Deuteronomy 6:1-7:26

It amazes me; does it amaze you?  The bounty that the Lord showered on the Israelites when they possessed the land.  The Lord gave them "great and good cities that you did not build, and houses full of good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant," (v. 10b-11).  He admonished them that when they had eaten their fill to remember Him, as it was a foregone conclusion that they would.  Imagine the transition from eating manna at every meal for forty years to eating from the goods of a land already cultivated, already broken in and made.  They did not have to break the ground; they did not have to build their shelters; they did not have to wait for the crops to grow to be plentiful.  They just moved in and took over.

It amazes me, then, that they should ever want to pursue their neighbors gods.  Did any of those gods give Israel that land?  Did any of them provide for them in the midst of the wilderness?  Did any of them take them from Egypt?  Did any of them then hand over the people they were about to dispossess?  For that generation, when Joshua asked them whom they would chose to serve, it may have been very easy to say that it was the Lord, as they saw that as long as they were faithful, the promises in Deuteronomy, to prosper and never grow sick, were fulfilled.

Ah, but here's the crux: they were also commanded to teach their children these statutes and commands.  They were talk of them when they sat in their houses, when they walked along the way, when they went to bed, when they got up in the morning.  They were always to keep the Law of the Lord before them so that each generation would know it, and understand why they should follow it.  Because there would come a generation, several generations, who did not see the escape from Egypt, or the years in the Wilderness, or the taking of the Promised Land.  They needed to know why they were so blessed, or why they weren't.  Was Israel faithful to do this?  We shall see in books like Joshua and Judges and the Samuels and the Kings.  If we know any Old Testament history, we already know.  And know the consequences.

Tomorrow's Reading: Deuteronomy 8:1-9:29