Deuteronomy 1-2 (11th Mar) - Vivien

A short summary of Deuteronomy, extracted from The Student Bible (NIV):
This book contains 3 of Moses’ speeches:

1) Chapter 1 – 3: a recapped of God’s dealings with Israel.

2) Chapter 4 – 26: the longest speech, which talks about moral and civil code that the Israelites have agreed to keep. Along with the laws, reminders, object lessons, personal outburst were included by him.

3) Chapter 27 – 33: the final summing up and farewell speech.

So for today as we read Chapter 1 and 2, we might find certain incidents familiar… a déjà vu? Haha… no lah… Moses is speaking to the new generation that were allowed into the Promised Land. So it is like a grandfather telling story to his grandchildren. I think one reason he did that was because those events that took place occurred when they were still too young to understand or remember. Knowing that he would not be entering the Promised Land and time on earth was up soon; he decided to take the trouble to tell a very long story hoping that the new generation would not fall into the same mistakes made by their fathers. It must have been tiring for Moses to tell this story that can be emotionally wrecking, especially knowing the fact that he would die without entering the Promised Land.

To all the young ones, listening is an important skill to adopt. Don’t be turned off immediately if somebody shares with you his or her old grandfather story. There are usually precious lessons to learn from.