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Another theme in the Book of Deuteronomy is the theme of providential concern, and that
appears in Deuteronomy 8. God's providential love and care for Israel is expressed through
various metaphors in the Bible. And the prophet Hosea, who seems to have very strong connections
with the Book of Deuteronomy, the prophet Hosea will develop further this image of parent
and child that occurs in Deuteronomy 8. So in a way, the language we were just referring
to was really the language of husband and wife, you know, someone who simply loves someone,
not because they are perfect, but that is their choice. They favor them. They love the
person, and they make a bond with them. It does not imply anything about other people.
It is simply [that] that is the person who has been the focus. So we have a lot of sort
of love and marriage imagery, husband and wife imagery, used for God and Israel, but
we also have this parent and child imagery that appears. In Deuteronomy 32:10, the image
is that of an eagle that bears its young on its wings:
He found him in a desert region, In an empty howling waste.
He engirded him, watched over him,
Guarded him as the pupil of his eye. Like an eagle who rouses his nestlings,
Gliding down to his young,
So did he spread his wings and take him, Bear him along on his pinions;
The Lord alone did guide him.…
It almost seems to play on the idea that when teaching its young to fly, the eagle will
push them out of the nest, swoop under them, bear them up for awhile over and over until
they get the idea. So God is repeatedly testing and correcting the Israelites until they are
ready for the Promised Land. So Deuteronomy's content, which are these
farewell speeches and the death and the burial of Moses, are a fitting capstone to the Pentateuchal
narrative. But at the same time, Deuteronomy really does not bring closure to this narrative,
because at the end of Deuteronomy, the promises still are not fulfilled. The people are still
outside the land. Some have suggested that this is quite purposeful. It points to an
exilic date for the work's final composition: that is to say when it was finally redacted,
the redactors were in exile, writing for a people living in exile. And the Deuteronomist
wants to make it clear that it is fidelity to the Torah, rather than residence in the
land that is critically important. But in any event, Deuteronomy is not simply the concluding
book of the Pentateuch, or the story that began in Genesis; it's also the first part
of a much larger, longer literary work, as I mentioned last time, a work that runs from
Deuteronomy through to the end of 2 Kings. And we are going to consider today the program
and the work of this so-called Deuteronomistic school.