BibleProject - The Law … Again – Deuteronomy E4

Episode Date: October 24, 2022

In the second movement of Deuteronomy, Moses gives Israel the law … again. But this time, he’s not talking to a nomadic group of people wandering the desert—he’s talking to the next generation preparing to settle in a permanent home for the first time. As they move into the land, their laws and their lives will need to look a little different. But in what way? In this episode, join Tim and Jon as they discuss how the law was always meant to form Israel (and modern readers) into people of wisdom, justice, and righteousness.View full show notes from this episode →Timestamps Part one (0:00-19:35)Part two (19:35-34:39)Part three (34:39-50:46)Part four (50:46-1:13:08)Referenced ResourcesZondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary, Clinton E. ArnoldOld Testament Ethics for the People of God, Christopher J. H. WrightInterested in more? Check out Tim’s library here.You can experience the literary themes and movements we’re tracing on the podcast in the BibleProject app, available for Android and iOS.Show Music “Defender (Instrumental)” by TENTS"Valse," “Parasol,” and “Bronea” by Plusma and Guillaume MuschalleShow produced by Cooper Peltz with Associate Producer Lindsey Ponder. Edited by Dan Gummel, Tyler Bailey, and Frank Garza. Podcast annotations for the BibleProject app by Hannah Woo.Powered and distributed by Simplecast.

Hey, this is Cooper at Bible Project. I produce the podcast in Classroom. We've been exploring a theme called the City, and it's a pretty big theme. So we decided to do two separate Q and R episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the second Q and R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by July 21st

and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it in, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds, and please transcribe your question when you email it in. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode.

We've been reading through the Torah, and we've come to many sections where we read Ancient Lockcode. More reading are snippets, a small selection of a larger ancient law code that Israel had with Yahweh to establish their covenant with him. And here, in Deuteronomy, Moses continues to give us even more law. But it's now Moses, either restating laws that happened earlier in the collection,

or giving new laws that develop principles found in laws earlier in the collection, or giving new laws that develop principles found in laws earlier in the collection. Up till now, Israel has been wandering through the desert, but they're ready to settle into the land God promised to them, and so Moses is giving Israel guidelines for how to settle in the new land. Now it's easy to think of these laws as a list of do's and don'ts, but they're more than that. These laws are meant to form them into a people who know how to live with wisdom among the

nations as they enter the land. A law forms a group of people to live and see the world a certain way, so that when you encounter all kinds of other circumstances that may be a specific law doesn't address, you will find yourself acting in certain ways because the laws have shaped you to see the world. Living by the law code is a way to declare their allegiance to Yahweh. If they obey the commands, the way of living in this world will be markedly different from the nations around them and in a beautiful way. The word righteousness is a relational word in biblical Hebrew. It's doing right by somebody specific to the context of our relationship. Moses says obeying the wisdom of the laws will be Israel's

righteousness before God and before the neighbor. As they do that, the nations will look on and say, well, following that God, it's pretty awesome, because it results in the community that looks like this. Today, Tim Mackie and I begin the second movement of Deuteronomy, looking at the theme of law. I'm John Collins, and you're listening to Bible Project podcast. Thanks for joining us.

Here we go. Hey Tim. Hey John. Hello. Here we are. Yeah, the Deuteronomy Scroll. We have arrived at the last section, last major scroll of the Torah. We have.

We've gone through a lot of, for me, obscure passages of the Bible that I don't tend to read. And it's been really great. So thank you. We're here in the middle of Deuteronomy. We just finished the first movement, and we looked at the theme of listening and loving. Yep. Yeah. In chapters one through eleven, which form the first major movement of the Deuteronomy's scroll. Yeah. Moses gets his sermon on. So it gets his preach on. Yeah, it gets his preach on. Yeah. Yeah. It's one long collection of sermons. I mean, they read like persuasive, passionate sermons to a congregation. Actually, that's what they're called oftentimes, like in assembly. So it portrays Moses as in the model of like a priestly prophetic teacher teaching in a synagogue to a congregation.

And the congregation is Israel, a new generation of Israel who's been wandering through the wilderness out of slavery. Yeah, they were the children who went through the exodus of wilderness wanderings. And now the children are adults. Their parents are now all gone. They've passed away in the desert because of their lack of trust and rebellion. Moses is still around though. He's got to be old. Still kicking. Yeah, tall one. Yep. Yeah. He, I mean, his heart must be great. He went up and down that mountain so many times.

Tall. He's out there. Yeah. No desert backpacking trips for decades. Yeah. Yeah. So he is preparing this next generation to go into the Promised Land. They're at the, yeah, they're at the Jordan River.

So on the east side of the Jordan River, kind of where modern day Jordan kind of meets the eastern border of modern day Israel, New Jericho. Yeah. And he said, look, we have this covenant with God. He gave us the laws. I am going to, what was the word? Hmm. Basically make these laws legible. Yeah, make legible. To do theonomy one, verse five, Moses undertook to expound or make legible, make more clear the instruction of God. Yeah, he's refreshing the law code for this next generation. Yes, yes.

Who are now going to experience the covenant relationship in a new setting. Yes, yeah, that's right. Yeah, the laws up to this point have been given to a migratory people who have been traveling in other people's lands or territories or just in the middle of unclaimed wilderness territory. But what it's going to look like to be faithful to the same God, and honor and live and covenant loyalty to that God, and with your neighbor, is going to have to look different once you come in and start building homes and neighborhoods and planting farms and that kind of thing.

And so the laws assume that new kind of social context for Israel. Since we're going to be talking about law in this conversation, let's remind ourselves how we've gotten all the law codes so far. I mean, that would just help me because it's easy to imagine that what we've got in the Torah is like a complete set of laws that ancient Israel lived by. And it would even be easy to imagine that they would

all be in one place. Well, maybe like a few places. Yeah, totally. But instead, as you read through the Torah beginning with the Ten Commandments in Exodus, and then on through the rest of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, you've got little pockets of law code. Little sub collections of laws dropped into narratives, like spliced into an ongoing narrative. So yeah, so this connects back to conversations, I'm trying to think in the podcast, how to read the law. That's a whole series we did a couple years ago,

and then our theme video on the law in the storyline is viable. But yeah, the Torah is on the law in the story line of the Bible. But yeah, the Torah is not a law book, as we conceive of it. It is a narrative into which have been spliced collections of laws. Which is tricky because often Torah is translated law. Yeah, I know. That's right. Often when I see the word law in my Bible, that's the word Torah.

It's the standard English word to translate the word Torah in all modern English translations. And that links back to an even pre-English tradition, which is all the way back to the Jewish scholars who translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek in the pre-Christian period. And they use the Greek word namas. Translate Torah. Yeah, which is like a legal statute written law. So, and that's a fine translation to cover one aspect of meaning of the word Torah, but the basic meaning of it is instruction or teaching that guides somebody. And sometimes those instructions take written form in the collection, in which case you could call them law.

