What is Deuteronomy About?

Moses explains the failures of the first generation but remembers God’s grace (1-11)

  • Moses recounts the spy’s report and the people not believing God (1:31-36). Yet you did not believe the LORD your God (1:32).
  • Ambassadors of peace are sent and despised (2:26)
  • Moses recounts the LORD preventing him from going into the promised land (3:23-38)
  • Believe means to obey
  • Hebrews 3:8-12 explains 4:1-2,6-7
  • Love means to choose and follow
  • (4:24) God is a consuming fire, which Moses means that the LORD spoke out of the fiery mountain to the nation of Israel in a way that he didn’t speak to any other nation.
  • Chapters 4-5 Moses recounts that God is a consuming fire and the giving of the ten commandments out of the fiery mountain.
  • Chapter 6 love the LORD with all your heart. Here’s how. Always think about the words of God. Teach your kids this covenant. (This is instructed because the old covenant was faulty where people were physically born into it without knowing it.)
  • 7:6 God says Israel is a holy people. This is a figure of speech declaring God’s intention with the nation. It’s not a statement of their character. These kinds of things are often said to explain God’s intentions to people, not to state what the people are. Notice the conditions of the covenant with the character of God in 7:7-11.
  • 8:2-3 God taught you with hunger and with manna that man should not live by bread alone.
  • 8:5-6 Consider also that you are a son of God as a nation.
  • 8:12-20 If you forget the LORD and become self-righteous like other nations, you will perish like other nations.
  • 9:1-6 Israelites are inheriting the land to drive out the wickedness. If they become as wicked as other nations, the land will spew them out too. Chapter 9 Moses reminds this generation how the nation continually provoked God.
  • 10:12-16 Circumcise your own hearts. This is what Paul calls the circumcision made without hands in Colossians.
  • 11:26-28 Set before you an opportunity of life and death. It is conditional.

The second giving of the laws (12-26)

  • 12:15-16 eat whatever you want, just don’t eat the blood?
  • False prophets (13)
  • Dietary laws for tithing purposes? Not sure here. Tithing law if you have to convert an offering into money (14:24-26).
  • Sabbaths and holidays (15-16)
  • Israel’s leadership of kings, priests, and elders would be subject to the prophets (17-18)
    • Lawgivers and judges (17). Christ is King
    • Priests and prophets (18). Christ is the Prophet (18:15-18 & Acts 3:22, 7:37)
  • Cities of refuge and real estate laws (19). Wise way of handling lawsuits and criminal charges. That if the prosecution is shown to be bringing a false accusation, then the prosecution suffers the punishment they sought for the accused.
  • Military laws and capital punishment (20-21)
  • Civil and social laws (22-26) Moses bookends the law with 26:18 as he started it in 14:2 and the characterization of Israel as peculiar to God.

Moses explains the conditions of this covenant and then dies in Moab (27-34)

  • Conditional blessings and cursings. Obedience means you’ll be my people, disobedience means you’ll be cut off (27-30). These words will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your children (30:6).
  • Moses delegates the future leadership of the nation (31). Moses’ sad understanding of the nation (31:28-30).
  • Moses’ Song and blessing of the tribes (32-33). 33:2 This is a description of the Israelites traveling through the wilderness from Sinai to Moab. 33:26-29 is again how God has dealt with the nation. Notice the people are “saved” in verse 29. They’ve been rescued by the LORD to be a light unto the nations.
  • Moses dies (34). Joshua was full of wisdom and is “ordained” as the leader of the nation in 33:9.