Deuteronomy

The Scope of History - Missing Audio

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: 33-109

Genre: Speech

Track: 252

Dictation Name: RR187S33

Location/Venue:

Year: 1993

Deuteronomy 10: 1-11

“ At that time the LORD said unto me, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first, and come up unto me into the mount, and make thee an ark of wood.

2 And I will write on the tables the words that were in the first tables which thou brakest, and thou shalt put them in the ark.

3 And I made an ark of shittim wood, and hewed two tables of stone like unto the first, and went up into the mount, having the two tables in mine hand.

4 And he wrote on the tables, according to the first writing, the ten commandments, which the LORD spake unto you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly: and the LORD gave them unto me.

5 And I turned myself and came down from the mount, and put the tables in the ark which I had made; and there they be, as the LORD commanded me.

6 And the children of Israel took their journey from Beeroth of the children of Jaakan to Mosera: there Aaron died, and there he was buried; and Eleazar his son ministered in the priest's office in his stead.

7 From thence they journeyed unto Gudgodah; and from Gudgodah to Jotbath, a land of rivers of waters..

8 At that time the LORD separated the tribe of Levi, to bear the ark of the covenant of the LORD, to stand before the LORD to minister unto him, and to bless in his name, unto this day.

9 Wherefore Levi hath no part nor inheritance with his brethren; the LORD is his inheritance, according as the LORD thy God promised him.

10 And I stayed in the mount, according to the first time, forty days and forty nights; and the LORD hearkened unto me at that time also, and the LORD would not destroy thee.

11 And the LORD said unto me, Arise, take thy journey before the people, that they may go in and possess the land, which I sware unto their fathers to give unto them. (Deuteronomy 10:1-11) ”

In these verses, Moses continues his review of the past, but not necessarily in a chronological manner. His purpose is to give covenantal teaching. The subject ofMoses's sermon from 9: I -10: 11 can be summed up under two general subjects. First, God is the determiner of history. In Honeycutt's words,

... the one God prepares the way for his people (9: 1-3). Success in life is more often than not dependent upon events over which persons have had no control. ln this instance, Israel was to cross the Jordan and confront those people who had prevented them from entering Kadeth over forty years earlier. How could they now succeed when previously they had failed? The answer is clear and direct: "Know therefore this day that he who goes over before you .. .is the LORD your God" (9:3).

Then, second, success comes often in spite of the people: it is due to God, not man.

But there is a third fact, related to these two, that Moses stresses, namely, the mercy and the forbearance of God. After the destruction of the original covenant tablets of stone with the Ten Commandments, God requires Moses to come again to the mount with two freshly hewn tablets. It was not because God had forgiven and forgotten their evil but because of His promise to the forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It was forbearance not forgiveness.

In preparation for the renewal of the covenant, the ark had to be built (vv. 2-3). This means little to us because humanism has denuded the world of meaning. Law is a religious fact: religions are differing systems of law that set forth the ultimate nature of good and the source of good. A covenant was a treaty of law between two parties, and two copies of a covenant were always made, one for each party. The covenant or law treaty was then housed in the temples of the contracting parties; in the case of Israel, the sanctuary was God's House or palace as well as the people's holy place. To place God's law in the ark tells us that God, who requires this, holds that His law is central to His covenant man. To despise God's law is to despise God.

So important is the law to God that, in the great renewal of the covenant with Christ, the law is to be written also in the hearts of His people (Jer. 31 :31-34). The law is to become second nature to the redeemed. This means that antinomians are rejecting the Gospel and are ignorant of the meaning of regeneration.

It is the death of Aaron which is chronologically out of place here. It took place later at Mount Hor (Deut. 32:50; Num. 20:22-29). Its purpose here is to tell us that, just as the covenant was renewed, so too was the priesthood in the person of Eleazar (v. 6).

God's covenant mercy is seen also in the separation of the tribe of Levi to undertake three tasks for God. First, they are to carry the ark (Num. 3:31; 4: 15). Because the ark carried the covenant law, this made the Levites the instructors of Israel, the teachers of the law, as Deuteronomy 33:10 tells us. In other words, God did not limit His ministry to the priests, but very specifically gave special eminence to His clerisy (v. 8).

