Live-Wire Bible Study - Day 56 - Deuteronomy 6–9 · Luke 7 - FeedTheGoodHorse
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Day 56: Deuteronomy 6–9 · Luke 7 · Commentary · Commentary² · Audio
The Bible text is included for reading continuity; it is accurate in substance, aligned with major modern translations, and may be read alongside any Bible you prefer.1
Special Note about the following Bible text: The following translation uses the Hebrew terms tamé (טָמֵא) and tahor (טָהוֹר) instead of the traditional “unclean” and “clean.” These terms describe ritual status in relation to sanctuary access, not moral fault, shame, or physical dirtiness. A fuller explanation will follow in a dedicated article.
Deuteronomy 6
These are the command, the statutes, and the judgments that Jehovah your God commanded me to teach you, for you to do in the land you are crossing into to possess, so that you may fear Jehovah your God by keeping all his statutes and his commands that I am commanding you—you, your child, and your child’s child—all the days of your life, so that your days may be prolonged.
Listen, Israel, and take care to do them, so that it may go well with you and so that you may multiply greatly, just as Jehovah, the God of your ancestors, promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.
Listen, Israel: Jehovah our God, Jehovah is one.
You are to love Jehovah your God with all your heart, with all your life, and with all your strength.
These words that I am commanding you today are to be on your heart. Repeat them to your children. Speak about them when you sit in your house, when you walk on the road, when you lie down, and when you rise. Tie them as a sign on your hand and let them be as a band between your eyes. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
When Jehovah your God brings you into the land that he swore to your ancestors—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—to give you, with great and good cities that you did not build, houses full of every good thing that you did not fill, cisterns cut out that you did not cut, vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant, and you eat and are satisfied, take care that you do not forget Jehovah, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
You are to fear Jehovah your God, serve him, and swear by his name. You must not go after other gods, any of the gods of the peoples around you, because Jehovah your God in your midst is a jealous God. Otherwise the anger of Jehovah your God will burn against you, and he will wipe you off the face of the ground.
You must not test Jehovah your God as you tested him at Massah. Carefully keep the commands of Jehovah your God, along with his testimonies and his statutes that he has commanded you. Do what is right and good in the eyes of Jehovah, so that it may go well with you and so that you may go in and take possession of the good land that Jehovah swore to your ancestors, driving out all your enemies before you, just as Jehovah said.
When your child asks you in time to come, “What are the testimonies, the statutes, and the judgments that Jehovah our God commanded you?” then you are to say to your child, “We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, and Jehovah brought us out of Egypt with a strong hand. Jehovah showed signs and wonders, great and destructive, against Egypt, against Pharaoh, and against all his household before our eyes. He brought us out from there so that he might bring us in, to give us the land that he swore to our ancestors. Jehovah commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear Jehovah our God, for our good always, so that he might keep us alive, as we are today. And it will be righteousness for us if we are careful to do all this command before Jehovah our God, just as he commanded us.”
Deuteronomy 7
When Jehovah your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and clears away many nations before you—the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and stronger than you—and when Jehovah your God gives them over to you and you strike them down, you are to devote them to destruction. You must not make a covenant with them or show them favor. You must not intermarry with them: do not give your daughter to their son or take their daughter for your son, because they will turn your child away from following me to serve other gods. Then the anger of Jehovah will burn against you, and he will quickly destroy you.
Instead, this is what you are to do: tear down their altars, break their pillars, cut down their sacred poles, and burn their carved images with fire.
For you are a people set apart to Jehovah your God. Jehovah your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession out of all the peoples on the face of the ground.
Jehovah set his affection on you and chose you, not because you were more numerous than all the peoples—you were the fewest of all peoples—but because Jehovah loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your ancestors. Jehovah brought you out with a strong hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
Know, then, that Jehovah your God is God—the faithful God who keeps covenant and loyal care with those who love him and keep his commands, to a thousand generations, but who repays those who hate him to their face by destroying them. He does not delay with anyone who hates him; he repays them to their face.
So keep the command, the statutes, and the judgments that I am commanding you today, to do them.
If you listen to these judgments and keep and do them, then Jehovah your God will keep with you the covenant and the loyal care that he swore to your ancestors. He will love you, bless you, and multiply you. He will bless the fruit of your body and the fruit of your ground—your grain, your new wine, and your oil, the young of your herd and the young of your flock—in the land that he swore to your ancestors to give you.
You will be blessed above all peoples. There will not be a barren male or female among you or among your livestock. Jehovah will take away from you every sickness. He will not put on you any of the harmful diseases of Egypt that you have known, but he will lay them on all who hate you.
You will consume all the peoples that Jehovah your God gives over to you. Your eye must not show pity to them. You must not serve their gods, because that would be a trap to you.
