Tag Archives: Deuteronomy
a bittersweet farewell
Last week, I finally finished Deuteronomy, and it was bittersweet. Instead of plunging into Joshua, I’ve been meditating on what it’s meant to spend the past four months immersed in the Pentateuch. For one thing, I feel a sense of … Continue reading
odds and ends
The last few chapters of Deuteronomy are chock-a-block with a bizaare assortment of laws, some of them so brutal that it would seem impossible to uncover any goodness in them at all. In bullet form, here are some of the … Continue reading
the moneychangers
Sometimes, because biblical stories are so familiar, I forget to wonder about their origins, or even to ask simple questions of their meaning. For instance, the Gospel stories of Jesus ‘cleansing the temple,’ overturning the tables of the moneychangers. The … Continue reading
refreshment
While Deuteronomy is not specifically liturgical, the flow of the text is so poetic and ‘hymnal’ that many of the verses/phrasings have been plugged into Jewish and Christian liturgy as foundational prayers and catechism. For instance, one of the most … Continue reading
the beginning of mercy
Plugging away at Deuteronomy and stopped short at 4:31- For the Lord your God is a merciful god. He will not let you go and will not destroy you and will not forget your fathers’ covenant that He swore to them. It … Continue reading
gather the folks. tell the stories. 