askepticsjourneythroughthebible:

Summary: Moses reveals the purpose of the Law.

4:1 Hear now, O Israel, the decrees and laws I am about to teach you. Follow them so that you may live and may go in and take possession of the land that the LORD, the God of your fathers, is giving you.

4:2 Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the LORD your God that I give you.

Here it is commanded by God to neither add nor subtract words from his law. In the New Testament when Satan is tempting Jesus in the wilderness (Matthew 4), Satan and Jesus both quote scripture. Satan correctly quotes Psalm 91:11-12, while Jesus breaks this commandment by adding the word “only” to his quoting of Deutronomy 6:13. 

4:3 You saw with your own eyes what the LORD did at Baal Peor. The LORD your God destroyed from among you everyone who followed the Baal of Peor,

4:4 but all of you who held fast to the LORD your God are still alive today. 

Moses recounts how God destroyed “everyone who followed the Baal of Peor.” If you’ll recall, God stopped killing the guilty people because he was impresed by Phinehas killing the foridden couple back in Numbers 25. If the plauge was stopped before it killed everyone, how had he killed all of the followers as said here?

4:5 See, I have taught you decrees and laws as the LORD my God commanded me, so that you may follow them in the land you are entering to take possession of it.

4:6 Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations, who will hear about all these decrees and say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.”

4:7 What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the LORD our God is near us whenever we pray to him?

4:8 And what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today?

4:9 Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them.

4:10 Remember the day you stood before the LORD your God at Horeb, when he said to me, “Assemble the people before me to hear my words so that they may learn to revere me as long as they live in the land and may teach them to their children.”

4:11 You came near and stood at the foot of the mountain while it blazed with fire to the very heavens, with black clouds and deep darkness.

4:12 Then the LORD spoke to you out of the fire. You heard the sound of words but saw no form; there was only a voice.

4:13 He declared to you his covenant, the Ten Commandments, which he commanded you to follow and then wrote them on two stone tablets.

4:14 And the LORD directed me at that time to teach you the decrees and laws you are to follow in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess.

4:15 You saw no form of any kind the day the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire. Therefore watch yourselves very carefully,  

4:16 so that you do not become corrupt and make for yourselves an idol, an image of any shape, whether formed like a man or a woman,

4:17 or like any animal on earth or any bird that flies in the air,

4:18 or like any creature that moves along the ground or any fish in the waters below.

4:19 And when you look up to the sky and see the sun, the moon and the stars—all the heavenly array—do not be enticed into bowing down to them and worshiping things the LORD your God has apportioned to all the nations under heaven.

4:20 But as for you, the LORD took you and brought you out of the iron-smelting furnace, out of Egypt, to be the people of his inheritance, as you now are.

4:21 The LORD was angry with me because of you, and he solemnly swore that I would not cross the Jordan and enter the good land the LORD your God is giving you as your inheritance.

4:22 I will die in this land; I will not cross the Jordan; but you are about to cross over and take possession of that good land.

4:23 Be careful not to forget the covenant of the LORD your God that he made with you; do not make for yourselves an idol in the form of anything the LORD your God has forbidden.

4:24 For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.

Verse 24 describes God as jealous, so very jealous that he is like a “consuming fire.” God knows everything that is going to happen, so why would he become so very jealous?

4:25 After you have had children and grandchildren and have lived in the land a long time—if you then become corrupt and make any kind of idol, doing evil in the eyes of the LORD your God and provoking him to anger,

4:26 I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you this day that you will quickly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live there long but will certainly be destroyed.

4:27 The LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the LORD will drive you.

4:28 There you will worship man-made gods of wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or eat or smell.

4:29 But if from there you seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul.

4:30 When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, then in later days you will return to the LORD your God and obey him.

4:31 For the LORD your God is a merciful God; he will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your forefathers, which he confirmed to them by oath.

4:32 Ask now about the former days, long before your time, from the day God created man on the earth; ask from one end of the heavens to the other. Has anything so great as this ever happened, or has anything like it ever been heard of?

4:33 Has any other people heard the voice of God speaking out of fire, as you have, and lived?

4:34 Has any god ever tried to take for himself one nation out of another nation, by testings, by miraculous signs and wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, or by great and awesome deeds, like all the things the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?

4:35 You were shown these things so that you might know that the LORD is God; besides him there is no other.

4:36 From heaven he made you hear his voice to discipline you. On earth he showed you his great fire, and you heard his words from out of the fire.

4:37 Because he loved your forefathers and chose their descendants after them, he brought you out of Egypt by his Presence and his great strength,

4:38 to drive out before you nations greater and stronger than you and to bring you into their land to give it to you for your inheritance, as it is today.

4:39 Acknowledge and take to heart this day that the LORD is God in heaven above and on the earth below. There is no other.

4:40 Keep his decrees and commands, which I am giving you today, so that it may go well with you and your children after you and that you may live long in the land the LORD your God gives you for all time.

In verse 40, Moses tells the Israelites to keep God’s laws so that they, and their descendants, may live in the Promised Land that God is giving them “for all time.” How could they live in this land “for all time” when the New Testament declares that the earth will “pass away” (Revelation 21:1)

4:41 Then Moses set aside three cities east of the Jordan,

4:42 to which anyone who had killed a person could flee if he had unintentionally killed his neighbor without malice aforethought. He could flee into one of these cities and save his life.

4:43 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.

4:44 This is the law Moses set before the Israelites.

4:45 These are the stipulations, decrees and laws Moses gave them when they came out of Egypt

4:46 and were in the valley near Beth Peor east of the Jordan, in the land of Sihon king of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon and was defeated by Moses and the Israelites as they came out of Egypt.

4:47 They took possession of his land and the land of Og king of Bashan, the two Amorite kings east of the Jordan.

4:48 This land extended from Aroer on the rim of the Arnon Gorge to Mount Siyon (that is, Hermon),

4:49 and included all the Arabah east of the Jordan, as far as the Sea of the Arabah, below the slopes of Pisgah.

Final Thoughts on Chapter 4:

Moses reveals the purpose of the Law in verses 6-8. The Law was to showcase God, through the Israelites, on Earth. If followed correctly, it was supposed to demonstrate that God is a real god, unlike the gods of the nations around them, that he is a great god, so that people would want to follow him. Unfortunately, it has thus far made me do the opposite.

I find it impossible to read this without seeing the god described as tiny, local, petty god.  I see simply a god of war, with a smaller scope of interest even than the lesser known of the ancient Greek gods.  A braggart god who makes claims far beyond his capabilities, and is so afraid that you will find other, more worthy gods that he makes threats and throws angry fits.

This is not a god that even knows the size of the world over which he tries to rule.  This is not even a god that CARES about ruling the world.  He is just the dictator of this group of people.  His scope and concerns do not go beyond them.

Try to imagine this petty, jealous fiend creating a distant galaxy.

~ Steve