Covenantide

Tag: Bible

  • How Should We Read the Bible?

    How Should We Read the Bible?

    Reading Scripture Covenantally (Lesson 1)

    Introduction

    During the Second Missionary Journey, the Apostle Paul and Silas stayed briefly in the city of Berea, having fled persecution in Thessalonica after having been there for only a few weeks.  Luke, writing the account of the stay, singles out the Bereans for particular commendation, saying: “These [Bereans] were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so” (Acts 17:11).  Paul’s commendation is not just that the Bereans were receptive to the Gospel, which they were, but that they evaluated his claims by searching the Scriptures.  This is serious dedication to being “Bible believing.”

    A key hallmarks of historic Protestantism is a commitment to the preeminent authority of the Bible.  However, many—perhaps most—people, if they read the Bible at all, read it devotionally: a few verses or a short passage with some inspirational thoughts by the devotional writer.  Such an approach reveals more about the mind of the devotion writer than that of the Lord, who inspired all Scripture.  If we are to be truly “Bible believing,” then we need an approach that understands the Bible comprehensively and holistically.

    Books explaining how to study the Bible typically focus on two things: exegesis and hermeneutics.  Exegesis looks where a passage is situated in the overall context of a book, analyzes the logical organization and flow, and observes key words in the passage.  Knowing the original languages can be an asset in this regard.  Exegesis aims to understand what a text is saying.  Hermeneutics tries to get at what a text means.  Hermeneutics includes understanding the historical context behind the passage, assessing what the author intended, what the original readers understood it to mean, and what it can mean to us today.  Exegesis and hermeneutics go together.  Most books on how to study the Bible, however, do not go beyond this, and as a result, Christians are left to fend for themselves in reckoning how different parts of the Bible relate to one another. What Christians need is a framework to see how the Bible fits together.

    (For a fuller discussion of this issue, see the attached file)

    Lesson 1 – How Should We Read the BibleDownload
  • The Setting of Deuteronomy

    The Setting of Deuteronomy

    Deuteronomy 1:1-4

    These be the words which Moses spake unto all Israel on this side Jordan in the wilderness, in the plain over against the Red sea, between Paran, and Tophel, and Laban, and Hazeroth, and Dizahab. 2 (There are eleven days’ journey from Horeb by the way of mount Seir unto Kadesh Barnea.) 3 And it came to pass in the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, that Moses spake unto the children of Israel, according unto all that the LORD had given him in commandment unto them; 4 After he had slain Sihon the king of the Amorites, which dwelt in Heshbon, and Og the king of Bashan, which dwelt at Astaroth in Edrei:  (Deut. 1:1-4)

    I. On the Plains of Moab (Deut. 1:1-3)

    The Book of Deuteronomy has an inauspicious beginning relative to the grand narrative it encapsulates: “These be the words which Moses spake unto all Israel on this side Jordan in the wilderness, in the plain over against the Red sea, between Paran, and Tophel, and Laban, and Hazeroth, and Dizahab. 2 (There are eleven days’ journey from Horeb by the way of mount Seir unto Kadesh Barnea.) 3 And it came to pass in the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, that Moses spake unto the children of Israel…” Even though modern archaeology has not identified all the locations listed in verse 1, the general vicinity is well-established as just north of the Dead Sea on the plateau of Moab in modern-day Jordan.  It is January 1406 BC, nearly forty years since the Lord their God led His people out of Egypt in the Exodus.  The people were poised to enter the Promised Land and would begin the conquest in a couple of months, on the fortieth anniversary of the Exodus (Josh. 5:10).

    In the Authorized Version (AV), verse two is punctuated as a parenthetical comment, but it brackets the redemptive history of the people of God described in the first four books of the Pentateuch.  According to the covenant He made with Abraham (Gen. 15:13-21), the Lord brought His people out of Egypt in the Exodus, to Horeb.  “Horeb” is an alternative term for Mount Sinai.  Sinai is where the Lord first called Moses to service in the encounter at the burning bush and where He led His people back to after the Exodus from Egypt.  It was at Sinai that the people faced the Lord with fear and trembling, who gave them His covenant for how they should live to reflect Him now that they had been saved.  It was at Sinai where they had almost been destroyed by that same God because of their apostasy with the Golden Calf.  It was at Sinai where Moses mediated for them and the Lord restored His covenantal relationship with after their sin.  And it was at Sinai where they then built the Tabernacle to Him.  The nation was at Sinai for just over a year, before the Lord commanded them to move out to the land which He promised their forefathers (Num. 10:11).

