Day 52. Deuteronomy 3-4

In our reading for today Israel’s war of conquest continues in the area of the Transjordan—the country east of the Jordan River. King Og of Bashan is defeated. Since his people like the residents of Sihon are no kin to Israel, they are all slaughtered—men, women, and children—with predictable savagery (Deuteronomy 3:6).
There was apparently a widespread story among the Israelites that once upon a time there had been “giants in the earth”—the Rephaim. We heard several references to these people of enormous stature in yesterday’s reading. Now we are told that “only King Og of Bashan was left of the remnant of the Rephaim.” In chapter 3, verse 11 we are treated to a tidbit some of tourist information, namely that “his iron bed, can still be seen in Rabbah of the Ammonites. By the common cubit it is nine cubits long and four cubits wide” (3:11). Charming stuff!
These conquered lands from the kings of Sihon and Bashan are allotted to Reuben and Manasseh. They have their inheritance. But even though these tribes now have space for their families and their flocks, when the conquest of Canaan proper begins, their troops are commanded by the LORD to “cross over armed as the vanguard of [their] Israelite kin” (3:18). They are not exempted.
And the conquest is to go forward expediently—the LORD demands it. What God has done to the two kings in the Transjordan, he promises he will “do to all the kingdoms into which [Israel is] about to cross. Do not fear them, for it is the LORD your God who fights for you” they are told (3:21-22).
But when Moses begs to be allowed to come with them across the Jordan, the LORD petulantly refuses to let him enter Canaan. “Enough from you!” he is told. “Never speak to me of this matter again!” (3:26). These sound like the words of an angry husband to a nagging wife; indeed God and his prophet Moses often speak to each other much like an old married couple. Although Moses is twice allowed to view it from a mountaintop, LORD is adamant in his refusal to allow the prophet to enter the Promised Land. About some matters God does not allow his mind to be changed.
But even though they will leave Moses behind, the people will enter and conquer the Land of Promise, and when they do they must “heed the statutes and ordinances” of the Law given at Sinai. The Law is the great treasure of Israel, that which sets it apart from all other nations. “For what other great nation,” the voice of Moses asks, “has a god so near to it as the LORD our God is whenever we call upon him” (4:7).
The Book of Deuteronomy speaks to a situation long after the conquest of Canaan has been accomplished in a time when the people of Israel are in danger of forgetting the God of the covenant and turning to idols “Take care and watch yourselves closely,” the voice of Moses says to these later generations. Remember all that God has done and do not “forget the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip your minds all the days of your life” (4:9).
Remembering is the constant theme of Deuteronomy.
Remember that “you saw no form when the LORD spoke to you at Horeb (another name for Mount Sinai) out of the fire” (4:15). The living God has no visible form, so Israel is not to “act corruptly by making an idol” for themselves (verse 16). The LORD and not his creation is to be worshipped as God (4:19)—not the sun or the moon or the stars, “all the host of heaven.” The Lord who acts in history is the God of Israel, the one who took them and brought them “out of the iron-smelter, out of Egypt, to become a people of his own possession”(4:20).
Therefore they are to “be careful not to forget the covenant that the LORD . . . . made” with them (4:23). But even if they do forget and are carried off into exile and ”serve other gods made with human hands” (4:28), God will not forget his covenant or abandon his people completely. When they come to their senses and seek him he will be there, “because the LORD . . . . is a merciful God. He will neither abandon . . . nor destroy” his people. “He will not forget the covenant with [Israel’s] ancestors that he swore to them” (4:30-31)
This is the gospel of the Old Testament—the wonderful faithfulness of the God who chooses Israel. The voice of Moses marvels and asks “has anything so great as this ever happened or has its like ever been heard of? Has any people ever heard the voice of a god speaking out of a fire, as you have heard, and lived?” (4:32).
The question is rhetorical. The answer, of course, is “no”—none ever has or ever will. The Book of Deuteronomy celebrates the wonder of God’s unique choosing, and at the same time is constantly recalls the people to obey their part of the covenant pact, to keep “his statutes and his commandments” (4:40). And about those commandments Moses, the lawgiver, will refresh their memory in the next chapter of our reading.