The Historical Prologue: Horeb to Kadesh-Barnea
Deuteronomy 1: 6-46
The Great Covenant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Max A Forsythe
Introduction: In the treaty outline described by the majority of my commentators, that portion called “the historical prologue” is according to Dr Craigie contained within Chapter 1:6 through Chapter 4:43. There are several divisions of those texts according to the understanding of the several commentators. As I surveyed the chapters and verses I have decided to go over Dr Craigie’s thirteen divisions in the next seven weeks. If that sounds like a long survey of the material in four chapters, just consider that if we were giving similar attention to the “historical prologue” of the United States Constitution, that Declaration of Independence has twenty to thirty grievances, depending on how you catalogue them!
In addition, the Declaration of Independence contains only the substance of the charges against their Suzerain, an extended commentary would go on for many, many pages. Of course, remember that my comparison with the American documents could be understood as only a convenient analysis for contemporary consumption. Indeed, the modern rediscovery of the Covenant Treaty implications would probably ring false with many contemporary evangelicals who would disdain any concepts advocated by Covenantal Reformers! That smacks of Calvinism or Covenant Theology or even Confessionalism! Why someone would have to spend an inordinate amount of time and effort just to understand where we are coming from, let alone go on to find an intellectual basis to throw out what we have been teaching for the last four hundred years!
Of course, any scholarship is suspect in our day and time, after all, didn’t the liberals use something like that to tear apart and dismantle the faith once given to the saints? Yes, of course – but the difference between most liberal scholars and the Doctors of Christ’s Church is that one group has failed consistently over time to demonstrate that they have been possessed by the Holy Spirit of the Triune God. Therein lies the rub of our intellectual enterprise of spending the next year in the Book of Deuteronomy. Quite simply – the value of what we are going through may be summed up by Meredith Kline: “Not law, but covenant. That must be affirmed when we are seeking a category comprehensive enough to do justice to this revelation in its totality. … There is probably no clearer direction afforded the biblical theologian for defining with biblical emphasis the type of covenant God adopted to formalize his relationship to his people than that given in the covenant he gave Israel to perform, even ‘ the ten commandments.’ Such a covenant is a declaration of God’s lordship, consecrating a people to himself in a sovereignly dictated order of life.”
In this historical prologue we will find the covenant history of God’s grace and mercy given to the people of Israel. Unlike the American Declaration of Independence, we will find no fault or failure on the part of the Suzerian God and Father of Israel. Instead, the generation in the wilderness will be condemned for their lack of faith and their complete inability or willingness to obey the covenant law given to them at Mount Sinai. Meredith Kline tells us that the covenant document was a “ witness to and against Israel, reminding of obligations sworn to and rebuking for obligations violated, declaring the hope of covenant beatitude and pronouncing the doom of the covenant curses. The public proclamation of it was designed to teach the fear of the Lord to all Israel, especially to the children.”
Psalm 78: 5-8 underscores this important use of the Covenant Law of God! A concept so strange in our own day and time, that our American culture would rather leave the younger generations completely ignorant of, so that presumably their “innocence” in matters of sin and guilt may be protected – no doubt! Listen to the word of the Lord revealed through this “Contemplation of Asaph.”
“For He established a testimony in Jacob,
And appointed a law in Israel,
Which He commanded our fathers,
That they should make them known to their children;
That the generation to come might know them,
The children who would be born,
That they may arise and declare them to their children,
That they may set their hope in God,
And not forget the works of God,
But keep His commandments;
And may not be like their fathers,
A stubborn and rebellious generation,
A generation that did not set its heart aright,
And whose spirit was not faithful to God.”
For any and all who will or will not accept it, this is the primary fault of our American mis-educational system! The God of heaven is left always out of any equation – whether it is cosmology, ethics, law, history or literature. So as we work our way through the historical prologue declaring, defining and delineating the faults of the people of Israel – let us not feel too smug about our own contemporary milieu!
