Read Deuteronomy 31:1-13 at Bible Gateway.
the teaching tools of scripture
Hebrew paragraph divisions:
Deu 31:1-6 {s} Moses will not cross over the Jordan, but the Lord God will cross over with Israel
Deu 31:7-13 {p} Joshua to lead Israel + Israel to not forget or forsake God’s Law
Chiastic structure:
1a) Deu 31:1-3a, I will not cross over this Jordan, But YHVH + Joshua will cross over before you;
1b) Deu 31:3b-5, He will destroy these nations that you may do to them according to every commandment;
1c) Deu 31:6a, Be strong and of good courage, do not fear nor be afraid of them;
1d) Deu 31:6b {s} For YHVH your God goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you;
central axis) Deu 31:7, “Then Moses called Joshua and said to him in the sight of all Israel, ‘Be strong and of good courage, for you must go with this people to the land which the Lord has sworn to their fathers to give them, and you shall cause them to inherit it;’”
2d) Deu 31:8a, YHVH is the One who goes before you. He will be with you + not leave nor forsake you;
2c) Deu 31:8b, Do not fear nor be dismayed;
2b) Deu 31:9-13a, Moses delivered this Torah to the priests/ Read it to all the people every 7 years at Tabernacles;
2a) Deu 31:13b {p} As long as you live in the land which you cross the Jordan to possess.
This triennial torah parashah forms a self- contained strong theme: one or more Hebrew weak paragraphs (marked by {s}) in succession, concluding with a Hebrew strong paragraph (marked by {p}), indicating the conclusion of a single theme or overarching topic.
Often it doesn’t make sense to human logic, how the Hebrew paragraphs so divided teach a single theme (which I am sure is one of the reasons why the translators of the Scriptures into English, discarded them in the first place). But
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord.
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts.” Isa 55:8-9
We are sitting at the feet of the Master Teacher in order to learn His thoughts and His ways, Amen? Not our own, nor the thoughts or ways of men. So this is the question I meditate on, and ask of the Master Teacher:
How does
Deu 31:1-6 {s} Moses will not cross over the Jordan, but the Lord God will cross over with Israel
Deu 31:7-13 {p} Joshua to lead Israel + Israel to not forget or forsake God’s Law
proclaim a single connected and unified strong theme?
“Joshua” is the English transliteration from Hebrew, of the Hebrew name, “Yeshua.” Joshua is a type of Yeshua from Torah. So how do we get “Jesus” from “Yeshua?” The Hebrew “Yeshua” translated immediately into English gives us “Joshua.” The Hebrew “Yeshua” first translated into Greek (as the Hebrew Scriptures were translated in the Septuagint), and then transliterated from the Greek into the English, gives us “Jesus.”
So I realized that this strong theme was proclaiming a prophetic message, that Yeshua, the Messiah, was the one who would lead Israel across the Jordan and into their promise. Yeshua is in fact the ‘prophet like Moses’ who would come after Moses to lead the people (Deu 18:15), and the Torah proclaimed this prophetically by type, in that the one whom Moses inaugurated to lead the people after him, was Joshua – Yeshua.
What then is the unifying strong theme? When Yeshua leads God’s people into their promise, they are not to forget or forsake God’s Law.
Beloved, may it never be that we have listened to the words of men distorting God’s truth, rather than listening to the Word of God Himself proclaiming His truth, which remains consistent and unchanged from Genesis to Revelation!
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