Blogging Bible Study: Digging in the Desert-- Final Words of Moses

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

Before I dive into the look at the rest of the 'desert' verses in Deuteronomy, I thought I'd share a little bit of humbling God did for me this week...I am taking a ministry course at church and, owing to the fact that we had to cancel a class due to winter weather (um, didn't happen, but that's Alabama for you), I was a week ahead on my  homework.  So I wasn't at all worried about the 'show your workbook' homework check that happened this week.  Until I flipped open my workbook and found that all the fill in the blanks were...blank.  I hadn't done it after all.  I could've sworn I remembered doing it...so, yeah, a little embarrassment there.  Now, there's lots of grace in that class and I caught it up this morning, but, wow, how could I have missed that?  I'm sure there's a lesson in there somewhere....

Anyway.  Deuteronomy.  Discourse Three is in chapters 27-28 and...there are no verses that mention 'desert' in that entire little review of blessings and curses.  So...moving right along to Discourse Four, which is recorded in chapters 29 -30 and reviews the terms of their covenant with God and has one reference to 'desert':

"During the forty years that I led you through the desert, your clothes did not wear out, nor did the sandals on your feet.  You ate no bread and drank no wine or other fermented drink.  I did this so that you might know that I am the LORD your God." - (29: 5-6)

Have you ever pulled something out of your closet to wear for the day, and suddenly wonder how long it's been there?  And realized that it's about as twice as old as you thought?  I kinda think the Israelites had a similar reaction.  I wonder if anyone even really noticed that they were still wearing the clothes they...or their parents...wore when they left Egypt.  I wonder if anyone suddenly looked at their sandals...that they had worn longer than they could remember...with awe as they realized they really and truly weren't worn out.

God does lots of small miracles for us day by day that we never notice...not because they are invisible but because they involve ordinary things that we just don't perceive.

In Discourse Five (chapters 31 - 33) Moses  gives advice and presents them with a written copy of everything he had recorded.  He sings a song over them and  blesses all the tribes individually.  His last trip up a mountain to converse with the LORD is in chapter 34.

He mentions the desert in his song:

In a desert land he found him, in a barren and howling waste.  He shielded him and cared for him; he guarded him as the apple of his eye  (32:10)

Of coures, 'He' is the LORD; 'him' is Israel, as is established in preceding verses.

At the end of his speeches,  God gives him instruction regarding the transition of leadership and states,

"both of you broke faith with me in the presence of the Israelites at the waters of Meribah  Kadesh in the desert of Zin, and because you did not uphold my holiness among the Israelites." (32:51)

Here, Moses is recounting his conversation with God after he an Aaron had hit the rock at Meribah.  He got no special treatment on account of who he was: he had sinned, like those around him, and he would suffer the same penalty...he could not enter the land promised to them.  Just like the rest of his generation, he would die before they crossed the Jordan.

Whatever lay before them in the promised land, they would have to do it without Moses.

But they were there.  In the clothes that came out of Egypt 40 years earlier.  With no mall to shop at, no Amazon prime delivering new stuff, they likely  raided their parents luggage to find clothing they could wear.  It was, by and large, old stuff.  Ironic that, while their parents didn't make it in, their clothes likely did.

We have a conference next week, so it'll be two weeks before we get back into the Desert with Joshua.  Not even gonna try, lol. 

Blogging Bible Study: Digging in the Desert - Moses' Second Discourse

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

So, the notes in my Scofield Bible indicate that Moses' second speech consists of 22 chapters...from chapter 5 through chapter 26, and reviews the Law, with 'Warnings and Exhortations'.

But as we are looking, specifically, at verses that reference 'desert', we are not actually going to be considering 22 chapters worth of material here. 

The concordance I used listed only about eight verses.  So let's jump in and have a look at them.

Three of them are in chapter eight:

Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you  and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands....He led you through the vast and dreadful desert, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions.  He brought you water out of hard rock.  He gave you manna to eat in the desert, something your fathers had never known, to humble and to test you so that in the end it might go well with you.  (Deut.8: 2, 15 - 16)

Wow.  Y'know, those two verses sum up so much...God led you...in the desert...to humble you...to know what was in your heart....He led you....He gave you....to humble you...to test you...so that in the end it might go well with you.

If you are going through a desert season now, you can apply that.

Even in the desert, God leads.
Even in the desert, God supplies what is needed.
Even in the desert, God protects his people from its dangers.

Twice we see that God does this to humble his people.  Not HUMILIATE... humble.   Humble people know that God is the one who leads, supplies and protects.  Their time in the desert was supposed to teach them to know their dependency on God.  So that...in the end...after the lessons are learned...it will all go well.

But this also raises a bit of a question...does God need to test us to know what is in our hearts?  Or does the testing of our hearts show US what is there?  Because...obedience when all is well is easy.  Obedience in the 'vast and dreadful desert', when God's instructions seem illogical or inconvenient or costly or even silly (remember what happened over the tassels?) is not so natural.  Sometimes obedience means squelching our own ideas of what is expedient or necessary.  In the desert...we learn to either humbly follow God and keep his commands...or we reject God's counsel for what makes sense to us.

Chapter nine has two desert references:

...never forget how you provoked the LORD your God to anger in the desert.  From the day you left Egypt until you arrived here, you have been rebellious against the LORD.  (9:7)

Because of that mass disobedience, Moses repeatedly found himself in the position of interceding for the people, humbly requesting that God not destroy them for their rebellion...