    Mount Seir is in the land of Edom, the descendants of Esau, Israel’s kin, which had already settled in the land which the Lord allotted to them.  The reference here in 1:2 is probably only to describe a common route of travel; the more significant reference is to Kadesh-barnea.  Kadesh-barnea was just south of the Negev, the southern part of the land of Canaan, and was to be the launching point for the conquest of Canaan.  It was from Kadesh-barnea that Moses sent the spies into the land, whose negative report about the people being giants and the land being fortified deterred the Israelites from following the Lord’s command to go up against it.  After Moses pronounced the Lord’s judgment on them for failing to trust Him, the people tried to invade the land in their own strength, only to be miserably routed.  Israel would stay at Kadesh-barnea for most of the next 38 years.  Moses’ sister Miriam would die there, his brother would die not far from there, and because of Moses’ own sin there of presumptuous against the Lord, the Lord declared that Moses himself would not be allowed to go into the land.  Kadesh-barnea and the vicinity around it was Israel’s wilderness wandering.

    II. The Words of the Mediator (1:1-3)

    “These be the words which Moses spake unto all Israel… according unto all that the LORD had given him in commandment unto them” (Deut. 1:1, 3).  Thus begins Deuteronomy.  Like every other book of the Pentateuch except Exodus, Deuteronomy begins with words being spoken, but unlike those other books, Moses for the first time is identified as the one speaking, rather than God.  This fact is noteworthy in light of the structure of Deuteronomy.  Since Deuteronomy is written as a covenant, these opening verses are the preamble to the covenant.  Normally in ancient Near Eastern covenants the preamble is where the suzerain is introduced with his titles and honors.  Moses, however, is not the suzerain nor is he given any titles.  This fact highlights Moses’ role as Mediator of the covenant, the representative of the Lord speaking to the people and the representative of the people standing before God (1:3).

    At 120 years old, Moses was at the end of his life and was personally prohibited from entering the Promised Land (Deut. 1:37, 3:26, 4:21, 34:4) because he failed to honor the Lord before the people: instead of speaking the Lord’s word to give the people water, he assumed to himself the prerogative of the Lord alone, struck the rock and said he was giving them water (Num. 20:9-13).  The Lord’s Mediator was obligated to be obedient to the Lord’s command and speak the Lord’s words alone.  Moses failed to do that, and that cost him.

    No doubt, Moses feared for the Israelites’ future without him as they entered the Promised Land.  He had been with them since the Exodus in all the years of their wandering and knew too well just how stubborn and rebellious they were.  Indeed, the last of the generation which had come out of Egypt in the Exodus as adults had died off a year or two earlier (2:14-16), the result of the Lord’s judgment on them after they refused to trust Him to fight their battles in conquering the Land.  Moses almost certainly knew he was not indispensable, since it was the Lord alone who saved and sustained His people.  Nevertheless, he had been the mediator between the people and the Lord for more than forty years; with his impending death the people still needed a mediator.

    III. The Covenant and the Transition

    It is in this setting that Moses wrote the Book of Deuteronomy.  He wrote it, curiously enough, in the form of a covenant.  In the ancient Near East, a covenant was a treaty.  It bound two sovereigns together by oaths of mutual loyalty, with stipulations of obligation on one or both parties, was incentivized by blessings and curses, sealed by a formal ratification ceremony and enforced by the gods.  In most cases, a covenant was between a suzerain overlord and a vassal king and was the legal means by which the suzerain bound the vassal to himself and regulated their relationship.  At the time Moses wrote Deuteronomy, the ancient Near East was experiencing a heyday of diplomacy, yet interestingly, the biblical covenants were unique in that they are the only examples from antiquity in which a god made a covenant with his people.  There is a genuine basis then for the rhetorical question Moses asks in Deut. 4:8, “And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?”

    That the Lord would make a covenant with His people seems strange in light of the fact that covenants were basically treaties.  Making a treaty seems on first glance to be too formal, too distancing.  At the same time, it was on the basis of the God’s covenant with Abraham that He brought His people out from Egypt with great judgments, sustained them in the wilderness and, at this point in biblical revelation, was about to bring them into the Promised Land.  The formality of the covenant was the very basis for the people’s assurance that the Lord would indeed follow through on his promises in light of their sins.

