May 2, 2019: Day 5 – Deuteronomy 5

Here we find ourselves reading the ten commandments.  We saw them first in Exodus 20 and they are pretty much the same.  It is interesting how in some denominations the 10 commandments are numbered differently.  Often we like to read into intent when we see this, but I just think historically they have been interpreted differently.

I have always been interested in seeing how we observe the Sabbath.  In Israel it is very, very obvious when it is the Sabbath.  You can see the deserted streets, you can ride on the elevators that stop on every floor, you can notice that people are taking that day as an opportunity to live out their covenant with their Lord.  What about us?  Most of us would take this day, our Sunday, to go to church.  But how do we really observe the Sabbath?  I say not well.   Probably the reason why we don’t follow it as we should is simply because it isn’t convenient.  But what if murdering all of a sudden became convenient?  I know, I know, that is so extreme, but we do have to think why we don’t follow one of the ten commandments and we have discarded it for no real understandable reason.

When we continue along in this chapter post commandments we read how the people of Israel asked if Moses would be the one who would approach the Lord for they were afraid of Him.  But then they ask him to repeat everything and then we read this line in vs.27: “And we will listen and do it.”  That really didn’t happen much, but Moses does command the people to teach these commandments to their children.  We are getting close to the Shema.  More on that later…