A couple months ago, my wife and I had our insurance come up for renewal. We were already paying a lot, and they wanted to hike the rate quite a bit. So we decided to ask around for an insurance quote or two. It’s a good thing we did; we cut what we would have been paying in half. Yes, really. The L-RD is good! Now here’s my commentary on D’varim. Or listen to it!
Shabbat Shalom.
Our parashah for today is D’varim or “words” and covers Deuteronomy chapter 1 through chapter 3, verse 22. Today’s reading represents the beginning of the home stretch in our yearly Torah cycle. As the book begins, Moses is addressing the people of Israel and retelling them their history since coming out of Egypt.
Much of the book of Deuteronomy is like this, a review of everything that has happened over the forty years Israel has spent in the wilderness, and the first time or two you read it, it can, quite honestly, be a bit off-putting. After all, one might say, didn’t we just read the previous four books of the Torah? Is this review prior to an exam, or do they just think we’re too dense to grasp the previous four books, and so Deuteronomy is offered as a mix between a Reader’s Digest condensed version, and a Cliff Notes on the previous four books.
However, there is more going on here than a simple review; we’re getting details that simply were not given in the earlier books of Torah. The most dramatic example of this, of course, is God’s response to Moses when Israel asks not to hear the voice of the L-RD anymore or they will die. When this is related in Exodus 20:19, no direct response from God is recorded, but He no longer speaks to all of Israel, but only with Moses in the Tent of Meeting. But when the same event is related in an upcoming weekly reading, in Deuteronomy 18:15-22, the L-RD’s response to Moses to this request is recorded in detail. And this is not the only instance of this, so those who would ignore Deuteronomy altogether because, “It’s nothing but review,” are missing out on a lot.
The first question that comes to mind, however, is why God would direct Moses to review all that had happened like this; the answer is obvious if we’ve been paying attention to the last few readings in the book of Numbers. Because of several episodes of sin and rebellion, the L-RD had promised the people of the generation of the exodus that not one of them age 20 or older – except for Caleb and Joshua – would live to see the Promised Land; they would all die in the desert. And the L-RD had made good on this promise.
We just read a couple weeks ago about how a new census was taken, consisting of none of those who were counted by Moses and Aaron at the beginning of the Exodus period, in the beginning of the book of Numbers. And it is this new crowd to which Moses is speaking.
That’s why he’s reviewing so much of what has happened over the past forty years! Most of them don’t remember it themselves! At this point, No one in Israel, except for Moses, Joshua, Caleb and maybe Eleazar are older than sixty years old. Only those between the ages of 41 and 60 were alive when the desert exile began, and anyone 40 and under would have no memories other than life in the desert; they would not remember slavery in Egypt, the crossing of the sea on dry land, the giving of the ten commands at Sinai, or the rebellion of Korach.
You see, the reality of the situation the children of Israel are facing is that they are about to lose their mediator! Moses is soon to be gathered to his people and he is one of the last people alive among them who remembers everything, all that has gone before. He is soon to leave them, and so God charges him with retelling the history of their people, so that it might be remembered in the hearts of every Israelite.
You see, beyond the Moabites, beyond the Amorites, beyond Og, king of Bashan, the greatest risk the children of Israel are facing is a loss of their own sense of identity and history, that certainty of who they are as a people. Keep in mind, this is a people who are many generations removed from any generation that might recall the called-out nature of their people.
They endured generations of slavery in Egypt, living among the Egyptians and their culture, picking up some of it and incorporating it into the way they lived themselves. We see this in the sin of the Golden Calf, which was an impulse to return to that with which they had become familiar in Egypt, a culture of idol worship.
They endured after that an entire generation in the desert, surrounded on all sides by peoples and cultures who did not know the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in spirit and in truth, and whose practices influenced their own; we see this in the patriarchal system in Israel, the urge to treat women as property rather than people, which God confronted by granting the daughters of Zelophehad property rights. And much of this has happened with Moses, their own chosen mediator between the L-RD and themselves, around! How much Moses must have feared they would drift even further from true worship of the true God without him!
So, as with anyone who is about to leave, Moses begins a long goodbye, a goodbye filled with reminders of who God is, what He as done for them, and who they are as a people. This long goodbye becomes the book we are about to begin studying for the next several weeks.
