This Is the Law

Deuteronomy 4:44–5:33 – Deuteronomy: Then You Shall Live
Christ the King – November 24, 2019 (am)
 

Our call today: enter into the joy of Sabbath rest. Surely the words joy and rest sound pleasant! But, what does this charge mean to us? How do we respond? That’s what we want to see in our passage today, where the fourth commandment stands center stage. Let’s approach this topic under three headings.

Moses Kicks Off His Sermon on the Law (4:44-5:5, 22-33)

When Moses opens his second sermon saying: 44 This is the law…, he’s referring to all he’s planning to say in cc.5-26 (McConville 206). He’s going to unpack the law of God in pretty fine detail in order to prepare Israel for life in the land. And as he begins, he reminds them that they’re gathered at a place, right there where they were meeting, that was provided for them by God through their victories over Sihon and Og, two [kings] of the Amorites (4:44-49).

5:1 And there Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, “Hear, O Israel, a repeated introduction to important instruction (5:1; 6:4; 9:1; 20:3; 27:9), [hear] the statutes and the rules that I speak in your hearing today, and you shall learn them and be careful to do them. Then Moses proceeds to remind them that 2 [t]he Lord [their] God made a covenant with [them] in Horeb (Sinai) that was not the same as the one He had made with the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

That one was unconditional; God swore to it by Himself (Gen.15). No matter what happened in history, then, His chosen people would endure as a nation; they were promised land, a name, and blessing (Gen).12:1-3).

Here we have a suzerain-vassal treaty made between a lord and subjects. It plays out within the framework of the covenant with Abraham, but Israel would have walk in faithful obedience to the stipulations of this covenant in order to enjoy its promised blessings (Merrill 141-2).

22 [God] then spoke [the] words of this covenant to [Israel] at the mountain out of the midst of the fire…, with a loud voice…. And he wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to [Moses]. And once the people heard this, their elders (23) asked Moses that from now on he would serve as their mediator: 26 For who is there of all flesh, that has heard the voice of the living God speaking out of the midst of fire as we have, and has still lived? They feared God. And this pleased the Lord (28). He said to Moses: 29 Oh that they had such a heart as this always, to fear me and to keep all my commandments, that it might go well with them and with their descendants forever! So, this became the arrangement. And the Lord then stressed with Moses (32-33) that the people should walk in obedience to His commandments so 33 … that [they] may live, and that it may go well with [them], and that [they]may live long in the land that [they will] possess.

That covers the surrounding material. Now for…

Moses’ Amplifications of the Fourth Commandment (5:6-21)

The actual words that God spoke with a loud voice out of the midst of the fire are recorded in vv.6-21. When I’m studying a longer passage like ours this morning, I often listen to a recording of someone else reading it while I follow the text with my eyes. It strengthens my reception of the text and deepens my perception of its meaning to receive it through my eyes and ears at the same time. But this week I added a new exercise. I listened to Deu.5:6-21 with eyes on Exo.20:2-17. I listened to the Ten Commandments from Deu.5 while looking at them in Exo.20. It helped me see where they differed. Let me run through those differences; there weren’t many.

In the tenth commandment, you shall not covet (21), Deu. reverses the order of your neighbor’s house and [his] wife from how it appears in Exo., and it introduces a new word for the second appearance of covet, namely, desire.

Commandments seven through ten are each introduced with And in Deu. (18-21); those don’t appear in Exo.

And Deu.5:16 adds two phrases to the fifth commandment from how it appears in Exo.20:12. 12 Honor your father and your mother, [as the Lord your God commanded you,] that your days may be long[, and that it may go well with you] in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

Aside from these slight differences, the commandments in Deu.5 are word-for-word the same as in Exo.20, except for the fourth commandment which is notably different. Let’s do my exercise in reverse: you watch Deu.5:12-15 while I read from Exo.20:8 Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Pretty different! And the differences are significant. They adjust the meaning! But they adjust it not in a way that causes us to doubt the authority of Scripture, but in a way that deepens and sweetens our understanding of it. Let’s walk through these differences one at a time to see what I mean.

First is the opening word, observe, in place of remember. These two verbs are essentially synonymous, but [observe] implies more active participation. … [It] may well reflect a tendency on Israel’s part to have [treated] Sabbath keeping as a… mere formality, or even a s a matter of indifference (Merrill 150). Num.15:32-36 records such an instance, a man gathering firewood (cf. Exo.35:3). But we also know Israel struggled to observe the Sabbath throughout her history.

Second is the insertion of the phrase, as the Lord your God commanded you (12), just as in v.16. If we’re right that observe reflects an intentional strengthening of remember due to a developing indifference toward Sabbath regulations, we might actually understand this insertion as a confirmation, a grounding, of that strengthening.

Third is the insertion of your ox or your donkey or any of in front of your livestock (10). It sounds like Moses may be underscoring the importance of providing rest for all the animals for some reason that may clarify as we proceed.

Fourth is the insertion of a clause that provides some rationale for requiring Sabbath rest especially regarding one’s servants: that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you (14). As Israel moves into the land, they cannot let their tendency toward indifference regarding the Sabbath incline them toward requiring their servants to continue [working] in the land even while they rest.

And that leads to the fifth, final, and most profound difference, the motive clause. In Exo.20:11, God rested on the seventh day of creation week, therefore He blessed it and made it holy. It’s not to be put to common use; God set this day apart for Himself and He Himself modeled the nature and proper use of it: He rested from His labor. Now in Deu.5:15, the motive clause focuses on Israel’s experience of [slavery] in the land of Egypt and God’s deliverance of them with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. They know what it’s like to be [slaves] and they simply cannot recreate the lifestyle in their land that that they suffered under in the land of Egypt.

