This weeks blog topic was hard to choose. There were so many interesting things to explore in Deuteronomy, but, after much deliberation, I finally settled on Deuteronomy 10:16.
Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.(Deuteronomy 10:16 ESV)
We've seen in previous scripture the importance of circumcision to the Israelite people. In Exodus when Moses did not circumcise his son, God was ready to strike Moses down dead right then and there for not honoring this sacred covenant that action symbolized. We also see throughout Exodus and Deuteronomy that Moses is quick to anger and pretty stubborn himself. So we can fairly obviously infer that this verse is kind of an indirect jab at Moses, but this verse is a bit too specific to have that simple of an explanation. So let's dig deeper shall we?
Human Heart (https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXjVZLICks-eLUCuO2BuYTyBQ4vGM3wKgfhOt7Pkjq_J7T_1RL9M-whv5GI92i4e7kUk7qrz96JmAgWtvgdHjNWxkyKmKGRSkoa2-nvPkjBLJtE18UyMNn_-oZ__UNZ7be4fSopRadfWpz/s1600/External+heart+anatomy+11.2.jpg)
To become part of the Israelite people, outsiders would have to be circumcised. This the covenant made between Abraham and God, and from then on every male baby and slave had to be circumcised. Moses was raised in Egypt, and didn't take this practise seriously and so circumcision was largely abandoned when the Israelite people were wandering in the desert. God said he would re-establish his covenant with the next generation, starting with Joshua who took over for Moses. Joshua did re-instate the practise of circumcision.
"...circumcision was not merely a physical and external practice. It symbolized something internal. God described idolatry and disobedience as a result of an uncircumcised heart (Leviticus 26:41); he described repentance as a circumcision of the heart (Deuteronomy 10:16; 30:6). This spiritual meaning did not eliminate the need for the physical practice; the Israelites were to obey both the letter of the law and its symbolic meaning."(http://www.gci.org/law/circumcision)
In the New Testament, we can also look at Ephesians 4:22, where God calls us,
"to oput off pyour old self,1 which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through qdeceitful desires"
In the New Testament, circumcision is not as prevalent, especially after Christ's death and resurrection. The New Testament equivalent for circumcision seems to be water baptism. Water baptism is a public confession of faith and symbolic of throwing off our "old flesh" and receiving new life. [Just listen to this "Dead Man (Carry Me)" by Jars of Clay, focus on the chorus and you'll get it]
In Deuteronomy 30:6, it says that God will circumcise our hearts; whereas 10:16 says we must do it ourselves. Contradictory? Not really, when you think about it. It goes back to the point of God giving man free will, to choose his own destiny. God can only work on your heart, if you allow him to do so. Going back to our verse, if you're stubborn and won't cooperate and let him in, then he won't help you. This is where I think a lot of people get the saying, "God only helps people who help themselves." In a way this seems to be true, but one has to be careful about giving the wrong impression when saying something like this in conversation.
So Moses was raised by Egyptians right? Does that mean that he wasn't circumcised? Not exactly. More likely he was only partially circumcised.
"...if Joshua 5:2 is read against the background of Egyptian dorsal circumcision, its meaning may be much deeper. It may well be that the Israelites had practiced the Egyptian version of circumcision in the wilderness. Joshua makes clear elsewhere that the Israelites observed worship practices of the Egyptians.3 I consider it likely that in Joshua 5:2 God commanded Israel to perform his circumcision by removing the entire foreskin.The incised but still-present foreskin of the Egyptian circumcision was a “reproach” (“disgrace,” NRSV) upon Israel. It signified the idolatrous disposition of the first generation." (http://www.thirdmill.org/files/english/html/th/TH.h.Glodo.Signs.1.html)
We can actually take this as foreshadowing: God knew exactly what he was doing, and what he was going to do with the Israelites, and even what they were going to do when he got them out in the desert by the time Moses was 8 days old (if Egyptians circumcised on the 8th day as the Hebrews did). Moses did what God wanted him to do... most of the time, but Moses was also very hard-headed and rash. (I mean, hey, he killed a task-master for beating a guy too hard.) He also demonstrated this several times when he struck the rock rather than speaking to it, as well as when he was so angry with the Israelites for making a golden calf statue that he shattered the stone tablets upon which the Ten Commandments were written (which was the whole reason he was up on the mountain with God for so long in the first place.) The breaking of the stone tablets was symbolic though. The physical breaking signified the breaking of the old Covenant with Moses's generation. When he had to go back up on the mountain to rewrite the commandments, that was God committing a plan to re-establish his Covenant with Joshua's generation.
More than you ever really wanted to think about circumcision right? Hebrews 3:8 also sheds some light on the subject of circumcision of the heart.
"do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.’ As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’ "(Hebrews 3:8-11 ESV)
I think this sums it up pretty well (http://bocsupportnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/admin/1938/13/hard-heart.jpg)
"And I will give them one heart, and xa new spirit I will put within them. yI will remove the heart of stone from their flesh zand give them a heart of flesh" (Ezekiel 11:19 and 36:26 ESV)
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