Deuteronomy 31-34 Moses Closes With A Song

Deuteronomy 31-34

Deuteronomy 31-34 Skeptics Annotated Bible

The final chapters of Deuteronomy are here.  We've made it thru the Pentateuch!

Moses does a little reminiscing and basically tells the Israelites that they're screw ups and will fall apart when he's gone.

God tells how he will punish the Israelites and the enemies of the Israelites.  It all kind of runs together and I had a hard time figuring out who he was mad at in any given sentence. :-/

God and Moses write a song.  Does anyone know the melody?

From 32:39-43 we get some Charlie Sheen quality ranting (I'm trying to make this blog topical and hip for the kids.).

Moses gives us a final review of the tribes and says something nice about them before God tells him to climb up the mountain and die.

The deceased Moses then writes some nice things about himself afterwards.

I hope to have a review of the first five books this weekend.  I also hope to have some guest posts up to give a different perspective as well.

We'll start the book of Joshua on Monday.

Deuteronomy 28-30

Deuteronomy 28-30

Deuteronomy 28-30 Skeptic Annotated Bible

We learn all the things that The LORD shall bless Israel with.  And then get the curses if they follow another god.  The curses seem much more detailed then the blessings but that may just be my bias talking.

Perhaps one final round of throwing the fear of God into the Israelites before they take possession of the promised land?

Deuteronomy 25-27 Dead Husbands and Shoes

Deuteronomy 25-27

Deuteronomy 25-27 Skeptics Annotated Bible

Whoops again.  Because of my mistake yesterday, I'm a day off on posting.  But, we still got the rest of the year to catch up so;

Judges can order a whipping and you can't muzzle a Ox when he's working the field.  WTF?  Again with the editing.
The brother of a dead husband  has to provide his seed to the deceased's wife so that his brothers line will continue. If he doesn't, she can take his shoe off and spit on him (?!?!).
This harkens back to the Book of Genesis when God smote Onan for spilling his seed on the ground instead of going into his dead brothers wife.

A woman that interferes in a fight between her husband and another man by grabbing the other mans yarbles will have her hands cut-off.  Pretty harsh don't you think?

"Thou shalt not have divers weights, great and small."  Sounds odd but according to the Skeptics Annotated Bible, it refers to treating people equally and fairly.

Joseph was Syarian?  Did we know this before?

Chapter 26 has more laws that we've seen before.

Moses tells the Israelites to put God's laws into stone in Chapter 27.  I've always liked this imagery.

We learn of things that will leave you cursed.  A lot of it has to do with sleeping with the wrong people/animals.

Say Amen.

Deuteronomy 22-24 Cross Dressing, Stoned Wives and Sharing

Whoops!!!
I was posting a lot this weekend but completely spaced out on posting todays reading!

Deuteronomy 22-24

Deuteronomy 22-24

We get some good advice on helping out thy neighbor and building safe roofs.
We then get the do's and don'ts on raping women.

More rules for husbands and wives.
God encourages the harboring of slaves and won't allow the penis-less into church.
Don't hire a hooker or charge your neighbor interest.

Share the fruits of your field with the less fortunate.

Deuteronomy 19-21

Deuteronomy 19-21

Deuteronomy 19-21 Skeptics Annotated Bible

We get a repeat on the Cities of Refuge and a very specific example on who can flee to a city.
"Um, yeah, we were chopping wood in the forest.  I draged his body back to my kitchen later to try and help him."

We also get good advice on trusting witnesses.  The penalty for perjury was a little harsher back in those days (Death).

God tells us in Chapter 20 that there are ways to get out of going to war.  New house?  New farm? New virgin wife?  No problem.  See you when you're done.   Cowards are also exempt.

God is easing up on the mass extermination rule by allowing women and children to survive as slaves.  They are now the spoils of war.  But this only applies to the cities they'll conquer in the promised land.

We still see that God is hateful of people who have different beliefs at 20:17

Destroy everything but save the trees that bear fruit.  Sounds reasonable.

We come back to laws and justice in 21 (again, who did the editing?!?!) but what a bizarre collection!

1. If you find a murdered man in the field, cut off a cows head and have the priests wash their hands over it.  This ritual is basically the priests saying "we didn't do it."

2. If you win a battle and find a beautiful woman, you may take her as a wife but first she must shave her head, cut her nails, get naked and mourn her parents (who you killed) for a month.  Only then can you have sex with her.  If you find out you don't really like her, you can let her go free.

