Avoiding Our Father's Sins
Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 1
The English title is Deuteronomy, meaning “second law.” The name comes from the fact that Moses gives the Law again in this last book of the Pentateuch. The English translation of the Hebrew title is simply “Words.” The Hebrew titles were based on the first line or first word of the book. Deuteronomy begins, “These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel beyond the Jordan in the wilderness…”
These words were given to Israel during the final 37 days of Moses' life on earth. When he finished this book he would ascend the mountain, look out over the Promise Land, and then be gathered to his people; his body buried in a secret place by the LORD.
We aren’t finished with chapter one before the words turn to rebuke. He chastises Israel for their unbelief and fear that caused the rebellion and kept them in the wilderness and out of the Promise Land for 40 years. Even though the generation that sinned was dead, Moses uses the pronoun “you,” and doesn’t say, “they.”
Yet you would not go up but rebelled against the command of the LORD you God. And you murmured in your tents… (Deuteronomy 1:26)
It seems Moses was charging the children with the sins of their fathers. One might wonder if that generation felt they were being unfairly criticized. What was the point of this exercise? Why, while they were poised to enter the land, would Moses begin by reminding them and even chastising them for their father’s past sins?
In the New Testament, Paul writes that these things were written for our benefit also. Moses is giving these words as a warning more than as an accusation. He shocks them with the personal pronoun “you” to awaken them to the fact that they carry the same sinful nature as their fathers. They could repeat the same mistakes.
As the old saying goes, “Those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it.” Moses is reminding them of this blot on their history so that they will not repeat the sins of their fathers. Or should I say, so that we won’t repeat the sins of our spiritual fathers?
The writer of Hebrews picks up on this. He sees that the warning of Moses' words needs to be heard again and again.
Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God…Do not harden your heart as in the rebellion. For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses…Let us, therefore, strive to enter that rest so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. (Hebrews 3:12, 16, 4:11)
