BibleProject - What’s the Point of Deuteronomy? – Deuteronomy E1

Episode Date: October 3, 2022

Have you ever wondered where the earliest sermons in the Bible are found? Moses’ final speech to Israel, found in Deuteronomy, is the first time we see what is essentially a modern sermon—a long speech meant to communicate God’s truth. Just as Israel is about to enter the promised land, Moses reminds them that, just like their ancestors, they have the choice to live by their own wisdom or to follow Yahweh’s life-giving commands. Join Tim and Jon as they dive into the final scroll of the Torah and explore the choice before Israel—and the choice we face today too.View full show notes from this episode →Timestamps Part one (00:00-20:00)Part two (20:00-40:38)Part three (40:38-1:02:14)Referenced ResourcesIntroduction to the Old Testament as Scripture, Brevard S. ChildsInterested 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"Praise through the Valley" by Tae the Producer"Happy Scene" by Sam StewartProduced by Cooper Peltz with Associate Producer Lindsey Ponder. Edited by Dan Gummel, Tyler Bailey, and Frank Garza. Annotations for our annotated podcast in our app by MacKenzie Buxman.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.

Welcome to the Skrull of Deuteronomy. This is a big day for us here at the podcast, because we've been working our way through the Torah all year and today we get to open up Final Scroll. Now one thing that's been hard for people who read through the Torah is that it has so many ancient laws. And so I guess it's best to inform you now that Deuteronomy, the Final Scroll, has a lot more laws. In fact, Deuteronomy is the Greek name for the book and it literally means second law.

But as you read many of the laws, you're going to be like, I think I heard that before. And that's because you did. Dozens of the laws in Deuteronomy are nearly verbatim to laws that you came across in numbers, Leviticus, or in Exodus. And so it just kind of begs the question, what's that about? A few are totally identical. But often there's little adaptations or changes. It's an explanation. So this renewed giving of a Torah is both recalling the wisdom of the earlier commands, but applying them in new ways for a new generation and a new situation.

That's the dynamic. You see the laws so far have been given to the first generation of Israel, who's left Egypt and is now wandering through the wilderness. Moses is realizing that those laws need to be looked at again a fresh for a new generation. The generation who's going to go into the promised land. Would start to set up a pattern that like, ah, I bet every generation is going to start to need its own renewed explanation of the Torah for its own time and place.

Every generation needs to look at the wisdom of the law with fresh eyes. That includes every generation in the Bible, but that also includes us. The Torah ends by telling you the reader that you thought you were just reading a story about Israelites. If you're a human and you're probably going to die, you are the audience of the Torah.

You are the wilderness generation. Today Tim McE and I crack open, the Deuteronomy scroll. And the first theme we'll explore are the repeated words, listen and love. I'm John Collins. You're listening to Bible Project Podcast. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. [♪ Music playing in background, music playing in background as we have been for many hours, many, many episodes into the

Torah. But today is a significant turning point in our journey through the Torah. Why is that, John? Because, well, we're beginning a new scroll. Yeah. Scrolls do the anatomy. And it's the last scroll in the Torah. Yes, it is.

You know, in Judaism, you go and you learn Torah or you do Torah instruction, right? Like that's kind of a part of the week. In which case, you are just reading these books, right? Or does the word begin to mean more? Hmm. Well, it depends. Different traditions do it differently.

But often at the youngest ages, there's called day school or Hebrew day school, where you're learning kind of the main stories of the Torah. And then it's when you get into middle school years that you began to learn the bodies of reflection and commentary of later Jewish tradition back on the laws of the Torah, which is called Mishnah and Talmud, and it's like progressively deeper sections of the pool. So the Torah is already the deep end of the pool. Yeah, right.

And it's like, you know, it's what you start with when you're young. So anyway, that's true. So Deuteronomy is a very unique book. Yeah, in the Torah. Yes. We've been reading a story from the beginning of the creation of the cosmos. But then that goes pretty quickly until you get to this character, Abraham. And then the story slows down essentially to then focus on

Abraham's family and then the story slows down even more when it gets to Abraham's family in slavery in Egypt and From the scroll of Exodus to where we just ended in numbers Really just takes place in the course of what like 42 years. Yep, exactly. It covers a span of a generation that is about 40 years. Yeah. So the tour begins and it spans like many, many, many generations. Yeah, thousands of years. From Adam and Eve to many nations. Yeah.

And then you get Genesis, which is four generations. Mm-hmm, many nations. Yeah. And then you get Genesis, which is four generations. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And then you get Exodus through Numbers, which is kind of like two generations. Two generations, but spanning 40 years. Yeah, that's right. So there's been some pace to the story. And so I guess all to say, Deuteronomy.

