All right, so lesson four is entitled Israel's Covenantal Constitution, The Love of God. It's really part one of two lessons where we're going to be tackling the real substance, the core, the heart of the book of the the Autonomy, which is the Dueronimic Code. So the Dueronimic Code goes from chapter 12 to chapter 26. This is kind of part one where we're going to be tackling the first section of these various laws that regard the love of God corresponding to the first three commandments.
And then lesson five, we're going to be tackling the rest of the Dueronimic Code. That would be the second half of chapter 16 all the way through 26. And why I divided it that way will make a lot of sense, a lot more sense when we go through the structure of the Dueronimic Code. But first I want to just go over really quickly and recap where we are looking at this whole gigantic exhortation that Moses is giving to the people here in this Covenantal Constitution that he wants to give them as they're going to live in the land that God gives them as a gift.
So what we saw recently was that the universal eternal moral law of the Ten Commandments was given to the people by Moses or reiterated to the second generation back in chapter five. Then afterwards, in chapter six through eleven, Moses expounded upon the attitude, the internal disposition that everyone must have towards those Ten Commandments. It's not legalism, it's not a begrudgingly obeying the commandments because God is a big old party pooper. It's the fact that God loves you and he has chosen you amongst all peoples.
And so therefore you must love him back. It's a relationship. That's what a covenant is. It is a family bond.
So you are in relationship with God and so you are to love him with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength. And that really was the golden thread that unites really all the book of Dueronim. But specifically that section in chapters six through eleven, how do you Shama? Right.
Hero Israel. Hero Israel, the Lord your God is one Lord and love him and serve him and obey him. Be all in, right? You have to love him wholeheartedly, unreservedly.
And so now, after he has given this exhortation, he's going to launch into the specific statutes and ordinances for Israel to live as a nation state. Okay. So as we jump into these chapters, twelve through twenty six in this lesson and next lesson, you have to remember that Dueronim is a second law to Sinai. If you go to Dueronim, we'll talk about this in the first lesson.
But in Dueronim, twenty nine verse one, it says, these are the words of the covenant which the Lord committed Moses to make with the sons of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the covenant which he had made with them at Hore of Or Sinai. So this is a second law. This is what Dueronim means, Dueronim almost, second law. But it's also secondary, right?
Has that meaning in that sense? That's secondary, it's temporary, it's imperfect. Okay. So I'm going to kind of recap on a lot of what we did in lesson one, but this is really, really important to have fresh in our minds as we jump through these various laws because they seem really strict and harsh and they're kind of in random.
They're not random at all. I'll explain to you a structure in just a moment. But I have a quote here for you from your commentary. It says, certain laws in Dueronim tend to be harsher and stricter than previous law codes, which is a result of Moses' experience of the stubbornness and recalcitrance of Israel in the wilderness.
In quote, that's very true. Moses had a really hard time leading these knuckleheads throughout the wilderness for forty years. They have rebellion after rebellion after rebellion and they prone to sin and they fall and sin, grievously, like with the golden calf and Baal Peyor and all the other rebellions. And so Moses is really trying to shorten the leash, right, or tighten the grip on Israel because they're just so prone to sin.
They need additional laws, right? Why was the law given? Paul says it was given because of transgressions. Okay, so you have to keep that in mind.
It does seem harsher, it does seem stricter, but Moses is trying to deal with a very stubborn people. In fact, Jesus will say, we'll talk about this more in the next lesson when we look at the combination of divorce. But Jesus himself tells his audience that Moses allowed for divorce for the hardness of their heart, right? Their stubborn, stiff-necked people.
And so Moses has got to just really drill into them a little bit more. As a result, therefore, this central law code is due to the monomit code. It's got all kinds of various laws and accommodations, dietary laws, ritual laws, secular laws, all this stuff is going to pass away. Okay, these things do pass away when Israel ceases to exist as a nation, when Judaism is fulfilled in Christ and passes away.
We talked about this before, like, actually the apostles deals with this a lot, right, with the whole issue of circumcision. And Paul is also talking about this. The laws of Deuteronomy, the laws of the Mosaic law in general passes away once it's fulfilled in Christ. The Ten Commandments, however, do not pass away.