But as we're going to see, Torah can refer to other forms or other ways that you can give guidance and instruction. So yeah, this is a big conversation we've had over the years that the Torah is not a comprehensive law code given to Israel. intensive law code given to Israel. It is a story about a people who entered a covenant with God who said that the terms of our relationship will be a series of instructions. And then into the story about the progression of that relationship have been dropped select like examples or most. Yeah, yeah, or what do you call them excerpts? excerpts of some larger body of law. So Israel surely had much larger law collections, but they have been selectively drawn from by the biblical authors and divided up into subunits and put into four different scrolls of the Torah. And when you say Israel, you mean like ancient Israel. Yeah.

The Israel that would have lived, not even during second temple time, you're talking like no, during the time of the narrative setting, which would have been middle Bronze Age, maybe kind of time. Yeah, middle late Bronze Age transition and dot, yeah, or in our modern Western calendar in the 1400s, to kind of 1200s BC. This is ancient Israel, ancient to what we would call ancient Israel. Ancient Israelites would call this ancient Israel. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, to Jesus, this is ancient. Yeah. Even the Ezra Niyamaya, this is ancient. Right. Yeah, totally. And the laws bear all the marks of that more ancient context. In fact, in this conversation, we're going to be reading some ancient Babylonian laws, a law code.

And what we'll see actually is the same concept is that law codes function primarily as a source of wisdom and meditation and as a display of the law givers justice, righteousness and wisdom. But I get ahead of myself. So that's for the moment. That's Deuteronomy. It's Moses expounding and furthering the teaching of the earlier laws, but now for the next generation to live in a new context. And that's the narrative setting of the book. What we're going to do in this conversation is pivot now into the second movement of Deuteronomy, where it continues to be speeches from Moses, but it's now Moses either restating laws that happened earlier in the collection or giving new laws that develop principles found in laws earlier in the collection.

So this makes up what we call chapters 12 to 26 of Deuteronomy. This just a couple hundred ancient Near Eastern laws. It really is like a list. Yep, that's right. There's no narratives in here. Sometimes the laws are cast as little mini narratives, like a little case law. Right.

You know, well, let's say there's a guy who does this and then the woman who says this, but from chapter 12, on fact here, I'll just read the first line of chapter 12 is, and these are the statutes and the judgments that you shall carefully observe in the land, which Yahweh, the Elohim of your fathers, has given to you to possess as long as you live on the land. Yeah, here they are. And here they are.

And then follow our a couple hundred of those laws. So the first ones are doozy. Yeah, so yeah, okay. So what I'd like to do actually, before we dive in, I wanna take, there's kind of two main large sections of laws here. One is in chapters, what we call chapters 12 to 18. And almost all of them are about the way the Israelites are to express their worship and allegiance to Yahweh, and also how their leadership structures are to be designed in order to keep the people loyal to Yahweh.

So this whole section really is focused on Israel and God or loving God. So we'll do a whole conversation on that. The second large section is in what we call chapters 19 to 25 and it's almost all focused on laws giving instruction about family situations or village situations or how the tribes are to relate to each other in economics, in social structure, and family, and also how they are to relate to the nations around them. So this fits into a big large bucket that you could call loving your neighbor, expressing love to your neighbor. And loving God, loving neighbor. This is kind of the two. That's how Jesus summarized the law. Yeah, the whole Torah. Yeah.

But before we have those two conversations, I want to back up and just remind us of something we've talked about over the years, but it's always good to remember it. When we're talking about law or statutes in the Torah, the first thing that should come into our minds is wisdom, that laws are an expression of wisdom, and a source of wisdom, and meditation,

and that they function really differently than statutory law collections do in modern Western, like legal libraries. Yeah, we talked about this at length in our conversations on the law. Yeah. And that's an interesting rabbit hole. It's an interesting set of concepts to untangle because as a modern westerner, my idea

of law code is very well cemented in what I understand about the judicial system and the way that our cities work. And this is a completely different type of way to think about law code. Yeah, different legal tradition entirely. Because essentially what law codes are is their public agreements about how we're gonna organize our life together. And agreements with some teeth.

If with some teeth, depending on how they're enforced, whether through monetary fines, or physical coercion through law enforcement. And the way these laws adapt and develop, because all law traditions do, is through collections of laws, and then as new cases arise in a given community, you consult earlier laws and then either call them up and apply them in new ways or you adapt them to a new circumstance. You know, and that's actually what's interesting is maybe there isn't such a huge discrepancy between the way we actually do law. Because when it comes down to it, when I think about law, I just think like, oh, yeah, the

speed limit or, you know, I can't steal from the grocery store. Very basic kind of things. They're very clear. But the judicial branch is in charge of when things happen, that don't have a clear precedent. Like you just said, they go to the rules that were set up before, the cases and how they were decided. And then they use that as wisdom up before, the cases and how they were decided. And then they use that as wisdom,

to decide, okay, then what do we do in this next case? And then the decision that they make in that next case then becomes more case law, then is now more wisdom. And this whole body of law really is, in a way, a way of us saying, here's how we think is the most wise way for us to live. And we're going to always adhere to it, but it's malleable. It kind of changes slowly over time, as culture changes. Yeah, we just had a series of local elections here in Portland. And so, I'm thinking this was a couple of cycles ago, but I remember when the way that Portland public school systems, high high schools have been like paid for for maintenance and upkeep, that system just wasn't working because of the financial

and the way the tax system was designed like a couple generations ago. So it was a big redesign of it in these like bills. I remember reading about it, you know, listening to a radio episode or something and then like, you know, making my vote about this new bill. And then, you know, within the next couple of years, and now all over, certain Portland Public High Schools will be shut down for a whole year. All those students are sent to other schools, and they are like doing a tear down rebuild of these hundred plus year old buildings, all of report land, and it's Matt takes a year and a half. I just was reflecting on it, because it was like, I signed a piece of paper

along with hundreds of thousands of other people. And now things are getting remodeled. All of a sudden, like the landscape of our city is being systematically redesigned. And that was an updating of a series of financial tax laws to channel new money so that our kids don't go to school in these decrepit buildings. But somehow I might, even though I know all that, in my imagination, there's some like body of laws. For some secret book. Yeah, down in City Hall. Yeah. Or, you know, the courthouse down down that just like exists in perpetuity and that whenever

the judges who are judging cases, they just look at the law code and it tells them what to do. That's not quite actually how it works, but somehow in my mind, it's hard to shake that. Yeah, when you say, like, hey, that's against the law, that's kind of what comes to mind. It's this sacred collection that is immutable, that just like exists and we all adhere to? Yeah, totally. So that's one example. Another example is specific applications of the law.

