He’s watching you carefully from afar, blowing up something or yelling at people because their sacrifice was done on the wrong day with the wrong animal. In Exodus, God is super direct and actually appears in a physical sense to the world. In Deuteronomy he is more complicated. God is mostly referenced when Moses is talking about God, or God communicating with Moses using who-knows-what method. God would have destroyed the Israelites if Moses hadn't intervened. He punished the Israelites who refused to fight for their Promised Land, made them wander in the wilderness for forty years, and eventually let them die without ever reaching their goal. "The Lord will scatter you among the peoples; only a few of you will be left among the nations where the Lord will lead you." (Deuteronomy 4:27) That’s kind of an intense way to punish someone no? But, hold on a second, isn’t this the same person who makes statements like, "For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of Lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing." (Deuteronomy 10:17-18) God seems like a very nice guy from a social justice standpoint with that statement. Which leads me to see there are two different sides to God. An angry, spiteful God and the aforementioned compassionate, loving God. Maybe this is exactly what God's going for in a way, being seen as both universally merciful and universally vengeful is the ultimate form of power, is it not? He also never seems to get angry and appear unless people mess up big
He’s watching you carefully from afar, blowing up something or yelling at people because their sacrifice was done on the wrong day with the wrong animal. In Exodus, God is super direct and actually appears in a physical sense to the world. In Deuteronomy he is more complicated. God is mostly referenced when Moses is talking about God, or God communicating with Moses using who-knows-what method. God would have destroyed the Israelites if Moses hadn't intervened. He punished the Israelites who refused to fight for their Promised Land, made them wander in the wilderness for forty years, and eventually let them die without ever reaching their goal. "The Lord will scatter you among the peoples; only a few of you will be left among the nations where the Lord will lead you." (Deuteronomy 4:27) That’s kind of an intense way to punish someone no? But, hold on a second, isn’t this the same person who makes statements like, "For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of Lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing." (Deuteronomy 10:17-18) God seems like a very nice guy from a social justice standpoint with that statement. Which leads me to see there are two different sides to God. An angry, spiteful God and the aforementioned compassionate, loving God. Maybe this is exactly what God's going for in a way, being seen as both universally merciful and universally vengeful is the ultimate form of power, is it not? He also never seems to get angry and appear unless people mess up big