If you say in your heart, “These nations are more numerous than I am; how can I dispossess them?” do not be afraid of them. Remember well what Jehovah your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt—the great trials your eyes saw, the signs, the wonders, the strong hand, and the outstretched arm by which Jehovah your God brought you out. So Jehovah your God will do to all the peoples you are afraid of.
Moreover, Jehovah your God will send the hornet among them until those who remain and hide themselves from you are destroyed. Do not be terrified of them, because Jehovah your God is in your midst—a great and fearsome God.
Jehovah your God will clear away these nations before you little by little. You will not be allowed to put an end to them quickly; otherwise, the wild animals will become too numerous for you. But Jehovah your God will give them over to you and throw them into great confusion until they are destroyed. He will hand their kings over to you, and you will make their name perish from under the heavens. No one will be able to stand against you until you have destroyed them.
You are to burn the carved images of their gods with fire. You must not desire the silver or the gold that is on them or take it for yourself, or you will be ensnared by it, because it is something detestable to Jehovah your God. You must not bring anything detestable into your house, or you will become devoted to destruction like it. You are to utterly detest it and utterly reject it, because it is devoted to destruction.
Deuteronomy 8
All the command that I am commanding you today you are to take care to do, so that you may live and multiply and go in and take possession of the land that Jehovah swore to your ancestors.
Remember the whole way that Jehovah your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness—to humble you, to test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commands or not. He humbled you and let you hunger, and he fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your ancestors know, so that he might make you know that a human does not live by bread alone, but by everything that comes from the mouth of Jehovah a human lives.
Your clothing did not wear out on you, and your foot did not swell these forty years. Know, then, in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so Jehovah your God disciplines you.
So keep the commands of Jehovah your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him. Jehovah your God is bringing you into a good land—a land of streams of water, of springs and deep waters flowing out in valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity and lack nothing in it, a land whose stones are iron and from whose hills you can mine copper.
You will eat and be satisfied, and you are to bless Jehovah your God for the good land that he has given you.
Take care that you do not forget Jehovah your God by failing to keep his commands, his judgments, and his statutes that I am commanding you today. Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, build good houses and live in them, and your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold increase—everything you have increases—then your heart will be lifted up, and you will forget Jehovah your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. He led you through the great and fearsome wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water. He brought water for you out of the flint rock. He fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your ancestors did not know, to humble you and to test you, to do you good in the end.
You may say in your heart, “My power and the strength of my hand have gotten me this wealth.” But remember Jehovah your God, because he is the one who gives you power to make wealth, so that he may establish his covenant that he swore to your ancestors, as it is today.
If you ever forget Jehovah your God and go after other gods and serve them and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely perish. Like the nations that Jehovah is causing to perish before you, so you will perish, because you did not listen to the voice of Jehovah your God.
Deuteronomy 9
Hear, Israel: you are crossing the Jordan today to go in and dispossess nations greater and stronger than you—cities great and fortified up to the heavens, a people great and tall, the descendants of the Anakim, whom you know and of whom you have heard it said, “Who can stand before the descendants of Anak?”
Know, then, today that Jehovah your God is the one who crosses over before you as a consuming fire. He will destroy them and subdue them before you, so that you may dispossess them and quickly make them perish, just as Jehovah has spoken to you.
Do not say in your heart, after Jehovah your God has driven them out before you, “Because of my righteousness Jehovah has brought me in to possess this land.” It is because of the wickedness of these nations that Jehovah is dispossessing them before you. It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you are going in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations Jehovah your God is dispossessing them before you, and in order to establish the word that Jehovah swore to your ancestors—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Know, then, that Jehovah your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, because you are a stiff-necked people.
Remember and do not forget how you provoked Jehovah your God to anger in the wilderness. From the day you came out of the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against Jehovah.
At Horeb you provoked Jehovah to anger, and Jehovah was angry enough with you to destroy you. When I went up the mountain to receive the tablets of stone—the tablets of the covenant that Jehovah made with you—I remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights; I did not eat bread or drink water. Jehovah gave me the two tablets of stone written with the finger of God, and on them were all the words that Jehovah had spoken with you on the mountain out of the fire on the day of the assembly.
At the end of the forty days and forty nights, Jehovah gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant. Jehovah said to me, “Get up, go down quickly from here, because your people, whom you brought out of Egypt, have acted corruptly. They have quickly turned aside from the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a cast image.”
Jehovah also said to me, “I have seen this people, and look, it is a stiff-necked people. Leave me alone, so that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under the heavens, and I will make you into a nation stronger and more numerous than they.”