The Lord [their] God is their Protector and Provider. And they’re commanded to honor His consecration of the seventh day by ceasing their work, devoting it to Him, and rehearsing the fact that they lose nothing by giving up the labor and profits of that day. In fact, they work with a refreshed spirit on the other six days because of the blessing of the holy seventh day, a sign of their covenant relationship with God (Exo.31:16-17).

And they’re to spread that blessing to their children, to their servants, to their animals, and to all immigrants in the land. They’re even supposed to spread it to the land itself; every seventh year by law the land should rest from being [sown] and [reaped] (Lev.25:2-4).

So, what does all this mean? Why the difference from Exo.20 to Deu.5 with regard to the fourth commandment?

Pondering the Implications of Moses’ Amplifications

There are several different angles from which we could address this question. First, we can surely see that the motive clause, the reason why Israel was to remember and observe the Sabbath day, [and] keep it holy, spotlights more of Who God is in Exo.20 and in Deu.5 more of what He’s done. His work in creation reveals His deity and power (cf. Rom.1:20), His sovereignty and authority as God, the One Who made all things including us, and His pattern of [working] for six days and [resting] on the seventh. Then His work in redeeming Israel out of slavery shows His heart of compassion and mercy, His enormous grace and awesome power to save.

It could be that this is why we see such variance in the presentation of the fourth commandment in Exo. vs. Deu. We’re seeing God in two different but complementary ways, as Creator and as Redeemer. But that doesn’t explain why we have these expanded or inserted phrases that talk about how Israel is supposed to treat the Sabbath—that expanded language listing the different animals and the inserted rationale about your male… and… female servant [being entitled to] rest [along with] you (14). These show us that it’s more than just character of God that’s in the spotlight as the fourth commandment is being presented here in Deu.5. Israel’s response to it is receiving more attention as well.

This expanded instruction is suggesting that Israel’s response should show up in how they treat people, especially their servants, and how they treat their animals, even how they treat their land. The grace and favor with which they manage what belongs to them should reflect the grace and favor God has shown to them in delivering them out of [slavery] in the land of Egypt. The blessing of Sabbath that they enjoy in their relationship with God should be extended to all who’re around them, to everything under their charge and in their sphere of influence.

And there seems to be special emphasis on spreading this blessing to those who are vulnerable, those who are in need of care, including animals but especially people, your [servants]. God says to His people through Isaiah:

1:13 “… New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations —I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. 14 Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates; they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them. 15 When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. 16 Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, 17 learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause. 18 Come now, let us reason together,” says the Lord; “though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow….”

56:1 Thus says the Lord: “Keep justice, and do righteousness, for soon my salvation will come, and my righteousness be revealed. Blessed is the man who does this, and the son of man who holds it fast, who keeps the Sabbath, not profaning it, and keeps his hand from doing evil.”

It seems like what Deu.5’s version of the fourth commandment is setting us up to understand is that God’s people honor Him on His holy Sabbath by treating others with the same mercy and grace that He has shown to them. It’s like Exo.20 is calling Israel to keep the Sabbath as an expression of love and devotion to their great and glorious God. And Deu.5 is calling them to keep the Sabbath by receiving His love and turning it outward toward other people, especially people in some form of dependence or need—children, [servants], the fatherless, the [widow], the oppressed. Isa.58 goes on and on regarding this sort of expression capturing the heart of Sabbath, then it finishes with a promise saying that, if you will give your heart to this pursuit, 14 then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. As one writer put it regarding the heart of Sabbath: Compassion is a better guide to proper behavior than rules defined by legal experts (Westerholm DJG 719).

So, what we have to see here is that the fourth commandment plays a pretty pivotal role among the ten. The fourth is the point at which the transition happens from focus on loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength in commandments one through three, to loving your neighbor as yourself in commandments five through ten.

Sabbath in Israel was intended to be the seventh day set aside to honor and worship God by ceasing from all work in imitation of His rest at the end of creation week and by loving and serving people in imitation of His love and mercy displayed in their deliverance from [slavery] in the land of Egypt. This is Deu.5:12-15 taken together with Exo.20:8-11. As a unit they call us to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to display that by loving our neighbor as ourselves—exactly what Jesus identified as the heart and summary of the law.

Conclusion

And with this understanding of Sabbath, we also have a model for how we honor this commandment in Christ. As the NT people of God, when we place our trust in Christ our love for God is made perfect in Him, as is our love for neighbor. He is our Sabbath rest, and by faith in Him we become Sabbath-keepers, ones whose hearts are set at rest in Christ, freed from our bondage to sin in order to take delight in the Lord our God, to love Him in a manner worthy of His greatness and glory, and to love our neighbor with this same quality of gracious and merciful love as Jesus showered upon us at the cross and by giving us His Spirit. It becomes our privilege to display this quality of love! And it’s almost like the needier the recipient is, the more joyful becomes the privilege of loving him or her well!

So, our call today is to enter into the joy of this Sabbath rest! This love of God and neighbor that is anchored to and delighted by the power and glory of our Creator God and by the grace and mercy of His redeeming love is ours by faith in Christ! He is our Sabbath rest! Knowing Him is our joy! And our experience of this joy by living in that grace-enabled delight in the Lord which shows itself as devoted love of neighbor, is the heart and soul of Sabbath rest!

Enter into the joy of Sabbath rest!