moses a command: The daughters of Zelophehad were to marry within the tribe of Manasseh so that the land they were given would stay in the tribe of Manasseh.

Part 2 next week

Jesus Christ is Lord.

Amen.

A Survey of the Old Testament Law--Numbers 25 & 31 (Part 3)

noreply@blogger.com (Four Pointer) — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 16:42:48 +0000

Then the attack against the Midianites comes in Numbers 31:1-7—1 And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying: 2 "Take vengeance on the Midianites for the children of Israel. Afterward you shall be gathered to your people." 3 So Moses spoke to the people, saying, "Arm some of yourselves for war, and let them go against the Midianites to take vengeance for the LORD on Midian. 4 A thousand from each tribe of all the tribes of Israel you shall send to the war." 5 So there were recruited from the divisions of Israel one thousand from each tribe, twelve thousand armed for war. 6 Then Moses sent them to the war, one thousand from each tribe; he sent them to the war with Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest, with the holy articles and the signal trumpets in his hand. 7 And they warred against the Midianites, just as the LORD commanded Moses, and they killed all the males. The zeal that Phinehas had when thrusting his spear through Zimri and Cozbi stirred up the people to attack those who had tempted them into idolatry. Let’s think about how far these people had come. They were once slaves in Egypt, unskilled in war, only in trodding out bricks and erecting monuments to the Egyptian gods. They had been brought through the desert where they grumbled and complained incessantly. Now, some 40+ years later, they defeat the army of Midian. They had overcome their feebleness through the power of the Hand of God. Now, consider yourself. You too were once a slave. A slave to sin. Maybe it was a great sin, maybe not. But you were, nonetheless a slave to it. You were far off from the Kingdom of God. But now, you are a different person, a new creation, reborn in the image of Christ. Ephesians 2:13—But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. Romans 6:17-18 (ESV)—17 But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. (I like the ESV translation of this passage better, as it gives the true translation of the Greek word δοῦλοι (douloi), which means, literally, “slaves”). But now we are kings and priests to God, no longer slaves to sin. Were you a drunkard? You are now a prince. Were you a harlot? You are now a princess. Were you once living in the gutter, your life filled with nothing, only looking for the next day or the next bottle? Forget that, you are now a child of God. Attack the Midianites of your flesh, kill it, and remember who you are now! The Biblical Illustrator says this:

It is instructive to compare this warfare of the children of Israel with their earlier battles. There are many points of difference between them. In Egypt, when surrounded by their enemies, they were not called to fight. They were quite unprepared for war; but God fought for them, and they were still, and held their peace. Then again, subsequently they were attacked by the Amalekites. They did not begin the encounter, but only repelled the attacks; whereas on this occasion Moses said unto the people “Arm some of yourselves for war, and let them go against the Midianites to take vengeance for the LORD on Midian.” Their earlier encounters were all in self-defence—their later ones were aggressive. Here, then, we cannot but discern a mark of progress in Israel’s history. At first, when they were weak, and without experience of God’s power and unchanging love, they were more passive. Now that they had been formed into a more compact body, and trained to arms, and still more, had experienced the power and faithfulness of God, they were called to be aggressive, to attack and destroy the enemies of God. Now, we think, that this progress in Israel’s history is typical in the Christian life. In the first beginnings of the spiritual life the young Christian’s mind is chiefly passive. God’s work is to show him his own needs and what are his enemies. The very spirit of the gospel is aggressive, not in a worldly sense, nor indeed in the sense in which it was true of Israel, but in a higher and holier sense; for it is a spirit of faith in God-a spirit of holy jealousy for God’s glory—a spirit of deep compassion for perishing souls.

Numbers 31:8—They killed the kings of Midian with the rest of their slain, Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba, the five kings of Midian. And they also killed Balaam the son of Beor with the sword. The man who would not curse Israel, but who led them astray another way, dies at their hands. What a fitting end to the man who led the people of God away from Him and into the degrading sin of sexual immorality mixed with idolatry! The people of God executed the justice of God by running a sword through this wretch. He had seen the goodness of God; he had seen that God would only bless them; he saw how great their numbers were. But instead of joining with them and becoming part of the people of God, He chose the riches of the world instead of the riches of God. Like Haman, who devised ill against the people of Israel and wound up being hanged on his own gallows, so Balaam devised evil against the people of God and was pierced through with a sword, thus bringing an end to his miserable life. Like Sanballat and Tobiah devised evil against Nehemiah and those who were rebuilding Jerusalem, only to see their feeble deeds come to naught, so this man, who sought to bring an end to Israel, saw his plans come to naught. And like our Adversary, who walks about like a roaring lion, seeks to bring down those called by God, he will be brought down to the Bottomless Pit and, finally, to the Lake of Fire. There is no way to defeat God. He cannot be dealt a blow that will not be turned around a hundred times—nay, a thousand or million or more times—harder on the one who tried it.

