Deuteronomy 17:2-7 – The importance of integrity

In Deuteronomy 16:18-20, we learned that God’s instruction was for appointed judges to be fair. They were told not to distort justice. They must be impartial and must not take bribes. And in dealing with the waywardness of His people, God’s primary concern was their tendency to emulate the pagans. Knowing the potential for His people to be easily influenced, He forbade them from copying the pagans. They were disallowed to build shrines at the place where they would worship God. Then in Deuteronomy 17:1, they were told to only offer God unblemished worship. Here in Deuteronomy 17:2-7, God continued in His instructions to the appointed judges on how to deal with people who had violated the commandments to be faithful to Him by loving, honoring, and serving Him only.

As God’s covenant people, to deflect to worship other gods or the sun, moon or stars would be gross misconduct. To do so would transgress the covenant and commit a grievous evil in the sight of God. It would constitute spiritual treason against God, the highest authority. Death would be the only appropriate punishment for one caught in such an evil act. However, before a person who had been accused of such an act was sentenced to death, the appointed judge must ascertain that the evil had indeed been committed. Any accusation of such an act must be thoroughly investigated. And the execution should only be carried out when this “spiritual treason” was confirmed by two or three witnesses. No one must be put to death on the evidence of only one witness.  To further ensure that the crime had indeed been committed, the informant would be the one to cast the first stone after the crime had been ascertained.  

Two reasons why such sin had to be dealt with so seriously. Firstly, it was an assault on God. Such an act would constitute a violation of one’s covenant with God. It would destroy the call to purity and faithfulness of worship. Idolatry would destroy the witness of the community. Secondly, it would be a corrupting influence on the moral fabric of the whole community. The moral sensibility of the community would be diminished by such an act.

What principle can we glean from these verses? God views relationships with Him seriously. Any act of unfaithfulness to God should not be tolerated. It must be dealt with so that the fellowship would not be negatively influenced. When dealing with an issue, hearsay is not enough. A thorough investigation must be carried out. A person should only be confirmed guilty at the substantiations of two or three witnesses. Only when the offense can be proven beyond doubt that the accused will be punished. Reliability is important to God. Hence, we must be people of integrity because we are the people of a faithful God.            

      

Deuteronomy 17:1 – An acceptable sacrifice

Since God was central to the life of the people of Israel, how each person honored Him would be of great importance. So in Deuteronomy 17:1, He specified that an ox or a sheep to be sacrificed to Him must be without blemish or defect. To offer a defective sacrifice to Him would be detestable.  

In the Old Testament days, if they wanted to offer to God, they would come with an unblemished animal to Him. What eventually would be offered on the altar of sacrifice would be the carcass of a dead animal. As Christians, Paul tells us in Romans 12:1 that when we come to offer to God, we no longer come with an animal. We offer to Him our lives as a living sacrifice. To offer to Him our life is the only reasonable act of worship in the light of all that He had done for us in Christ Jesus.

Notice that the sacrifice God wanted of His people was an unblemished ox or lamb. Similarly, He wants us to give to Him our lives as a living sacrifice. We must offer to Him an unblemished life. What does it mean to give to God an unblemished life? It is one that is cleansed by the blood of Christ and totally yielded to serve Him. It is offering a life actively pursuing His will and wholly consecrated to serve His purpose. It is a life offered in faith and set to obey His Word. It is living a life of wholehearted devotion to Him alone. Anything short of this is not worthy for Him!      

Deuteronomy 16:21-22 – Be wholly devoted to God

God was central to the life of Israel. Worshipping and serving Him alone was paramount. Hence, in Deuteronomy 16:21-17:7, God demanded that they must not pivot to serve other gods. He would not allow them to mix their worship. The people of Israel were told not to associate worshipping pagan idols with worshipping Him.

In the last two verses of Deuteronomy 16, God dealt with the Asherah poles. What was an Asherah pole? It was a pole which could even be just a tree, that the pagans in Canaan would set up as a sacred monument to venerate the goddess Asherah. These poles had been objects that had often caused the Israelites to stray from God to pander after pagan deities. That alone was a good reason why God would not allow His people to have anything to do with Asherah poles. They must never set up such shrines like the pagans. Why? Because God hates it.

From these two verses is a call on us to put our faith and trust in God alone. We must not make the worship of God syncretistic by mixing different unchristian practices in our belief. To do so would make us unequally yoked with something unholy. Like the people of Israel, who were warned not to build Asherah poles, we must be careful not to adopt the practices of heretical teachings in our faith. They have the potential to cause us to make other things central in our lives instead of Christ. Never allow any aberrant teaching to influence us from being wholly devoted to the Lord. Let us set our hearts to honor Him alone for He alone deserves our wholehearted devotion. Don’t be sidestepped by seemingly good but false teachings!

