I’ve been trying to get in the habit of reading a consecutive chapter of the Bible each day. I often read the Bible because my projects are Bible-related, but I wanted to make a minimal regular addition to remind me of parts I may have not thought about. I reached Deuteronomy a few days ago…
I wrote Solomon Says (Amazon, Kindle) as a “practical” book and didn’t say everything I found interesting about Proverbs’ place in the Bible and the Bible’s history. I did note that Proverbs is surprisingly different from the Law of Moses in what is addresses and emphasizes. I pointed out also that, while some places in Proverbs seem to define wisdom as listening to one’s parents, other passages are more specific that wisdom is something new a child must receive as an adult. One’s parents’ instruction is a guide, but one must “seek” Wisdom as for hidden treasure. Since Wisdom is portrayed as a woman, the advice about her fits what Proverbs says about marriage: “House and wealth are inherited from fathers, but a prudent wife is from the LORD” (Proverbs 19:14 ESV).
In my mind, it is hard not to see a parallel between Israel “growing up” from Moses and then the Judges and then maturing under Kings into wisdom. I think this is part of the story of the Bible.
But now that I am re-reading Deuteronomy, I am amazed at how much it sounds like Proverbs.
- Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and forsake not your mother’s teaching… (Proverbs 1:8a ESV).
- Hear, O sons, a father’s instruction, and be attentive, that you may gain insight, for I give you good precepts; do not forsake my teaching (Proverbs 4:1–2 ESV).
- Hear, my son, and accept my words, that the years of your life may be many (Proverbs 4:10 ESV).
- Cease to hear instruction, my son, and you will stray from the words of knowledge (Proverbs 19:27 ESV).
- Hear, my son, and be wise, and direct your heart in the way (Proverbs 23:19 ESV).
- Hear, O Israel, the statutes and the rules that I speak in your hearing today, and you shall learn them and be careful to do them (Deuteronomy 5:1b ESV).
- Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly (Deuteronomy 6:3a ESV).
- Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one (Deuteronomy 6:4 ESV).
- Hear, O Israel: you are to cross over the Jordan today, to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than you, cities great and fortified up to heaven, a people great and tall (Deuteronomy 9:1–2a ESV).
Both books are about hearing (and remembering). Israel was God’s son (or the Israelites were God’s sons):
- The LORD your God who goes before you will himself fight for you, just as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes, and in the wilderness, where you have seen how the LORD your God carried you, as a man carries his son, all the way that you went until you came to this place (Deuteronomy 1:30–31 ESV).
- Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the LORD your God disciplines you. So you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him (Deuteronomy 8:5–6 ESV).
- You are the sons of the LORD your God. You shall not cut yourselves or make any baldness on your foreheads for the dead. For you are a people holy to the LORD your God, and the LORD has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth (Deuteronomy 14:1–2 ESV).
But there is something else about Deuteronomy. They both are not only concerned with obeying God but with becoming better at obeying God. As I’ve said about Proverbs before, Solomon isn’t just advising his son to obey God but to direct himself to grow up in the kind of adult who is adept at obeying God. Deuteronomy has a similar emphasis. One of the main reasons they need to obey the rules is to become better at obeying the rules. The emphasis is often on what kind on nation Israel will become in the future.
See, I have taught you statutes and rules, as the LORD my God commanded me, that you should do them in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. Keep them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’ For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the LORD our God is to us, whenever we call upon him? And what great nation is there, that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today?
Deuteronomy 4:5–8 ESV
Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the rules—that the LORD your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it, that you may fear the LORD your God, you and your son and your son’s son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.
Deuteronomy 6:1–3 ESV
When your son asks you in time to come, “What is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the rules that the LORD our God has commanded you?” then you shall say to your son, “We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt. And the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. And the LORD showed signs and wonders, great and grievous, against Egypt and against Pharaoh and all his household, before our eyes. And he brought us out from there, that he might bring us in and give us the land that he swore to give to our fathers. And the LORD commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the LORD our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as we are this day. And it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to do all this commandment before the LORD our God, as he has commanded us.”
Deuteronomy 6:20–25 ESV
So you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him. For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the LORD your God for the good land he has given you.
Deuteronomy 8:6–10 ESV
You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers to give them, as long as the heavens are above the earth. For if you will be careful to do all this commandment that I command you to do, loving the LORD your God, walking in all his ways, and holding fast to him, then the LORD will drive out all these nations before you, and you will dispossess nations greater and mightier than you.
Deuteronomy 11:18–23 ESV
Reading Deuteronomy and Proverbs together, one simultaneously gets the impressions that Solomon is a father doing what Deuteronomy commands in talking to his sons and that the first father was God, through Moses, talking to Israel, his son.