Deuteronomy

AFTER the FIRST temple was completed by Solomon. the LORD showed his approval of the Temple by a visable manefestation of his entering the space

The Deuteronomists found "the book of the law" hidden in Solomon's Temple, during the reign of the boy king Josiah (2 Kings 22:8) and made a power grab for control of the priesthood, claiming authority/superiority of Levitical, through the lineage of Aaron - with the doctrine that;

"...the law given through Moses is the complete and sufficient revelation of the Will of God, and nothing further is needed"

"Lehi’s family appears to be a microcosm of the conflict in Jerusalem between those who espoused Josiah’s Deuteronomic reforms and the pre-reform religion. Lehi’s theology had affinities with the older religion... 

Grant Hardy observed, “Laman and Lemuel appear to have been orthodox, observant Jews. Nephi — who has a vested interest in revealing their moral shortcomings — never accuses them of idolatry, false swearing, Sabbath breaking, drunkenness, adultery, or ritual uncleanness.” Nephi's silence on these sins is significant... Laman and Lemuel were believers in Josiah's reforms.

• • • 1 Nephi 2:7; 5:9 - Lehi "built an altar of stones, and made an offering unto the Lord" => The boy king Josiah outlawed worship at the local shrines and high places, redirecting all ritual to the newly cleansed Temple while Deuteronomist laws expressly prohibited offering sacrifice anywhere except Jerusalem/or by non-Levites... this is when Leman and Lemuel begin to "murmur against their father"

    • 1 Nephi 2:11; 17:20 - Lamen and Lemuel accuse their father of being a “visionary man,” who followed the “foolish imaginations of his heart” =>  Deuteronomists held that the law given through Moses is the complete and sufficient revelation of the Will of God, and nothing further is needed. As John A. Tvedtnes and Matthew Roper have noted, a “visionary man” is an appropriate translation of the Hebrew חזה (ḥôzeh) and accusation that Lehi is a false prophet.

    • 1 Nephi 1:20 & 2:13 - "they were like unto the Jews who were at Jerusalem, who sought to take away the life of my father." => because that was the legal punishment according to Deteronomists

    • 1 Nephi 3:15 - Nephi invokes a legally binding oath, under the law of Moses, his brothers must either HELP him fulfill this oath... or KILL him as an oath breaker.

    • 1 Nephi 7:7 - Lamen and Lemuel believed that the Deuteronomists were right, and thus the Lord would protect His holy city [as he had in the days of Hezekiah], so “they were desirous to return unto the land of Jerusalem” - Hezekiah had pulled off a miraculous win over the Assyrians, so his great grandson Josiah could do the same to the Babylonians 🤷

    • 1 Nephi 17:22 - "And we know that the people who were in the land of Jerusalem were a righteous people; for they kept the statutes and judgments of the Lord, and all his commandments, according to the law of Moses; wherefore, we know that they are a righteous people." => Lamen & Lemuel are declaring their support for Josiah & the Deuteronomistic reforms

The JEWS were banking on the Shenika Glory saving them fron the Babaylonians, ...like it had in the days of Hezikiah, against the Assyrians

This Deuteronomistic thinking is going to be a generational problem, over and over again for the Nephites;

• For Jacob, confronting Sherem "..he began to preach among the people, and to declare unto them that there should be no Christ... and this he did that he might overthrow the doctrine of Christ... ye have led away much of this people that they pervert the right way of God, and keep not the law of Moses which is the right way; and convert the law of Moses into the worship of a being which ye say shall come many hundred years hence." - Jacob 7

• For Abanidi, confronting wicked priests of Noah "Doth salvation come by the law of Moses? What say ye? And they answered and said that salvation did come by the law of Moses." - Mosiah 12:31-32

• For Alma, confronting Korihor "...ye also say that Christ shall come. But behold, I say that ye do not know that there shall be a Christ. And ye say also that he shall be slain for the sins of the world..." - Alma 30

• Amulek, confronting the Zoram-ites  "...it is impossible that ye should be ignorant of the things which have been spoken concerning the coming of Christ" -  Alma 34

• Samuel, the Lamanite confronting the Nephites - "that ye might know of the coming of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Father of heaven and of earth, the Creator of all things from the beginning; and that ye might know of the signs of his coming, to the intent that ye might believe on his name." - Helaman 14:12-19

• Moroni - "they put to death every Nephite that will not deny the Christ" - Moroni 1

Shenika (שְׁכִינָה‎) glory

Maimonides believed the Shekinah was “a light created to be an intermediary between God and the world.” => Toshar (Gen 6:16, see footnote a)

God had promised to “dwell among” His people: “And there I will meet with you, and I will speak with you from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are on the ark of the Testimony” (Exodus 25:22).