Yeah. It all takes place in real time. It's a speech. Yeah, it slows way down. The story slows way down. It's so slow that many people don't even see it anymore. They can't find the story. There is a narrative skeleton to the book of Deuteronomy. In other words, moments where the narrator's voice comes and talks about Moses in the third person as if he's not the one talking. And actually, this is exactly where I was going to start our conversation. It is a story, but the narrator doesn't speak up except at the first paragraph. Very seldom throughout the body of the scroll, and then the whole last chapter is the narrator. So the narrative of Deuteronomy is just a small skeleton on which is hung long speeches that are all set in the framework

of within the narrative a day. So yeah, it's really it's the polar opposite of Genesis, which is 50 chapters non- modern Bible spans, you know, thousands of years and many generations. And on the opposite end of the Torah is Dutra, I mean, takes place in a day. And not even all of a day, because you know, it presented as one set of speeches and you can read the whole thing aloud

and I think about three hours, and maybe four, to hang hang off fast you read. But it's like part of a day, you know. Yeah. Put Moses on 1.5 speed and you can get knocked out in two and a half. Yeah, totally. And in other important ways, Deuteronomy and Genesis connect to each other. So in terms of time pace, the polar opposites, whereas the central

three scrolls, Exodus, Leviticus numbers, are all a unified narrative from the journey from Egypt to Sinai and from Sinai to the border of the Promised Land in the span of 40 years. But in other ways, Genesis and Deuteronomy match each other as well. And you've talked a little bit about that over the course of these conversations. So I'm imagining we'll see that at play a little bit. Yeah, essentially in Genesis, it was the story from Adam to Abraham, as far as the lost Eden promise

and blessing the story of Abraham of recapturing that and making the Eden blessing available to the nations, but through one family. And then you get four generations of that family. And it ends with the third generation Jacob overlooking the fourth generation, his twelve sons. And anticipating all that's going to happen in a poem, and a blessing that he gives to his twelve sons. And he says, oh, my sons gather to me and let me tell you what will happen at the end of days.

And then you get the poem, Genesis 49, then it forecasts much of what's going to happen in the rest of the Torah and prophets. And so similarly, here's Moses, the last of the Exodus generation, except for two guys who were righteous, Joshua and Caleb, and he's been told he's about to die. And so he gives these long speeches, but they culminates in the final section of Deuteronomy, 32 and 33, where he speaks not one poem like Jacob, but two, and he says, gather around, oh, tribes, and let me tell you what will happen at the end of days. It's like exactly the same phrase. And he speaks one of blessing over the twelve tribes, just like Jacob did.

That's Deuteronomy 33. But in Deuteronomy 32, he forecasts the whole story you're about to read in Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, and the future that is described in the prophets, that is Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Twelve. And Moses is portrayed as the archetypal prophet who warned Israel to be faithful to the covenant, what would happen if they don't, the exile that will follow, the atonement, the God will provide to make a restoration and a new creation out the other side. That's what Moses' final words are about, Deuteronomy 32.

And so, just like the Genesis ends with Jacob and the 12 sons outside the Promised Land, waiting to go about speaking these long poems of blessing and future forecasting, and so Deuteronomy ends the same way. With a generation outside the land waiting to go in, Moses speaking blessings, but also forecasting, of what's to come. So those are really important, kind of outer frames for the Torah.

And that's just the end. Like all those parallels with Jacob, just happened in the last few chapters of Deuteronomy. Right, So what we're going to do is obviously go back to the beginning. Go through the whole book section by section. But Genesis and Deuteronomy are very much designed as matching outer frames of the Torah. It's kind of like I'm trying to think of a movie that begins and ends with very similar moments. But because you've gone through the journey of the movie or of the story, you don't experience it the same way, even though it's very much the same. That's pretty common in the hero's journey, kind of motif. The hero comes back

to the ordinary world and re-enters it, but changed. Yeah. Yeah. Going back to the Shire. That's right. Yeah. Frodo goes back. That's it. Yep. So every scroll has been broken up into movements, and we've been reading scrolls in these

movements, these large sections of stories that work as a whole. And there's often three, Genesis had four, but the rest of the scrolls have had three. And that design can help you know where you are, also helps you be able to compare stories. So what we've been doing was we've been tracing one pattern through one movement. Yes. So walk me through briefly the movements in Deuteronomy and the patterns will chase. Yeah, Deuteronomy actually falls fairly neatly into three big sections. If you open up most commentaries, they'll quibble about kind of minor or interior level boundaries, but the book has three big parts and almost everybody can see them with to

read it a few times. It begins with a series of speeches from Moses, where Moses will recount the past of the story of Israel from the Exodus up till the present. Essentially, it's sermons, the first block of Deuteronomy, read-like condensed sermons from a pastor. Yeah, the best of Moses. Yeah, totally. And it's essentially Moses trying to say, here's where we came from, here's who Yahweh has been to us. We entered into a covenant with him at Mount Sinai. Be loyal to Yahweh.

Like don't worship other gods, don't do what your ancestors kept doing. Just be faithful and things will go great. And that block of speeches makes up what we would call chapters 1 through 11, from beginning 11 to the end of 11. So here are the chapter breaks, actually coincide with the movement break. So all of 11 is the last unit of the last bit. So 1 through 11, there's speeches from Moses and they read like straight up like sermons. Cool. Chapter 12, through halfway through chapter 26,

epivots, and it still moses a speaking voice. Uh-huh. But it starts talking about the laws that Israel is to live by when they go into the land. So when you cross this river, here's how you are to live and organize yourself. And we've already gotten laws about how to live in the land. Yes, totally. So the first paragraph of Deuteronomy is going to set up all of Deuteronomy as a commentary on the law, on the laws that have been given. Okay. So we'll come back and read that

first paragraph, but it's essentially just from an observational standpoint, chapter 12 through halfway through 26 is lots more laws, like a couple hundred more. Just lots. And they're fascinating. We'll talk about them when we talk about this, but many of them are adaptations of earlier laws that you came across earlier in the Torah. But they've been adapted to describe not the law as you should follow earlier in the Torah. But they've been adapted to describe not the law as you should follow it in the wilderness

as a migrant camp, but the law adapted for living subtle life in the land. It's really interesting. Okay. So that's the laws. It goes 12 through 26. And then halfway through 26, 26 versus 16, on through the end of this scroll,

we go back into Moses in sermon mode. And again, he's calling Israel, warning them of the curses and the self-destruction, the create, if they aren't faithful to Yahweh, he promises them of the blessings of Eden that will come if they do. He has a note where he's pretty skeptical, and he says, I know know you're not going to do it. And it's going to go terrible for you, but Yahweh won't give up on you, even if you're exiled far from the land. And then he sinks those palms at the end and then you get the little narrative at the end of the book where he dies. Okay, so three movements. The first movement is sermons, I suppose you could say, of Moses. Yeah. Second movement is Moses giving commentary on all the laws that we've learned.