3. If a man has two wives and hates one, but she gave him his firstborn son.....zzzzzz, boring.

4. Parents can have their children stoned for not behaving!

5. When you hang a man, you can't keep his body hanging over night.

Deuteronomy 16-18

Deuteronomy 16-18

Deuteronomy 16-18 Skeptics Annotated Bible

Chapter 16 is more rehashing
Chapter 17 tells us that a king will be installed once the Israelites settle in the promised land.
Chapter 18 reminds us to kill witches and others associated with occult like things.

Most interestingly, we also learn that God will raise a prophet up from these people.  Am I wrong or is this is the first solid reference/predication of Jesus (to the believers that is)?
Us Atheists like to call that retro-fitting.  ;-)

Edit: I meant to say force-fitting, not retro-fitting Jesus into the story.

Deuteronomy 13-15

Deuteronomy 13-15

Deuteronomy 13-15 Skeptics Annotated Bible

We start off (again) with God commanding that any one that follows another god should be put to death.
A sharp contrast from the teachings of Jesus wouldn't you say?
On some level I can understand why God is being so tough on his chosen people.  The forty years in the desert have been like a bootcamp to toughen them up.  But I can't for the life of me reconcile the homicidal jealousy that keeps coming through.  Every time I read this I visualize a violent husband beating and then consoling his battered wife.  Sick stuff.

I maybe getting ahead of the reading, but I wonder if Jesus "went rogue" and was actually working against the God of Abraham.  Perhaps he was the rebellious son of God and started teaching Peace, Love and Understanding to piss off his dad.  ;-)

Chapter 14 gives us a rehash of the Levitican laws but goes into much greater detail.  Evidently Rabbits are unclean because they chew cud.  And bats are birds (I think we can cut God some slack for thinking a bat is a bird, right?).

I found 14:26 interesting in that it allows lusting after things and intoxicating beverages.
 And thou shalt bestow that money for whatsoever thy soul lusteth after, for oxen, or for sheep, or for wine, or for strong drink, or for whatsoever thy soul desireth.

Chapter 15 gives us a review of the seventh year forgiveness plan.

Deuteronomy 10-12

Deuteronomy 10-12

Deuteronomy 10-12 Skeptic Annotated Bible

We get more recapping of past events and more orders from God for the Israelites to kill everyone they come in contact with.
God also repeats the need to fear and obey him, or else.  And stay away from those other, inferior gods.

Deuteronomy 7-9 Mo' Frontin' Than a East Coast Rappa

Deuteronomy 7-9

Deuteronomy 7-9 Skeptics Annotated Bible

We see that God is still homicidally insecure at 7:4
For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the LORD be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly.


God brags thru most of chapter 7, talking smack about how powerful he is and how he'll destroy anyone who gets in his way.


At 9:5 we see that God hasn't forgotten the whiny, cowardly Israelites from Mount Sinai.
Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart, dost thou go to possess their land: but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee, and that he may perform the word which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.


I agree with God on one point.  He's basically saying that he's doing this for Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and not for the current Israelites.  The people of Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers certainly haven't earned their good fortune with the way they've followed the LORD's commands.  I hope they appreciate this!
Then again, I'd hesitate to follow a god that feds me only manna and then kills my family for complaining.

Deuteronomy 4-6

Deuteronomy 4-6

Deuteronomy 4-6 Skeptics Annotated Bible

I'm probably wrong but 4:36 says;
"Out of heaven he made thee to hear his voice, that he might instruct thee: and upon earth he shewed thee his great fire; and thou heardest his words out of the midst of the fire."
seems to be the first instance of God being in Heaven.  I'm sure someone can set me the straight on this.

This seems to be a rewriting of history.  5:5 says;
I stood between the LORD and you at that time, to shew you the word of the LORD: for ye were afraid by reason of the fire, and went not up into the mount
But weren't the Israelites warned that if they got near the mountain, they would be consumed in fire?

Lucky us!  We get another rewording of the ten commandments at 5:11

God endorses graffiti at 6:9;
And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.


We end with another command to OBEY and FEAR the LORD.  Why is fear still necessary?

Deuteronomy 1-3 Oh, The Good Old Days

Deuteronomy 1-3
I'm going to also link to the Skeptics Annotated Bible for this book.  Just for yucks.
Deuteronomy 1-3

As the Israelites get closer to the promised land, Moses reminisces about the past forty years on the road.

I imagine him as a grandfather with his grand kids sitting on the floor around his La-Z-Boy.

"Did I ever tell you kids about the war?  Back in my day we didn't just conquer a nation.  We would kill every man, woman and child, burn the homes and crops and then have our way with the cattle!  Ah, the good old days."

Related articles

• Super-Abridged Bible: Deuteronomy (anadder.com)