Scripture Daily

Context No. 715 of 4322 · Deuteronomy

Context · Reflection

Deuteronomy 5:1-5: in context

1Moses called to all Israel, and said to them, “Hear, Israel, the statutes and the ordinances which I speak in your ears today, that you may learn them, and observe to do them.” 2The LORD our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. 3The LORD didn’t make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive today. 4The LORD spoke with you face to face on the mountain out of the middle of the fire, 5(I stood between the LORD and you at that time, to show you the LORD’s word; for you were afraid because of the fire, and didn’t go up onto the mountain) saying,

Moses is about to repeat the Ten Commandments to a new generation, most of whom were children or unborn when the words were first spoken, and he opens with a claim that quietly refuses the obvious. The LORD our God made a covenant with us at Horeb, he says. Not with our fathers did the LORD make this covenant, but with us, with us, these who are all here alive today. It is not strictly accurate as history; it was their parents who stood at the mountain, and most of those parents are buried in the wilderness. Moses says it anyway, on purpose.

He will not let them file Sinai under things that happened to earlier people. The covenant is not an heirloom passed down from the dead; it is a live bond with the ones breathing in front of him. The LORD spoke with you face to face out of the fire, he tells them, though he has to add that they were afraid and did not go up, and he himself stood between them and God to bring the word across. The point stands: the word was not merely delivered to their ancestors. It is being made, now, with them. The New Testament keeps the same insistence in one word, today.

Moses refused to let the covenant be his listeners' grandparents' event; it was made with them, alive, today. Do I hold my faith as inherited history, or as a bond God is making with me right now?

Sources