40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Episode 177 (Deuteronomy 26:1-19)

Episode Date: August 9, 2019

Why are Israelites told to say, "my father was a wandering Aramean" and why is it significant? God institutes offerings to remind the people who the land belongs to. God tells the people to invite outsiders to celebrate with them. If Israel was evangelistic in the beginning, what changed over time? And God makes a statement about his people that Peter will take to the church. Chad and Daniel discuss all of this. Have a listen! 1517 Podcast Network HWSS Conference Donate

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network Podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast. check out all the things we got going on over there including the new chad bird section of the 1517 site the new christ will fast section all the all the new sections all the new all the new sites living as one go over there and check out all that stuff also while you're over there you could be one of the last 30 people to get registered for here we still stand there's 30 tickets left you want to be one of the final 30 one of the chosen ones you do that by choosing

yourself, God's not going to do this choosing for you. This is one of those things that you have to do. If you don't do this, it won't get done. So come on out. You can get $25 off that ticket by entering the code PNET19 in the promo box at checkout. All right, Chad, I believe that we are in Deuteronomy chapter 26. We are. Yeah, we wrapped up 25, kind of rushed a little bit through that last section but i wanted to finish the chapter so we could have a fresh chapter start this time we're gonna we're gonna go through at least 26 and hopefully most of 27 i mentioned last time that chapter 26 finishes up the main section of deuteronomy which is chapter 2 through 26 so this is going to be the uh the conclusion of that main section and then when we get to 27

we're going to have a pretty well-known section Deuteronomy where we have the construction of an altar on Mount Ebal and we have the pronouncing of blessings and curses. So that'll be 27 as well as 28. So we have some pretty rich theology to get to. Well, let's jump into 26 and this is a pretty fascinating section in and of itself, just because not only does it give a certain requirement for Israelites regarding the offering of firstfruits and other gifts to the Lord, but it actually spells out in detail what they are to do and what they are to say when they bring their offerings to the Lord. And we don't have this a whole lot in the Torah, but there are a cases, but this one is pretty unique because you have, as it were, a rubric that is like a

description of what is to be done. And you have a prayer, which is given word for word to the individual Israelite who brings these offerings. And this prayer is, or confession might be a better way to put it, is sort of like a creed. It really, it sums up a lot of the history of Israel, what God has done for them, and then how that is connected to the offerings that they bring. It's a pretty well-known part of Deuteronomy 2, especially one particular phrase, my father was a wandering Aramean. So we'll talk about that in just a second. So here's the way it starts out. It says when you get to the land which God has given you, then you're to take some of the produce to the ground, and you are to put it in a basket,

and you go to the place where the Lord your God chooses to establish his name. So we talked about that extensively earlier in Deuteronomy, that there was going to come a time when they got to the land, that God would establish a place where he would put his name. And his name is another way of saying where he would put himself. So this is where God would put himself in the Holy of Holies. First of all, in the tabernacle, and later, of course, permanently established in the temple in Jerusalem.

So this is where the Israelite would go with this basket full of the produce. So this is a forward-looking law. It's not something that can be enacted outside of Israel. So this has to be, well, first of all, they have to be in Israel. And secondly, they have to be there long enough to have defeated their enemies and to have settled down, planted crops, and harvested them. So this is a future-looking prescription for Israel. It's not something they could do now, but when you get there, and when you plant your

crops, and when you're settled, and when you bring your produce in, this is what I want you to do. So verse 3, they go to the priest who's in office at that time and say to him, quote, I declare this day to the Lord my God that I have entered the land which the Lord swore to our fathers to give to us. So that's the first thing they say. that it's basically a way of saying, I am now at the place that God promised our father. So implicitly, I am at the place, which is a testimony to the God who keeps his promise.

God promised to bring us here. I'm here. So I am bringing this produce as a way of confessing that God has not only brought us to the land, but he's given us peace and security so that we can grow these crops and offer this produce to the Lord. So that's the first thing he says. Verse four, then the priest shall take the basket from your hand and set it down before the altar of the Lord your God. So he comes, he says his piece, he gives the basket to the priest, and he puts it by the altar. And then we get to what I think is the most interesting part. This is verse five through 10. I'm going to go ahead and read those verses. You can kind of get a feel for exactly what the Israelite is to confess. So verse 5, you shall answer and say before the Lord your God, my father

was a wandering Aramean, and he went down to Egypt and sojourned there, few in number, but there he became a great, mighty, and populous nation. And the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us and imposed hard labor on us. Then we cried to the Lord, the God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction and our toil and our oppression. And the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm and with great terror and with signs and wonders. And he has brought us to this place and has given us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. And now behold, I have brought the first of the produce of the ground, which you, O Lord, have given me.

