Deuteronomy 24 – 27

The rules for the Promised Land continue. Which one did you find interesting? I thought the one about a newly married man not being drafted for at least a year. He had to be free to spend that first year at home so he could bring happiness to his wife.

In many of these rules, God was looking out for the poor, the orphans and the widows – people who could not take care of themselves. God provided sustenance, not with a handout, but they could go into the fields and into the vineyards and glean food that the farmers were supposed to leave for them.

Much of chapter 25 covers what to do about a lot of interpersonal problems. If you were the brother of a man who died and left his wife childless, how would you have liked to have your family referred to as “the family of the man whose sandal was pulled off?” This hearkens back to the story of Judah and Tamar. Tamar was married to Judah’s firstborn, Er. He was wicked and died before producing progeny. His brother, Onan, then married Tamar, but refused to give her a child so the Lord took his life, too. Judah did not allow his third son, Shelah, to marry her, fearing Shelah would die also. Tamar, one of the four women mentioned in accounts of the line of Christ, pretended to be a prostitute and got pregnant by Judah.

Almost in an aside, Moses tells them to remember the way the Amalekites attacked them when they came from Egypt and to destroy them and their memory wherever they found them.

During the harvest offering, when the people were bringing the firstfruits of their crop, they were given clear instructions of what to say as they brought it – more helps in remembering what the Lord had done for them.

I think this is the first we have seen the rule about the special tithe of their crops to the Levites, foreigners, orphans and widows that they were to give every third year. In fact, I don’t really remember reading this before, but I must have. This was a way for them to acknowledge God’s goodness and to ask for a blessing.

In chapter 27, Moses talks about Mount Ebal and how, after the people crossed the Jordan River, they were supposed set up remembrance stones and coat them with plaster, upon which they would write this whole body of instructions. They were also to build an altar from uncut stones and offer sacrifices and celebrate their coming into the land.

Can you picture the people being divided by tribe with Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph and Benjamin standing on Mount Gerizim and Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan and Naphtali on Mount Ebal? The Levites were to pronounce specific curses and the people were to say, “Amen.” There would be no doubt that anyone didn’t know about the curses.

Tomorrow, it’s Deuteronomy 28 – 29.

Until next time…