p. 9 | OUR BIBLE BAND

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Mar 1, 1910

OUR BIBLE BAND

Schedule for Week Ending March 12

Day	Date	Reading
Sunday	March 6	Num. 35, 36; Deut. 1
Monday	〃 7	〃 2-4
Tuesday	〃 8	〃 5-7
Wednesday	〃 9	〃 8-10
Thursday	〃 10	〃 11-13
Friday	〃 11	〃 14-17
Sabbath	〃 12	〃 18-21

Our readings for this week conclude Numbers, beginning with chapter 35, and extend to Deuteronomy 21. Numbers 35 and 36 are largely composed of instructions concerning the cities given to the tribe of Levi; laws concerning murder, and the marriage of heiresses.

The word “Deuteronomy” is from a Greek word meaning the repetition of the law. It is a rehearsal of the wonderful things that God had done for His people, and some of the chief laws connected with Israel. They were given by Moses before the Israelites crossed the Jordan River into the promised land. Picture to yourself the scene. Like a great and loving father Moses had cared for the often rebellious children during forty years of wandering in the wilderness. Provoked by their contumacy and rebellion, he had yielded in a fit of impatience to hasty words in which he was glorified instead of God. He could not go with them over into the promised land; but before he leaves them he must solemnly bring to their remembrance the wonderful lessons which God had taught them during the forty years, and impress upon them as solemnly as was possible the sacred import of God’s holy law, and the necessity of keeping it. Keep these great thoughts in mind as we pass over the record.

Moses does not assume to give these laws for the first time; he is but recalling them. As for instance in chapter 5; this is not the new giving of the Decalogue, it is but giving in substance that which Israel had with them and which was enshrined in the sacred ark. Now and then the man of God brings in an additional reason as to why they should observe it. The Decalogue contains duties incumbent upon all men, because God, the great Ruler of the universe, gives the law. That being true concerning all men, Israel were doubly bound to keep God’s statutes, because He had redeemed them from Egypt.

There is a thought thrown into the parenthesis of the second verse of the first chapter of Deuteronomy that is worthy of more than passing notice. The simple fact is stated that it is eleven days’ journey from Horeb by way of Mount Seir to Kadesh-barnea. Israel spent about two years around Horeb. It took them the rest of the thirty-eight years’ wandering to come to the Jordan River before they passed into the promised land. It need have taken them only eleven days. Kadesh-barnea was where the spies were sent in to search out the land, where God gave Israel the privilege of entering the land; but they would not, but turned back, and the eleven days cost them thirty-eight years of toilsome journey through a dread wilderness. Never until the judgment-day will it be revealed how many long, wearisome days we have because of neglect of simple duty. Then will we see how much shorter, easier way God had to accomplish things through us than our own way.