and when you and your children return to the lord your God and obey him with all your heart and with all your soul according to everything I command you today, then the lord your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you. (Deuteronomy 30:2-3 NIV) They will pray to me, but I will ignore them because they were evil and started worshiping other gods. (Deuteronomy 31:18 CEV)

No wonder the Israelites don’t do what He want — He can’t keep his own intents straight. On the one hand, the people don’t seem too bright. He has certainly shown how arbitrary and cruel He can be. I don’t see why they don’t just worship him and forget about the other gods. Most likely, like Ramses, He’s putting the ideas in their heads.

Next: Deuteronomy 32-34 (last chapters)

A woman may have grown up in such luxury that she never had to put a foot on the ground. But times will be so bad that she will secretly eat both her newborn baby and the afterbirth, without sharing any with her husband or her other children. (Deuteronomy 28:56-57 CEV)

In Chapter 28, there are fourteen verses about the Lord’s rewards for obedience, and fifty-four verses of punishment. He really gets into it, but I feel as though I’m reading a book by Lovecraft, and not Moses.

This reading felt familiar, so I’ll just point you to my discussion of Leviticus 26.

In Chapter 29, Moses reminds the people of the agreement they made with the Lord. What agreement was that? The one where the Lord threatens to destroy the entire town if a single person starts worshipping an idol? I don’t remember the people ever being given a choice.

In this chapter, there are more terrible threats of swift vengeance that the Lord will bring against His own people. Don’t make Him mad.

Next: Deuteronomy 30-31.

When men strive together one with another, and the wife of the one draweth near for to deliver her husband out of the hand of him that smiteth him, and putteth forth her hand, and taketh him by the secrets: Then thou shalt cut off her hand, thine eye shall not pity her. (Deuteronomy 25:11-12 KJV)

After reading this, my wife and I changed our Fight Club strategy.

If two brothers are living together and one dies without a son, his widow must marry her brother-in-law, and their first son will take the dead brother’s name. If the live brother refuses to marry her,

his brother’s widow shall go up to him in the presence of the elders, take off one of his sandals, spit in his face and say, “This is what is done to the man who will not build up his brother’s family line.” That man’s line shall be known in Israel as The Family of the Unsandaled. (Deuteronomy 25:9-10 NIV)

Beyond how silly this is, it means that while I’m required to marry my sister-in-law, I’m cursed if I marry my step-mother (Deuteronomy 27:20). What’s the difference?

There are some reasonable laws, like being honest, not hindering the blind, and helping the poor. However, there are two quite hypocritical laws.

First, anyone enslaving Israelites are put to death. Other slaves are fine.

Second, you should not kill a child for his father’s crime. However, just yesterday, I read, “A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the Lord.” (Deuteronomy 23:2 KJV)

So if a father’s crime is adultery, the child and the next ten generations after him are punished. But at least he’s not killed.

And then there’s that apple from Genesis. I’m still being punished for my great-great-great-…-great-grandmother’s appetite for knowledge.

One more thing: don’t forget to wipe of Amalek! (Deuteronomy 25:17-19)

Next: Deuteronomy 28-29.

He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord. (Deuteronomy 23:1 KJV)

Lots of rules in these chapters. In the previous book, we learned that lame people are not allowed in the temple. Now we learn another particular handicap that will keep you out.

I feel like I’m reading one of those joke books that list crazy laws like “in Samoa, it is illegal to forget your wife’s birthday.” Except that this is the Lord, and if you make Him angry, He’ll open the ground and have it swallow your extended family.

I’m just going to call out some of the sillier ones:

If you can’t solve a murder, you must sacrifice a cow. (21:1-9)

If you take a beautiful woman prisoner, you can shave her head, let her mourn for a month, and then marry her. (21:10-13)

If you have a disobedient son, have the townsfolk stone him. (21:21)

Poly/cotton blends are an abomination. (22:11)

Maybe He’s right on that last one.

There are some serious laws:

If a foreign slave seeks refuge, you should not send him back. His silence on escaped slaves of Israelites tells all.

If a married woman is raped in the town and no one hears, she and the rapist are stoned, since she must have really wanted it.

If an unmarried woman is raped, the rapist has the option of paying her father 50 shekels and marrying her.

If a husband accuses his wife of not being a virgin when they married, and she cannot prove she was, she is stoned. If she can prove it, he is whipped and fined.

Needless to say, I don’t think that any of these laws are reasonable, either the funny ones or the sad ones. Reading these chapters make me want to go to Tennessee and tear down the Ten Commandments plaque at the courthouse.

Next: Deuteronomy 24-27

And when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword: (Deuteronomy 20:13 KJV) When thou shalt besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, thou shalt not destroy the trees thereof by forcing an axe against them: for thou mayest eat of them, and thou shalt not cut them down (for the tree of the field is man’s life) to employ them in the siege: (Deuteronomy 20:19 KJV)

It’s important to keep Your priorities straight. Kill all the men. Enslave the women and children. But don’t hurt the fruit trees.

