The Book of Deuteronomy continues with Moses' explication of the laws by which the Israelites are to govern themselves in Canaan. We see a continuation of certain currents. The Israelites are a specially chosen people. God is a jealous God, who prescribes harsh punishment for those who worship other gods. The Israelites are to treat each other justly and mercifully, as God has treated them.
Two elements of this passage took my thoughts immediately to the New Testament.
Instructing the Israelites about how to deal with a person in the community who "does evil in the sight of the Lord" by serving or worshipping other gods, Moses teaches that the punishment is stoning, but only after two or three witnesses have testified against the perpetrator. He continues:
At the execution, the witnesses are to be the first to raise their hands against him; afterward all the people are to join in.
I am reminded of the woman caught in adultery brought before Jesus by the Jewish leaders, who were trying to trap Him. When He suggested that the person in the community who had no sin cast the first stone, the people who had gathered drifted away and she was spared. God is just; God is merciful. The way these two truths are juxtaposed, both in the Old and New Testaments is very mysterious to me.
Moses also spoke of the possibility that the Israelites might subject themselves to governance by a king. He directs with regard to that king:
Nor shall he make his people go back again to Egypt to acquire [horses], against the Lord's warning that you must never go back that way again.
St. Joseph is described as a man of faith in the New Testament. I think back to his being told in a dream by God, shortly after Jesus' birth, to take the baby and Mary to Egypt. It deepens my awe and admiration for his faith in God, as that dream and that instruction from God must have gone against his instincts based on everything he had been taught and had heard from Scriptures his whole life. That is trust in the Lord. If only I had just a tiny fraction of that trust.
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