So these laws exist, you know, like there should be stop signs, like at certain corners. But that, you know, my son and I were just writing our bikes somewhere last night, and there's this intersection in our neighborhood that doesn't have a stop sign. And it's just like so irresponsible. And so we went home and looked up like, what does it take to like petition for a stop sign in your neighborhood? That's a pretty elaborate process.

I imagine. And you need to get neighbor signatures and so on. But it was just kind of funny to think like, what we need is a specific application of the law, like traffic law, in our neighborhood, and the officials can't see it, because no, they don't live on the street, but we can see it all the time we ride by here. Like, man, there should be a stop sign here. So oftentimes law codes become inefficient, and they need new applications that require a whole process too. Or sometimes the inefficiencies are on purpose because if like you just put a stop sign up everywhere you want one.

Yeah, then suddenly you just like takes forever to get anywhere. Oh my gosh. Yes. There's division street in outer East Portland. They were driven from like Gresham into Portland, so going from East to West. Yeah. So outer suburb in the East into West Portland. And there are more stop signs and lights. On that, like four mile stretch, it just takes forever. And it's the same stretch, but you can go down 10 blocks and take Powell or go north 10

blocks and take Gleason, and you can do it in half the time. But anyway, all to say, law is a mutable, adaptable thing. And that's exactly what we're seeing in Deuteronomy. And it's an embodiment of a set of values, and a worldview, and a view of the value of people. And every culture does a little bit differently. And the way that God spoke through Moses and these ancient, legal, cultural, you know, forms results in the laws that we have here in the Torah. And this is the last big block in the section of Deuteronomy. Okay. Okay, so that was an interesting little rabbit trail contemporary.

Let's take an interesting rabbit trail, but in ancient times, about how the biblical author is an other ancient Near Eastern folks conceived of laws as an embodiment of adaptable wisdom. So the best place to go is actually not in the law collection as such, but it's one of the sermons of Moses in Deuteronomy chapter four. And this is just a great paragraph, Deuteronomy four. Deuteronomy four is actually the center of the first movement of Deuteronomy, which is chapters one to eleven.

So the center speech, and it begins now. Oh Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments that I am teaching you to do so that you may live and go in and take possession of the land that Yahweh, the Alheem of your fathers, is giving you. And statutes and judgments are two ways of just saying specific applicable law code. Yeah, well, well, talk about judgments in just a minute here, but the word statute is a hook sometimes hook up. And it's from the Hebrew verb, khakak, which means to inscribe, like to etch into stone. So it's referring to the practice of actually etching. Because that's how you would make something official. Yeah, etching, like a law onto a stone tablet.

Yeah, so that's what statue means. So Moses goes on, you shall not add to the word that I'm commanding you, nor take away from it. So you can keep the commands of Yahweh your God that I'm commanding you. That makes it sound immutable. It does, yeah, it does. Did we just say? Yeah, so this is what's fascinating about this little line. This is a great example of where Moses is adopting

kind of a standard covenant law collection formula. You know how when you like learn to write a letter as a kid? Sincerely. Sincerely. You know, and then ending with like these. To those who are concerned. Yeah, that's right. To whom and they can serve.

Yeah, totally. Yeah. Actually use that sometimes. So this line is kind of like that. Okay. And we'll actually see an example later. There's a handy commentary series called the Zonderman illustrated Bible background's commentary. The thrilling title, the IBBC, but it's color and it just gives you pictures, maps, and it's a commentary, specifically giving you ancient and Eastern cultural background, cool stuff, all through the whole Hebrew Bible. It's awesome. And they're commentary on this paragraph.

It's a formula that is common in ancient and Eastern literature. It's found essentially in Egyptian scribal guidelines and in Assyrian law collections as warnings against changing any part of the covenant treaty. Hamrabi, which we read in a minute, included the same charge in the epilogue, and he called down curses on anyone who would change his laws. The same language is also found in the prologue and epilogue of an ancient law code called the Lipit Ishtar laws. The same language is also found in the prologue and epilogue of an ancient law code called the lipid-ish tar loss. So this goes back to your kind of preloaded assumptions about what a law code is in any culture. So if you think of it the way we were describing earlier as some abstract

collection that's down in the courthouse. By abstract, you mean? Well, by abstract, I mean, it's just, it's written and collected somewhere in writing. Yeah. And when judges are doing their thing day-to-day, deciding on cases, they just go to the law collection and then do what it says. Right. So here in this context, the laws are the terms of a covenantal relationship. are the terms of a covenantal relationship. So by living in accordance to the laws, you're expressing your devotions and allegiance

to a particular Elohim that saved your people out of slavery. And he's saying, this is how you can honor me in the relationship. So to not add or take away is about saying, you can't just change the terms of our relationship and invent a new law code on your own. In a way, it's saying, you don't do what's good in your eyes. Sure. Use the language of the Eden story.

But Moses is going to here adapt law code for a new context. Yeah. So I mean, he's changing. Totally. So there's something here which is, yes, don't go and change this, but also... You're going to have to change this? Yeah, that's right. In other words, it's a good example of what the words say.

We have to distinguish between what the words say and what the words mean. So I've been married so much. Yeah, totally. Yeah. So, it's a marriage so much. Yeah, totally. What they mean is, it's not like up to you to just rewrite this covenantal relationship at any time or any way you want. So, Moses is doing it a particular way as he adapts earlier laws faithfully into a new setting. And in that sense, you're not adding to it, you are adapting.

Okay. And in that sense, you're not adding to it, you are adapting. At least I think, you know, I don't know. Because Moses is going to be re-wording laws from Exodus, for example, and adding new words to them, as he adapts them to a new setting. So, again, either he's talking about two sides of his mouth or his formula, covenantal formula, means something a little bit different than it might mean to us at first read. Yeah. Okay, down to verse 5, we're still in Deuteronomy 4. See, I have taught you statutes and judgments, as you always commanded me, that you should do in the land that you're entering to possess.

No, to see keeps drawing attention to the new setting that requires adaptation of the law. So, keep and do the laws for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the eyes of the people, excuse me, the people, like other nations. And they're going to hear all these statutes and say, wow, this great nation is so wise, such an understanding people. wise such an understanding people. Most this continues, for what great nation is there that has an Elohim so near to it. As Yahweh our Elohim is whenever we call on him, what great nation is there that has statutes and judgments as righteous as this whole Torah that I'm setting in front of you today. So he just dropped a ton of like Bible vocab here. Totally.

