Deuteronomy 6:20

Hebrew Bible

18 Do whatever is proper and good before the Lord so that it may go well with you and that you may enter and occupy the good land that he promised your ancestors, 19 and that you may drive out all your enemies just as the Lord said. 20 When your children ask you later on, “What are the stipulations, statutes, and ordinances that the Lord our God commanded you?” 21 you must say to them, “We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt in a powerful way. 22 And he brought signs and great, devastating wonders on Egypt, on Pharaoh, and on his whole family before our very eyes.

Judges 6:13

Hebrew Bible

11 The angel of the Lord came and sat down under the oak tree in Ophrah owned by Joash the Abiezrite. He arrived while Joash’s son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress so he could hide it from the Midianites. 12 The angel of the Lord appeared and said to him, “The Lord is with you, courageous warrior!” 13 Gideon said to him, “Pardon me, but if the Lord is with us, why has such disaster overtaken us? Where are all his miraculous deeds our ancestors told us about? They said, ‘Did the Lord not bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and handed us over to Midian.” 14 Then the Lord himself turned to him and said, “You have the strength. Deliver Israel from the power of the Midianites! Have I not sent you?” 15 Gideon said to him, “But Lord, how can I deliver Israel? Just look! My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the youngest in my family.”

 Notes and References

"... The first education that an Israelite should have had, however, in the ethical values of the law was within the family. The head of each household had a primary responsibility in this domestic moral education (Deuteronomy 6:7; 11:19; 32:46-47). Joshua 4:6-7, 21-23 may preserve elements of ancient Israelite catechesis, in which parents and children engage in question and answer, so that the historical memory that was the foundation of OT ethics was preserved (compare Exodus 12:26-27; 13:14-15; Deuteronomy 6:20-25). The expectation that the moral ethos of Israel be handed on from father to children is thrown into relief by those two notable occasions when it was not met: Eli and Samuel. A more positive example is Ezra’s use of the heads of households, alongside the Levites, to fulfill their traditional role of proper teaching of the law to their own families (Nehemiah 8:13) ..."

Arnold, Bill T. Dictionary of the Old Testament: Historical Books (p. 265) InterVarsity Press, 2005

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