Deuteronomy 12:29-32

“When the Lord your God has cut off before you the nations whom you are about to enter to dispossess them, when you have dispossessed them and live in their land, take care that you are not ensnared into imitating them, after they have been destroyed before you: do not inquire concerning their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations worship their gods? I also want to do the same.’¹ You must not do the same for the Lord your God, because every abhorrent thing that the Lord hates they have done for their gods.² They would even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods.³ You must diligently observe everything that I command you;⁴ do not add to it or take anything from it.”

1 The command not to follow foreign gods is really being driven home

2 Fantastic language: “every abhorrent thing that the Lord hates.” It is not just “who” their worship is directed towards that is in error, but also its very form.

3 Child sacrifice is pointed out very clearly as wrong, and the other nations are accused of practicing it.

4 And, again, follow the commandments.

Take-home: The Israelites are reminded that foreign forms of worship are abhorrent to God by their nature, not just in their lives of worship.

Deuteronomy 12:13-28

“Yet whenever you desire you may slaughter and eat meat within any of your towns, according to the blessing that the Lord your God has given you; the unclean and the clean may eat of it, as they would of gazelle or deer.¹ The blood, however, you must not eat; you shall pour it out on the ground like water.² Nor may you eat within your towns the tithe of your grain, your wine, or your oil, the firstlings of your herds or your flocks, any of your votive gifts that you vow, your freewill-offerings, or your donations;³ these you shall eat in the presence of the Lord your God at the place that the Lord your God will choose, you together with your son and your daughter, your male and female slaves, and the Levites resident in your towns, rejoicing in the presence of the Lordyour God in all your undertakings. Take care that you do not neglect the Levite as long as you live in your land.”⁴

“When the Lord your God enlarges your territory, as he has promised you, and you say, ‘I am going to eat some meat’, because you wish to eat meat, you may eat meat whenever you have the desire.⁵ If the place where the Lord your God will choose to put his name is too far from you,⁶ and you slaughter as I have commanded you any of your herd or flock that the Lord has given you, then you may eat within your towns whenever you desire. Indeed, just as gazelle or deer is eaten, so you may eat it; the unclean and the clean alike may eat it. Only be sure that you do not eat the blood; for the blood is the life, and you shall not eat the life with the meat. Do not eat it; you shall pour it out on the ground like water.⁷ Do not eat it, so that all may go well with you and your children after you, because you do what is right in the sight of the Lord. But the sacred donations that are due from you, and your votive gifts, you shall bring to the place that the Lord will choose. You shall present your burnt-offerings, both the meat and the blood, on the altar of the Lord your God; the blood of your other sacrifices shall be poured out beside the altar of the Lord your God, but the meat you may eat.”

“Be careful to obey all these words that I command you today,⁸ so that it may go well with you and with your children after you for ever,⁹ because you will be doing what is good and right in the sight of the Lord your God.”

1 Making clear that all that came before was a religious prescription, not a rule about all killing/eating of meat.

2 Like in Leviticus, the connection between life and the blood leads to a taboo against eating blood

3 Tithes, however, are clearly religious and must be given accordingly

4 Another one of those side-notes for the Levites.

5 Making the point clear again.

6 So does that mean that if the temple is close enough, you should still do all your slaughter there if possible?

7 Verses 20-24 basically seem to just repeat 15-16

8 Obedience to the commandments commanded again

9 As usual, obedience comes with rewards

Take-home: A clarification is made to earlier laws, which gave the impression that all slaughter may have to be done by priests. The exclusivity of worship to God is maintained by keeping all sacrifice at the one approved temple, but other meat may be killed and eaten at will.

Deuteronomy 12:1-12

“These are the statutes and ordinances that you must diligently observe in the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors,¹ has given you to occupy all the days that you live on the earth.”