Because I've been geeking out about this vocab. Yes, yeah, totally. That's right. You've been sessioning wisdom and understanding, recently. Yeah, because this, I've had this core kind of question in my mind. Let me talk about it a little bit. It comes from Psalm 119, which is this reflection on this Israelite who just loves.

The laws of the Torah. The laws of the Torah, so the loves it, eats it up. And three different times, the psalmist says something to the extent of, give me understanding. One time he says, give me understanding so that I can live. And it's all in context of understanding the law. And it's so interesting to me, because, and maybe we've even talked about this on the podcast, it seems to me that if

I was an ancient Israelite reading the law, it's pretty clear, right? It's not a lot ambiguity. Yeah, sometimes, yeah, for the vast majority of it. Totally. Yeah. Is there some you're thinking of that are kind of ambiguous? Yes. Like what? Yeah, don't boil a baby goat and it's mother of it. Totally. Yeah. Is there some you're thinking of that are kind of ambiguous? Yes. Like what? Yeah. Don't boil a baby goat and it's mother's mouth. That's pretty clear. Oh, I understand. But what does it mean? Exactly. Yeah. So this is, but it's clear. It's like, okay, I understand. I gave it to you. The law says this. Yeah. That's very totally. And so I do it. Right. Now, I can't, as like a modern person, I can't read these laws and then do them.

Yeah. But this Psalmist, I keep probably could have, maybe. Maybe not all of them. It depends on when he lived. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Yeah. So, what does he mean?

Help me understand. Give me understanding. You would think someone who comes to a law code would be like, just help me fulfill my obligations to this law code. Yeah, yeah. Help me do it. Right? Mm-hmm. Give me the tenacity to do it.

Yes. Yes. Or give me the will to do it. Or give me the like mind and heart. You know, give me a shema heart. But why ask for understanding? And here we've got Moses using that word. Yeah. Along with the word a synonym a related word

But also different in in meaning as wisdom wisdom wisdom and understanding in other words People who live by these instructions become a model to others of not just wow What a lot abiding citizen, but what a wise person who like, they get it. They get it. They get what's going on. They understand the world. Yes, that's it. That's it.

Yeah. They understand the world. Yeah. So in other words, laws are conceived of here as formative. When a law forms a group of people to live and see the world a certain way, so that when you encounter all kinds of other circumstances that may be a specific law doesn't address but you will find yourself acting in certain ways because the laws have

shaped you to see the world. So this is the great. This is exactly what Moses is saying. When people see the nation of Israel, how they organize their economy, and their social structures, because that's what most of the laws have to do with, and their worship of their God, that they'll say, wow, that is a very unique way of being human community. And their God must be really wise.

That's the basic idea. We can flesh that out a little bit. Yeah, so I think to flesh it out a little bit more, you could say, all right, if they're just going to adhere to all these laws and just do them as stated, then they are going to appear to be very wise people because they're always doing things that create righteous relationships and justice. Yeah, yeah, even though we've talked about those words in the past, we maybe shouldn't take for granted that we know what they mean.

So he's using the words of these judgments, which means an enactment of justice, and he's calling the laws righteous. So we've now we're so stacked here. Wisdom and understanding, law, statute, and justice and righteousness. Okay, so let's back up. Since we are on wisdom and understanding law, statute, and justice and righteousness. Okay, so let's back up. Since we are on wisdom and understanding, we're sassing that.

So wisdom, it's the word hukma, it's about practical skill. Like know how is a great English kind of turn phrase. Yeah. So it's the word used to describe both like craftsmanship. Yeah. People who know how to work with metal and wood. Yeah, argocents. Are said to have hukma. Mm-hmm.

And then also people who know how to live and make life decisions that results in flourishing and shalom and abundance and good relationships. It's the same word. And understanding, actually, I'm curious just because you took a deep dive on understanding recently. Yeah. How what's your current, and understanding. Actually, I'm curious just because you took a deep dive on understanding recently. Yeah. What's your current, like, shorthand for, it's the word be, be-na, or tevona, nibburu.

Wait, bina's, Hebrew too. They're both in Hebrew. Sorry. Yeah, so, bean is, the root word there is between. And so I love just a picture of the in between state, being in flux, that feeling of, I have a decision to make and I don't know what is the right decision between things, a liminal state, which path leads the life, which path leads to death, and the ability to discern between. Between things. Between things. It's betweening. Yeah, yeah, that's right.

And what's so interesting to me is a reflection on the tree of knowing good and bad, to know between good and bad. That's right, yeah, there's one tree that leads to life. There's another tree that God says will lead to death. Well, it doesn't look like it leads to death. Yeah, because it looks like a tree of understanding. Yes, totally. It's a tree to know between what's good and bad. Yeah, because it looks like a tree of understanding. Yes, it's a tree to know

between what's good and bad. Yeah. That sounds great. That sounds great. I need that. Yeah. And so, they're not supposed to take it, but you kind of as you meditate on that, you realize they are supposed to get understanding, but not by taking it. Yeah. Yeah. So anyways, understanding. Yeah. What a wonderful Hebrew word. Totally. Yes. So these laws Well, Moses says keeping and doing the laws. This is your chokma You know how and this is your bina your ability to discern in the eyes of all of the peoples So the laws will produce people who understand who have

know how and discernment. Okay, so that's the point because what I was going to say was you could just do all the laws and you would appear to have understanding, right? Almost like you're just little automaton's. Yeah. Yeah. So the robots. Yes. Just program. Just follow the lock code. Follow the code. Yeah. That's right. That's right. And then if you look at that person, you'd be like, oh, well, they look like they know what they're doing. They're like, I'm just following the code. Seems like look at that person, you'd be like, oh, well, they look like they know what they're doing. They're like, I'm just following the code. Seems like there's something more going on here, which is saying, by living by these

law codes, you actually are going to become wise in understanding. Yeah. In other words, the laws give you specific applications, a wisdom and understanding. So that over the course of a life, you begin to live out the wisdom of the law in ways that the laws maybe never addressed or imagined. Yeah, and here we are at the footstep of what the sermon on the Mount in Jesus teaching is all about. Hmm, you've heard it said quote the law. That's right. And I tell you, give the wisdom and the law. And then Jesus will say like the law about don't murder is about how you regard your neighbor

and your heart or how you talk about them when they're not around. You're like, what? Well, I don't, I thought I was just not murdering. Don't kill somebody. He's like, well, yeah, but that's just the first step. Like there's wisdom and understanding involved in that law that will lead you to reevaluate

all of your relationships now you think about people. That's what I'm osu-sus saying here. 1 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 Okay, so the law is result in wisdom and understanding. He also uses two other words, which is to call them just, or judgment, and righteous. We've also made videos about these words too, but quick recap, the word judgment or justice, it's the word. That's the same word, judgment is justice. Yes.

