Saturday, August 16, 2008

05 The Book of Deuteronomy (Summarized)

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Storyline

Moses reviews the history of the Israelites 1-3

Moses tells the Israelites to obey and teach God's Law that he is about to give them 4

Obey the Ten Commandments 5

Perform continuous and blatant teaching of the Law 6

Perform genocide on the Promised Land's present occupants 7

Remember God provides 8

God is giving them the Promised Land because the inhabitants are wicked 9

God is the best 10

Perform continuous and blatant teaching of the Law 11

Have zero tolerance of other religions 12-13

Laws on food, debt, the poor, slavery, sacrifice, Feasts, legal justice, kingship, the occult 14-18

God will provide a Prophet and how to test a Prophet 18

Laws for manslaughter, legal justice, war, inheritance, livestock, apparel, virgin brides, adultery, rape, injured genitals, bastard children, nocturnal emissions, waste management, prostitution, loans, divorce, kidnapping, social justice, judgements, family lineage, fighting, firstfruit sacrifices 19-26

Curses are made at Mount Ebal 27

Blessings and curses are made for the Israelites, depending on their faithfulness to the covenant of the Law 28-30

Moses makes his succession to Joshua 31-34

Deuteronomy
  1. BG | SAB | On the first day of the fortieth year, Moses repeats what God had told him and what has happened to all the Israelites. Moses tells how they left Horeb; they established judges; they spied out the Promised Land; they rebelled against going to the Promised Land because of its occupants; God killed all of that generation except for the children who did not know bad from good.
    Commentary: The Age of Culpability
  2. BG | SAB | Moses tells of how God directed them from place to place. God did not make the Israelites lack anything while in the desert. God delivered Sihon, King of Heshbon, and his people to the Israelites, and the Israelites killed every last one including their women and children, and the Israelites plundered the cities destroyed them.
    Commentary: Not Lacking Anything
  3. BG | SAB | God delivered Og, King of Bashan, and his people to the Israelites, and the Israelites killed every last one of them, including their women and children. The Israelites plundered and destroyed their cities too, many of which were highly fortified. Og was a giant. The newly captured land east of the Jordan was divided among the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh. Moses tells Joshua that he will lead the Israelites into the Promised Land.
  4. BG | SAB | Moses tells the Israelites to obey the laws he is giving them, and do not add or subtract from them. Other nations will be impressed by these laws. Teach the laws from generation to generation. Do not make an idol, because God is jealous. Moses will die on the east of the Jordan. If the people become wicked, God will drive them out of the Promised Land. But if they look for God then, He will be merciful to them. God is the only God and He brought the Israelites to the Promised Land. The following are the laws that Moses told the people.
    Commentary: The Law Makes an Impression
  5. BG | SAB | Moses repeats the popular version of the Ten Commandments: Have no God but God. Do not worship idols because God is jealous, punishing the family of those who hate Him down to their great grandchildren, showing love to those that love Him. Do not blaspheme. Observe the Sabbath. Honor your parents. Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not give false testimony on your neighbor. Do not covet what your neighbor has. Moses reminds the people to follow the commands of God.
  6. BG | SAB | Moses says: Obey God's commands. Love God. Tell your children about God's commands when you sit at home, walk along the road, lie down, and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates. Do not worship other gods. Do not test God.
    Commentary: Show and Tell
  7. BG | SAB | Moses says: When you go into the Promised Land, you must destroy the inhabitants completely, showing no mercy. If you do not, they may convince you to start worshiping other gods, and God will destroy you quickly for that. Destroy all they hold sacred. You are the fewest people and God loves you. God loves those that love him and keep His commandments, but will quickly destroy those that hate Him. If you love God and keep His commandments, you will be blessed over all nations, including by not having closed wombs in people or livestock. Do not be afraid of the occupants of the Promised Land, even though they are greater in number. You saw how God plagued Egypt and pulled us out of slavery. God will send hornets to kill those that hide from the Israelites. God will deliver the kings of the Promised Land to you. Do not bring anything detestable into your house.
    Commentary: Kill Them All
