Deuteronomy Turned Down

Why is the Book Of Law called in the Roman Bible Deuteronomy?

In this article, we shall try to follow a part of the history of the Kingdom of Israel from king to king. For the most part of it, Israel held only 4 out of the 5 books of the Torah up until the end of the Kingdom. Interestingly, it was only in the Second Temple period that the Book of Deteronomy was read aloud due to the ministry of Nehemiah.

Devarim

In the Hebrew Tanakh it goes by its original name, Devar’im (The Words).

The 5 Hebrew Torah books go by the first phrase of each book. Therefore from the fifth book,

Deuteronomy 1:1 (These are) the words which Moses spoke to all Israel beyond the Jordan in the wilderness, in the Arabah over against Suph, between Paran, and Tophel, and Laban, and Hazeroth, and Di-zahab.

“The words” became to the Hebrews the title of the fifth Torah book. It was simply named after The Words – Devarim.

The Kings From שָׁאוּל  to יְכָנְיָה 

For much of the reigns of the House of David from the first to the 42nd, the last king of the 12 tribes, from Saul to Amon, over 500 years, the Book of Law was a lost scripture. Imagine the idolatry in Israel and Judah that the kings committed in the absence of receiving godly instructions on idols, mediums, false prophets and curses and judgments all these years. The result of living lawlessness was seen in most of these Kong’s and the citizens. All this came to a turning point in 616 BC.

That year the young king Josiah (YehoshiYahu, YH is my salvation, a cousin of namesake to Yehosha) carried out a major reform to Judah only due to the discovery of this lost Book. Therefore the book is given a title by the Gentiles as Deuteronomy.

The House of David was in the decay of lawlessness through king Manasseh and king Amon to Josiah. Amon was idolatrous in excess and he was assassinated in 641 BC.

2 Chronicles 33:21 Amon was twenty-two years old when he began to reign; and he reigned two years in Jerusalem.

During the two years his passion was in the occult and the promotion of the occult in public places. As people do in 2019 also, they sacrifice to occult images. So be warned. The end of the Age of Grace is upon the nation’s.

2 Chronicles 33:22 He did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, as did Manasseh his father; and Amon sacrificed to all the engraved images which Manasseh his father had made, and served them.

His father Manasseh only erected the famous Asherah but Amon surpassed him with a multitude.

In 641 BC, his 8 year old crown prince was crowned king. Josiah reigned as a good king for 31 years.

2 Chronicles 34:1 Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign; and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem.

2 Chronicles 34:2 He did that which was right in the eyes of Yahweh, and walked in the ways of David his father, and didn’t turn aside to the right hand or to the left.

For lack of a mentor the boy had a desire to know God NT himself. It was in him to carry out a huge mission later in his 20’s. He tried to reverse the evils wrought by Manasseh and Amon by smashing the images at 20 years old.

2 Chronicles 34:3 For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father; and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the Asherim, and the engraved images, and the molten images.

As we read the Ketuv’im (the writings) Sun worship was rife in Jerusalem as it is rampant today among Christians and pagans alike. Josiah has no hesitation remove the competing idols from his domain. We don’t seem to have a “Josiah” today.

2 Chronicles 34:7 He broke down the altars, and beat the Asherim and the engraved images into powder, and hewed down all the sun-images throughout all the land of Israel, and returned to Jerusalem.

I would like personally for Josiah to come visit America.

Josiah instructed that the workers got back payments that they were cheated out of.

2 Chronicles 34:9 They came to Hilkiah the high priest, and delivered the money that was brought into the house of God, which the Levites, the keepers of the threshold, had gathered of the hand of Manasseh and Ephraim, and of all the remnant of Israel, and of all Judah and Benjamin, and of the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

2 Chronicles 34:10 They delivered it into the hand of the workmen who had the oversight of the house of Yahweh; and the workmen who labored in the house of Yahweh gave it to mend and repair the house;

And Josiah commanded that the broken places in the house of the Lord, the Temple, should be refurbished.

2 Chronicles 34:11 even to the carpenters and to the builders gave they it, to buy hewn stone, and timber for couplings, and to make beams for the houses which the kings of Judah had destroyed.

It was during this recent project that a book of Moshe was “found”.

2 Chronicles 34:15 Hilkiah answered Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law in the house of Yahweh. Hilkiah delivered the book to Shaphan.

The high priest, Hilkiah ( YH is my portion ) “found it” while tidying up the Temple upon the king’s command to honor the Temple of his God. God rewards a man who is a worshiper of Elohiym.

The King Josiah was only in his mid twenties but the young king was a godly man with action and gumption.

2 Kings 22:8 Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law in the house of Yahweh. Hilkiah delivered the book to Shaphan, and he read it.

2 Kings 22:9 Shaphan the scribe came to the king, and brought the king word again, and said, Your servants have emptied out the money that was found in the house, and have delivered it into the hand of the workmen who have the oversight of the house of Yahweh.

