Lesson 70: Deuteronomy 20–26 Wednesday Dec 2nd
#Deuteronomy
26, in the lesson it says you can obey out of fear, duty, for reward, or out of
love. We had crowns for "Fearful Frank," "Dutiful Daisy,"
"Payoff Peter," and "Loving Lester." They rolled a die for
which crown of the four they got (ignore five and six), then pulled a
commandment out of the "Peculiar Commandments" jar--such as, Word of
Wisdom, Reading Scriptures, Paying Tithing, Serving Others--you make up what
may be more appropriate here for your class, and of course the 10 commandments
count, too--then they had to act out how they would obey that commandment.
Introduction
Deuteronomy
20–26
shows that Moses addressed the Lord’s commands concerning war and the
punishment of the wicked. He also reviewed various laws and commandments given
to the Israelites.
Note: This lesson
includes an activity that will require advance preparation.
If
possible, display a plate of food or ask students to visualize a delicious
plate of food. Ask students to imagine preparing to eat this food. Then, ask
them to envision someone who has a serious contagious disease coughing all over
the food.
---Would you still want to eat
the food? Why or why not?
---What might happen if you
chose to eat the food?
---What are some ways to keep
infectious diseases from spreading?
---Explain
that as the Israelites prepared to enter the promised land, God wanted to
prevent from spreading among them a kind of spiritual sickness that would have
had eternal consequences. The Lord had designated the promised land as holy,
but it had been occupied for hundreds of years by people who refused to obey
God’s commandments. The Lord did not want those people’s wickedness to infect
the Israelites and spread among them.
---Read
Deuteronomy
20:1–4
aloud looking for the counsel the Lord gave to the Israelites for the times
when they would need to go to battle against these people.
---What phrases in these verses
do you think reassured those Israelites who had to go into battle?
(You may want to suggest that students mark
these phrases.)
---Summary
of Deuteronomy
20:5–8: These verses describe situations in which
Israelite men were excused from going into battle.
---Read
Deuteronomy
20:10–11
aloud and look for what the Lord wanted the army of Israel to do when they came
to the cities inhabited by the Canaanites.
---What did the Lord instruct
the armies to do first when they came to a city? (Proclaim peace.)
--Read
Deuteronomy
20:12–14
aloud looking for what the Israelites were commanded to do if the cities
rejected their offer of peace.
---What did the Lord instruct
the armies to do if the people rejected the offer of peace?
---To
help students understand the reason for the Lord’s instruction recorded in Deuteronomy
20:12–14,
invite a student to read 1 Nephi
17:33–35
aloud. (You may want to suggest that students write this cross-reference near Deuteronomy
20:12.)
Ask students to follow along, looking for phrases that describe the condition
of the people who lived in the promised land.
---What phrases describe the
condition of the people who lived in the promised land?
---What do you think it means
that they were “ripe in iniquity”?
---Explain
that the people who inhabited the promised land had become spiritually and
morally corrupt—like the people in the days of Noah. They participated in acts
of perversion, immorality, and even human sacrifice as part of their social and
religious practices.
---What does the phrase “this
people had rejected every word of God” suggest?
(The
people had received more than one warning to repent of their sins and had
refused to do so.)
---Read
Deuteronomy
20:16–18
aloud looking for what God commanded the Israelite armies to do with the people
who occupied cities in the heart of the promised land.
---What were the armies to do
with those nations who inhabited the heart of the promised land?
---What word in verse 18 describes
behavior that could be seen as a spiritual disease that God did not want to
spread among the Israelites?
---What do we learn from verse 18 about why the
wicked are destroyed? (Support students’ answers by writing the following truth
on the board: God may destroy the wicked to
prevent their sins from spreading to others.)
---You
may want to remind students that the Lord had warned that if the Israelites
associated with the people in the promised land and adopted their wicked
practices, the Israelites would be destroyed (see Deuteronomy
7:1–4).
---How did the Lord’s instructions to the
Israelites to utterly destroy the wicked nations inhabiting the heart of the
promised land show His love and concern for the Israelites?
---Invite
students to ponder what motivates them to be obedient. You might ask them to
think about why they might choose to obey a police officer, a parent, or a
priesthood leader.
---Ask
them to give a few reasons why they would obey a particular person. Write their
responses on the board.
(They
may suggest motivations such as fear, duty, reward, or love.)