Second, the Levites were "to stand before the LORD to minister unto him" (v. 8). The priests, while having certain exclusive functions, were thus definitely not God's only servants or ministers. The Levites could not be excluded; the service of God is definitely broader than the official channels. The institutionalization of the sanctuary was thereby breached. With the coming of Christ, and the Aaronic priesthood's end, the Levitical functions are now broader.

Third, the order of Levites were to "bless in his name" (v. 8). Again, this was normally a priestly function (Deut. 21 :5; Lev. 9:23; Num. 6:23).

Moses's sermons in Deuteronomy are warnings. They remind Israel of past sins that are endemic to the heart of fallen man. Man's basic or original sin is to be his own god (Gen. 3:5), and, as a result, he views himself, not as a fallen man but as a god in the making, one independent of any word other than his own. Charles Simeon described this condition very ably:

Man is a dependent creature: he has nothing of his own: he can do nothing: he can control no event whatever; he is altogether in the hands of God, who supports him in life, and accomplishes both in him and by him hjs own sovereign will and pleasure. Yet he affects wisdom, though "he is born like a wild ass's colt;" and strength, though he is "crushed before the moth:" nay, so extraordinary is his blindness, that he arrogates righteousness to him, though he is so corrupt, that he has "not so much as one imagination of the thought of his heart which is not evil continually." If there ever were a people that might be expected to be free from self-complacent thoughts, it must be the Israelites who were brought out of Egypt; for no people had ever had such opportunities of discovering the evil of their hearts as they had. No persons ever received such signal mercies, as they; nor ever betrayed such perverseness of mind, as they. Yet did Moses judge it necessary to caution even them, not to ascribe to any merits of their own the interpositions of God in their behalf, but to trace them to their proper source-the determination of God to display in and by them his own glorious perfections.

to receive no farm land, only town sites. The Levites were thereby barred from depending on the land for their income. The tithes of the people were to provide their support. God's clerisy is thus freed thereby from the economic problem in order to be better enabled to learn and to teach. Calvin said of the law,

By the way we have to marke also, that it is not for us to make or frame )awes to serve God withal!, but that we must simply bring out tables and let him write in them what he thjnkes good. Moses was a great and excellent Prophet: and yet did not God give him leave or libertie to write any thing in his tables, or to put anything unto them, but restrained him altogether to the things that were written there. And they appeared well in this, in that both the tables were written, not on the one side only, but on both, even to the full, to the intent that no man living should add any thing to them. Seeing then that God wrote his commandments in those two tables himselfe, and committed not that charge unto Moses: is it lawfull for any mo1tall creature to add any invention of his owne to God's law? Ye see then the way for us to put this doctrine in use, is to beare in mind that if Moses being so excellent a man, and as an Angel of God, might not write or add any thing to God's law: much less may we. Wherefore to serve God aright, let us learne that we must not take upon us to invent any thing at all, nor to presume upon our own devotions, as we term them: for all such geere will be misliked, but sacrifice, so as there bee not anything written in us, until God speak, and that we receive simply without any gainsaying, whatsoever proceedeth out of his mouth.

There is an interesting geographical reference in v. 7 to Jotbath, described as "a land of rivers of waters." Nothing like that exists in the area now. We are not accustomed to thinking of lands blighted and cursed by God. We prefer to think of man as the one who can destroy the earth, a bit of humanistic arrogance. God can bless or curse a land; He can make it rich and productive or barren and dry. How far man has gone in his arrogance is clear in his notion that he can destroy the earth.

God's mercy to Israel appears,.fzrst, in that they are allowed to continue their wilderness journey, in spite of their rebellion. Second, He allows Moses to be a mediator, interceding for the people. In this respect, Moses was again a forerunner of Christ.

There is another aspect to this history that is very important. God's wrath and His mercy had a far greater concern than with Israel and that moment of history. His judgments as well as His grace looked beyond Israel to Christ, beyond the church, to the end of time and to eternity. A persistent fallacy on man's part is to view the historical process and God's workings therein in terms of the present, as though all history culminates in us. The blessed fact is that it does not, and, if we view the events of the day in terms of ourselves, we shall be a miserable people. But God's purposes transcend ours, and His perspective has all time and eternity in mind.