Tuesday, 15 September 2020

What is meant by this?

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Deuteronomy 17:18 requires that when a king sat on the throne of his kingdom he "shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law (Torah) ..." (ESV) There is much debate concerning the meaning of this passage in Rabbinical and Christian circles. The question has come up whether it means a second law (as the Hebrew word there for copy is translated in the Septuagint from which we get the term Deuteronomy) or whether it means, as it is commonly understood to mean, he writes a copy of the Torah scroll for himself (whether he inherits one from his father or not) and deposits one in the treasury ...

In any case, what we want to focus on here for just a minute is how this passage relates to our identity in Yeshua. As we have seen, Deuteronomy is spiritually about our identity in Yeshua. The requirement for the king to write this law down can also be seen spiritually to emphasize making the law part of is identity.

In other words, as he becomes king, his job is to take on the identity of the law, for him it meant to write it down and to keep it and read it. As each of us comes into our calling and purpose, we need to make sure that we cement our identity in Yeshua. For us, this means to cement our alignment with Yeshua and act in accordance with who we are as disciples of Yeshua. This will allow us to remain in a place where it is our nature to remain in unity and to "love our neighbor as ourself".