---Invite
students to ponder which of the motivations on the board is most often the
reason why they obey the commandments.
---How might our motivation for
obeying the Lord affect the blessings that come as a result of our obedience?
(To help students answer this question, you may want to suggest that they read Moroni
7:8–9.)
---Invite
students to look for principles in Deuteronomy
21–26
that can help them improve their motivation for being obedient.
---Remind
students that when the Israelites were preparing to enter the promised land,
Moses reminded them that living God’s laws would help them stay clean and
separate from practices that could be spiritually damaging or have severe
eternal consequences.
---Assign
each student to read silently one or two of the following passages, looking for
some of the laws Moses reiterated to the people. (You may want to write these
references on the board before class. Consider waiting until after students
have read and reported on their assigned verses to write the laws associated
with each reference [included in parentheses].)
Deuteronomy
22:1–4
(Laws about returning others’ property)
Deuteronomy
22:5
(A law about dress and appearance)
Deuteronomy
22:25–27
(Laws protecting the victims of sexual assault)
Deuteronomy
24:19–22
(Laws about caring for those in need)
---After
sufficient time, ask students to explain to the class what laws were taught in
their assigned verses. (It may be helpful to ask students to come to the front
of the class to explain what they found.)
---Explain
that these are only a few of the laws Moses reviewed with the Israelites.
---Why do you think Moses repeated these
laws to the Israelites?
---Invite
two students to take turns reading aloud from Deuteronomy
26:16–19.
Ask the class to follow along, looking for how Israel was to keep the Lord’s
commandments. As students read, you might invite them to pause and use the
footnotes to understand words that may be difficult. For example, by studying
the footnotes we learn that the word judgments in verse 16 means ordinances;
avouched in verse 17 means declared or
testified; and peculiar in verse 18 means treasured.
(“With
all thine heart” and “with all thy soul.”)
---According to verses 18–19, what blessings
did the Lord declare Israel would receive if they obeyed in this way?
(Israel
would be the Lord’s “peculiar people,” and He would make them “high above all
nations” and “an holy people.”)
---What can we learn about
obedience from this passage?
(Students
may use different words, but they should identify the following principle: We
can be the Lord’s peculiar and holy people if we obey His commandments with all
our heart and soul.
Write this principle on the board.)
Circle
the words heart and soul in the statement on the board.
---What does it mean to obey the
Lord’s commandments with all your heart and soul?
To
help students better understand the principle on the board, invite a student to
read aloud the following statement by Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum
of the Twelve Apostles:
“It
is not enough for anyone just to go through the motions. The commandments,
ordinances, and covenants of the gospel are not a list of deposits required to
be made in some heavenly account. The gospel of Jesus Christ is a plan that
shows us how to become what our Heavenly Father desires us to become” (“The
Challenge to Become,”
Ensign, Nov. 2000, 32).
---What do you think is the
difference between “going through the motions” and becoming “what our Heavenly
Father desires us to become”?
(As students respond, make sure they
understand that to be a holy people, we must
live the gospel sincerely and want to become like our Heavenly Father.)
---To
help students feel the truth and importance of the principle on the board, use
the following activity. You may want to prepare the activity before class.
---Write
a different commandment on several small pieces of paper. Examples might
include fasting, paying tithing, serving others, studying the scriptures,
honoring parents, and any other commandments you feel may be helpful for the
students to discuss. Place the pieces of paper in a container.
---Invite
a student to come to the front of the room. Ask him or her to take a piece of
paper from the container and read it to the class. Then ask the class to do one
or both of the following:
1.
Suggest ways that we could keep the law with all of our heart and soul.
2.
Share how they have felt blessed when they have kept that law or commandment
with all their heart and soul.
Repeat
this activity with the other pieces of paper as time allows. (You might also
ask students to identify other commandments they want to better keep with all
their heart and soul.)
---To
conclude, consider sharing an experience you have had when you felt blessed for
keeping one or more of God’s laws with all your heart and soul.
---Encourage
students to consider and act on ways they can better keep God’s commandments
with all their heart and soul.
