The Lord Your God (Deuteronomy)

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"What is it that stands out to you as you read the book of Deuteronomy?" 

I asked this question of our small group several years ago. One member was quick to respond, “Why does it keep saying, ‘The Lord your God’?”

“The Lord your God.” She was right. This phrase, or something like it, occurs 254 times in Deuteronomy. That’s TEN times more than any other book (other than Ezekiel, which uses it 64 times). 

Clearly, Moses, whose speeches are recorded in Deuteronomy, had an important point to make. He wanted his hearers (and readers) to never forget that the God who had rescued them and ruled them was in fact, “the Lord your God.”

This may not seem like a big deal to you, but it should be. After all, it was a revolutionary idea among ancient peoples. 

In every other culture, gods were distant deities, unpredictable, and capricious. Appeasing them was a guessing game at best. There certainly was no idea of a personal relationship with the gods, no sense of a God who cared deeply about them, a God who was personally committed to them.

Until the Hebrews came along. They were the first to conceive of God as personal. Alone among other cultures, they believed that there was one God who created the universe. This God had specially revealed himself to Abraham. This God had given his personal name to Moses. Their God had rescued them from Egyptian slavery. Their God had personally committed himself to them through a sacred covenant.

This God was their God. This God’s name was Yahweh (usually translated Lord, with lower case capitals). This is why Moses so insistently repeated the phrase, “Yahweh your God,” or “Yahweh our God.” It was the root of their national consciousness, the foundation of their view of life.

Everyone believes in God, or so it seems. But many, many people have a pagan view of God. They speak of a “higher power,” perhaps. Or they say, “I believe there is something out there,” or “I am a spiritual person."

These ideas must not be confused with the God who is revealed in the Scriptures. The God of the Bible is intensely personal. This God has a name. This God has attached himself to humanity. Ultimately, followers of Jesus believe this God became flesh and blood.

We are getting ahead of ourselves, however. For now, all the Israelites knew was that this God was both powerful and personal. This God was the ever present, eternally existent, self-sustaining One (a very rough paraphrase of “Yahweh”). This God had created the world and had called them to be his people.

This is the foundation of all the commands of Deuteronomy. “I am [Yahweh] your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery,” which is of course the preamble to the Ten Words (10 Commandments), as found in chapter five:

  • No other gods
  • No carved gods
  • No irreverence of my name
  • Observe Sabbath
  • Honor parents
  • No murder
  • No adultery
  • No stealing
  • No lies
  • No coveting

The rest of Moses’ speech is virtually an explication of the Ten Words, showing how they apply in family life, religious life, economic life, and in judicial life. The beautiful simplicity of the Ten Commandments – as well as our utter inability to perform them – have captured the imagination of people ever since.

Our concern here, however, is the foundational idea underneath all the commands: “I am Yahweh your God.” The phrase, as I said, is repeated over two hundred times. Why was it so important for the Israelites – and us – to remember this?

This was the God above all gods. This was the God who had chosen Israel as his special treasure. This was the God who had revealed to them his name. This was “The Lord our God.” 

As a result, no longer would life be seen simply as an endless circle of life and death. “Circle of Life” may be a popular tune, but it is a pagan idea. Life was not a circle. It was (and is) a story, a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. A story which is going somewhere. A story which was being told by a God who had chosen a people through whom he could bless the world. This was “the Lord our God.”

In addition, no longer would nature be seen as capricious and unpredictable. It might rear its ugly head, but Yahweh was its ultimate master. It, like us, is his personal creation. We must care for it, nurture it, respect it, and cultivate it toward its full fruitfulness. We must not worship it. As G.K. Chesterton once remarked, it is not our mother; it is our sister. It, like us, belongs to “the Lord our God.”

And most importantly, no longer would we fear that God was out to get us. We might not understand God. We might not like some of the things God does, or that God expects us to do. But we can never doubt God’s commitment to us. This God has rescued us. This God has revealed his name to us. This God has committed himself to us. This God is worthy of our worship and our obedience. This is “the Lord OUR God.”

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