Deuteronomy 1–3: “Remember & Forget Not!”

Read the Bible in 2011 ◊ Week 42: Monday

“Yet you were not willing to go up, but rebelled
against the command of the LORD your God;
and you grumbled in your tents and said,

“‘Because the LORD hates us, He has brought us out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites to destroy us. Where can we go up? Our brethren have made our hearts melt, saying, “The people are bigger and taller than we; the cities are large and fortified to heaven. And besides, we saw the sons of the Anakim there.”’

“Then I said to you, ‘Do not be shocked, nor fear them. The LORD your God who goes before you will Himself fight on your behalf, just as He did for you in Egypt before your eyes, and in the wilderness where you saw how the LORD your God carried you, just as a man carries his son, in all the way which you have walked until you came to this place.’

“But for all this, you did not trust the LORD your God, who goes before you on your way, to seek out a place for you to encamp, in fire by night and cloud by day, to show you the way in which you should go.

“Then the LORD heard the sound of your words, and He was angry and took an oath, saying, ‘Not one of these men, this evil generation, shall see the good land which I swore to give your fathers, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh; he shall see it, and to him and to his sons I will give the land on which he has set foot, because he has followed the LORD fully.’”
Deuteronomy 2:26–36

Monday’s Bible reading of Deuteronomy 1–3 begins the last of the five books of the law. It opens with Moses’ reiterating to Israel the history of their sojourn from Horeb to Moab, their rebellion against God and their conquests east of the Jordan. Gleason Archer writes:

“The Hebrew name of Deuteronomy is ’ēlleh hadd^ebārīm (these are the words) or more briefly, D^ebārīm (words)—taken from the opening line of 1:1. The LXX [Septuagint] called it by the more descriptive term Deuternomion (second law-giving), because it consists mostly of a restatement of the law contained in Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers….

“…But much of this summary is couched in homiletical or semonic terms. That is, Moses is not simply explaining what the laws of God are, but he is earnestly enjoining them upon the consciences of his people, and urging them to take with utmost seriousness God’s call to a holy life. Certain characteristics or leading thoughts dominate the various discourses.”¹

I will quote Dr. Archer on the different leading thoughts in the coming weeks, but today I want to give you the last one from his list:

“…The characteristic admonition is: “Remember, and forget not!” Rather than embarking on some quest for “new truth” to replace the old, Israel is to retain and to obey the revealed truth which it has once and for all received from the absolute and unchanging Source of truth.”²

We need to hear and take to heart this needed admonition to today’s church: to retain and obey the revealed truth we have in God’s Word.

“Remember, and forget not!”

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^{1, 2}Gleason Archer, “Deuteronomy,” A Survey of Old Testament Introduction, pp. 251–252, 253.