Lesson five is entitled Israel's Covenantal Constitution, love of neighbor. And we're going to be looking at chapter 16 through 26. This really is just to kind of give a quick recap on this. This really forms part two of two lessons looking at the Deuteronomic Code of Israel's Covenantal Constitution proper, which is chapters 12 through 26.
And I talked about all of that, the structure, the format, how these laws are organized in the central section, because too many people think, man, this just seems really haphazard. All these laws are thrown in here. Higgly-piggly-tea. There's no rhyme or reason.
And of course, there is with the commentaries that I shared with you, there is a fantastic way to look at these various laws as being applications for Israel as a secular state, the nation-state, then and there, living amongst the nations, and how they're supposed to live and function in society amongst themselves, right? So last lesson, lesson four, we looked at the Covenantal Constitution of these laws in chapters 12 through the first half of 16, as it applies to the first three commandments, all right, the love of God. And now in this lesson, we're going to be looking at the remainder of the laws from the second half of chapter 16 through 26, as they pertain to commandments numbers four through ten, that would be love of neighbor. So really part one was last time, part two is this time.
It's the same concept as these particular laws are applications of the ten commandments for Israel to function as a nation-state there in the ancient, near-state world, okay? So that's essentially what's going on. And this particular set of chapters is really, really important. There are ten chapters here, there's a lot of content, but this is going to be so amazing to see particular sections of this Covenantal Constitution as it's going to affect the rest of the Old Testament.
So there's a lot that we have to talk about. We have to talk about the laws regarding the kingship and the accommodation for a kingship. And the warnings against the king becoming corrupt and tyrannical. We have to look at that, that's going to be chapter 17.
Then we're going to look at the role of prophets and then the prophecy of a future prophet like Moses. Very messianic, that's really, really important. We'll spend a lot of time probably talking about the most important, difficult dark passage, or Benedict XVI rather, maybe future saint here, dark, what he calls a dark passage in the Old Testament, which is herm warfare, this command that Israel's supposed to go and wipe out all the inhabitants of the land there, the Canaanites, the parasites and all the rest of them, okay? That's really, really challenging.
That causes consternation for a lot of people, and this also kind of gives fuel to the caricature that the Old Testament God is a vengeful wrathful God who tells Israel to go and wipe out all these poor innocent, unsuspecting people. That's kind of the agenda that history channel and other places will tell us. We really got to spend some time understanding that and understanding the rationale and the meaning behind this command to go wipe out the inhabitants. That is kind of a warfare.
We'll talk a lot about that and other things. So you can see, there's a lot here. We're going to have a great time. So let's dive in straight to Roman numeral one and can pick up right where we left off.
We're going to be looking now at laws that are based on the fourth command, while my mother, honor your parents. And really the overarching theme of this section regards legitimate authority. So we're supposed to honor our parents and respect our parents, but that touches upon legitimate authority. So what you can see, I broke this all down for you in your notes.
He's going to be discussing judges. All right, he's going to be discussing royalty, the king and Levites and priests and prophets. And there's going to also be discussion of false authority, illegitimate authority, which would be like divination and sorcerer. That's all kind of part and personal of this, because really Moses, and he's about to die.
This is his last will in Testament. He's going to go at the end of the chapter. We'll talk about this in our final lesson next time, but he's going to have this panoramic view of all the promised land. I mean, he's going to pass away.
Josh was going to succeed him for less than a decade. And really foremost on Moses's mind is the fidelity of Israel as is guided by the leaders of Israel, like who's going to lead them? The priests are there. There's got to be secular authorities as well.
So he very much is a father figure towards Israel. And he really wants to ensure that they stay on the straight and the narrow. And so really you can kind of see that in the background as he's giving these laws regarding authority. The first of which is judges and officers.
So we are at chapter 16, verse 18. So we're left off in the last lesson. And you find the appointment of judges. So this is what he says in chapter 16, verse 18.
You shall appoint judges and officers in all your towns, which the Lord your God gives you. According to your tribes, they shall judge the people with righteous judgment. And he goes on to talk about it. It's righteous judgments, like for example, stood down in verse 20.
Justice and only justice you shall follow that you may live and inherit the land. That is really important. The perversion of justice is a theme that goes for all human history. And it's easy for people to take bribes.