Old Covenant Milieu: Now, as we consider the Mosaic era – we must be very careful not to read our own values back into that time period. Unlike the ever popular movies Titanic and even Pearl Harbor – bygone generations did not share in our abysmal morality and habits. Neither did Moses or even the people of Israel take the American view of a nation’s founding documents! There is no “living document” here in this Great Covenant. Far to many assume today that our own Constitution lives and breathes, thus allowing its evolution over time! Meredith Kline is quick to point out from (Deuteronomy 4:2a) “You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it.” He goes on to tell us that “these facts stand in diametrical opposition to the whole modern approach to the Book of Deuteronomy. According to the current speculations Deuteronomy was produced by an extended process of modification and enlargement of a pliable tradition.” Succinctly, this Great Covenant is the very word of God revealed through the prophet Moses once for all time.
The passages before us today have a purpose within their historical prologue form. Kline again advises us: that there “purpose was to establish the historical justification for the lord’s continuing reign. Benefits allegedly conferred by the lord upon the vassal were cited with a view to grounding the vassal’s allegiance in a sense of gratitude complementary to the sense of fear which the preamble’s grandiose identification of the suzerain had been calculated to inspire.”
As we get into the text, we see that verses six through eight hearken the people to think back forty years to the gathering below the Mountain where God came down to talk with Moses face to face. Horeb is the title used in our text today. The New Geneva Study Bible observes that this is likely the name for the area below and around Mount Sinai.
Moses’ reference here is to the end of their sojourn in that area. He reminds them of the Lord’s command: “You have dwelt long enough at this mountain. Turn and take your journey … .” He then instructs them to advance towards the Promised Land. Specifically, then, the Promised Land is bounded in its description so that they may know what should be theirs to possess. The contemporary promise in Deuteronomy is hearkened back to the promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
“See, I have set the land before you; go in and posses the land.” The charge here to the people is one that requires a vision. A vision as Dr Craigie defines it “The vision required of the people of the Lord is one that sees more than the mundane, physical regions of the land; it is the significance of the land in the promise soon to be realized, that provides the strength necessary for commitment and obedience.:
I can well remember the year that I encouraged the congregation to set up a building and property fund. There was quite a bit of reluctance to take that first step towards where the Lord has brought us today. Thank goodness we didn’t spend forty years in the rental wilderness! The fund was established and resources began to accumulate. Of course, we found this property a year before we could afford it, but I hope that all of you who were part of the decision to come here have discovered that what once appeared impossible to us, the Lord allowed and did make possible. Just starting a new church in our day and time is similar in the challenge laid before Israel in the context of our passage!
The next portion of our text involves the government provided to the people of God. While Moses and Joshua are clearly set apart by the Lord to lead the nation, Moses reminds the people that the national government is unable to take full responsibility for them. ”Choose wise, understanding, and knowledgeable men from among your tribes, and I will make them heads over you.” Here is the beginning of biblical eldership – an elected body of bishops – judges or presbyters depending upon the various tribal traditions into which people have been providentially organized down through the ages.
I think that one lesson of this covenantal organization that we need to relearn in our time – is the biblical pattern that everything does not have to happen in Washington DC. “We, the people of [these] United States” are fully capable of governing ourselves and electing our own representatives and judges. The key role of the national government is to be found in Moses’ statement: “The case that is too hard for you, bring to me, and I will hear it.” That appeals system and the maintenance and explanation of the national Covenant are the legitimate obligations of the national office.
The judges also were charged to “Hear the cases between your brethren, and judge righteously between a man and his brother or the stranger who is with him. You shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall hear the small as well as the great; you shall not be afraid in any man’s presence, for the judgment is God’s.” It is said that the national system of justice founded at the time of King Henry VII was an attempt to regulate, chastise and improve the corrupt church and county courts of the era. People were supposedly given a choice of which courts to have their cases heard in. The king carefully explained to his own appointed judges that their shoulders would soon be lonesome for their heads if they corrupted the king’s justice in a manner like the corrupt medieval courts! Naturally – the less corrupt system triumphed over the system that could dispense only favors instead of justice. While we could hope for a similar competition in our day and time for education as well as justice, we can be content in the knowledge that our God and Father whose instructions in judicial practices are permanent and for all time, He will have his way at the end of the age when all heaven breaks loose. There will be an awful lot of headless justices in worse shape than those threatened by the English king!
