Tuesday, December 7
Deuteronomy in Jeremiah
Years ago, a young man, an agnostic, was a passionate seeker for truth — whatever that truth was and wherever it led him. Eventually he came, not only to believe in God the Father and in Jesus, but he also accepted the Seventh-day Adventist message. His favourite verse in the Bible was Jeremiah 29:13, which reads: “And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.” Years later, however, studying his Bible, he found that verse again, but way back in the book of Deuteronomy. That is, Jeremiah got it from Moses.
Read Deuteronomy 4:23-29. What is the context of this promise to Israel, and how could it relate to us today?
As we have already seen, the book of Deuteronomy had been re-discovered during the reign of King Josiah, and it was under Josiah’s rule that Jeremiah began his ministry. No wonder, then, that the influence of Deuteronomy can be seen in the writing of Jeremiah.
Read Jeremiah 7:1-7. What is Jeremiah telling the people to do, and how does it relate to what had been written in the book of Deuteronomy?
Over and over in Deuteronomy, Moses stressed how their existence in the land of Canaan was conditional, and that if they disobeyed, they would not remain in the place that God had chosen for them. Look at the particular warning in Jeremiah 7:4, the implication being that, yes, this was God’s temple and, yes, they were the chosen people, but none of that mattered if they weren’t obedient.
And that obedience included how they treated strangers, orphans, widows — an idea that goes directly back to Deuteronomy and some of the covenant stipulations incumbent upon them to follow: “Thou shalt not pervert the judgment of the stranger, nor of the fatherless; nor take a widow’s raiment to pledge” (Deuteronomy 24:17; see also Deuteronomy 24:21; 10:18, 19; 27:19).
Read Jeremiah 4:4 and compare it to Deuteronomy 30:6. What is the message there to the people, and how does the principle equally apply to God’s people today?
Wednesday, December 8
What Does the Lord Require?
So much of the writings of the prophets consisted of appeals to faithfulness. And not just faithfulness in general, but in particular, faithfulness to the Israelites’ end of the covenant, which was reaffirmed just before they entered the land. This is what the book of Deuteronomy depicted: the reaffirmation of God’s covenant with Israel. The Lord was now, after the 40-year detour, about to fulfill (or begin to fulfill) more of His covenant promises, His end of the deal. Thus, Moses admonished them to fulfill their end, as well. Indeed, much of the writings of the prophets was basically the same: appeals for the people to uphold their side of the covenant.
Read Micah 6:1-8. What is the Lord telling the people there, and how does it relate to the book of Deuteronomy? (See also Amos 5:24 and Hosea 6:6)
Bible scholars have seen in these verses in Micah what is known as a “covenant lawsuit” in which the Lord “sues” or brings a case against His people for violation of the covenant. In this case, Micah says that the Lord “hath a controversy with his people” (Micah 6:2), in which the word “controversy” (riv) can mean a legal dispute. That is, the Lord was bringing a legal case against them, imagery that implies the legal (besides the relational) aspect of the covenant. This shouldn’t be surprising because, after all, central to the covenant was law.
Notice, too, how Micah borrows language directly from Deuteronomy: “And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, To keep the commandments of the Lord, and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good?” (Deuteronomy 10:12, 13). Instead, though, of quoting it directly, Micah modifies it by exchanging the “letter of the law” of Deuteronomy for the “spirit of the law,” which is about being just and merciful.
What seems to be happening here is that, whatever the outward appearance of religion and piety (lots of animal sacrifices, i.e., “thousands of rams”), that’s not what constitutes Israel’s covenant relationship with God. What good is all this outward piety if, for example, “they covet fields, and take them by violence; And houses, and take them away: So they oppress a man and his house, Even a man and his heritage” (Micah 2:2)? Israel was supposed to be a light to the world, about which the nations would say, with wonder: “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people” (Deuteronomy 4:6). Hence, they were to act with wisdom and with understanding, which included treating people with justice and mercy.
Thursday, December 9
Daniel’s Prayer
One of the most famous prayers in all the Old Testament is in Daniel 9. Having learned from reading the prophet Jeremiah that the time of Israel’s “desolations” (Daniel 9:2), seventy years, was soon to be up, Daniel earnestly began praying.
