A VERY slight acquaintance with this book will show us how different it is from every other book.
It marks the end of the wilderness journey— eleven days’ journey which had occupied forty long years — and ere the first step is taken into the promised land Moses, at the command of God, rehearses the desert history, and the ordinances and commandments to be observed in the land. It is a sorrowful story, as we have seen in a former study, a story of unbelief, of disobedience, of murmuring.
But in contrast to all this and in spite of it, we have the wonderful revelation that the Lord loved His people; nothing that they were altered His love, and to this day they are “beloved for the father’s sakes” (Rom. 11:28), In tender and beautiful words Moses tells them, “The Lord did not set His love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people: but because the Lord loved you” hath He “brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bond-men” (Deut. 7:7, 8).
Our hearts may well be glad at these words, for it is the same love which has stooped down to meet our need; only now, through the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, and as blessed in Him, we are made children of God and are loved with that same love that rests in all its fullness on Him, as He said, “That the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them” (John:7:26).
We read also that God spoke to them. In the fourth chapter Moses tells them, “The Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the fire: ye heard the voice of the words, but ye saw no similitude; only ye heard a voice.” And again, “Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou hast heard, and live?... Out of heaven He made thee to heat His voice that He might instruct thee.”
The foolish and flagrant infidelity of today denies God, denies that He has spoken; but Israel when they heard the voice from the flaming mountain-top were in no doubt who it was who spoke to them. In every age of the world’s history God has spoken, by creation, by signs and wonders, by prophets, by a still small voice, and “in these last days... by His Son” (Heb. 1:2), Three times during the Lord’s pathway through the world God spoke to Him audibly so that others might hear, and in the gospels we are allowed to listen to His words as He spoke to His Father. Let no one doubt that God has spoken, nor that by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, He speaks still to those who have ears to hear.
If it is objected that Deuteronomy is of doubtful authenticity, or that the Pentateuch is not to be taken literally, let us remember that the Lord Jesus quoted from this book. As is well known, He met the three temptations in the wilderness with words which forever accredit it.
“IT IS WRITTEN, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4; Deut. 8:3).
“IT IS WRITTEN again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God” (Matt. 4:7: Deut. 6:16).
“IT IS WRITTEN, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve” (Matt. 4:10; Deut. 10:20).
May those words, “It is written,” be deeply engraved in all our hearts. There is much in this book, much in the whole Bible that with our present knowledge we do not understand; there is much more that we might understand if we studied it more diligently. It carries within its own credentials; it is not given to teach us history, though it is greater than all history; it was not written to instruct us in science, though above all science; but, “by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live.”
The Apostle Paul quotes from chapters 30:11-14 in Romans 10:6-8, but with how great a contrast! In Deuteronomy it is the way of law, in Romans the way of faith; as he says plainly, “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Rom. 10:17). So the word, which has been given us that we may live thereby, must be received by faith, and by the teaching of the Holy Spirit. There is, moreover, no alternative. By it we have the knowledge of God, and of our Lord Jesus Christ; by it we have the assurance of sins forgiven, and the light of eternal life; without it we live and walk in darkness, and die in the dark, without the least ray of hope beyond the grave.
There was no response in Israel to Jehovah’s love, they were “children in whom is no faith” (32:20), and the law which He spake, and which was their life, was made death unto them by their disobedience. Moses set before them “life and death, blessing and cursing” (30:19), and they chose the way of death and cursing — idolatry and disobedience, until the day came that, having filled up the measure of their guilt by crucifying their long-promised Messiah, the judgment predicted in chapters 28:49-58 fell on them and was fulfilled to the letter. To this day they are an abiding witness to the truth of the word recorded for our warning in this book.
The only event mentioned in Deuteronomy, apart from the history rehearsed by Moses, is his seeing the land from afar, and his death and burial. God “buried him in a valley in the land of Moab... but no man knoweth of his sepulcher unto this day” (34:6).