Yeah. Okay. And in fact, I have tried over time to use the word justice more than judgment because in Protestant context, the word judgment, I don't know, makes us think specifically of an angry punishing deity. At least in my imagination to be judged. Yeah, God's judgment. Yeah. But when I just shift it to another synonym in English that is very faithful if not just as if not a little more faithful to the whole range of meaning. Yeah.

The Hebrew word, the word justice. Yeah. You can say God brings justice on someone. Right. That is a coherent English phrase. And I've come to use that instead of saying God brought judgment on. Hmm. Not to like try and defend God or something, but I think it communicates something.

It's that when God brings judgment on, he is holding someone accountable to a standard of just relationship. What we would call justice. Totally. Yeah. So here's our two words. So justice or judgment is Mishpot, is the noun, and then righteousness, the Hebrew word is Sadaqa. And Moses said that the laws are both of these. So the most convenient way I learned to kind of categorize these was from Old Testament scholar Christopher Wright in his book Old Testament Ethics for the people of God. So this is a quality of relationships.

You're talking about Setticott right now. Yeah, righteousness. Yeah, we tend to think of it as an abstract kind of standard. Right. I tend to think of it as an abstract kind of standard. Right. I grew up thinking of it as an internal morality of like whether or not I'm checking off certain boxes or not checking the wrong boxes. Yeah. My own kind of purity code in a way. Right. But did you imagine as kind of abstract, Similar to the lot of in city hall downtown, there's just some universal standard. Right. And I make a choice. It either checks that box.

Right. That was a righteous move. Or that was an unrighteous move. Yeah. So within the Hebrew Bible, a act is righteous, completely dependent or relative to its context in a relationship. So the easiest way is that Sadaqa means right relationships. So you taught me that years ago and that's really helped me.

Whenever I see the word righteous, I just think right relationship with others. Yeah, and just to clarify, I'm not just like pulling this out of thin air. If you actually study how the word is used, it is used to refer to two parties relating to each other in a way that is appropriate, right, and good for mutual honor and flourishing. But it will look different depending on who the two parties are. So for an employer to relate with righteousness towards an employee is different than a mother to a daughter is different to you and I as co-workers is different to mind me to the my neighbor next door. And so different kinds of activity can be called righteous in Hebrew Bible because there are about some sort of

faithfulness or honoring the relationship between us. And this is why, like in the book of Job, he'll talk about how his efforts to provide clothing and food for the poor people in his neighborhood. He calls it righteousness. Right. And we would call that justice. Yeah, we would call it charity. For charity.

Yeah. But in Hebrew, it justice. Yeah, we would call it charity. Or charity. Yeah. But in Hebrew, it's called acts of set a car. And so when the Bible says that God is righteous, what is that referring to? The way that he relates to his, the way he relates to creation, to humans, and then specifically to his covenant people. Because when I hear God is righteous, I think God has fully embodied this abstract set of list of things, the do's and don'ts, that like is complete versus the way he relates with creation or really relates with humanity. Yeah, totally. That's right. Yeah, so you can have a Psalm.

Here we go. Psalm 36. Your loyal love, O Yahweh, extends up to the skies. Oh, okay. Yeah. This is a hell song. Your faithfulness reaches up to the clouds. Your righteousness is like the mountains of Elohim, your justice is like the deep abyss below. Yahweh, you keep alive, human, and animal. So the stability of creation, we just referred to the three tiers of the cosmos, the sky, the land, and the waters beneath the land, and the fact that the snow globe just stays ordered and doesn't just collapse in on itself as it did in the flood is a moment-by-moment manifestation of God's loyal love of His dependability, and also of His righteousness and of His justice. Isn't that interesting?

Yeah. So here it's the image of an eternal, self-sustaining being, Elohim, who is being itself, doesn't have to sustain the life of puny little creatures, like animals and humans, but he does. Why? Because he said that he wants to be their partners. So this is a good example of God's righteousness isn't here like an abstract moral standard. It's a relational quality that would relate to the creation. Yeah, when God preserves the life, he is being righteous.

He's doing right by creation and doing right by humans by sustaining their existence. The righteousness is the stability of creation itself in this way. Yeah, or the stability of creation is a display of God's righteous character. But let's look at a human, a human example. One of the most scandalous and bizarre chapters in Genesis, chapter 38, it's about a guy, Judah,

who has some sons die, and then his daughter-in-law, named Tamar, palm tree, is her name, he lies in two and deceives her and says, hey, you know, I'm not going to leave you as a widow. I'll make sure you can marry one of my sons and then he leaves her hanging for like years. So she dresses up as a sex worker and tricks her father-in-law, disguised to have sex with her, to produce offspring that will save the future of the family. Yeah. Crazy story. Totally. And then when he hears about it, first he says, what? My daughter-in-law is pregnant by some unknown man. So he says,

let her be burned at the stake, you know? And she comes out and she's like, actually, I'm pregnant with your kiddo. And what he says to her is, this is Genesis 38, verse 26, when Judah recognized her, he said, she is more righteous than I am because I didn't give her to my son, Shailah.

So in terms of some universal standard of righteousness, I am because I didn't give her to my son, Shaila. So in terms of some universal standard of righteousness. Yeah. Yeah, she lied to him. Yeah, but he lied to her. So when he says that she's more righteous than I am righteous. Oh. So he's saying in terms of righteousness here, like we both have righteousness,

but she's more righteous than I am. In this complicated story, she found the path to create a good relationship, which is weird because it involves sex scandal. She said, she did right by her father-in-law. Her father-in-law did not do right by her. She became a widow under his care of his patriarchal household. And so in that cultural context, he owes her-

He had obligation to care for her and he hung her up to dry and left her vulnerable. So he didn't do right by her. That would be unrighteous. And maybe we would be like, yeah, that was unrighteous to do that to somebody and how he might use the word righteousness. But then what she does is, yeah, lies disguises herself, sleeps with her father in law, and that

he calls that righteousness. Meaning she did right by him. And what way did she do right by him? Oh, and here the goal is to preserve a future for the family. She did right by her and her family. But also she did right by him. She helped him fulfill his obligations. Yeah. Which by the way, was to make sure that she has a family lineage, either through one of his

sons or I guess. That's right. He himself. And specifically, she is preserving the future of his family, which is what he neglected to do. So, but actually, this is all very good at making the point of, it's relative to the relational context. This is very relative story. And that's my point here. The word righteousness is a relational word in biblical Hebrew. It's doing right by somebody, specifically, whatever that might look like,

is specific to the context of our relationship. So all the way back out, Moses says, obeying the wisdom of the laws will be Israel's righteousness before God and before their neighbor. In other words, it doesn't mean this is not an example of what Protestants classically called like. The laws are works righteousness that you earn, I said before God, and then he'll save you. Yeah. And if I just would have checked every box, I would have been okay. God would smile upon me.

