Biblical scholarship has long recognized the similarities between Israel’s covenant with God and other covenantal agreements between kingdoms. This parallel shouldn’t be surprising. The Lord was simply working with His people in an environment that they could understand.

At the same time, the idea of a covenant, a legal agreement between two parties, with rules and stipulations and regulations, can seem so cold and so formal.

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Though that element must indeed exist (God is the law-Giver), it’s not broad enough to encompass the depth and breadth of the kind of relationship God wanted with His people. Hence, other images are used in Deuteronomy to help portray the same idea as the covenant between God and Israel, but just to give it added dimensions.

Read Deuteronomy 8:5; Deuteronomy 14:1; and Deuteronomy 32:6, Deuteronomy 32:18-20. What kind of imagery is used here, and how could this help reveal the relationship God wanted with His people?

Read Deuteronomy 4:20 and Deuteronomy 32:9. What imagery is used here, and how, too, does this help reveal the kind of relationship God wanted with His people?

In each case, there is the idea of family, which, ideally, should be the closest, tightest, and most loving of bonds. God has always wanted this kind of relationship with His people. Even after their shameful rejection of Jesus during the time of the cross, Jesus said to the two Marys after He had been resurrected, “Go and tell My brethren to go to Galilee, and there they will see Me” (Matthew 28:10). Even as the resurrected Christ, He referred to the disciples as “My brethren,” an example of love and the grace that flows from love for those who certainly didn’t deserve it. That’s essentially what the relationship between God and humanity has always been: grace and love given to the undeserving.

<–Wednesday Friday–>

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Love does no wrong to others, so love fulfills the requirements of God’s law. Romans 13:10 NLT 

A young grade-school boy and his daddy were walking down a country road when they noticed a car pull over to the shoulder a few hundred meters up the road. The passenger door opened, and a little puppy fell out the door into the ditch near the shoulder of the road.

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The boy watched in amazement as the car then sped off. The boy ran to the aid of the little puppy. He found the puppy whining and confused, as well as looking malnourished. When the father finally caught up to the boy, the boy firmly told his daddy, “I know you may not let me keep him, but we have to take him home and feed him right now!” 

What did the little boy mean by “we have to?” How did an abandoned puppy suddenly became his problem? Was there some law written in stone that the boy had to rescue this poor dog? As a matter fact there was a law, but it was not written in stone. The only reason why the boy said, “we have to” is because there was a law written on that little boy’s heart. 

In Luke 10:30-37 Jesus tells a familiar story we call today, “The Good Samaritan.” In the story both the Levi and the priest knew the law of God which was written in stone, but yet they passed by a suffering brother, because that law was not written on their hearts. Then a Samaritan walks by who has the law of love written on his heart. He at once recognized what he had to do, not because of the law written in stone, but because of a law of love tugging at his heart strings. Like puppet strings, his heart strings controlled his behavior. 

Writing God’s law of love on our heart is not new to the New Testament. The goal was never to have the law of love written on stone. The ultimate goal was always to have the law written on our hearts. This goes back to the Old Testament. 

But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel after those days,” says the Lord. “I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. Jeremiah 31:33 NLT 

And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. Deuteronomy 6:5 NLT 

“Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against a fellow Israelite, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. Leviticus 19:18 NLT

True justice must be given to foreigners living among you and to orphans, and you must never accept a widow’s garment as security for her debt. Deuteronomy 24:17 NLT

In the Old Testament as well as today, God does not just want the letter of the law written on stone. He wants the spirit of the law written on our hearts. That means showing love and compassion for a little puppy that will never be able to help you. It means showing love and compassion for a neighbor or foreigner who would probably just spit on you and pass you by if the situation were reversed.  

This “letter” is written not with pen and ink, but with the Spirit of the living God. It is carved not on tablets of stone, but on human hearts. 2 Corinthians 3:3 NLT 

A Samaritan had to rescue a foreigner left to die in a ditch, a young boy had to rescue a helpless puppy. They had to because the law was etched upon their hearts. 

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It’s hard for us today to grasp much of what the ancient world was like at the time in which Israel was wandering the wilderness. If whole empires have come and gone, with only ruins (if that) remaining, what can we know of many of the smaller pagan nations that lived in the same area as Israel did?

Not a whole lot, but we do know one thing: these people were steeped in paganism, polytheism, and some utterly degrading practices, which included child sacrifice. Try to imagine just how degrading and evil a culture and a religion would be that would do that to their own children, and do so in the name of some god!

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No wonder, over and over, all through the history of ancient Israel, the Lord had warned His people against following the practices of the nations around them. “When you come into the land which the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations” (Deuteronomy 18:9).

And that’s because God had called out this nation for a special purpose. By having entered into the covenant with God, they were to be a special people, a witness to the world of the God who created the heaven and the earth — the only God.