Third movement is then more sermons by Moses that ends with some songs and then a narrative about his death. Yeah. Now, this is always hard to do on the podcast. It's helpful if you have a charter or whiteboard, but the first movement has three parts. The last movement has three parts. And the way each of those movements relate to each other is in a mirror symmetry, where we could call it a chiasm.

So I won't try and describe it, but if you pay attention to patterns of unique repeated words, the opening chapters movement one through 11 and the last movement, 26 to 34, have really unique hyperlinking matches where the opening and the closing movements are like mirrors, exact mirrors of each other. It's cool literary artistry,

but it invites the reader to compare these different sections that are separated by a huge block of hundreds of laws in the middle of the scroll. But the beginning of the scroll and the ending of scroll have been crafted, really linked together. And this is meditation literature. Once you see that, then you're called to begin joining and comparing sections of the book that are far away from each other on the scroll, but that have been designed with an eye towards each other. And as you do so, you get deeper insight

into Moses' message on both sides of the scroll. There's three big movements. And those of you who are going through the reading journey and the app that we'll create, where we focus on a theme, a repeated keyword or idea through a literary movement, here are the themes that we're going to focus on for Deuteronomy. So for chapters 1 through 11, we're going to be focusing on two key words that are linked together, which are the words listen and the words love. The Moses's sermons in 1 through 11 are recalling how Yahweh showed love to our ancestors and us throughout all of our history, through bringing us out of slavery and protecting us through the wilderness, and also how Yahweh listened to our cry when we cried out to Him in Egyptian slavery. So Yahweh listened and loved. And so Israel is to respond by listening to Yahweh and showing

loyal love and return back to Him. So what's cool is of all the five scrolls of the Torah, the words listen and the words love repeat with the highest density in the section of the Deuteronomy. It's pretty cool. And that's a pattern. Yeah, it's a pattern in that it's a key repeated word that weaves this whole section of opening speeches together. Mm-hmm. Okay. For themes is one type of pattern, which is just a key idea that's repeated that links a bunch of literary units together. The middle of the book, chapters 12 through part 26, is all the laws, and so we're going to focus on the theme of the law, the law, fairly intuitive. And then the last section, half of 26 on to 34,

the word blessing and curse appears in these chapters with higher density. The only other place that compares is back in the Genesis scroll. So it's another way that Genesis and Deuteronomy are like bookends around the Torah. The themes of blessing and curse are talked about the most in Genesis and then in this glass movement of Deuteronomy. So this is an amazing scroll. I know the middle part is often hard to read from modern readers, but if you really get what these first and third movements are in the scroll, I think it can really provide a little more motivation and curiosity and excitement for waiting through the laws that are in the middle.

Now, the name Deuteronomy, that's a Greek name. Yes. Give it to us from the Septuagint probably. Yeah. It's been a while since I looked this up. But the names that we have for the biblical scrolls for many of them, not all, but many of them come from the Greek translation tradition. So come from, yeah, the Greek translation tradition. So, Deuteronomy is a Greek compound word.

So, as two Greek words mush together, Deuteronus, which is second, and then Namas, which is the word for law, which is a Greek translation of the Hebrew word Torah. Namas is a Greek translation of Torah. Namas is the standard old Greek translation of Torah. So the second Torah. Yeah, a second Torah.

And that idea is taking its cue from the first paragraph of the book. And so, nothing for it. Let's dive in and read the first paragraph of the book in a whole bunch of cool things will unfold from this section. Okay, Deuteronomy 1, verse 1, these are the words which Moses spoke to all Israel across the Jordan in the wilderness. This first line, these are the words are the source of the name of the school in Jewish tradition, which is devareem, which is the Hebrew word for words. Plurareem. Yeah, so the singular is devar, which is word, and then the plural is devareem. So these are the words.

Now, this is the narrator speaking. So notice this book begins with a narrator's painting a narrative context, and Moses is a character within the narrative world. And there's actually a little detail here. I don't know if you'll notice it. That tells you something about the time, or at least the location of the narrator. These are the words which Moses spoke to all Israel across the Jordan in the wilderness, in, and then you get a bunch of geographical markers of what wilderness it was. In the Aravah,

opposite sooth between Peron and Toful and Levant and Khatsirot and Dizahav. You know. I don't know. Yeah. These are cities on the east side of the Jordan? Yeah, their names either near towns or for different regions, but for over on the east side of the Jordan. Yeah. Okay. Regions or landmarks?

Yes. Okay. Now, notice, this is all being spoken of by the narrator in past tense. Yep, these are the words which Moses spoke. And look at, the first description is across the Jordan. Mm. Across the Jordan.

So this is being compiled and this intro is being written on the other side of the Jordan. Yeah, in other words, when the number scroll ended, it situated the story. These are the commandments that the Lord gave to Moses on the plains of Moab by the Jordan River. And so the narrator locates everything from the perspective of being on the east side of the Jordan River. Yeah. Deuteronomy opens with the voice of somebody living on the west side of the river. Yeah.