And then it concludes by saying that you shall set it down before the Lord your God and worship before the Lord your God. There's a lot of fascinating things about this particular prayer. First of all, this language that it starts out with, which in Hebrew is, you can't really see this in English, but in Hebrew it's sort of an alliteration. You have the opening three words all start with the same letter. the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the Aleph. In Hebrew, it would sound this way, the arami, oved, avi.

The way in which it sounds would be one of the ways in which this would be useful for memorization, because this is what they would be reciting as they bring this gift to the Lord. Arami, oved, ami. My father was a wandering Aramean. Probably either a reference to Abraham, who was from that region originally, before he was commanded by God to journey to the Holy Land. Or it could be a reference to Jacob, because you remember Jacob, after he fled from Esau, he went and he lived in Aram.

He lived in that region. Now, the adjective is significant, too. It doesn't say my father was an Aramean. It says he was a wandering Aramean. And what that is indicating is that, yeah, there was a time in the past, in the life of our forefather when we didn't have a place we were wandering around we didn't have like a home country we were just kind of going from place to place uh like a lot of the bedouins still do and in israel they pitch their tent where there's grazing for the livestock or where there's

water so they're moving around this was this has been a way of life in the in the east for well decade for centuries upon centuries millennia really so he was a wandering aramean uh and he didn't have a homeland and he first goes down to egypt it says and sojourns there so here we have the we have a the first part brings us back to genesis kind of the life of abraham and jacob and now we're skipping forward to the book of exodus as it were so those that first phrase my father was a winner here on me and that in in some way encapsulates much of the story of genesis and now we're going into egypt it says he went i mean we're going into exodus So he goes down to Egypt and sojourns there, becomes a great, mighty and populous nation.

Well, that's the language of Exodus chapter one, where the Israelites were being fruitful and multiplying and filling the land so much that their increase in number actually frightened the Egyptians. And that was when you begin to have the oppression of the Israelites, which is what is talked about next in this confession, how the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, so on and so forth. And then, anyway, it goes on, and it basically summarizes that first half of the book of Exodus, where the Egyptians afflicted them, God sent the plagues, and then God delivered them. And then it skips ahead, so we've got Genesis referenced, Exodus referenced. And then it goes on to basically summarize everything from Exodus up to the point where Israel now is. so God brings us out of Egypt and he's brought us to this place and has given us this land flowing with milk and honey then there's a there's a subtle shift here I don't know if you picked it up when you were listening to the verses here but he talks about how God has done all of this

for us he listened to our voice so there's a first person plural that's emphasized throughout the prayer, but suddenly there's a shift. So after all of this salvation history is confessed by this Israelite, then in verse 10, he changes to first person, singular, and says, now behold, I have brought the first of the produce to the ground, which you, O Lord, have given me. So we have first person plural, and then there's a shift to first person singular. As if to say, I'm part of the people of God. I'm part of this nation that stretches all the way back to our father, the wandering Aramean, and here's what God has done for all of us. This is what happened to us in Egypt, and this is what God did to save us. So I'm part of this people of God, but I'm also an

individual. And as part of this people of God, now as an individual, I am fulfilling my vocation as a worshiper of Yahweh by bringing the first of the produce of the ground as what's sometimes called a rent payment to the true owner of the land. You'll sometimes hear this language in commentaries on the Torah that the owner of the land is never an Israelite. The owner of the land is never Israel itself. God owns the land, so this is his property. Israel, as his people, are allowed to live on it, and part of the way they pay their rent, as it were, acknowledge they don't own the land, is by offering the firstfruits of the ground to God at the altar. Well, anyway, that's the prayer itself. You've got the history documented, you've got

god's god's activity saving activity in in history documented and you have this shift between first person plural and first person singular and after all of this is said and then after the produce is brought it's set down before god and it says you and the levite and the alien who is among you shall rejoice in all the good which the lord your god has given you and your household. So presumably this rejoicing would be in the context of a feast in which you don't just sit there and eat a picnic by yourself, but you invite the Levite and the sojourner and probably widows and orphans to participate in this feast with you in which you give thanks to God for everything that he's done for you. So that's, I think, some of the most significant parts of this

