Tanak Foundations-Concepts in Deuteronomy-Chapter 4

Deut 4.1-49 is a very important portion of Scripture because it tells us that no commandments ever given were better than these. That means Rabbinic Judaism and the Oral Law, and Replacement Theology Christianity and their teachings that the “Law has been done away with” and replaced by church doctrine is really a belief system that calls God a liar. Those man-made laws are not better than those recorded here in Deuteronomy, according to the Lord (v 8). Israel was the founder of modern civilization. Benjamin Disraeli, a British statesman in the 19th Century, responded to an anti-semitic remark by saying, “When the ancestors of the right honorable gentleman (Parliamentarian Daniel O’Connell) were brutal savages, mine were priests in the Temple of Solomon.”  Moses is going to appeal to their experiences that should have taught them what happens when they disobey.  The idea of reward and punishment is a constant theme of Deuteronomy.

Should a believer obey the Lord? Are these the commandments of the Lord? Should we observe them as they apply? That is where we get into trouble. In Replacement Theology Christianity, they don’t keep them because they say they have been done away with and replaced by man-made laws, and despite any positive aspects that the Rabbinic Oral Law may or may not have in “clarifying” the principles of scriptural cases, Yeshua criticized the traditions and additions of the Oral Law and these additions were prohibited here in Deut 4.2 anyway. The Oral Law may have some useful guidelines, but human judges make errors. We are not to change the “tavnit” (blueprint, pattern). People would rather be “religious” than understand the truth.

There are a handful of laws concerning the Sabbath, but there are over 1500 Rabbinical laws concerning it, and that goes for just about any other law in the Torah. No wonder the Jewish people don’t believe in Yeshua, they don’t even believe Moses (John 5.39-47). There is nothing in the Gospels and Epistles that will take issue with Moses and the Torah. The Gospels and Epistles amplify and help explain the Torah to believers. They are commentaries on how the Torah applies to Jewish and non-Jewish believers in Yeshua.

What kind of a person says these commandments don’t apply anymore? How do they reach that conclusion? What path in their mind do they take to come up with that in the face of all the verses that say otherwise in this portion, and in the Scriptures themselves? Deut 4.9 tells us to “give heed to yourself and keep your soul (heart, mind, spirit) diligently.” In other words, “Renew your mind” (Rom 12.2). How do we renew our minds? Deut 4.9 gives us the answer, “but make them (Torah/Moses) known to your sons and your grandsons.” Go back to what Moses taught. Don’t forget, the same teaching Moses gave applies today, only the situations have changed (no Temple, not in the land, etc).

Yehovah tells them to remember that they stood at the mountain and actually heard the voice of God from the midst of the fire, but saw no form.  He then tells them that since they saw no form they were not to make images of him in the form of any male or female, animal or winged bird, or anything that creeps on the ground, or any fish.  They were not to worship the stars, sun or moon.  The reason is because with this God there are no “intermediaries” but we can go directly to God.  Yehovah will not share his glory with false gods.  We do not need “props.”  Rather than have false images, we are to fashion ourselves into the image of God by keeping his commandments.  Has any people ever heard the voice of God speaking with them and survived?  The answer is “No!”   So when they entered the land, they were to perform these commandments and be blessed.  Deut 4.25-30 is a prophecy stating that Israel will once again hear the voice of God again like at the mountain and return in repentance when they are in distress in the latter days.

v 1…”And now, O Israel, hear (shema/obey) to the statutes and the judgments which I am teaching you to perform (do), in order that you may live (as a nation) and go in and take possession of the land which the Lord (Yehovah), the God (power) of your fathers, is giving you.

v 2…You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you (like the Jewish Oral Law, despite any positive aspects the Oral Law may or may not have clarifying the principles of idiosyncratic cases. Yeshua criticised the traditions and additions of the Oral Law, and these additions were prohibited anyway.  The Oral Law may have some useful guidelines but human judges make mistakes), nor take away from it (Replacement Theology Christianity says that this law has been “done away with” and have replaced them with man-made laws; if God said there was never a commandment given by man better than these in Deut 4.8, how can man replace them and call that “better?”; and this goes for any other religion that has replaced the Torah; there are only two religions in the world, God’s found in these commandments, and what every other religion says), that you may keep (to incorporate the things of God into your life, and to stay true to the tavnit, or blueprint, God has given for a specific thing to be done, at a specific place, at a specific time, by specific people) the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you (Prov 30.5; 1 Cor 4.6; Deut 12.32).

v 3…Your eyes have seen what the Lord has done in the case of Baal-peor (through the counsel of Balaam); for all the men who followed Baal-peor, the Lord your God has destroyed them from among you (Israel or anyone else doesn’t believe in Yeshua because they don’t believe Moses-John 5.39-47).

v 4…But you who held fast to the Lord your God are alive today; every one of you.

