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Deuteronomy Chapter 4







 

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GiGi's Deuteronomy Chapter 4 comment on 10/24/2023, 6:06pm...

cont.

I think I am on 8

8) Although God commands them against idolatry, He tells them that they will indeed turn from Him to idols, corrupting themselves before God, doing the very evil He tells them to avoid. He will remove them from the land, as He promised to do to them at Horeb if they departed from the covenant relationship with Him. He will scatter them among the nations (which happened in the exile to Babylon and Assyria, and in 70 A.D.) and their numbers will be greatly decreased. (25-28)

9) He promises to receive them back to Himself if they repent and seek Him with all of their hearts (29-31). He will do the same to us when we backslid and repent.

Verses 40-49 seem to belong to the next section (ch. 5)

We, too, are in a covenant with God, the New Covenant sealed by the blood of Jesus, Son of the Father, who sealed it for us without our input. It is totally God's doing, just as with the covenant made with Abraham. Abraham slept, and the Godhead sealed the covenant without Abraham being awake to participate in the sealing. He was given the promise, but God did the work of the covenant. So, too, with us, the covenant that saves us is a gift to us from God, not earned by us by our obedience, but like Abraham, our obedience results from being given the gift of faith by the Holy Spirit. It is a better covenant than that of the one made at Sinai. It was made at Mt. Calvary at Golgotha, when Jesus was crucified and died for us.

The only perplexing part of this chapter to me is that of image making. I certainly understand that we are not to create or have any object that would represent God, nor make any idol. But the language seems to say that we are not to make images of anything. Does this rule out art, such as paintings sculptures, drawings, carvings in stone for the sake of beauty? The tabernacle curtains had cherubim on them and the ark of the covenant had angels forged to overlook the mercy seat. These were commanded by God. There were other images. ?

 


GiGi's Deuteronomy Chapter 4 comment on 10/24/2023, 5:48pm...

Takeaways from this chapter:

1) God says in verse 39 that He alone is God and that there is no other true God. He establishes this as a fact to the people of Israel. He reminds them of the price paid by those who sinned by serving the god of the Moabites-Ba'al Peor with the Midianite women. They all died and only those who did not worship this false god survived to that day.

2) God reminds them of all the ways He has delivered the nation: from Egypt, in battle, in the wilderness. He expects the nation to remember these things and teach their children these things.

3) God warns them about departing from Him to worship false idols, for they are not truly god, nor able to help the Israelites.

4) God reminds the nation that he is merciful and good, will not forsake them, and will keep His covenant with their forefathers. (vs. 31)

5) He tells them to keep the covenant made at Mt. Horeb according to the commandments He gave them engraved by Him on stone tablets. (vs. 13)

6) He commands not to add to the words of the covenant and His commandments nor to take any words away. (vs.2) We are to keep His words separate from the words of mere human thoughts.

7) He recalls to the people how He had met with them on Mt. Horeb Sinai) and had given them the covenant and Law that they were to adhere to and not turn from. They are wisdom and understanding for the Israelites. (5-6. 10)

8) He tells them how they have been set apart in a special way from all the nations of the world, with God so near, because he is everywhere present (vs.7-8) The wisdom and understanding of the covenant and Law will be noticed by the other nations if Israel lives them out. In

8) He reminds them how He appeared to them on Mt. Horeb in fire and spoke out of the fire, but they did not see any form of Him. (vs. 12) Therefore, they are not to try to make any image to represent Him. (15-19) He wanted the Israelites to worship Him, not any image. It is a spiritual worship, as Jesus. (Jn. 4:24)

 


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