It's easy for people to be self-interested in what they want. So you shall administer justice and only justice. And so every tribe is going to have appointments of judges and officers. And we talk about this in other places, like Exodus and numbers.
This is really important that they're able to guide themselves and lead themselves following justice and the administration of various laws as a secular state in order to be in right relationship with God. And I remember love of God and love of neighbor of the two driving factors here. So immediately after the appointment of judges and officers, it seems really weird. It seems out of place because we're talking about false forms of worship yet again.
We're talking about idolatry yet again. And at face value, you're like, oh my gosh, like it seems like it's everywhere. And it's important. I guess Moses is trying to get the people number one to worship God alone and to repudiate and to reject and to annihilate all of these false gods.
So these laws will appear all over the place, but there is a rhyme and a reason because as you go transition here to chapter 17, chapter 16 verse 21, or as at the end of chapter, chapter 17 here, there's all these commandments against idolatry and the consequential execution for those lawbreakers. That's what's given here, but the context is it's enforcement by these judges and officers. I think that's what's going on here. Okay.
So Moses is always commanding them to be faithful to God and to stop the idolatry. Well, now when he's getting in here to the section of legitimate authority, these judges and officers do have the authority to execute anybody who is causing Israel to fall into idolatry. I think that's the way that you need to understand this here. So it's not randomly showing up.
It's in the context of legitimate authority and execution, right? Capital punishment is what's being talked about. If you don't have authority to administer capital punishment, you're in big, big trouble. But if you do have that authority to implement capital punishment, then it's a totally different situation.
So that is what's going on with the judges and why idolatry pops up again, because they have the authority to execute those who break the law. But let's move on here to this next section. We're going to spend a lot more time on this, the authority that God gives to the king. Now, right now in salvation history, there is no king.
God governs his people as their divine king, right? But Moses knows as a prophet, he knows that the people are going to request a king eventually and he needs to make an accommodation, allowing for a king to be given to Israel, do it Israel's weaknesses. This is an overarching thing that we've seen since the beginning of this Bible study. Remember that Deuteronomy is filled with concessions and accommodations all over the place to do Israel's weakness.
So that's what we're going to look at now. Let's read chapter 17 verse 14 and following. It says this, when you come into the land with the Lord, your God gives you and you possess it and dwell in it. And then you say, I will set a king over me like all the nations that are round about me.
You may indeed set his king over you, him whom the Lord your God will choose. One from among your brethren, you shall set his king over you. You may not put a foreigner over you who is not your brother. I'll stop there really quickly.
All right. So this is the allowance of the king. Moses says one day when you get into the land, you're going to be like all the other nations and you're going to request a king and God is going to allow it. Then I want to unpack it along with this quote from your nature, God, study Bible.
I want to go to first, I'm going to go to first Kings to show you the application of this prophecy of the future king. Okay. So let's move on and read the next verse verse 16. All right.
So the king has been given as an accommodation then in verse 16, Moses continues saying only he must not multiply horses for himself or cause the people to return to Egypt and order the multiple horses since the Lord has said to you, you shall never return that way again. And to he shall not multiply wise for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor three shall he greatly multiply for himself, silver and gold. So these are known as the negative commands for the king. There's a positive command in verse 18 on the hold off for just a second.
So what's going on here is first, there is the accommodation, the permission to have a king, but there are guidelines. There are rules that the king must follow and not multiplying horses or wives and silver and gold, what you would call weapons, wives and wealth. And so with that, let's look here at this quote from the ancient Catholic study Bible. Then I want to take you to Samuel Kings and check this out.
So it says this, the law of the king goes into effect when Israel found some monarchy, that's going to be in first and chapter eight. The elevation of a human king will be a divine concession to the weakness of Israel, who will become dissatisfied with the Lord's kingship over his people. Among the dangers in adopting this model of government, Deuteronomy four C is that a future king will be tempted to amass weapons, wives and wealth for himself, thus placing a significant burden upon the people. It is precisely these types of selfish success, which will trigger the downfall of Israel kings such as Solomon and that stories in first and chapter 10 and 11.
End quote. All right. So again, there is this concession that people do not want to have the Lord rule over them. We see this, take place.
I want to take you to first Samuel chapter eight. It's really amazing to see how these things are actually fulfilled in the rest of salvation history. You can see how all the books of scripture are so integrantly entwined with one another. You can interpret scripture with scripture itself.
