14 Behold, to the LORD your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it. 15 Yet the LORD set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day. 16 Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn. 17 For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe. 18 He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. 19 Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. 20 You shall fear the LORD your God. You shall serve him and hold fast to him, and by his name you shall swear. 21 He is your praise. He is your God, who has done for you these great and terrifying things that your eyes have seen. 22 Your fathers went down to Egypt seventy persons, and now the LORD your God has made you as numerous as the stars of heaven.
—Deuteronomy 10:14-22
Etymology is defined as the study of words, and while I’m far from an etymologist, I delight in their power and meaning. It’s a wonder, really, that the thoughtful and precise stringing together of words can both cause the most reticent man to break into tears and the most peaceful, passive country to break out in war. Even more significant, however, is their creator: God. He made spoken language—He therefore created words and gave them meaning. And it’s in their meaning, or better, in our understanding of their meaning, that we can process an intended message, be it written or spoken. Proper processing allows us to be appropriately impacted (and this impact necessarily leads to a response or action).
All this to say, words matter. Understanding their intended meaning matters. Especially when they describe, and/or are ascribed to, God. Even small discrepancies in our understanding of words can induce great compromises of truth (Truth).
The verses above contain words rich with meaning. But before I break them down, let me just say the exercise is for the enhancement of my own understanding; far be it from me to suggest you need the same!
Deuteronomy 10 comes on the heels of the Israelites’ construction and worship of the golden calf while Moses was on Mount Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments. If you remember the flannel graph from Sunday school, an angry Moses chucked the original tablets at the idolatrous people, so he ascended the mountain a second time to get another set. Verse 14-22, then, is an excerpt from his message to the Israelites upon his return. He had already delivered the Ten Commandments once—this was an underscoring of them, a pointed reminder of the nature of their Author.
Read it again, but zero in on Verse 17. ‘For the Lord your God is God of gods, the Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God.’ In this context it’s not unclear what Moses means by great and awesome. However, there are plenty of instances where we hear or read about God’s greatness and are inclined to derive an altogether different, and incorrect, understanding. Imagine yourself in church, or even in Chapel, singing:
How great is our God, sing with me
How great is our God, and all will see
How great, how great is our God
It’s a great song, right? But are we really getting what Chris Tomlin is putting down? Chris means something very specific when He describes God as ‘great’. He doesn’t mean God is not just good, but great, in the sense that the new guy dating your little sister is a great guy, or the pizza joint down the street serves a great pie. I suppose God is great that way too. But the actual message here is that God is great—boundless, enormous, illustrious, remarkable, elevated, magnificent, extreme, momentous, powerful and prodigious. His greatness is in reference to His holiness, which itself is oft-misunderstood. God is set apart. His character, His qualities are transcendently different, above, and better than anyone or anything else. He is literally matchless—in every single way.
I don’t know what, if anything, this is conjuring in you, but even as I write I am in awe. Pondering Him in this way urges me to get off Starbucks’ comfortable leather chair and down on my knees on the hard tile.
Words. Matter.
I challenge you, then, as I do myself, to slow down and take them in, to not gloss over the carefully selected words authored by God Himself, or songwriters, or preachers of the Good News. You may come away knocked down, laid bare—surely God will come away praised.
Verse 21 begins with a profound sentence: ‘He is your praise.’
Let those words sink in for a bit.
He is our praise.
This great God is.
Grace to you, to understand, for the sake of your heart and His praise,
Voice of another
