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scholarly interpretive paper on the book of deuteronomy
interpretive essay on deuteronomy
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The whole book of Deuteronomy is telling the story of a people that made a deal with God. They made promises to serve him according to the way that he wanted to be served. Deuteronomy laid out all the wonderful things that would happen to them if they were obedient and kept their promises. It also laid out what would happen if they did not keep their promise. It was pretty harsh too. They would lose their country; their enemies would take their identity and they would be tossed into slavery and the curse that they were under would visit their children’s children and so on until they decided to follow every rule of worship and to follow every step that God had given them to live by. Damn! That was a pretty cruel God they were working with! God knows everything past, present and future. My question is, since God knew from the very beginning that these people, that Moses led out of Egypt, would not be able to live up to their promises. It appears to me that the God of the Hebrew Israelites made plans to wipe them all out long before they completely understood what they were getting into. Damn! What kind of God makes a deal with you; that he knows you cannot keep? From that point on you are cursed, your children are cursed and so on. The Hebrew Israelites accepted a curse on themselves? That did not settle very well with me at all! I was not capable of accepting a curse on myself or my children. I figured they could be cursed if that is what they wanted to do, but as for me and mine, we were free of that shit! Hell, if I did not allow Jesus to control my life, I certainly was not going to allow his father to control my life with all this legalism! All these laws to keep! Ha! I did not mind the Ten Commandments. That was easy commo... ... middle of paper ... ...out. They took their chairs in the front of the congregation then Elijah came out, dressed head to toe in white. He had a white Rasta tam on his head and he had a full, thick beard. He was also as tall as Gabriel, maybe even taller. Elijah walked to the podium and he walked like he had the power of Moses with him! He had a very commanding presence! Elijah sat his books down on the podium, and he asked Nadia to sing before he delivered the message. He took a seat. Nadia stepped to the mic. The girl was crazy as hell, but one thing for sure, no one could take away the fact that this nutty girl could sing her little ass off. She was not the usual powerhouse gospel singer like Tramaine Hawkins or Yolanda Adams, but she had a smooth, alto voice that brought the crowd to silence. I absolutely adored her singing skills. I come from a very musically gifted family. I know
Dying in battle or through sacrifice was considered honorable therefore they would go either to a paradise
Deuteronomy 28 is surrounded around blessings and curses. God’s promise in the blessings and curses is a conditional covenant. In verses 3-14 He establishes the idea that if you fully obey Him, they would be blessed, but if they don’t, then they would be cursed. “ You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country, the fruit of you womb will be blessed, and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks” (NIV, 28:3-4). Curses are the premise of the second half Deuteronomy 28. “ You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country. Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed”(NIV, 28:16-17).
After creating a pure and perfect world which he declared “good,” God experienced His first disappointment in humans. When He placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and instructed them not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, Adam and Eve made the decision to disobey God and eat from it. According to the Old Testament, this decision gave Adam and Eve’s descendants (all humans) their sinful human nature, which as a result separated those who did not repent from God’s grace. Eventually the world was full of wickedness and a new side of YHWH came out. The God of unconditional love who is often thought of tended to be a God ...
The Book of Daniel is the only full-blown apocalyptic book in the Protestant recognized version of the Canon. A literary device divides the book into two halves. Chapters 1-6 are a collection of stories that introduces the reader to Daniel and three other Israelites as unwilling guests of the Babylonia Empire ruled by Nebuchadnezzar. The second half, Chapters 7-12 consists of apocalyptic imagery of deformed beasts and the heavenly court. The focus of this paper will be on chapter 7, which serves as a bridge of the two halves. Chapter 7 is the earliest of the visions as it identifies with the genre of 8-12 while through language and content it reverts to Daniel chapter 2. The linguistic break down is not as neat as the literary divide in that Dan. 2:4b-7:28 was written in Aramaic while other portions of the book is written in Hebrew.
One of God’s monikers is “The Creator”. He made the universe in seven days, brought a huge flood upon the Earth and rained fire and sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah. Killing through massive disaster was the only option for God, because he couldn’t control the people and make them benevolent. He didn’t have the power. If God had the power, then he would have acted accordingly. God doesn’t like to kill his people, despite him being quick to kill. He wants humans to be fruitful and multiply, he doesn’t want to destroy them. It is irrational to believe that a creator would want his creations to die. In the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, God even gives the town a chance to redeem themselves, but the town fails.
way you'll be casted to hell in your afterlife even if you pray for forgiveness right before you die
Cain and Able both carried the name of their Father, Adam. Both men had a choice to make with how they would represent their lineage. You can either be bound by the curses or you can choose to serve God and overcome them. One, Able, chose to give God his best while Cain did not. Their hearts served as their representative to
...o I have created…’” (Gen. Ch 6, line 12) God tells this to Noah, explaining that he will end the lives of all in order to cleanse the land. The Hebrew belief that their god had the power to end all forced the people to be fearful and respect their covenant with the lord.
