Lesson 11, December 4-10
Sabbath Afternoon
Read for This Week’s Study: 2 Kings 22, Nehemiah 9:6, Jeremiah 7:1-7, Psalms 148:4, Jeremiah 29:13, Micah 6:1-8, Daniel 9:1-19.
Memory Text: “Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day.” Deuteronomy 10:15
One of the fascinating things about the Bible, especially the Old Testament, is how often it refers or alludes to itself; that is, later writers in the Old Testament refer to earlier ones, using them and their writings to make their point.
Psalm 81, for example, goes back to the book of Exodus and then almost quotes verbatim from the preamble of the Ten Commandments when the psalmist wrote: “I am the Lord thy God, Which brought thee out of the land of Egypt” (Psalms 81:10).
All through the Old Testament, Genesis — especially the Creation story — is referred to, such as in “I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; And the heavens, and they had no light” (Jeremiah 4:23; see also Genesis 1:2).
And yes, many times the later writers of the Old Testament, such as the prophets, referred back to the book of Deuteronomy, which played such a central role in the covenantal life of early Israel. This week we will focus on how the book was used by later writers. What parts of Deuteronomy did they use, and what points were they making that have relevance for us today?
