Leviticus to Deuteronomy

These books should not be dismissed as outright boring or full of old and irrelevant laws about temple worship and regulations, or a way of life now consigned to history. The first half of Leviticus is pretty rooted in its time and culture but from around Chapter 16 of its 27 chapters there is a lot to be mined. 16 starts with the Day of Atonement which is of immense importance in understanding Christian theology and in following chapters we can read about loving your neighbour and caring for the poor, cancellation of debts, and also the seasonal cycle as the harvest celebrations are itemised.

Numbers, despite its rather dreary title is an interesting book. It takes us into the narrative of the wilderness journeying with its twists and turns and adventures. It provides the rational for the extended wilderness wanderings in chapters 12 to 14 and gives us the strange tale of Balaam and the ass that spoke in 22-24. The census from which the book takes its title occurs at the start. Don't let it put you off. Remember too that some of these laws that you find in Exodus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, whilst they are rooted to a particular time and place and the requirements of a culture now gone, can prove deeply instructive and interesting to us. What we must not do is think that they still apply to us. I'll look at how we work out an approach to this in another post.

Deuteronomy is cast as the last speech of Moses to the nation. It is a kind of recap on the desert wanderings and a in chapter 5 there's a restating of the 10 commandments and chapter 6 brings us the teaching about the greatest commandment to which Jesus refers. We can also discern an evolving understanding about the place of grace in the theological understanding of God. There is also a rather nice passage on exemption from carrying your offerings to the central sanctuary (ch 14), in which encouragement to party is also found. Given that in these books there is a lot about sin and what you mustn't do, we'll look at our whole approach to that next.


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