'Overlook the stubbornness of this people, their wickedness, and their sin.  Otherwise, the country from which you brought us will say, "Because the LORD was not able to take them into the land he promised them, and because he hated them, he brought them out to put them to death in the desert." ' (9:27b-28)

Hundreds of thousands died in the desert, but God did not destroy the nation.  The next mention of desert is in chapter 11 --

It was not your children who saw what he did for you in the desert until you arrived at this place...But it was your own eyes that saw all these great things the LORD has done.'  (11:5,7)

No excuse for folks who have seen God move with their own eyes.  They will have to tell their children...but they themselves experienced it first hand.

Every place where you set your foot will be yours:  Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the Euphrates River to the western sea.  (11:24)

The last appearance of 'desert' in this discourse is a mention of the desert owl in a list of birds not to be eaten in 14:17.

I am going to be pondering the concept of testing in the desert, I think.  How well have I handled my own desert testing?  To be honest...not as well as I would have liked...I fall, far too easily, into what makes sense or seems expedient, without considering if that's really what I am instructed to do. 
Which, of course, calls for repentance.

Blogging Bible Study: Digging in the Desert - Deuteronomy 1 - 4: The first Lecture, er, Discourse

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

So, the book of Deuteronomy is a collection of 5 lengthy speeches Moses makes to the nation while they are camped on the plains of Moab on the east side of the Jordan.  It's not a chronological thing with Numbers; it's kind of happening simultaneously with the events in the last 15 chapters of Numbers.  I'm going to break it down by discourse and we'll look at the word 'desert' in each of them...although, to be honest, there are not that many mentions of 'desert' in the whole book, just looking at my list of verses.  So we'll see what we see.

The first discourse is recorded in chapters 1 - 4 and is a review of history of the Exodus up to the  Plains of Moab.  The first verse sets up pretty much the whole book:

These are the words Moses spoke to all Israel in the desert east of the Jordan -- that is, in the Arabah -- opposite Suph, between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth and Dizahab.

Then we have an interesting parenthetic note in verse 2 that doesn't mention desert, per se, but it does give some perspective on the almost 40 year journey from Sinai...

(It takes eleven days to go from Horeb to Kadesh Barnea by the Mount Seir road.)

Eleven. Days.

I'm assuming that's a small group of folks, traveling light and quick, but still...how long do you suppose it took them to make that trip, back in Numbers 10 through 12?  A couple of months, maybe, at the most, traveling with livestock and all?  It wasn't a long journey, really.  It was probably less than a year and a half after they left Egypt that they set up camp there....and most of that time had been spent at Horeb, making the Tabernacle and all its furnishings.

Then, as the LORD our God commanded us,  we set out from Horeb and went toward the hill country of the Amorites through that vast and dreadful desert that you have seen, and so we reached Kadesh Barnea. (1: 19)

Yes, they were well acquainted with the vast and dreadful desert.  And we all know what went down at Kadesh Barnea...the Great Complaint.

Then I said to you, 'Do not be terrified; do not be afraid of them. the LORD your God, who is going before you will fight for you , as he did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes, and in the desert.  There you saw how the LORD your God carried you as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place.' (1:29-31)

But they wouldn't have it, rebelled, and God pronounced his judgment on them, concluding,

And the little ones that you said would be taken captive, your children who do not yet know good from bad -- they will enter the land.  I will give it to them and they will take possession of it.  But as for you, turn around and set out toward the desert along the route to the Red Sea. (1:39-40)

How discouraging!  Back into the 'vast and dreadful' desert!  But...they had made their choice by refusing to believe that God would give them the land he brought them to through multiple fantastic miracles.

Then we turned back and set out toward the desert along the route to the Red Sea, as the LORD had directed me.  For a long time we made our way around the hill country of Seir. (2:1)

There really isn't any account of when they moved or how they moved during that 'long time'.  They really didn't have a purpose in the journey during that season...they just hung out.  And complained.  And died.   Until, finally, they began the march towards the promise again.

The LORD your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands.  He has watched over your journey through this vast desert.  These forty years the LORD your God has been with you, and you have not lacked anything.  So we went on past our brothers, the descendants of Esau, who live in the Seir.  We turned from the Arabah road, which comes up from Elath and Ezion Geber, and traveled along the desert road of Moab. (2: 7-8)

On God's instruction, they did not engage the Moabites or the Amonites, who were descended from Lot, but when they encountered the Amorites things changed.

From the desert of Kedemoth I sent messengers to Sihon king of Heshbon offering peace... (2:26)

Moses offered to cross quietly, not disturbing anything, purchasing any food or water or any other necessity, but Sihon brought his army out to stop him and was the first king defeated on the way to the promise.  More kings were similarly defeated and ultimately Israel found themselves camped on the plains of Moab.  Moses concludes his review by exhorting the young generation to learn from these things and remember what God had done for them.  He also specified which three cities would be designated as cities of refuge on the east side of the Jordan:

The cities were these: Bezer in the desert plateau, for the Reubenites; Ramoth, in Gilead, for the Gadites, and Golan in Bashan, for the Manassites. (2:43)

I think it's interesting that the last mention of 'desert' in the first of Moses' discourses is connected with a sanctuary city...a place of safety.  The whole 'sanctuary city' concept was an interesting one...with the 'eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth' concept of justice, if someone accidentally was responsible for the death of another...well, life for life.  Unless the individual could make it to a sanctuary city before the designated 'avenger of blood'...ie, executioner...could catch them.  There, they could plead their case before the elders of the city and if the elders agreed that the death was an accident, without malice, the person was safe so long as they stayed within the walls of the city.  Outside of the city...they were fair game for vengeance.  This sentence stayed in place until there was a change in high priest.  Then the slate was wiped clean and the  individual could return home without fear of retribution.

It was a hard core sense of justice, but it was somewhat tempered.  Families were separated while folks were in exile...but they could be reunited. And that law underscored the value of life.  It was a serious thing to cause a death...even accidentally. People mattered.

But there was sanctuary on the desert plateau.  Even there.

Even there.