[Editor’s note: this article is produced by AI from a transcript of a sermon preached Dec 28, 2025. More information and links to Bible-reading schedules appear at the end of the article.]
The third time the Bible refers to “reading” is in Deuteronomy 31.9-13, a passage that reveals God’s purpose for his people regularly reading His Word. This message explores the culture and context of God’s instruction as well as showing how Bible reading impacts lives.
The Sabbatical Year
To understand this passage, we need some background. The text mentions “the end of every seven years,” referring to what scholars call the sabbatical year, or the Sabbath of Years. Just as the Israelites observed a weekly Sabbath with six days of work followed by one day of rest, they also practiced a cycle of years. After laboring in their fields for six years, they allowed the land to lie fallow in the seventh year. During this time, debts were forgiven and slaves were released.
While many assume the sabbatical year served primarily as an agricultural practice to increase soil fertility, the biblical text never mentions this. Instead, God promised to provide extra in the sixth year so the people could sustain themselves through the seventh. This divine provision points to something deeper than mere farming technique. The practice was meant to teach theological lessons about God’s care for the needy and His provision for His people.
In addition, the Sabbatical Year was also the year of release for debtors. For those burdened by debt, the prospect of freedom by the seventh year offered real hope. The Lord built a window of relief into Israel’s economic system. You could literally work your way out of debt.
The first thing our passage describes is how Moses wrote the law and delivered it to three groups: the priests, the Levites, and all the elders of Israel.
Dt 31.9 ¶ So Moses wrote this law and gave it to the priests, the sons of Levi who carried the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and to all the elders of Israel.
When the text says “this law,” Moses is referring at a minimum to the covenant portion of Deuteronomy, chapters 5 through 26. However, the term could mean the entire book. This second giving of the law ((Deutero = second; nomos = law.)) was critical in establishing the Israelite system of justice and the regulations by which the nation would operate. Even kings were bound by this law. Israel never had absolute rulers who could do whatever they wanted. They were always restricted by the law, a principle that continues in nations who follow “the rule of law.” Leaders are limited by constitutional (legal) authority.
The Assignment of the Law to the Leaders
When Moses handed over “this law” to the priests, Levites, and elders, he wasn’t simply creating an archive. Though the scroll was kept in the Holy of Holies with the Ark of the Covenant, it wasn’t simply an artifact to be held in a high and holy place. It was meant to form the worldview and practice of the nation.
The leaders bore responsibility for keeping this law before the people as the rule of their life and conduct. They were to read it themselves, remind the people of it, and administer it. One way they were to keep this law before the minds of the all the people was to read it every seven years at the Feast of Booths.
Dt 31.10-12 Then Moses commanded them, saying, “At the end of every seven years, at the time of the year of remission of debts, at the Feast of Booths, 11 when all Israel comes to appear before the LORD your God at the place which He will choose, you shall read this law in front of all Israel in their hearing. 12 “Assemble the people, the men and the women and children and the alien who is in your town, in order that they may hear and learn and fear the LORD your God, and be careful to observe all the words of this law.
The Feasts of Israel and the Feast of Booths
Three feasts required the attendance of all Israelite men each year. The Passover in spring commemorated the Exodus. The Feast of Weeks (also called the Feast of First Fruits or Pentecost in the New Testament) came fifty days after Passover, celebrating the beginning of harvest. In the fall came Tabernacles, or the Feast of Booths, connected with the Day of Atonement. It lasted one week.
During this feast, people lived outdoors in booths or huts made from branches and leaves, symbolizing their time in temporary dwellings at Sinai. Families would build these structures, sometimes on their rooftops, and camp out for the week. For children, this must have been great fun. For adults dealing with bugs and restless children, perhaps less so.
Every seventh year, the sabbatical year was marked at the Feast of Booths by the reading of the law. While men came every year, at the end of seven years the whole families would gather. The text specifically says to “assemble the people, the men and the women and the children and the alien who is in your town.” Even non-Israelites living among them were to come and hear this law, joining the nation in this festival.
Three Aspects of Hearing
The text describes three dimensions of engagement with the law: “so that they may hear and learn and fear the Lord your God.”