It is against this backdrop and this understanding that we must begin our study of this week’s Torah portion. One of the overriding themes of this week’s portion is how God is a keeper of His promises; not just in the here and now, but in the generations to come. What does that mean? How can He keep His promises generations after the people He made them to are gone from this life? To get an idea of what I mean, we read this in:
Deuteronomy 2:4-6
Give the people these orders: ‘You are about to pass through the territory of your brothers the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir. They will be afraid of you, but be very careful. Do not provoke them to war, for I will not give you any of their land, not even enough to put your foot on. I have given Esau the hill country of Seir as his own. You are to pay them in silver for the food you eat and the water you drink.’”
Now, think about that for a moment. We first met Esau, the brother of Isaac, early in Genesis. We are hundreds of years removed from the generation of Esau, and yet here is God, directing the descendants of Esau’s brother, Isaac, not to provoke them to war, but to show them kindness, because the L-RD had promised that land to Esau’s descendants, just as He had promised the Promised Land to Isaac’s descendants.
Would Esau know the difference? He’s been dead for hundreds of years! Would the people who live there now, Esau’s descendants, remember the promises made by the L-RD? I would suggest they might not, since there’s no indication they still followed the creator God of Israel. Esau, remember, sold his birthright for a bowl of stew.
But here’s the thing: God would know the difference. He had promised that land to Esau just as he had promised the promised land to the descendants of Abraham, Issac and Jacob. And God holds Himself accountable for the keeping of His own promises far better than any of us do in keeping ours.
So the exodus and the promised land was not some random destination, some kingdom where Moses sensed weakness and a chance for victory. If that was all he was seeking, Moses could have led an attack on any of a number of kingdoms and lands. But this was not the case with the children of Israel; God had a specific land in mind, a land he’d promised originally to Abraham, and there would be no substitutions.
As we read in:
Deuteronomy 2:24-25
“Set out now and cross the Arnon Gorge. See, I have given into your hand Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his country. Begin to take possession of it and engage him in battle. This very day I will begin to put the terror and fear of you on all the nations under heaven. They will hear reports of you and will tremble and be in anguish because of you.”
As the narrative continues, we see that the L-RD gives Israel a significant and complete victory over Sihon the Amorite. Their conquering of the land was careful and calculated, not random. And because they obeyed the L-RD, they are given a victory. We see this obedience to the warnings of the L-RD not to attack the lands promised to Esau or Lot in:
Deuteronomy 2:36-37
From Aroer on the rim of the Arnon Gorge, and from the town in the gorge, even as far as Gilead, not one town was too strong for us. The LORD our God gave us all of them. But in accordance with the command of the LORD our God, you did not encroach on any of the land of the Ammonites, neither the land along the course of the Jabbok nor that around the towns in the hills.
We can trace the L-RD’s direction right back to his original promises to Esau and Lot. After a struggle for the blessing of their father Isaac, years later, Esau and Jacob made peace with each other, sacrificed to the L-RD, and Esau was given his own land as an inheritance. We read this in:
Genesis 36:6-9
Esau took his wives and sons and daughters and all the members of his household, as well as his livestock and all his other animals and all the goods he had acquired in Canaan, and moved to a land some distance from his brother Jacob. Their possessions were too great for them to remain together; the land where they were staying could not support them both because of their livestock. So Esau (that is, Edom) settled in the hill country of Seir. This is the account of Esau the father of the Edomites in the hill country of Seir.
In much the same way, Lot was given his choice of land by agreement with Abraham and the L-RD. We read this in:
Genesis 13:7-12
And quarreling arose between Abram’s herdsmen and the herdsmen of Lot. The Canaanites and Perizzites were also living in the land at that time. So Abram said to Lot, “Let’s not have any quarreling between you and me, or between your herdsmen and mine, for we are brothers. Is not the whole land before you? Let’s part company. If you go to the left, I’ll go to the right; if you go to the right, I’ll go to the left.” Lot looked up and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan was well watered, like the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, toward Zoar. (This was before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) So Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan and set out toward the east. The two men parted company: Abram lived in the land of Canaan, while Lot lived among the cities of the plain and pitched his tents near Sodom.
When the L-RD destroyed the cities of the plain, most notably Sodom and Gomorrah, for their wickedness, Lot and his family was spared, although his wife perished when she looked back at the destruction. And so the land promised to Lot changes, as we read in:
Genesis 19:30, 36-38
Lot and his two daughters left Zoar and settled in the mountains, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar. He and his two daughters lived in a cave … So both of Lot’s daughters became pregnant by their father. The older daughter had a son, and she named him Moab; he is the father of the Moabites of today. The younger daughter also had a son, and she named him Ben-Ammi; he is the father of the Ammonites of today.