In other words, we end numbers, the cameras in the east side of the Jordan in the camp with Israel ready to go. But then when we get to the Deuteronomy scroll, suddenly the camera is now on the other side, someone kind of saying, hey, I'm going to tell you what Moses said back then. Yeah, across the Jordan. But he's sitting, this scribe is sitting on the other side of the Jordan, compiling it. Yeah, actually, thank you. So yeah, the camera in numbers ends looking at Moses and the people, but with the west side of the river in the background.

Right. Like the camera's pointed west. That's the future. Yeah, yeah, totally. Deuteronomy opens and all of a sudden it's the opposite where it's depicting Moses and the people, but the camera's located on the west side of the river and it's sort of like you have to zoom in.

Right. Because the viewer and the speaker are living in the land. So that's an important little detail that'll pay dividends as we go on. But the narrator is different than the voice of Moses. Okay. Okay, so that's verse one. Let's keep going, the opening paragraph. The narrator continues. It is 11 days journey from

horab, by the way of Mount Sitir to Kadesh, Barnaya. That's a nerdy little detail. Yeah. This is a great Bible trivia, you know? All those words feel like I kind of should know what, where they are, what they are. Like I've read those before. Yeah. Or some variation of them. Yeah. So, Horeb, there are two names from Mount Sinai. Okay. In the Torah, one of them is Sinai. And that word is a word play off of the name of the species of bush that Moses saw when he... The Sinai bush. Yeah, the Sinabush. That's a brainbush. And then Chorev is the Hebrew word for like, dry, and this hill, really tall hill, or really small mountain, is in the middle of a wilderness where it's really dry.

And then Mount Sayir is essentially the route that's described as the Israelites taking the book of Numbers. And then Kaddash Barnea is the entry point into the land on the west side of the river from where the spies were sent out. From Ramosus sent out the spies back in Numbers 13. Okay. So it should have taken 11 days. Oh, is this where you get that?

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Verse two where you get that? Yeah, okay. Yeah. Verse 2 of chapter 1 of Deuteronomy, it's 11 days from Hora, by the way, Mount Sayer to Kadesh Barnaa. Verse 3, In the 40th year, on the first day of the 11th month,

Moses spoke to the children of Israel all that the Lord commanded him to give them. So you're supposed to see that contrast there. What should have been 11? Yeah. Yeah, it took 40, 40 years, not days, years. So just mentioning the place where the spies were sent from, and then using the 40th year and the next sentence, there's a whole story, you know, just buried underneath that there.

So the narrative setting, you've got Moses, he's a cross Jordan from the speaker, and they are sitting there in the 40th year, should take an 11 days, but the 40th year, and he's going to give them speeches. Now, verse 4, this was after Moses had defeated Sikhon, King of the Amorites, who lived in Cheshbon, and Og, the King of Bashan, who lived in Ashta-Aroad and Eddra'i. So these are two giant kings. Moses led the Israelites to the east side of the Jordan. These two kings didn't take kindly to that, and they attacked the Israelites, and Moses led the campaign to defeat them.

Oh, and this is funny. I don't think we mentioned this. So Sikhan, king of the Amorites, who lived in Khashban. So Sikhan is the consonants that make up the core consonants of the word snake backwards. And Cheshban is the word to conspire, it's a scheme. It's a word for scheme, to come up with a scheme. So he defeated a guy whose name is snake spelled backwards, who was king over the land of tetra scheming. And Og, who's the king of Bushan, which is the Hebrew spelling, spelling and Hebrew letters of the Arabic word for snake.

Oh, well. Yeah, totally. So biblical authors love this stuff. They'll often do hyperlinking to earlier biblical stories, but through word plays. And these are fun examples of that and They're giants. They were giant warrior kings. And where did we learn they were giants in the story and numbers back in numbers and here and do the run me. Yeah. Oh, okay. So Across the Jordan in the land of Moab Moses undertook to

Expound this Torah Moses undertook to expound this Torah, saying, and then the speech begins. Yep, not totally. So this is crucial. He expounds the Torah. That's the new American standard. This is a good moment to compare translations to Dr. Onami 1 verse 5. NASB has to expound. Do you use that word expound? No. Yeah, me neither. ESV has to explain this Torah. And King James has declare, NRSV has expound, NIV has expound.

It's interesting. NIV usually uses more normal English words, but in this case, it's the yes v. Explain. It's the Hebrew word beer, the verb beer, which is essentially when you are picking up an idea or usually a written text, something that already exists and you're not remaking it, you are just, well, explaining, actually, explained is a great.

Ver. Yeah. There's another Hebrew word that can be defined as explain to like make someone understand. Oh, that's right. To bring understanding. To bring understanding. Yeah. It seems like a similar idea here.

Mm-hmm. I was just looking at the etymology of expound. Mm-hmm. And it's, yeah, to comment on or to explain something to reveal the meaning from within it. Yeah, so coming to some sort of text or a story or something, and then to say, I'm gonna help you understand what this means.