prayer. One other thing I'll add regarding this first person plural, and we've talked about this before in some of the context, the Israelite who's saying this is not going to be just that first generation who enters the promised land. This is going to be repeated by the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, on and on throughout the generations of the Israelites. So when, say, 200 years after Israel has conquered the Holy Land, there's still going to be people around saying the Egyptians treated us harshly, and we cried to God, and God brought us out of Egypt. So there is this understanding within the life of Israel, as well as within the life of the church, that even though historically we may be separated from the events of the past in which God acted

in a saving way for his people. We are still part of that in a very real sort of way. This is not just kind of pretend. We're not just kind of make-believing that we were there, because we are part of this body of the people of God, and so anything that happened to our spiritual forefathers, we were also part of that, because we are part of this ongoing, this continuous body of people that God has claimed to be his own. So even today, Christians can say that we were there. We were in Egypt, and God treated us harshly because we're part of this unbroken, continuous body of those whom God has called and sanctified. So just as Israelites 200 years after this event could say it, so we can. And so also we can say that we were there

when Christ lived and died and rose again, because we are part of His body. We are part of the saving acts of God on our behalf. We might be historically separated from the events, but theologically, in the activity of God, we are joined to them, because God has made us united with him by bringing us to faith and by making us participants in these acts of salvation. Yeah, one of the things that's interesting about this, that all the time I will hear some modern Jews say things like, Judaism has never been an evangelistic religion. Some people go so far as to say that, in fact, we discourage conversion. Now, there's nothing in scripture that makes it seem like that at all i mean the very purpose of an israel is to be a

light to other nations and to try to draw people in this is as i see it this is the whole point and what is interesting about this is they here you have this thing where they're going to talk about like hey we were oppressed in egypt and then like god delivered us and stuff we're going to talk about all this stuff we're going to do these things and god says yeah make sure you just go ahead and invite the sojourner in, too. Well, what are you inviting them into? You're inviting them to bear witness to the proclamation, essentially, of the gospel before the gospel, right? I mean, you're inviting them to the evangelistic tent meeting, as it were. Like, you're inviting them to the evangelistic festival. This is the gospel of that day,

the exodus, the proclamation that God has delivered you from those who oppressed you. And so I think that you see right here that God is, in fact, using Israel to try to save the world. He does want the world to come into this understanding of who he is and what he's done. And maybe you have heard from people who would sound authoritative because, after all, they're practicing Jews. And, you know, we're not and you're not, so you don't know what's going on. But when you hear, if you hear them say, and I've heard them say a lot. I don't know if you've heard this as well, Chad, it is not a religion that does evangelism

or tries to convert people to it. Like, well, maybe it isn't now, but it sure as heck used to be. Yeah. Well, I think it's helpful to remember too that what we think of as Judaism today or Judaisms, of course, there's everything from Orthodox Jews

to Reform Jews to Conservative Jews to Assyric Jews. So there's, just like in Christianity, you have various kinds of Christians. So you have what, I don't know if they call them denominations, but there's different kinds of Jewish groups out there. But whatever Jewish group you're talking about, there's been significant changes in their way of life, in their beliefs, in their hopes over the generations. You see this already after the destruction of the temple.

I remember when I was at Hebrew Union studying with rabbis and rabbinic scholars there when we were studying the documents of early Judaism. So most of them, either first century A.D. to fourth century A.D. I mean, you have things like discussions regarding what are we going to do now that we don't have a temple? I mean, we can offer sacrifices. And as we've seen going through the Torah, there's huge sections of the Torah that deal with nothing more than which kinds of sacrifices are to be offered. And so there's a shift that happens during this time in which Judaism sort of gets redefined. It's no longer a religion that's centered around temple and sacrifice. what happens is you'll have rabbis say things like, if you study the Torah where sacrifice

is described, that is the equivalent of offering a sacrifice. So no longer do you actually literally offer a sacrifice at a temple. You just study the words about the sacrifices, and that suffices. So there's a shift that happens early on in Judaism. I mean, that's just one example. and I think that what you described with regard to welcoming people into the faith fits for that as well just because Judaism does that today doesn't mean that it actually is in sync with what you what you have described in the Torah I've I've never understood why anyone would think that there is sort of a xenophobia happening in the life of Israel at least based upon what God told them to do he never told them to keep the stranger out quite the opposite right I mean