So, this is why the L-RD ordered the Israelites not to go to war with the Edomites, Ammonites, or most of the Moabites, or take their land from them; because God, as a promise-keeper, had promised those lands to the descendants of Esau and Lot, just as he had promised the Promised Land to the descendants of Jacob, also known as Israel. Even though the people the L-RD had made these promises to were gathered to their ancestors for hundreds and hundreds of years, the L-RD Himself kept continued to keep His promises because he is not someone who breaks His promises.
Which leads us to this closing thought. If the L-RD can keep His promises to Esau and Lot hundreds of years after they were gone, how much more is he capable of keeping his promises to us in this life and in the world to come? And if the L-RD calls us to follow Him and be like Him, through the Messiah Yeshua, then shouldn’t we also seek to be keepers of the promises we make, both to the L-RD and each other, by simply letting our yes be yes, and our no be no?
Shabbat Shalom.
My D’varim Commentary
Monday, July 27th, 2009
A couple months ago, my wife and I had our insurance come up for renewal. We were already paying a lot, and they wanted to hike the rate quite a bit. So we decided to ask around for an insurance quote or two. It’s a good thing we did; we cut what we would have been paying in half. Yes, really. The L-RD is good! Now here’s my commentary on D’varim. Or listen to it!
Shabbat Shalom.
Our parashah for today is D’varim or “words” and covers Deuteronomy chapter 1 through chapter 3, verse 22. Today’s reading represents the beginning of the home stretch in our yearly Torah cycle. As the book begins, Moses is addressing the people of Israel and retelling them their history since coming out of Egypt.
Much of the book of Deuteronomy is like this, a review of everything that has happened over the forty years Israel has spent in the wilderness, and the first time or two you read it, it can, quite honestly, be a bit off-putting. After all, one might say, didn’t we just read the previous four books of the Torah? Is this review prior to an exam, or do they just think we’re too dense to grasp the previous four books, and so Deuteronomy is offered as a mix between a Reader’s Digest condensed version, and a Cliff Notes on the previous four books.
However, there is more going on here than a simple review; we’re getting details that simply were not given in the earlier books of Torah. The most dramatic example of this, of course, is God’s response to Moses when Israel asks not to hear the voice of the L-RD anymore or they will die. When this is related in Exodus 20:19, no direct response from God is recorded, but He no longer speaks to all of Israel, but only with Moses in the Tent of Meeting. But when the same event is related in an upcoming weekly reading, in Deuteronomy 18:15-22, the L-RD’s response to Moses to this request is recorded in detail. And this is not the only instance of this, so those who would ignore Deuteronomy altogether because, “It’s nothing but review,” are missing out on a lot.
The first question that comes to mind, however, is why God would direct Moses to review all that had happened like this; the answer is obvious if we’ve been paying attention to the last few readings in the book of Numbers. Because of several episodes of sin and rebellion, the L-RD had promised the people of the generation of the exodus that not one of them age 20 or older – except for Caleb and Joshua – would live to see the Promised Land; they would all die in the desert. And the L-RD had made good on this promise.
We just read a couple weeks ago about how a new census was taken, consisting of none of those who were counted by Moses and Aaron at the beginning of the Exodus period, in the beginning of the book of Numbers. And it is this new crowd to which Moses is speaking.
That’s why he’s reviewing so much of what has happened over the past forty years! Most of them don’t remember it themselves! At this point, No one in Israel, except for Moses, Joshua, Caleb and maybe Eleazar are older than sixty years old. Only those between the ages of 41 and 60 were alive when the desert exile began, and anyone 40 and under would have no memories other than life in the desert; they would not remember slavery in Egypt, the crossing of the sea on dry land, the giving of the ten commands at Sinai, or the rebellion of Korach.
You see, the reality of the situation the children of Israel are facing is that they are about to lose their mediator! Moses is soon to be gathered to his people and he is one of the last people alive among them who remembers everything, all that has gone before. He is soon to leave them, and so God charges him with retelling the history of their people, so that it might be remembered in the hearts of every Israelite.
