Sunday’s first reading comes from Deuteronomy, a retelling of Israel’s holy history rediscovered in the temple in the late 600s B.C. In the voice of Moses the writer of Deuteronomy calls the people to renew their commitment to their ancient covenant with God. In this book Moses speaks authoritatively from a mountaintop, just as Jesus does in the gospel.
In challenging, rhetorical questions, Moses names the experiences by which the people have come to know and believe that their God is the God of heaven and earth who promises long life and land to those who keep the covenant.
God has done great things for Israel in liberating and sustaining them as a people. Moses stirs them to keep up the covenant relationship God has made with them.
The writer of Deuteronomy names God both as “Elohim” and “Yahweh.” Elohim is the Hebrew word translated in English as God. Yahweh is the sacred name God gave in answer to Moses’ request at the burning bush. Yahweh means I am who am, who causes to be. Israelites regarded this name as so sacred that they never speak it but instead call Yahweh by the respectful title Adonai, which in English is Lord.
Sunday’s first reading proclaims Israel’s faith that God has been with them in slavery, in struggle and wandering, in war and terror. They experience their God as more powerful than the gods of all other peoples. Keeping the commandments of their God holds the promise of their flourishing, forming them into a people who keep faith with God and show love and respect for one another.
There is no God but Yahweh.
Moses said to the people: Ask now about the days of old, long before your own, ever since the day that God created human beings on the earth. Ask from one end of heaven to the other: Has anything so great as this ever happened? Has its like ever been heard of? Has any people ever heard the voice of God speaking out of a fire, as you have heard, and lived?
Or has any god ever attempted to go and take a nation from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs and wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by terrifying displays of power, as the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?
So acknowledge today and take to heart that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other. Keep God’s statutes and commandments, which I am commanding you today for your own well-being and that of your descendants after you, so that you may long remain in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for all time.
Deuteronomy 4.32-34,39-40
- In what fires do you hear God speaking today? In what wars and wonders, nations and peoples do you hear God speaking today?
- How does using Lord for God’s name affect how you imagine Israel’s God?