He wanted to lay eyes on the lost scripture and he received the words of Moshe into his heart. He did and he took it to his mind also, knowing what his evil dad and grandad did to his country and countrymen.

He tore his robe! He mourned for sins.

2 Kings 22:11 It happened, when the king had heard the words of the book of the law, that he tore his clothes.

As a result he brought sweeping religious reforms as a civic leader to Judah.

2 Kings 22:13 Go you, inquire of Yahweh for me, and for the people, and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that is found; for great is the wrath of Yahweh that is kindled against us, because our fathers have not listened to the words of this book, to do according to all that which is written concerning us.

Josiah took God seriously at His word. Judgment is reserved for the wicked and the unrepentant hearts.

The Tanakh regarded Josiah as a godly king above Dawid. Josiah was also assassinated in 609 BC, only 3 years to the attack of Nebuchadrezzar in 606 BC. Daniel recorded his own deportation to Babylon.

Daniel 1:1 In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah came Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon to Jerusalem, and besieged it.

Daniel 1:2 The Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with part of the vessels of the house of God; and he carried them into the land of Shinar to the house of his god: and he brought the vessels into the treasure-house of his god.

This was not the end though. God gave Judah three opportunities to repent. The House of David ended during the reign of Josiah’s third son Mattaniah whom Nebuchadrezzar renamed Zedekiah as his vassal prince over his new conquest Judah.

1 Chronicles 3:15 The sons of Josiah: the firstborn Johanan, the second Jehoiakim, the third Zedekiah, the fourth Shallum.

God told Jeremiah that this Jeconiah AKA Zedekiah was up to no good like a basket of rotten figs. God does not want him. He was crowned by Nebuchadrezzar.

Jeremiah 24:1 Yahweh shown me, and, behold, two baskets of figs set before the temple of Yahweh, after that Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon had carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and the princes of Judah, with the craftsmen and smiths, from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon.

Zedekiah was a wheeler dealer, a smack talker and a double back stabber according to what the Word of YH told the prophet Ezekiel.

2 Kings 24:18 Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he began to reign; and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem: and his mother’s name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.

2 Kings 24:19 He did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, according to all that Jehoiakim had done.

This prophecy was given in Ezekiel 19.

Ezekiel 19:1 Moreover, take up a lamentation for the princes of Israel,

But for years Zedekiah refuses God’s mercy even though Jeremiah and Ezekiel brought Zedekiah words of prophecy to repent to God.

Ezekiel 19:14 Fire is gone out of the rods of its branches, it has devoured its fruit, so that there is in it no strong rod to be a scepter to rule. This is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation.

This tells us what that Bible is doing collecting dust on the bedside table.

One may own a copy of God’s Word but if we do not apply the instructions to our souls and to our lives, we are really simply holding a room of mini Zedekiah ‘s in a church.

In fact, the House of David fell to Babylon in a final blow in 589 BC.

There shall not be another king to reign over Israel until the Second Coming.

Which is soon.

Come Y’shua come!

Revelation 22:20 He who testifies these things says, “Yes, I come quickly.” Amen! Come, Lord Jesus.

After the kingdom days, the exiles were sent back by Cyrus to Jerusalem in 536 BC, exactly 70 years after it began as Jeremiah prophesied it.

When Nehemiah in the Persian administration was sent back to build the gates of Jerusalem and to restore the walls around Jerusalem, the scribe and priest Ezra made the reading of the Sefer (Scroll) Of Deuteronomy last the half day.

Nehemiah 8

All the people gathered themselves together as one man into the wide place that was in front of the water gate; and they spoke to Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses, which Yahweh had commanded to Israel. ² Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly, both men and women, and all who could hear with understanding, on the first day of the seventh month. ³ He read therein before the wide place that was in front of the water gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women, and of those who could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law. 

⁵ Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people; (for he was above all the people;) and when he opened it, all the people stood up: ⁶ and Ezra blessed Yahweh, the great God. All the people answered, “Amen, Amen,” with the lifting up of their hands. They bowed their heads, and worshiped Yahweh with their faces to the ground. 

The reading of the laws of God had this effect on believers. We turn back to God by the power of His words.

⁸ They read in the book, in the law of God, distinctly; and they gave the sense, so that they understood the reading. ⁹ Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest the scribe, and the Levites who taught the people, said to all the people, “Today is holy to Yahweh your God. Don’t mourn, nor weep.” For all the people wept, when they heard the words of the law. 

Part of the reason today for the Church to live unrepentantly and lawlessly is because the Books are neglected in churches, to be substituted by a so-called good news that scrach itchy ears, but is not the Good News of Jesus Christ.

Therefore, the grooming of the masses to tolerate lawlessness is paving for one day the son of perdition, the man of lawlessness to appear. He will be accepted by a people who have no idea what transgression and breaking the law means anymore.

To those who are in love with Jesus, keep up the reading of His speeches daily.

Deuteronomy was thus named for the secondary reform brought to Israel. The next reform must be at the Second Coming when the King shall appear Himself to rule the world.