In the Shadow of the Pyramids: A Reflective Commentary on the Narrative of Deuteronomy

By Tom Stone

The Israelites had lived in the shadow of the Pyramids for 400 years and the Exodus was supposed to liberate them from that shadow. Yet, Yahweh knew that the shadows cast were not simply physical, but spiritual, emotional and social. God’s instructions in Deuteronomy were designed to remove every trace of their slavery mindset. Our journey through Deuteronomy explores the liberation God offered, and how God’s freedom legislation reflects the wider redemption narrative of the Bible. As we stand with the Israelites at the cusp of the promised land, we’ll also reflect on the images that cast shadows over our hearts and how God’s 3000-year-old guidance may still emancipate our modern, unequal society.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: May 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664231993

Tom Stone

Tom lives in Reading, UK with his wife, Rachel, and their three children, Penelope, Lily-Rose and Abel. He works as the Head of Religious Education at a local secondary school, teaching Religions, Ethics and Philosophy to children aged 11 to 18. He has a BA in Theology from Newbold College and a PGCE in RE from the University of Oxford. As well as writing, Tom enjoys reading, gardening, family walks, kayaking, and cheap DIY projects.

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WestBow Press rev. date: 05/24/2021

For my children,

Penelope, Lily-Rose and Abel.

CONTENTS

Foreword

Reading 1: The Prequel

Part 1

Reading 2: The Prequel

Part 2

Reading 3: A New Hope

Deuteronomy 1

Reading 4: Anti-Corruption Unit 12

Deuteronomy 2:1–25

Reading 5: This Lion’s No Pushover

Deuteronomy 2:26–3:29

Reading 6: Who’s At The Top Of Your Mountain?

Deuteronomy 4:1–40

Reading 7: The Divine Name Revealed

Reading 8: Building An Alternative Society

Deuteronomy 4:41–5:21

Reading 9: The Ten Freedoms

Deuteronomy 5:6–21

Reading 10: We Don’t Live Like That Anymore

Deuteronomy 5:22–6:25

Reading 11: What Jesus Really Said To The Devil In The Desert

Deuteronomy 5–7 & Matthew 4

Reading 12: Learning From Jesus – How To Fight Your Struggles With Your Story

Matthew 4

Reading 13: God’s Treasure Hidden In A Field

Deuteronomy 7 & Matthew 13

Reading 14: What Do You Do If God Makes You Rich?

Deuteronomy 8

Reading 15: What Do You Do When Your God Is On Fire?

Deuteronomy 9–10

Reading 16: Ten Reasons To Go To The Spa

Deuteronomy 10:12–22

Reading 17: A Blessing Or A Curse? 3000 Years On, The Choice Is Still The Same

Deuteronomy 11

Reading 18: Lighters, Sledgehammers, Arson And Anarchy

Deuteronomy 12:1–28

Reading 19: Home Is Where Your Heart Is

Deuteronomy 12:29–14:21

Reading 20: How To Spot A Communist In Your Church

Deuteronomy 14:22–29

Reading 21: Do You Dream Of Being Debt-Free In Seven Years?

Deuteronomy 15:1–18

Reading 22: Restoration In Seventh Heaven – God’s Favourite Number

Leviticus 25

Reading 23: What About Me, Now?

Deuteronomy 14–15

Reading 24: Dinner To End An Era (Yeast Not Included)

Deuteronomy 16:1–8

Reading 25: When Moses Predicted Brexit

Deuteronomy 16:9–17

Reading 26: How To Be A King (Or Queen)…

Deuteronomy 17:14–20

Reading 27: Been-There-Done-That Syndrome

Exodus 20:18–21

Reading 28: God In Disguise

Deuteronomy 18:15–22

Reading 29: When God Goes To War: Part 1

Deuteronomy 20:1–4

Reading 30: When God Goes To War: Part 2

Deuteronomy 20:8–9

Reading 31: When God Goes To War (Part 3)

Deuteronomy 20:5–7

Reading 32: When God Orders Death

Deuteronomy 20:10–18

Reading 33: ‘So You Shall Purge The Pandemic From Your Midst’

Reading 34: God’s Heart – Orphans And Foreigners And Justice

Deuteronomy 24

Reading 35: The Will

Deuteronomy 26

Reading 36: The 12 Judgements

Deuteronomy 27

Reading 37: Have You Got Your Listening Ears On?

Deuteronomy 28:1–14

Reading 38: The Song Of Moses

Deuteronomy 32

Reading 39: The Cliff Hanger

Deuteronomy 28:15–30:20

Reading 40: The Call

Deuteronomy 34

Bibliography

About The Author

FOREWORD

‘We believe in life before death.’

Christian Aid.

One of the great paradoxes of Christianity is that a book so focused on life before death could lead to a religion so wrapped up in life after death. The plethora of views on heaven and hell seem to suggest that’s all the Bible is; a guidebook for how to get into heaven and avoid hell. Basic-instructions-before-leaving-earth.