repeatedly Israel is told to welcome the stranger, and not just like to welcome them into the land of Israel, but they actually welcome them into their homes, into their worship, into these feasts that they celebrated. And not only that, but you have throughout the Psalms this language of like, praise him all peoples, exalt him all nations. Well, that's in the plural, and the Hebrew there would be the goyim, so we could translate it, praise him all Gentiles, laud him all non-Jewish nations. So there's a, in the Psalms, and this is an ongoing theme in the Psalms, you have Israel, as it were, singing to the world, inviting the whole world to participate with them in the praise of Yahweh. So even though, of course, you have people like Jonah, whether you want

to call him xenophobic or just someone who hated his enemies, however you want to describe him, certainly had that going on with individual Israelites. But as far as the biblical witness goes and what God told them to do, it was quite the opposite. Even though they were unique as a nation, they were chosen. They were the treasure possession of Yahweh. They weren't that way so they could keep this all to themselves. Instead, they were that way so that they could be those who took the word of God to those who were around them, welcomed the strangers to their feast, and in that way, incorporated non-Israelites into the life of Israel. Yeah, and you see this early on.

I mean, you know, in the book of Revelation, when it says that, you know, it talks about every tribe, tongue, and nation, this is not merely a New Testament concept. It wasn't like the New Testament came around, and then for the first time ever, the scriptures speak of every tribe, tongue, and nation. That language is nowhere else in the Scriptures. No, it's in the Old Testament all over the place. What is interesting is it does seem that by the time of the Pharisees, that there was sort of this othering of Gentiles in a way that wasn't healthy

and that wasn't in line with the way that the Scriptures talked. More than just religion, but actually a xenophobic kind of thing. They did not like people that were not Jews. You do have that happen, which is why it's such a scandal that Paul's going to the Gentiles and that Jesus is talking to Samaritans and the whole thing. But that wasn't the case early on that had developed into that. And I don't know when that transition happened. Maybe it was during those silent years that we don't know anything about.

I suspect you're right. I mean, if you look at what happened to Israel after the Babylonian exile, so the Babylonian exile starts in 586 B.C., and then 70 years later, they're allowed to return. After the Persians conquer the Babylonians, the Persians are more lenient and say, yeah, if you want to go back to your homeland, you can. Well, they go back and they face all sorts of obstacles, of course, with the people who have already moved into the Holy Land. And then you have, of course, later on, the Greeks come in, they invade, and then if you know the stories of the Maccabees, for a while, Israel is able to once more gain a quasi-independence from the Greeks. If you look at what happened to Israel during that time period, they were constantly under threat from outsiders. And just sociologically, you know what happens when something like that goes down. People tend to be, you know, they tend to build walls and circle the wagons and becomes more of a us versus them mentality.

And I think that's what you see reflected in the New Testament as well. All of that was, of course, in the New Testament by then, it's no longer the Greeks that rule the Jews, but it's the Romans. so this us versus them mentality just is going to thrive in a situation like that where it's it's very easy for Jews like the Pharisees to view outsiders as truly outsiders not part of us and those that we shouldn't have anything anything to do with and that's why you see yeah the anger against Jesus talking with Samaritans or Paul going to the Gentiles so it's kind of a long build up to that yeah okay so uh moving on uh that uh that particular section i think is fascinating for all of those reasons we've been we've been talking about verses 12 through 15 is a uh kind

of a repetition of something that we covered earlier when we talked about the tides so tides were collected every year and most of them were brought to the tabernacle or later to the temple and distributed there this is a description of what happens every third year so every third year if you remember our talk about that, every third year, the tithes are actually kept locally. So the tithes are brought. And I'm assuming that there was, even though it's not spelled out for us, I'm assuming there was some place where tithes were kept. And, you know, we have soup kitchens. We have kitchens today that serve those who are poor and homeless. And I suspect it was something like this in the life of Israel, where the tithes that were brought were kept and were

distributed on an ongoing basis to those who were in need, whether they were widows or orphans or whatever their situation might be. So that's a description that is spelled out in verses 12 through 15 about the giving of these tithes and ways in which the Israelites confess before God that basically they are being faithful to his command with regard to these tithes. the chapter ends up with verses 16 through 19 as sort of a summation of this long long section that we've been covering for the last uh i guess a few months now i'll just read you these verses this day the lord your god command you to do these statutes and ordinances you shall therefore be careful to do them with all your heart and with all your soul you have today declared the lord

to be your God, that you would walk in his ways and keep the statutes, his commandments, and his ordinances, and listen to his voice. And the Lord today has declared you to be his people, a treasured possession, as he promised you, and that you should keep all his commandments, and that he shall set you high above all nations, which he has made for praise, fame, and honor, and that you shall be a consecrated people to the Lord your God as he has spoken. So some of that language we hear, we heard all the way back in Exodus, right? About Israel being a treasured possession, his people, those who are for praise and for honor. So this is actually a beautiful way to sum up everything that's been spoken of in this section.