The word “hear” means more than casual listening. It involves effective hearing or listening, hearing that leads to putting things into practice.
The word “learn” carries the idea of training as well as educating. The same root produces the term for ox goad, that sharp pointed stick used to train a heifer or ox to pull a cart or plow. You put a yoke across its shoulders to control and limit its activities, and you use the goad when needed. This is training material designed to get through to that bovine brain and teach it what to do.
The law is meant to instruct us. Sometimes it will poke us. When we read scripture enough, there are moments when the Holy Spirit works in our hearts and we realize we must change some aspect of our lives. We can’t keep living that way anymore. When we pay attention to God’s Word and want to put it into practice, it will teach us by its power in our hearts and lives.
The word “fear” encompasses several meanings: the emotion of fear or terror, the intellectual anticipation of evil, reverence or awe, righteous behavior or piety, and formal religious worship. When we truly worship God and have an attitude where God is really God to us, we want to perform actions that please Him. We want to please God with our lives.
For Christians, we are the temple of the living God, as Paul tells us in Corinthians. We commune with God all the time. Our whole life is supposed to be worship — lived in constant connection with Him. We are to hear God’s Word, learn from it, and fear Him in a relationship that guides and directs our lives every day.
The Product of Hearing
The passage continues: “be careful to observe all the words of this law.” Hearing without change is not really hearing. Observing the heard word is the implication of hearing, learning, and fear. How would one know if Israel has heard and learned and feared? — By seeing how or whether they observe what they heard.
Our relationship with God is not simply submission to rules. It’s not like having a list of regulations from the Old and New Testaments that become the rules of our life, where we’re good with God if we remember and follow them all. That was the Pharisee approach, a fundamental misunderstanding of what God’s Word is about.
Religious life, spiritual life, is nothing less than adopting God’s view of the world. We take on God’s attitude toward right and wrong and to the world that surrounds us, including towards things that the Bible doesn’t directly address.
For example, the Bible doesn’t address our modern technology directly. We see debates today about screen time, especially with young people, though plenty of older people have their faces in screens too. Many of us spend a good part of the day looking at screens. Does the Bible say anything about that? Not directly. So, we need to hear and learn and fear so that we can observe, so that as we use our screens or engage in whatever else fills our lives, we use them to the glory of God. Sometimes we don’t. Then the Word of God needs to come along and teach us something, to be that ox goad, sticking us underneath the ribs where it will hurt. That’s what the Word of God is for, so we will hear and learn and fear and observe all that God says.
Responsibility to the Next Generation
The passage doesn’t end with the responsibility of adults. It extends to the coming generation:
Dt 31.13 “And their children, who have not known, will hear and learn to fear the LORD your God, as long as you live on the land which you are about to cross the Jordan to possess.”
Each generation needs to know. When babies come into the church, they can be distracting and messy. They require a lot of work — but we’re glad they’re here. The goal is for them to learn the Bible. Teachers in our nursery classes take turns with the little ones. Our teachers work with them week after week. Can those children absorb what they’re being taught? That’s the goal.
If you ask them after a lesson what they learned, most of them probably will be at a loss. They won’t be able to tell you what they’ve heard. But the teachers keep going, keep teaching, keep reading, keep telling them. (And parents too!) Eventually, they grow into teenagers who do know the Bible somewhat. Then they become adults, and our goal is that they are real disciples by that time.
Adults and teen leaders bear responsibility for passing on this word to those following them. The most important thing in life is following God. People can do great things with their lives. They can become doctors, lawyers, engineers, leaders, or be a part of the vast strength of the country, the workers. They can be almost anything and contribute to society. But the number one thing in life is knowing God, having a relationship with Him. Whatever someone does with their life, wherever they work, whether in an office with books and numbers, or on a construction site with hammers and nails, they can serve God there. But the most important thing is that relationship with God, and that comes from hearing and reading the Word of God.
In ancient Israel, copies of God’s Law were scarce. People had to come together to have it read to them. Some would memorize parts so it could be part of their lives. The rituals and activities of the Jewish spiritual calendar existed because people didn’t have ready access to copies of the Word of God. They had the Word acted out before them so it could form their worldview, so they would hear and learn to fear the Lord their God.
