Ep 931 - Deuteronomy 2:26-37

There's a line in the closing chapter of the book of Judges that gives us a glimpse into what things were like in the days after Moses and Joshua were dead and the nation of Israel had been in the land of Canaan for some time. It simply reads: "In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes" (Judges 25:25). Everyone did what was right. That's an interesting phrase, because the Hebrew word translated as "right" actually means "righteous." They thought that what they were doing was righteous and good, but it was based on their own subjective viewpoint, not that of God. And this kind of self-righteous decision making was something they had begun long before they even arrived in the land. We see a case of it in Deuteronomy 2:26-37 and it involves Moses, their divinely appointed leader. In this passage, we'll see Moses receive very specific instructions from God, but then watch as Moses attempts to do what was right in his own eyes. He probably thought he was going the right thing, but it was not God's thing. While Moses might have had reservations concerning God's plan, that didn't give him the freedom to alter it.