The Freedom of the Sabbath | Deut. 5:12-15
Israel is on the edge of the Jordan River, a stone’s throw from the Promised Land. It had been forty years since God gave His 10 words at Mt. Sinai. A few things went wrong, and God’s people wandered for 40 years in the wilderness. As a result, everyone over the age the twenty that left with Moses from Egypt is dead and the next generation is all that is left. The book of Deuteronomy is the second giving of the law; a refresher course for the people who were too young or not yet born when Moses gave it the first time. Moses reminds them of what God did to bring them where they were and what God was calling them to be in the promised land. In Moses’ second giving of the Sabbath command, he calls us and them to resist our old identity and rest in our new identity.