Some help­ful stuff from one of the planet’s lead­ing author­i­ties on “the most impor­tant book of the Bible” (rough paraphrase)…

The struc­ture of the book is grace in the past, grace in the present and grace in the future. It’s the book that holds every­thing together – the cli­max of the Pen­ta­teuch and the key that unlocks the rest of the OT (his­toric nar­ra­tives and the prophets), and the NT. How do we under­stand the con­cepts of bless­ing and curse? How do we under­stand grace? Well, it’s here in Deuteronomy.

The logic of 2 Ways to Live comes from Deuteron­omy 27.

Jesus answers the Devil, dur­ing his temp­ta­tions, from Deuteronomy.

Get­ting to grips with this book really matters.

On the idea that the for­mat of the book is based on a cul­tural “kingly covenant” from around the time it was written

We can’t nail the struc­ture down to any “king treaty” from his­tory. Quite clear that this book breathes the air of covenant – and a covenant rela­tion­ship. It’s pretty clear that what­ever else is hap­pen­ing this is Moses’ final ser­mon on the sub­ject of God’s covenant with Israel.

On the cur­rent “aca­d­e­mic” posi­tion that Deuteron­omy was an exilic inven­tion attrib­uted to Moses as a pro­pa­ganda exercise

Stu­pid Aca­d­e­mic The­ory which holds “Moses could not have fore­seen the exile so it must have been writ­ten later by some­one pre­tend­ing to be Moses”.

Counter — If Moses has spent his life­time deal­ing with Israel mess­ing things up it’s rea­son­able to assume that he could cred­i­bly pre­dict the behav­iour of Israel in the future. The foun­da­tion of a lot of stud­ies in acad­e­mia in the last 60 years is on the idea that it’s a late book. A nat­ural read­ing of Deuteron­omy could lead you rightly to the con­clu­sion that Moses, hav­ing lead Israel for forty years of frus­tra­tion, might be in a posi­tion to come to these con­clu­sions on the basis of his experience.

On Israel’s fail­ing to claim the promised land and wan­der­ing in the wilderness

One of the amaz­ing things about the zigzag­ging wan­der­ing through the desert is the accounts of the neigh­bour­ing nations – “your broth­ers the descen­dants of Esau”… God says “I have given the Edomites their land”… then, “I have given land to the Ammonites as the descen­dents of Lot”… the descen­dents of these other peo­ple man­aged to find their place while Israel failed – includ­ing deal­ing with giant peo­ples who occu­pied them, which Israel failed to do.

What is a ref­er­ence to King Og’s bed doing there in the nar­ra­tive — he’s a giant who Israel van­quished in their his­tory — but they were too scared to take on the giants in the promised land first time around… this is a cri­tique of Israel’s fail­ure to take God at his word – they man­aged to deal with giants orig­i­nally, their neigh­bours man­aged to deal with them, and yet, when it mat­tered Israel failed.

Bonus insight — In Hebrew “to hear” is “to obey” – it means to have taken the infor­ma­tion on board and responded appropriately…

On the struc­ture of “the laws and decrees” — Deuteron­omy chap­ters 12 through 26

Sev­eral years ago the sug­ges­tion emerged that this pas­sage is actu­ally based on the Ten Com­mand­ments… which makes sense when you look at the struc­ture. What you find if you look at chap­ters 12–26 is that you can find some par­al­lels with the struc­ture of the Ten Commandments.

When it gets to com­mand­ments 6–10 it gets very messy – but per­haps by the time they get to com­mand­ment six Moses has made his point and doesn’t need to main­tain the structure.

When God makes a covenant he makes it with every gen­er­a­tion of his peo­ple. While God made the promises to a pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tion Moses talks like the promise was made to the cur­rent people.

What are we look­ing at these laws for? We’re not the Israel – we’re 21^st cen­tury Chris­tians. As soon as we get to the laws all sorts of warn­ing bells go off that this must be legal­ism. How do you get these chap­ters across?

Israel, as a soci­ety was to be a liv­ing breath­ing model about what life under God was about.

What is it about these laws that would make the sur­round­ing neigh­bours gasp? There will be prin­ci­ples and pic­tures of what it means to be the covenant beauty of God.

The OT does not, and never did, under­stand under a works/righteousness sys­tem. The required response to God’s grace was the same pre Christ (though man­i­fested slightly differently).

On some odd laws

“Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk”

Did any­body ever think this was a good idea? It seems a bit random.

“When men fight with one another and the wife of the one draws near to res­cue her hus­band from the hand of him who is beat­ing him and puts out her hand and seizes him by the pri­vate parts then you shall cut off her hand. Your eye shall have no pity.”

Was this some sort of joke Moses inserted to make sure peo­ple were pay­ing atten­tion — there appears to be no his­toric enforc­ing of this law.

On the divi­sion of the law

Calvin’s divi­sion of law into cer­e­mo­nial, civil, and moral doesn’t actu­ally fit with the text.

A bet­ter division:

• Obe­di­ence and worship
• Obe­di­ence and the land
• Obe­di­ence and the community

The ulti­mate inher­i­tance of Israel is not the land – it’s the God of the land.

A lot of the book is to do with human relationships.

Author: Nathan Campbell

Nathan runs St Eutychus. He is currently a student at the Queensland Theological College. In a previous professional life he worked in public relations for an economic development and tourism marketing organisation. He is married to Robyn. He likes coffee and the internet.

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