An Atheist Explores the Bible Part 38: Moses Finishes With A Song (Deuteronomy 31-34)

Deuteronomy 31-34
Moses Finishes With A Song.


Welcome to another instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Bible version).

In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the King James Bible, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology. 
For more detail, see the introductory post http://bit.ly/2F8f9JT
For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP

And now:

Deuteronomy 31
“And he said unto them, I am an hundred and twenty years old this day; I can no more go out and come in: also the LORD hath said unto me, Thou shalt not go over this Jordan”

Moses, now 120 years old, is too old to lead the Israelites into the promised land and so passes the torch of leadership on to Joshua. But before he does so, God tells him that once the Israelites are settled they will turn to false gods and so God will turn away from them and ills will afflict them.

Which raises the question, why does God persist with the Israelites when He knows they are going to flub things? I suppose it’s meant as a metaphor, in that God has faith in the people as much as they have faith in Him and despite their failings he still sees the good in them. I can see it being pitched that way, but it’s hardly a cheering way of expressing it.

Moses writes down “this law” (which I presume is everything from Exodus onwards so far) to be stored in the ark of the covenant, and then is about to expound upon matters in the form of a song. A musical number to finish – is this the Bollywood remake of Cecil B DeMille’s Ten Commandments?

Deuteronomy 32
“For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains”

It’s not the most cheery of songs, that has to be said, but some of the lyrics are good. It basically predicts that the people will forget God and so turn Him against them, despite all that He has done for them. Again we see the conditional nature of God’s blessing as given in the OT – infractions are dealt with by violence and sulking, which doesn’t strike me as the actions of a wise and benevolent deity. It’s a abuser trick as well, because it turns the blame onto the people so that when “They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust” the misfortunes aren’t blamed either on simple misfortune or on the whims of a capricious god, but on the people for not sticking to the covenant.

Deuteronomy 33
“And he said, The LORD came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them; he shined forth from mount Paran, and he came with ten thousands of saints: from his right hand went a fiery law for them”

Having just told them that they are doomed to fail and turn away from God, Moses proceeds to bless the twelve tribes, and this is much the same as Jacob blessing his sons with some vague prophetic words that essentially mean “you will do well”. Whereas the tribe of Zebulun is merely told to “rejoice in your going out”, the tribes of Levi and Joseph get effusive blessings running to several verses. Judah get some more lion symbolism which always makes me think of Rastafarianism, I’m sure the “Lion of Judah” is a feature if I recall my Bob Marley; I’d need to research more to be sure.

Deuteronomy 34
“And the LORD said unto him, This is the land which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, saying, I will give it unto thy seed: I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither”


A short little chapter to close off the book, as God takes Moses to the top of Mount Nebo to see the promised land stretched before him before he dies, leaving Joshua to take over. No-one knows the location of the sepulchre of Moses, it is said, and he was the last prophet of Israel to speak to God face to face (although, as you’ll recall, not quite to God’s face as this would have killed him. Perhaps better to say “directly”). A couple of interesting little points to bear in mind as we leave the Pentateuch behind and move on to the next book.



All in all there was some good poetry in Deuteronomy. Because it re-hashed most of Exodus through to Numbers it wasn’t the most revelatory or novel of the books so far, but a lot of the writing, particularly the more blood and thunder parts were very good and it didn’t suffer from strange digressions like Numbers did.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dr Simon Reads... Appendix N. Part One: Poul Anderson

Image
Dr. Simon Reads Appendix N: Introduction This is a new series that will feature sporadically, in which I explore classic fantasy and science fiction works. You will either know what I mean by “Appendix N”, or you will have no clue. In the original Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Masters Guide, Gary Gygax provided a large number of appendices, from random smells to reputed magical properties of herbs and gemstones. Appendix N was a bibliography of works that inspired him. Back in 1982 when I first got hold of this book, there were only a couple of items on there that I’d read, and only a few other authors that I’d even heard of. Many years later, after, much reading, I returned to Appendix N expecting to have added greatly to the works on there that I’d read; but actually, there were still very few. Many of the authors were obscure or out of print authors of, for want of a better expression, golden age pulp; the kind that feature in Amazing Stories and the like. Now, ...
Read more

An Atheist Explores the Qur'an Part 121: Closing Thoughts

It took half as many posts to tackle the Qur'an as it did the Bible, 120 compared to 248, but it felt like longer sometimes. Perhaps because the Qur'an is written by a single man and deals with pretty much the same topic over and over, whereas the Bible is a compilation of multiple works, some of which are historical, some apocalyptic, some laws or building instruction, some philosophical, some poetic, some a bit of each. From that point of view, I'd have to say that the Bible was the more interesting work to read. Have I learned any great wisdom from the Qur'an? I'd have to say … no, not really. Granted, I probably didn't approach it with a particularly deep understanding of the material in the first place, but that (as with the Bible readthrough) was always my intent. Picking through line by line is still something of a deep dive, and in both books I tried to be alert for symbol and metaphor. Doing it that way, however, it's easy to miss thematic callb...
Read more

An Atheist Explores the Bible Part 140: The Fall and Rise of (Slightly Tarty) Cities (Isaiah 21-25)

Isaiah 21-25 The Fall and Rise of (Slightly Tarty) Cities Welcome to another instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Bible version). In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the King James Bible, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology. For more detail, see the introductory post http://bit.ly/2F8f9JT For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP And now: Isaiah 21 “And he cried, A lion: My lord, I stand continually upon the watchtower in the daytime, and I am set in my ward whole nights:” Isaiah has a vision that causes him pain like the pain of childbirth, apparently. From out of the desert comes a chariot bearing news that Babylon has fallen, but I don’t know to whom. This chapter says to “ watch in the watchtower ”, from which I guess the Jehovah’s Witnesses get the name of their little newsletter. Also Isaiah, or the people to whom he speaks, are told to “ go set a watchman ”; another line ...
Read more