Yeah, it's interesting. It's very similar to this Hebrew word beehive. This word is actually very rare. It only appears three times in the whole Hebrew Bible. This is one of them. Another one is that the bookend of Deuteronomy, in Deuteronomy 27, verse 8. And Moses talks about how when the Israelites go into the land, they are to pick some really big rocks and cover them with plaster and then to etch into the plaster of those stones, all the words of this Torah,

and as they do so, they are too bearer to make them really clear. So here it's not explaining something, it's writing something in a really neat, clear way so that you can see very clearly what it says. So that's interesting. And that actually corresponds to the other place this word is used, which is in a little book of Habakkuk, one of the twelve prophets, where he's called to write down something on tablets, and he is to make it clear on the tablets. So in these two other cases, it's about having neat handwriting.

But here at the opening of Deuteronomy, you get this other nuance of the word, which is not about him writing, but rather it's about him picking up something that's already written, and he is too bad that is make it clear. Yeah, that's interesting. So our word expound doesn't do that double duty, which can also mean just really good handwriting But I get it. I get it how that. Okay, so there's a word by air Mm-hmm And it's used as a way to make something kind of crystal clear. Yeah, maybe it was a fuzzy idea these laws

I'm gonna like really bring it into sharp focus for you and that's the same word that can be used I'm just really legible handwriting. Yeah, totally. Sorry, I don't know why this is taking me so long, but I'm sitting here talking to somebody who's previous, like, career life before we did this project was making explainer videos. Yes.

So this is an important word for you in the Bible. I was an expounder. You were a Bayer or... I am really fascinated with this word. You were a Bayer or. I am really fascinated with this word. This is a Hebrew word to make something clear. Yeah. Clear handwriting or clear conceptual explanation. You're saying it only shows up three times.

Three times? Two times it actually refers to handwriting in context. In this case, it's not referring to something Moses is writing, it's something that's already been written. It's almost like if this was the word legible, but it was used as a way to make an idea legible, which is more of a metaphor. Yes, in a way, that's kind of what's going on here. Okay. Yeah, to explain something is a metaphorical meaning of a verb that also means to make something legible. Yeah, that's good. It's exactly what's going on here. So this is actually a really important dynamic for what's happening in Deuteronomy.

So all does name and experience that many people have. Well, first of all, if anybody's reading through the Bible and makes it to Deuteronomy, that itself is a accomplishment, that's awesome. You might have zoned out in a few chapters it's finally. It's okay. Yeah. And it'll probably happen to do the run. But when you get to that middle block of laws in Deuteronomy 12 through 26, it's reading ancient Near Eastern laws, given to people assuming a life setting of tribal agricultural communities, like farming communities.

And you're like, okay, what does this have to do with my life? But as you read many of the laws, you're gonna be like, I think I heard that before. And that's because you did. Dozens of the laws in Deuteronomy are nearly verbatim to laws that you came across in numbers, in Leviticus, or in Exodus. And so it just kind of begs the question

like, what's that about? Why are there laws being repeated? But if you compare them, sometimes they are, like very nearly identical, a few are totally identical, but often there's little adaptations or changes. And this little narrative intro paragraph is giving you a rationale for why you're going to come

across a second giving of the Torah, which is why the name dude Ronmi is kind of on point because that's what it is. And so verse five here is giving you an explanation of why you're going to meet a bunch of laws again, some of them new, but some of them for the second time. It's an explanation. And what way is it an explanation if he's just saying the log in? You're saying sometimes it's just verbatim.

Like here's the log in. Mm-hmm, yeah, but then sometimes there's tweaks. And so how biblical literature works is when there's repetition, you are meant to go back and look at or call up into your mind if you've memorized it all, which I haven't. But which I, well, anyway, the original Bible nerds who God used by his spirit to frame put all this stuff together, definitely had it all memorized.

To call up into your mind, the earlier passage being referred to and compare them and meditate on the similarities and the differences and what you'll find is as often very meaningful insight given to you and the differences. And what you'll find is as often, very meaningful, insight, given to you by the differences. So that's one element of what's happening here. But then there's another one that is actually being alluded to. It's the story underneath why the 11 days became 40 years. Remember, there's a little story underneath that that tells you why Moses would

need to give a more clear explanation of the Torah in this moment in the story. And so, essentially, the most simple way to say it is the audience of all of the previous hundreds of laws that you read through in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. All the people who heard those laws are dead. And the people sitting in front of Moses were like little kids or teenagers when all those laws were given. And so this is for a new generation, you get a renewed giving of the Torah. That's essentially what's happening here. Now, that may not sound very exciting to describe on the surface, but it's a crucially important

dynamic that's happening here in Deuteronomy. This is a new Torah for a new generation. It starts to set up a pattern that like, ah, I bet every generation is going to start to need its own renewed explanation of the Torah for its own time and place. Because that's certainly what's happening here. Well, interesting. Tell me more about that. Well, it's just here, the generation that heard the laws of the Torah and then didn't live by them

died in exile outside of the land. But the children of that generation have another chance. They stand at the border of the land yet again. And so the laws of the Torah are renewed for them. Sometimes verbatim, but often with little clarification, and framed here in Deuteronomy with a bunch of sermons and motivational speeches to kind of rev up the team before they, you know, go out onto the field, so to speak. In a way, it's like the locker room speech before the game.

Yeah, it's the Brave Heart speech. Totally. And even though like the team last year, they had some of the same players, but some different players, like the coach gave, you know, a similar speech a year ago, but it's a different team sitting here with a new moment, even though it's the same field and the same locker room. That's kind of the dynamic is like that.

