Year 1, Week 20, Day 5 Bible Reading Observations

Year 1, Week 20, Day 5

I have a brief observation for today’s reading of Deuteronomy 6-7.

Today’s reading continues Moses’ message to the Israelites concerning the life that they were to live in Covenant relationship with the LORD as they lived in the Promised Land: "Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the rules—that the LORD your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it” (Deuteronomy 6:1). Deuteronomy 6 stresses the total devotion that Israel was to have toward the LORD: “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” (Deuteronomy 6:5). Deuteronomy 7 stresses the exclusive devotion that Israel was to have with the LORD: “When the LORD your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than you” (Deuteronomy 7:1).

One of the things that struck me in today’s reading was the connection that the LORD establishes between truly loving Him and genuinely obeying Him: “I will keep your law continually, forever and ever, and I shall walk in a wide place, for I have sought your precepts…for I find my delight in your commandments, which I love.” (Psalm 119:44-45,47). As Moses has been laying out the Covenant obligations that Israel was to live by, the LORD’s good provision in the Land was connected to their obedience in the Land: "Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.” (Deuteronomy 6:3). Once again, hints of the Garden are expressed and even mention of the mandate to “be fruitful and multiply” (see Genesis 1:28), serve to remind us that Israel is like a new Adam. And like the first Adam, Israel’s life in the land requires obedience. The good blessings of life in the good Land are contingent on obedience: “that you may fear the LORD your God, you and your son and your son's son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long.” (Deuteronomy 6:2).

While love and obedience are distinct notions, they are inseparably related to our relationship with God. Moses makes clear, there in today’s reading, that loving the LORD and obedience to Him are inseparable. Loving the LORD expresses itself in obeying the LORD. But it should also be stated that the correlation works from the other direction as well—obedience to the LORD is motivated out of love for the LORD. While much of the particulars concerning obedience and the consequences of obedience here in Deuteronomy was specific to the Old Covenant, one thing that endures in any covenant arrangement is the connection between love and obedience. Jesus says to His disciples: “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words.” (John 14:23-24).

The importance of love and obedience to the LORD was underscored by the need to continually be mindful of these matters: “And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.” (Deuteronomy 6:5). Loving and obeying the LORD would need to be at the forefront of Israel’s life; and it was to shape how they lived: “You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deuteronomy 6:8-9). As loving and obeying the LORD was continually cultivated in their hearts and minds, it was to play itself out in how they looked at life, how they acted in life, and the way they lived life. Out of the overflow of their love and obedience, Israel was to transmit the same realities to their offspring: “You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” (Deuteronomy 6:7). But the fathers were not merely to teach their children of their need to obey the LORD, they were also to instruct them in the reason behind such obedience: “When your son asks you in time to come, ‘What is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the rules that the LORD our God has commanded you?’ then you shall say to your son, ‘We were Pharaoh's slaves in Egypt. And the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand…And he brought us out from there, that he might bring us in and give us the land that he swore to give to our fathers.” (Deuteronomy 6:20-23).

The foundation of love and obedience to the LORD is the love and loyalty that the LORD has for His people: “For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers” (Deuteronomy 7:6-8). The LORD dearly loves His people and thus, He enters into an exclusive and total devotion with them. Such devotion calls for reciprocation. 

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

Pastor Joe