    Covenants typically were made whenever there was a significant development in the relationship between the two parties; Moses’ approaching death and Israel’s pending entry into the Promised Land constituted just such developments.  Ancient kings would often use covenants with other kings—and even with their own people—to secure legal recognition for their heir apparent.  That is true in the case of Deuteronomy, insofar as Moses is transitioning leadership of the nation to Joshua, son of Nun.  Joshua had been one of the men who spied out the land forty years earlier, but unlike all the others (save Caleb), he faithfully trusted God to deliver the land to Israel.  In Deuteronomy, however, this is leadership succession with a twist:  the covenant is not focused on Joshua per se, but on God.  While Joshua would lead the people into the Land, Moses was pointing the people to their true leader, namely the Lord Himself.  It is the Lord who promised them the land, the Lord who delivered them from Egypt, the Lord who sustained them in the wilderness, and the Lord who was already fighting their battles in conquering the land.  This was Moses’ last act as Mediator.  Note that this does not diminish Joshua’s (subordinate) authority but establishes it: ancient Near Eastern covenants typically presumed the vassal would be exclusively loyal to his suzerain and if the people were loyal to the Lord, then they were to be loyal to Joshua as well.

    Although Moses transferred his leadership to Joshua, he transferred his mediatorial responsibilities to the covenant itself.  It is the covenant that would be the standard to which God’s people would be held, and in adhering to the covenant the people would be reflecting their Lord.  This was the second time in the Israel’s history the nation was poised to enter the land the Lord promised to their forefathers.  The first time was when the nation was at Sinai, and the Lord made a covenant with them there, that He would be their God and they would be His people (Exod. 6:7 cf. Exod. 19:3-6).  The covenant on the plateau of Moab reflected the evolution in the relationship between Lord and His people.  At Sinai, the Lord had just delivered His people from Egypt, and they had not yet sinned against Him.  Shortly thereafter, they sinned in disbelief and were condemned to judgment in the wilderness.  The covenant, then, was one of renewal, now with the succeeding generation and reflective of the need for the Lord to be direct with His people because of their past experience sins against Him.  It is this covenant, which extends and builds on Sinai, that was to become the constitutional foundation for God’s relationship with His people.

    IV. The Defeater of Sihon and Og (1:4)

    The Lord is not absent from this passage, and verse four describes Him as the defeater of Sihon and Og.  “Defeater of Sihon and Og” does not seem like a terribly impressive title, but it was significant for God’s people at that time.  While in the broad schema of things these were relatively minor kings, in the context of God’s relationship with His people the defeat of these kings showed the Israelites that God was fulfilling His covenants with their forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to fight their battles and bring His people into the land He promised them.  This title alone would have been sufficient basis for them to trust Him and be obedient to Him.  It would have been a source of confidence and a token that He would fulfill His covenantal promises.  He who made the heavens and the earth and all that is in them could also completely defeat their enemies and overcome the challenges immediately before them.  They needed to know that.

    V. Anticipating Christ

    Moses was a Mediator between the Lord and His People.  What does this mean and why is it important?  We often think of a mediator as a middleman trying to broker a deal between two parties.  That is not what Moses did.  Rather, he sought to represent God to the people and to intercede with God on behalf of the people.  In this he spoke the Lord’s words to the people of Israel and lifted up their needs and cries to the Lord Himself.  At times, Moses interposed himself between God and Israel, mostly to protect the people from the fullness of God’s wrath toward their sins.  With Moses’s pending death, the mediatorial role that he had played in making God and His standard known to Israel was transferred, not to Joshua, but to the testimony of the Law.  In that regard, the one can say that Deuteronomy really is a kind of last will and testament of Moses.  The intercessory role Moses had during his life would be assumed in the remainder of the Old Testament by judges (in the Judges period) and later by the prophets.

    Moses foreshadowed the mediatorial role that Christ Jesus would ultimately assume.  The Father would send His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the very Word of God (John 1:1), to make God known to men and intercede on behalf of His people.  His intercession, however, goes beyond what Moses ever did: Christ actually died in place of His people on the cross of Calvary.  That is the only thing that would once and for all turn away—propitiate—the Father’s wrath toward His people’s sin.  With His resurrection from the dead, Christ’s intercessory work continues, as He lifts up the prayers of God’s people to the Father continually, because He is seated at the right hand of the Father.  It is important for us to understand that because Christ Himself is our Mediator, we do not need some other intermediary to intercede for us with God, whether deceased saints, angels, or even the Church; we can approach Christ directly.  In fact, to set any of these things up as a mediator between us and God would be to turn to them for that which only Christ Jesus can provide.  If Moses’s mediatorial role points to Christ, then His words in Deuteronomy also find their fulfillment in Christ.  In this light, reading Deuteronomy is not a mere historical exercise of looking at rules from God.  Rather it is in understanding the heart of our Lord, who has saved a people for Himself and expects this people to honor Him in how they are to live.   Moses’s readers were poised to enter the Promised Land, where they would find their rest in the God who would dwell among them.  For us, we are looking for a heavenly Promised Land, where we will find our rest in union with Christ and eternal communion with Him.