So I turned and came down from the mountain while the mountain was burning with fire, and the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. I looked, and you had sinned against Jehovah your God. You had made for yourselves a cast calf. You had quickly turned aside from the way that Jehovah had commanded you. So I took hold of the two tablets, threw them from my two hands, and shattered them before your eyes.
Then I fell down before Jehovah as before, forty days and forty nights; I did not eat bread or drink water, because of all your sin that you had committed in doing what is evil in the eyes of Jehovah, provoking him to anger. I was afraid of the anger and the wrath that Jehovah bore against you—enough to destroy you—but Jehovah listened to me that time also.
Jehovah was very angry with Aaron, enough to destroy him, and I prayed also for Aaron at that time. Then I took your sin—the calf that you had made—and burned it with fire. I crushed it, grinding it thoroughly until it was fine dust, and I threw its dust into the stream that came down from the mountain.
At Taberah, at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah, you provoked Jehovah to anger. When Jehovah sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, “Go up and possess the land that I have given you,” you rebelled against the command of Jehovah your God and did not trust him or listen to his voice. You have been rebellious against Jehovah from the day I knew you.
So I fell down before Jehovah the forty days and the forty nights that I fell down, because Jehovah had said that he would destroy you. I prayed to Jehovah and said, “Jehovah God, do not destroy your people and your inheritance, whom you redeemed through your greatness, whom you brought out of Egypt with a strong hand. Remember your servants—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Do not look at the stubbornness of this people or at their wickedness or their sin. Otherwise the land from which you brought us out will say, ‘Because Jehovah was not able to bring them into the land that he promised them, and because he hated them, he brought them out to put them to death in the wilderness.’ But they are your people and your inheritance, whom you brought out by your great power and by your outstretched arm.”
Luke 7
After he finished speaking to the people, he entered Capernaum. A centurion there had a servant he valued highly who was sick and near death. When he heard about Jesus, he sent elders of the Jews to him, asking him to come and save his servant. When they came, they appealed to him earnestly, saying, “He is worthy to have you do this for him, because he loves our nation and built the synagogue for us.”
Jesus went with them. When he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to say, “Lord, do not trouble yourself, because I am not worthy for you to come under my roof. For this reason I did not consider myself worthy to come to you. But say the word, and let my servant be healed. For I also am a person under authority, with soldiers under me, and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”
When Jesus heard this, he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd following him, he said, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” When those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the servant well.
Soon afterward he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him. As he approached the town gate, a dead man was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her.
When the Lord saw her, he was moved with compassion and said, “Do not weep.” Then he came up and touched the bier, and those carrying it stood still. He said, “Young man, I say to you, rise.” The dead man sat up and began to speak, and he gave him back to his mother.
Fear took hold of them all, and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has arisen among us,” and “God has visited his people.” This report about him spread throughout Judea and the surrounding region.
The disciples of John reported all these things to him. John called two of his disciples and sent them to the Lord, saying, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect another?”
When they came, they said, “John the Baptizer has sent us to ask, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect another?’”
At that time he cured many of diseases, afflictions, and evil spirits, and gave sight to many who were blind. He answered them, “Go and report to John what you have seen and heard: those who are blind receive sight, those who are lame walk, those with skin disease are cleansed, those who are deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news announced to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended because of me.”
When John’s messengers had gone, he began to speak to the crowds about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? What did you go out to see? A person dressed in soft clothing? Those who wear fine clothing and live in luxury are in royal houses. What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written:
‘Look, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way before you.’
I tell you, among those born of women no one is greater than John, yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.”
When all the people heard this, including the tax collectors, they acknowledged God’s justice, having been immersed with John’s immersion. But the Pharisees and the experts in the law rejected God’s purpose for themselves, because they had not been immersed by him.
“To what then will I compare the people of this generation, and what are they like? They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another:
‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
we sang a mourning song, and you did not weep.’
For John the Baptizer has come neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ Yet wisdom is proved right by all her children.”
One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he entered the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. A woman in the town, who was a sinner, learned that he was reclining there and brought an alabaster jar of perfume. Standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. She kept kissing his feet and anointing them with the perfume.
When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who and what kind of woman is touching him, that she is a sinner.”
Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.”
He said, “Teacher, say it.”
“A moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he canceled both debts. Now which of them will love him more?”
Simon answered, “I suppose the one for whom he canceled the larger debt.”
He said, “You have judged correctly.”
Then turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with perfume.
For this reason I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—this is why she loved much. But the one who is forgiven little loves little.”
Then he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”
Those reclining with him began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”
He said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”
Commentary - Day 56
Deuteronomy 6–9 · Luke 7
The command is spoken again before the land is entered. It is not given once and left behind but repeated, carried forward, and placed into the next generation. It is to be spoken in the house, on the road, at rising and at lying down. It is tied to the hand, set between the eyes, written on doorposts and gates. The same words move with the body and remain at the threshold.