Okay. Yeah, and we talked about years ago, when we talked about the theme of the law, you really made a point of showing that these ancient laws were given in a cultural moment, where they were situated. And the ones who were framing the Torah later, the narrator here, as you're describing him or describes, who are putting the Torah into its final shape, they are not in that same cultural moment. But they still care about what those specific laws that were given to Israel, in some way they still are instruction for them. But then you've been pointing out this pattern in the Torah itself, where there's stories of like updates

where like maybe there's a lack of completion, there isn't a law for a specific thing that's happening, when to celebrate Passover if you're unclean or what happens to your land if you have no sons. And so then Moses goes and asks God to get an update to the law. And so you've been showing that pattern. And here you're showing something that seems similar, which is, here's a new generation who is now stepping into a new moment. Yeah.

And their place and time is different than those who first received the covenant commands, the ancient law code. And so Moses renews it for them by explaining the significance of the original and the form of giving them a new version of it essentially. Yeah, that's totally right. And in these opening chapters, which I will really kind of dive into in the next conversation, chapters one through 11, he's retelling the story of how we came out of slavery,

how we are at Mount Sinai, and God gave commands. But your fathers rebelled against the commands they all died off. And here we are, in heriters of those commands, but what they mean for us, now living in a situation where about to cross the river and experience a kind of life that your father's never experienced. So this renewed giving of the Torah is both recalling the wisdom of the earlier commands,

but applying them in new ways for a new generation and a new situation. That's the dynamic. And it's just going to continue a pattern where Moses is going to be presented here as the archetypal prophet, especially, because the prophet is the one who mediates the word of God to God's people. Yeah. And so what Moses is doing here is going to set the pattern for all of the prophetic leaders. You're going to keep meeting throughout the next section of the Tenoch, which is the prophets, because the Torah is going to come to a close here with the Deuteronomy. And then Joshua judges Samuel King's, and then Isaiah Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Twelve.

They're all new prophets. They're all called the prophets. And what they'll be is they'll tell the story of how Israel did in the land from the perspective of the prophets, and then you'll get the three plus twelve writing prophets who look back on the history that was. Okay, a couple questions. The prophets aren't doing what Moses did here, which is saying, hey, guys, we're in a new setting. We've got a king now or a new setting, Babylon took over.

Let me expand on the laws and give them to you a fresh. Are you saying they're doing something similar though? They do something similar. Yeah, they are like Moses calling Israel to be faithful to the covenant made long ago. And so this is what when the prophet starts showing up, this is what Joshua does, who's kind of a kind of a king and a prophet figure. But then once you get into the judges, Samuel, and kings, you get this group of people, and they're called the prophets.

And what they always talk about is how Israel is doing in terms of their loyalty to this covenant agreement. And then warning them of either covenant curse or promising covenant blessing if they respond positively or negatively. And so they're like little Moseses. Yeah, that's a hard word to say in plural. And so the role of Moses in Deuteronomy becomes a template for the kind of figure that Israel is going to need in every generation to keep their faith white-hot, to keep their devotion,

right? Like with renewed intensity in every generation You're gonna need a calling back to the covenant to the laws and you're gonna need a Moses figure And that's the role that he's playing for this generation here, which means are renewed giving up the Torah Now the difference you're drawing attention to is you don't like in the book of Samuel When Samuel is coming up to King Saul or King David, he doesn't give a long new set of laws. What he calls those guys to is faithfulness to the laws given through Moses. Right.

So Moses is, like, he's the template, the prophet, paroxylons, but he also kind of, you know, everybody else stands on his shoulders, so to speak. Yeah, because it sounded like you were maybe trying to say something a little bit more, which is that the law needs to be tweaked. Oh. Or... Got it. Well, but what you're going to watch happen in these laws is sometimes, and this is where, again, I'm just previewing conversations we're going to have. But we're going to watch laws that were given to the wilderness generation get adapted and updated into their life in the land, and that is a real dynamic at work here within the Torah.

Do the later prophets do that in any sense? Sometimes in very interesting ways, yeah. It's so interesting. But the basic point is that that's the idea. Moses is expounding or explaining the Torah. Every generation needs someone to come and say, this is what God has handed us, and here how it's relevant for our moment.

Yeah, that's right. That's the prophet. So the role of the prophets and Moses sets the mold. So what's really fascinating is Moses is going to begin his speech now. We read the introduction. He's going to begin his speeches that go all the way through the end of chapter 11. And what he's constantly going to do is blur the lines of who he's talking to. It's super fascinating. So you could say it this way. Once you get into the speeches, it's hard to tell if the people Moses is talking to is the dead people of the Exodus

generation, the second generation of the children, right, that it seems like that's who he is talking to on the narrative. And then sometimes, it feels like he's speaking to you, the reader, like sitting way in the future. And it's really intentional. This is really intentional. That Moses' re-giving or his renewed giving Vittora is setting a pattern that every generation going forward is going to have to pay attention to. So I'll just show you some examples. So this is Deuteronomy chapter one for six. And so for six says, the Lord our God spoke to us

at Mount Horeb. You're like, well, I guess, sort of. Moses was there. Yeah, Moses was there. The kids might have been there as kids. Yeah, exactly. Some of them were kids. So, okay, all right. I guess that kind of works. So he tells the story of, you know, what happened when Israel got too big and Moses couldn't lead the people by himself. And so, you know, they appointed judges and so on. And then he'll go on, verse 19,

he'll say, then we set out from Horeb through the wilderness. And you're like, well, okay, yeah. But then he'll say, verse 22, then all of you approached me and said, let's send out spies into the land. You're like, wait a minute, that's like this is the generation after that. Exactly. Yeah, maybe it's some of them were kids, but definitely it wasn't any of these little kids coming up to Moses. Right. Like the people that Moses sent into the land and spies and all that, they're not alive anymore. Yeah. So in other words, he talks to the second generation as if they are fully complicit and implicated in the choices of their ancestors. Not fascinating. Yeah. And he does it right through the section. He's going to go talk through all the rebellion narratives that are in numbers that were done

