Do Not Forget
4: 9-14
Do not forget DIG: When Moshe said, “Do not forget the things your eyes have seen,” what is the relationship between this directive and obedience to the Torah? What does this connection between God’s actions and His Torah tell you about how He works? What suggestions does Moses give to parents to influence their children in a godly direction? Which of these, if any, do you most need to work on?
REFLECT: When is it hardest for you to give God’s Word its due place in your life? What needs to happen this week to make sure that will happen? Can you recall a specific time when God’s Word brought clarity and guidance to your life? What happened? How did Scripture fill you with ache for God? When life gets busy, are you prone to forget God and His commandments? If not, how can you help others to remember.
Moses warns this second generation to be careful not to forget God’s expectations of them. He reminds them that God’s intangible appearance at Horeb to their parents was intended to instill in them the fear of Ha’Shem, and this generation should be no less fearful.
Only be watchful and watch over your soul closely, so you do not forget the things (Hebrew: ha-d’varim, meaning words, matters, things, commandments, events or reasons) your eyes have seen and they slip from your heart all the days of your life. They had never literally seen their God, but they had seen what their God had done. That is, in the Exodus from Egypt, and in the travels in the wilderness that had brought them to the plains of Mo’ab. This “forgetting” does not simply mean loss of memory, but actually failing to live in the light of ADONAI’s repeated intervention on their behalf. In other words, living as though those great and awesome events never took place.116 Isra’el was prone to forget YHVH and His commandments, and therefore needed to be reminded not to forget.
Dear Father God, You are Awesome! May we never forget Your love for us at the cross, taking on Yourself our punishment (Second Corinthians 5:19). When we see Your outstretched arms of love, may we also see the painful nail prints in Your hands and feet and bow in worship at how much Your love cost you to redeem us. May our own suffering for bearing Your name make us grateful for Your great pain that You paid to rescue us, and may we always keep our eyes on the joy of pleasing You (Second Corinthians 4:16-17).
The great events at Horeb so long ago were to be guarded carefully so they would not be forgotten. You are to make them known to your children and your children’s children (4:9). The educational thrust of Deuteronomy as a whole is reinforced by frequent instructions for parents to take their own teaching role within the family network of the nation very seriously (6:7 and 20ff, 11:19, 31:13, 32:46).117
After encouraging the people to observe God’s commandments, Moses continued to impress upon them that they should never forget the awesome event at Mount Sinai, where in the middle of the thunder and lightning they received those commandments. They needed to remember the fact that God revealed directly, and not through a mediator, His will to Isra’el, and no seer or dreamer could ever diminish the authority of the Torah.
Moshe reminded the people of the nation’s awesome experience at Horeb when Ha’Shem made His covenant with their parents. The day that [the nation] stood before ADONAI your God in Horeb (which is the name used for Mount Sinai in Deuteronomy), ADONAI said to me, “Gather the people to Me and I will make them hear My [Ten] words (to see link click Bk – The Ten Words), so that they learn to fear Me all the days that they live on the earth, and so that they teach their children” (4:10).
The fear of Ha’Shem is one of the dominating thoughts in the TaNaKh. It is a God-given response which enables a person to reverence YHVH, obey His commandments, and to hate evil (Proverbs 8:13; Jeremiah 32:40; Hebrews 5:7-8). It is the beginning of wisdom (Psalm 111:10), it is the secret of godly living, and applies to all mankind (Ecclesiastes 12:13). The fear of ADONAI is given as one of the characteristics of the Messiah (Isaiah 11:2-3). God’s people in every age are urged to cultivate and walk in the fear of the LORD (Psalm 34:11; Jeremiah 2:19; Acts 9:31 and 10:2; Ephesians 5:21; Philippians 2:12).118
The details of the experience of Ha’Shem at Horeb/Sinai are vividly recalled for this second generation. Human words are quite inadequate to describe the Sh’khinah glory (see the commentary on Isaiah Ju – The Glory of the LORD Rises Upon You) and the awful majesty of God. The best Moses could do was to make symbolic expressions. He said, “Your parents came near and stood at the bottom of the mountain while the mountain was blazing with fire up to the heart of the heavens – darkness, cloud, and fog. ADONAI spoke to them from the midst of the fire. The sound of words they heard, but a form they did not see – only a voice was audible” (4:11-12). It has been observed that the Jewish culture never developed a visual religious culture, unlike the Greeks. Part of that reason lies in the imageless nature of Isra’el’s worship: the form they did not see. YHVH was to be heard, and through hearing, obeyed.119
But this was not a stern, one-way proposition. It was a relationship. Deuteronomy preserves the balance between obedience to God’s statues (Hebrew: hachukkim, meaning to write into law permanently) and ordinances (Hebrew: ham mishpatim, meaning a judgment of the court), and a relationship with Him through the constant emphasis on the extraordinary grace of ADONAI at the Exodus and in the wilderness. The response to these acts of God is love. Our primary relationship to God should be love. If we possess this kind of love, we will be completely obedient and loyal to Him. The Ten Words need to be written on our hearts, or the gospel will be lost and seen merely as a set of rules (see the commentary on Jeremiah Eo – The Days are Coming, declares the LORD, When I Will Make a New Covenant with the People of Isra’el).120
God declared to you His covenant, which He commanded you to do – the Ten Words (Hebrew: ha-d’varim) – and He wrote them on two tablets of stone which were visible for all the people to see (4:13). There is a partial identification here of the covenant and the Ten Words. The covenant has, however, much more to it than the general stipulations (see Bj – The First Address: The General Stipulations of the Covenant); there are also specific stipulations (see Cr – The Second Address: The Specific Stipulations of the Covenant). And part of the evidence that Isra’el had accepted the conditions of the covenant was that she lived by YHVH’s statutes and ordinances. In a later day, James would say it like this: Show me your faith without works, and I will show you faith by my works (James 2:18).121
Then Moses added: ADONAI commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and ordinances so that you might do them in the Land you are crossing over to possess (4:14). Apart from the Ten Words, all the other commandments were proclaimed by YHVH to Isra’el through Moses, who, by that time, was accepted as the faithful prophet of God.
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