#DailyDevotion Listen Up People, YHWH Has Something To Say
Deuteronomy 6:1-3 “These are the commandments, the laws and regulations, the LORD your God ordered me to teach you, so that you will do them in the land you’re about to cross into and take over. 2If you, your children, and your grandchildren will fear the LORD your God enough to keep as long as you live all His laws and commandments that I’m ordering you to keep, you will have a long life. 3Listen, Israel, and be careful to do them that you may prosper and grow to be very many, as the LORD, the God of your fathers, promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.
Deuteronomy is the Greek name for this book of the Bible. It means second law. The first law or rather the first recitation of the law, the Torah, the instructions were given by God to Moses at Mount Horeb. That generation has died because they didn’t trust his promise when they first came up to the Promised Land. Now they are back to the border of the Promised Land. Many of the statutes and rules he had given them were not going to be practiced until they entered the land, which is now. So the LORD God is going to have a review with them through Moses before they take the land.
Now in this Torah there were mitzvah, khoq, mispat and tsavah along with a few other technical words we sometimes just translate laws, is what God gave the Israelites to live as a nation-state. Outside of their borders, some of these rules etc. would not be applicable. But inside the nation they were live by. Some of them deal with the ceremonial rituals for worshiping God. Other deal with how we live with our neighbor. Some things are direction on how to deal with criminal law and some with civil law. While some people may think some of these are harsh, they were still better than the nations around them and those traveling through them. They were given not only to provide justice and equity but also to separate them from the nations. They were for the people of Israel under this covenant. It is a cohesive whole for a cohesive people.
If they people of Israel would listen, keep and do all his chuqqah and his mitzvah they would have long life. They would prosper and grow to be many as the LORD had promise Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in a land flowing with milk and honey. Well we know how this turned out. While they did pretty good under Joshua, soon after his death the people began to adopt the life styles of their neighbors (who they were supposed to eliminate because of their sins) and the neighboring countries. They did not listen, keep and do everything the LORD had commanded them. Most eventually were exiled, never to be heard or seen again by the Assyrians. The remaining went into exile in Babylon, returned, added their traditions to God’s instructions, sometimes making them harder and sometime easier than God had given them. Because they broke his covenant He gives them and the world a new covenant. Ezekiel and Jeremiah speak of this new covenant.
Jesus is the new covenant. It was made with the shedding of his blood. This covenant consist of two parts. Trust in Jesus Christ for your salvation and love your neighbor as yourself. The Promised Land is the new heavens and new earth. It is not just for the Israelites but for all people everywhere.
Heavenly Father, grant us faith to trust in Christ and give us your Spirit that we may love our neighbor as ourselves. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.