As I write this, I count two Bibles in the same room with me. Within 90 seconds I could lay my hands on half a dozen more. Not to mention the electronic copies—on my phone and iPad—that go with me virtually everywhere. God’s Word is always with me. My being in God’s Word…that may be another story.
The law of Moses anticipated the installation of a king in Israel by giving instructions to that end. Deuteronomy 17:14-17 gave guidelines for who could serve that role and rules specific to his reign. The passage concludes with this:
18 “And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical priests.
19 And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them,
20 that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left, so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children, in Israel.” (Deuteronomy 17:18–20)
The passage strikes me as instructive not only for kings, but for all God’s people, perhaps particularly those satisfied with proximity to God’s Word. I’ll make an argument for that toward the end. First, consider the passage…
…he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical priest… First, imagine how long this would have taken. If “this law” refers just to the book of Deuteronomy, copying it would have been quite a task. But what if the intent was for the king to handcopy all the Pentateuch? “…approved by the Levitical priests” is more literally, “before the Levitical priests” and could indicate that the king was to copy the law literally in their presence. This makes perfect sense as the original would have been at the Tabernacle. “Copy” is the word for “second.” The king was making a “second law,” indicating he was copying the original. To make his copy, the king would have to go to the tabernacle (Deut 31:24-26). The priests would have to bring it out to him. A relatively inconvenient, laborous, time-intensive process.
Why go to all that trouble?
“And it shall be with him…” He needed to have God’s Word available to him all the time. He needed it with him. The great labor of making his own copy must indicate that ready access to God’s Word was essential for his serving faithfully.
But was this task merely intended to make the law available to him? I have many Bibles all around me, yet how many hours and days have I spent…the Bible with me, but me not in it?
“…and he shall read in it all the days of his life…” He was not merely to have the Bible present as something of a talisman, but he was to have his own copy of the law of God in order to read it daily.
At the time, the Word was much shorter than it is now. Reading daily, the king might read the whole many times a year, countless times in a lifetime. It must have been the case that many readings, countless readings was not sufficient. He was to read and read and read…all the days of his life. Why?
“…that he may learn to fear the Lord his God…” The ultimate purpose of repetitive reading is to learn a disposition toward God, to fear God, to develop a heart of loving awe and reverence. Note that this is a disposition that must be learned. Godly fear is not natural to the fallen man. It must be cultivated even in the regenerate (2 Cor 7:1)…cultivated through time in the Word.
How long will it take to arrive? It is not as if one can never arrive at a fear of the Lord; the Bible describes multiple people as having that very quality (Gen 22:12; Exo 1:17; 1 Kings 18:3; Neh 7:2). However, that the king was called to read the law all the days of his life indicates that one can unlearn the fear of the Lord. Psalm 119 seems to confirm that fear of the Lord is fed by constancy in His Word (119:38, 63, 79, 161).
Therefore, consider the king who had the law with him, but did not read it all the days of his life. What did he learn? He learned whatever the enemies of his soul put in front of him. His own flesh would have been a sufficient enemy to keep him mired in a lack of godly fear. How much worse would be his disposition when his flesh acted in concert with the devil and the world?
So..shouldn’t one do everything necessary to resist mere proximity to the Bible? Days, years wasted near the Bible and not in it? How many kings of Israel lived entire lives in proximity to the law, perhaps a stone’s throw from the original? Or even closer to David’s copy? (I suggest David actually fulfilled this command to make his own copy, which explains his love of and meditation on the Scriptures, not to mention his phraseology when instructing Solomon [Prov 4:3-9 cf 1 Kings 2:1-4). Yet by the time of Josiah’s reign the very existence of the original had been forgotten (2 Kings 22:8-11). No wonder there was no fear of God before their eyes (Rom 3:18, Psa 36:1).
“…in order that he may keep all the words of this law and these statutes, doing them…” The fear of the Lord leads to obeying all that He says.
Reading the Word daily then serves multiple purposes. Again, it cultivates fear of the Lord. It also provides understanding of what the Lord desires from His people. Numerous occasions in Judges, particularly chs 17-21, it appeared that the people failed to obey because they were ignorant of what God required. That was certainly no excuse, but it underscored their need for a Deuteronomy 17 kind of king (Jdg 17:6; 18:1; 19:1; 21:25) to lead them in fear of God and faithfulness to His law. To keep the Word requires knowing it…knowing it very well. Doing the Word is a separate thing which requires the fuel of godly fear.
Deuteronomy 17:20 suggests that leaving off this daily reading of the Word would lead a king’s heart to be lifted up above his brothers and to turn aside from the commandments. This is exactly what the kings of Israel demonstrated, beginning even with David.
As the book of Judges, Samuel, and Kings show, finding a king who would exemplify the ideal of Deuteronomy 17 would not be easy, but not impossible. It would however require God the Son Himself to take that role. Jesus Christ is identified as a king in the very first verse of the NT (Matt 1:1). There is no evidence that He had His own copy of the law, but His command of God’s Word indicates He knew it better than any previous king. Further, the Word in the hands of the Spirit had its intended effect—Jesus lived with a loving reverence for the Father evidenced by perfect obedience in all things (Isa 11:2-3; Heb 5:7; John 4:34; 8:29; Phil 2:8).
Because of His work on our behalf—dying on the cross and rising from the dead—we have new covenant advantages unavailable to OT kings. We have the indwelling Spirit to guide us into all truth (John 16:13). We have the fullness of God’s revelation, one part helping to illuminate another part in the context of the whole. We have other saints—present and historical—to help us understand what we find in God’s Word. So why wouldn’t we read it all the days of our lives?
Perhaps an obvious objection is that Deuteronomy 17:18-20 is instruction for kings. Is it really appropriate to apply it to our own sanctification?
Is there good reason to believe that any of the above principles pertain only to kings? For example, is the fear of the Lord a need unique to kings? If not…time in the Word as a means of growth in that fear…is that unique to kings? Surely not.
Isn’t Psalm 119 written to all God’s people? By it doesn’t the author commend a Bible-meditation-induced fear of the Lord to all people? It seems that the Lord’s instruction for kings was intended to equip them to lead the people to the same results—godly fear and faithfulness.
Deuteronomy 17:18-20 is similar to the passages on elder qualifications in the NT (1 Tim 3:1-7; Titus 1:5-9). It would be truly odd for one to reason, “I’m not an elder and don’t aspire to be one, so there is no need for me to exemplify those qualifications.” Similarly, how unreasonable to conclude that because I am not a king there is no need for daily intake of the Word unto a growing fear of the Lord that I might honor him with my life.
Unlike the kings of old, we don’t have to make our own copy. Bibles abound in our day and culture. So, in light of the new covenant blessings afforded by King Jesus, shouldn’t we move beyond mere proximity to the Word toward time in the Word all the days of our lives?
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