Maybe that’s the Christianity you’ve heard of and grown up in. Maybe that’s the Christianity that you’ve turned away from. As a secondary school RE teacher, I’ve seen many textbooks reduce Christianity to such extra-terrestrial matters. Any concept of ‘loving your neighbour as yourself’ is portrayed as simply a way to ensure entrance to the pearly gates.¹ The Christian religion is simply about preparing for the next life, however altruistic it may seem. This way of reading scripture is incredibly narrowing and shallow.

The narrative of the Bible is immense, and its focus is generally on here and now. This world. Life before death. Jesus spoke of bringing the Kingdom of God on earth as in heaven, now. As an immediate, life-changing revolution. They weren’t executed because they believed in heaven and hell but because they behaved as if they followed the teachings of a new King, there and then. On earth. In their time. In their space. Jesus’ proclamation that He had come to bring ‘life in all its fullness’ was as much about life before death as it is about life after it. ² The Good News is that God’s promised restoration begins now.

This idea is not just present in the words of Jesus and the apostles, but it’s embedded in the narrative of the whole Bible. Arguably even more present in the Old Testament than the New; the story of ancient Israel particularly. It is the story of God bringing his Kingdom on earth, in this world, and the complete social, political, financial and spiritual restoration it would offer now, as a prelude to the here-after. It is with the focus that we will journey through the book of Deuteronomy.

We will explore how Moses unpacks the notion of the Kingdom of God-on-earth in his time and his space. We will see how real the chances to society were supposed to be; how liberating they were supposed to be. As we stand in the Israelite crowd and hear the words of Moses, we will translate them for ourselves. To see how the Kingdom of God can come on earth, in our time and our space. To bring restoration now, as it was supposed to then. It will be the unveiling of an alternative society.

At regular intervals in our journey, we will step back and see how the grand narrative of the Bible is encapsulated in Deuteronomy. We will see how the lives and divine conversations of ancient Israelite ancestors set the scene for the Exodus and the journey to the promised land. We will also discover how Jesus uses the powerful narrative of Deuteronomy to defeat Satan in a desert fight and to tell mysteriously short parables. It is my prayer that this book helps you learn that the grand narrative of the Bible can become your story too. It is with that aim that we will begin our adventure.

As we join the Israelites on their journey to freedom, we will begin by looking back; reflecting on a whistle-stop tour of the lives of Abram to Moses, highlighting the themes that connect those stories to the narrative of Deuteronomy and the grand Biblical redemption story. As we then proceed to Deuteronomy, I invite you to read the passage first and then dialogue with me as we reflect together.

The land we are going to is promised. It is a land where God’s space invades and overwhelms ours. But, it is a learning process, as we discover more of God’s story we discover more of ourselves; uncovering the spaces within us and within our society that need divine restoration. It is that prayer that drives me forward into Deuteronomy. It is that focus I would urge you to take as you explore the book with me.

Pack your rucksack. Lace-up your walking boots. The journey is about to begin.

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READING 1

THE PREQUEL

PART 1

Deuteronomy is the crucible of the Bible. If you miss this, you miss the whole thing. It’s fundamental for understanding the narrative of the Old Testament, Jesus’ proclamation of the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’, His last supper, crucifixion and resurrection, and all of the Apostles’ later explanations.

Everything is here.

The entire Gospel.

But, before we dive in to Chapter 1, we need to remind ourselves of the story so far.

The story so far

Genesis 1–11

The first 1500 (-ish) years of Biblical human history: creation, the fall, the first murder, the Tower of Babel, the flood, the rainbow, lineages – thousands of people’s lives simply skipped over (so-and-so lived for hundreds of years and died).³ Oceans of ink have already been spilt unpacking the meaning and impact of the first 11 chapters of Genesis, so for the purpose of this chapter we will skim over that section. But as we explore Deuteronomy we will undoubtedly return to the Biblical origin story.

With the chance for welcome breathe, the writer of Genesis brings his turbo-charged coverage of ancient history to an end and we arrive at Genesis 12.

Genesis 12

After hundreds of thousands of lives, marriages, births, weddings, festivals, inventions, cities and deaths have been missed out (we would love to know what Methuselah got up to in his 969 years of existence), the story slows down and focuses on one man: Abram. His story, and that of his descendants, now becomes centre stage for the rest of the Bible.

This is who we are told to focus on. Why? The mystery of God’s choice in humanity. But in slowing down its pace of telling the history of humanity, the Bible tells us that through this man and his family God is going to do something. Something worth paying attention to. Something worth blotting out thousands of human lives that existed at the same time.

Something incredible.

For this scene, the action starts straight away.

