This Book: What's In the Pentateuch - Deuteronomy 6:1-9

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After Moses' death (spoiler alert) Joshua gives his first message to the people of Israel: 

Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the instructions Moses gave you. Do not deviate from them, turning either to the right or to the left...” Joshua 1:7ff 

Moses’ instruction was contained in the five books of the Pentateuch, and it is, for the most part, simply Israel’s own story. The events. The cause and effect. The reactions. He said. She said. Where they went. What they did. Most of Moses “instruction” to his people was their own story. Because their own story contained all they needed for what was next, and for what was right.  

They lived in a world that may sound familiar to us.  

Governed by strength, by force, by power. Governed by people who believed in the iron laws of military power and money. Governed by emperors and kings who were not always entirely sane, and very seldom kind. Rulers who acted against or exploited those they saw as weak. Often... in the name of their god.  

Israel, at that time, was a family-nation made up of recently freed slaves. A nation without refuge, a nation without a home, and they, like we, needed wisdom.  

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A speedrun through the Pentateuch: 

1. Genesis  

It contains a lot that will be familiar to many.  

The story of creation. The moment when humanity was expelled from their home because they had disobeyed God. Noah and his flood. The tower of Babel. The story of Abraham, with whom God made a covenant (a key turning point in the story).  

Abraham received God’s covenant that we can summarise like this: “Abraham, I am your God. Leave your home and follow me to your new home.”  

Then there's Abraham's grandson, Jacob, who ran away from home to avoid the consequences of some wrong that he had done. God met Jacob in exile and changed his name to Israel (that's where we get that word). Then Jacob's son, Joseph, was violently torn from his home (in the land God had promised Abraham) and sold into slavery in Egypt.  

Then the world experienced a great famine. Genesis ends with Joseph sheltering Israel's family in Egypt. Joseph's dying words to his family: 

“Soon I will die,” Joseph told his brothers ...Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear an oath, and he said, “When God comes to help you and lead you back [to the PL], you must take my bones with you.”  So Joseph died at the age of 110. The Egyptians embalmed him, and his body was placed in a coffin in Egypt. Genesis 50:24-26 

Genesis begins with life beginning in humanity's first home.  

It ends with an old, homesick, dying man buried far from home.  

Then there's a gap, we think, probably of about 400 years. 

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2. Exodus does not begin well.  

Eventually, a new king came to power in Egypt who knew nothing about Joseph or what he had done. He said to his people, “Look, the people of Israel now outnumber us and are stronger than we are. We must make a plan to keep them from growing even more. If we don’t, and if war breaks out, they will join our enemies and fight against us. Then they will escape from the country.” So the Egyptians made the Israelites their slaves.  Exodus 1:6-11 

Pharaoh wanted to preserve his economy. He wanted to keep his country great. So he enslaved Israel’s family. 

There are, again, things in Exodus that may be familiar to you.  

Moses' encounter with the burning bush. The 10 plagues that God used to convince Egypt to let his people go. The first occasion of Passover when God protected his people, enabling them to escape Egypt. The dividing of the Red Sea. The people's flight to freedom into the wilderness.  

They arrived at Sinai and set up camp at the base of the mountain. There the people of Israel really met for the first time the God of Abraham's covenant. Yahweh God, of Joseph's prophecy.

Now if you will obey me and keep my covenant, you will be my own special treasure from among all the peoples on earth; for all the earth belongs to me.  ...  And all the people responded together, “We will do everything the LORD has commanded.”  Exodus 19:5-8  

Israel had chosen their God. They had taken their stand. They had said, ‘This is whose we are.’ There was nothing left for them to do but follow where God was leading them.  

It was a long journey, and they didn't always get it right. You may remember the episode of the golden calf. The tremendous amount of complaining and complaining and complaining. 

In Exodus, the people of Israel are attacked for the first time by armed invaders, and they fight for their lives for their freedom. They build the tabernacle, the central place of worship that they will carry with them for the rest of the Pentateuch story and beyond. 

At the end of Exodus: 

Then [Moses] hung the curtains forming the courtyard around the Tabernacle and the altar. And he set up the curtain at the entrance of the courtyard. So at last Moses finished the work. Then the cloud covered the Tabernacle, and the glory of the LORD filled the Tabernacle. Exodus 40:33-35 

Some time before, he had had his burning bush experience, his moment of encountering the visual glory of God. This flame, this holy ground, this glory, was for everyone.

Exodus begins with things at their worst. The family of Joseph—of Israel—are devastated by cruelty. They are the focus of a selective, gradual genocide.  

Exodus concludes with God and his people at their best. At a high point of their relationship in covenant, in faithfulness, and in obedience.  

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3. Leviticus. We're mostly going to skip past it today, coming back to it next week.  

It begins with God saying: 

Give these commands to the people. Leviticus 1:1  

It ends with God saying: 

These are the commands that I give the people. Leviticus 27:34

How do those commands fit into the story? Stay tuned! 

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4. Numbers. Lots and lots happens in this book.  

The people have been free for a year now.  

God begins this book by telling Moses and Aaron: 

Take a count of all of your warriors, all of the men 20 years or older who are able to go to war. Numbers 1:1-4  

Israel has had a year to consolidate, to rest and recuperate, to find their feet, to find the rhythms of life with Yahweh God. Now the honeymoon, such as was, is over. Things are about to get real.  

In the book of Numbers, Israel is called to figure out their identity. Who are they going to be? A bunch of wandering former slaves? Or a nation?  

All of the people are identified by their family tribes. The tribe of Levi is identified by God as his priests to represent the rest of the nation. Moses is identified as their leader. Aaron is identified as their chief priest. Seventy people from among the nation are identified as Spirit-filled elders to lead and govern. Twelve men are identified as agents to go and spy out the new land ahead. Joshua is identified as Moses' successor.  

These people are not slaves anymore; they are the people of Yahweh God. They have a destination, a destiny, an identity.  

Numbers packs in 40 years of history, good and bad and hard to understand. But it begins with identifying their warriors.  

Numbers ends with the people of Israel camped on the plains of Moab beside the Jordan River across from Jericho.  

Cliffhanger.  

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5. Deuteronomy doesn't actually tell us what happens next. We stand with the people of Israel on the bank of the Jordan, looking across toward Jericho, and listening to Moses' last words.  

I can imagine him that day, standing by the river that God has told him he will not cross. After 40 years of travel, he would not pass the finish line.  

He stands with his people on the verge of a new life and gives them his final message. He has been leading them for 40 years. Guiding them, teaching them, pointing them towards God for 40 years. And this is the end. He will never speak to them again.  

So what does he do? He tells them their story. ‘Remember, we were in Egypt. Remember, we were at Mount Sinai. Remember, we went through all of that stuff. Remember, God was with us every step.’  

I picture Moses standing with tears on his cheeks, pleading with his people: remember who you are. Remember whose you are. I imagine Joshua and the rest of the nation watching Moses walk away, up the side of the mountain where God would bury him when he died there alone.  

Moses was being left behind. But instead of being angry, or bitter, or shaking his fist at God and saying, ‘This isn't fair!’ the final act of his life is to give them the gift of their own story.  

At the end of Deuteronomy, the people are waiting for God's command to move into the next book, the next chapter.  

Another cliffhanger.  

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The Pentateuch begins with the story of a family who turned their backs on God and, as a consequence, lost their home. 

It concludes with the story of a family who turned toward the God who loved them, and began the work of regaining their home.