Deuteronomy 23: Various laws. 1) Persons to be excluded from the assembly including Moabites. Life Lesson: Balak the king of Moab had hired Balaam to curse Israel as they passed by Mob land, but “the Lord your God was not willing to listen to Balaam, but the Lord your God turned the curse into a blessing for you because the Lord your God loves you.” Often bad things will happen to us and we will say, “I’m cursed!” But God can turn those bad things into blessings. Think back at the times God has done that in your life. Someone I love recently said that she was so disappointed with something that had happened, but that now she can see that it might turn out to be the best thing and she loves how it turned out. We just have to trust God. Romans 8:²⁸And we know that God causes all things (the good and the bad) to work together for good to those who love God.” 2) Burying your excrement outside the camp. That is a sanitation law that prevents diseases like cholera and typhoid. 3) Cult prostitute harlots and male cult “dogs” are an abomination to God. Jews could not charge interest on fellow Jews (they could charge interest on foreigners). That seems strange to us today when we are all about how much interest we can get on our savings or on money we loan out to others, but giving an interest free loan was an act of love to help a fellow Jews who was having tough financial times. As discussed earlier, they might even lose some of that loan money in the sabbatical year or year of Jubilee. Nehemiah was very upset with the Jews who were charging interest on fellow Jews when he made his return to Palestine to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem (Nehemiah 5). He made those guilty to stop that and repay any interest they had collected. Do not delay in keeping your vows that you make to God.

Deuteronomy 24 begins with a strange law about divorce. 24:1“When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out from his house, ²and she leaves his house and goes and becomes another man’s wife, ³and if the latter husband turns against her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies who took her to be his wife, ⁴then her former husband who sent her away is not allowed to take her again to be his wife, since she has been defiled.” Observation: the “indecency” used for the first divorce can’t be adultery. If it was, the first husband could have just had her stoned to death. Instead he gives her a certificate of divorce, something never authorized by God in the Law. The 2nd divorce (or even death of the 2nd husband) was not for adultery either for the same reasons. So technically, the woman was still married to the first husband even though she had married the 2nd husband. So why does this law in chapter 24 say that she can’t remarry the first husband if the 2nd husband divorces her or dies. We need to go to Matthew to clear this up. Matthew 19:³Some Pharisees came to Jesus, testing Him and asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?” ⁴And He answered and said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, ⁵and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? ⁶ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” ⁷They *said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to give her a certificate of divorce and send her away?” ⁸He *said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way. ⁹And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.” Observations: 1) The Pharisees said that Moses “commanded to give her a certificate of divorce” but Jesus said that Moses only “permitted you to divorce your wives”. Chapter 22 had pretty much said, “no divorces”. If adultery is involved, the guilty will be stoned. If premarital sex is involved, marry and never divorce. But no divorce. But now in chapter 24 there is a law for a special situation involving divorce. 2) Jesus clarified that the “indecency” cause for divorce in 24:1 could not be used for divorce unless it was adultery. The only acceptable cause for divorce under the Law was adultery, and that called for stoning not divorce, but it did free the guilty party to remarry. 3) Jesus clarified that from the beginning with the first marriage of Adam and Eve that marriage was supposed to be one man, one woman becoming one flesh (the sexual consummation). BTW how much clearer could Jesus and God be that marriage is only for a man and a woman. It is such an abomination to God to see homosexual marriages in our country that was founded on Judeo-Christian teachings from the Bible. 4) The only reason the special divorce situation was given in Deuteronomy 24 was to protect wives from husbands who would divorce their wives for some other cause than adultery. Instead of loving their wives as God commanded them to do, they wanted to get rid of their wives but they didn’t have a scriptural cause. So they would just give a man-made certificate of divorce not even authorized by the Law. But they couldn’t remarry her if her 2nd husband died or divorced her in the same way. Why? Jesus is saying that this law might make the first husband think twice before divorcing his wife for some cause other than adultery. It might protect the wives from unscriptural divorces by hard hearted Jewish husbands.

The rest of the various laws in Deuteronomy are easy to understand. Question: What do you see is the emphasis in most of these laws in 24:6-21. Answer: Most of them protect the poor, widows, orphans, and strangers from other nations, God has always given special emphasis on not neglecting the care of widows, orphans, aliens, and the poor! James comments on this: James 1:²⁷Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” Romans 12:13: “Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.” Galatians 2:10: “All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor. Luke 14:13–14: “When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed.” The early church had a special ministry of providing food for needy widows (Acts 6).

Deuteronomy 25 has more various laws. 1) No more than 40 stripes as punishment for a crime. AI: To ensure they never accidentally broke the biblical law by miscounting in the heat of the moment, Jewish courts and synagogue tribunals capped the actual punishment at 39.” I wonder how many stripes Jesus was given. 2) The law for Levirate marriage: the brother has to marry the widow of his deceased brother and bear a child for his deceased brother to continue his deceased brother’s name and inheritance. If the brother refused to do this, the widow was to take off his sandal and spit in his face in front of the elders! Do you remember the case of Judah and Tamar in Genesis 38? Judah’s son refused to marry Tamar after his brother, her husband, died, and God killed him for refusing. A 3rd son was too young and Judah promised to give that son to Tamar (Levirate marriage) when he grew up, but he Judah failed to keep his promise. So Tamar dresses up like a prostitute and Judah unknowingly goes in to her and has sex. Later they bring Tamar to Judah to pronounce her punishment for harlotry, and she tells Judah that it is his child! She has twins and one of them, Perez, is in the seed line of Jesus! The Bible has a lot of dysfunctional family stories! 3) No cheating people by using dishonest weighing of goods. 4) A command to totally destroy all the Amalekites b/c they attacked Israel from the rear as they were coming around their territory. King Saul would be told to do this task but spared some of the animals and the king of Amalek and the kingdom was taken from Saul b/c of that.

Deuteronomy 26. Israelites were commanded to bring the first fruits of their crops as an offering to God to be shared with the Levites in each town. Tithing laws under the Law of Moses can be a little confusing, so here is a good explanation from AI: Under the Mosaic Law, the Israelites were commanded to give three distinct tithes, which totaled roughly 23% of their agricultural produce and livestock each year when averaged out.Most scholars and theologians outline these three separate tithes from the Hebrew Bible as follows:

The Poor (or Third / Welfare) Tithe: An extra 10% given every third and sixth year of the seven-year agricultural cycle. Instead of going to the temple, this was stored locally in the towns to support the Levites, strangers, orphans, and widows (Deuteronomy 14:28–29). Averaged annually, this amounted to about 3.3% per year.

The Levitical (or First) Tithe: A yearly 10% levy on crops and livestock given to the Levites (Numbers 18:21–24) because they did not receive a land inheritance like the other tribes. In turn, the Levites gave a tenth of what they received to the Aaronic priests (Numbers 18:26).

The Festival (or Second) Tithe: An additional 10% set aside each year by the Israelites, which they brought to Jerusalem to consume during the holy pilgrim feasts and national celebrations (Deuteronomy 12:17–18, 14:22–27).

Deuteronomy 27 gives the curses for disobeying God that the Levites were to read to the people from Mt Ebal when they entered Canaan. A wide variety of sins that would cause one to be cursed by God. They fulfill this command when Joshua has the curses and blessings read from Mt Ebal and Mt Gerizim (Joshua 8).