Scripture Mastery
Review
As
you near the midpoint in this course, you may want to check students’ knowledge
of scripture mastery passages and the associated Basic Doctrines. Consider
creating a short exercise to review one of the elements of mastery. For
example, you could ask questions that test their progress with locating,
understanding, memorizing, and applying the scripture mastery verses they have
studied:
Scripture Mastery
Review|
Locating:
|
|
|
Understanding:
|
“Which
scripture mastery passages in the Old Testament can help someone understand
the doctrine of the Creation? Explain.”
|
|
Memorizing:
|
|
|
Applying:
|
“In
what ways are you qualifying to be called one of the Lord’s peculiar people?”
(See Exodus
19:5–6.)
|
Before
you begin the review, give students a few minutes to study together so they can
be more prepared.
Commentary and
Background Information
Deuteronomy
20. God may declare the destruction of the wicked to prevent sin and unbelief
from spreading
“The
Lord … doeth not anything save it be for the benefit of the world; for he
loveth the world, even that he layeth down his own life that he may draw all
men unto him” (2 Nephi
26:23–24).
“[Warfare]
is a grim and ugly if necessary matter. The Canaanites against whom Israel
waged war were under judicial sentence of death by God. They were spiritually
and morally degenerate. Virtually every kind of perversion was a religious act:
and large classes of sacred male and female prostitutes were a routine part of
the holy places. Thus, God ordered all the Canaanites to be killed (Deut.
2:34;
3:6; 20:16–18; Josh.
11:14),
both because they were under God’s death sentence, and to avoid the contamination
of Israel [Rousas John Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law (1973), 279]”
(Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis––2 Samuel, 3rd ed. [Church
Educational System manual, 2003], 227).
Elder
Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles explained how even
God’s justice on the wicked is evidence of His love and concern for His
children:
“We
read again and again in the Bible and in modern
scriptures of God’s anger with the wicked and of His acting in His wrath
against those who violate His laws. How are anger and wrath evidence of His love?
Joseph
Smith
taught that God ‘institute[d] laws whereby [the spirits that He would send into
the world] could have a privilege to advance like himself’ [Teachings of
Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith (2007), 210]. God’s love is
so perfect that He lovingly requires us to obey His commandments because He
knows that only through obedience to His laws can we become perfect, as He is.
For this reason, God’s anger and His wrath are not a contradiction of His love
but an evidence of His love” (“Love
and Law,”
Ensign or Liahona, Nov. 2009, 27).
unedited:
Lesson 70: Deuteronomy 20–26
Old Testament Seminary Teacher Manual, 2014
Introduction
Deuteronomy 20–26 shows that Moses
addressed the Lord’s commands concerning war and the punishment of the
wicked. He also reviewed various laws and commandments given to the
Israelites.
Note: This lesson includes an activity that will require advance preparation.
Suggestions for Teaching
Deuteronomy 20
The Lord declares punishments on the wicked
If
possible, display a plate of food or ask students to visualize a
delicious plate of food. Ask students to imagine preparing to eat this
food. Then, ask them to envision someone who has a serious contagious
disease coughing all over the food.
-
•
Would you still want to eat the food? Why or why not?
-
•
What might happen if you chose to eat the food?
-
•
What are some ways to keep infectious diseases from spreading?
Explain
that as the Israelites prepared to enter the promised land, God wanted
to prevent from spreading among them a kind of spiritual sickness that
would have had eternal consequences. The Lord had designated the
promised land as holy, but it had been occupied for hundreds of years by
people who refused to obey God’s commandments. The Lord did not want
those people’s wickedness to infect the Israelites and spread among
them.
Invite a student to read Deuteronomy 20:1–4
aloud. Ask the class to follow along, looking for the counsel the Lord
gave to the Israelites for the times when they would need to go to
battle against these people.
-
•
What phrases in these verses do you think reassured those Israelites who had to go into battle? (You may want to suggest that students mark these phrases.)
Summarize Deuteronomy 20:5–8 by explaining that these verses describe situations in which Israelite men were excused from going into battle.
Ask a student to read Deuteronomy 20:10–11
aloud. Invite the class to follow along and look for what the Lord
wanted the army of Israel to do when they came to the cities inhabited
by the Canaanites.
-
•
What did the Lord instruct the armies to do first when they came to a city? (Proclaim peace.)
Invite a student to read Deuteronomy 20:12–14
aloud. Ask the class to follow along, looking for what the Israelites
were commanded to do if the cities rejected their offer of peace.
-
•
What did the Lord instruct the armies to do if the people rejected the offer of peace?