  • Deuteronomy as a Covenant

    Deuteronomy as a Covenant

    Many scholars would describe the Book of Deuteronomy as a series of orations that Moses gave the people, but Meredith Kline in his book, Treaty of the Great King,[1] astutely observed that the entire book closely follows the pattern of ancient Near Eastern covenants, particularly Hittite covenants of the second millennium BC.  Reformed theologians talk much about covenants, and indeed, it is a particular distinction of Reformed theology, but the simple question needs to asked, “What is a covenant?”

    Reformed writers often describe a covenant as a solemn oath, promise, agreement, or contract.  A covenant—berith in Hebrew and diatheke in Greek—does have elements of these things but it is more than any of them.  In the ancient world from which the Bible came, a covenant was more than just a contract.  It was not a business arrangement but a political one, typically not between equals but between a suzerain and a vassal king, regulating the relationship between the two.  It was sealed by blessings pronounced to induce obedience and curses for disobedience, witnessed by the gods who would enforce it.  A king would also use a covenant as the legal mechanism by which to secure with his people or nobles the dynastic succession to his heir apparent.  A covenant was one of the most formal legal arrangements one could enter into, and biblically speaking, it was how the LORD bonded His people to Himself.

    Much of our modern understanding of ancient Near Eastern covenants comes from archaeological finds in Boghazköy, Turkey (where Hattusa, the capital of the Hittite Empire was located), and Tell al-Amarna (the capital of the 19th Dynasty Egyptian heretic king Akhenaten).  The second millennium BC, when these dynasties existed and when Israel’s Exodus from Egypt took place, was a period of active international engagement which saw the flourishing of diplomacy.  In such an environment, covenant-making was commonplace, and Moses, having grown up in the court of Pharaoh (Exod. 2:10-11), no doubt was familiar with how covenants were written and made.  It therefore should not be surprising that Moses used the covenant form to convey God’s revelation to His people.  Indeed, this would be (in the words of the Westminster Confession of Faith) a “voluntary condescension” on God’s part.

    George Mendenhall’s research into ancient Hittite treaties[2] shows that covenants generally had the following parts, with some variation:

    Preamble.  Almost all ancient covenants are between a suzerain (an overlord) and a vassal king, with the former imposing the covenant on the latter.  The preamble gives the titles and attributes of this covenant-making suzerain, highlighting his glory and honors.  Often this is folded into the historical prologue.

    Historical prologue.  This section describes the historical relationship between the suzerain and the vassal which has brought them to make a covenant.  This may highlight the historical rebelliousness of the vassal, the strength and superiority of the suzerain, and thus how the suzerain extends undeserved grace toward the vassal.  This prologue is the basis for the vassal to now pledge his loyalty to the suzerain in gratitude.

    Stipulations.  The vassal is expected to be exclusively loyal to the suzerain, and this section outlines the obligations he is taking on, which often include:
    (1) aligning oneself fully with the suzerain’s interests; (2) answering any call to arms from the suzerain; (3) holding lasting trust in the suzerain and defending his name and reputation; (4) turning over any rebels against the suzerain; (5) submitting all judgments in controversies to the suzerain; and (6) providing regular tribute.

    Provision for safe deposit and regular remembrance of the treaty text.  Two copies of the treaty text were usually made, one for each of the parties, and held in safekeeping in the temples of the gods of the respective parties.  Oftentimes, this section would stipulate the vassal was to have the covenant read publicly on a regular basis so as to continually be reminded of the covenantal obligations and promises.

    Ratification provisions.  This would include a list of the gods called upon as witnesses who would be responsible for enforcing the covenant.  It would involve a formal oath, on the part of the vassal (and even the suzerain) and possibly a symbolic ceremony.

    Blessings and curses formula to keep the covenant.  Blessings and curses would be provided for either violating the covenant or keeping obedience to it.  These were positive and negative incentives to induce fidelity to the covenant.

    Structurally, Deuteronomy follows this treaty pattern closely, as the following abbreviated outline shows.

