2 1 And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them: “You have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land, 3 the great trials that your eyes saw, the signs, and those great wonders. 4 But to this day the Lord has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear. 5 I have led you forty years in the wilderness. Your clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandals have not worn off your feet. 6 You have not eaten bread, and you have not drunk wine or strong drink, that you may know that I am the Lord your God. 7 And when you came to this place, Sihon the king of Heshbon and Og the king of Bashan came out against us to battle, but we defeated them. 8 We took their land and gave it for an inheritance to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of the Manassites. 9 Therefore keep the words of this covenant and do them, that you may prosper2 in all that you do.
10 “You are standing today, all of you, before the Lord your God: the heads of your tribes,3 your elders, and your officers, all the men of Israel, 11 your little ones, your wives, and the sojourner who is in your camp, from the one who chops your wood to the one who draws your water, 12 so that you may enter into the sworn covenant of the Lord your God, which the Lord your God is making with you today, 13 that he may establish you today as his people, and that he may be your God, as he promised you, and as he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. 14 It is not with you alone that I am making this sworn covenant, 15 but with whoever is standing here with us today before the Lord our God, and with whoever is not here with us today.
16 “You know how we lived in the land of Egypt, and how we came through the midst of the nations through which you passed. 17 And you have seen their detestable things, their idols of wood and stone, of silver and gold, which were among them. 18 Beware lest there be among you a man or woman or clan or tribe whose heart is turning away today from the Lord our God to go and serve the gods of those nations. Beware lest there be among you a root bearing poisonous and bitter fruit, 19 one who, when he hears the words of this sworn covenant, blesses himself in his heart, saying, ‘I shall be safe, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart.’ This will lead to the sweeping away of moist and dry alike. 20 The Lord will not be willing to forgive him, but rather the anger of the Lord and his jealousy will smoke against that man, and the curses written in this book will settle upon him, and the Lord will blot out his name from under heaven. 21 And the Lord will single him out from all the tribes of Israel for calamity, in accordance with all the curses of the covenant written in this Book of the Law. 22 And the next generation, your children who rise up after you, and the foreigner who comes from a far land, will say, when they see the afflictions of that land and the sicknesses with which the Lord has made it sick— 23 the whole land burned out with brimstone and salt, nothing sown and nothing growing, where no plant can sprout, an overthrow like that of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in his anger and wrath— 24 all the nations will say, ‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land? What caused the heat of this great anger?’ 25 Then people will say, ‘It is 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, 26 and went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods whom they had not known and whom he had not allotted to them. 27 Therefore the anger of the Lord was kindled against this land, bringing upon it all the curses written in this book, 28 and the Lord uprooted them from their land in anger and fury and great wrath, and cast them into another land, as they are this day.’
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.”
Section Overview: Covenant Responsibility
The third address of Moses consists of two chapters that warn of the consequences of the curses and give assurance of restoration. A new narrative sequence begins in the third person, telling us how Moses assembles all of Israel. In the structure of Deuteronomy, the sermon begins with a recapitulation of the covenant that prepares for the acceptance of the oath in the following chapter.78 The first chapter of the third address is largely a recapitulation, including a review of the history of Israel with Yahweh (vv. 2–9), the oath of the covenant (vv. 10–15), and finally the warnings of disobedience (vv. 16–29). The warnings begin with the individual who might think that disregard of the covenant stipulations will not affect him. The consequence of such disobedience is the astonishment of the nations, as they contemplate what offense could have caused the God of the covenant to leave his people in such total ruin.
As is typical of covenants, the suzerain making the covenant reminds the people he is summoning to be mindful of the great saving deeds he has exercised on their behalf. For Israel this is a recollection of the exodus, in which they were to learn the meaning of the name Yahweh, which they had not known previously (Ex. 6:3). The name Yahweh had been used since the days of Seth and Enosh (Gen. 4:26), but the person of Yahweh was not known as being with them in the manner of this covenant. Such knowledge would be gained through God’s work among the nations, as God told Moses in explaining why Pharaoh would not let the people go (Ex. 7:3–5). Through God’s dealings with Pharaoh and the other nations Israel would come to know Yahweh as the God present with and merciful to them. This chapter is a reminder of what Israel has learned.
Section Outline
III. Third Address of Moses (29:2–30:20)
A. Covenant Sworn in Moab (29:2–29)
1. History of Covenant Vow (29:2–9)
2. Oath of the Covenant (29:10–15)
3. Life of Israel under Oath (29:16–28)
a. Experience among Nations (29:16–17)
b. Deception of Oath Violation (29:18–21)
c. Destruction of a Land under Curses (29:22–24)
d. Explanation for a Desolate Land (29:25–28)
4. Theological Reflection on Life under Oath (29:29)
Response
Another generation and other nations will see the desolation of the people of the covenant and their land, left as Sodom and Gomorrah, and ask, “Why this great rage?” The answer comes from Jeremiah and Ezekiel, two of the prophets of the exile. Both declared their messages unequivocally during the process of time that Jerusalem came under siege until it was destroyed. The ministry of Jeremiah began sometime after the death of Josiah in 609 BC, when the Egyptians set a ruler on the throne of Judah. Ezekiel was taken into captivity with the exiles of 598 BC. Both preach warnings of the judgment to come until the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC. Both testify to the intractable mindset of a people that could not recognize their doom during the twenty-year period in which it was already underway.
The apostle Paul understands this mentality to have continued until his time. His burden is the question of the salvation of Israel in Romans 9–11.81 This is an inevitable question as the apostle provides an exposition of salvation from the Scriptures in his letter to the Romans. “Has God rejected his people? By no means!” (Rom. 11:1). Proof of this is the apostle himself, an Israelite from the tribe of Benjamin. Jews of Paul’s time knew their lineage; they were not lost genealogically no matter their tribe. Jews such as Paul might be as few as the remnant in Elijah’s day during the terror of Jezebel, but they were not eliminated. In Romans 11:8 the apostle refers to Deuteronomy 29:4, in which Moses says God has not given the Israelites a heart to understand, eyes to see, or ears to hear “to this day.” Humans do not come to know God through what they see or hear. Faith is a gift of mercy. Israel is proof of that truth. Paul, however, expresses the reality of Israel in a manner that is direct and harsh. God has given them a “spirit of deep sleep,” a phrase found in Isaiah 29:10. The present state of Israel is part of the plan of God no less than the creation of Israel was God’s divine plan of redemption.
This explains why Paul is in such a minority. This rejection of the saving mercy of God continues “to this day.” This day is as true in the time of Paul as it was at any other time Deuteronomy was read. But the punishment of the exile was not the end of the hardness of Israel; the time of mercy will come to Israel as well. According to Isaiah 59:20 a redeemer will come from Israel who will remove the transgression of Jacob and restore the covenant (cf. Rom. 11:26–27). The mercy of God is irrevocable. “All Israel” (Rom. 11:16) will be saved. Paul views the salvation of Israel as a future eschatological event that fulfills the promises to the fathers.