... She asks that his wife be "more miserable by the death of him / Than I am made by my young lord and thee" (1:2:27-28). The fact that she marries Richard suggests that her curse is somewhat false. Perhaps she intentionally imposes a lenient punishment for his wife, one that she has already suffered, knowing that she might become his wife.
Their unfaithfulness led to enslavement in Egypt for approximately four hundred years. When the Lord finally freed his people through Moses, He established a second covenant. This new covenant bound the twelve tribes of Israel into one community under a set of commandments by which the people would model their lives. The Ten Commandments serve to protect the Hebrew community. The first commandment, “You shall have no other gods before me,” must come first because it reestablishes the foundation that God defines right and wrong. The second, third and fourth commandments aim to prevent divisive values from forming in the community. Commandments five through nine focus on specific actions and the timing of their consequences. For example, killing has immediate consequences, whereas adultery has future implications. The Israelites separate themselves from other civilizations with the final commandment. God commands the Hebrews to control their thoughts, so that their thoughts may not lead to sinful actions. The Ten Commandments were not concerned with granting justice among the people, but firmly established the first principles of one of the longest lasting cultures in human
Once they lost hope and faith they began to become disobedient by creating and serving other gods. They looked to other deities and fail to recall the specific and all around one of the most important rule that was given to them. Because of their disregard of rules they were punished. The simple fact that they were so quick to build not one but many other gods because they were tired of waiting on Moses to come back from talking to God, shows how they really struggled with
As a one reads through the Old Testament, he will find the story as it unfolds of the children of Israel. Beginning in the book of Exodus the children of Israel are in Egyptian bondage and being forced to work as slaves. God appears to Moses in a burning bush and tells him that He [God] has heard His people and He is going to deliver them out of bondage. God at that time tells Moses that He has chosen him to be the leader of this people. After God brings ten plagues against Egypt the children of Israel are driven out of the land, and God promises to lead them to a land “flowing with milk and honey.” On their way to the “Promised Land” they cross the Red Sea in which Pharaoh and the Egyptian army is defeated by God. Then they go to Mount Sinai to receive the Law. After receiving the law they then go to the Promised Land, and there Moses sends twelve spies into the land. Ten of these spies come back and give a bad report to Moses and the children of Israel. Since they did this Israel was punished by God and made to wonder in the wilderness for forty years during which time all who were over the age of twenty perished. The only two that did not die was Caleb and Joshua who had come back with a good report, and told Moses and the children of Israel to go up at once and take the land. Once they had completed the wilderness wondering they returned to the Promised Land and took the land under the new leadership of Joshua. However, Israel did not drive out all the inhabitants as the Lord God had commanded them, thus the inhabitants that were not driven out would be a snare to them. Once they had established themselves in the land they began to chase after the gods of the inhabitants before them. God then sent judges to deliver them which ...
Cindy Pereyra The Pentateuch Dr. Luther 5 May 2014 Deuteronomy Study Assignment 1. Read Deuteronomy 16:18-20. a. Describe the requirements of judges in Israel based on this passage. In this passage, the requirements of judges in Israel are shown. The people are told to appoint judges and officers for themselves in all the towns that the Lord is giving to them according to their tribes.
God always shows love- He showed his love for the Israelites by defeating the Egyptian. In the Exodus 14 the Bible explains how Pharaoh tried to recapture the Israelites. Pharaoh prepared 600 men with him and chased after the Israelites in the wilderness. The Lord saved the Israelites by splitting the Red Sea, and allowing them to cross on dry land. However, the Lord showed his power by closing the Red Sea around the
After Joshua’s death and the death of “that whole generation”, the next generation “knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel” (Judges 2:10). Because this new generation was consistently unfaithful to the covenant that God made with them in Deuteronomy, God was furious. He says in Judges 2:20-22, “Because this nation has violated the covenant that I laid down for their forefathers and has not listened to me, 21 I will no longer drive out before them any of the nations Joshua left when he died. 22 I will use them to test Israel and see whether they will keep the way of the LORD and walk in it as their forefathers did.” This is a perfect example of the Deuteronomic History emphasis of Torah obedience, which this module defines as “for ancient Israel to enjoy God’s good gift of the land, the ancient Israelites were expected to be faithful to the covenant that God established with them….” Since the Israelites were not faithful to the covenant, God made their lives extremely difficult by repeatedly subjecting them to serve unjust kings in the land that was mean...