“You must demolish completely all the places where the nations whom you are about to dispossess served their gods,² on the mountain heights, on the hills, and under every leafy tree. Break down their altars, smash their pillars, burn their sacred poles with fire, and hew down the idols of their gods, and thus blot out their name from their places.³ You shall not worship the Lord your God in such ways.⁴ But you shall seek the place that the Lord your God will choose out of all your tribes as his habitation to put his name there.⁵ You shall go there,bringing there your burnt-offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and your donations, your votive gifts, your freewill-offerings, and the firstlings of your herds and flocks. And you shall eat there in the presence of the Lord your God, you and your households together, rejoicing in all the undertakings in which the Lord your God has blessed you.”⁶

“You shall not act as we are acting here today, all of us according to our own desires,⁷ for you have not yet come into the rest and the possession that the Lord your God is giving you. When you cross over the Jordan and live in the land that the Lord your God is allotting to you, and when he gives you rest from your enemies⁸ all around so that you live in safety, then you shall bring everything that I command you to the place that the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling for his name:⁹ your burnt-offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and your donations, and all your choice votive gifts that you vow to the Lord. And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God,¹⁰ you together with your sons and your daughters, your male and female slaves, and the Levites who reside in your towns (since they have no allotment or inheritance with you).”¹¹

“Take care that you do not offer your burnt-offerings at any place you happen to see. But only at the place that the Lord will choose in one of your tribes¹²—there you shall offer your burnt-offerings and there you shall do everything I command you.”¹³

1 The narrative turns back to layin gout the commandments that Israel has been urged to follow

2 Related to the 1^st and 2^nd commandments out of the 10

3 Not subtley stated.

4 Making clear that it is not just the foreign gods, but the methods of worship that are wrong.

5 Interesting – emphasizing that there is only one God by ensuring that his worship is in only one place?

6 Connecting back to God's provision, the joyfulness of the meal should not be forgotten.

7 Quite strong – in what way are the all acting according to their own desires? In sacrifices?

8 The “rest” from enemies, if it ever happened, ended up being very short-lived.

9 The specificity of the place emphasized again.

10 Rejoicing emphasized again, in the midst of all these regulations.

11 Side-note on the lack of Levitical inheritance again. Why?

12 Yet again the specificity of place.

13 Likely trying to maintain a clear line between YHWH -worship and other gods

Take-home: The specificity of worshipping God alone is emphasized by allowing only one place for worship.

Deuteronomy 11:1-32

“You shall love the Lord your God, therefore, and keep his charge, his decrees,¹ his ordinances, and his commandments always.² Remember today that it was not your children (who have not known or seen the discipline of the Lord your God),³ but it is you who must acknowledge his greatness, his mighty hand and his outstretched arm, his signs and his deeds that he did in Egypt to Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and to all his land; what he did to the Egyptian army, to their horses and chariots, how he made the water of the Red Sea flow over them as they pursued you,⁴ so that the Lord has destroyed them to this day; what he did to you in the wilderness, until you came to this place; and what he did to Dathan and Abiram, sons of Eliab son of Reuben, how in the midst of all Israel the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, along with their households, their tents, and every living being in their company;for it is your own eyes that have seen every great deed that the Lord did.”

“Keep, then, this entire commandment that I am commanding you today,⁵ so that you may have strength to go in and occupy the land that you are crossing over to occupy, and so that you may live long in the land that the Lord swore to your ancestors to give to them and their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey.⁶ For the land that you are about to enter to occupy is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sow your seed and irrigate by foot like a vegetable garden. But the land that you are crossing over to occupy is a land of hills and valleys, watered by rain from the sky, a land that the Lord your God looks after.⁷ The eyes of the Lord your God are always on it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.”

“If you will only heed his every commandment that I am commanding you today⁸—loving the Lord your God, and serving him with all your heart and with all your soul— then he will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, and you will gather in your grain, your wine, and your oil; and he will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and you will eat your fill.⁹ Take care, or you will be seduced into turning away, serving other gods and worshipping them,¹⁰ for then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you and he will shut up the heavens, so that there will be no rain and the land will yield no fruit;¹¹ then you will perish quickly from the good land that the Lord is giving you.”

“You shall put these words of mine in your heart and soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and fix them as an emblem on your forehead. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise.Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, so that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land that the Lord swore to your ancestors to give them, as long as the heavens are above the earth.”¹²

“If you will diligently observe this entire commandment that I am commanding you,¹³ loving the Lord your God,¹⁴ walking in all his ways, and holding fast to him, then the Lord will drive out all these nations before you, and you will dispossess nations larger and mightier than yourselves.¹⁵ Every place on which you set foot shall be yours; your territory shall extend from the wilderness to the Lebanon and from the River, the river Euphrates, to the Western Sea. No one will be able to stand against you;¹⁶ the Lord your God will put the fear and dread of you on all the land on which you set foot, as he promised you.”