You see, beyond the Moabites, beyond the Amorites, beyond Og, king of Bashan, the greatest risk the children of Israel are facing is a loss of their own sense of identity and history, that certainty of who they are as a people. Keep in mind, this is a people who are many generations removed from any generation that might recall the called-out nature of their people.
They endured generations of slavery in Egypt, living among the Egyptians and their culture, picking up some of it and incorporating it into the way they lived themselves. We see this in the sin of the Golden Calf, which was an impulse to return to that with which they had become familiar in Egypt, a culture of idol worship.
They endured after that an entire generation in the desert, surrounded on all sides by peoples and cultures who did not know the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in spirit and in truth, and whose practices influenced their own; we see this in the patriarchal system in Israel, the urge to treat women as property rather than people, which God confronted by granting the daughters of Zelophehad property rights. And much of this has happened with Moses, their own chosen mediator between the L-RD and themselves, around! How much Moses must have feared they would drift even further from true worship of the true God without him!
So, as with anyone who is about to leave, Moses begins a long goodbye, a goodbye filled with reminders of who God is, what He as done for them, and who they are as a people. This long goodbye becomes the book we are about to begin studying for the next several weeks.
It is against this backdrop and this understanding that we must begin our study of this week’s Torah portion. One of the overriding themes of this week’s portion is how God is a keeper of His promises; not just in the here and now, but in the generations to come. What does that mean? How can He keep His promises generations after the people He made them to are gone from this life? To get an idea of what I mean, we read this in:
Now, think about that for a moment. We first met Esau, the brother of Isaac, early in Genesis. We are hundreds of years removed from the generation of Esau, and yet here is God, directing the descendants of Esau’s brother, Isaac, not to provoke them to war, but to show them kindness, because the L-RD had promised that land to Esau’s descendants, just as He had promised the Promised Land to Isaac’s descendants.
Would Esau know the difference? He’s been dead for hundreds of years! Would the people who live there now, Esau’s descendants, remember the promises made by the L-RD? I would suggest they might not, since there’s no indication they still followed the creator God of Israel. Esau, remember, sold his birthright for a bowl of stew.
But here’s the thing: God would know the difference. He had promised that land to Esau just as he had promised the promised land to the descendants of Abraham, Issac and Jacob. And God holds Himself accountable for the keeping of His own promises far better than any of us do in keeping ours.
So the exodus and the promised land was not some random destination, some kingdom where Moses sensed weakness and a chance for victory. If that was all he was seeking, Moses could have led an attack on any of a number of kingdoms and lands. But this was not the case with the children of Israel; God had a specific land in mind, a land he’d promised originally to Abraham, and there would be no substitutions.
As we read in:
As the narrative continues, we see that the L-RD gives Israel a significant and complete victory over Sihon the Amorite. Their conquering of the land was careful and calculated, not random. And because they obeyed the L-RD, they are given a victory. We see this obedience to the warnings of the L-RD not to attack the lands promised to Esau or Lot in:
We can trace the L-RD’s direction right back to his original promises to Esau and Lot. After a struggle for the blessing of their father Isaac, years later, Esau and Jacob made peace with each other, sacrificed to the L-RD, and Esau was given his own land as an inheritance. We read this in:
In much the same way, Lot was given his choice of land by agreement with Abraham and the L-RD. We read this in:
When the L-RD destroyed the cities of the plain, most notably Sodom and Gomorrah, for their wickedness, Lot and his family was spared, although his wife perished when she looked back at the destruction. And so the land promised to Lot changes, as we read in:
So, this is why the L-RD ordered the Israelites not to go to war with the Edomites, Ammonites, or most of the Moabites, or take their land from them; because God, as a promise-keeper, had promised those lands to the descendants of Esau and Lot, just as he had promised the Promised Land to the descendants of Jacob, also known as Israel. Even though the people the L-RD had made these promises to were gathered to their ancestors for hundreds and hundreds of years, the L-RD Himself kept continued to keep His promises because he is not someone who breaks His promises.
Which leads us to this closing thought. If the L-RD can keep His promises to Esau and Lot hundreds of years after they were gone, how much more is he capable of keeping his promises to us in this life and in the world to come? And if the L-RD calls us to follow Him and be like Him, through the Messiah Yeshua, then shouldn’t we also seek to be keepers of the promises we make, both to the L-RD and each other, by simply letting our yes be yes, and our no be no?
Shabbat Shalom.
Tags: D'Varim, insurance quote, Torah commentary
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