The adults bore responsibility for teaching the generations. As the passage says, this was to continue “as long as you live on the land,” perpetually, every generation.
In our New Testament era, we aren’t concerned so much with the law of Moses. It instructs us about God and the way things were in the Old Testament, but we’re more concerned with the whole counsel of God and how the New Testament has changed and replaced much of the Old Testament. Yet all of it instructs our lives.
The heart objective is this: as is the father’s heart, so is the children’s. The children will hear and learn to fear the Lord. The issue is the heart, not the head. It’s not about getting answers right on a Bible quiz or knowing how many feasts there are. That’s fine to learn, but it’s not the point. The point is whether our hearts are with God or not. That’s what we’re going after.
Historical Practice
We don’t know how often this ceremony was practiced in Israel. The law says every seventh year the whole nation should gather at the Feast of Tabernacles and read this law. Given Israel’s history, they probably didn’t maintain this practice consistently.
The sermon recorded in Deuteronomy 31 was delivered on the banks of the River Jordan, just before the people crossed to conquer the promised land. About seven years later, Joshua had the nation gather, part on Mount Ebal and part on Mount Gerizim, and they read this law. That appears to be the first time they did it. How often afterward? We don’t know. It’s not mentioned.
There’s a fascinating passage in Nehemiah 8. The people “found written in the law how the Lord had commanded through Moses that the sons of Israel should live in booths during the feast of the seventh month.” They proclaimed this throughout their cities and Jerusalem, telling people to go to the hills and bring branches to make booths as written. The text says something remarkable: “The sons of Israel had indeed not done so from the days of Joshua the son of Nun to that day.” It is a remarkable statement but taken at face value it means the gathering at Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim was the last time they observed this practice properly.
In Nehemiah’s day there was great rejoicing. The people read from the book of the law of God daily, from the first day to the last day of the feast. They celebrated for seven days, with a solemn assembly on the eighth day according to the ordinance.
This happened after the captivity, after all of Israel’s previous problems with unfaithfulness, following idols and wicked practices. They had been put into captivity for seventy years in Babylon. When they came back and rebuilt the temple, they found this instruction in God’s law and decided they had better do it. There was a renewed relationship with God.
The Daily Practice
That’s what we want: a relationship with God through reading God’s Word. God’s Word will change lives. The hope is that it becomes a daily practice.
There are parts of God’s Word that are hard to read, passages that might put someone to sleep if they really settle in to read them. That’s just the way it is. Various Bible reading schedules exist to help people have variety in their reading and maybe get through those difficult passages. Sticking with it allows God to change lives.
The purpose of reading God’s Word is spiritual development. For those who don’t have the habit of reading the Bible daily or relatively daily, this is an encouragement to develop that practice. Many schedules exist to help. We link to several here and you can find many more on the internet. Or you can make your own! In any case, find a schedule and make it your daily practice.
The invitation stands: engage with the Bible. Let it shape your worldview. Hear it, learn from it, and let it cultivate the fear of the Lord in your life. Pass it on to the next generation. Make it a practice, not just for a season, but for life. The goal is not information but transformation, not knowledge alone but a living relationship with the God who speaks through His Word.
Don Johnson is the pastor of Grace Baptist Church of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada.
This article reproduces a sermon preached on Dec 28, 2025, which you can watch here: Hear and Learn and Fear. We used Claude.AI to turn the transcript into the article. Pastor Johnson reviewed and approved the final form of this article.
Bonus: Bible Reading Schedule Links:
From the Navigators
5x5x5 – reading the New Testament in a year
Book at a Time – going through the whole Bible book by book
Bible Reading Plan – going through the whole Bible with four varied readings per day.
(These plans are also available through the YouVersion Bible app.)
The Grace Baptist Church of Victoria schedules:
The Chronological Reading schedule – whole Bible in a year, chronologically
*NEW* – The New Testament Emphasis schedule – New Testament three times, Old Testament once in a year (most challenging, but still only 5-6 chapters a day)
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