The Pentateuch is more than a collection of stories or a legal code outlining the boundaries to which Israelis must adhere. Above all, it is a pastoral manifesto for a faith community, the identity and status of which are summarized in Deut 14:1-2. This is a pastoral exhortation based on the gospel.
Moses is presented as Israel’s pastor, devoted to keeping the gospel in front of his congregation and urging unconditional and unqualified devotion to their Redeemer. His goal is to instill in his people a theological and theocentric worldview that ensures every decision is based on a covenant commitment to YHWH and one’s fellow citizens, ensuring the success of Israel’s mission as an agent of divine grace to the nations.[1]
Moses prophesies the nation may fail to uphold the covenant; the people may forget their Lord, but in the latter day, when they turn back to Him in faith and obedience, He will mercifully accept them. He will not forget the covenant based on his promises (Deut 4:30-31). The maternal concern Yahweh expresses here for Israel—concern founded on his covenant commitments—is echoed later by Isaiah in Isaiah 49:15.[2]
In contrast to secular treaties, Yahweh’s covenant with Israel was that a rebel could repent and return to Yahweh, be forgiven, and thus begin a new life of obedience. Even if there was a show of repentance, rebellion was rarely treated with mercy in the secular realm. But the nature of Yahweh was not like that of secular kings. He was a merciful God who kept His covenant at all times. God would grant repentance after Israel’s folly and judgment so that beyond the operation of the curses lay the possibility of restoration. So, Yahweh is a consuming God to the rebel (Deut 4:24) but a merciful God to the repentant (Deut 4:30-31).[3]
A Moses-like prophet is one of the better things mentioned in Deuteronomy 18:15-19. Samuel is widely regarded as the first of that illustrious line of prophets, which culminated in Jesus Christ (1 Samuel 3:15-4:1; Acts 3:17-23). Indeed, Jesus understood that He was the ultimate Prophet foretold by Moses (John 5:45-47; cf. John 1:21).[4]
The Pentateuch, therefore, illuminates a canonical and messianic revelation.
[1] Daniel I. Block, The Gospel according to Moses: Theological and Ethical Reflections on the Book of Deuteronomy (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2012), 103.
[2] Eugene H. Merrill, “Deuteronomy,” in Cornerstone Biblical Commentary: Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, ed. Philip W. Comfort, vol. 2 (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1996), 503.
[3] A. Thompson, Deuteronomy: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 5, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1974), 123.
[4] Merrill, “Deuteronomy,” CBC, Vol. 2, 586.