And that is why you're going to see that when we've studied the Ten Commandments are given in chapter five and they're not actually part of the Deuteronomic code here in chapters 12-3, 26. They're separate from that. That's really, really important. They come prior to it and they're separate from it.
So you see that there's something distinct from the eternal natural moral law that we're all created with in our spiritual DNA, right, the Ten Commandments versus these temporary laws, these secondary laws, that Moses gives so that Israel can exist as a nation-state. That's a very, very important distinction here. And you also see that distinction later on in chapter 31 verse 26 where Moses commands them to put the book of the law and put it separate to the arch of the covenant next to the arch of the covenant. That's in verse 26 where he says, take this book of the law and put it by the side of the arch of the covenant of the Lord your God that it may be there for a witness against you.
So the Ten Commandments go inside the arch, right, but the book of the law here, Moses' law goes next to the arch. So again, showing its inferiority and its separate. Also, we're going to see later on, we'll talk about this later in the last lesson, lesson six, that the Deuteronomic code is going to be ratified in the land on Mount Gerazim and Mount Ebal, right. We'll talk about how the tribes are going to separate and they're going to shout the blessings and the curses.
That's going to be fulfilling Joshua chapter eight. But this covenant is not ratified on Sinai. It's not ratified in Jerusalem. It is a secondary and perfect law that's ratified on these other mountains here.
So it's really important to keep that in mind. We studied the Ten Commandments, it comes prior to this, Deuteronomic code here in the central section, even the code itself is not put in the arch of the covenant. That's really important because as we look at some of these laws and they seem harsh and they seem strict, there's a lot of spiritual typology that I'm going to take you through with this stuff. But it is distinct.
It's united, but it is distinct very much so. So also remember that the Mosaic law in its entirety, right, not just these chapters 12 through 6, but the entirety of the Mosaic covenant is a preparation and a foreshadowing of Jesus Christ. It is a pedagogue. We talked about this as well.
In Galatians chapter three, Paul is going to explain at length how the law cannot save, right? The Mosaic law cannot save you. It discloses sin and it's a pedagogue. It's a teacher for Israel until Israel is supposed to come of maturity, come of age when Christ comes, okay?
Then the law passes away. So it is in preparation for Jesus and fulfilled in Christ. In your Catechism, paragraph 1964, I think says this really beautifully. It says, the old law is a preparation for the gospel.
The law is a pedagogy and a prophecy of things to come. It prophesies and presages the work of liberation from sin which will be fulfilled in Christ. It provides a new testament with images and types and symbols for expressing the life according to the spirit. Finally, the law is completed by the teaching of the sapiential or wisdom books and the prophets which set its course towards the new covenant and the kingdom of heaven.
So the law really has its place and we really need to study and be familiar with the Pentateuch. We have to know it because the Pentateuch is to the Old Testament what the gospels are to the New Testament, right? So if we understand the law better, we understand how it's organized and how it's structured and the reason why it was given and we understand its nature, all this stuff is going to really help us understand what fulfills the law which is Jesus Christ himself and the church and the kingdom and all this stuff. So we really need to have a firm understanding of what this is all about.
That actually brings us to this next section here which is what is the structure of this duodronomic code because I kid you not. Many people do not understand how this is organized. And if anyone tries to read just the common non-scalars argue about this ad nauseam. But people will say like this is all a bunch of random laws here.
It's not structured. It's not methodical. It's just higgledy-piggledy. Miscellaneous laws that Moses just kind of seems to throw together, you know, stream of consciousness, right?
And that's definitely not true at all. As I've said before in many Bible studies, there is a method to the men. This is the inspired word of God. Everything is structured in a particular way and some things are easier to see than others in terms of the structure of this whole section, chapter 12-3-26.
But keep in mind again, these chapters are a temporary law code. It's a practical application for Israel as a nation, then and there, right? In that time setting and that culture, how they're supposed to live out the Ten Commandments. So really, it's an application.
These laws are an application of the Ten Commandments themselves. Okay. Now, some of them are civil or secular or ritual or dietary things like that will pass away. Some of them are clear expressions of the moral eternal law.