v 5…See, I have taught you statutes and judgments just as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should do thus in the land where you are entering to possess it.

v 6…So keep (see v 2 definition) and do (be a doer of the word, not just a hearer-Jam 1.22-25; 2.12; should a believer obey the Lord?  Are these the commandments of the Lord?  Should we observe them as they apply?  Not answering these questions correctly is where we get into trouble; there is nothing in the Gospels and Epistles that will take issue with Moses; they Gospels and Epistles are commentaries on the Torah, and they amplify and explain them; what kind of person says these commandments don’t apply anymore; what path did they follow to come up with that, in the face of all the verses that say otherwise), for that is your understanding in the sight of the peoples (that is one of the purposes of the Torah, to reach the nations) who will hear all these statutes and say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people (but Haman hated them-Est 3.8).’

v 7…For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the Lord our God whenever we call on him?

v 8…Or what great nation is there that has statutes and judgments as righteous as this whole law which I am setting before you today (there are no laws anywhere, or in any other religion, as righteous as the Torah)?

v 9…Only give heed to yourself and keep (guard) your soul diligently (renew your mind-Rom 12.2; how do we renew our mind? Go back to what Moses taught; the same teaching Moses gave applies today, only certain situations have changed, like no Temple, out of the land, etc); lest you forget the things which your eyes has seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life; but make them known to your sons and your grandsons (teach Moses)

v 10…Remember the day you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb when the Lord said to me, ‘Assemble the people to me, that I may let them hear my words (for themselves) so they may learn to fear me all the days they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children.

v 11…And you came near and stood at the foot (Hebrew “tachat” meaning “under”; this alludes to a chuppah as God betrothed himself to Israel-Jer 2.2;Matt 21.42-44) of the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire to the very heart of the heavens: darkness (that surrounded the mountain), cloud, and thick gloom.

v 12…Then the Lord spoke to you from the midst of the fire, you heard the sound of words (Hebrew “voice of voices”, but you saw no form-only a voice (notice they “saw” the voice-see v 33-36; Heb 12.18-19; same scenario as in Acts 2 when they were gathered in the Temple for the festival of Shavuot; the “Authorized Daily Prayer Book” by Joseph Hertz says on p. 791 that the voice of God divided itself into 70 tongues; see also the book, “Rosh Ha Shannah and the Messianic Kingdom to Come” by Joseph Good, p. 26-28 on how this event at Sinai repeated in Acts 2).

v 13…So he declared to you his covenant which he commanded you to perform, that is, the ten commandments (or “Ten Words”); and he wrote them on two tablets of stone (Exo 24.12; Deut 9.10, 10.4).

v 14…And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that you might perform them in the land where you are going over to possess it.

v 15…So watch (watch out or you will start making idols; we don’t fashion God in our image, but are to fashion ourselves into his image by obeying his commandments) yourselves carefully since you did not see any form on the day the Lord spoke to you at Horeb from the midst of the fire,’

v 16…lest you act corruptly and make a graven image for yourselves in the form of any figure (like a statue), the likeness of male or female;

v 17…the likeness of any animal that is on the earth (like a lamb or lion, etc); the likeness of any winged bird (like a dove) that flies in the sky;

v 18…the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water below the earth.

v 19…And beware, lest you lift up your eyes to heaven and see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the hosts of heaven (the bright lights)  and be drawn away (by their beauty and their movements) and worship them and serve them, those which the Lord our God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven.

v 20…But the Lord has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace (where things are purified; Egypt is a type of Europe in prophecy and the home of the furnaces of the Holocaust-Jer 11.4; 1 Kings 8.51), from Egypt to be a people for his own pssession, as today.

v 21…Now the Lord (Yehovah) was angry with me on your account (for your benefit; had the Lord let the unbelief of Moses go unpunished, the people would have been more hardened in their sins, and for their sakes God could not overlook it), and swore that I should not cross the Jordan, and should not enter the good land into which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.’

v 22…For I shall die in this land (and not have a part in the inheritance), I shall not cross the Jordan, but you shall cross and take possession of this good land.

v 23…So watch yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God , which he made with you, and make for yourselves a graven image in the form of anything , against which the Lord you God has commanded you (4.15-18).

v 24…For the Lord your God is a consuming fire (to his enemies), a jealous (can mean “zealous”; he will not share his glory with any false god because they are a waste of time; but people don’t believe Yehovah is zealous and think he is full of grace, that this God has changed.  People have created an idol in their hearts, a God after “their own image.”  They don’t like the Torah so they say, “My God did away with the Law.”  Some will say, “I don’t like Jews” so they say God has replaced them with “the church” or say “Jesus was not a Jew” or “Paul was not a Jew but a Christian.”  We have heard this line of thinking personally).

