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Suzerain vassal treaty deuteronomy10/11/2023 ![]() ![]() Sinai with the first generation of Israelites. ![]() A suzerainty-vassal treaty was entered into at Mt. They could only agree to accept or reject whatever the suzerain offered. As the weaker member, vassals had no power to negotiate or change the terms of the treaty. In these types of treaties, a dominant party, the suzerain (God/Jehovah), set the terms of an agreement with a subordinate party, the vassal (Israel). Through eternal covenants, God becomes an active partner who promises to “sustain, sanctify, and exalt” those who actively strive “to serve him and keep his commandments.” The scriptures indicate that God made covenants with Adam and Eve (see Moses 5:4–8, 6:64–68) and scholars have demonstrated that “the new and everlasting covenant made with is the same covenant that made with Abraham and Sarah and renewed with Israel at Mount Sinai.” Suzerainty-vassal TreatiesĪ type of covenant that was common in the Middle East at the time of Moses was suzerainty-vassal treaties. An eternal covenant is an agreement between an individual and God in which God sets the terms. Through modern revelation, we learn that God accomplishes his work to “bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39) through eternal covenants. Understanding the treaty structure helps us see that Deuteronomy is not just a speech, but also a covenant-renewal document. Though Deuteronomy is a farewell speech, it is presented in the form of ancient Near Eastern suzerainty-vassal treaties of the second millennium B.C.He said, “Do you read as though you stood in the place of the men who wrote them? If you do not feel thus, it is your privilege to do so.” If we ask, “Why did Moses include this as part of his final speech?” then we will find a lot more to enjoy. President Brigham Young’s wise counsel can be easily applied to our study of Deuteronomy. And, if we are willing to stop and consider why Moses included the information he did, we will find more meaning. Moses’ farewell speech is actually comprised of three separate discourses that can be broken down into a simple organizational format as follows:Īs we utilize this basic structure, we can make sense of the speech and get past what feels like monotonous review. Upon learning that Deuteronomy was a farewell speech, one man humorously remarked that it had to be “the longest farewell speech in the history of the world.” Though it may feel like that, good speeches, no matter their length, have an organizational structure that can help us navigate them. ![]() It reminds, it instructs, it encourages, and it invites. Therefore, the repetition in Deuteronomy has legitimate purposes for the present generation of Israelites. The first generation of Israelites, the generation that Moses freed from Egyptian bondage, had all died during the forty years in the wilderness. Sinai when the law of Moses was given, you will no longer see the book as a boring repeat of everything you’ve read before. If you approach the book as a farewell speech to a group of people who had not experienced Egyptian slavery, who had not experienced deliverance from Egypt, and who had not been at Mt. Remember that Deuteronomy contains Moses’ final words to a new generation of Israelites as they prepare to enter the long-awaited promised land.Why study it again? And if we do study it again, how can we get meaning out of it? Here are five helpful suggestions. After diligently wading through the first four books of the Old Testament, the repetitiousness of the fifth book can feel very much like a brutal exercise in intellectual torture because we feel like we’ve read it all before. In Hebrew, “eleh ha-devarim,” means “these are the words.” In ancient Greek, “Deuteronómion” means a “copy” or a “repetition” of the law. It is the last book of the Jewish “Torah.” The word Deuteronomy itself may be enough to intimidate all but the most determined and dedicated students of the scriptures. ![]()
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