Tanak Foundations-Concepts in Deuteronomy-Chapter 12

Deut 12.1-32 tells us that Choice #1 will be whether Israel will serve and worship Yehovah, or the gods of the Canaanites.  We are seeing that Israel had a choice. They could come to a central sanctuary where God put his name or use other places and altars, wherever they chose. Deut 12 deals with how to worship Yehovah. You were to come where he put his name, and God chose Jerusalem and the Temple, and he still does today. Unbelievers always fail to recognize Jerusalem, but Messiah comes to Jerusalem, he worshiped in Jerusalem’s Temple and the capital is Jerusalem. The place to worship and keep the festivals is not Salt Lake City; Rome; Wheaton, Il; Springfield, Mo; Washington; Moscow; London or some lake in Oklahoma. In the Atid Lavo (Messianic Kingdom) we will all go to one place, Jerusalem and the Temple there (Zech 14.16-21; Isa 2.2-4; Mic 4.1-5).  Private altars are prohibited and the eating of the sacrificial foods is prohibited outside the city of the central sanctuary.  There is also a prohibition against eating the blood.

We learn that the holy things and votive offerings shall be brought to the place the Lord chooses. Regular slaughter of meat for food can be done anywhere now that they are in the land. Deut 12.29-31 tells us that Yehovah is warning Israel not to follow the gods of the destroyed nations once they take the land. They were not to ask, “How do these nations serve their gods that I also may do this likewise.” They were not to act that way toward God. They were to be careful to do what he has told them and not to add to or take away from it. This is not what Judaism and Christianity ended up doing. Judaism and Christianity have not followed Moses for 2000 years.

Now, what does all idolatry have in common? The rejection of God’s influence. If we lose sight of what God has said and put too much emphasis on our own words, we are going in the wrong direction. If we lose sight of what God has said and put too much emphasis on what others have said, we are going in the wrong direction. Here is an application.

Let’s say you have a child with a special skill and there are special schools. Is this a good idea? It depends on the skill. If it is music, they can get a lifetime of enjoyment out of that. But what if all the training is to perfect the body for a few days of competition. All the training does not develop the true potential of that child, but to show their superiority over others (John 6.63; 1 Tim 4.8). What if all that work causes injury and beyond in order to win? It’s not the child’s fault, it’s the system or the coaches, parents or others. There was an Olympic gymnastic performer a few years ago who vaulted on a severely injured leg. The vault gave the United States a gold medal, further damaging her leg. What she did was selfless, but there is something wrong with a system that called upon her to do that. The world said, “Be tough, don’t give up, give it your all.” But are those the voices she should have listened to? What would she be “worth” if she failed? What kind of system drives a person to use performance enhancing drugs in order to play football or baseball?

Deut 12.32 is a verse we should remember. It says, “Whatever I command you, you shall be careful to do; you shall not add to nor take away from it.”  This very similar to what the Lord said earlier in Deut 4.2. This is a major mistake in Judaism. They read Deut 12.32 with their implied addition, “except for those cases where the rabbis must make a special ruling.” Why didn’t the nation of Israel as a whole recognize Yeshua when he came in the First Century? It is because they added to or deleted from Moses. Yeshua quotes Isa 29.13 on this error in Mark 7.6-9.

Do you want to know how to solve most theological disputes?  Just open the Scriptures and let everyone hear what the Lord has to say about the subject.  Let people hear what he says, not what we say like, “We do thi at our church” or “we don’t do that in our congregation.”  Let the people make a choice after hearing what God said.

Replacement Theology Christianity has done the same thing. They are “free from the law” (meaning they “deleted Moses”) and added on with their own church traditions. That is why the Torah is so new to people. They have never been taught Moses. Oh, they have been taught nice little bible stories growing up like David and Goliath, Noah and the Ark and Daniel in the lion’s den, but they have never been taught the Torah. They don’t know that the Lord had something to say on all subjects. We must learn the commandments. So, Choice #1 is, “Are we going to serve other gods or worship the Lord in a Torah-based faith?”

v 1…”These are the statutes and the judgments which you shall carefully observe in the land (not outside of it) which the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess as long as you live on the earth (adamah).

v 2…You shall utterly destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess serve their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree (there as to be a total eradication of all pagan practices and where they were practiced in Israel; this did not apply outside of the land).

v 3…And you shall tear down their altars and smash their sacred pillars and burn their Asherim (wooden gods with male and female imagery) with fire, and you shall cut down the engraved images of their gods, and you shall obliterate their name from that place.

v 4…You shall not act like this toward the Lord your God.

v 5…But you shall seek the Lord at the place which the Lord your God shall choose from all your tribes, to establish his name there for his dwelling, and there you shall come (you cannot keep the festivals outside of the Temple and Jerusalem).

v 6…And there you shall bring your burnt offerings (olot), your sacrifices (zevachim), your tithes (ma’aser), the contribution of your hand (terumah), your votive offerings (v’ nidrechem), your free will offerings (v’ nidvotechem) and the first-born (bikerechem) of your herd and of your flock (some of these things could not be done outside of the land as yet).