Now the LORD said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’ So Abram went, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot, and all the possessions that they had gathered, and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran; and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan.⁴

God calls a 75-year-old Abram out of a middle-class, comfortable lifestyle with his family and asks him to journey 1100 miles through arid desert to a place he has never been before. The call was a self-sacrificial sojourn with no fixed destination and no immediate reward.

Why on earth, his servants may have asked, would God ask him to do that?

To make his descendants a great nation, a nation as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand on the shore. A nation that will bless all the other nations of the world. And here we are. This is why the Bible stops the lineages and global events and zooms in on just one man. God is going to do something here. This is it. This is God’s solution to the problem that was described in the first 11 chapters of Genesis.

Traditionally known as the sin problem, described by Hosea as the theft of the human heart by another lover: the fact that humanity gave up its right to co-exist in a peaceful, harmonious, all-encompassing, naked union with Agape in the flesh by giving its heart away, pledging its allegiance to a different master. We fell out of love with the Creator and fell in love with creation. With ourselves. We wanted to be God. We wanted the attention. We weren’t satisfied with the level of freedom that God offered and instead wanted everything for ourselves. No rules. In doing so, humanity left the freedom it had to be totally naked and unashamed in the presence of God and each other and instead enslaved itself to its own selfishness. To always wanting more. We sold our hearts to the lie that we don’t need God, that we can exist off our own back. No need for a Creator. In fact, we are the best of creation – we deserve to be in place of the Creator. We deserve to be worshipped. So we put ourselves at the centre of the universe, replacing the Creator with creation, and, in doing so, we fabricated a disastrous, ugly, gluttonous world. A world full of sin. A world full of people whose hearts God longs for, yearns for, yet who continually put themselves in His place. And so we come to Genesis 12:1–3.

This is it.

This is God’s big plan to find a solution – a real, eternal (not temporary, such as the flood, or local, like the Tower of Babel) solution to the human heart problem.

His plan: to instruct a 75-year-old man and his wife to leave their wealthy retirement plan, journey over a thousand miles of harsh desert with all their relatives and belongings, and begin a new life in a place they’d never heard of, with the promise they would have a bountiful land to live in and have lots of kids! Was God out of His mind?!

Of all the people and times and places! What is it with God and calling people at seemingly wrong times and wrong places to be part of His story? He seems to have a habit of doing so! When we get over the ridiculousness of God’s actions, we need to realise that God is serious. Here He promises Abram that he will be the father of a world-changing, history-making nation. A nation known throughout history and across the globe for blessing others. A nation with some kind of ‘super-human’ or ‘extra-human’ power. A nation with a difference. A nation made in the image of Agape Himself.

But in the very real sense, God also promised Abram two things: land and descendants. A land to enjoy, to settle in, to raise children, to be prosperous in.

And the descendants to fill that land.

How that happens, or even if that happens, we, the readers, wait to find out.

Lord God,

As we retrace the footsteps of Your people out of Egypt and into the promised land, call us out once again. Call us out of comfortable lifestyles to an Abrahamic adventure with You. Fill us with a desire for the promised land once again. Put fire in our bellies and hope in our hearts and lead us into the wilderness. As we reflect on the book of Deuteronomy, give us ears to hear Your calling in our lives and give us the courage to live it.

Amen.

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READING 2

THE PREQUEL

PART 2

In our journey to the beginning of Deuteronomy we got to verse 5 of Genesis 12, and so there we pick this up.

Genesis 13 and 14

Genesis 13 and 14 describe various other events in the life of Abram, and they are worth reading through on their own. But Genesis 15 is where we need to zoom in and focus carefully, as this chapter expands the promise that God made to Abram in Genesis 12.

This is one of the most important chapters in the whole Bible, particularly prominent if you want to understand anything that John writes in the New Testament.

Genesis 15

In Genesis 15, God reiterates the promise that Abram and Sarai will have a child, an heir, a lineage. A hope that the ‘great nation’ promise will in fact come true. It is made extremely clear that the child will not come through anyone else: not his servant nor Sarai’s servants, but through Sarai and him alone. Then in verse 5, God takes Abram by the hand and walks him outside his tent and tells him to count the stars. His descendants, the great nation promised to him, will be as numerous as the stars in the sky.

So what does Abram do?

He believes…

and it is ‘counted to him as righteousness’.⁵

His belief is all it took for God to count him as righteous. Simply believing that what God says will happen. Even though Abram couldn’t see it for himself, even though naturally he and Sarai were beyond children and the future looked like retirement, Abram believed.

He simply stood before God and believed in his heart that God meant it.

And that is all God needed to count him as righteous. Hallelujah!

All we need to do is simply believe wholeheartedly that God is who He is, and that what He says will happen, and we are counted as righteous. That’s it. No works. No actions. No need to relentlessly please Him or placate Him. We just need to believe. All God yearns for is a heart full of belief in Him. A heart that acknowledges Him as Creator and as the God who will do what He says He will do. A heart like Adam and Eve were created to live from. A heart that seeks