First of all, that God has chosen you and he's given you this way of life, this way of conducting yourself, of caring for those who are around you. And he has given you this way of life because he's made you his own. And so you're his treasured possession. You are unique among the peoples because he has chosen you for praise, for fame, and for honor. And so he exalts Israel precisely so that Israel can reflect the image of who he is, not only to their neighbors, but also to all of those who are around them. So God didn't choose a nation just so he could burden it with a whole bunch of legalisms. legalisms, he chose a nation as his treasured possession so that they could, by the way that they live, by the things that they do, by the offerings they bring, by the praises they sing,

by everything, so that they could be this nation on earth, which was a priestly nation, communicating the words of God and the ways of God to the peoples that were around them, as well as then praying to god on behalf of israel as well as as all the other nations i mean so that's the way it ends up yeah can you like hear that that language and not think of what peter says in first peter to where he just basically just rips that out and inserts it talking about the church uh and when he says this you are a chosen race a royal priesthood a holy nation a people for god's own possession that you might proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light now this is just borrowed straight from

that where peter is saying that god is doing the thing that god has always been about doing and that all of this now applies to the church right i mean so far that he'll even he doesn't even you like take the nation language out he just leaves it in there and and it's the same thing you were just saying like what's the purpose of this like why did he choose them Is it so that he could burden them with a bunch of things? No, he says, so that they might proclaim the excellencies of him who called them out of darkness into his marvelous light. Or this can be the same as, you know, the one who brought you out of Egypt. Yeah.

Well, it's a good reminder that Israel didn't come to an end. Israel was fulfilled in the true Israelite in Christ and then perpetuated. His life is perpetuated in the life of the new Israel of God, which is the church, right? So, I mean, there is this continuity between us, between Israel, Israel of old. So the church is the Israel of God. The church is the holy nation. And that's why Peter can, without any reservations, pull this language that was spoken to Israel of old and apply it directly to the church. So there's not like there's not like God has two ways of dealing with the peoples of the earth.

It's not like you'll hear this sometimes. It's not like God has a particular way of dealing with the Christian church. And then he has also a particular way of dealing with the nation of Israel or the Jews. It's not like God doesn't have like plan A and then plan B, and he's working differently with different kinds of people. he's working with he's working with us all all peoples to draw us into the life of the israel of god which is which is the church which is nothing more than this like i talked about earlier this ongoing body of those who are redeemed and sanctified sanctified by god i had i had a guy get really upset with me um one time because he said i believed in replacement theology and i was

arguing that look uh you know he was well he was arguing that like god has certain things that he like said about israel and promised israel and that's the way that's going to be and it's different in the church and i would say i was arguing like look man like half of the epistles are are like peter and paul just like ripping things from the old testament and sticking them in there and saying that it applies to everybody that it applies to all christians everywhere like i don't know how you how you do this like because the new the new testament like 50 of the new testament is plagiarized you know like from the old testament it's that they're not just borrowing it because they think it sounds nice they're using it because they say that this is who god has always been and

this applies to the people that god saves and delivers period yeah yeah i mean i i yeah i've never quite understood how one can make a theological argument that uh god deals differently with whether you're like of Jewish descent or whether you're part of the Christian church, because yeah, I mean, who were the first Christians? All of the first Christians were Jews. Yeah. I feel like Peter knows what he's talking about. Like Peter didn't, I mean, Peter wrote this down and I'm pretty sure he didn't look it up. Like he just knows it, right? He just knows it. Yeah. Yeah. Paul goes and preaches in synagogues. And when he goes to synagogues, he doesn't say, listen, I'm just, I'm just here to affirm that you guys keep doing what

