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Week 10 Deuteronomy

I notice that Moses starts complicating a common idea about the law by the time I’m halfway through Deuteronomy.
It’s pretty galling.
A pretty normal view of OT laws is that they are an archaic, irrelevant, rigid, hateful, uncivilized, dangerously stupid bunch of pre-modern mumbo-jumbo that fly in the face of normal practice in 21st century Alberta.
Bible-reading people avoid saying they’re stupid, and make nicer distinctions: the OT is legalistic and threatening; the NT is a happier and more gracious place.
Moses – unfortunately – jams things up a bit.
He warns people to be careful that the laws don’t depart from your heart.
He says love the Lord your God and keep his charge.
He asks what God requires? Answer: to revere him, walk in his ways, serve him with all your heart and with all your soul – and keep his commands.
Simple surface-level laws are one thing. But Moses is connecting them to something under their skin. Subcutaneous. An invisible interiority that he calls the heart and soul.
As soon as Moses starts mixing the law with things like heart and love he’s compromising the simple view of things.
It’s a lot easier to toss one thing in the air than it is to juggle two.

Note: paraphrased references are from Deuteronomy 4:9; 11:1; 10:12-13. I only got to chapter 19 so there could be more of these comments.

Week 10 Deuteronomy

Back in the third week of January I was reading the story of Israel living down in Egypt. There in Exodus the author told about what happened – Israel’s enslavement, Moses’ early life, the plague-miracles, escape from Egypt, like that.
Now I get to Deuteronomy where Moses, four decades later is thinking back over those same exodus years.
While he’s thinking back two separate things are going on. He’s thinking back to the actual events that happened. And he’s attaching meaning to them.
There’s the what happened part, and there’s the added weight-of-meaning part that the what happened part is carrying.
Anyway, the paragraph in Deuteronomy 4:32-40 pointed out to me that Moses is freighting-up the exodus train.
One example. In verse 32 he sets up a kind of Top Events So Far in World History Scale. He’s saying that the #1 event so far in world history is the creation of the world. Fair enough. Then he ranks the exodus in the #2 spot.
Which makes the exodus not just big but gigantic.
So that’s pretty good to know.
And it’s a reminder to keep reading through. Back in January when I read Exodus 1-20 I thought it was an interesting and pretty good story. Now – about a hundred and sixty-five pages later – I have someone laying out for me just how interesting and pretty good it was.
Note to mhj: keep reading. Maybe other things will open up for you.

Week 10 Deuteronomy

At some point last week it occurred to me that quite a bit of Deuteronomy was Moses speaking to the people. In fact as I glanced through, it looked like huge chunks of the book were public speeches.
I wondered how much.
I got a copy of the New Living Translation of the bible because it divides the text into paragraphs as well as uses quotation marks – that made it quicker to scan through looking for when Moses was speaking. And as it turned out it was easier to look for when he was not speaking. I found about 60 verses.
That’s not too many non-Moses’-speeches in a book that has 959 verses.
It means Moses was not addressing the people 6.25% of the time, which means that almost 94% of Deuteronomy is a transcription of Moses’ spoken words.
If I had a red-letter Books of Moses then Deuteronomy would not have much black print.

Note: these are the verses I found where Moses wasn’t speaking (so don’t take them to the bank): 1:1-5, 2:20-23, 4:41-49, 27:1, 9, 11, 29:1-2, 31:1, 7, 9, 14-25, 30, 32:44-45, 48-52, 33:1, 34:1-12.
The Deuteronomy verse-count is from neverthirsty.org (March 1, 2020)