  8. BG | SAB | Moses says: Do not forget God. God brought you through the desert to test your hearts. God made you hungry and gave you manna to teach you man doesn't live by bread alone, but by the word of God. Your sandals and clothes didn't wear out in the 40 years in the desert. If you become proud and claim accomplishments as your own, God will kill you.
    Commentary: Who Is God?
  9. BG | SAB | Moses says: God is not giving the Israelites this land because they are righteous, rather because the inhabitants of this land are wicked, so He will drive the inhabitants out to keep His promise. Moses tells how the Israelites angered God and how Moses had to pray and convince God not to destroy them.
    Commentary: Chosen, but Not Special
  10. BG | SAB | Moses tells how God wrote out the Ten Commandments on a second set of stone tablets. Aaron died in Moserah. Moses told how he was told to lead the Israelites. Fear God, for He is the biggest and best there is and owns everything. God shows no partiality, takes no bribes, defends the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien. You are to love the alien too.
  11. BG | SAB | This basically repeats Deuteronomy 6, including how you are to remind yourselves of God's word. Added is that when the Israelites enter the Promised Land, they are to proclaim on Mount Gerizim the blessings, and on Mount Ebal the curses.
  12. BG | SAB | Destroy sacred things of other faiths. Worship and make offerings only in the chosen worship place. You can kill and eat other animals in your town, provided you do not eat their blood. Do not neglect the Levites. Do not inquire about other gods because they are worshiped in ways God detests, such as by burning to death their sons and daughters as sacrifices. Do not add to or take away from the Law.
    Commentary: Intolerance for All
  13. BG | SAB | Kill those that tell you to worship other gods. If a relative tells you to worship other gods, you must be the first to lay a hand on them towards killing them, and they must be stoned to death. If an entire town worships other gods, kill all the people and livestock, and burn all the plunder in the center of town, and never rebuild that city.
    Commentary: Intolerance for All
  14. BG | SAB | Clean and unclean animals are defined again, again calling a bat an unclean bird. Do not eat animals that are found dead, but you can give them to aliens or sell them to foreigners. Do not cook a young goat in its mother's milk. Make a tithe.
  15. BG | SAB | Every 7 years, debts must be canceled. There should be no poor among you, yet there will always be poor in the land. Give to the poor generously. At the seventh year, Hebrew slaves must be set free, and should be well supplied with livestock, grain, and wine. If the slave doesn't want to leave, puncture his or her earlobe with an awl against your door and he or she will then be a servant to you for life. The firstborn from the flocks and herds are to be sacrificed to God at the holy place of His choosing, unless the animal has defects. Do not eat blood.
    Commentary: The Plight of a Slave Girl
    Commentary: Give and Take
  16. BG | SAB | Observe Passover. The bread without yeast is a remembrance that the bread made during the Exodus was unleavened. During Passover, you are to eat unleavened bread for seven days; and also six days. Observe the Feast of Weeks. Observe the Feast of Tabernacles. Men are to appear before God three times a year at these three events. Set up judges. Do not show partiality. Do not accept bribes. Do not set up any wooden Asherah pole beside an altar to God, and do not erect a sacred stone.
  17. BG | SAB | Do not sacrifice a flawed animal to God. If a person worships anything or anyone else but God, stone that person to death at the city gates. The witnesses should be the first stone throwers. For a capital sin, a person should only be put to death if there is more than one witness to their sin. Difficult lawsuits are to be judged by the priests. Do everything they give as their judgement or be put to death. Your kings are to be chosen by God. The king should not have many wives. The king should not amass great personal wealth. The king should read the Law of God every day. The king is not to consider himself better than anyone else.
    Commentary: Rules for Unwanted Kings
  18. BG | SAB | The Levites are not to own anything. They are to live off offerings. Do not harbor anyone who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. God will provide a prophet like Moses and from the Israelites. If the people do not listen to the prophet, God himself will reckon with that person. A false prophet, or a prophet of other gods must be put to death. You will know a false prophet by if what a prophet proclaims in the name of the God does not take place or come true.
    Commentary: Prove a Prophet