When they are to take the land the Lord has promised them, they are supposed to kill everyone, and the animals. But He doesn’t say what to do with those fruit trees.

When you … say, “Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us,” be sure to appoint over you a king the lord your God chooses. … (Deuteronomy 17:14-15 NIV)

He’s not even pretending to give His people free will. They can appoint any king He chooses. One catch about being king is that you can only have a moderate amount of wife’s. Don’t overdo it.

He later tells them at He will provide prophets who will speak as Moses has. You tell that they are His prophets because they’ll predict correctly. That hasn’t worked out very well lately. I’ve been known to do a pretty good cold reading sometimes.

Next: Deuteronomy 21-23.

Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk. (Deuteronomy 14:21 KJV)

First, a reminder of the kosher laws. Including a reminder that a rabbit chews its cud. Not! I can accept he Lord calling a bat a bird, since they didn’t have cladograms back then, but rabbits don’t have cud. Period. An omniscient god would get this right, but bronze age goatherds wouldn’t.

The rest of the chapters are the Lord reminding the Israelites to celebrate the high holidays properly. While there’s a lot of talk about helping the poor, and forgiving debts (of other Israelites), the jarring notes is that, if you own an Israeli slave, you must set him free in the seventh year. Slaves? When did we stop being allowed by the Lord to own slaves?

Next: Deuteronomy 17-20.

Chapter 13 is pretty severe. It’s all about what to do if a person or a people start worshipping other Gods. And it’s not pretty. If “thy brother…, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom … entice thee secretly…, thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.” (Deuteronomy 13:6-9 KJV)

If you hear that a city is starting to worship another God, you should investigate, and if true, “thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is therein, and the cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword. And thou shalt gather all the spoil of it into the midst of the street thereof, and shalt burn with fire the city, and all the spoil thereof every whit…: and it shall be an heap for ever; it shall not be built again.” (Deuteronomy 13:15-16 KJV)

He forgets to tell them to salt the ground when they’re done.

It’s all pretty twisted, but His name is Jealous, so it’s not too much of a shock.

In the earlier chapters, after the Lord tells the Israelites to drive the Canaanites out and take their land and houses, he gives some more rules. One interesting one is that if people are far from the temple and are craving meat, they are no longer required to only eat it at the altar, but are allowed to eat it in their own homes. This is not something that I normally hear from the street preachers. The Lord is not just demanding blind obedience, but is implying that the only reason His people are allowed to eat meat at home is because He lets them. He’s got a lot of nerve.

Next: Deuteronomy 14-16.

Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked. (Deuteronomy 10:16 KJV)

The Lord made the Israelites wander forty years in the desert just to teach you a lesson. Back then, that’s two generations. He was testing them to make sure they would be faithful and true, and would trust him. They never did (as Moses points out many times), but they get to go to the promised land anyway. They get to take it from the wicked people who live there already. No one ever tells us what they did wrong. Other than being not chosen.

Most of these three chapters, Moses is retelling stories of how disobedient the Israelites had been, and how The Lord got mad, and Moses had to talk him down several times. And don’t forget that he can still get mad.

So far, God kicked Adam and Eve out of the Garden, drowned the world, destroyed two cities of His people, and at least twice threatened to kill everyone and start over fresh with Moses’ descendants. He’s a real psychopath, and Moses is using His insanity.

Next: Deuteronomy 11-13

When Moses restated the commandments, the more obvious secular rules (“Thou shalt not kill”) are quick one-liners. The more religious ones (“Keep the sabbath day to sanctify it”) have more sentences explaining them. It appears that Moses doesn’t think that we’ll see the inherent logic of the religious.

During most of these chapters, Moses is not just restating the rules, but describing in great detail what will happen to anyone who disobeys. It’s not pretty. This is not a God of Love, but a God of Fear. Like Cthulhu.

And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. (Deuteronomy 6:8 KJV)

Next: Deuteronomy 8-10.

Moses recaps more history of the travails wandering the desert. He mentions a couple of times how it’s everyone else’s fault that he won’t be allowed in the Promised Land. I think he’s still bitter.

What’s fun is how exalted the Lord is. He reminds everyone about the land of giants, where they exterminated everyone, thanks to the Lord’s help. He also goes on for many verses about how the Lord comes down and is visible, unlike all those other gods.

Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou hast heard, and live? (Deuteronomy 4:33 KJV)

Of course, all these reminders are not for the people listening to Moses in the book, but the people reading later. The people who never hear the voice of God, or see a pillar of fire. They just think that their ancestors did, and they are chosen!

And one more thing: don’t forget about those six safe cities! Moses is really hung up on that. Were there lots of accidental killing back then?

Next: Deuteronomy 5-7.