by the people's parents. And he's going to, whenever he retails a story, he's going to be speaking to the children who are there and just say, you did this. And you did this, you said that, you did this, right through. So in these speeches, he holds the present generation as participants in the actions of their ancestors. You just gotta pause and think about that. I think, wow, that's a different way of thinking

about responsibility. Yeah. It's sure different than how I have been shaped to think about responsibility growing up in 21st century America. Yeah, we have a very clear delineation between like you and your decisions and me and my decisions. Yeah. Like I am my own person and even if I came from your lineage like I get a clean slate like I am my own person.

Yeah, and this representative view that, you are a new generation, but who you are in the circumstances in which you live are not a blank slate. They are very much shaped by the generation that came before you such that your own life decisions are going to either be just the total repetition, or if you don't make some serious investments in your own character and life directions, your life is more than likely going to just replay the life story of your ancestors. And even when you think you're not, you probably are. It's so different.

It offends all my like sensibilities growing up here on the West Coast, you know, which is like right your own story. Pioneers. Totally, yeah, exactly, yep. So that's a dynamic happening here. Here's another way that this comes out in the Deuteronomy Scroll.

This is in Deuteronomy chapter five. Moses summoned all of Israel and said to them, here, O Israel, not their word Shema, which is one of the key words we'll be tracing in the app reading experience here. Here, O Israel, the statutes, the ordinances I'm speaking today in your ears that you learn them and observe them. Yahweh, our God God made a covenant with us at Mount Horeb. And again, we're at that dynamic of like, oh, well, yeah, you know, I was a kid. So I'm putting myself in the imagination of us as the people, us as the

narrative audience sitting in front of Moses. Right. And then look at Moses next. He says, Yahweh didn't make that covenant with our fathers, but with us who are all alive here today. Yahweh spoke to you all face to face at the mountain. Is he kind of getting a little dementia here? You could kind of say like, he's like rhetoric. He could explain this as rhetoric, you know? I think there's something a little more going on though.

So the covenant that Yahweh made with Israel, like that wasn't just a thing for our ancestors, that covenant is with us alive here today. So just within the narrative world, the thing that happened for the people in front of Moses, for their parents, Moses is saying that moment was actually you. You were there. And I think there's a dynamic here that's actually happening now for the reader. Because if you were reader hear that,

you're like, well, wait a minute. Well, I wasn't that Mount Sinai, but here I am reading this ancient Israelite text. And I think what he's saying is for me too. I see. Like I wasn't there. You Israelite, many, many generations removed from this,

reading this in a completely new era. Yeah. If this should land in the same way of like, oh, yeah, I wasn't at Mount Sinai, but I guess I was. Yeah, because I was there in the form of my ancestors. Yeah. Yeah, it has really fascinating. This is a view of collective

identity that's very foreign. Or maybe it's not so foreign. Let's ponder that for a minute. Is it foreign? I mean, I guess in the modern world where we live, the closest thing would be the kind of collective identities that we think of in terms of national identity. Yeah, sure. In American culture, depending on how invested a person is in the story of the country where you live, retelling the foundation story of what a bunch of founders did and the founding documents is usually brought up not just out of historical interest, but it's brought up because it's somehow I believe that implicates me as a carrier today of those values.

And so you could say, you know, the original audience of the American Constitution wasn't just our ancestors. It's us like we are the inheritors of that to live out its vision today. I think that's something similar to what's going on here. Yeah. So here's a towering figure in Hebrew Bible studies, Brevard Childs, a blessed memory. He is an introduction to Old Testament and scripture, names this dynamic this way. He says, Deuteronomy serves as a commentary on how future generations are to approach the law and how it functions as a guide in establishing its role in the Hebrew canon by hearing means the collection of scripture. The book of Deuteronomy instructs future Israel on the manner in which past tradition is properly made alive

in fresh commitment to the God of the covenant. Israel's covenant with God is not tied to past history, but is still offered to all of the people. In the act of commitment, Israel of every age partakes in the events of Mount Sinai. And so also the promise of God to his people still lies in the future as well. So I have at least I've come up with a little drawing that I like to make, do Ron and me, which is a picture of scroll with me. Okay. And then in the scroll, you have like draw a little picture in the scroll on it is Moses standing there and he's addressing the second generation.

And what what do we know about the second generation? Well, they're outside the land. Why are they outside the land? Well, because their parents rebelled. So they suffered 40 years of the curse of wandering in exile and the wilderness. But they're just outside the land waiting to go in to the Eden land, where if they obey the Torah, God will give them the blessings of Eden again. So all that is the narrative within Deuteronomy. But remember, the book began with a little narrative intro, and the voice of the narrator was somebody actually in the land. And then on the other side of this, the narrator has a long section of speaking in the last chapter of the book, which is about Moses died and he didn't get to go into the land. And nobody knows where Moses is buried even to this day.

That's what it says in the last chapter. That's definitely not like Joshua writing that, you know. And then it says, no prophet like Moses has ever come again. Moses, who did the Exodus and the signs of wonders. There's been many prophets at this point. There's been lots of opportunities to find Moses grave. Yeah, this is far in the future. And we're recalling that Moses had died outside the land.