“See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today; and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn from the way that I am commanding you today, to follow other gods that you have not known.”¹⁷

“When the Lord your God has brought you into the land that you are entering to occupy, you shall set the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal.¹⁸ As you know, they are beyond the Jordan, some distance to the west, in the land of the Canaanites who live in the Arabah, opposite Gilgal, beside the oak of Moreh.”

“When you cross the Jordan to go in to occupy the land that the Lordyour God is giving you, and when you occupy it and live in it, you must diligently observe all the statutes and ordinances that I am setting before you today.”¹⁹

1 “charge” and “decrees” added here to ordinance and commandments

2 Again coming back to keeping God's commandments and connecting that to loving God

3 But is that saying that their children won't see God's discipline too? Doesn't 8:20, 7:26, and many other passages support the idea that they will also be disciplined?

4 I'm a little confused – wasn't it their parents' generation, and not them, who took part in all these things and have died as a result? Or did these people perhaps observe them as children?

5 Again, keep the commandment.

6 Keeping the commandment brings strength, long life, and land.

7 Rain-fed land is more clearly “God-provided” than irrigated land in Moses's estimation.

8 Again, heed his commandment.

9 God will bless all your crops and give provision if you obey.

10 The counter to following God is not simply not following God, but following other gods.

11 God's punishment is emphasized.

12 Mostly repeats the beautiful imagery of 6:6-9

13 Again, follow his commandments!

14 Following God's commandments is connected to loving God for the 4^th time since the end of chapter 10.

15 God will win your wars for you if you follow in his ways

16 God is stronger than human power.

17 Again, the opposite of following God's commandments is following other gods.

18 Strange command. My Study Bible says it will be explained more in Chapter 27

19 At least the 30^th repetition of the order to follow God's commands since Chapter 4

Take-home: Following God's commands will bring blessings of land, fertility, prosperity, and defeat of enemies, but following other gods will bring an end to prosperity and a loss of the land.

Deuteronomy 10:12-22

“So now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you? Only to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the Lord your God ¹and his decrees that I am commanding² you today, for your own well-being. Although heaven and the heaven of heavens belong to the Lord your God, the earth with all that is in it, yet the Lord set his heart in love on your ancestors alone and chose you, their descendants after them, out of all the peoples, as it is today.³ Circumcise, then, the foreskin of your heart, and do not be stubborn any longer.⁴ For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them with food and clothing.⁵ You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.⁶ You shall fear the Lord your God;⁷ him alone you shall worship; to him you shall hold fast, and by his name you shall swear.⁸ He is your praise; he is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome things that your own eyes have seen.⁹ Your ancestors went down to Egypt seventy persons; and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars in heaven.”¹⁰

1 Fascinating group of verbs: fear God, walk in his ways, love God, serve God, and keep his commandments. In some ways strict, but sounds more like a living relationship than legalistic strictness.

2 A double emphasis on the keeping of the commandments.

3 The enormity of the universe is used to emphasize the specialness of God's choice of His people

4 Fantastic metaphorical use of circumcision.

5 Beautiful picture of God's love and justice: impartial, fair to the weak, provide for the stranger. These are the groups who could easily be left out of society, so caring for them now is incredibly important.

6 Love for strangers is reemphasized, and light/empathy brought to that by recalling their own experience.

7 The focus is brought back again to devotion to God, which is not really differentiated from loving/serving others.

8 Exclusive, without doubt

9 The praise/devotion is not empty, but is based on what God has done for them as a people.

10 Fertility and numbers as a people are a demonstration of His care.

Take-home: Israel is called again to love, serve, and obey God, because he has called them first and provided incredibly for them.

Deuteronomy 9:1-10:11

“Hear, O Israel! You are about to cross the Jordan today¹, to go in and dispossess nations larger and mightier than you, great cities, fortified to the heavens, a strong and tall people, the offspring of the Anakim, whom you know. You have heard it said of them, ‘Who can stand up to the Anakim?’² Know then today that the Lord your God is the one who crosses over before you as a devouring fire; he will defeat them and subdue them before you,³ so that you may dispossess and destroy them quickly, as the Lord has promised you.”