    I. Preamble: The Setting of the Covenant (1:4)

    II. Historical Relations Between God and His People (chs. 1-4)

    1. Sinai (Horeb) to Kadesh Barnea (1:5-46)
    2. Kadesh Barnea to the Transjordanian Conquests (chs. 2-3)
    3. Call of Obedience to the Lord (ch. 4)

    III. General Stipulations of the Covenant (chs. 5-11)

    1. Renewal of the Covenant (ch. 5)
    2. The Great Commandment (ch. 6)
    3. You Are a Holy People and Are to Trust in the LORD (ch. 7)
    4. Be Humble and Remember How the LORD Led You (ch. 8)
    5. Be Not Prideful for You Have Sinned (9:1-10:11)
    6. What the LORD Requires and Promises (10:12-11:32)

    IV. Stipulations for Life Under the Covenant (chs. 12-26)

    1. Worship and Ceremonial Stipulations (12:1-16:17)
    2. Stipulations Regarding Kingdom Officials (16:18-18:22)
    3. Stipulations of Civil Law (chs. 19-25)

    V.  Sanctions and Covenant Ratification (chs. 27-30)

    1. Instructions for the Ratification Ceremony in Canaan (ch. 27)
    2. Ratificatory Blessings and Curses (ch. 28)
    3. Summons to the Covenant Oath (chs. 29-30)

    VI. Dynastic Disposition and Covenant Continuity (chs. 31-34)

    1. Final Arrangements (31:1-29)
    2. The Song of Covenant Witness (31:30-32:47)
    3. God’s Final Command to Moses (32:48-52)
    4. Moses’ Last Testament to the Tribes of Israel (ch. 33)
    5. Dynastic Succession (ch. 34)

    A detailed outline can be found here:

    Outline of DeuteronomyDownload

    In thinking about how Deuteronomy is structured, it needs to be acknowledged up front that beyond this high-level overview, the Book is difficult to outline, especially chapters 12-26.  This is for several reasons.  First, there is not a narrative thread to the Book that would assist in showing progression through it.  Second, Moses did not provide much in the way of verbal markers to clearly differentiate one section for another.  Lastly, it is not always clear to us today how some of these laws relate to each other, which would facilitate identifying pericopes in the text.  This difficulty has led some commentators to label certain sections “miscellaneous laws.”  That suggests a randomness to God’s word, and it was precisely such a perception which fueled critical theories in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that posited the book was not written by Moses in the mid-second millennium BC but instead was written centuries later by unknown sources as an imagined foundation for the religious reforms that King Josiah was trying to push through.  Such theories have no independent corroborating evidence to attest to their veracity, and, moreover, are not needed.  If we accept that God’s word is inerrant and infallible, then we need to humbly acknowledge that the organization is not clear to us and work to look at the text more closely.  Just because we cannot easily discern the structure does not mean that one does not exist or that the organization is random.  As the Detailed Outline on the following pages suggests and the remainder of this commentary will elaborate, there is both a cohesive structure to Deuteronomy and a logical progression in how the material in it unfolds.  This will be our working map in our exploration of Deuteronomy.

    SJ Hatch's avatar

    SJ Hatch

    [1] Meredith Kline, Treaty of the Great King; The Covenant Structure of Deuteronomy: Studies and Commentary (Grand Rapids MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1963).

    [2] George Mendenhall, Law and Covenant in Israel and the Ancient Near East, (Pittsburgh PA: The Presbyterian Board of Colportage, 1955), 31-34.

  • Deuteronomy: The Pivotal Book

    Deuteronomy: The Pivotal Book

    In the last two posts I started a series on Reading Scripture Covenantally to help people better understand how Scripture fits together and should be understood as whole. In the first post, I described what covenants were in the ancient Near East and how the covenantal motif provides unity to Scripture across all the different books and genres. I also noted how, using conservative dating assumptions, there are seven revelatory dispensations in which God’s revelation was produced over time. In the second post, I focused on the first revelatory dispensation, the period of Covenantal Foundations from 1450-1365 BC, in which Moses wrote Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, and Joshua wrote the book bearing his name. In both posts, I highlighted the importance of the Book of Deuteronomy. In the Scripture lectionary that is integral to this site, one reads through Deuteronomy once every year because it is so important to understanding the rest of Scripture. What I want to do now, starting with this post, is blog through the Book of Deuteronomy, since while the Book is vitally important, it is admittedly not easy to read. I will come back to the Reading Scripture Covenantally series at a later point. My goal is to be more regular in posting, having a posting every two weeks, and Lord willing, weekly.