That's right. And so the person who's speaking to us at the beginning in the end of Deuteronomy is not Moses, it's the voice of the prophets, that is the authors of the scriptural collection. And the audience of the scroll of Deuteronomy is not the second generation on the east side of the Jordan way to go in. The audience of the Deuteronomy scroll are future generations. You're differentiating between the speeches, which the audience was the second generation there. Correct, yeah.

But then the compilation of speeches by the later prophets into a scroll, the audience of that scroll is now completely different. It's a new audience. Yes. But that new audience is invited to see themselves as replaying and experiencing Moses' speech as if it's them. And so when Moses is talking about the ancestors at Sinai or you, the second generation sitting

here at Sinai, saying, listen, everybody was at Mount Sinai. We were all at Mount Sinai. Even if you weren't, you were. And you today. So this is a big theme in Deuteronomy. Moses will be saying, listen, whatever happened in the past is not just in the past, the past is today. Every day is today, because today is the day you have to choose between good and evil, between life and death, between blessing and curse. And so the audience of the Torah is a future generation that's still waiting for the Eden blessing to blossom in the land. They're waiting for new creation. They're waiting for the new Moses to come. And so the Book of Deuronomy is designed so that the reader sees themself as sitting

on the other side of the Jordan as the audience of Moses' speech, waiting to cross into the new Eden land. And inviting them to be the wilderness generation. of Moses' speech, waiting to cross into the new Eden land. And... Spiting them to be the wilderness generation. Yeah, to see themselves as the generation in the wilderness, hearing Moses again today, again for the first time. Not as some just fun exercise, but to internalize a reality, which is they are a wilderness generation

in their own sense. Yes. which is they are a wilderness generation in their own sets. Yes. And remember, this is the bookend of a literary work that began with the story of Eden, which says that all humanity is exiled from Eden, and we're awaiting someone who can open up the way back into Eden. So to be sitting here reading the Torah is addressed to people living outside of Eden, waiting the time or way that Yahweh will send a new one like Moses, who will confront the evil one, who will provide atonement, who will restore and open up the way back

into the life and the blessing of Eden. And Deuteronomy is designed in a way that you, the reader, no matter where you live or when, if you're a part of this story and this heritage and people, you were the people being referred to in the book of Deuteronomy. Isn't that remarkable? It's a book about a narrative, about a group of people being addressed by a guy. But the way the book works is so that you, the reader, see yourself as the one sitting there being talked to by that guy.

It's like the movie, the never-ending story. Oh, I remember the movie. I don't remember the- Oh, oh, I see. Yeah. Isn't the plot where he starts reading a book? That's right, yes. And then suddenly he's like the character and the, I mean, really becomes the character in the book starts reading a book? That's right, yes. And then suddenly he's like the character in the, I mean, really becomes the character in the book

in a real way. That's right, same with the Princess bride. Remember the Princess bride? Yeah, I feel like that's a little different in that the book just comes to life as they're telling it. Like, he doesn't enter the story, right? Oh, you're right. In the never-ending story.

Oh, that's right, he's reading it. And then by, when you get, the story happens to him, yeah. Then that's right, he gets sucked into the story. when you get the story happens to him. Yeah, then that's right He gets sucked into the story. Yeah as he comes the end of the story. Well, oh, that's totally what it's like Yeah, that's a great parallel. Yeah, so the Torah ends By telling you the reader that you thought you were just reading a story about Israelites if you're a human and

You have a mortal body and you're probably going to die, you are the audience of the Torah. You are the wilderness generation. You are the wilderness generation. Yeah. Yeah. And the more you like read these stories and then come back, take a breath and look around you, the more your setting should transform so that you realize, like, oh, yeah, I am at Sinai. I am at the gate of Eden. I am at this moment to choose between life and death. At the tree. Yeah. Yeah. I have moments of choice before the tree of knowing good and bad, or before Mount Sinai, where Yahweh is saying, don't give your allegiance to things of your own creation or of your people's creation.

Choose life, choose wisdom, follow my commands. Like every one of us is to see ourselves at that moment every day. That's the function of the book of Deuteronomy. It's really profound if you ponder it. So that's the frame for all of the laws and the sermons to come in Deuteronomy. It's really profound if you ponder it. So that's the frame for all of the laws and the sermons to come in Deuteronomy. And to me, that makes it both gives me a little more energy to come at these laws to be like, all right, I want to learn wisdom here because I want to

choose life. And that's the adventure that this kind of opening section of Deuteronomy sets out before us. Thanks for listening to this episode of Bible Project Podcast. Next week, we're taking a closer look at the theme that we're tracking through this movement, the theme of listening and loving. So Israel's Covenant loyalty and love to Yahweh is also described with this word to describe the marriage union of husband and wife in the Eden story. I think what the analogy is saying essentially is that just as God provided a covenant partner

for man and woman that needn so that they can be fruitful and multiply and have long life in the land, and then together they are to become God's partners. Here Israel is depicted as the covenant partner of Yahweh that is too love and cling to their spouse. It's made a sin for covenant loyalty and love. Today's episode was produced by Cooper Peltz with the associate producer Lindsay Ponder edited by Dan Gummol, Tyler Bailey, Frank Garza. Mackenzie Buxman provided the annotations

for our annotated podcast in a row. Bible project is a crowdfunded nonprofit, and we exist to experience the Bible as a unified story that leads to Jesus. Everything we make is free because it's already been paid for by thousands of people just like you. So thank you so much for being a part of this with us. Hi, this is Daniel, and I'm from Selanna, Texas.

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