To help students understand the reason for the Lord’s instruction recorded in Deuteronomy 20:12–14, invite a student to read 1 Nephi 17:33–35 aloud. (You may want to suggest that students write this cross-reference near Deuteronomy 20:12.) Ask students to follow along, looking for phrases that describe the condition of the people who lived in the promised land.
-
•
What phrases describe the condition of the people who lived in the promised land?
-
•
What do you think it means that they were “ripe in iniquity”?
Explain
that the people who inhabited the promised land had become spiritually
and morally corrupt—like the people in the days of Noah. They
participated in acts of perversion, immorality, and even human sacrifice
as part of their social and religious practices.
-
•
What does the phrase “this people had rejected every word of God” suggest? (The people had received more than one warning to repent of their sins and had refused to do so.)
Invite a student to read Deuteronomy 20:16–18
aloud. Ask the class to follow along, looking for what God commanded
the Israelite armies to do with the people who occupied cities in the
heart of the promised land.
-
•
What were the armies to do with those nations who inhabited the heart of the promised land?
-
•
What word in verse 18 describes behavior that could be seen as a spiritual disease that God did not want to spread among the Israelites?
-
•
What do we learn from verse 18 about why the wicked are destroyed? (Support students’ answers by writing the following truth on the board: God may destroy the wicked to prevent their sins from spreading to others.)
You
may want to remind students that the Lord had warned that if the
Israelites associated with the people in the promised land and adopted
their wicked practices, the Israelites would be destroyed (see Deuteronomy 7:1–4).
-
•
How did the Lord’s instructions to the Israelites to utterly destroy the wicked nations inhabiting the heart of the promised land show His love and concern for the Israelites?
Deuteronomy 21–26
Moses again declares the Lord’s laws to Israel
Invite
students to ponder what motivates them to be obedient. You might ask
them to think about why they might choose to obey a police officer, a
parent, or a priesthood leader. Ask them to give a few reasons why they
would obey a particular person. Write their responses on the board.
(They may suggest motivations such as fear, duty, reward, or love.)
Invite students to ponder which of the motivations on the board is most often the reason why they obey the commandments.
-
•
How might our motivation for obeying the Lord affect the blessings that come as a result of our obedience? (To help students answer this question, you may want to suggest that they read Moroni 7:8–9.)
Invite students to look for principles in Deuteronomy 21–26
that can help them improve their motivation for being obedient. Remind
students that when the Israelites were preparing to enter the promised
land, Moses reminded them that living God’s laws would help them stay
clean and separate from practices that could be spiritually damaging or
have severe eternal consequences.
Assign
each student to read silently one or two of the following passages,
looking for some of the laws Moses reiterated to the people. (You may
want to write these references on the board before class. Consider
waiting until after students have read and reported on their assigned
verses to write the laws associated with each reference [included in
parentheses].)
Deuteronomy 22:1–4 (Laws about returning others’ property)
Deuteronomy 22:5 (A law about dress and appearance)
Deuteronomy 22:25–27 (Laws protecting the victims of sexual assault)
Deuteronomy 24:19–22 (Laws about caring for those in need)
Deuteronomy 26:12–13 (Law of tithing)
After
sufficient time, ask students to explain to the class what laws were
taught in their assigned verses. (It may be helpful to ask students to
come to the front of the class to explain what they found.) Explain that
these are only a few of the laws Moses reviewed with the Israelites.
-
•
Why do you think Moses repeated these laws to the Israelites?
Invite two students to take turns reading aloud from Deuteronomy 26:16–19.
Ask the class to follow along, looking for how Israel was to keep the
Lord’s commandments. As students read, you might invite them to pause
and use the footnotes to understand words that may be difficult. For
example, by studying the footnotes we learn that the word judgments in verse 16 means ordinances; avouched in verse 17 means declared or testified; and peculiar in verse 18 means treasured.
-
•
What phrases in Deuteronomy 26:16 describe how Israel was to keep God’s commandments? (“With all thine heart” and “with all thy soul.”)
-
•
According to verses 18–19, what blessings did the Lord declare Israel would receive if they obeyed in this way? (Israel would be the Lord’s “peculiar people,” and He would make them “high above all nations” and “an holy people.”)
-
•
What can we learn about obedience from this passage? (Students may use different words, but they should identify the following principle: We can be the Lord’s peculiar and holy people if we obey His commandments with all our heart and soul. Write this principle on the board.)