“When the Lord your God thrusts them out before you, do not say to yourself, ‘It is because of my righteousness that the Lord has brought me in to occupy this land’; it is rather because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is dispossessing them before you. It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you are going in to occupy their land;⁴ but because of the wickedness of those nations that the Lord your God is dispossessing them before you, in order to fulfil the promise that the Lord made on oath to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.”

“Know, then, that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to occupy because of your righteousness; for you are a stubborn people. Remember and do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness;⁵ you have been rebellious against the Lord from the day you came out of the land of Egypt until you came to this place.”

“Even at Horeb you provoked the Lord to wrath, and the Lord was so angry with you that he was ready to destroy you.⁶ When I went up the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant that the Lord made with you, I remained on the mountain for forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water.⁷ And the Lord gave me the two stone tablets written with the finger of God; on them were all the words that the Lord had spoken to you at the mountain out of the fire on the day of the assembly. At the end of forty days and forty nights the Lord gave me the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant. Then the Lord said to me, ‘Get up, go down quickly from here, for your people whom you have brought from Egypt have acted corruptly. They have been quick to turn from the way that I commanded them; they have cast an image for themselves.’ Furthermore, the Lord said to me, ‘I have seen that this people is indeed a stubborn people.Let me alone that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven; and I will make of you a nation mightier and more numerous than they.’”⁸

“So I turned and went down from the mountain, while the mountain was ablaze; the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. Then I saw that you had indeed sinned against the Lord your God, by casting for yourselves an image of a calf; you had been quick to turn from the way that the Lord had commanded you. So I took hold of the two tablets⁹ and flung them from my two hands, smashing them before your eyes. Then I lay prostrate before the Lord as before, for forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all the sin you had committed,¹⁰ provoking the Lord by doing what was evil in his sight. For I was afraid that the anger that the Lord bore against you was so fierce that he would destroy you. But the Lord listened to me that time also.¹¹ The Lord was so angry with Aaron that he was ready to destroy him, but I interceded also on behalf of Aaron at that same time.¹² Then I took the sinful thing you had made, the calf, and burned it with fire and crushed it, grinding it thoroughly, until it was reduced to dust; and I threw the dust of it into the stream that runs down the mountain.”

“At Taberah also, and at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah, you provoked the Lord to wrath. And when the Lord sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, ‘Go up and occupy the land that I have given you’, you rebelled against the command of the Lord your God, neither trusting him nor obeying him. You have been rebellious against the Lord as long as he has known you.”¹³

“Throughout the forty days and forty nights that I lay prostrate before the Lord¹⁴ when the Lord intended to destroy you, I prayed to the Lord and said, ‘Lord God, do not destroy the people who are your very own possession, whom you redeemed in your greatness, whom you brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; pay no attention to the stubbornness of this people, their wickedness and their sin, otherwise the land from which you have brought us might say, 'Because the Lord was not able to bring them into the land that he promised them, and because he hated them, he has brought them out to let them die in the wilderness.' For they are the people of your very own possession, whom you brought out by your great power and by your outstretched arm.’”¹⁵

“At that time the Lord said to me, ‘Carve out two tablets of stone like the former ones, and come up to me on the mountain, and make an ark of wood. I will write on the tablets the words that were on the former tablets, which you smashed, and you shall put them in the ark.’ So I made an ark of acacia wood, cut two tablets¹⁶ of stone like the former ones, and went up the mountain with the two tablets in my hand. Then he wrote on the tablets the same words as before, the ten commandments that the Lord had spoken to you on the mountain out of the fire on the day of the assembly; and the Lord gave them to me. So I turned and came down from the mountain, and put the tablets in the ark that I had made; and there they are, as the Lord commanded me.”

(The Israelites journeyed from Beeroth-bene-jaakan to Moserah. There Aaron died, and there he was buried; his son Eleazar succeeded him as priest. From there they journeyed to Gudgodah, and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, a land with flowing streams. At that time the Lord set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the covenant of the Lord, to stand before the Lord to minister to him, and to bless in his name, to this day. Therefore Levi has no allotment or inheritance with his kindred; theLord is his inheritance, as the Lord your God promised him.)¹⁷

“I stayed on the mountain for forty days and forty nights, as I had done the first time. And once again the Lord listened to me. The Lord was unwilling to destroy you. The Lord said to me, ‘Get up, go on your journey at the head of the people, that they may go in and occupy the land that I swore to their ancestors to give them.’”¹⁸
1 Is this the literal day they're going out? Quite a long speech first!