So so very well. So what's going on if you go all the way to first Samuel chapter eight, you might be very familiar with the story. Samuel is the judge. He's probably the by far the best judge that Israel has seen during this time.
He's great, but his sons are not great. All right. They're taking bribes. This is in chapter eight, verse three.
His sons do not walk in his ways, but they turn aside after gain, taking bribes and perverting justice. By the way, there's a good connection there with what we just saw when Moses says, when you appoint judges and officers in the land, they must execute justice. And only justice will clearly Samuel's sons are not doing that, nor did Eli's sons do that beforehand. But that's another topic for another time.
All right. So then all the elders gather together to come to Samuel and they say, behold, your old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now, it points for us to be a point for us a king to govern us like all the other nations. Now, this is a big, big deal here.
It may not seem like that at first glance, but it is for a couple of reasons. Let me read on here for a second. The thing displeased to Samuel when they said, give us a king to govern us and Samuel prayed to the Lord. And the Lord said, listen to the voice of the people and all that they say to you, for they've not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.
And he goes on to tell Samuel to warn the people and all this stuff. And at the end of the chapter, they're like petulant children, you know, stomping their foot on the ground saying, no, but we will have a king. You know, it's just, it's just really petulant and it's very disobedient because one, as God says to Samuel, they're not rejecting you, they're rejecting me as being king over them. They're supposed to follow God and God's law and all things.
He is their divine king. They're rejecting him, but they're also rejecting their vocation to be the light to the nations. Right. If you go back to Exodus, we study this a lot of index, it's Bible, study, and elsewhere.
Israel is God's special possessions. Of course, that's the thing here in Deuteronomy 2. Israel is God's special possession. They are God's firstborn son.
They are meant to evangelize all the rest of the nations. They're not supposed to be like them, but in the end, they do become like all the other nations, sinning like all the other nations, and they'll be punished like all the other nations. So they're rejecting God as king over them, but they're also rejecting their vocation that God gave them to be set apart. Right.
That we talked about this name of holiness and Leviticus to be set apart from all the other nations. Right. It's kind of like a twofold whammy, like a one two punch across the face. It's a very bad situation.
So that is fulfilled. This whole prophecy here in Deuteronomy chapter 17 is fulfilled there in 1 Samuel. And then what you discover is there is this threefold prohibition as negative command. Don't multiply for yourself wives, wealth and weapons.
And that is exactly what Solomon does in 1 Kings chapter 10, verse 26, all the way through to the next chapter, chapter 11. So I'm not time to read all of this here. And that's going to be a Bible study for another time. But after Solomon is doing so very well, right.
He's the wisest dude all around and people are coming from all over the place to hear the wisdom of Solomon and to glorify the God of Israel, like the queen of Shiva and giving him gifts and he builds the temple. It's amazing. It's all fantastic stuff. But then he begins to fall and he's got three strikes, all right, three strikes.
You're out, buddy. You ain't playing ball no more. The first strike is he multiplies for himself great wealth. There's some details in here I can't get into, but he multiplies for himself great wealth.
And then next he goes down and multiplies for himself weapons or armies, right? The chariots and the horsemen that equates to an army. All right. And so the problem is, well, explain this in the threefold cubic reasons and justice.
Second. So number one, wealth, number two, weapons. And then what everybody famously knows about his, everyone knows about his famous sins or infiniscence is the women, right? The 700 wives and 300 porcupines.
I mean, concubines or whatever they were, and they turn away his heart. And that's exactly what Deuteronomy says. Don't multiply wives unless they turn your heart away. That's what happened with Solomon because he no longer had a heart for God.
David, his father famously had a heart for God. He was the only man in all of scripture who said his heart was a heart after God's own heart, right? Solomon didn't have that heart because these wives turned away his heart to worship all of these false pagans, pagan idols. It's a horrible situation here.
So the three things that Moses says don't do Solomon did to a royal degree. And guaranteed, this is all done on the backs of the people, the oppression of the people. He isn't becoming super rich because of free will donations. He's taxing them to death.
He's becoming a tyrant. All right. So at face value, what Moses says, don't do, he does. And that brings about the split of the nation, right?
To the northern and the southern kingdoms. And that's a conversation for another time. I talk about the all in salvation history. But it's a tragedy.