February 29, 2020.
My exact magic number is 99.0833. I need to read ~100 chapters a month, and in January I read 112 chapters. So today I ran some end-of-February numbers.
In the past 28 days I’ve read Leviticus (1-27), Numbers (1-36), Deuteronomy (1-14), and Song of Solomon (1-8), which means that (a) I read 85 chapters this month, and that (b) I’m now officially behind schedule.
Not as bad as it could be, but I didn’t get out the party hats.
I sat for awhile thinking: I need to do something. It’ll be three things, actually.
First: I’ll try adding a daily Psalm into my reading mix. (From Day One I’ve had a niggling I-don’t-really-want-to-have-to-read-150-psalms-consecutively-between-June-14-&-July-12 feeling. So this was an easy change.)
Second: I really have to catch up – being a bit behind feels more correctable in November than it does in February. I’ll aim for ~125 chapters to get back to even. [My quick calculation for doing that? There are 100 chapters between Deuteronomy 14 and the end of 1 Samuel. If I also read one psalm a day I’ll be adding 31 chapters. 100 + 31 = 131.] So I’m resetting my plan: 1 Samuel 31 by March 31.
Third: this means I’ll be kissing my online Reading Plan good-bye. Too bad, really, but today is a kind of low-level Disappointed Day in mhj country so I’m thinking: if-something-isn’t-working-quit-trying-to-work-it.

Note: the extra day in Leap Year didn’t help me. I ran numbers: a 366-day year saves me about ¼ of a chapter each month. What’s that? Half-a-verse a day? Ten seconds saved doesn’t help my 25-chapter deficit.

Week 9 Numbers 35-Deuteronomy 13

While Israel was camped in Moabite country east of the Jordan Moses spoke to them quite a bit – recollections, stories, reminders.
One of the unhappy stories Moses told was about the twelve spies. Ten came back with stories of gigantic and fearsome opponents.
The people were petrified. They went home telling themselves: the Lord hates us and he brought us out of Egypt to destroy us.
Moses: (trying to reason with them) You’ve got it wrong. The Lord cares. He worked a bunch of unbelievable miracles that forced Egypt to let you go free.
People: Uh-uh. He did that because he hates us.
Moses: That makes no sense. He’s been helping you all along. He carried you just like a father would carry his son.
People: No. He freed us to lull us into a sense of false optimism so that the giants could kill us now. He hates us.
It’s a pretty interesting story. Same data; different takes on the data: the Lord freed us from slavery because he hates us; the Lord freed us from slavery because he loves us.
In this story everything was okay as long as everything was okay.
When everything wasn’t okay some hefty religious conclusions were drawn.
The Lord was a father who carried his son until the Anakim showed up. When they did he turned into a hateful abuser.

Notes: Paraphrased quotes from Deuteronomy 1:27 & 31. See the original story in Numbers 13.

Week 9 Numbers 35-Deuteronomy 13

Numbers 33-36 is a mixed bag of topics (and not a bad way to end the book).
First there’s a Forty-Year Travel Review, a listing of all the places Israel had camped – from the first stop fleeing Egypt, across time and distance to prairie country in Moab, just over the river from Jericho.
They had discussions there about subdividing the land, and chapter 34 ends with a list of twelve leaders who’ll do that job.
The Levites were the odd-men-out as far as land was concerned – their tribe got no land at all. They had to be content with being privileged guardians of the Hebrew religion (and they didn’t go away totally empty-handed – they got forty-eight cities).
The book ends with a polite dispute about inheritances. A man named Zelophehad had five daughters – Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. And he had no sons. The rule was: an inheritance goes to the son. Back in chapter 27 the brother-less sisters had already asked Moses to modify the rule and let them have the inheritance. Moses agreed and the rule was changed. Now, at the end of the book the Zelophehad girls come back with another practical question: who gets our inheritance if we marry a guy from a different tribe? In that case, a new ruling was made that a girl with an inheritance had to marry within the tribe. Maybe not an ideal compromise for a girl. But maybe flexible and fair enough to not be the worst.

