The Message Remix (56 page)

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Authors: Eugene H. Peterson

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“Your western border will be the Mediterranean Sea.
“Your northern border runs on a line from the Mediterranean Sea to Mount Hor, and from Mount Hor to Lebo Hamath, connects to Zedad, continues to Ziphron, and ends at Hazar Enan. This is your northern border.
“Your eastern border runs on a line from Hazar Enan to Shepham. The border goes south from Shepham to Riblah to the east of Ain, and continues along the slopes east of the Sea of Galilee. The border then follows the Jordan River and ends at the Dead Sea.
“This is your land with its four borders.”
Moses then commanded the People of Israel: “This is the land: Divide up the inheritance by lot. GOD has ordered it to be given to the nine and a half tribes. The tribe of Reuben, the tribe of Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh have already received their inheritance; the two tribes and the half-tribe got their inheritance east of Jordan-Jericho, facing the sunrise.”
 
GOD spoke to Moses: “These are the men who will be in charge of distributing the inheritance of the land: Eleazar the priest and Joshua son of Nun. Assign one leader from each tribe to help them in distributing the land. Assign these:
Caleb son of Jephunneh from the tribe of Judah;
Shemuel son of Ammihud from the tribe of Simeon;
Elidad son of Kislon from the tribe of Benjamin;
Bukki son of Jogli, leader from the tribe of Dan;
Hanniel son of Ephod, leader from the tribe of Manasseh son of Joseph;
Kemuel son of Shiphtan, leader from the tribe of Ephraim son of Joseph;
Elizaphan son of Parnach, leader from the tribe of Zebulun;
Paltiel son of Azzan, leader from the tribe of Issachar;
Ahihud son of Shelomi, leader from the tribe of Asher;
Pedahel son of Ammihud, leader from the tribe of Naphtali.”
 
These are the men GOD commanded to hand out the assignments of land-inheritance to the People of Israel in the country of Canaan.
Cities for Levites and Asylum-Cities
 
035
Then GOD spoke to Moses on the Plains of Moab at Jordan-Jericho: “Command the People of Israel to give the Levites as their part of the total inheritance towns to live in. Make sure there is plenty of pasture around the towns. Then they will be well taken care of with towns to live in and pastures for their cattle, flocks, and other livestock.
“The pasture surrounding the Levites’ towns is to extend 1,500 feet in each direction from the city wall. The outside borders of the pasture are to measure three thousand feet on each of the four sides—east, south, west, and north—with the town at the center. Each city will be supplied with pasture.
“Six of these towns that you give the Levites will be asylum-cities to which anyone who accidentally kills another person may flee for asylum. In addition, you will give them forty-two other towns—forty-eight towns in all, together with their pastures. The towns that you give the Levites from the common inheritance of the People of Israel are to be taken in proportion to the size of each tribe—many towns from a tribe that has many, few from a tribe that has few.”
GOD spoke to Moses: “Speak to the People of Israel. Tell them, When you cross the River Jordan into the country of Canaan, designate your asylum-cities, towns to which a person who accidentally kills someone can flee for asylum. They will be places of refuge from the avenger so that the alleged murderer won’t be killed until he can appear before the community in court. Provide six asylum-cities. Designate three of the towns to the east side of the Jordan, the other three in Canaan proper—asylum-cities for the People of Israel, for the foreigner, and for any occasional visitors or guests—six asylum-cities to run to for anyone who accidentally kills another.
“But if the killer has used an iron object, that’s just plain murder; he’s obviously a murderer and must be put to death.
“Or if he has a rock in his hand big enough to kill and the man dies, that’s murder; he’s a murderer and must be put to death.
“Or if he’s carrying a wooden club heavy enough to kill and the man dies, that’s murder; he’s a murderer and must be put to death.
“In such cases the avenger has a right to kill the murderer when he meets him—he can kill him on the spot.
“And if out of sheer hatred a man pushes another or from ambush throws something at him and he dies, or angrily hits him with his fist and kills him, that’s murder—he must be put to death. The avenger has a right to kill him when he gets him.
“If, however, he impulsively pushes someone and there is no history of hard feelings, or he impetuously picks up something and throws it, or he accidentally drops a stone tool—a maul or hammer, say—and it hits and kills someone he didn’t even know was there, and there’s no suspicion that there was bad blood between them, the community is to judge between the killer and the avenger following these guidelines. It’s the task of the community to save the killer from the hand of the avenger—the community is to return him to his asylum-city to which he fled. He must stay there until the death of the High Priest who was anointed with the holy oil. But if the murderer leaves the asylum-city to which he has fled, and the avenger finds him outside the borders of his asylum-city, the avenger has a right to kill the murderer. And he’s not considered guilty of murder.
“So it’s important that he stay in his asylum-city until the death of the High Priest. After the death of the High Priest he is free to return to his own place.
 
