It's week 6 and I'm still going strong with my Bible 365 challenge for myself. Week 6's reading was Deuteronomy chapters 1 through 26. Most of this was just review of the events that happened from Exodus and up to current time. God had told Moses in the book of Numbers that he wasn't going to be allowed into the Promise Land because he had allowed the Israelites to cause him to rebel against God.
Therefore, Moses was retelling all the events that happened over the Israelites 40 years of wandering around in the wilderness to the younger generation and Caleb, Joshua and Eleazer who would be leading the new generation of younger Israelites into the Promise Land. Therefore, was a lot of mentions of obeying the commandments set force by God. In fact, I would say that within these 26 chapters I read that the words command or commandment was probably written at least 50 times.
And with this being Black History Month, Deuteronomy 4:9 really stuck out to me: "Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them." Just like it's important for us in today's society to teach our children about all the things our people and we as nation have to endure over the years, God wanted the Israelites to pass on their history to their children and encourage them to pass it on to their children.
After all, how can we expect the younger generation to move forward if they don't know where they've come from? And contrary to how many of the kings behaved, God actually commanded that kings "must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray" (Deuteronomy 17:17). This makes total sense because imagine if the Israelite king had one wife who believed in God and another who believed in false idols. It would be easy for him to be pulled in the wrong direction.
Another interesting Bible fact is that if man was discovered in the act of raping a woman, he wasn't put to death. Instead, he had to pay the woman's father fifty shekels of silver and then take her as his wife FOREVER (Deuteronomy 22:28-29)! I couldn't imagine having to be the wife of a man who raped me. That would just disgust me beyond no ends. I know that this was meant to be punishment for the man because he wouldn't be able to get rid of the woman or seek out another wife, but still I imagine that it felt like punishment for the woman as well.
Those women must have had emotional strength as strong as nails back then. "If a man has recently married, he must be sent to war or have any other duty laid on him. for one year he is to be free to stay at home and bring happiness to the wife he has married," says Deuteronomy 24:5. I'm sure a lot our military families specifically would love to have this law still in effect in today's society. Honestly, I feel that if married couples had a year to not have to worry about work and bills but just getting to know each other, we'd have lower divorce rates.
And since a lot of people have been asking, I'm going to start sharing the reading for each day for the following week. I don't know why I didn't do this from the start, but better late than never. And if you want to start from the beginning and catch up here's the link to a FREE audio Bible. They do different voices for the characters and have background soundtracks. It's better than any audio Bible I've ever heard before.
Week 7 Readings
2/11 Deuteronomy 27-30
2/12 Deuteronomy 31-34
2/13 Joshua 1-5
2/14 Joshua 6-8
2/15 Joshua 9-12
2/16 Joshua 13-19
2/17 Joshua 20-24
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