Week 8 Numbers 18-34

Balaam appears suddenly. He’s a kind of diviner with a reputation for extrasensory capabilities, a guy variously skilled in secrets of the supernatural world. But the Moabite king hires him to do one thing only: speak an incantation against Israel. Curse them with harm and misfortune.
As far as the bible’s circle of people-to-respect goes Balaam is way out in the border lands. Maybe not as totally persona non grata as it’s possible to be, but definitely a non grata-grade guy.
And Balaam had no special commitment to the Lord. He was a shaman with access to a range of magical phenomena – maybe demonic powers, maybe ancestral spirits or otherworldly enchantments, like that. His toolbox might have held as many deities and spirits as a Percy Jackson-novel. The fact that a spirit spoke to Balaam probably didn’t surprise him. Whether he knew just whose voice it was is something different.
But the Lord made him his spokesman, even though Balaam was an unwilling voice (I get the feeling he blessed Israel against his own judgment, his own preference, and his own financial interests).
So far in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers the Lord is mostly (a) very interested in Israel, and (b) very interested in good-quality people. That much I’ve gotten used to. So Numbers 22, 23, and 24 is a reminder that the Lord is under no restrictions about who or what kinds of people he works with. The Lord engages whoever, for whatever his own reasons are.

Week 8 Numbers 18-34

Twelve leaders are listed in the opening verses of Numbers 13.
1. Shammua
2. Shaphat
3. Igal
4. Palti
5. Gaddiel
6. Gaddi
7. Ammiel
8. Sethur
9. Nahbi
10. Geuel
11. Caleb
12. Joshua
The twelve of them went to spy out the land of Canaan.
Spies 1-12 agreed that Canaan was very good, productive, desirable land.
Spies 1-10 also said that, unfortunately the land was not conquerable.
The Lord had promised Abraham hundreds of years before: I’m going to bring your family to this good land and give it to them. But after Shammua, Shaphat, Igal, Palti, Gaddiel, Gaddi, Ammiel, Sethur, Nahbi, and Geuel reconnoitred they said that sure, the land is terrific (but we’ll never get to live there).
Spies 11-12 disagreed. They said no, we’ll be able to conquer the land because the Lord will be with us.
So, a majority report and a minority report. The majority were very impressed with tangible factors: the urban fortifications, the formidable opposition, and the combined strength of the military. The thing that didn’t impress them too much was God. He was a negligible factor.
Caleb and Joshua pleaded with them, told them: the Lord is with us; do not fear them. But tangible evidence, just as compelling then as it is now beat out faith by a five-to-one margin.

Note: quote from Numbers 14:9 (NASB)

Week 7 Numbers 3-17

Numbers 7 is one of the longest chapters in the OT. It lists the offerings the twelve tribal leaders were supposed to bring after the tabernacle was set up.
The first time I read it I got down to the third or fourth leader – Eliab, or maybe Elizur – before I stopped and asked myself what’s going on here?
The offerings were very similar.
My first thought was that there might be subtle differences among them. Maybe the first leader – Nahshon – had to bring one goat for a sin offering, and then Nathanel two goats, Eliab three, etc.
But there were no subtle differences. I cross-checked each list and only found unsubtle samenesses.
All the offerings were exactly the same: a silver dish and a silver bowl, both full of flour, a gold pan of incense, a bull, a ram, and a lamb for a burnt offering; a goat for a sin offering, and a pair of oxen, plus 5 more rams, 5 more goats, and 5 more lambs for peace offerings.
I wondered why the author thought it was necessary to keep repeating the same thing?
I wonder now: since I know this is a ‘repeater’ chapter is it okay for me to just read the first set of offerings then gloss over the rest? I could read an 89-verse chapter in a minute or two. It’s a thought.
But I’m reading through so I read them all. Fairly quickly.

Week 7 Numbers 3-17

May the Lord bless you and protect you.
May the Lord smile on you and be gracious to you.
May the Lord show you his favor and give you his peace.
This is a familiar prayer to me.
I’ve heard it prayed many times in churches. Probably heard it prayed in the last month in the church I attend now.
Whatever ideas I’m forming as I read through the OT they have to include this good word that is prayed over us in church.
Six striking requests to the Lord for all of his people.
Not a self-composed, self-interested invocation. This is a prayer that the Lord basically dictates to Moses to tell Aaron to speak over the people of Israel. Legitimate asks, straight from the Lord, for his people.
An immaculate prayer.

Note: the prayer is from Numbers 6:22-27 (NLT version)