Summary: Moses recaps God's instructions to take Canaan, and generally, the latter portion of the Exodus. Moses is reminded that he will be permitted to see the Promised Land, but not to enter. Joshua is to be the new leader, once they enter.
Thoughts: One of the things I like about the Bible is the names of the books, some of which are highly evocative (Genesis, Exodus), and some just sound cool (Leviticus, Thessalonians). Deuteronomy has got to be the tops in the cool sounding category. What it means is less interesting-early Greek translators misunderstood Deut 17:18 "a copy of this law" as deuteronomion "second law." The Torah calls this book Debarim ("Words"), which is no good at all.
Apparently, this is going to be another law-heavy book. I'm ready for some narrative, so that's a bit disappointing. The OBC has a lot of discussion about when Deuteronomy was written, what this implies about the meanings of passages...we'll see how much I get into this; I try to avoid overdoing that sort of thing.
Beyond that, not much to say here. The entire first three chapters is a review of what happened from about the start of the 40 years' wandering.
Great quotes: That also was accounted a land of giants: giants dwelt therein in old time; and the Ammonites call them Zamzummims; (Deut 2:20) That is an AWESOME name. Some bible college has to take that for its mascot.
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