v 7…There also you and your house (priest, Levites and those according to the offering they brought) shall eat before the Lord your God (in Jerusalem), and rejoice in all your undertakings in which the Lord your God has blessed you.

v 8…You shall not do at all what we are doing here today (in the wilderness everything was not as exact in all forms as it will now be in the land and with a central sanctuary), every man doing what is right in his own eyes (they did not fear God) a;

v 9…for you have not as yet to come to the resting place and the inheritance which the Lord your God is giving you (Canaan).

v 10…When you cross the Jordan and live in the land which the Lord your God is giving you to inherit, and he gives you rest from all your enemies around you so that you live securely,

v 11…then it shall come about that the place in which the Lord your God shall choose for his name (Jerusalem-Deut 16.2; 2 Chr 6.6, 7.16) to dwell, there shall you bring all the I command you: your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution of your hand, all your choice votive offerings which you shall vow to the Lord.

v 12…And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, and the Levite who is within your gates (lived in certain cities), since he has no portion of inheritance with you.

v 13…Be careful you do not offer burnt offerings in every place you see,

v 14…but in the place which the Lord chooses in one of your tribes, there (the Temple altar) you shall offer your burnt offerings and there you shall do all that I command you.

v 15…However, you may slaughter and eat meat within any of your gates (in the wilderness they had to bring it to the doorway of the Mishkan-Lev 17), whatever you desire, according to the blessing of the Lord your God which he has given you; the unclean (ritually out of place) and the clean (ritually in place) may eat of it, as of the gazelle and the deer (these were clean animals but not acceptable as offerings on the altar, not being domesticated animals; once in the land, they were not expected to bring their meat to the Mishkan or the Temple anymore).

v 16…Only you shall not eat the blood, you are to pour it out on the ground like water (field dress it, no raw meat).

v 17…You are not allowed to eat within your gates the tithe of your grain, or new wine, or oil, or the first-born of your herd or flock, or any of your votive offerings which you vow, or your free-will offerings, or the contribution of your hand.

v 18…But you shall eat them before the Lord your God in the place which the Lord your God will choose, you and your son and daughter, and your male and female servants, and the Levite who is within your gates; and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God in all your undertakings (no mention of the burnt offering and sacrifices because these could only be eaten by the priests within the Temple courts, called “most holy” or Kodshai Kodeshim-Lev 6.19, 7.6; but the other holy foods could be eaten anywhere within the city of Jerusalem, called “holy” or Kodshai Kelim).

v 19…Be careful that you do not forsake the Levite as long as you live in the land (they were to be supported even in  the Shemittah and the Yovel year if he lived in the land; outside he was to be supported as a poor man in need of help).

v 20…when the Lord your God extends your border (by bringing them into Canaan) as he has promised you, and you say, ‘I will eat meat, because you desire to eat meat, then you may eat meat, whatever you desire (on the kosher list in Lev 11).

v 21…If the place which the Lord your God chooses to put his name is too far from you, then you may slaughter of your herd and flock which the Lord has given, as I have commanded you (the three things in v 15-16, you can slaughter and eat within your gates, the unclean and clean may eat of it, but you cannot eat the blood; the Rabbis teach that Moses had an oral law from God on how to ritually slaughter an animal and he taught the people, but there is no indication of that here), and you may eat it within your gates whatever you desire.

v 22…Just as the gazelle or a deer is eaten, so you shall eat it; the unclean (ritually out of place) and the clean (ritually in place) alike may eat of it.

v 23…Only be sure not to eat the blood (raw meat, field dress it), for the blood is life, and you shall not eat the life (see Lev 17.11 notes) with the flesh.

v 24…You shall not eat it; you shall pour it out on the ground like water.

v 25…You shall not eat it, in order that it may be well with you and your sons after you, for you will be doing what is right in the sight of the Lord.

v 26…Only your holy things (with a kedusha) which you may have and your votive offerings (which are obligatory-12.17) you shall take and go to the place which the Lord chooses (all else can be eaten anywhere).

v 27…And you shall offer your burnt offerings, the flesh and the blood, on the altar of the Lord your God; and the blood of your sacrifices shall be poured out on the altar of the Lord your God, and you shall eat the flesh.

v 28…Be careful and listen to all these words which I command you, in order that it may be well with you and your sons after you forever, for you will be doing what is good and right in the sight of the Lord your God.

v 29…When the Lord your God cuts off before you the nations which you are going in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land (God will now warn Israel not to worship like or follow the gods of the destroyed nations once they take the oland; they were not to ask how they worshiped their gods so they could imitate them),

v 30…beware that you are not ensnared to follow them, after they are destroyed before you, and that you do not after their gods, saying, ‘How do these nations serve their gods, that I also may do likewise.’

v 31…You shall not behave thus toward the Lord your God, for every abominable act (of murder, adultery, seual perversion, etc) which the Lord hates they have done for their gods, for they burn their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods.

v 32…Whatever I command you, you shall be careful to do; you shall not add to nor take away from it (Deut 4.2).”

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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