With Moses passed the last hope of man under law, speaking typically, actually the period of law continued until the commencement of the Christian era. The law was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator, and Moses was the mediator who had stood in the breach when the Lord threatened to destroy the people for their sin. Not that the law was wrong, for “if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law” (Gal. 3:21). It had indeed been proved, beyond doubt, that there was no blessing for the people by the law, only a curse, and now the mediator whom the Lord knew face to face is dead, and the outlook would have been hopeless indeed were it not for the appointment of a new leader and of a different order of things, as recorded in the closing words of the book.
How this should stir our hearts to praise for the grace that has come to us! Now, “there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all” (1 Tim. 2:5), who died, and rose, and liveth evermore, and who has annulled death and brought life and incorruptibility to light through the gospel.
Before we close our study of the Pentateuch, we should briefly look at the numbering of the tribes. We may compare Genesis 49:1-28; Exodus 1:1-5; Numbers 1:5-15; Deuteronomy 33:6-25; and in contrast the last numbering in Revelation 8:5-8. It will be seed that in each case the order of the names is different.
In Genesis 49 we have Jacob’s prophecy which is generally admitted to be an outline of Israel’s history from that day to their final blessing under Christ. In Exodus the tribes are enumerated as in Egypt; in Numbers as in the wilderness; and in Deuteronomy as about to enter into the land; the order of the names should be compared with the final numbering in the Revelation.
It is sad to trace the same story of man’s failure throughout. Reuben at the first forfeited his birthright which was given to Joseph, and entailed this loss on his tribe for all time. They were the leaders of those who settled down on the wilderness side of the river Jordan, and were the first to be carried away into captivity long after. Simeon is omitted from the record in Deuteronomy. The tribe seems to have had little interest in possessing their inheritance for we read of them later within Judah’s territory. In Revelation Dan is left out, a very solemn thing, for it was in Dan that idolatry was first systematized, and it is thought that from Dan antichrist will come. Ephraim, the tribe of “ten-thousands” is not mentioned, and Joseph appears instead. Manasses, the tribe of “thousands,” has a place. The Scripture in Hosea 4:17, may explain this. “Ephraim is joined to idols, let him alone.”
The tribes varied in numbers and in characteristics through the years, and it may be that in the order of their enumeration this is considered.
The blessing of Judah in Genesis and in Deuteronomy must be noted, because “It is evident that our Lord sprang out of Judah” (Heb. 7:14). Judah is the royal tribe as we read in Revelation 5:5, “The Lion of the tribe of Judah hath prevailed.” Joseph, as we saw in our study of Genesis, is a typical person, to whom the rights of the firstborn belong. The blessing of Joseph in Genesis and in Deuteronomy would seem to foreshadow millennial blessing, as though heaven and earth, sun and moon, the everlasting hills, the dew and the great deeps were all laid under tribute to gladden the kingdom of Him at whom the archers had shot and sorely wounded, and who, separate from and despised by His brethren, has been exalted by God far above all principality and power, and might and dominion. We see a little foretaste of the blessing that can no longer be limited to Israel in John 4, when the Lord, wearied with His journey, sat on the well, “near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph,” waiting to bless Samaria’s outcast daughter with eternal life and joy.
Let us read one verse more. “This glorious and fearful name THE LORD THY GOD” (28:58). We whose happy lot it is, in this day of grace, to be brought to God as Father, do well to remember that God does not abate one iota of His glory and majesty; He is ever the “Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty,” and, whilst we worship Him with filial hearts, let our worship be also and always with reverence and godly fear. The day may be much nearer than we think when He will arise to shake terribly the earth, and will make His power and His wrath known. We may have light thoughts of sin, but let us take it to heart that the sin which has dishonored God, necessitated the Lord’s giving of Himself at Calvary, degraded man, and filled this fair earth with weeping, will yet receive its swift and due retribution.
May writer and reader be ever more earnestly interested in the study of Scripture, that therein we may learn the mind of God, and “His deep eternal counsel” for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, and for the blessing of the vast universe.
L. R.