Fr. Dave's Thoughts - April 11, 2025
Dear friends,
I want to begin where I left off last week. As we finish looking at the Pentateuch today, I want to keep this outline in front of you because it is the outline of the whole Pentateuch.
· The beginning of humanity (Genesis 1-11)
· Abraham’s story (Genesis 12-25)
· Jacob’s story (Genesis 26-36)
· Joseph’s story (Genesis 37-50)
· Israelites in Egypt (Exodus 1-12)
· Israelites delivered from Egypt (Exodus 12-15)
· Israelites in the wilderness (Exodus 15-18)
· Israelites at Mount Saini (Exodus 19-40; all of Leviticus, Numbers 1-10)
· Wilderness wanderings (Numbers 11-21)
· Encampment on the Plains of Moab across the Jordan River from Jericho (Numbers 22-36; and the whole book of Deuteronomy)[i]
Last week, I talked about and outlined Genesis and Exodus for you. The rest of the Pentateuch is less known to most of us; Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
Leviticus is where the law gets very specific. This book contains rules and regulations for the Hebrew people regarding both their daily lives and their ritual lives. “Leviticus instructs the people and the priests how to offer sacrifices, to establish the ritual worship life of the community, and to negotiate the boundaries of clean and unclean things.”[ii] One way to look at the Book of Leviticus is to think of it as something like our Book of Common Prayer. Our BCP offers instructions about worship and various liturgical forms not just for corporate worship, but for personal worship as well.
Some of the cast of characters in Leviticus are familiar to us. We find Moses and his brother, Aaron and his sister, Miriam. We find Aaron’s four sons, Eleazar, Ithamar, Nadab, and Abihu. Aaron and his four sons were the first priests appointed by God. In Leviticus chapter 10, the older two, Nadab and Abihu were consumed by fire after offering an unholy fire before the Lord (Leviticus 10:1-2). Apparently, you did not want to approach the Tent of Meeting as a priest without the right intentions in your heart.
Leviticus is where you can read about burnt offerings, what it means to be clean and unclean and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, perhaps the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. You can read a description of Yom Kippur in Leviticus chapter 16.
Moving on, the Book of Numbers is a strange book, at least in my view. In this book, we see the life of the Israelites being played out in the midst of the adversity of the wilderness. There is back and forth between God and God’s people. In this book we see the Israelites marrying foreign women and worshipping foreign deities. The title for the fourth book of the Pentateuch comes from the Greek Septuagint or the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures. The title comes from the many numbers and census lists in the book. The Hebrew tradition simply names the book Bemidbar, which in English is “in the wilderness.” The Book of Numbers in its entirety is about the Israelites journey in the wilderness focusing on that part of the journey from Mount Sinai toward the land of Canaan. “Interspersed with these narratives are census lists and legal regulations concerning festivals and sacrifices.”[iii]
In chapter 1, God instructs Moses to take a census of the twelve tribes and that number comes to 603,550 males in the whole assembly of Israelites. I think people wonder how many Israelites were wandering in the wilderness and when you add women, children, you can see that it was a very large group. Chapter 6 verses 24-26 is where we get the wonderful benediction that is often used in our churches; “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.” Chapter 20 is where Moses strikes the rock at Meribah and water gushes out of the rock to satisfy the thirst of the people and their livestock. It is also the chapter where Miriam and Aaron both die. The book ends with the Israelites in the plains of Moab by the Jordan River at Jericho where they make plans to enter the promised land of Canaan.
The Book of Deuteronomy is the fifth and last book in the Pentateuch. The title for the book comes again from the Greek Septuagint and means “second law.” The Book of Deuteronomy contains another set of laws spoken by Moses to the Israelites as they await their entrance into the promised land. The Hebrew title for the book is Devarim, which means “words” and is taken from the book’s opening phrase; “These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel beyond the Jordan in the wilderness….”
The basic theme of Deuteronomy is the reaffirmation of the covenant between God and the Hebrew people. In this book, the legal tradition of the book of Exodus is repeated and reinterpreted in contemporary terms. I will explain this in a moment. The book is set up as a series (three to be exact) of farewell addresses given by Moses as the Israelites make plans to enter the promised land. A distinctive teaching of Deuteronomy is that the worship of the Lord is to be centralized in one place, that the syncretism characteristic in local shrines may be eliminated. We read this in chapter 12.[iv] In Deuteronomy, we see the Ten Commandments repeated again in chapter 5 and perhaps the most sacred of Jewish prayers, the Schema Yisrael in chapter 6 verses 4-9. Of course, the Schema Yisrael is the foundation of the first great commandment that Jesus taught, “You shall love the Lord with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” (Matthew 22:37). By the way, the second of the commandments that Jesus taught, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” (Matthew 22:39) comes from Leviticus chapter 19 verse 18. The last chapter of the book records Moses’ death and burial in Moab.
What did I mean above about Deuteronomy being a reinterpretation of the Mosaic law in contemporary terms? As you may recall from my blog back on March 14th, I briefly introduced the Documentary Hypothesis and the Yahwists, the Eloists, the Priestly Class, and the Deuteronomists, and mentioned that the Book of Deuteronomy is the product of the tradition of the Deuteronomists. For the lack of a better way to put this, when Deuteronomy was published, the temple in Jerusalem was regarded as the central sanctuary. The Book of Deuteronomy was most likely the “book of the law” that prompted Josiah’s sweeping reform in 621 BC which we can read about in 2 Kings chapters 22-23 “and led to the revision of the history found in Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, often called the Deuteronomic History. Although Deuteronomy rests on ancient tradition, fundamentally it is a rediscovery and reinterpretation of Mosaic teaching in the light of later historical experience.”[v]
I hope this walk through the Pentateuch has been worthwhile. I won’t have a blog next week, but in two weeks we will begin our look at the historical books beginning with Joshua.
Take care and God bless!!
Peace,
Dave.
[i] Tyler D. Mayfield, A Guide to Bible Basics, Westminster, John Knox Press, Louisville, KY; 2018; pp. 11
[ii] Ibid. pp. 31.
[iii] Ibid. pp. 34.
[iv] The New Oxford Annotated Bible,, Bruce M. Metzger and Roland E. Murphy, eds., Oxford University Press, Mew York, NY: 1991; pp. 217 OT.
[v][v] Ibid.