2 A long buildup of how impossible it would be to defeat these people on their own.

3 And then the obvious counter – God is the one who can and will defeat them.

4 It is reiterated three times that Israel is not getting this support from God because of anything special she deserves.

5 They are reminded of their sin to emphasize the point.

6 Once again their sin is emphasized.

7 Moses points out how much he has done for their sake.

8 Moses is really driving home how disloyal, stubborn, sinful, etc. these people are

9 6^th mention of “the tablets” in quick succession, really driving home what happened to them.

10 More emphasis of their sin.

11 He saved them because the Lord listened to him.

12 More emphasis of all he had done again.

13 Just incredibly driving home this point.

14 Moses goes back again to what he has done.

15 Moses wants God to focus on His promise and His commitment, not their wickedness

16 The theme of “the tablets” is brought in again, to show God's re-acceptance of them.

17 A strange aside, moving from physical location to a short note on the Levites, without clear relation to the main theme

18 Moses ends the account with a clear statement of God' purposes for them, despite all that disobedience.

Take-home: Moses tells the Israelites that God will defeat their enemies for them out of His own strength and own desire, and not the least because of anything they have ever done. Israel's constant sin and Moses's great steps in response to their sin are strongly emphasized.

Deuteronomy 8:1-20

“This entire commandment that I command you today you must diligently observe,¹ so that you may live and increase, and go in and occupy the land² that the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors.³ Remember the long way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness,⁴ in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments.⁵ He humbled⁶ you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.⁷ The clothes on your back did not wear out and your feet did not swell these forty years.⁸ Know then in your heart that as a parent disciplines a child so the Lord your God disciplines you.⁹ Therefore keep the commandments of the Lord your God,¹⁰ by walking in his ways and by fearing him. For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with flowing streams, with springs and underground waters welling up in valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land where you may eat bread without scarcity, where you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron and from whose hills you may mine copper.¹¹ You shall eat your fill and bless the Lord your God for the good land that he has given you.”

“Take care that you do not forget the Lord your God, by failing to keep his commandments, his ordinances, and his statutes, which I am commanding you today.¹² When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, then do not exalt yourself, forgetting the Lord your God,¹³ who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, an arid waste-land with poisonous snakes and scorpions. He made water flow for you from flint rock, and fed you in the wilderness with manna that your ancestors did not know, to humble you and to test you, and in the end to do you good.¹⁴ Do not say to yourself, ‘My power and the might of my own hand have gained me this wealth.’ But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth,¹⁵ so that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors, as he is doing today. If you do forget the Lord your God and follow other gods to serve and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. Like the nations that the Lord is destroying before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God.”¹⁶

1 The theme of obeying the commandments continues here. This time entire is emphasized.

2 Life, land, and fertility are the rewards for obedience.

3 God promised it on oath, but it seems to still be conditional.

4 Good times are coming, but they can't forget how hard it was to get here.

5 Um, did they pass that test or fail it?

6 Fascinating use of “humbling”

7 Quoted by Jesus

8 That seems a little unconnected. Just emphasizing God's provision?

9 God punishes them, but as a loving parent. Parents don't kill their children though...implying that some of God's punishments perhaps should be understood more symbolically.

10 Yet again, “therefore keep the commandments”

11 His provision is heavily emphasized again.

12 Again, KEEP HIS COMMANDMENTS.

13 Good fortune can lead to pride, which makes one forgetful of one's reliance on God.

14 Remember all the things God protected you from and provided for you, not of your own strength.

15 All good things, all power comes from God.

16 A strong warning to close the passage.

Take-home: Future obedience is commanded, in good times as well as bad. The goodness of the land that is coming is contrasted with the difficulties in the wilderness, to remind them that God, not their own merit, provides all.