One other fact that we must take note of before we move on to the next scripture portion is to be found in verse fourteen the people acknowledged the wisdom of they judicial system. “And you answered me and said, ‘The thing which you have told us to do is good.’” By this statement we may know that the people of Israel accepted the form of government given to them through the revelation of God.
A new section in the first chapter is opened in verse nineteen. “So we departed from Horeb, and went through all that great and terrible wilderness which you saw on the way to the mountains of the Amorites, as the Lord our God had commanded us.” Here we may understand that the people followed the leadership of Moses and the elders towards the Promised Land, meaning to occupy it and make it their own. I am reminded of a story from the Korean War – when a sergeant ordered his men to follow him in an attack upon the enemy. He took of running, firing his Tommy gun all the way to the nearest shelter. He turned and discovered that no one had followed him! So, he had to dodge bullets and grenades all the way back. He and the troops came to a quick understanding. They would lead and he would follow – a more normal combat situation down through the years!
Israel went up voluntarily enough we might understand. “Then we came to Kadesh Barnea,” Moses explained, there an advanced camp was established and certain men were sent ahead to spy out the land. We see that the plan was that of the people and their elected leaders. Moses was pleased at their discernment and the small body of scouts were sent on ahead. Of course, we all know the sad story of what happened. The scouts reported, “It is a good land which the Lord our God is giving us.” But, then look at the terrible tragedy noted by Moses in verse twenty-six: “Nevertheless you would not go up, but rebelled against the command of the Lord your God; and you complained in your tents.”
God’s providential plan of blessing the homeless wandering Israelites was not accepted. They were afraid of the fortifications and giants in the earth! Whether these Anakim were just well fed or a genetically focused race is not known. In the time of Frederick the Great, Prussian recruiters searched Europe far and wide to assemble a battalion of Grenadier giants, whose helmets made them look even a foot taller than their normal six foot! I say this to emphasize one methodology of raising a corps of giants from the population. It could well be that in this case – the giants were genetically related.
Nevertheless, however these giants came to be – their awe-inspiring danger destroyed the will and ability of the people to fight for the land that the Lord was going to give them. In verse twenty-nine, Moses complains “Then I said to you, ‘Do not be terrified, or afraid of them. The Lord your God, who goes before you, He will fight for you, according to all He did for you in Egypt before your eyes, and in the wilderness where you saw how the Lord your God carried you, as a man carries his son, in all the way that you went until you came to this place.’”
The promises of the Lord were and are good, Moses is arguing to the people here – whose parents it was that had failed to act on His promises! Now to be fair, their parents had been a slave people and as modern excuses go – should not have been expected to act as free men. Free men with their best interests all before them are better able to dare the perceived odds against them than those who have yet learned to think for themselves! A thoroughly modern explanation of this experience may be summed up in the worldly phrases of the motivational experts who presumed well “nothing ventured – nothing gained.” Old Ben Franklin would have been right at home with the motivational crowd in our time!
Forgive me if I don’t understand something here! Why is it that the people of God – who live and die on His precious promises, why are they seemingly always so hesitant to try some difficult thing? Moses carefully explains to the people that “the Lord your God, who goes before you, He will fight for you.” The battle, just as the spiritual song goes, “belongs to the Lord.”
But the people would not have it God’s way, so they “remained in Kadesh many days, according to the days that you were there.” Yes, we see that the people repented on the surface and went up without the Lord to accomplish what only He could accomplish. They were defeated and forced back into the desert areas. And In Kedesh they waited the good pleasure of the Lord, which depended on their all dying in the wilderness, and their children coming into the inheritance in the Lord’s own good time.
New Covenant Continuum: While we appreciate the full relationship between the Old and the New Covenants – we seldom trouble ourselves to truly study the detailed connections from one to the other. Vern Poythress carefully spends 377 pages trying manfully to show us how Christianity is Jewish in terms of the Great Covenant. Turn with me to the Gospel of Matthew and let us look briefly at Chapter 7: 13-29 in the covenantal context of the experience of Israel in our passage from Deuteronomy today.
