Many believers in Yeshua dismiss this chapter and similar ones as “just a list of rules” and assume they have no relevance to the modern times. Yet there is foreshadowing of the Messiah in the laws for cities to atone for the “stain” of unsolved murder, inheritance for the firstborn of “unloved” wives and capital punishment for “rebellious” sons.
We have this idea that God in the Torah is different than Yeshua in the New Testament but this is not true. God doesn’t change and neither does human nature. God has the same toolkit to deal with defiant and unrepentant hearts now that He did when He confronted King David’s defiant census. Have our hearts and ears become hardened because of our false impression of Yeshua’s character?
Laws on the cities of refuge discouraged vigilantism and encouraged respect for the legal system to decide guilt or innocence. There was a serious penalty against “malicious witnesses” in criminal cases. God gave rules for the war to clean the Land, including discharge from service for the distracted and annihilation of certain existing peoples.
Herod Antipas thought he had silenced Yochanan (John) upon killing him, but Yeshua and His disciples were spreading the message everywhere. A common teaching on remarriage — that doing so is a sin — overlooks the likely teaching, shown in Antipas’ fear: divorce and remarriage in the course of adultery is what’s sinful.
Deuteronomy 17 covers the type of animals to be given for sacrifice, what to do with a person who is worshiping another god and when and how they will chose a king. Deuteronomy 18 explores Levites and their inheritance, a reminder to the children of Israel that they are not allowed to “learn to imitate the detestable things of those nations” and a foretelling of a Prophet will come who is even more powerful than Moses.
Ancient Israel passed through the Red Sea on the seventh day of the Chag Matzot (Feast of Unleavened Bread), described as “the salvation of the LORD.” Apostle Paul equated that salvation from the ensnaring error of Egypt via cloud and sea with the Salvation from ensnaring sin via the death and resurrection of Messiah Yeshua (Jesus).
Chag Matzot (Unleavened Bread), one of the festivals of the Lord is not primarily about eating lots of matzoh, but about “eating” and absorbing Yeshua’s pure and true testimony about God. As you nibble on the matzoh, think about God’s word and how you can absorb God’s word into your inner being.