ALLE MENSE EN ALLE VOLKE WORD OPGEROEP OM TE GLO EN TE BLY LEWE, OOK IN DIE 21STE EEU (Deut. 8:3; Matt. 4:4)*
Inleiding
Lees gerus hier onder ‘n deel van RJ Rushdoony se kommentaar op Deuteronomium met verwysing na Deut. 8 en Matt. 4. Rushdoony, in navolging van die Skrifte, leer dat die Woord, met sy beloftes en bedreiginge, geld nie net vir ‘OT tye’ nie, maar ook vir alle tye, en belangrik, nie net vir individue, gesinne en kerke nie, maar ook vir alle volke, dus vir die Joodse volk wat Hom vandag nog verwerp en ontken, maar ook vir nie-Joodse volke, dus vir ons as Afrikaners wat so vervalle geraak het en Mammon dien en verlossing in onsself soek, ja, vir elke volk stam en nasie, almal word opgeroep om vandag nog, te buig voor die HERE en sy Gesalfde, in hul ganse lewe (Psalm 2; Hand. 17:30,31).
Rushdoony skryf:
“Deuteronomy, together with Genesis, the Psalms, and Isaiah, is the most quoted book of the Old Testament by the New. Our Lord, in the temptation in the wilderness, answered Satan three times, and each time from Deuteronomy. “It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4; Deut. 8:3); “It is written, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God” (Matt. 4:7; Deut. 6:16); and, “Get thee hence, Satan; for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve” (Matt. 4:10; Deut. 6:13).
Among the four Mosaic books giving God’s law, Deuteronomyhas been the most widely used by Jews and Christians. The meaning of the word Deuteronomy is second, or repeated, law for many people, because this is in effect what the book is, but in Hebrew the name is taken from the opening statement, “These be the words”(Deut. 1:1). The Hebrew form is legal, because the law is a covenant, a treaty between God and Israel. It was a law given as an act of grace.
Its meaning was very ably summed up by P. C. Craigie in these words:
‘In summary, the covenant was the constitution of a theocracy. God was king and had claimed his people for himself out of Egypt; the people, who owed everything to God, were required to submit to him in a covenant which was based on love.’
There was no merit or worth in Israel that led God to establish His covenant with them, nor is there any merit or worth in the church. All is God’s sovereign grace. …
In Matthew 4:1-11, in the account of our Lord’s temptation in the wilderness, we see that three times our Lord answered the devil, and all three times it was by quoting a verse from Deuteronomy. In His first answer, He quoted Deuteronomy 8:3; in the second, Deuteronomy 6:16; and, in the third, Deuteronomy 6:13. Thus, two are from this chapter. Deuteronomy 6:13 forbids the invocation of any other god than the LORD God in all oaths. This means that the legal and actual foundation of all society, and of all spheres of society, must be in the God of Scripture and His law-word. An oath is an invocation of a society’s ultimate and absolutely essential ground of all truth and law. In too many states now, a man’s oath rests simply on a man’s word; we have shifted the foundation of society from God to man, and man is depraved, a fallen creature. …
And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live. … As the nations which the LORD destroyeth before your face, so shall ye perish; because ye would not be obedient unto the voice of the LORD your God. (Deut. 8:3,20)
Manna was thus in part a humiliation. Man seeks to live by bread alone, but, as v. 3 stresses, this is not possible. Man cannot live like a cow; his own work cannot feed the whole man, no matter how productive he is, nor how much food he raises. He needs the “every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD” (v. 3).
Israel accepted manna as a privilege, not as a humiliation and a giftof grace, and it thereby sinned.
This chapter makes a contrast between Israel’s life in the desert and its future life in a land with a rich soil and great fertility. In the desert, Israel readily forgot God even though its existence depended on God’s supernatural care. This providential guidance went so far that their clothing did not wear out, nor their feet give out in the wilderness (v. 4). If they could forget God under the wilderness circumstances, what gratitude would they show in a lush land of milk and honey?
