“It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will go up to heaven for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?’”  Deuteronomy 30:12  NASB

Not in heaven – Have you considered the implications of Moses’ observation about God’s revelation?  Moses is delivering Torah to Israel.  He is elaborating the code of living that God wants His people to accept and follow.  In the process, Moses makes this startling claim.  Don’t look to heaven to find God’s word!  In fact, he goes on the say, “Don’t look in far away places (“beyond the sea”) either.”  Where is God’s revelation to be found?  “But the word is very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may observe it” (v. 12).

Doesn’t this sound wonderful?  We don’t have to investigate heavenly proclamations.  We don’t have to travel the world in search of wisdom.  We can just sit quietly in our own comfortable surroundings and let God speak to us in our hearts.  Isn’t that what Moses is saying?  Unfortunately (?), no, this isn’t what Moses is saying, even if we interpret his words according to our culture.

The question we need to ask is this:  What would these words have meant to the children of Israel?  And the answer is all about the religious environment of the ancient Near East, not about contemporary meditation and introspection.  The reason Moses makes this claim is simply because the Israelites have lived for centuries in a culture (Egypt) where divine revelation did come from imploring the heavens, seeking the gods, expecting divine disclosure from distant sources.  We should also notice that Moses dismisses the idea that human effort is involved in acquiring the words of the gods.  Think about the religion of Egypt – and the whole Near East.  Basically, men were left in the dark about the will of God.  They were expected to serve the gods, but were never given specific directions about how to do that, until, of course, they “sinned.”  Then punishment arrived.  The biggest issue in the religions of the ancient world was the lack of direction.  In these circumstances, it was only natural to do everything you could do to obtain insight into the will of the gods.  But Moses brings a completely new approach.  God tells you what to do.  His directions are not mysteriously hidden in the heavens requiring you to find some way to access the other world.  No incantations, no ancestor worship, no rituals, no self-mutilation or sacrifices are necessary.  God reveals everything you need to know.  His words are “not too far away.”

Does that mean you only need to look into your heart to find God?  Once again, no.  As is clear from the story of the wilderness wanderings, relying on your heart is often a very big mistake.  How you feel about things today isn’t really an adequate guide to God’s will.  What Moses means must be understood in an oral culture.  Where do I go to find out what God demands of me?  I go to the source of my understanding of God – my collective storehouse of memories and teaching – my heart, the place where I keep all those instructions I have memorized.  Why have I memorized them?  Because that’s the way all learning took place in a culture without books.  I look to my heart because that is the depository of revealed Torah.  Obviously, if I haven’t memorized what God revealed, there will be nothing in my heart to remind me of His words.  This isn’t a statement about meditation.  It is a statement about education.  Once God has revealed specifically what He requires, it is up to me to commit His words to memory so that I am never without them.

Book believers (like me) are lazy examples of wandering Israel.  Since we rely on concordances, software searches and textbooks, we have the tendency not to know exactly what God said.  We think, “Well, I can always look it up.”  But that’s not possible for ancient Israel – and I wonder if we don’t do ourselves damage by slipping into this lazy form of biblical knowledge.

When you look into your heart, do you find volumes and volumes of Torah?  Or do you find instructions for how to use a Bible dictionary?

Topical Index:  not in heaven, Torah, education, heart, Deuteronomy 30:12