“Then the cloud covered the tabernacle of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle” (Exodus 40:34) and The Glory of the Lord again descended on the Temple when Solomon dedicated it (II Chronicles 7:1)

But, a few years before the Jewish people were taken captive by the Babylonians, the prophet Ezekiel recorded that originally “the house was filled with the cloud, and the court was full of the brightness of the Lord’s glory,” but, “Then the glory of the Lord departed from the threshold of the temple.” (Ezekiel 10:4, 18). Ezekiel 11:23- Later Ezekiel says that he saw the Glory of the Lord "depart from the Temple and settle atop the Mt. of Olives"

However, the Sanhedrin refused to tell the people of Israel that the Shenika (שְׁכִינָה‎) glory had left the Holy of Holies, as reported by​ the High Priest(s) for six consecutive years... prior to Babylonian attack.

~530 BC - Zerubbabel led the 42,360 Jews back to the Land from Babylon (Ezra 2:64), BUT the Shekinah Glory of the Lord is never mentioned as being present when the Second Temple was dedicated... because it had followed the Ark of the Covenant to America with Mulek. 

I [CKS] suspect that this is where "jewish" history was re-written - "In the second year after the Exodus, God commanded Moses to take a census of the arms-bearing men over 20 in each of the clans of Israel. Aided by the clan chiefs, Moses & Aaron reach a total of 603,550 men — The Levites, to whom is entrusted the care of the Tabernacle and its equipment, are exempted from this secular census and are counted in a later census, of males one month and over, along with a census of firstborn males (Exodus 13:2 & ) from other tribes. The Lord had required that the latter be consecrated to him when he slew all the firstborn of the Egyptians but spared those of the Israelites (Exodus 4:22-23, 11:5 & 12:12-14); now they were released by the Levites being taken in their stead... and only a token "redemption" payment was required for "firstborns".  - Britannica>>The-Holiness-Code

For ~400 years, Israel waited in anticipation of the Shekinah glory returning. Eventually a family of priests who were zealous for the re-establishment of Israel and the return of the Shekinah led a revolt against the control of the Greecian empire. Mattathias the priest had five sons who carried on his passion. His son Judas Maccabeus was the High Priest from 165 B.C. to 162 B.C. He led an army of Jewish revolutionists who rebelled against the control of the Greeks. The Maccabean rule lasted until 63 B.C. 

When Jesus the Messiah was born in 3 B.C., God’s people were watching and waiting for return of the Shekinah to the Temple. When Jesus died on the cross, the veil in the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The veil was a curtain about 8” thick... Only God could have torn the veil. Which signified that the Shekinah was no longer in the Holy of Holies.

Josephus says that the temple priests, while performing their sacred duties, "heard a sound as of a great multitude, saying, "Let us remove hence" . This occurred on the day of Pentecost, the 6th day of Sivan (May 22nd) in 66 AD - the roman historian Tacitus corroborates the report by noting that "a voice of more than mortal tone was heard to cry that the Gods were departing" 

NOTES

SRC - http://www.diggingdeep.info/the-shekinah-in-the-early-church.html

https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/the-deuteronomist-reforms-and-lehis-family-dynamics-a-social-context-for-the-rebellions-of-laman-and-lemuel 

https://scripturecentral.org/archive/periodicals/journal-article/deuteronomist-reforms-and-lehis-family-dynamics-social-context-rebellions-laman-and-lemuel or Online @ https://online.fliphtml5.com/nryf/ijkd/#p=1 

 Modern biblical scholars believe that there are four(4) sources of the Hebrew canon, the first "Deuteronomist" is also known as the Pentateuch. The other sources are the Yahwist, the Elohist, or E, and the Priestly code [P]. These four sources are not to be confused with the books themselves:

• (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers) = Tetrateuch

• (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) = Pentateuch

Hebew RULES for War

Destruction Of Trees During A Siege

A special provision of the rules of siege concerns the status of trees in and around the besieged city: “When you besiege a city for a long time, making war against it in order to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an axe against them; for you may eat of them, but you shall not cut them down. For is the tree of the field man that it should be besieged by you?” (Deut. 20:19). 

However, during Israel’s war with Moab, the prophet Elisha expressly commanded that the army “fell every good tree, and stop up all springs of water, and ruin every good piece of land with stones” (II Kings 3:19).  

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/military-law