What's the good word?
Deuteronomy 1:1-7 (New Revised Standard Version)
In Jewish tradition, the first five Old Testament books have different titles they do in Christian Bibles. To make a long story short, the Hebrew titles come from the first few words of the books themselves. Thus, Genesis becomes In the beginning. Exodus becomes These are the names, etc. Deuteronomy becomes These are the words.
Now you may be asking, “Why bother over this business of the book's title? What difference does it make?” That’s a fair question. Titles often set expectations of what we’re going to find inside the work itself. “Deuteronomy” doesn’t have a lot of natural resonance in English. Even its literal translation -- "second law" -- is not particularly helpful even if we translate this Greek phrase literally. So, as we begin reading Deuteronomy, I encourage you to contemplate the things you read here under the title Words.
Doing this should raise questions. What words? Whose words? We often refer to Deuteronomy (as well as the other four books of the Pentateuch) as “The Books of Moses” or “the Law of Moses”. On one level, it’s obvious why this would be the case.
Yet, in significant ways, this understanding is off-base. Moses couldn’t call Israel into the wilderness until he, himself, was called out of it! (Ex. 3-4). It was not Moses who confronted and conquered Pharaoh, but Yahweh (Ex. 14:13-18, et al). The instruction that Moses “gave” the people from Mount Sinai/Horeb was not his own, it was God’s.
Deuteronomy is, among other things, Moses’ extended farewell speech. The Israelites are finally about to enter the Promised Land, but they will have to do so without the man who has been at their head for the last 40 years. Imagine how the average Israelite must have felt. He/she had never known a time when Moses wasn’t at the head of the nation.
What were the unspoken fears and anxieties of Mr. or Ms. Israel in those days? I suspect at least one was fear of losing “the indispensable man”. It is human nature to seek savior-figures, and to want them visible and sensible by us. It's one of the roots of idolatry. We find it hard to trust in a God we cannot see…to say nothing of One we cannot predict or control.
Like ancient Israel -- like every generation -- we now face an unknown future. Many who survey the last 40 years of American history, judge that our communities, families, and souls have degraded.
Many have sought restoration through political savior-figures. Even when we get good ones – and we sometimes do – they suffer the same problem as Moses. They die. How do we decide what to do then? Whose words will guide us into the future? Whose words, indeed?