Deuteronomy 'Ekev Verses 7:12 - 11:25

This week God was just reviewing what he had done in the first years of the wilderness. I just want to focus on one verse in particular,

"The graven images of their gods you will burn with fire; you shall not covet the silver or gold that is upon them and take it for yourself, lest you be ensnared by it, for it is an abomination to the Lord, your God." (Deuteronomy 7:25)

I feel you can take this two ways. The direct approach where a Jew should never covet or worship another god. Another view is that this is a metaphor. My belief is it is a metaphor. I think it used to be a law, but you if you live in the United States you are not surrounded by the Romans, the Greeks, and the Egyptians worshiping idols.

I will take this verse piece by piece. The first part where, "The graven images of their gods will you burn with fire". That could mean that you can not go against your good judgement. Your common sense is extinguishes that fire within you, but if you go and do something stupid that fire burns everything within you. This is just a silly coincidence, but if you smoke your lungs burn and look like charcoal. My other example is how stupid Anakin was in Star Wars. When he became Darth Vader, he literally burned up in fire.

The second part, "You shall not covet the silver or gold that is upon them and take it for yourself" is telling no matter how fun or daring it looks do not covet the bad boy. We should not sigh when we see our neighbors drive up in their porches. If we complimented instead of envied or tried to what we envy for ourselves the world would be a better place. Some of the cruelest people in our history were simply greedy from their envy. Bernie Madoff probably grew up seeing the wealthy and envied them enough to scam the innocent.

Finally, "Lest you be ensnared by it, for it is an abomination to the Lord, your God." God is not going to accept you after you burned in the fires of envy. You do not want the burnt steak. You want the rare steak. Just like people want the "rare people" who do the right thing, but why do good-doers have to be rare? Anyone can do just as much good as bad.