Deuteronomy 31: Joshua Becomes Moses' Successor / The Law to be Read Every Seventh Year / Moses and Joshua Receive God's Charge
Soon the 120-year-old Moses is to die. Before he does, there is some business to take care of.
Joshua Becomes Moses' Successor: Deuteronomy 31.1-8
Moses, if you recall, has been dictating God's law to Israel for the entire book of Deuteronomy. Here he finishes an old man - not old because he spoke so long, but because he is blessed by the Lord with a long life. Yet because of the iniquity of the people he will not enter the promised land. It is God that will lead the Israelites across the Jordan and God that will ensure the Israelites destroy the people living there, just as God did to Sihon and Og. Moses urges his audience to have no fear, because the Lord is with them and will not forsake them.
Moses the charges Joshua to be strong and bold, because he will lead the people into the Land. [Joshua will take the place of Moses as the mouthpiece of God to th Israelites.] The Lord is with him and will not forsake him.
The Law to be Read Every Seventh Year: Deuteronomy 31.9-13
Moses then writes down the law he dictated to the Israelites. he gives it to the Levites, who carry it to the ark of the covenant and the elders of Israel.
Moses commands that the book of the law should be read every seventh year at the festival of booths, when all of Israel appears before God in the place of consolidated worship.
[The reading of the law every seven years is an attempt to ensure that the commandments are all fresh in the minds of the Israelites, and obeyed. Of course, seven years is a long time...]
Moses and Joshua Receive God's Charge: Deuteronomy 31.14-29
The Lord tells Moses that Moses will soon die, and that Joshua should be brought to the tent of meeting, so that he may be commissioned [as Moses was]. The Lord appears at the tent in a pillar of cloud, the traditional representation of God throughout Israel's journey through the wilderness.
God tells Moses that after his death, the people will begin to fall away from God. They will eat their fill and grow fat and complacent. They will turn to other Gods. In that time, the Lord will turn away from the people. The Lord therefore gives Moses a song to teach the people, that will be passed down through the generations. When the people sing this song, they will remember their broken covenant with the Lord.
The Lord then commissions Joshua son of Nun: "Be strong and bold, for you shall bring the Israelites into the land that I promised them; I will be with you" (Deut. 31.23). This seems to stand in contrast to what God just said, and perhaps God realizes this. A leader can only do so much, after all, in leading the people. The people themselves must want to follow God and there is only so much that God can do to sustain their fidelity.
When Moses finishes the writing of the law, he gives it to the Levites to put beside the ark of the covenant. But you know this already. Why does the bible repeat itself? In this instance it is to clarify something. The first time this story is told the phrasing goes: "Then Moses wrote down this law" (Deut. 31.9). The second time the phrasing goes: "When Moses had finished writing down in a book the words of this law to the very end" (Deut. 31.24). In the second verse the emphasis is on the fact that Moses wrote down these words to the very end. If we assume that what he wrote comprises the book of Deuteronomy, then Moses would have had to write the story of his own death. And indeed, there is a tradition that champions this idea, and also that Moses wrote the entire Torah by himself. Nowhere does the bible explicitly state this. Nevertheless, the idea commanded quite a following until very recently.
The reason the book is to be placed beside the ark of the covenant is that it is to remain as a witness. Moses calls the people out on being rebellious - and imagines how much more rebellious they will be after he is gone. Moses then calls for the elders and officials to be assembled, that he may recite the words of the law to them, as a way to guard against corruption. The witness Moses calls for this is the heaven and the earth, which just so happens to be the witness called to witness the covenant that closed in yesterday's post.
Funny how things work out like that.
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