 

  

 

 

Deuteronomy 16:18-20 – A just government to ensue orderly living

For Israel to become an orderly society when they entered the promised land, there must be people appointed to ensure orderliness. The instructions given in Deuteronomy 16:18-20 were for people with integrity to be appointed and given authority to judge, maintain order, settle disputes, and deal with offenders. Right and appropriate people must be selected to administer justice righteously. To ensure fairness, God stipulated three things such appointed officers must not do. Firstly, they must not distort justice. Secondly, they must not be partial, and thirdly, they must not take a bribe. They must only do the right thing.    

Emphatically, God wants justice to be evident. Verse 20 explicitly instructed that the officials appointed must pursue justice and justice alone. Why is justice so important? When the right people are appointed into positions to administer justice, the people can exist peacefully. All unjust burdens will be removed, and peace and progress ensured. Society can then find security because lawbreakers will be brought to task and all disorderliness justly dealt with. This in turn will ensure that each person’s inheritance will be protected. How can a society be orderly when crimes are left unchecked, and offenders left to run riot rampantly and not fairly dealt with?

When we think of fairness in society, we think of people who are elected to govern our nation. A relevant question to ask is why do we need people in authority to be fair and just? The answer is obvious. If people who are not fair and just are placed in authority, there will be social injustice and people will live with the spirit of discontent. So the Apostle Paul urged in 1 Timothy 2:1-2 saying, “First of all, then, I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity.” We must pray for all who is in authority so that we will have a peaceful and just society.     

Deuteronomy 16:13-17 – Lessons from the Feast of Tabernacle

Deuteronomy 16:13-15 describe the third feast to be celebrated in the place that God had chosen to establish His name. This Feast of Booth, “Sukkot”, was also referred to as the Feast of Tabernacle. For this feast, Leviticus 23:40 said, “Now on the first day you shall take for yourselves the foliage of beautiful trees, palm branches and boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days.” It became a practice later that during the Feast of Tabernacle the Jews would build temporary tents or tabernacles with palm leaves on their rooftops to celebrate this occasion for seven days. In Exodus 23:16, this feast was also referred to as the Feast of the Ingathering.

Like the Feast of Weeks, this feast was also to be a joyful celebration. Again the participants would include one’s family members, sons, daughters, servants, and maids, as well as the Levite, the orphans, and widows among them. For seven days this feast would be celebrated. It was a thanksgiving feast to commemorate the goodness of God, the one who had blessed them with the harvest.

In verses 16-17, God again reminded them the three feasts must be celebrated every year at the place where He had chosen to establish His name. Every male was expected to make this pilgrimage three times a year. So we see why the Jews would go up to Jerusalem to celebrate the Feasts of Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacle.  

In this Feast of Booth or Tabernacle, we cannot escape the call to live a joyful life of faith and obedience. Once again, we see in this feast the call to celebrate the goodness of God. Like the Feast of Weeks, here God also wants us to have a heart for the orphans and the widows. They represent the needy people whom we should help if we can. The three feasts point us to the Christian journey. We need to know that earth is our temporary dwelling. Our destination is to be with God. While we journey toward our destination, our goal is to cultivate a life of faith and obedience leading to Christlikeness. As we journey, we must also take care of the needy and not leave them out. Let us live joyfully, obediently, and faithfully for God!      

Deuteronomy 16:9-12 – The Feast of Weeks applied in Christian living

Other terms used in the Bible for the Feast of Weeks or “Shavuot” include the First Fruits, the Feast of Harvest, or the Feast of Pentecost. The term “Pentecost” in Greek means fifty. The Feast of Pentecost derived from this term would be celebrated fifty days after the Passover. This joyful celebration was in response to God’s goodness in the harvest they had received. It was to be an expression of gratitude for God's blessing. A freewill offering in proportion to the harvest would be brought in joyful celebration before the Lord. The participants of this celebration would include one’s family members plus one’s servants and maids. It would also include the Levites, the orphans, and widows in their midst. This feast would be a celebration in the place where God had established His name.  

The celebration of this feast was also an act of faith on the part of the people of Israel. In giving to God the first fruits of their harvest, they affirmed their faith that God would bless them with a full harvest. This Feast of First Fruits was given in anticipation of a greater harvest to come. Adopting the joyful spirit accompanying this celebration, the New Testament encourages us to give cheerfully, generously, and willingly to the Lord. One question that believers frequently ask is, “did the New Testament teach about tithing?” To be honest, tithing is only inferred in the New Testament but giving cheerfully, generously, and willingly are clearly taught. And this giving was certainly more than one-tenth of what one earns. The heartening truth is this: God loves a cheerful, generous, and willing giver. This sort of giving, like the offering of the first fruits, reminds us of how God has so graciously redeemed us and so generously blessed us.   

