Deuteronomy, Book of

• portrayed Great Choice between good and evil

97:8.3But five hun­dred years of the over­lord­ship of alien rulers was too much for even the pa­tient and long-suf­fer­ing Jews. The proph­ets and priests be­gan to cry: “How long, O Lord, how long?” As the hon­est Jew searched the Scrip­tures, his con­fu­sion be­came worse con­founded. An olden seer prom­ised that God would pro­tect and de­liver his “cho­sen peo­ple.” Amos had threat­ened that God would aban­don Is­rael un­less they re-es­tab­lished their stan­dards of na­tional righ­teous­ness. The scribe of Deuteron­omy had por­trayed the Great Choice—as be­tween the good and the evil, the bless­ing and the curse. Isa­iah the first had preached a benef­i­cent king-de­liv­erer. Jeremiah had pro­claimed an era of in­ner righ­teous­ness—the covenant writ­ten on the tablets of the heart. The sec­ond Isa­iah talked about sal­va­tion by sac­ri­fice and re­demp­tion. Eze­kiel pro­claimed de­liv­er­ance through the ser­vice of de­vo­tion, and Ezra prom­ised pros­per­ity by ad­her­ence to the law. But in spite of all this they lin­gered on in bond­age, and de­liv­er­ance was de­ferred. Then Daniel pre­sented the drama of the im­pend­ing “cri­sis”—the smit­ing of the great im­age and the im­me­di­ate es­tab­lish­ment of the ev­er­last­ing reign of righ­teous­ness, the Mes­sianic king­dom.

• Jesus read from

150:8.8Then the chazan went over to the ark and brought out a roll, which he pre­sented to Je­sus that he might read the Scrip­ture les­son. It was cus­tom­ary to call upon seven per­sons to read not less than three verses of the law, but this prac­tice was waived on this oc­ca­sion that the vis­i­tor might read the les­son of his own se­lec­tion. Je­sus, tak­ing the roll, stood up and be­gan to read from Deuteron­omy: “For this com­mand­ment which I give you this day is not hid­den from you, nei­ther is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, who shall go up for us to heaven and bring it down to us that we may hear and do it? Nei­ther is it be­yond the sea, that you should say, who will go over the sea for us to bring the com­mand­ment to us that we may hear and do it? No, the word of life is very near to you, even in your pres­ence and in your heart, that you may know and obey it.”

• Jesus read from

153:2.1Je­sus in­tro­duced this ser­mon by read­ing from the law as found in Deuteron­omy: “But it shall come to pass, if this peo­ple will not hear­ken to the voice of God, that the curses of trans­gres­sion shall surely over­take them. The Lord shall cause you to be smit­ten by your en­e­mies; you shall be re­moved into all the king­doms of the earth. And the Lord shall bring you and the king you have set up over you into the hands of a strange na­tion. You shall be­come an as­ton­ish­ment, a proverb, and a by­word among all na­tions. Your sons and your daugh­ters shall go into cap­tiv­ity. The strangers among you shall rise high in au­thor­ity while you are brought very low. And these things shall be upon you and your seed for­ever be­cause you would not hear­ken to the word of the Lord. There­fore shall you serve your en­e­mies who shall come against you. You shall en­dure hunger and thirst and wear this alien yoke of iron. The Lord shall bring against you a na­tion from afar, from the end of the earth, a na­tion whose tongue you shall not un­der­stand, a na­tion of fierce coun­te­nance, a na­tion which will have lit­tle re­gard for you. And they shall be­siege you in all your towns un­til the high for­ti­fied walls wherein you have trusted come down; and all the land shall fall into their hands. And it shall come to pass that you will be driven to eat the fruit of your own bod­ies, the flesh of your sons and daugh­ters, dur­ing this time of siege, be­cause of the strait­ness where­with your en­e­mies shall press you.”