“These are the procedures for making judgments from now on, wherever you live.
“Anyone who kills another may be executed only on the testimony of eyewitnesses. But no one can be executed on the testimony of only one witness.
“Don’t accept bribe money in exchange for the life of a murderer. He’s guilty and deserves the death penalty. Put him to death.
“And don’t accept bribe money for anyone who has fled to an asylum-city so as to permit him to go back and live in his own place before the death of the High Priest.
“Don’t pollute the land in which you live. Murder pollutes the land. The land can’t be cleaned up of the blood of murder except through the blood of the murderer.
“Don’t desecrate the land in which you live. I live here, too—I, GOD, live in the same neighborhood with the People of Israel.”
The Daughters of Zelophehad
 
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The heads of the ancestral clan of Gilead son of Makir, the son of Manasseh—they were from the clans of the descendants of Joseph—approached Moses and the leaders who were heads of the families in the People of Israel.
They said, “When GOD commanded my master to hand over the inheritance-lands by lot to the People of Israel, my master was also commanded by GOD to hand over the inheritance-land of Zelophehad our brother to his daughters. But what happens if they marry into another tribe in the People of Israel? Their inheritance-land will be taken out of our ancestral tribe and get added into the tribe into which they married. And then when the year of Jubilee comes for the People of Israel their inheritance will be lumped in with the inheritance of the tribe into which they married—their land will be removed from our ancestors’ inheritance!”
Moses, at GOD’s command, issued this order to the People of Israel: “What the tribe of the sons of Joseph says is right. This is GOD’s command to Zelophehad’s daughters: They are free to marry anyone they choose as long as they marry within their ancestral clan. The inheritance-land of the People of Israel must not get passed around from tribe to tribe. No, keep the tribal inheritance-land in the family. Every daughter who inherits land, regardless of the tribe she is in, must marry a man from within her father’s tribal clan. Every Israelite is responsible for making sure the inheritance stays within the ancestral tribe. No inheritance-land may be passed from tribe to tribe; each tribe of the People of Israel must hold tight to its own land.”
Zelophehad’s daughters did just as GOD commanded Moses. Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Noah, Zelophehad’s daughters, all married their cousins on their father’s side. They married within the families of Manasseh son of Joseph and their inheritance-lands stayed in their father’s family.
These are the commands and regulations that GOD commanded through the authority of Moses to the People of Israel on the Plains of Moab at Jordan-Jericho.
INTRODUCTION DEUTERONOMY
 
Deuteronomy is a sermon—actually a series of sermons. It is the longest sermon in the Bible and maybe the longest sermon ever
.
Deuteronomy presents Moses, standing on the Plains of Moab with all Israel assembled before him, preaching.
It is his last sermon. When he completes it, he will leave his pulpit on the plains, climb a mountain, and die.
The setting is stirring and emotion-packed. Moses had entered the biblical story of salvation as a little baby born in Egypt under a death threat. Now, 120 years later, eyesight sharp as ever and walking with “a spring in his step,” he preaches this immense sermon and dies, still brimming with words and life.
This sermon does what all sermons are intended to do: Take God’s words, written and spoken in the past, take the human experience, ancestral and personal, of the listening congregation, then reproduce the words and experience as a single event right now, in this present moment. No word that God has spoken is a mere literary artifact to be studied; no human experience is dead history merely to be regretted or admired. The continuous and insistent Mosaic repetitions of “today” and “this day” throughout these sermons keep attentions taut and responsive. The complete range of human experience is brought to life and salvation by the full revelation of God: Live this! Now!
The Plains of Moab are the last stop on the forty-year journey from Egyptian slavery to Promised Land freedom. The People of Israel have experienced a lot as a congregation: deliverance, wanderings, rebellions, wars, providence, worship, guidance. The People of Israel have heard a lot from God: commandments, covenant conditions, sacrificial procedures. And now, poised at the River Jordan, ready to cross over and possess the new land, Moses, preaching his great Plains of Moab sermon, makes sure that they don’t leave any of it behind, not so much as one detail of their experience or God’s revelation: He puts their entire experience of salvation and providence into the present tense (chapters 1-11); he puts the entire revelation of commandment and covenant into the present tense (chapters 12-28); and then he wraps it all up in a charge and a song and a blessing to launch them into today’s obedience and believing (chapters 29-34).
“Let’s go.”
 
 
From:
In effect, Moses wrote the constitution of a new nation. Today a constitution is an agreement among “We the people” about how we want to govern ourselves. But Deuteronomy is an agreement between a king (God) and his people. In Moses’ day, treaties between kings and their people were common. They typically followed the format Moses used: Here’s what the King has done for you (chapters 1-11); here’s how you’re agreeing to respond (chapters 12-28); and here’s the blessing you can expect if you follow through (chapters 29-34).
 
To:
The slaves who fled Egypt were sped on by miracles but panicked at the courage and work that living as free people in a dangerous world requires. So God kept them in the wilderness until that spineless generation died out and a younger, gutsier one grew up. But Moses talked to this new generation as though they themselves had been physically present for all the fireworks. They were going to have to live what their parents couldn’t. And as William Faulkner said much later, “The past isn’t history. It isn’t even past.”
 
Re:
Possibly 1240 B.C. By this time, Aryan warriors from central Asia had invaded northern India, driving the earlier inhabitants south. Their language and tribal culture were the roots of the diverse languages and territories of modern India. They adopted the caste system of former inhabitants of India.

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