Read Deuteronomy 26:16-19. How is the covenant relationship between God and Israel summed up in these verses? How should their faithfulness to the covenant be manifested in the kind of people they were to become? What lessons can we take from there for ourselves, as well?

How fascinating that Moses begins these four verses with the words “this day,” as in right now, again, God commands you to do these things (Moses repeats the idea in verse 17). He had been commanding them all along to do these things. It’s as if he is telling them they need to commit at this very moment, again, to be the faithful, holy, and special people that is truly the central reason for their existence as the covenant nation. They were the only nation, as a nation, who knew the true God and knew the truth about this God and how He wanted people to live. In a real sense, they not only had “present truth” but they were, in their own way, to embody that truth until Jesus, “the Truth” Himself (John 14:6), was to come.

<–Tuesday Thursday–>

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Though the idea of covenant (berit in Hebrew), to describe God’s relationship with His people, is found all through the Bible, this word appears so often in Deuteronomy that Deuteronomy has been called “The Book of the Covenant.”

Look at Deuteronomy 5:1-21. What is happening here that helps to show how central the idea of covenant (berit) is to the book of Deuteronomy?

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Not long after the children of Israel were redeemed from Egypt, God established the covenant with them, at Sinai, just before they were supposed to enter the Promised Land. Then, after a 40-year detour, just before they are again to enter the Promised Land, which was a central part of the covenantal promise (see Genesis 12:7, Exodus 12:25), through the mouthpiece of Moses, the Lord again gives them the Ten Commandments, a way to re-emphasize just how important it was for them to renew their covenant obligations, as well.

Yes, the Lord was going to fulfill His covenantal promises to them. Now, though, they are obligated to uphold their end of the deal: “So He declared to you His covenant which He commanded you to perform, the Ten Commandments; and He wrote them on two tablets of stone” (Deuteronomy 4:13). He did it at Sinai, and now He was doing it again, in Moab, just before they were to take the land promised to them through the promise made to the fathers centuries earlier, a manifestation of the “everlasting covenant” that preceded even the existence of the world.

“Before the foundations of the earth were laid, the Father and the Son had united in a covenant to redeem man if he should be overcome by Satan. They had clasped Their hands in a solemn pledge that Christ should become the surety for the human race.” — Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 834.

Read Deuteronomy 5:3. How do we make sense of this verse?

What was Moses saying to them? Most likely Moses was emphasizing the fact that their fathers were now gone, and the wonderful covenantal promises made to the fathers were now being made to them. This could have been Moses’ way of letting them know that they should not mess up, as the previous generation had done. The promises (and obligations) are now theirs.

<–Monday Wednesday–>

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Key Thought: All through the Bible the covenant and the gospel appear together. The central truth of the covenant was the gospel: salvation by faith.
October 16, 2021

1. Have a volunteer read Deuteronomy 9:5, 27.

1. Ask class members to share a short thought on what the most important point is in this passage.
2. What do these verses tell us about the covenant promises made?
3. Personal Application: Since we are saved by grace through faith, what role does the law play in our lives today? Share your thoughts.
4. Case Study: One of your relatives states, “Does God overlook and excuse our sins because we have accepted Him as our Savior and become His children? Did He excuse and overlook Israel’s sins in the desert?” How would you respond to your friend?

2. Have a volunteer read Deuteronomy 5:1-7.

1. Ask class members to share a short thought on what the main idea of this text is.
2. What shows how central the idea of the covenant is to the book of Deuteronomy?
3. Personal Application: Do we look at this covenant as pertaining to us as Israel today? How different is this covenant from the new covenant in Hebrews 8:10 and 10:16? Share your thoughts.
4. Case Study: One of your relatives states: “Why did Moses say that the covenant was not with their fathers, but with them, and they are here today? How do I make sense out of this verse?“ How would you respond to your relative?

3. Have a volunteer read Deuteronomy 26:16-19.

1. Ask class members to share a thought on what the most important point in this text is.
2. How is the covenant relationship between God and Israel summed up?
3. Personal Application: Share your thoughts
4. Case Study: One of your friends states, “What does it mean that God wanted Israel to be a holy people? Can anyone ever really be holy? Keeping God’s commandments even from a heart of love is impossible for sinful beings. So what is God’s expectation for holiness?” How would you respond to your friend?

4. Have a volunteer read Deuteronomy 8:5, 14:1, 32:6.

1. Ask class members to share a short thought on what the main idea of this text is.
2. What kind of imagery here reflects the kind of relationship God wants for His people?
3. Personal Application: How do you look at God? What kind of relationship do you have with Him??” Share your thoughts.
4. Case Study: Think of one person who needs to hear a message from this week’s lesson. Tell the class what you plan to do this week to share with them.

(Truth that is not lived, that is not imparted, loses its life-giving power, its healing virtue. Its blessings can be retained only as it is shared.”Ministry of Healing, p. 148).

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