Year 1, Week 20, Day 4 Bible Reading Observations

Year 1, Week 20, Day 4

I have a brief observation for today’s reading of Deuteronomy 5.

Today’s reading continues restating the terms of the Covenant that exists between the LORD and Israel: “The LORD our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. Not with our fathers did the LORD make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us here alive today.” (Deuteronomy 5:2-3). Deuteronomy 5 declares to the new generation of Israelites, what the LORD spoke through Moses to the first generation of Israelites. It’s a new generation, but the same Law requirements of the Covenant: “And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, “Hear, O Israel, the statutes and the rules that I speak in your hearing today, and you shall learn them and be careful to do them.” (Deuteronomy 5:1). Today’s reading restates the Ten Commandments, which Israel was provided forty years earlier at Mt. Sinai (see Exodus 19-20). The Ten Commandments were at the center of the Covenant that the LORD made with Israel.

One of the things that struck me in today’s reading is the LORD’s concern that Israel lacks the true heart devotion to keep the Law: “With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments! I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” (Psalm 119:10-11). As the Ten Commandments are restated, the LORD expresses a grave concern: “Oh that they had such a heart as this always, to fear me and to keep all my commandments, that it might go well with them and with their descendants forever!” (Deuteronomy 5:29). Without a true heart for the LORD and His Law, there would not be genuine reliance upon the LORD not a sincere obedience of His Law: “Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day.” (Psalm 119:97). Israel needed a true and lasting heart for the LORD and His Law; Israel lacked what they most needed. The remainder of the Old Testament will prove this lack—the lack of a heart that responds to the LORD and His Law.

The LORD has set His heart on Israel: "the LORD set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day.” (Deuteronomy 10:15). The LORD requires the same from His people: “what does the LORD your God require of you, but 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 and statutes of the LORD” (Deuteronomy 10:12-13). But Israel lacks the heart of what is required of them: “Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn” (Deuteronomy 10:16). Israel had a foreskin of hardness on their heart that needed removing. Without this kind of circumcision, Israel would not have a true and lasting heart devotion for the LORD. But Israel needed something that they could not do for themselves. Without a change of heart, Israel would never truly comply with the LORD’s instructions: “You shall be careful therefore to do as the LORD your God has commanded you. You shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. You shall walk in all the way that the LORD your God has commanded you, that you may live, and that it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land that you shall possess.” (Deuteronomy 5:32-33).

But as the Old Testament records Israel’s massive heart failure, it also promises a gracious remedy: “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules” (Ezekiel 36:26-27). Jeremiah concurs with a similar promise: “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.” (Jeremiah 31:33). The very prophets who indicted Israel on the heart condition, also promised that the LORD Himself would provide for Israel the very thing that He required from Israel—a new heart-a heart to obey-a heart empowered to obey.

As it turns out, the promises made by the prophets were initially indicated by Moses. Before he finishes his last message, which anticipates Israel’s unbelief and disobedience, he offers a reassurance to a people in need of a new heart. First, Moses reiterates that they still lack what they need: "But to this day the LORD has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear.” (Deuteronomy 29:4). Then Moses pledges that they will graciously receive what they need: “And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.” (Deuteronomy 30:6). Christ has come and enacted the New Covenant, which provides for us all that God requires from us: "Behold, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second. And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” (Hebrews 10:9-10).

What struck you in today’s reading? What questions were prompted from today’s reading?

Pastor Joe