Day 16 ~ Blessings and curses, curses, curses

• Deuteronomy 17:6 - testimony of more than one witness is required for death penalty - repeated from Numbers. Again in 19:15 - more than one witness is needed.
• Kings must be chosen by God, and cannot be a foreigner. The President of the United States has to have been born in the US - do you remember that from government class? Of course I did, but I lived with the government teacher! (sorry Arnold). And the King has to follow the same rules as everyone else.
• Oh, something new mentioned for the Levities - they get the shoulder, the cheeks, and the stomach from those offering sacrifices. We have a joke in our family that my dad was so poor when he was growing up that when they had a chance to have a chicken for supper, they would use every part of the chicken. All the parts? Even the chicken eyes? Thus the expression "chicken-eye chili." The Levitical version would have been "sheep-cheek chili."
• 18:10-13 It is passages like this that make me uncomfortable with Harry Potter, or all other sorcery based children's stuff (where it is cool to be into magic). Fortunately, my daughter is still too young for that stuff. Sure, they want to read and that's good for them, but the scriptures are clear to avoid this stuff. We did however, read the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to her and she's seen the movie. Perhaps I talk from both sides of my mouth. Talk amongst yourselves: topic - children based sorcery books - good or bad?
• A prophet like Moses is to come (18:15). You'll know if he is truly speaking God's words by the fact that he remains alive.
• 20:10 - what happened to the utterly destroy plan when you attack a city? Now they are allowed to make peace offerings, and take the people as servants? - apparently this applies only to the cities that are far off, not part of the territory of the inheritance (15)
• 20:16 - ah, there we are...you shall let nothing that breathes remain alive within the territory of the inheritance. By the way, the Israelites fail to do this.
• 21:10-14 - again, what about the utterly destroy clause? Now if you find a good-lookin' woman you can bring her home and keep her for yourself? This doesn't seem to fit.
• 21: 15-17 could be called Hagar's law.
• Teenagers had to really keep their nose clean back in the day! (21:20).
• I sleep in my husband's t-shirt pretty regularly. That would have been a no-no. I guess drag queens would have been pretty scarce. (22:5)
• Does 22:9 prohibit cross-breeding of plants?
• Is it even possible to get an ox and a donkey to work together? (22:10)
• The wool and linen rule again in 22:11
• Poor gal, her husband hates her and calls her a liar, but they give the dad money and make the girl stay with the husband. Wonder how that worked out for her?
• 22:22 - most tv shows on today wouldn't last long because the cast of characters would be so quickly killed off by the adultery = stoning rule.
• Please don't tell me what 23:1 means.
• When the Lord walks in the midst of your camp, he doesn't want to step in your poo, so cover it up. (23:13-14).
• You can't remarry your first husband if you've married a second time. 24:4.
• The honeymoon shall last a year - and keep the girl happy! 24:5.
• Be kind and generous with the poor and needy is again addressed in detail in chapter 24.
• Beatings as punishment are limited to 40 blows. Remember Jesus' beating? I can remember counting the blows in The Passion of the Christ movie and they went way past forty blows. I wonder if I'll remember when I finally get to this portion of reading to see if they were limited in how many times they could beat Jesus.
• God only know why he comes up with this stuff - removing sandals and spitting in faces, rules for women who seize genitals - apparently God knew that this stuff would come up.
• Repeating the history of the Israelites as part of the rituals was a way to keep the information alive.
• Chapter 27 curses and amens sounds like a big pep rally before the big game.
• The curses of chapter 28 are especially sad to read because we know many of them will come true due to the stiff-necked Israelites failure. You know things are pretty far from what God intended when canibalism is described.

Well, Moses is still alive.