And what a prayer it was — a poignant and tearful supplication in which he confesses his sins and the sins of his people, while at the same time acknowledging God’s justice amid the calamity that had befallen them.
Read Daniel 9:1-19. What themes can you find that are related directly back to the book of Deuteronomy?
Daniel’s prayer is a summary of exactly what the nation had been warned about in Deuteronomy regarding the fruits of not keeping their end of the covenant. Twice Daniel referred back to “the law of Moses” (Daniel 9:11, 13), which certainly included Deuteronomy and, in this case, might have been specifically referring to it.
As Deuteronomy had said, they were driven from the land (see Deuteronomy 4:27-31 and Deuteronomy 28) because they didn’t obey, exactly what Moses (Deuteronomy 31:29) had been told would happen.
How tragic, too, that instead of the nations around them saying, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people” (Deuteronomy 4:6), Israel became a “reproach” (Deuteronomy 9:16) to those same nations.
In all of Daniel’s tears and supplications, he never asks the common question that so many ask when disaster strikes: “Why?” He never asks because, thanks to the book of Deuteronomy, he knows exactly why all these things happened. In other words, Deuteronomy gave Daniel (and other exiles) a context in which to understand that the evil that came upon them wasn’t just blind fate, blind chance, but the fruits of their disobedience, exactly what they had been warned about.
But, and perhaps more important, Daniel’s prayer expressed the reality that despite these events, there was hope. God had not abandoned them, no matter how much it might have seemed that way. Deuteronomy provided not only a context for understanding their situation, but it also pointed to the promise of restoration, as well.
Read Daniel 9:24-27, the prophecy of Jesus and His death on the cross. Why would this prophecy be given to Daniel (and to the rest of us) in the context of Israel’s exile and the promise of return?
Friday, December 10
Further Thought: “This [Micah 6:1-8] is one of the great passages of the Old Testament. It, like Amos 5:24 and Hosea 6:6, epitomizes the message of the eighth-century prophets. The passage opens with a beautiful example of a covenant lawsuit in which the prophet summons the people to hear the charge Yahweh has against them. The mountains and hills are the jury because they have been around a long time and have witnessed God’s dealing with Israel. Rather than directly charging Israel with breaking the covenant, God asks Israel if they have any charges against him. ‘What have I done? How have I wearied you?’ In the face of injustice some of the poor people may have become ‘weary in well doing.’ In the face of opportunities to get rich quick some of the land-owners might have grown weary of keeping the covenant laws.” Ralph L. Smith, Word Biblical Commentary, Micah-Malachi, (Grand Rapids, MI: Word Books, 1984), vol. 32, p. 50
“In the reformation that followed, the king [Josiah] turned his attention to the destruction of every vestige of idolatry that remained. So long had the inhabitants of the land followed the customs of the surrounding nations in bowing down to images of wood and stone, that it seemed almost beyond the power of man to remove every trace of these evils. But Josiah persevered in his effort to cleanse the land.” Ellen G. White, Prophets and Kings, p. 401
Discussion Questions:
1. Sure, we’re Seventh-day Adventists, and with our present truth message, we see ourselves and (rightly so) in the same place that ancient Israel had been in: having truths that the world around them needed to hear. It’s a great privilege for us. How well, though, do you think we are living up to the responsibilities that come with such privilege?
2. Imagine being Daniel, having seen your nation invaded and defeated, and knowing that the temple, the center of your whole religious faith, was destroyed by idolatrous pagans. How, though, could knowledge of the book of Deuteronomy been very faith-sustaining for him (or any other Jew) at this time? That is, how did the book help him understand all that was happening and why it happened? In a similar way, how does our understanding of Scripture as a whole help us deal with trying times and events that otherwise, without our knowledge of Scripture, could be very discouraging to us? What should the answer teach us about how central the Bible must be to our faith?
3. In class go over the 70 week prophecy of Daniel 9:24-27. What role does the covenant have in that prophecy, and why is the idea of covenant so important to it — and to us?
