Now Moses recounts the second time he goes up the mountain for YAHWEH to write the words of the Law on the tablets. Then, he encourages the people to obey YAHWEH wholeheartedly and to do justice according to his commandments.
Bible Passage:
10:1 At that time YAHWEH said to me, ‘Hew for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and come up to me onto the mountain, and make yourself an ark of wood. 2 And I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets which you broke, and you shall put them in the ark.’ 3 So I made an ark of acacia wood, and hewed two tablets of stone like the first, and went up onto the mountain, having the two tablets in my hand. 4 He wrote on the tablets, according to the first writing, the ten commandments, which YAHWEH spoke to you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly, and YAHWEH gave them to me. 5 I turned and came down from the mountain, and put the tablets in the ark which I had made; and there they are as YAHWEH commanded me. 6 (And the children of Israel journeyed from Beeroth Bene-jaakan to Moserah. There Aaron died, and there he was buried; and Eleazar his son ministered as priest in his place. 7 From there they journeyed to Gudgodah; and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, a land of brooks of water. 8 At that time YAHWEH set apart the tribe of Levi, to bear the ark of the covenant of YAHWEH, to stand before YAHWEH to minister to him, and to bless in his name, to this day. 9 Therefore Levi has no portion, nor inheritance with his brothers; YAHWEH is his inheritance, according to what YAHWEH your God spoke to him.) 10 I stayed on the mountain, as the first time, forty days and forty nights. YAHWEH listened to me that time also; YAHWEH would not destroy you. 11 And YAHWEH said to me, ‘Arise, take your journey before the people; and they shall go in and possess the land, which I swore to their fathers to give to them.’
12 And now, Israel, what does YAHWEH your God require of you? But to fear YAHWEH your God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve YAHWEH your God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13 to keep the commandments of YAHWEH, and his statutes, which I command you this day for your good. 14 Behold, to YAHWEH your God belongs heaven and the highest of heavens, the earth, with all that is in it. 15 Only YAHWEH had a delight in your fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all peoples, as it is this day. 16 Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and do not be stiff-necked. 17 For YAHWEH your God, he is God of gods, and Lord of lords, the great God, the mighty, and the dreadful, who does not consider status, nor takes a bribe. 18 He executes justice for the fatherless and widow, and loves the sojourner, in giving him food and clothes. 19 Therefore you should love the sojourner; for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. 20 You shall fear YAHWEH your God; you shall serve him. To him you shall cleave, and by his name, you shall swear. 21 He is your praise, and he is your God, that has done for you these great and dreadful things, which your eyes have seen. 22 Your fathers went down into Egypt with 70 persons; and now YAHWEH your God has made you as the stars of heaven for multitude.
Reflection:
I was given a reminder about the beauty of knowing the languages. When I read Deuteronomy 10:12, I immediately thought of the same line in Micah 6:8, “What does YAHWEH require of you?” I kept thinking that Micah must be commenting on Deuteronomy 10 when he writes the well-known line in chapter 6. But after looking at them both in Hebrew, I realized that the word translated “require” in both verses is not even the same Hebrew verb. In Deuteronomy 10, it is “shaal,” meaning “what does YAHWEH your God ask of you?” In Micah 6, it is “darash,” meaning “what does YAHWEH seek from you?” The difference is minor, but meaningful. I have never regretted any of the time that I invested in learning the Biblical languages.
Questions and Answers:
Verse 7: What does Gudgodah mean? [Elisha, 8]
Here in Deuteronomy 10, Gudgodah is the name given to a place the people stopped in the wilderness. It is mentioned earlier in Numbers 33, but there it goes by a different name, “Hor-haggidgad.” As always, some names are harder than others based on having multiple possible meanings. Properly, the Hebrew root “gadad” means “to scrape” or “to cut” something. It can also be used to talk about something valuable being exposed after the “cut.” So it can refer to cutting a trench in the ground and exposing the good soil, but it can also be used to talk about the general concept of fortune, or luck. Hence, the name of one of the tribes of Israel, “Gad.” Most likely, this means the name “Hor-haggidgad” means something like “cave of cuts” or “cave of fortune.” “Gudgodah” is some derivative of that phrase as a secondary name for the location.
Verse 16: Is this the first time they are referred to as stiff-necked people? [Monique, 33]
No, the NASB usually has it obscured by translating its meaning rather than the actual idiom. So whenever “qesheh-oreph” shows up, they will usually translate it as “stubborn” or “obstinate.” That’s the exact meaning of the phrase, but it means the idiom doesn’t show up in the English text. The literal meaning is “hard neck.” Here in the NASB, they actually keep the idiom and it says “stiffen your neck no longer.”
The first time this phrase is actually used in the Bible is in Exodus 32. There God says that he knows they are a “people of hard necks.” It is used multiple times in that whole section from chapters 32-34, anytime the people are called stubborn or obstinate.
Verse 22: It’s cool this is the first time hearing that the promise has been fulfilled. [Monique, 33]
As far as this full speech of Moses, it is cool that we are finally hearing that the promise has been fulfilled. But this isn’t the first time Moses has mentioned it in the speech, he first says it in Deuteronomy 1. He reiterates it here, and reminds the people that the promises are starting to come to pass, so they should be expectant that God will bring the rest to pass, particularly the conquering of the land. But he warns them to be obedient as well, because, as he tells them near the end of Deuteronomy 28, they may be as numerous as the stars of heaven now, but YAHWEH can again make them few in number if they are disobedient.
Although the use of the stars of heaven promise has not been mentioned until Deuteronomy, their multitude being in response to a blessing of God has already been mentioned at the very beginning of Exodus. Exodus 1 doesn’t use the language of the promise to Abraham, as numerous as the “stars of the heavens” and the “sand of the seashore,” it uses the language of fulfilling the blessing given to mankind by God in Genesis 1. According to the beginning of the book, God had made them “fruitful” and had made them “multiply” so that the “earth was filled with them.” The Hebrew word for “land” and “earth” are the same word, “eretz.” So the connection is slightly obscured when the English has “earth” in Genesis 1:28 and “land” in Exodus 1:7. Whatever language the Scripture uses, their population increase is said to be the direct blessing of God upon the people and the fulfillment of the promise made to their ancestor.
Recording of the Passage:
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