God’s power and care would soon be forgotten. Moses then makes three contrasts and three commands. In each of these three, Moses speaks of “this day,” or, “today” (vv. 1, 11, 18).
The first, v. 1, is a summons to obedience. God has given them the gift of His covenant, and the gifts of the land and its prosperity.Their response must be to obey His law.
Second, they are commanded in v. 11 to remember and obey. They must not become existentialists, i.e., forgetting the history of God’s covenant grace and assuming that their own power had given them these gifts of care, land, and prosperity. This is stressed in vv. 11-17.
Third, they are told that the consequences of forgetting will be that God will place them on the same level as the Canaanites and then deal with them accordingly (vv. 18-20). If they forget God, He will “forget” them as His people and will punish them as He does the Canaanites. The land did not create itself: it is the Lord’s, and He will give it to whom He wills, whether as a blessing or a curse. As v.1 says so plainly, “All the commandments which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do, that ye may live.”
Life, personal and national, depends upon God and His care. About 1900, some theologians used this chapter to warn the peoples of the West about the necessity for faithfulness. They were not heeded, and we see the results today. Verses 19 and 20 have been called by some, such as P. C. Craigie, as basic to Deuteronomy. In v. 18, Israel is reminded of God’s sovereignty:
‘But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he swear unto thy fathers, as it is this day.’
God gives gifts to men to bless or to curse them, as the case may be. To His covenant people, the power to get wealth is given ‘that he may establish his covenant.’
The gifts God gives us, whether of wealth or of talents, are not for our sakes but for the sake of His covenant. The goal of life is not our enrichment but the Kingdom of God. It is wrong therefore to say, as did Bernard N. Schneider, “Prosperity is still a great enemy of faith and spiritual life.”
The focus in Deuteronomy is not on ourselves, nor on our prosperity, nor on our lack of it, but it is always on God’s covenant, its grace and law.
When Moses declares, “man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live” (v. 3), he is not contrasting a material way of life against a spiritual one, but, rather, the contrast is between man’s desire for autonomy as against a total dependence on and trust in God. The stress throughout this chapter is on God’s providence.
Man is not alone in this world; more pervasive and total than the air he breathes is the providence of God. We are never outside His very particular government. To live by God’s every word and predestined act for us means also that we cannot pick and choose our destinies: they are God ordained. Man is not self-sufficient nor autonomous, and for him to think of life apart from God’s purposes is to live in terms of illusions rather than the truth. In v. 2, when Moses says that God puts us through various expe-iences “to know what is in thine heart,” the meaning, as C. H. Waller pointed out, is that the knowledge might arise, that a refining process would develop and bring out in us our potential under God.
This chapter has had in part a sad history because it sets forth so clearly God’s prerogative to humble, test, and prove His people by subjecting them to a variety of sad experiences. The great medieval Jewish scholar Maimonides rebelled against such a doctrine, and much of Judaism followed him. Evil experiences were charged to various “natural” causes. In the twentieth century, this developmentled some rabbis to reject the hand of God in the Jewish ordeal under Hitler. Behind this is a belief common now to both synagogue and church that God has no “right” to will anything but good for man.Together with this we have the belief in the natural goodness of man.
The grim consequence is this: if man is good, and evil comes to him, then God is either incapable of controlling history, or He is not good.
Both positions have their followers. In my seminary days, professors and biblical commentators were particularly derogatory about Deuteronomy. The book is simply Moses preaching about the law; at first glance, the downgrading of Deuteronomy seems strange. Its offense, however, is that here we see God strongly and unequivocally declared to be the absolute determiner of history. Basic to modernism in every sphere is the belief that man is the determiner of history. In terms of this, Deuteronomy is seen as an intolerable book.”
Bron: Commentaries on the Pentateuch: Deuteronomy (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books), 2008, p. 139, 140.
* Hoofopskrif en beklemtonings bygevoeg.
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