It's, it's more that God has already saved these people. Yeah. If you want to show them how to live in a flourishing society, which means people doing right by each other. Right. So that the nations will look on, it's like we're all the way back to being an image of God and being a kingdom of priests. So living by the laws will show they live in right relationship to their God. Yeah. And as they do that, the nations will look on and say, well, following that God is pretty awesome because it results in the communities that looks like this.

So that's Zedaka, right relationship. And relationships are difficult and complicated. And so you can need a lot of wisdom and understanding. Yes. I mean, a lot to be able to side between so many variables and ways that relationships can go wrong. That's it. Yep. So Moses called the laws righteousness, and he also called them examples of mishpot or justice or in our English translations judgment. And so a judgment or a mishpot will actually hear, this is Christopher Wright,

again, his Old Testament ethics for the people of God. I'll just quote him. He says, Mishpot refers to what needs to be done in a given situation. If people and circumstances are to be restored in conformity to Tzeticah, Mishpot is a set of actions. It's something that you do. Mm. Taking upon oneself the cause of those who are vulnerable in their own defense while Tzettaka refers to the state of affairs, the situation you aim to achieve

by means of Mishpot. And it's focused on the vulnerable? Um, most often. I suppose it makes sense. I mean, if there's two people in a relationship, whatever relationship is, and it goes south, whoever has the most power in that relationship is likely going to be the one who gets the better end of the deal.

Oh, sure. Yeah. And then someone's going to be left in the lurk. And so if there is no set of car, there's gonna be someone who has become the vulnerable in that situation. And for there to be restoration towards set of ca, it means you would need to help the person who got the sword in this day.

Yeah, yeah. So a great example of all of these ideas brought together in a poem, not a lock-ode, is in Psalm 72, which is a prayer, somehow related to Solomon, whether it's by him or for him, that's a whole grab-a-hole. But it's a prayer to God on behalf of the lineage of kings from the line of David. And so the poem begins with a request of the poet to God saying, Oh God, give the king your Mishpat and give your Tzadaka to the son of the king so that he can judge your people with Tzadaka

and judge the afflicted ones with Mishpat. So notice even our English word judge sounds kind of funny there. If you're like, why would you judge afflicted vulnerable people? But it means to bring justice on their behalf. Yeah, when you bring justice, it can go either way. If you're bringing justice to someone who's the victim, then you're creating restoration for them. That's right. You bring justice to a perpetrator. Yeah, and you are Judging them. Yeah, yeah, what we would call judging them. Yeah. Again. This is why I think to bring justice on

Yeah, is a better English phrase that kind of captures the whole meaning Yeah, so the poet continues is interesting let the mountains bring Shalom to the people and Also the hills in Setaka. Yeah, that's weird. What does that mean? So if you have a king who is doing righteousness and justice for all the people, especially the vulnerable, creation itself will respond by bringing Shalom and Harmony to the people. There's so much stability in your environment. This is all rooted in a worldview

sustained by the Garden of Eden stories, which is when you have wise human rulers, co-rulers, male and female, ruling the world together in unity and wisdom, creation itself will respond with abundance in the form of the garden. That's the setup. And so here it's about a royal image of God, bringing justice with wisdom and righteousness, and the mountains and hills will respond. And then the last line of opening paragraph,

may he vindicate or bring Mishpoth for the afflicted ones of the people? Findicate. So that's the word Mishpoth in like a verb. Perib, prepare. Shafat. Shafat. So again, it sounds weird. May he judge the afflicted ones of the people, but it's judge on their behalf.

And that's in parallelism with may he save the children of the poor and crush the oppressor. This is classic biblical justice and righteousness language. So a king's being in right relationship to his people means to specifically identify who's most vulnerable and then bring about acts of Mishpat that will result in Settaka for the community, in which case you get a garden growing and giving shalom to everybody. And there you go. This is the biblical portrait of law as wisdom.

Okay, so practically, I mean, ancient Israelite and there isn't a right relationship between me and someone. Let's say we decide, let's consult the law code and we do and it's not clear the right answer. Practically, what do we know? What happens? Like how do they then try to find the wisdom

underneath the lock code? And what sense does this cash out? Yeah, so here we're back to Deuteronomy chapter one. Moses reflects back on a moment that we have a story about an Exodus where his father-in-law Jethro said, like, hey man, you can't lead these people alone and bring just decisions for everybody's situation. You need a team. Yeah. So Moses recalls that and says in Deuteronomy 1 verse 12, he's telling the people like,

how am I alone able to carry the load in the burden of you and all of your disputes? So he says that here's what I told the people. I said, choose wise and discerning. It's the same two Hebrew words as wisdom and understanding. Choose wise and discerning and knowledgeable men from each from your tribes, and I will appoint them as heads for you people. And you answered me and said, hmm, this is a good idea. And so I took heads of your tribes and appointed them.

What's the experienced word? Oh, it's the word Yadda, experiential knowledge. Okay. Yeah. So the wisdom, know how discernment, knowing between one thing and another. In Yadda. And is that connected to the dot? Yes. Yeah, it's the verb of the Hebrew noun, dot, verse 16.

Then I gave a charge to these judges, and it's the Hebrew word, mishpot, but as referring to a group of people, okay, show off team. The mishpotters. The mishpotters. Yeah, totally. Judges. This is actually what the book of judges in Old Testament.

This is the word. Oh, okay. Yeah. So I gave a charge to your judges saying, listen to the cases between a fellow countryman and bring righteous justice between a man and his neighbor. Bring Mishpot Siddhaka. Bring a Mishpot that is Siddhaka. Don't show partiality. Listen to the unimportant one and the important person alike.

Don't fear humans because Mishpot belongs to God. In any case, that's too hard for you. Just bring it to me and I'll take it. Yeah, okay. There is lock-code. There is a lock-code. But then there to me and I'll take it. Yeah. Okay. There is lock code There's a lot good. But then there's a setup of judges, mishpotters. Yeah. Who when it's not clear you go to them Yeah, and they discern they have wisdom and understanding what he doesn't say is they can look it up Well, yeah, what he says is if it's somebody who has wisdom and discernment and experience,

they'll know and where did they get that? Yeah, oh, they must they must live in the fear of the Lord Fear the Lord is Justice and righteousness comes from a kind of person it comes from the wise Hmm. I mean, that's the concept here But the concept is also this Torah will make you wife. Yeah, exactly. And, well, the Torah is a source of wisdom if you meditate on it. The laws are an embodiment of applications of wisdom.