There's a little bit of overlap, but those again, those laws that are more geared towards the religion and towards the secular state, those pass away, the eternal laws do not. So here's a quote for you. I really think this is a fantastic way to understand how these laws are structured and how I'm dividing up these two lessons that we're going to go through the highlights of this section. So here's a quote from your Catholic introduction to the Bioweal Testament.
Scholars have long puzzled over the exact rationale behind this second law and debated the organizing principles behind it. Although a variety of explanations have been ordered, perhaps the most compelling views of the material in the genomic code as chapters 12-3-26 as an expansion and application of the laws of the Ten Commandments. First given to Israel Mount Sinai, then reiterated by Deuteronomy itself on the plains of Moab. So you'll find that reference in your Catholic introduction to your Testament.
Also, the Hamilton handbook that I recommend for you, he goes into that as well, but it's really, really incredible and eye-opening to see how, yes, these the Deuteronomy Code, Chapter 12-3-26, it is an expansion and application of the Ten Commandments and it follows the Ten Commandments in sequence. And that's what this little chart here for you is representing. I took it straight out of your commentary. So this is, you can consult it there on page 264 and 265.
It's really, really amazing to see the structure, the beauty, the harmony of all of this. So you've got the Ten Commandments listed here on the left, all right, one through 10 easy, easy, easy, and squeeze, then right next to it, you can see as you progress through the Deuteronomy Code, Chapter 12-3-26, each of these laws correspond to the Ten Commandments. So it's not random at all, it's not higgly-piggly at all, it's not stream of consciousness, just, you know, miscellaneous laws, there is a structure, there is a harmony and there's a beauty to it. So just a couple of examples here, as we're going to dive straight into Chapter 12 here in just a little bit, Chapter 12 is dealing with illicit sacrifice, essential sanctuary, the, of course, the prohibition against idolatry, that all corresponds with the first commandment.
You shall have no other gods before me, you shall make an agreement images, okay? And then the second commandment of, of course, the prohibition of blasphemy, like hallowing the Lord's name as we say in the Our Father. And so you're going to find, of course, in Chapter 13 about false prophecies, you know, and abominable foods. And at first glance, you think, well, what does food have to do with blasphemy, but I'm going to explain that to you.
And then of course, the third commandment is Absurdance of the Sabbath, and then so you have corresponding to that, a long section about feasts, the sabbatical year, that's all about covenantal rest, Sabbath rest, worship of God, sanctifying Sabbath rest, Sabbath worship, and on and on it goes, like the fourth commandment here, honoring Father and Mother. Well, that's talking about legitimate authority, right? Well, there's all kinds of different legitimate authorities in our world. So he's going to talk about judges and priests and various leaders, kings, like when they're going to ask for a king, Levites, all this stuff.
Prohibition of murder, number five, commandment number five, he's going to talk about man-sling, right? Versus murder, right? There's a difference between accidental murder and intentional murder. He's going to talk about war and capital crimes.
That all falls under the category of the Fifth Commandment. Probitions of adultery, so he's going to talk about rape, adultery, incest, various other sexual immorality issues, prohibition against stealing, destructive loans, kidnapping, just wages, and it's just incredible, like on and on it goes, right? So the structure of the Ten Commandments, as I said to you before, the first three deals with love of God, and the final seven commandments deal with love of neighbor, right? So therefore, in the Deuteronomic Code, the various laws that go from chapter 12 to 16 deal with love of God, that's what we're going to talk about in this lesson here.
And then the next lesson, we're going to talk about the Deuteronomic Code as it regards to the love of neighbor. That's why I structured these two lessons the way I did, because I'm just following the Ten Commandments. Now, this, I tell you, like even if you read Deuteronomy just one time through, but you understand this rationale, it will make it so much more fruitful for you. Because if you don't know this, it becomes very difficult, unless you're very, very good at finding patterns, right?
Some people are excellent at finding patterns. But this is the superstructure by which Moses outlines all of these laws. So stepping back just one more minute here, just to conclude this, chapter five, he goes to the Ten Commandments, chapter six through 11, he talks about the internal disposition on how to love God with your whole heart, mind, and strength. Then you've got the application of the Ten Commandments for Israel as a nation state in chapters 12 to 26.
All right, beautiful, beautiful stuff. So your Catholic introductory bill testament lays that out really, really nicely. And this is what we're going to be covering.