from WL Worcester (H Blackmer, ed.), 
The Sower.  Helps to the Study of the Bible in Home and Sunday School
 
(Boston: Massachusetts New-Church Union, n.d.)

Table of Conents
 

 

Lesson 56

Deuteronomy 11: Moses' Farewell Charge

The Story

Junior

As you read verses 1-9 of our chapter, you go back in your mind and remember the story that we have been learning, about the leaving Egypt, and the desert journey. What miracles and acts are meant in verse 3? What story does verse 4 recall? What things that happened in the wilderness do you remember as you read verse 5? Do you know the story referred to in verse 6? You find it in Num. 16, near to the story of Aaron's rod. Stop a moment and think, as you read verses 2 and 7, who these people were to whom Moses was speaking. Only three were living who were grown men when the children of Israel left Egypt, and camped at Sinai, and sent the spies from Kadesh. The rest who remembered these things were children when they happened.

Verses 10-12 put two different pictures before us: one of a flat land where there is almost no rain; where water is pumped from the river and led about in little trenches to water the fields, the earth being opened and closed up with the foot as one square after another of the field is watered: the other a land of hills and valleys and abundant rains. And you do not forget as you read of the Lord's care for this good land, that it is a picture of heaven, and of the life of everyone who loves and obeys the Lord. You remember this especially as you read verses 18-21: "That your days may be multiplied . . . as the days of heaven upon the earth."

We have thought before what is meant by binding the Lord's words upon the hand, and making them as frontlets between the eyes; and what is meant by writing them upon the door posts and on the gates; and also how the Pharisees kept this charge.

Read on in the chapter, verses 22-25. Do you know the names of any of the nations whom the Lord would drive out before the children of Israel? Can you show me Lebanon, and the Euphrates? These are the farthest limits to the north and east. And what are the limits on the south and west: the wilderness, and the uttermost or "hinder" sea?

The last verses of the chapter speak of putting the blessing upon Mount Gerizim, and the curse upon Mount Ebal. Do you remember these two mountains by Shechem, in the very middle of the land? Gilgal was near by across the Jordan, as the children of Israel looked toward the sunset from their camp. The oaks (not "plains") of Moreh, you remember by Shechem, in the story of Abraham. (Gen. 12:6) We learn in Josh. 8:30-35 how this charge about the blessings and the curses was obeyed. Joshua built an altar in Mount Ebal, and read the law aloud to all the people. And the twelve tribes stood, six tribes on the slope of Mount Ebal, and six on the slope of Mount Gerizim, and answered from one mountain to the blessings and from the other to the curses as they were read. (See Deut. 28 and Deut. 30:19.) The Lord sends blessings, but what are these curses? He does not send them, but they are the unhappy things which the Lord cannot save us from if we will not keep His Commandments.

1. Who is speaking in this chapter? To whom? Where? When?

2. What mercies of the Lord in the past are recalled? Why are they recalled?

3. What difference between the land of Egypt and the promised land is pointed out?

4. Why did the Pharisees wear phylacteries? In what better way can the requirement of the law be kept?

5. What choice is set before each one of us this day?

Spiritual Study

Intermediate

What states of mind are set in contrast by the two pictures, of the land where seed is watered with the foot, and the land of hills and valleys that drinketh water of the rain of heaven? What is the water of the mind? The truth which shows what is right, and so cleanses and refreshes. The land of Egypt, drawing water from the river, and leading it with the foot, represents a wholly natural state which draws its truth from memory and from the opinion of the world, and applies it in an external way. The promised land represents a spiritual life, with a variety of interior and external states, and with an interior perception of the truth from the Lord's Word. Read of the rain and its meaning in Deut. 32:1-2; Isa. 55:10-11. (E. 518, 644; A. 2702, 8278)

What is meant by the promise "that ye may prolong your days" (verse 9), and "that your days may be multiplied" (verse 21)? Compare the promise of the fourth commandment: "that thy days may be long upon the land." Such words remind us first of all, that the same trust in the Lord and obedience to the Lord which are needed to bring us into a heavenly state, are needed to keep us in it. We must not think that we are safe, and grow careless and disobedient, "lest ye perish quickly from off the good land." The long life promised is not necessarily a life of many years in this world, but its years, few or many, are full of all that makes life worth living; "as the days of heaven upon the earth." See Deut. 8, especially verses 17 and 18.

The charge to teach the Lord's commandments to the children shows us the importance of this duty at home and in Sunday-school. Remember too that the most continual and effective teaching is that of influence and example. The children are also the beginnings of new life in ourselves, which need the protection and guidance of the Lord's commandments in the house and by the way, lying down and rising up. (A. 7847, 9936)

Verse 26, like Deut. 30:19, very forcibly sets before us the freedom which the Lord gives us to choose good or evil, to obey or disobey. He tells us of the eternal blessing of obedience; He warns us of the inevitable unhappiness of evil; but He trusts us, He leaves us free. How earnestly He desires that we shall use our freedom well; how tenderly He urges us to choose life and blessing! (T. 475, 483, 484)

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