you're doing. And what I'm going to do after I leave the synagogue, I'm going to go out and I'm going to talk to Gentiles and we're going to start the Christian church. But don't worry, God will just kind of keep working with you the way he's always worked with you. But he's going to do a new thing by bringing Gentiles into the Christian church. Now, Paul went to synagogues precisely to proclaim that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah. He is the one that was promised to us so believe in him and become part of the new israel of god as those who are believers in the messiah who has has already come yeah dude it's such a weird argument like i remember when he said he says like i can't believe that you believe in replacement theology which just sounds so

negative you know and i was like well i can't believe that you think that when paul says there is now no distinction. There is now no Jew or Gentile that you say, yeah, except for this one huge distinction where God deals with them completely differently. Well, I don't know if it's a broad teaching in the church, but I mean, there are those out there who teach that kind of two different ways. Well, it's fairly in line with dispensational teaching, which is pretty popular teaching. I mean, it is not uncommon. In fact, I would say It's more common than not to run across Christians who think that there is something special about Israel as a nation, like as a geographical thing, right?

And this is why, I mean, I hear it all the time. I mean, I hear the reason that God has blessed America is because America has always supported Israel. Like, I hear this all the time in evangelicalism. And you're like, there's no way this is true. Not because there's anything wrong with Israel. Like, there's nothing wrong with Israel. It's not that. But God doesn't bless any nation for supporting any nation, period.

Like, this is not what's going on. There's not something special about, like, this plot of land, and you've got to put certain people there. It's not like that. And that's not because, don't freak out. You can't even say things like that without worrying that people think that you hold some weird political position. I'm not saying that anyone should like go and displace them or anything like that.

I have no problem with Israel as a thing. But I do have a problem with people thinking that, well, you better be nice to them or else God is going to like, you know, Sodom and Gomorrah your entire nation. This is just a ridiculous notion. I guess we could say it like this, that there is no theological significance to the fact that Israel as a nation geographic nation now exists no any more there's no more theological significance of that than that Germany or Portugal or the United States or Canada or Mexico exist as nations because everything that happened in the land of Israel

was of course significant because that was the land that God chose as the incubator if you will of his promises until the messiah came and we have jesus saying at the end of matthew's gospel now what i want you to do is i want you to go so you take this holy sanctifying message from the land of israel north south east and west and jesus himself says in john 4 right that there's going to come a time when when my worshipers won't worship me on the samaritan mountain where they have their Temple or the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Instead, they're going to worship me in spirit and in truth. That's non-geographic in the sense that it's not located in one specific area. Instead, wherever the gospel is proclaimed, wherever the gifts of Christ are given and received,

in that particular place is the Holy Land. That is where the promises given to Israel and fulfilled the messiah are now distributed to to the people of god yeah i mean honestly when at the destruction of the temple the destruction of the the temple is the destruction of the theological difference between jew and gentile this is over at that point like when the temple goes when the temple goes down that theological difference theological difference between jew and gentile goes down with it yeah that's a very good way to put it which is i think is why jesus you know in his eschatological discourses in the Gospels talks about that, right?

Such a significant event. And that's why both for early Christians as well as for the Jews at that time it was such a significant event because after that nothing would ever be the same with regard to Judaism as well as the early Christians. All right, well, I really thought we were going to get farther,

but I guess we covered some significant topics along the way talking about chapter 26. I think we got basically through 26 Oh yeah we got through 26 Yeah We covered all of that So when we come back next week We've got some

Very interesting material to talk about With regard to blessings and curses And a couple of mountains Mount Gerizim And Mount Ebel So come back and join us next week I'll tell you what It is weird how significant

Mountains are in the bible oh yeah yeah i mean over and over right over and over again i mean even in the new testament too yeah i mean calvary is like a significant thing i mean the mountains play like this huge role yeah i mean mount moriah in genesis 22 of course you have zion you sinai you have uh here evil and gerizim and then i i think probably the the most significant mountain in the New Testament is where you have the Mount of Transfiguration. Where, not surprisingly, the whole Old Testament is brought together in one scene. It's like everything is wrapped up in that one mount.

Yeah, God loves those mountains, man. All right, well, next week, come back. We're going to talk about mountains, and we'll see what the theological significance is. Guys, if you like the podcast, if it's been helpful to you, go ahead and go over 1517.org, go to the donate page, and you can become a contributor. Thank you so much to those of you who do that. Also, if you want to help us out another way,

you can always rate and review the podcast on however you listen to it. So if you listen to it on iTunes, go over to iTunes, give us that rating, give us that review. That increases our visibility. Chad, I'll see you next week.

See you then. We'll see you next time.