    Why should you read Deuteronomy?  The book is not exactly on the top of most lists for Bible study although it probably should be.  In the arc of biblical redemptive history, Deuteronomy plays a pivotal role.  It is the capstone of the Pentateuch; it is the foundation of the rest of the Old Testament, and it, along with the Psalms, is one of the most quoted Old Testament books in the New Testament.  This alone should earn for the book more attention than it usually receives.

    The importance of the book is vividly illustrated in an incident late in Judah’s history, near the end of its existence as an independent country.  King Josiah, the last of Judah’s good kings, began a restoration of true worship in the eighth year of his reign, purging the high places scattered around the country, destroying the images and altars devoted to other gods, and even killing false priests.  This religious restoration also included repairing the Temple in Jerusalem.  Ten years into this restoration Josiah sent his servant Shaphan to the Temple for what should have been a fairly routine mission to disburse the monies collected for Temple repairs and do an accounting of the money already provided.  While there, however, the high priest Hilkiah informs him of a discovery he made in the course of repairs and cleaning up the Temple:

    8 And Hilkiah the high priest said unto Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord. And Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it. 9 And Shaphan the scribe came to the king, and brought the king word again, and said, Thy servants have gathered the money that was found in the house, and have delivered it into the hand of them that do the work, that have the oversight of the house of the Lord. 10 And Shaphan the scribe shewed the king, saying, Hilkiah the priest hath delivered me a book. And Shaphan read it before the king. 11 And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the book of the law, that he rent his clothes. 12 And the king commanded Hilkiah the priest, and Ahikam the son of Shaphan, and Achbor the son of Michaiah, and Shaphan the scribe, and Asahiah a servant of the king’s, saying, 13 Go ye, inquire of the Lord for me, and for the people, and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that is found: for great is the wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us, because our fathers have not hearkened unto the words of this book, to do according unto all that which is written concerning us. (2 Kings 22:8-13)

    The “Book of the Law” Hilkiah found, of course, was Deuteronomy, which functioned as the constitution for God’s people.  The tragedy of this scene is that the book that was foundational to the theocracy and should have been at the center of national life had been forgotten in the very place where it should have been most prominent, that is, in the Temple.  Deuteronomy itself prescribed that kings, upon their ascension to the throne, were themselves to copy the book by hand and read it throughout their lives (Deut. 17:18-20).  Deuteronomy also stipulated that the book was to be read every Sabbath year to the people during the Feast of Tabernacles, that they may know what they had been tasked to uphold being in covenant with the LORD God (Deut. 31:10-13).  There is no evidence from Scripture, however, that that was ever done.  Therefore, as Josiah realized to his horror, the nation was liable to the extensive curses of God’s judgment stipulated in Deuteronomy because of their unfaithfulness.

    We tend to look at Deuteronomy as the close of the Pentateuch, that is, the first five books of the Bible, all ascribed to Moses.  It may be more accurate, however, to see the other four books of the Pentateuch as a narrative and legal prologue to Deuteronomy.  Deuteronomy was written at the end of Moses’ life, as he facilitated the transition of leadership from himself to Joshua.  In this transition, Moses pointed the people back to their true leader, God Himself, who delivered them from Egypt, sustained them in the Wilderness and was about to bring them into the Promised Land.  Written in a covenantal format, Deuteronomy underscores God’s Lordship over His People.  These legal parts of the Pentateuch are foundational to God’s relationship with His people, but needed to be situated in historical context, which is supplied by the narrative parts of the Pentateuch—i.e., Genesis and parts of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers.  Because Deuteronomy is the definitive articulation of the Mosaic Covenant, it is the prism through which the other books of the Pentateuch are to be read.

    More than that, Deuteronomy provides the hinge for linking the Pentateuch with the Old Testament narrative histories (Joshua, Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel and 1 & 2 Kings) and the prophetic books.  While Josiah rent his clothes because the nation had largely forgotten its constitution, God’s People in truth had not completely lost the covenant: the prophets were essentially God’s covenantal lawyers prosecuting His covenantal lawsuit against His unfaithful people.  The basis for understanding how God’s people were expected to live and what they were expected to do is rooted in Deuteronomy.  Having been freed from bondage, it was how the people were to live as they entered the Promise Land.  It codified the relationship between Israel and her LORD, and it anticipated the apostasy that was to come.  It thus set the stage for Israel’s true king to come, Christ Jesus.

    Our age, like Josiah’s is one of unraveling and moral chaos, and so, we too as Christians would benefit from rediscovering our constitution as God’s people by exploring Deuteronomy.  It is to that exploration that I invite the reader to now turn.