Briefly, the first two verses in Matthew (7:13-14) describes the Narrow Way to salvation. Verses fifteen through 20 describes the good fruits that identify the people of God. Verses twenty-one to twenty-three condemn those who lack the faith to obey our Father God in heaven. Finally, verses twenty-four through twenty-nine admonish us to trust in the final authority of our Father in heaven and His own son Jesus Christ.
Now – the context of our passage in Deuteronomy we need to understand that the final entry to God’s promised land, which the Israelites took materially because it was there in front of them, and which we take spiritually for the promised eternity in heaven, is narrowly defined. By that I mean, contrary to most of the worldly wisdom, there are not many paths to heaven, but only One – Jesus Christ and Him crucified! The lessons of the people of Israel in Kadesh Barnea illustrate the fact that saving promises are all within the granting of our Father God. And if, like Esau and the children of Israel we decline so great a salvation – we cannot go in and attain it for ourselves!
Only those children of the promise who demonstrate the appropriate fruits of the Spirit are those who belong to the Lord. Contrary to some evangelical thinking in this country today, the goodness of one generation does not merit the blessings of the Lord. I have heard too many times that the goodness of the Massachusetts Pilgrims merited the favor of the Lord so that this Christian American State could be better founded and expanded. I do not see any such concept in the scriptures. In fact, contrary to the Israelite case before us, the Pilgrim children were not an improvement on their parents. Neither in fact were the children of the Israelites who died in the desert. The only difference is the fact of God’s grace in allowing a material revival in one generation that did not take place in another.
Make certain that you heard my terminology carefully: “material revival” means that while the desert generation may in many cases have understood salvation – they were not ready to receive the promise. Also, we should understand that the spiritual revival in the children allowed them to give a greater obedience to the Lord and His appointed leader Joshua.
Remember, there are always wheats and tares among the people of God. God will certainly condemn those who never give their hearts and minds to Him in all ages. Finally, our New Covenant passage challenges us to trust completely in our Covenant Lord who not only gives us a King to rule over us in Christ, but also a “Covenantal Constitution” if you will to regulate not only our relationships to Him, but also to each other.
Contemporary Application: “Will we in our own strength confide?” as Martin Luther rhymes his hymn to Psalm 46? Or will we learn from the hard teachings of Scripture that God is indeed Lord and Christ is indeed King over us, we who are His peculiar people – set apart since the dawn of time – given a Covenant to keep us in submission to Him and even as the people of Israel were promised – a land, a place, a heaven to spend all eternity with Him in?
Now, some may object to the parabolic nature of my comparisons here. Just tell us clearly what we need to do to get into heaven is the simple desire of every person under the sun! That I will and must do, there isn’t anything that anyone can possibly do to merit the kingdom of heaven. We see in our passage from Deuteronomy today that while on one level we can live so appearances might indicate that we are willing to follow and obey the Lord our God. But, deep down under the surface, our hearts may not be up to it. And like the people sent back into the desert – many will never know the Lord.
Even those who are elect, like Moses, may be chastened for their actions and even one failure to demonstrate the whole-hearted devotion to the Lord may limit somewhat the reward that was expected. Even Moses the man who spoke with God face to face must learn that we are all saved by Grace alone. To that end we should take careful note of verse thirty-seven: “The Lord was also angry with me for your sakes, saying, ‘Even you shall not go in there.’” And yet, according to the final chapter of Deuteronomy, Moses was allowed to see the land from Mount Nebo and when he died full of years, the Lord Himself “buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth Peor; but no one knows his grave to this day.” Even while we may be discouraged in our abilities to serve the Lord of Lords, we must take great comfort in the fact that the Lord provided all that was necessary to the prophet Moses. He saw the material land, died, was buried and went in the spirit, as the New Testament indicates, to be with the Lord forever and ever. May we accept this great gift of grace in the same spirit as Moses the man of God did, and may we take the covenant promises and measure our lives and deeds against them to better reflect the holy righteousness of our God and King among men? Amen.
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