Contemplative Bible Reading

Deuteronomy 17:18-20 (New International Version)

¹⁸ When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the priests, who are Levites. ¹⁹ It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the LORD his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees ²⁰ and not consider himself better than his brothers and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel.

God is talking to His people about having an earthly king to rule them. This is the “he” in these verses, the earthly king. Notice the second phrase of verse 18:

he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law

Taken literally, which I tend to do, this means the king is to transcribe or write a word-for-word copy of the law. That should be his personal copy that he reads often.

Transcription is a study technique that I use now and then. I open a Bible, set a notebook next to it, and copy the words from the Bible to the notebook with a pen. I read much faster than I write by hand. This gives me time to think about each word in the Bible’s text while I write them to the notebook. I have been given good insight into the text while doing so.

I suggest transcription to people. I don’t know that anyone has tried it, but I keep suggesting it.

Maybe one day I will copy the entire Bible to a notebook by hand. Maybe.