  19. BG | SAB | Set aside three cities of refuge for people who kill people accidentally, otherwise an avenger of death may kill the murderer, thereby shedding innocent blood, thereby making the people guilty before God. If the people do what God tells them and God gives them all of the Promised Land, set up three more cities for refuge. A man who kills with malicious intent must be brought out a refuge city and killed. Do not move the boundary stones of inheritance. Two or more witnesses is enough to convict a man. For single witnesses, the case must be thoroughly investigated. If the witness is found to be a liar, he is to bear the punishment of the accused crime. Show no pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.
  20. BG | SAB | When going into battle against a city (as an aggressor), do not be afraid because God is with you. Anyone who has a new home, has a new vineyard, is engaged to be married, or is fearful of battle is excused from battle. First offer peace to a city in exchange for becoming slave labor. If the offer is not accepted, lay siege to the city. When the siege is over, kill all the men, leave the women, children, and livestock for your own use. You may cut down non-fruit-bearing trees for making siege implements. However, for the cities in the Promised Land, anything that breaths is to be completely destroyed.
    Commentary: Kill Them All
  21. BG | SAB | If there is an unsolved murder, the nearest town must sacrifice a cow that has not been worked, breaking its neck in a stream, to atone for the death. You may take a war-captured woman as your wife after she has mourned her parents for a month. If you are displeased with her, let her go free. If a man has two wives, one that he does not love, and one that he does love, the larger part of his inheritance must go to the firstborn son, regardless of which wife provided that son. A rebellious son should be proclaimed a profligate and a drunkard, and then stoned to death by all the men of the town. A person that is hung on a tree for a capital crime should be buried the same day.
    Commentary: Family Values
  22. BG | SAB | Return lost livestock, or hold it for safekeeping until the owner looks for it. Help livestock that has stumbled. Do not be a cross-dresser. You may take young birds or eggs in a nest, but do not take the mother. Build fall protection for your roof. Do not plant two kinds of seed in a vineyard. Do not plow with an ox and a donkey yoked together. Do not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together. Make tassels on the four corners of the cloak you wear. If a man marries a woman, dislikes here, slanders her by saying she was not a virgin, and her parents produce proof of her virginity with a [bloody] cloth, then the man should be fined 100 shekels of silver and will have to stay married to her. If no proof can be found, the woman is to be stoned to death. If a man commits adultery with another man's wife, both the man and the wife should be killed. If, in a city, a man rapes a virgin promised for marriage to another man, both the man and the ex-virgin are to be stoned to death, the ex-virgin because she did not scream loud enough. If, in the country, a man rapes a virgin promised for marriage to another man, just the man is to be killed. If a man rapes a virgin that is not promised for marriage to another man, the man must pay the ex-virgin's father 50 shekels of silver and marry her and never divorce her. A man is not to marry his father's wife.
    Commentary: Virginity, Rape, and Bitter Justice
  23. BG | SAB | No one with damaged or removed testicles or penis can enter the congregation. No bastard child, nor any of his lineage down to the 10th generation, may enter the congregation. No Ammonite or Moabite may enter the congregation. The Edomites and Egyptians may join the congregation after the third generation. When in a war camp, a man who has a nocturnal emission of semen is unclean until nightfall of the new day and must wait outside camp until then. When in a war camp, bury your waste products outside of camp. Protect a slave who takes refuge with you and let him go freely. Israelites should not become male or female prostitutes, for they are detestable to God. Do not take a prostitute's money for God. Only charge interest to foreigners for borrowed things. Repay any verbal vow quickly. You may have “all-you-can-eat” of your neighbor's vineyard or grain provided you do not take a to-go box.
    Commentary: Holy Balls!
  24. BG | SAB | If a man divorces a woman because he is displeased with her, giving her a certificate of divorce, he is not to remarry her if she remarries. A newlywed man is to stay at home pleasing his wife for one year. Do not take a man's livelihood as security for a debt. If an Israelite kidnaps an Israelite and sells him or treats him as a slave, the kidnapper must die. Treat skin diseases per the priest's recommendations. When you offer a loan to your neighbor, wait for him to bring you a pledge. If the neighbor is poor, return the pledge by sundown. Do not take advantage of the hired poor or needy. Pay a man each day. Fathers will not die for their children's sin, nor will the children die for their father's sin. Do not deprive the alien or orphan of justice. Do not take the cloak from a widow as a pledge. Only make one pass in your harvesting, leaving the missed harvest for the poor, the aliens, and the widows.
