Deuteronomy 4 – Moses reminds the people of the commands he was given by God.”. . .that you may have life and may enter and take possession of the land.” They are told not to add anything to these laws. This is interesting, especially in light of the fact that Deuteronomy does add onto and change things given earlier in the Torah, but the Schocken editors think these new things are worked in here under "the bringing together of the tradition." This is all a revised retelling of the original story. It is interesting that now the people are entering not as Abraham entered—as strangers, but as conquerors. Abraham and his whole clan were not numerically able to conquer the land. Their claim in the land even at the time of Joseph (three generations passed Abraham) was only the burial site at Hebron, which Abraham had bought to bury Sarah; but now things are different. The Lord gives them leave to go in and take the lands he wants them to have, not buy them. The laws and precepts he gives are witness to God’s closeness and his justice. In part they are to be a light to other nations because of the wisdom and justice of the statues and way of life they represent. He reminds his people “not to forget the things which your own eyes have seen, nor let them slip from your memory as long as you live. . .”(4:9)
Recalling Horeb (Mt. Snai) where the people had gathered to hear God’s words before the fiery mountain - “Then Yahweh spoke to you from the midst of the fire; you heard the sound of words but saw no shape, there was only a voice”(4:12) - and where He gave them the commandments and the covenant that bound them. No image of God appeared to them at that time; so, he remarks, “do not act perversely, making yourself a carved image in the shape of anything . . .” Yahweh “is a consuming fire, a jealous God” (4:24). The interesting thing is that the Lord tells them idolatry of the kind he warns them against “degrades” the people — not Him (4:16). If they are not faithful, God will scatter them and he even predicts this. But then they will repent. “But you will seek Yahweh. . .from there [exile], and if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul, you shall find him. . .” (4:29) “at the end of the day you will return to Yahweh your God and listen to His voice” (4:30).
Matthew 23 – Jesus tells the crowds that the teachers of the Law and the Pharisees occupy “Moses’ seat” so they have a right to interpret the Law of Moses; the problem is not with what they teach – it is that they do not DO what they preach. They are hypocrites. They are great “sayers” of the truth, as early Friends might have said, but abysmal “doers”. And when they DO pious things, they do it for the praise, position and power it gives them in the community. Jesus warns his followers not to seek titles of respect, even the titles of “Teacher” or “Father” or “Leader “(23:8-10). Have the goal of “serving” others – this is what the Lord really wants.
These hypocritical leaders stop people from entering the “kingdom of heaven”; they cross land and sea to convert people but make them worse than they are; they don’t even use common sense in interpreting the tradition—telling people that if the swear by the sanctuary they are not bound, but if they swear by the gold of the sanctuary they are. Which is more precious? They act as if they were blind.
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