Deuteronomy chapter 29
Moses reviews the Covenant.
MOSES REVIEWS THE COVENANT
VERSE 1. These are the words of the covenant which the LORD commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, in addition to the covenant which he made with them in Horeb.
VERSE 2. Moses called to all Israel, and said to them: Your eyes have seen all that the LORD did in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh, and to all his servants, and to all his land;
all Israel. Moses gathered the entire nation.
Your eyes have seen. They were eyewitnesses.
VERSE 3. the great trials which your eyes saw, the signs, and those great wonders.
VERSE 4. But the LORD has not given you a heart to know, eyes to see, and ears to hear, to this day.
not given you. Up to this point, the LORD God had not given them eyes to see or ears to hear.
a heart to know, eyes to see, and ears to hear. People have ears. But many people don’t listen. The Bible calls us to actually listen. Read more »
VERSE 5. I have led you forty years in the wilderness. Your clothes have not grown old on you, and your sandals have not grown old on your feet.
forty years in the wilderness. That is a very long time for one person to be in charge.
Your clothes have not grown old. This is remarkable.
your sandals have not grown old. This too is remarkable.
VERSE 6. You have not eaten bread, neither have you drunk wine or strong drink, that you may know that I am the LORD your God.
You have not eaten bread. Humans do not need to eat bread to live.
VERSE 7. When you came to this place, Sihon the king of Heshbon and Og the king of Bashan came out against us to battle, and we struck them.
we struck them. The LORD God had promised he would fight for them and give them victory over their enemies.
However, they still had to do the legwork.
It was up to them to do the actual fighting. If they did not fight the battle, God would not grant them the victory.
They did not need a brilliant strategy or the finest armament. They didn’t even need to be the strongest.
Rather, they need faith and action. They need to believe that God will fight their battles for them, and then they need to go into battle.
VERSE 8. We took their land, and gave it for an inheritance to the Reubenites, and to the Gadites, and to the half-tribe of the Manassites.
We took their land. On the one hand, the Promised Land was a gift to Israel.
On the other hand, Israel stole the Promised Land from the people who were living in it.
VERSE 9. Therefore keep the words of this covenant and do them, that you may prosper in all that you do.
keep the words of this covenant. The first step is to listen. We are to listen to the LORD God.
and do them. The second step is to do. We are to act upon his voice. We are to put it into practice.
VERSE 10. All of you stand today in the presence of the LORD your God: your heads, your tribes, your elders, and your officers, even all the men of Israel,
VERSE 11. your little ones, your wives, and the foreigners who are in the middle of your camps, from the one who cuts your wood to the one who draws your water,
VERSE 12. that you may enter into the covenant of the LORD your God, and into his oath, which the LORD your God makes with you today,
enter into the covenant. This is the goal.
More than conquest, more than the Promised Land, more than blessings or riches, the goal is a covenant relationship with the LORD God.
VERSE 13. that he may establish you today as his people, and that he may be your God, as he spoke to you and as he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
that he may establish you today. This will confirm they are the people of the LORD God.
VERSE 14. Neither do I make this covenant and this oath with you only,
VERSE 15. but with those who stand here with us today before the LORD our God, and also with those who are not here with us today
those who are not here with us today. This includes their descendants.
VERSE 16. (for you know how we lived in the land of Egypt, and how we came through the middle of the nations through which you passed;
VERSE 17. and you have seen their abominations and their idols of wood, stone, silver, and gold, which were among them);
VERSE 18. lest there should be among you man, woman, family, or tribe whose heart turns away today from the LORD our God, to go to serve the gods of those nations; lest there should be among you a root that produces bitter poison;
to serve the gods of those nations. They are to be fiercely henotheistic.
Henotheism is the worship of a single god while not denying the existence or possible existence of other deities.
a root that produces bitter poison. In the Bible, the word “wormwood” refers to water made bitter. Or to a corrupt political leader. Or to corrupt officials perverting justice. Read more »
VERSE 19. and it happen, when he hears the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, “I shall have peace, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart,” to destroy the moist with the dry.
VERSE 20. The LORD will not pardon him, but then the LORD’s anger and his jealousy will smoke against that man, and all the curse that is written in this book will fall on him, and the LORD will blot out his name from under the sky.
VERSE 21. The LORD will set him apart for evil out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this scroll of the Torah.
covenant written in this scroll of the Torah. The Torah was a text. It was written on a scroll.
VERSE 22. The generation to come—your children who will rise up after you, and the foreigner who will come from a far land—will say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses with which the LORD has made it sick,
VERSE 23. that all of its land is sulfur, salt, and burning, that it is not sown, doesn’t produce, nor does any grass grow in it, like the overthrow of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, which the LORD overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath.
VERSE 24. Even all the nations will say, “Why has the LORD done this to this land? What does the heat of this great anger mean?”
VERSE 25. Then men will say, “Because they abandoned the covenant of the LORD, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt,
VERSE 26. and went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods that they didn’t know and that he had not given to them.
VERSE 27. Therefore the LORD’s anger burned against this land, to bring on it all the curses that are written in this book.
VERSE 28. The LORD rooted them out of their land in anger, in wrath, and in great indignation, and thrust them into another land, as it is today.”
2 Esdras 13:45. For through that country there was a long way to go, namely, of a year and a half. The same region is called Arzareth.
VERSE 29. The secret things belong to the LORD our God; but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.
DEUTERONOMY
CHAPTERS: 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34
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