And if you read and do a Psalm 119 on them, you will find yourself becoming one of the people that Moses would have said, hey, you, find yourself becoming one of the people that Moses would have said, Hey, you, you lead a group of 50 people over here because I see that you have know how and discernment and experience. So that makes a lot of sense. But just to push back just to make sure really clear that you're not just reading this into this. Because all the way back to where we started, Moses said, I think this was in four, do you know what I mean? Four, yeah. Keep and do the laws for that is your wisdom and understanding. So what he doesn't say is meditate on the laws.

That's what you just said. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, that's true. He says, keep and do them. Yeah, yeah. They say one thing yeah. Right? Yes, that's true. He says, keep and do them. Yeah, no. They say one thing, you do that thing. Do it.

Don't murder. Don't murder. Do not murder. No, don't boil the goat and it's milk. The mother's milk. The mother's milk. All right. I won't do that thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I love what you're saying about becoming someone who meditates on the law finds a wisdom underneath and yes Jesus did that and we already pointed out that the psalmist cries out for understanding and But how do you see that here? Oh got it. Okay, so you're right. I am drawing here on a meta theme about the Hebrew Bible Yes, it starts in the garden. There was one command. One command, a dodi of the tree of knowing good and bad. Right, but that command embodied a lot more than just the wording of the command. It was about trust. That God can discern between life and death and in a way that I can't right now. Release Adam and Eve can't in their moral infancy so to speak.

So there's a lot more going on in that command than just, you know, forbidden fruit. It's about trust of someone's wisdom. What I'm saying is adherence to the laws of the Torah is wisdom. Laws are wisdom. Law codes are wisdom literature in the biblical imagination. So that's why I'm seeing it here in Deuteronomy 4, it's because he's calling law observance wisdom, but we'll see it appear, for example, later on in Deuteronomy, there's a law about how Israel is to appoint their kings. So, dude, round me 17, verse 14, When you enter the land, the Lord God is giving you, and you possess it, and you live in it, and you all say, you know, we want a king to reign over us, like all the nations that

are around us. Then do this. Set a king over you, whom Yahweh, your Elohim chooses. It needs to be in this relied, not non this relied. He shouldn't multiply horses for himself. That is tanks, ancient tanks. This isn't like don't have like a, and that's like horse farm. Yeah, no, this is about the ride.

No, this is about building your military. Yeah, okay. Yeah, he should keep a real small military. Definitely don't go back to Egypt to get a bunch of horses. Don't get those Egyptian tanks. Yeah. Don't multiply wives that is through political alliances because his heart, his covenant loyalty will be given away. Definitely he should not try and amass a lot of money. So just real quick,

we're actually these are building a big army, building political alliances and whatever religious alliances need to go along with that and building a big economic storehouse. More power. Totally. I mean, this is really, this is like what every, this is the impulse. Yeah. Of everyone in a position. Totally. To take care of ourselves. Totally. It's like a group of people. Or group people that they're responsible for. Let's, yeah. Let's make sure we have security. Security. Well, networked. funded, right? Abundance. Yeah. This is what is good. Surely this is what is good.

Totally seems like the good path. Yeah, what a beautiful tree. It's good to eat. It's good for gaining wisdom. Yeah. This is what King should do. Israelite kings are to do the opposite of that, which will leave them in a vulnerable insecure state, less networked, and without

abundant financial resources. Build that kind of kingdom. So this is a great example of how, in this cycle of Israel's story, we're back at the two trees of Eden. When it comes about, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, here's how he's to rule. He shall write out for himself a copy of the Torah, on a scroll in the presence of the priests, and it will be with him, and he shall read it aloud all the days of his life. Why? So that he will learn to fear Yahweh, his Elohim, by keeping all of the words of the Torah, and so that his

heart won't be lifted up above his brothers, and that he won't turn aside from the commandment to the right or left so that his sons may live long in the land. So here's another example. So the king is to be the kind of person who is, this is Psalm 119 person right here. You write out your own personal copy as like a form of meditating on it. And then obey it, do the things. It's a word for keeping doing. Just keep it mean just obey it.

Mm-hmm, yeah, yeah. Okay. And it results in somebody who fears Elohim. That is, well, this whole rabbit hole, do itself. But yeah, you have a healthy respect and even some good fear of the consequences of not doing what this Elohim asked me to do. You know, I've been reflecting on that phrase a little bit

and what's interesting is, yeah, there is an intensity to the phrase, the fear of Yahweh. There is a fear, but what's interesting is that the fear is, if you go back to the story of Garden Eden, the fear would be taking the knowledge of good and bad on my own terms instead of going to Yahweh. So the fear would actually bring me to Yahweh. Yeah, that's right, totally. So the fear of Yahweh is actually an impulse to draw near to him and to actually be afraid of making a decision without that close relationship.

Yeah, where that would introduce a rift into the relationship. Oh, that's good, John. I like that. I've never heard you quite put it that way. No,ift into the relationship. Oh, that's good, John. I like that. I've never heard you quite put it that way. No, there's the fear of Yahweh. No, no, because it's actually... It's actually an impulse to want to be near to Yahweh. Exactly, which is, in this case,

to sit in his presence and read and meditate on his wisdom. Which is intense. Which, you know. It's intense, that's right. And I think fear actually kind of gets to that But it's like the fear of like if I'm not in this intense relationship things will go Orally. And in the bigger picture that fear of the Lord

Results in humility says in verse 20 so it's hard won't be lifted up But then also it results in all of these really non-intuitive decisions for the king. It keeps us impulse for power and check. Totally. Yeah, so for the king of Israel to do right, to do righteousness before Yahweh, will look like these strange behaviors, you know, when they're having like the ancient version of like the G20. All right, and like the king of of like the G20. All right. And like the King of Moab, in the King of Ammon.

And the King of Ammon's like, have my daughter. He's gonna be like, you know, thank you. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, no thank you. And he's like, oh, you're welcome. Here, let me show you my new fleet of Egyptian stallions, you know, in the chariots they pull. And you know, this relates like,

let me show you this really cool story in the Torah. But I've been thinking about lately and that it teaches me wisdom in the fear of the Lord. You know, that's like that's the deal here. It's a contrast kingdom. And if the law produces a king like this, how much more so, you know, with the laws produced of people who all the way back to do around before where we started This is all a stage play for the nations What's what most of says the keeping the laws is your wisdom and understanding in the eyes of all the people here and Faithfulness to the laws of the Torah is Wisdom it's understanding it's's righteousness, it's justice.

And I think ultimately, I mean, I'll bring it back to this section, this opening section. It's love. It's how you love Yahweh. And it's how you love your neighbor because it's living in ways that lead to life, to eat in life. Now, if I was a king, I guess I am the king of my own little domain, my calendar, whatever. But yeah, I want to, okay, I want to do this. I want to write out the Torah and I'm going to meditate on it. There is a difference between an ancient Israelite king. It says and then do it.