It's an absolute tragedy. And Moses warned him so many years prior to this. But there's another reason why Moses says, do not multiply for yourself, wives and weapons. And that touches upon something that we all struggle with regardless of our royalty or not.
And that is what's known as concubisence. Concubisence is just the inclination to sin. We all struggle with temptation. I mean, that's just part of our fallen human nature, right?
So we, but this temptation is really three fold. And first John tells us this. This is the script for biblical tradition of what our struggle is sin is all about. So I have this in your notes, first John chapter, two, 16, he says, for all that is in the world, the less to the flesh, the less to the eyes and the pride of life is not the father, but is of the world.
These three things here talk about how our inclination to sin is three fold. We all have this what's called the less to the flesh or really the desires of the flesh, which is a disordered or an inordinate desire for creature comforts, right? For bodily pleasures of whatever kind. Then there is the lust of the eyes or the desires of the eyes is the desire to accumulate, to amass wealth and possessions and material goods.
And of course, the pride of life is, you know, egotism and hubris and pride, right? So it was so interesting about this. And you can spend a time and I have other talks about this as well, but at the root of so many sins throughout salvation history, this Adam and Eve, Israel, Solomon, even the temptations of Jesus and the wilderness, it really, when you discover this three fold concubisence at work, same thing is true with Solomon, right? So when he multiplies for himself wealth, well, that's the lust of the eyes.
He fails in that regard. That's strike one. When he multiplies this massive army, that's the pride of life, that's strike two. But the third and final strike that makes him, you know, be ejected from the game entirely is the lust of the flesh, right?
He takes upon himself, he takes to himself all of these wives and they turn his hard way. All right. So this is really significant to understand that it's not just Oh, poor Solomon. You know, what a fool.
He was the wides man around who became the fool, who rejected God's law and had all these women. It's really a three full fall. The women is not the only problem that he had. So three strikes you're out.
He sends in all of these ways. But the warning is to us as well, we also struggle in these ways where we also give into an ordinate desires of the of the senses. We also give into a disordered and inordinate desires to accumulate more things than we actually need. And we also struggle to worship God and God alone.
We often put our will before God's will in pride. It's a very, very sobering Bible study here to see what Moses warns the kings not to do Solomon does, but we struggle with the exact same things. Okay. All right.
Now related to this though is a positive command and this is in verse 18 and following. So first there's don't do these three things in the negative sense, but then there's a positive thing that you got to do here in verse 18 back in Deuteronomy if he says this, when he says on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book, a copy of this law from that, which is in the charge of the Levitical priests and it shall be with him. He shall read it in all the days of his life that he may learn to fear the Lord has God by keeping all the words of this law in these statutes and in doing them that his heart may not be lifted up above his brethren, that he may not turn aside from the commandments of the right hand or to the left and he may continue long in his kingdom. So there is an antidote, right?
This is also really important. So don't multiply wives, wealth and weapons. And the way in which you protect yourself is to study the law, meditate on it day and I, this very much echoes the Shema back in chapter six, right? Meditate on the law day and night.
Let it not depart from you. You're supposed to write a copy for yourself of the law, which is that's one way to memorize things is writing things out by hand. You're meditating on it. It's always with you all the time and that's going to protect you.
All right. That makes a lot of sense. If you are constantly absorbing God's word, it's going to help you fight temptation. It's going to help you fight the threefold concubisense, right?
If you don't do that, you're guaranteed to fall. You're going to fall into temptation and that's what happened with Solomon. Okay. So you begin to let your spiritual life slide, you begin to let prayer slide, the study of the word of God slide, your doom, your doom to commit sin.
And hopefully if that happens, you get back on the horse and you start getting back to the study of your faith into your prayer life. And it reminds me, I also have here in your notes, I love this quote. Saint Jerome has many powerful quotes like this, but he says, so typologically speaking here for our own spiritual lives, Saint Jerome says, read the divine scriptures frequently. Indeed, never let them out of your hands.
Right. So he's like, he puts down his aunties. I read them frequently. He's like, I scratched that.
Never let it out of your hands. Right. I love that quote. So what Moses says to the king to protect the king from falling into the threefold concubisense applies to us as well.
Never let the scriptures fall out of your hands entirely. Okay. All right. So I wanted to spend a little bit more time on that session here because it really helps to explain what happens later in salvation history.
But of course, it's a spiritual typology for us as well.