“Heap all its spoils in an open space, and burn the city with its spoils to the ground for Adonai your God; it will remain a tel forever and not be built again — none of what has been set apart for destruction is to stay in your hands. Then Adonai will turn from his fierce anger and show you mercy, have compassion on you and increase your numbers, as he swore to your ancestors — provided you listen to what Adonai says and obey all his mitzvot that I am giving you today, thus doing what Adonai your God sees as right.”-Deuteronomy 13:17-19
Following on the heels of my last post, the punishment for the crime of idolatry that a whole community participates in…
…is that the whole town itself including its buildings are to be completely burned to the ground.
We’re talking about pyromania on a grand scale here.
And once the town has been laid to waste, it is never to be rebuilt.
God’s judgement on that idolatrous community is final and stands for all eternity.
Do you remember what the Hebrew word for heap or ruins of a town is?
It is TEL.
If you’ve ever been on Bible tour to Israel, you probably visited a TEL or two.
A TEL is an area where over time a series of cities were rebuilt each on top of the ruins of the previous city.
In some cases, one of these huge TELs might be a place where cities were rebuilt up to as many as 20 times!
That’s a lot of civilization crammed into one huge mound or heap.
The words “mound” and/or “heap” are actually good words to describe a TEL simply because although the first or original city was built on the same flat level as its surroundings, over the centuries via the cycle of destruction and reconstruction, a huge mound or heap is literally what resulted with some of these babies reaching reaching heights towering over a 100 feet or more.
Let’s take a look at verse 18.
“none of what has been set apart for destruction is to stay in your hands.”
Okay, only a hardcore Bible scholar is really going to understand what’s going on here.
When God has determined that a city is to be destroyed due to idolatry, it is NOT just the buildings that are to be burned to the ground.
The spoils of the city are also to be piled up high and burned up along with everything else.
Normally, the spoils are confiscated and given to the military commander or to the king, but NOT in a holy war.
The buildings and its spoils must be dedicated to back to God.
In Hebrew, this act or principle is called HEREM.
The point is…
…since the Lord ordered the destruction of the town…
…it is a sacred and HOLY act.
In other words…
God’s divine wrath is…
…umm, well divine.
Think of it like this.
Just as a sacrificial animal is to be completely burnt up on the bronze Altar and all of it dedicated back to the Lord, so are a town’s spoils to be completely burnt up and dedicated back to God.
Since God is a spiritual being, He doesn’t receive material gifts in the physical world in the manner as we humans do.
So instead the burning up of the town’s spoils is the symbolic act of giving it all back to God.
Next, note the last two verses of Deuteronomy Chapter 13.
“none of what has been set apart for destruction is to stay in your hands. Then Adonai will turn from his fierce anger and show you mercy, have compassion on you and increase your numbers, as he swore to your ancestors — provided you listen to what Adonai says and obey all his mitzvot that I am giving you today, thus doing what Adonai your God sees as right.”
Here we’re given the reason why God ordered the destruction of the whole town.
The point is that the Lord’s ferocious anger was against ALL of Israel even though it was just one town who turned to apostasy.
We see here that the actions of one lone individual in a group WILL indeed affect the whole group.
Until that one rebellious town is completely destroyed including the town’s citizens and all their personal items, the Lord’s anger will NOT be satisfied.
Only after the existence of the rebellion town has been erased will HASHEM bring His favor back upon the people of Israel.
The takeaway here is as plain as day.
THERE IS NO HIGHER CRIME AGAINST THE LORD’S HOLINESS THAN TO MIX WORSHIP OF HIM WITH OTHER GODS.
This is nothing less than committing adultery against the Lord.
NEXT TIME WE BEGIN DEUTERONOMY CHAPTER FOURTEEN
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