Read Deuteronomy 11 and 12 at Bible Gateway.
The Hebrew paragraph divisions for today’s chapters are:
Deu 10:12-11:9 {s} Fear, love and obey YHVH always for our good
Deu 11:10-12 {s} The goodness of the Land
Deu 11:13-21 {s} Listen, pay heed, observe, and teach YHVH’s commandments
Deu 11:22-25 {s} Carefully keep His commandments that Israel may possess the Land
Deu 11:26-28 {s} Blessing for obedience + curse for disobedience
Deu 11:29-12:19 {s} Israel shall worship YHVH in the way He commands
Deu 12:20-28 {s} Ditto, even when you must travel some distance to His place
Deu 12:29-32 {p} Israel shall not serve YHVH in the manner of the nations
We saw that the explanation for the First Commandment, The Commandment, ended at the end of chapter 11. The section explaining the First Commandment forms its own chiastic structure:
It seems a strange central axis, to be the main point of the chiastic structure of the First Commandment, to have no other gods before the LORD. But, if we realize that the root of Worship YHVH alone, and is belief in the truth of His words, then it makes more sense. We can see that belief is always accompanied by the corresponding action. Caleb and Joshua believed that God would deliver the giants into their hands, as He had said, so they were willing to take the corresponding action of entering in. The other ten spies did not believe the truth of God’s word, so they were not willing to take the corresponding action. Thus fruit always is the true indicator of what is really believed in the heart, regardless of what the mouth or mind says is believed.
The strong paragraph division at the end of chapter 12, indicating the conclusion of a strong theme, is the conclusion to the strong theme begun with Deu 10:12. In my notes, I have the strong theme as, Israel shall worship YHVH in the manner He commands, for her good, to possess the Land.
There is so much wisdom to be gleaned from studying these chapters explaining Worship YHVH Only, very much more than I have told in these few days. The index linked below is a start to my studies on this topic.
For further reading:
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