The Feast of Weeks has to do with the harvest. It is a term that the New Testament uses to talk about drawing souls into the Kingdom of God. Jesus tells us that the field of the world is already white for the harvest. We are the harvesters that God has called and sent into the field to do the harvesting. In this regard, the souls that result from the Apostle Peter’s preaching on the day of Pentecost were telling. Acts 2:41 tells us that in that one day, 3,000 souls were added to the Kingdom of God. Interestingly for harvest to be plentiful, not only is the former rain needed but the latter rain will also be needed. In the Bible, rain and water have been used to typify the Holy Spirit. Hence it is no co-incidence that the Holy Spirit fell in great measure upon the then early church for the bountiful harvest.                   

Three lessons to be drawn from the Feast of Weeks. Firstly, it is about giving cheerfully, generously, and willingly to the work of the Lord. God is no man’s debtor. He will not short-change us. God will bless us with whatever we have invested into the Kingdom. Secondly, it is about working with the Holy Spirit whom God has sent to accompany us in the journey. He comes to enable us in the work of gathering souls for the Kingdom. Are we actively relying on Him in harvesting souls for the Kingdom?  Thirdly, the Feast of Weeks is about faith and trust in God for the future. It is about offering to God what we have now and believing that He will take care of all our tomorrows. Many things about tomorrow we do not understand. But when we surrender our lives to Him, we are trusting our lives to Him who has all our future covered. He will never fail us!

Deuteronomy 16:1-8 - The Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread

In the life of the children of Israel, three feasts were of special significance to them. They were the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Passover), the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost), and the Feast of Booths (Tabernacle). These three feasts would be celebrated at the place where God had appointed to make His name known. We know that Jerusalem, the city of God, was the place. That’s the reason the Jews in the New Testament would gather in Jerusalem three times a year to celebrate these feasts.

In Deuteronomy 16:1-8, are instructions on the celebration of the Passover and the Feast of the Unleavened Bread. This feast was instituted to commemorate the night that the Angel of death from God passed over the home of the Israelites and spare their firstborns. They were spared because of the blood of a sacrificial lamb, applied on the doorposts of their houses. God had instructed that each household to slaughter a lamb and have its blood applied on the doorposts of their house. When the angel of death saw the applied blood, it would pass over the house, thus sparing their firstborns. The firstborns of all the Egyptians were not spared because they did not have the blood applied on the doorposts of their houses. God did it to deliver the people of Israel from their bondage in Egypt. The Passover was to remind them of their deliverance.

The Passover, followed by the Feast of the Unleavened Bread, was to be celebrated on the month of Abib, the first month of the religious year in the Jewish calendar. It was to be commemorated on the 14th Day. A lamb was to be offered and its flesh be eaten and not kept till the next day. This would be followed by the weeklong celebration of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. During these seven days, only unleavened bread was to be eaten.

Why were they told to celebrate the Passover? To help them relive the night they escaped from Egypt. God wanted this act to be a shared memory. This was to let the future generations know that it was God who had saved them. The whole Passover with the Unleavened Bread paint for us a picture of the process of salvation. Being saved is just the first step, we need to be sanctified after the initial act so that we can begin to live a life increasingly free from the grasps of sin.  

What about the Feast of Unleavened Bread? From Exodus 12, we are told that in this weeklong celebration, God specifically told them to remove any yeast in their midst. Even the loaves of bread were to be baked without yeast. The reason why the Israelites were told to eat yeast-free bread was that they had to leave Egypt in haste and there simply wasn’t enough time for any yeast to rise. The instruction for the Unleavened Bread was for all yeast to be removed. Yeast has been a symbol of the corrupting nature of sin. And sin has a devastating consequence in one’s life. Its effect lingers longer than we want it to linger. It makes us pay more than we are willing to pay. And it stays longer than we are willing to let it stay. God wants them removed from our lives. The people of Israel had left Egypt but the mentality of Egypt, unfortunately, did not leave them for a long time. There must be a process of removing the sinful mentality. The Feast of the Unleavened Bread served to remind them that they must seek to live a sin-free life.

We know in life we need to constantly deal with our fallen nature. We need to submit ourselves to the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. At conversion, we are saved from the penalty of sin. Now progressively in the process of sanctification, the Holy Spirit assists us to be increasingly free from the power of sin. Ultimately, we will be saved from the presence of sin when we reach our eternal destination and experience our glorification. God saved us at our conversion and now He is sanctifying us in our Christian journey. What a marvelous God!