Thoughts on Deuteronomy 24 & Luke 4

Today’s reading: Deuteronomy 24; Luke 4

I’m just going to apologize in advance because I’m guessing this is going to be a longer post than normal, but there are a lot of things that caught my attention in today’s reading…

Thoughts on Deuteronomy 24

No remarriage after divorce

I have always thought it was a little odd that God expressly forbids a man who divorces his wife from remarrying her after she gets remarried to and divorced from another man. I’ve never had a problem with it, I’ve just never felt like I understood why it would need to be a law. I heard an interview recently though on marriage in the Old Testament and in the early church that talked some about this passage and I thought it was interesting so I wanted to share it.

The scholar who was being interviewed (I forget his name but I will try to find it later and update with it) mentioned that, while we do not know for sure, this might be a prohibition aimed at temporary marriages for hospitality. He said that while it is not documented so far back as Deuteronomy was written, we do have records of such temporary marriages, and in some places, the practice of temporary marriages continues even to today. What he meant by temporary marriages for hospitality is that sex outside of marriage was considered wrong, but hospitality was such a virtue that when a man of sufficient stature was visiting, a man would divorce his wife so that she could temporarily marry the visitor to “provide for his needs” while he was visiting, at which point they would divorce and her original husband would remarry her. 

He said that this practice is known and documented in history, but there is nothing that tells us expressly that that is what is in view here in Deuteronomy 24. He conjectured though that such a practice (or something similar) may very likely be behind this prohibition. It would make complete sense that God would not be okay with such a practice being carried out among His people, and this would certainly block any such thing from happening.

So while I don’t know if he is right in his conjecture or not, it is very helpful in thinking about passages like this to realize how vastly different practices and norms can be between different times and cultures, and just how important those differences can be in accurately understanding biblical teaching.

God’s concern for the poor

Most of the rest of Deuteronomy 24 focuses on protections for the poor and vulnerable. I know I keep pointing this out but it just comes up over and over again. While there are other rules and instructions for Israel, the big things God has Moses spill by far the most ink on are staying faithful to Him (not going after other gods), and caring for (and not oppressing) the poor and vulnerable among them. In some ways, even many of the laws that don’t expressly call out that they are for the protection of the vulnerable among the people are still exactly that. Take the law I was just talking about to start this post, that a man cannot remarry his divorced wife after she marries and divorces another man, as an example. If the conjecture is right about why this law was put in place, then this offers incredible protection to women in marriage, who were in by far the most vulnerable position within the family back at that time. She could not be treated as an object of hospitality and simply “passed around” against her will.

But what we see from God throughout the rest of the Old Testament is that these are not mere words. When God sends His prophets to the people, there are two themes that the prophets harp on over and over: (1) that the people have turned to other gods, and (2) that they oppress the poor, the orphan, and the widow.

It’s probably obvious by now to anybody who reads these posts regularly, but I just don’t think this point can get enough press. People have this picture of God in the Old Testament as vindictive and itching to judge, but the reality is that when He does judge, it is often because the people have turned from Him and are oppressing the vulnerable. God shows Himself over and over again to be beyond patient and merciful with a lot of disobedience in Israel, but He will also not stand by while His people take advantage of and harm the poor and needy among them.

If only more people understood the compassionate heart of the God who is calling us all to Himself in Christ…

Thoughts on Luke 4

Just like my thoughts on Deuteronomy 24 this morning, my thoughts on Luke 4 happen to also be about an interview I listened to somewhat recently (that, again, I don’t remember the scholar’s name because it was a few months ago, but I’ll try to find it later and add it in).

For a while now I have thought about Jesus wilderness temptation largely in line with a post I wrote up about it a few years ago about the temptation proving humanity’s culpability for sin. I’m not going to dive into that this morning, but you can find that post here if you’re interested: https://www.thoughtsontheword.com/2019/12/jesus-wilderness-temptation.html

And while I do still think this is an important aspect of the wilderness temptation, this interview was about another aspect that I found really fascinating. I don’t remember everything about it, but he was talking about the stages of the crowing of a legitimate king in Israel. The king-to-be would be anointed by a prophet, face some test to prove their worth, then they would actually be crowned king, and finally would go out to fight for Israel. David, for example, was anointed by Samuel the prophet, then fought Goliath as a test of his worthiness, was ultimately crowned king (though there was a long gap between the test and coronation for David), and then immediately led the army out to fight and win a victory over the Jebusites. He was saying that Jesus, paralleling that motif, was anointed by John in his baptism, then taken into the wilderness to be tempted for 40 days as the test to prove his worthiness, then was ultimately crowned and given a royal robe by the Roman soldiers preparing him for crucifixion, and immediately after he was crowned he went to the cross and won his victory over sin and death.

So in this sense, Jesus successfully passing the test of the wilderness temptation shows him worthy of the crown he is ultimately going to wear and the battle he is ultimately going to fight and win on the cross.