Deuteronomy 7:12-26

“If you heed these ordinances, by diligently observing them,¹ the Lord your God will maintain with you the covenant loyalty that he swore to your ancestors;² he will love you, bless you, and multiply you;³ he will bless the fruit of your womb⁴ and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your wine and your oil, the increase of your cattle and the issue of your flock, in the land that he swore to your ancestors to give you.⁵ You shall be the most blessed of peoples, with neither sterility nor barrenness among you or your livestock.⁶ The Lord will turn away from you every illness;⁷ all the dread diseases of Egypt that you experienced, he will not inflict on you, but he will lay them on all who hate you.⁸ You shall devour all the peoples that the Lord your God is giving over to you,⁹ showing them no pity; you shall not serve their gods, for that would be a snare to you.”¹⁰

“If you say to yourself, ‘These nations are more numerous than I; how can I dispossess them?’ do not be afraid of them. Just remember what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt, the great trials that your eyes saw, the signs and wonders, the mighty hand and the outstretched arm by which the Lord your God brought you out.¹¹ The Lord your God will do the same to all the peoples of whom you are afraid. Moreover, the Lord your God will send the pestilence against them, until even the survivors and the fugitives are destroyed. Have no dread of them, for the Lord your God, who is present with you, is a great and awesome God.¹² The Lord your God will clear away these nations before you little by little; you will not be able to make a quick end of them, otherwise the wild animals would become too numerous for you.¹³ But the Lord your God will give them over to you, and throw them into great panic, until they are destroyed.¹⁴ He will hand their kings over to you¹⁵ and you shall blot out their name from under heaven; no one will be able to stand against you, until you have destroyed them. The images of their gods you shall burn with fire.¹⁶ Do not covet the silver or the gold that is on them and take it for yourself, because you could be ensnared by it;¹⁷ for it is abhorrent to the Lord your God. Do not bring an abhorrent thing into your house, or you will be set apart for destruction like it.¹⁸ You must utterly detest and abhor it, for it is set apart for destruction.”¹⁹

1 Focus continues to stay on obeying God's commands

2 Here it seems that maintaining covenant loyalty is dependent on Israel following the ordinances

3 Love, bless, and multiply you. God will care ofr your life, make it better, and increase your descendents.

4 Bless your children/fertility

5 And bless your land

6 Again the agricultural focus is clear, with blessings of fertility and fertile land drawing the greatest concern.

7 God will protect you from disease

8 To our ears, the tone here is different, as God promises to curse others.

9 Again otehrs are cursed through India's blessing.

10 The reason for opposing other people's is stated again.

11 Another repetition – God will fight for you.

12 Trust in God, not the power of man!

13 This is a weird and illogical claim. If God cleared away the people, the wild animals would suddenly multiply to undefeatable numbers in months? And God wouldn't control those animals like he controlled the people? This sounds more like an explanation for Israel's slow and continuous battles against the Holy Land people than a real reason for doing it slowly.

14 Despite the slowness, be clear – God will defeat them.

15 Your military victories are God's doing.

16 Again, the reason to destory them is because they follow foreign gods, which may destroy you.

17 The lust for silver/gold could destroy them as well.

18 God could destroy you as easily as he destroys them.

19 Vividly negative description

Take-home: Obedience to God brings blessings of fertility and land, and protection from enemies and disease. But any move towards other gods will lead God to give you curses rather than blessings, for only YHWH is powerful over all.

Deuteronomy 7:1-11

When the Lord your God brings you into the land¹ that you are about to enter and occupy, and he clears away many nations before you—the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations mightier and more numerous than you²— and when the Lord your God gives them over to you and you defeat them, then you must utterly destroy them.³ Make no covenant with them and show them no mercy.⁴ Do not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, for that would turn away your children from following me, to serve other gods.⁵ Then the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly.⁶ But this is how you must deal with them: break down their altars, smash their pillars, hew down their sacred poles, and burn their idols with fire.⁷ For you are a people holy to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on earth to be his people, his treasured possession.”⁸

“It was not because you were more numerous than any other people that the Lord set his heart on you and chose you—for you were the fewest of all peoples.⁹ It was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath that he swore to your ancestors,¹⁰ that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who maintains covenant loyalty with those who love him and keep his commandments,¹¹ to a thousand generations, and who repays in their own person those who reject him.¹² He does not delay but repays in their own person those who reject him. Therefore, observe diligently the commandment—the statutes and the ordinances—that I am commanding you today.”¹³

1 God will do it, not them.

2 Builds up that Israel could never do this task alone

3 Doesn't mince words. In history, these other nations were never destroyed and Israel had to learn coexistence with them.

