CONTEXT
Part
2: Ch.5-11 Moses brings Encouragements
Ch.5
– Reminders of the Ten Commandments
Ch.6
– Remember & Keep the Commands
Ch.7
– Make Sure you Clear the Land
Ch.8
– Helps to Remember the Lord
Ch.9
– Recognise your Vulnerability
Ch.10
– Reassurances
Ch.11
– More Encouragements
FRAMEWORKS:
Deuteronomy 10: Reassurances
v.1-5
Recollecting the Second Tablets
v.6-9
An Aside: Their Travels & the Levites
v.10,11
Reassurance on the Mountain
v.12-22
Why Follow the Lord
v.1-5
Recollecting the Second Tablets
v.1
At
that time the Lord said to me, “Chisel out two stone tablets like
the first ones and come up to me on the mountain. Also make a
wooden ark.
v.2 I
will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets,
which you broke. Then you are to put them in the ark.”
v.3
So
I made the ark out of acacia wood and chiseled out two stone tablets
like the first ones, and I went up on the mountain with the two
tablets in my hands.
v.4 The
Lord wrote on these tablets what he had written before, the Ten
Commandments
he had proclaimed to you on the mountain, out of the fire, on
the day of the assembly. And the Lord gave them to me.
v.5
Then
I came back down the mountain and put the tablets in the ark I
had made, as the Lord commanded me, and they are there now.
[Notes:
Moses reminds them of something that perhaps not all
of them knew about – his time on the mountain with the Lord when
the Lord graciously allowed him to make new tablets of stone on
which the Lord again wrote the Ten Commandments. This is the God
of second chances!]
v.6-9
An Aside: Their Travels & the Levites
v.6
(The
Israelites travelled from the wells of Bene Jaakan to Moserah.
There Aaron died and was buried, and Eleazar his son succeeded
him as priest.
v.7
From
there they travelled to Gudgodah and on to Jotbathah, a land with
streams of water.
v.8 At
that time the Lord set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark
of the covenant of the Lord, to stand before the Lord to minister
and to pronounce blessings in his name, as they still do today.
v.9
That
is why the Levites have no share or inheritance among their fellow
Israelites; the Lord is their inheritance, as the Lord your God
told them.)
[Notes:
He recollects their earlier travels and how the Lord
had set aside the Levites to ensure the Tabernacle was properly
dismantled, maintained and put back together when they travelled.
This is the Lord of administrative provision.]
v.10,11
Reassurance on the Mountain
v.10
Now
I had stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights, as I
did the first time, and the Lord listened to me at this time also.
It was not his will to destroy you.
v.11
“Go,”
the Lord said to me, “and lead the people on their way, so that
they may enter and possess the land I swore to their ancestors
to give them.”
[Notes:
Having stayed on the mountain to intercede for the people,
Moses is able to testify that the Lord accepted his prayers and
re-established their purpose – for this people to go in and take
the Land. This is the Lord of persevering purpose.]
v.12-22
Why Follow the Lord
v.12,13
Their Calling
v.12
And
now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear
the Lord your God, to walk in obedience
to him, to love him, to serve
the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul,
v.13 and
to observe the Lord's commands and decrees that I am giving you
today for your own good?
v.14,15
Creator God who has become Personal God
v.14 To
the Lord your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens,
the earth and everything in it.
v.15
Yet
the Lord set his affection on your ancestors and loved them, and
he chose you, their descendants, above all the nations—as it is
today.
v.16
The Required Response
v.16
Circumcise
your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked any longer.
v.17,18
God of Goodness
v.17
For
the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great
God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no
bribes.
v.18 He
defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the
foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing.
v.19,20
Their calling (2)
v.19
And
you are to love those who are foreigners, for
you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt.
v.20
Fear
the Lord your God and serve him. Hold
fast to him and take your oaths in his name.
v.21,22
The All-powerful God and All-faithful God
v.21
He
is the one you praise; he is your God, who performed for you those
great and awesome wonders you saw with your own eyes.
v.22
Your
ancestors who went down into Egypt were seventy in all, and now
the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars in the
sky.
[Notes:
Twice Moses reminds them of their calling [v.12,13,19,20]
and the wonder of having a relationship with Almighty God [v.14,15,21,22]
and His goodness [v.17,18] and thus how they need to respond to
Him [v.16]. All these things in this chapter should reassure this
people that although we may get it wrong, the Lord is there to
give us another chance to get it right and come in line with His
ongoing purposeful will.]