Numbers 31:9-18—9 And the children of Israel took the women of Midian captive, with their little ones, and took as spoil all their cattle, all their flocks, and all their goods. 10 They also burned with fire all the cities where they dwelt, and all their forts. 11 And they took all the spoil and all the booty—of man and beast. 12 Then they brought the captives, the booty, and the spoil to Moses, to Eleazar the priest, and to the congregation of the children of Israel, to the camp in the plains of Moab by the Jordan, across from Jericho. 13 And Moses, Eleazar the priest, and all the leaders of the congregation, went to meet them outside the camp. 14 But Moses was angry with the officers of the army, with the captains over thousands and captains over hundreds, who had come from the battle. 15 And Moses said to them: “Have you kept all the women alive? 16 Look, these women caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to trespass against the LORD in the incident of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the LORD. 17 Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known a man intimately. 18 But keep alive for yourselves all the young girls who have not known a man intimately.” After the slaughter, the people gathered up all the prisoners of war—an action which angered Moses, as these were of the same women who led Israel into idolatry. Why would they keep them alive? But don’t we sometimes do the same thing? We keep some reminder of our past in our possession, some reminder of the good times we had when we were slaves to sin and apart from God. “Oh, what’s it going to hurt?” 1st Corinthians 10:12—Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. Do you think Satan needs more than a little sliver of room to worm his way back into our lives? Open the door, even a crack, and he will burst through and make one regret giving him even the slightest foothold. Ephesians 4:27—Nor give place to the devil. The word translated “place” is the Greek τόπος (topos), and means “opportunity, power, occasion for acting.” Paul is warning us to not give the Devil an opportunity, to not give him an occasion for acting in our lives. Jesus warned us in Matthew 12:43-45 (and in Luke 11:24-26)—43 "When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none. 44 Then he says, 'I will return to my house from which I came.' And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order. 45 Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first." Do not think you are stronger or smarter than the Devil. He has been around for far too long, and remember he convinced one-third of the angels to follow him in rebelling against God. Knowing that, what do you think your chances are against him? Just ask Eve how trying to outsmart the serpent worked out for her, for Adam, for all mankind.

“But they killed women? And children? What kind of a God commands that?” The kind of God who wants us to put sin far away from us. When they brought the women and children back, it may have been out of mercy. But they did not think ahead to what might happen if these were allowed to remain with the people of God. The women, we know, would have led more men astray. The boys? They would have grown up bitter, resentful of the men who killed their fathers. You want a villain origin story? Isn’t that how they all begin? “But what about where Moses says in verse 18 ‘But keep alive for yourselves all the young girls who have not known a man intimately’? Isn’t that permitting child marriage and pedophilia?” This is an argument we need to be prepared for, as the enemies of God will use this. So, different translations do render הַטַּף בַּנָּשִׁים (hatap bannashiym) as “young girls” or “women children”. And that is, indeed, the literal translation of this verse. But to claim this gives a green light to pedophilia is not warranted by the text. Nowhere does it say they are to take them as wives or concubines. And with there being a dearth of commentary on this verse, I’m going to give you my take on it, which may or may not be the best. But here goes: The young women—and yes, even young girls—who had not known a man intimately were to be taken in to the congregation, raised as an Israelite, and even used to perform tasks. When they became older they could be married, but nowhere—NOWHERE—does the text say ANYTHING about using these girls for sex. If anything, this was mercy. Their mothers were killed; their fathers were killed; if they had brothers they were put to death. They would have been left to fend for themselves in the desert. Instead, they were brought into the fold of the people of God, and raised in the Covenant of God.

The rest of the chapter deals with dividing up the spoils of war and the distribution of those spoils and the tribute to God. The only passage we will touch on in Numbers 31 is Numbers 31:48-50—48 Then the officers who were over thousands of the army, the captains of thousands and captains of hundreds, came near to Moses; 49 and they said to Moses, "Your servants have taken a count of the men of war who are under our command, and not a man of us is missing. 50 Therefore we have brought an offering for the LORD, what every man found of ornaments of gold: armlets and bracelets and signet rings and earrings and necklaces, to make atonement for ourselves before the LORD." Twelve thousand went to war against the Midianites, and twelve thousand returned. God knows how to save His people. The same can be said of those who trust in Christ. Jesus is our Good Shepherd, and none of His sheep will be lost. Does a Good Shepherd let any of His sheep wander off? Or when He sees that sheep wandering, will He not go and bring it back? Yes, He will bring it back. Matthew 18:12-14 (echoed in Luke 15:4-6)—12 "What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them goes astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine and go to the mountains to seek the one that is straying? 13 And if he should find it, assuredly, I say to you, he rejoices more over that sheep than over the ninety-nine that did not go astray. 14 Even so it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish." Is your will greater than God’s will? Can you stray far enough from Jesus that He will let you go merrily on your way to Hell? Some say “Well, you can walk away from God and lose your salvation that way”. No, my friend! He is The Good Shepherd, and when He sees you going astray, if you are truly His, then He will run to you to bring you back to Himself! He will leave the 99 sheep who are staying to go get the one who is straying (Matthew 18:12-13; Luke 15:4-7). The Father knows all that He has given to His Son, and will not allow any of them to be lost!

Loving Shepherd of your sheep/all your lambs in safety keep;

Nothing can your power withstand/none can pluck them from your hand.

May they praise you ev'ry day/gladly all your will obey,

Like your blessed ones above/happy in your precious love.

Loving Shepherd, ever near/teach your lambs your voice to hear;

Suffer not their steps to stray/from the straight and narrow way.

Where you lead them may they go/walking in your steps below;

Then, before your Father's throne/Savior, claim them for your own.

(“Loving Shepherd of Thy Sheep” by Jane Leeson)

Father, help us to always remember Your goodness and Your faithfulness in all our battles, knowing that You will come for us when we stray. Help us to always put to death sin in our mortal bodies, to put to death the old man and to put on the new man. Help us to not cling to those things that would take us back to who we used to be, but help us to remember that we are a new creation, created in Christ Jesus for good works. But in our hatred for sin, let us always remember mercy in our dealings with those who do not know You.

Jesus Christ is Lord.

Amen.