    Commentary: Holy Divorce
    Commentary: Sins of Their Fathers
  25. BG | SAB | The judges will decide guilt and punishment. If there is punishment, the flogging will take place in front of the judge and shall not be more than 40 lashes. Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain. If a married man dies before having a son, one of his brothers must marry that man's wife and name the firstborn son after the dead man. However, if the brother refuses to do this, the widow, in front of the village elders, will take off one of the brother's sandals, spit in his face, and say that is what he deserves. If two men are fighting and a wife of one of them seizes her husband's assailant's testicles to try and rescue her husband, the wife's hand must be cut off. Use accurate weights and measures. The Israelites will completely destroy the Amalekites for what they did to them on their journey through the desert.
    Commentary: Family Obligations
  26. BG | SAB | Instructions for the offering of the firstfruits. Obey all of God's commands.
  27. BG | SAB | On Mount Ebal, take large stones, cover them with plaster, and write all the laws there. Build an altar there of unformed stones and make offerings. After crossing the Jordan, on Mount Gerizim the tribes of Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph and Benjamin will bless the people; and on Mount Ebal the tribes of Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan and Naphtali will pronounce curses. The Levites will say: Cursed is the man who carves an image or casts an idol-a thing detestable to the LORD, the work of the craftsman's hands-and sets it up in secret. Cursed is the man who dishonors his father or his mother. Cursed is the man who moves his neighbor's boundary stone. Cursed is the man who leads the blind astray on the road. Cursed is the man who withholds justice from the alien, the fatherless or the widow. Cursed is the man who sleeps with his father's wife, for he dishonors his father's bed. Cursed is the man who has sexual relations with any animal. Cursed is the man who sleeps with his sister, the daughter of his father or the daughter of his mother. Cursed is the man who sleeps with his mother-in-law. Cursed is the man who kills his neighbor secretly. Cursed is the man who accepts a bribe to kill an innocent person. Cursed is the man who does not uphold the words of this law by carrying them out.
  28. BG | SAB | If you obey all of the laws, God will bless you. It lists the blessings for obeying. It lists the curses for not obeying; curses that will completely destroy the Israelites. One of the curses is a raining of dust. One of the curses is cannibalism of their own children. Moses says all of these curses will come to pass if they do not obey God's laws.
  29. BG | SAB | Moses tells them that the Israelites are now making a covenant with God, and all of the curses will come to pass if they break the covenant. Moses recounts the many things they have seen from God. If the covenant is broken, the whole Promised Land will become a burning waste of salt and sulfur-nothing planted, nothing sprouting, no vegetation growing on it.
  30. BG | SAB | If, after the blessings and the curses come upon the Israelites and they are few and scattered, the Israelites again believe and follow God in all his laws, God will gather them back to the Promised Land where they will prosper. Their enemies will then get the curses that plagued the Israelites. Moses pleads that the Israelites chose the path of blessings.
  31. BG | SAB | Moses named Joshua as his successor, since Moses was 120 years old and near death, and could not go into the Promised Land per God's decree. Every 7 years the laws of God must be read during the Feast of Tabernacles for all to hear. God meets with Moses and Joshua in the Tent of Meeting as a pillar of cloud. God says the people, soon after entering the Promised Land, will rebel and worship other gods, and so God will apply curses to them. God said to take the laws that Moses is writing down and place them beside the Ark of the Covenant as a witness against the people. God said to have the people memorize a song as a witness against them when they become evil.
  32. BG | SAB | Moses tells the people the words to God's song. In it, Gods works are perfect, all of His ways are just, and He does no wrong. God laments that He would like to kill all of the Israelites, but the nation which invades Israel would not understand why He had all of the Israelites killed. God tells Moses that Moses should go up on Mount Nebo in Moab to die.
  33. BG | SAB | Moses provides blessings for the twelve tribes of the Israelites.
  34. BG | SAB | Moses goes up on Mount Nebo in Moab to die at 120 years old. Moses was still perfectly healthy. God buried him. Since then, no prophet like Moses has risen in Israel. Moses talked with God face to face.





Numbers | Deuteronomy | Joshua

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