4 “No covenant” and “no mercy” make me sad. The spiritual understanding of not compromising on following God is clear, but the potential for all sort of misuse seems so high.

5 As they already had a problem with.

6 Obedience to God in Deuteronomy is commanded out of fear of God, judgement, and death

7 The anger is directed towards their foreign forms of worship.

8 God chose them – they did nothing.

9 They should not think that they were great.

10 Again God's love started things, they did nothing on their own.

11 Again goes back to keeping his commandments.

12 Again judgement to those who reject Him.

13 Yet another reiteration of the order to keep his commandments.

Take-home: The Israelites are reminded that they did nothing to deserve God's love. But now that they have it, they must follow his commandments, reject foreign gods, and trust him to clear out the land by their hand, or reject him and face destruction.

Deuteronomy 6:10-25

“When the Lord your God has brought you into the land that he swore to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—a land with fine, large cities that you did not build, houses filled with all sorts of goods that you did not fill, hewn cisterns that you did not hew, vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant¹—and when you have eaten your fill, take care that you do not forget the Lord,² who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. The Lord your God you shall fear; him you shall serve, and by his name alone you shall swear. Do not follow other gods, any of the gods of the peoples who are all around you, because the Lord your God, who is present with you, is a jealous God.³ The anger of the Lord your God would be kindled against you and he would destroy you from the face of the earth.”⁴

“Do not put the Lord your God to the test,⁵ as you tested him at Massah. You must diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God, and his decrees, and his statutes that he has commanded you. Do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord, so that it may go well with you, and so that you may go in and occupy the good land that the Lord swore to your ancestors to give you, thrusting out all your enemies from before you, as the Lord has promised.”⁶

“When your children ask you in time to come, ‘What is the meaning of the decrees and the statutes and the ordinances that the Lord our God has commanded you?’⁷ then you shall say to your children, ‘We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. The Lord displayed before our eyes great and awesome signs and wonders against Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his household.⁸ He brought us out from there in order to bring us in, to give us the land that he promised on oath to our ancestors. Then the Lordcommanded us to observe all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our lasting good, so as to keep us alive, as is now the case. If we diligently observe this entire commandment before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us,⁹ we will be in the right.’

1 A new way of describing the blessings of the holy land, by listing all the manmade gifts of the place.

2 Remember when you are well that God is the one who brought you to that point.

3 This “jealous god” term is hard for me, applying a very human weakness to God. But the point that is being commanded is clear.

4 Even after entering the holy land, they could still face destruction at God's hand.

5 Later quoted by Jesus.

6 God had promised, but Israel must play her part by being obedient.

7 Giving this context for the question makes the teaching realer.

8 Implying that the children do not see such wonders themselves.

9 Ninth mention in this chapter alone to obey the commands of God.


Take-home: The people are told that the ease of life in the Holy Land might lead them to forget who brought them such blessings, but they must remember God and continue to follow all his commands if it is to go well with them.

Deuteronomy 6:1-9

“Now this is the commandment¹—the statutes and the ordinances—that the Lord your God charged me to teach you to observe in the land that you are about to cross into and occupy,² so that you and your children and your children’s children may fear the Lord your God all the days of your life, and keep all his decrees and his commandments that I am commanding you,³ so that your days may be long. Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe them diligently, so that it may go well with you, and so that you may multiply greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey,⁴ as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has promised you.”

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone.⁵ You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.⁶ Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart.⁷ Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away,⁸ when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”⁹
1 This commandment is to be especially highlighted

2 Again the connection is made with the land they are about to occupy

3 Commandments are taught so that fear/obedience to God will continue through the generations, not just in God's presence.

4 Following the commandments will lead to blessings

5 First, clearly, God is God alone.

6 Second, love God with all you have.

7 Beautiful picture of remembering God for yourself.

8 Again, the purpose of having commands is to pass them down.

9 Another beautiful picture of remembering God everywhere. None of these things are regularly practiced in a literal sense by today's Christians.


Take-home: The central thing to remember in life is that there is but one God for us, and we are to love and obey him.