God created us with an ego, but that sure can get out of hand! The Oxford English dictionary says about ego that it’s “a person’s sense of self-esteem or self-importance.” Certainly the self-esteem part of the definition is critical simply so we can function on a daily basis. We have to feel a sense of…
Posts Tagged: Yahweh
Deuteronomy 4:15 – Watch Yourselves
When Moses repeated the Word of the Lord to the children of Israel prior to his death and their crossing the Jordan River into Canaan with Joshua at the helm, he gave them severe warnings along with a reminder of who their God was. The Israelites were to heed God’s Word for their own safety…
Deuteronomy 2:34 – No Survivors
The book of Deuteronomy is the second telling of the Law. Often, what it provides is more detail from the narrative of the previous books that comprise the 5-volume Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy). We get a good dose of that in the first two chapters and learn some very interesting details about the…
Numbers 35:33 – Blood Pollutes the Land
Some of the final instructions to the Israelites before they crossed the Jordan River into the land of Canaan gave them important principles that we in modern times should have heeded, but did not. They display the character and intent of God, which ultimately His people ignored, and which we likewise have disdained in the…
Numbers 33:55 – Trouble in the Land
Because of what the Israelites had learned in Egypt over their 400 years of captivity, Yahweh had a deconditioning project to accomplish with them. They had been in the midst of a pantheon of pagan gods and gotten used to deities whose image they could see. The verbal history of their people had probably taken…
Numbers 31:49 – Not a Man Missing
The sorry incident of the prophet Balaam attempting to curse the Israelites had many consequences. King Balak of Moab had teamed up with his allies the Midianites to hire Balaam to facilitate the destruction of God’s people. That method didn’t work, so Balaam suggested another way to achieve the same result. He counseled that the…