The statement stands at the center: Jehovah is one. The response to it is not separated into parts but gathers the whole—heart, life, strength. The words are placed on the heart and spoken in the house, on the road, at lying down, and at rising.
The land is described as already filled—cities not built by them, houses already full, cisterns cut, vineyards and olive trees planted. Eating and being satisfied are placed beside the warning not to forget. The fullness of the land becomes the place where forgetting can begin.
The child’s question is anticipated. The answer returns to Egypt: slavery, signs, wonders, being brought out in order to be brought in. The statutes are not separated from that memory but carried within it. What is to be done is tied to what was done for them.
The nations ahead are named, and the instruction moves to their altars, pillars, poles, and images. These are to be torn down, cut, burned. Covenant, favor, intermarriage, altars, pillars, poles, and images are not to remain or be joined. The reason is given in terms of turning—what is joined will turn the heart.
The choice of Israel is described without reference to size or strength. They were the fewest. The reason given is the oath and the love that keeps it. The same contrast returns later: not because of righteousness, not because of uprightness. What is given is not grounded in them.
The land is cleared little by little. It is not emptied at once. Wild animals would fill it if it were. The process is measured, not immediate. At the same time, the warning remains: the silver and gold on the images are not to be taken. What is destroyed is not to be carried away and kept.
The wilderness is recalled again in detail—hunger, manna not known before, clothing that did not wear out, water from the rock. The purpose is named: to humble, to test, to know what was in the heart. Bread is not removed, but it is placed alongside what proceeds from the mouth of Jehovah. Life is not held in one thing alone.
The future danger is described in the same terms as the present provision. Eating, building, multiplying, increasing—all lead to the heart being lifted up. The same heart that was tested in hunger is now tested in fullness. Forgetting follows increase if the memory is not kept.
The warning is stated directly: do not say that power and strength have produced what is received. The ability itself is given. What appears as possession is tied back to what was given beforehand.
The crossing of the Jordan is set before them with the same contrast. Nations are greater and stronger. The fire goes before them. The command is placed against what might be said in the heart: not because of righteousness. The memory of rebellion is named—Horeb, the calf, the tablets shattered, the grinding of the image into dust and thrown into the stream. The same pattern is repeated: turning aside quickly, provoking anger, being held in place by intercession.
The account does not leave out the repeated provocations—Taberah, Massah, Kibroth-hattaavah, Kadesh-barnea. The memory is not adjusted to remove them. It is kept as it occurred.
In Capernaum, a message is sent before arrival. Elders speak for the centurion, and then friends carry his words: he is not worthy for him to enter the house, but the word alone is sufficient. Authority is described in terms of command and response—go, come, do—and the same structure is applied to what is asked.
The servant is found well without the one who asked being present. The word is spoken at a distance, and the effect appears where it is sent.
At the gate of the town, two movements meet: a crowd following and a procession carrying a dead man out. The bier is touched, the carriers stop, and the word is spoken. The one who was being carried sits up and begins to speak. He is given back to his mother. The movement that was going out reverses.
Messengers come with a question: whether another is to be expected. The answer is not given as a statement but as what is seen and heard—blind receiving sight, lame walking, skin disease cleansed, deaf hearing, dead raised, good news announced to the poor. The list is given in acts.
Children sit in the marketplace, calling to one another, but neither the flute nor the mourning song is answered. John came with one pattern and is rejected; the Son of Man comes with another and is rejected.
At the table, a woman stands behind, weeping, wetting feet with tears, wiping them with her hair, kissing, anointing. The one who invited watches and speaks within himself. The response comes as a question of two debts and their cancellation. The comparison is then placed directly beside what was done and what was not done in the house—water not given, kiss not given, oil not given.
The difference is not stated abstractly but shown in the actions themselves. The many acts done are set beside the absence of them. Love is measured in what is done, and forgiveness is spoken where she stands.
Across these passages, what is placed on the heart, spoken in the house, remembered in the wilderness, and done in the land is what remains when it is tested.
Deuteronomy 6–9 keeps placing the command before possession: on the heart, on the hand, at the door, in the child’s hearing, in hunger, in fullness, and in the land itself. The danger is not only fear in the wilderness but forgetting in abundance. Israel is chosen not for size or righteousness, and the memory of Horeb, the calf, the shattered tablets, and repeated rebellion is kept rather than softened.
In Luke 7, authority is trusted at a distance by the centurion, a procession stops at Nain when the bier is touched, and John receives an answer in acts rather than explanation. At Simon’s table, the woman’s tears, hair, perfume, and kisses are set beside what the host did not do. Across the readings, what is given beforehand - word, memory, command, mercy - shows itself later in what is refused, received, or done.
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