v 25…When you become the father of children and children’s children and have remained long in the land and act corruptly, and make an idol in the form of anything, and do what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God so as to provoke him to anger (v 25-30 is a prophecy, and it has a counterpart in Heb 12.18-29; Rev 10.1-11 and Psa 29.3-9).

v 26…I call heaven and earth to witness (they go on and are not subject to human changes) against you today, that you shall perish quickly from the land where you are going over the Jordan to possess it.  You shall not live long on it, but shall be utterly destroyed.

v 27…And the Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and you shall be left few in number among the nations, where the Lord shall drive you.

v 28…And there you will serve gods, the works of man’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell (breathe).

v 29…But from there (among the nations) you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find him, if you search for him with all your heart (intentions, thoughts, desires) and all your soul (a parallelism).

v 30…When you are in distress, when all these things have come upon you, in the latter days (“acharit yamim” or when Messiah comes-Jer 30.1-11) you will return (teshuvah/repentance) to the LOrd Your God and listen to his voice (like at the mountain-Heb 12.18-19; Rev 10.1-11; Israel will again hear God voice again, when they are in distress in the birth-pains).

v 31…For the Lord your God is a compassionate God: he will not fail you nor destroy you nor forget the covenant with your fathers  which he swore to them (he reassures Israel that when the distress happens, he is not trying to kill them).

v 32…Indeed, ask now concerning the former days which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and inquire from one end of the heavens to the other.  Has anything been done like this great thing, or has anything been heard like it?

v 33…Has any people heard the voice of God speaking from the midst of fire, as you have heard, and survived (this says the greatest event in human history up to that point was when a whole nation heard the voice of God and survived (v 12)/

v 34…Or has any god tried to go and take for himself a nation from within another nation by trials (testing Pharaoh and Israel) by signs and wonders (events) and by war (the overthrow of the Egyptian army) and by a mighty hand (of divine intervention) and by an outstretched arm and by great terrors (like the Red Sea standing in heaps on either side), as the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?

v 35…To you it was shown that you might know that the Lord, he is God, and there is no other besides him.

v 36…Out of the heavens he let you hear his voice to discipline you; and on earth he let you see his great fire (on Sinai), and you heard his words from the midst of the fire.

v 37…Because he loved your fathers, therefore he chose their descendants after them.  And he personally brought you from Egypt by his great power,

v 38…driving out from before you nations greater and mightier than you, to bring you in and give you their kland as an inheritance, as it is today.

v 39…Know (appreciate) therefore today, and take it to your heart, that the Lord, he is God in heaven above and on the earth below; there is no other.

v 40…So you shall keep his statutes and his commandments which I am giving you today (and starting in the next chapter he will go over those commandments again), that it may go well with you (the Torah is not a curse) and with your children after you, and that you may live long on the land which the Lord your God is giving you for all time (This is the issue even today, and will be in the latter days, who really is God?  This is building in the world right now.  Is it Yehovah or Allah?  Is it Yehovah or Buddha?  Is it Yehovah or Krishna?  Is it Yehovah or Baal?  This won’t be settled by America because America is full of other gods.  Moses is saying, “Choose Yehovah, the God of heaven and earth.  He has the power and he is bigger than all the other so-called gods.  If we do, it will go well with us).”

v 41…Then Moses set apart three cities (of refuge) across the Jordan to the east,

v 42…that a manslayer might flee there, who unintentionally slew his neighbor without having enmity toward him in the past; and by fleeing to one of these cities he might live.

v 43…Bezer (remote fortress) in the wilderness on the plateau of the Reubenites, and Ramoth (heights) in Gilead for the Gadites, and Golan in Bashan for the Manassites.

v 44…Now this is the law (Torah; instruction, teaching) which Moses set before the sons of Israel;

v 45…these are the testimonies (edut; evidences) and the statutes (chukim) and the ordinances (mishpatim/judgments) which Moses spoke to the sons of Israel when they came out from Egypt,

v 46…across the Jordan, in the valley opposite Beth-peor (house of the breach), in the land of Sihon king of the Amorites who lived in Heshbon whom Moses and the sons of Israel defeated when they came out of Egypt.

v 47…And they took possession of his land  and the land of Og king of Bashan, the two kings of the Amorites who were across the Jordan to the east,

v 48…from Aroer (ruins) which is on the edge of the valley of Arnon (rushing stream), even as far as Mount Sion (lofty), that is Hermon-Deut 3.9).

v 49…With all the Arabah (desert) across the Jordan to the east, even as far as the sea of the Arabah (Salt or Dead Sea), at the foot of the slopes of Pisgah (Mount Nebo is the highest among the several Pisgah summits).

 

Posted in All Teachings, Articles, Idioms, Phrases and Concepts, Prophecy/Eschatology, The Festivals of the Lord, The Tanak, Tying into the New Testament

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