Circle the words heart and soul in the statement on the board.
-
•
What does it mean to obey the Lord’s commandments with all your heart and soul?
To
help students better understand the principle on the board, invite a
student to read aloud the following statement by Elder Dallin H. Oaks of
the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles:
“It
is not enough for anyone just to go through the motions. The
commandments, ordinances, and covenants of the gospel are not a list of
deposits required to be made in some heavenly account. The gospel of Jesus Christ is a plan that shows us how to become what our Heavenly Father desires us to become” (“The Challenge to Become,” Ensign, Nov. 2000, 32).
-
•
What do you think is the difference between “going through the motions” and becoming “what our Heavenly Father desires us to become”? (As students respond, make sure they understand that to be a holy people, we must live the gospel sincerely and want to become like our Heavenly Father.)
To
help students feel the truth and importance of the principle on the
board, use the following activity. You may want to prepare the activity
before class.
Write
a different commandment on several small pieces of paper. Examples
might include fasting, paying tithing, serving others, studying the
scriptures, honoring parents, and any other commandments you feel may be
helpful for the students to discuss. Place the pieces of paper in a
container.
Invite
a student to come to the front of the room. Ask him or her to take a
piece of paper from the container and read it to the class. Then ask the
class to do one or both of the following:
-
1.
Suggest ways that we could keep the law with all of our heart and soul.
-
2.
Share how they have felt blessed when they have kept that law or commandment with all their heart and soul.
Repeat
this activity with the other pieces of paper as time allows. (You might
also ask students to identify other commandments they want to better
keep with all their heart and soul.)
To
conclude, consider sharing an experience you have had when you felt
blessed for keeping one or more of God’s laws with all your heart and
soul. Encourage students to consider and act on ways they can better
keep God’s commandments with all their heart and soul.
Scripture Mastery Review
As
you near the midpoint in this course, you may want to check students’
knowledge of scripture mastery passages and the associated Basic
Doctrines. Consider creating a short exercise to review one of the
elements of mastery. For example, you could ask questions that test
their progress with locating, understanding, memorizing, and applying
the scripture mastery verses they have studied:
| Locating: |
“Where can I find the Ten Commandments?”
|
| Understanding: |
“Which scripture mastery passages in the Old Testament can help someone understand the doctrine of the Creation? Explain.”
|
| Memorizing: |
“Complete the following sentence: ‘Therefore shall a man leave his …’” (See Genesis 2:24.)
|
| Applying: |
“In what ways are you qualifying to be called one of the Lord’s peculiar people?” (See Exodus 19:5–6.)
|
Before you begin the review, give students a few minutes to study together so they can be more prepared.
Commentary and Background Information
Deuteronomy 20. God may declare the destruction of the wicked to prevent sin and unbelief from spreading
“The
Lord … doeth not anything save it be for the benefit of the world; for
he loveth the world, even that he layeth down his own life that he may
draw all men unto him” (2 Nephi 26:23–24).
“[Warfare]
is a grim and ugly if necessary matter. The Canaanites against whom
Israel waged war were under judicial sentence of death by God. They were
spiritually and morally degenerate. Virtually every kind of perversion
was a religious act: and large classes of sacred male and female
prostitutes were a routine part of the holy places. Thus, God ordered
all the Canaanites to be killed (Deut. 2:34; 3:6; 20:16–18; Josh. 11:14), both because they were under God’s death sentence, and to avoid the contamination of Israel [Rousas John Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law (1973), 279]” (Old Testament Student Manual: Genesis––2 Samuel, 3rd ed. [Church Educational System manual, 2003], 227).
Elder
Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles explained how even
God’s justice on the wicked is evidence of His love and concern for His
children:
“We read again and again in the Bible
and in modern scriptures of God’s anger with the wicked and of His
acting in His wrath against those who violate His laws. How are anger
and wrath evidence of His love? Joseph Smith
taught that God ‘institute[d] laws whereby [the spirits that He would
send into the world] could have a privilege to advance like himself’ [Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith (2007), 210].
God’s love is so perfect that He lovingly requires us to obey His
commandments because He knows that only through obedience to His laws
can we become perfect, as He is. For this reason, God’s anger and His
wrath are not a contradiction of His love but an evidence of His love” (“Love and Law,” Ensign or Liahona, Nov. 2009, 27).
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