For the most part, I think you can probably just do it. Right? And me, in my setting, and it's like, you know, whatever, don't boil the goat, and you're kind of like, okay, or, you know, make this sacrifice in this way. It's kind of like, well, I don't do that. So as I read, I mean, we could just probably go into the lock-hodes and just start reading them. Yeah, and we will in the next couple of conversations. Okay, we will. Yeah, we will. Okay, yeah. So yeah, I guess what we're saying is we're offering a blueprint of how this all works and then we'll design drive a car in the next

couple episodes. But that's the, that's the big picture here. And I just, for me, it's just, this has actually become one of what we call one of the pillars of the paradigm that we use as we research and write and create content for the Bible project. It's one of the pillars is that the Bible is wisdom literature. And this is what we're talking about. Not just the law code, but even the narratives, everything. Yeah, because remember, this is a narrative, Even though it's a law code embedded in a bunch of speeches of Moses, that all happens within a narrative context. And these texts are designed to produce people who live with wisdom and justice and righteousness

in the fear of the Lord, resulting in the blessings of Eden in my life and in the life of those around me. Yeah, that's the goal. That's why Psalm 119, I mean just pick any of the statements and they begin to make a lot more sense. How blessed are those whose way is blameless, those who walk in the Torah of Yahweh. Walking in the Torah. Walking in the Torah. That is, walk the way that you've been instructed to walk. How blessed are those who keep his testimonies? There's another vocab word. Yeah, totally.

Yeah. So every law bears witness. This is courtroom, witness language. Bears witness to the character and wisdom of Yahweh. So for seven, I will give thanks to you with an upright heart when I learn your righteous judgments. There's two words right there. Yeah.

Ooh, one of my favorite ones is Psalm 119, verse 18, open up my eyes so that I can see wonders from your Torah. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Yeah. That has been my experience with Torah over the course of a couple of decades of trying to understand it. Wonders. That's similar to the line I love in this Psalm.

Hmm. I think it's 31. Um, Give me understanding so that I might live. Yeah, open my eyes to see the wonders. Yeah, there are wonders within it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's good. Love that. Yeah. So, verse 34, give me understanding. That is, that is the discernment between two things, word, so that I may keep your Torah. I need discernment to be able to keep the laws of the Torah. That's counterintuitive, because you would think, this is what I was kind of getting at. Yeah, yeah. It's like just do it. Yeah. No, you're gonna actually need wisdom to know how to keep the laws of the Torah. Yeah, here's a

student of the Torah, who I'm sure has it on lock. I mean, memorized, right? Yeah. And they're like, I need understanding to be able to keep it. What are they getting at? Yeah, totally. This is Jesus. Imagine a young Jesus meditating on one of the ten commandments, do not murder.

And he's praying this prayer. Give me understanding. Give me understanding, Father. And then what comes out is that long meditation in the Servenon the Mount. That the wisdom, the divine wisdom there is about anger and how you talk about people behind their back and, right? That's where Jesus' mind goes when he hears the command, don't murder. Yeah. And I think it's right. It's because he clearly spent time seeking understanding of that law.

There you go. Now, there's a mystery at the heart of this for me, right, which is, God gives a command and then we're supposed to obey it. But then by meditating on the command, we then get more wisdom to learn how to not just obey it, but to be wise understanding people. But that can easily go astray. I can sit and meditate a lot and bring my own understanding. Oh, sure. Yeah. yeah. And then twist it. And then turn it into something that was good, make it bad. Yeah.

You can imagine not a young Jesus, but a young someone else who's like sitting, meditating on a law and then being like, I know how to use this law for my own good. So I can have power over people. Yeah, sure. I'm going to use this law for my own good. So I can have power over people. Yeah, sure. I'm going to twist this. And so what's going to keep you from being that person? Yeah, totally. And being a meditator that twists.

And then it brings you back to this idea of, well, fear the Lord, which means what? Well, do what he says. And this is kind of like, there's this like. It's interesting. How does, you know, I remember that little detail for the king, he is to make his own personal meditation copy of the Torah in the presence of the Lovitical priests.

Is he doing it in community? Yeah, yeah, with guides. Mm, with guides. Bible guides. Mm. And yeah, so this connects another pillar of our approach to the Bible, which is the Bible's communal literature. And you know, Moses is talking to the congregation of the sons of Israel, all of these users are plural, you know? So yeah, of course, each one of us will have blind spots

as we seek the wisdom of the laws of the Torah. But that's why we turn to Bible background's commentary. That's reading the Bible in community with these scholars who are helping give me insight and then we do it with our friends and local community of Jesus followers and trusted spirit will guide us. I think that's how it works. At least that is how it's worked through history and that's how it works as described. And right, Moses needed a crew of wise ones to guide the people with, so on. So that's too simple of an answer

to a very important nuanced question, but it's at least the beginning of a response. So there you go, the laws as wisdom literature. It's just good to session that, you know, once a year or once every couple of years. It has a good reminder. Especially before we do what we're going to do next, which is dive in to just straight up meditation on ancient Israelite laws, which we'll do in the next step of our conversation.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Bible Project Podcast. Next week, we'll continue talking about the law, looking at the laws outlined in Deuteronomy and jumping forward in the biblical story to how the apostles derived wisdom for followers of Jesus from these ancient laws. The law as stated in Deuteronomy 15 is stating an ideal, like a true North, but of course there's all of these other mitigating circumstances or things that will require wisdom and discernment, and the law as word it doesn't address those.

So in other words, Paul's mind is on these themes of God's Eden provision. He would meditate on Deuturion 15 and say, if Israel was obedient to the laws, they get Eden blessing, so that there would be no poor among them. And even though that's not the world we live in now, we could approximate it, but we could begin to taste it. Today's episode was produced by Cooper Peltz with the Associate Producer Lindsey Ponder, edited by Dan Gummel, Tyler Bailey, and Frank Garza, and Wu provided the annotations for our annotated podcast in our app. Bible Project is a crowdfunded nonprofit

and we exist to experience the Bible as a unified story that leads to Jesus. And everything we make, everything is free because it's already been paid for by the generous support of thousands of people just like you. Thank you so much for being a part of this with us. Hi, this is Dolly, and I am from the state of Tennessee. Hi, this is Mateusz Nis, and I am from Brazil.

My favorite thing about the Bible project are how creative we the Bible stories are explained and animated to even appeal to the younger audience. My favorite thing about Bible project is that easy way that they explain very complex things. And of course, they're very well done design of the videos. We believe the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus. We are a ground-founded project by people like me.

Find free videos, study notes, podcast classes, and more at Bibleproject.com. you