Today’s reading: Deuteronomy 19; Revelation 21
A few days ago, as we were going through Deuteronomy 13, we were talking about the weight that Moses attaches to the sin of those who would lead someone to serve a god other than Yahweh. But then as I was reading through Deuteronomy 19 today, I feel like it adds even more weight to Moses’ words in chapter 13.
After reminding the people about the cities of refuge for those who have accidentally killed someone without malice, Moses addresses what to do if someone kills another person on purpose and tries to flee to one of the cities. He tell them that if this happens, the elders of the city are to send and take the person and deliver them over to the avenger of blood to be put to death. But then Moses says, “Your eye shall not pity him…” in regard to handing the person over to be killed.
Then, as Moses talks about the person who falsely accuses someone of a crime, he declares that they are to receive back whatever punishment they were trying to get applied to the wrongly accused. And once again, he tells them, “Your eye shall not pity,” in regard to them getting what they deserve for their wrongdoing.
The reason reading this chapter takes me back to chapter 13 is that, prior to chapter 19, we have only seen that expression from Moses to other times so far. The first time we saw it was in regard to the people of the land who were being displaced because of their abominable practices in service to their gods, and then the only other time we see this expression is when Moses is telling the people not to pity even their own children, siblings, spouses, etc. if they try to entice them to serve another God, but they are to hand them over to be killed.
The fact that he uses this language, which he scarcely ever uses, to describe this handful of sins, means he is putting them in a similar category. So while we might say leading someone to follow a god other than Yahweh is nowhere near as bad as murdering someone, Moses uses the same rare expression to describe both, meaning there is a conceptual link between them.
And ultimately, this does make sense. The reason we would likely put murdering someone as worse is that we tend to think of this life as being what is most important, but that is not God’s perspective. From God’s view, this life is just a short blip leading up to an eternity either with Him or apart from Him. So while murder cuts someone off from this life, leading someone astray from following God cuts them off from life with God in eternity, which is ultimately a much worse kind of murdering.
When we look at it like that, with that comparison to a physical murderer, I think it makes it a little easier to understand the gravity God assigns to leading others astray from Him back in chapter 13.
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