The Bible Recap - Day 079 (Deuteronomy 28-29) - Year 3

Episode Date: March 20, 2021

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Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible recap. Today we drop back in on Moses as he's reviewing the blessings and curses portion of the covenant. He reminds the Israelites of the blessings that await them if they obey God. He will give them victory and battle, and Moses even says God will command his blessing on them. Wow, blessings go where God tells them to go. And he promises to give the things only he can give. Life, growth, and rain.

When that happens, the people around them will take notice that there seems to be a unique blessing on this nation state. Because of God's very evident protection and provision, these other nations will be afraid of the Israelites, because nothing is more terrifying than when your enemy is thriving. When Israel thrives, they'll lend to their neighbors in need. And remember, their neighbors here are their enemies. Neighbor isn't just some word to suggest friend, the surrounding nations oppose them and

don't follow Yahweh. All of these blessings will follow them if they follow God. If they don't follow God, the curses will come, and wow, they sound terrible. Covenant curses were typically not just the absence of blessing, but the complete reversal of blessing. So you may have noticed those parallels. For example, the blessing would have them be victorious over their enemies who would scatter in seven directions, but the curse would have them losing to their enemies while they scattered in seven directions. That's how covenants were typically written, a complete reversal of outcome for blessings and curses. That's one reason why some of these verses might seem extra harsh, but they're more of a demonstration of covenant language than of character. For instance, 2863 says,

as the Lord took delight in doing you good and multiplying you, so the Lord will take delight in bringing room in upon you and destroying you. This is typical covenant language, and it's the opposite of what we've seen about God's character and how he regards his people. He doesn't delight in harming them. We heard some harsh words from Moses today, but first of all, this conversation isn't over yet.

And second, we have to remember what we've learned about God so far from the other times Moses has discussed God's relationship with these people. Resist the urge to isolate this text and build theology around something taken out of the greater context. Remember day 53, when we learned in Leviticus 26 that God will be faithful even when his people are faithless? He will pursue them even when they go astray.

In these other passages where Moses is covering the same thing he covered here, we've seen that God only sins the bad in order to bring about good in the end. And remember, we don't want a God who lets us rebel without consequence. We want a God who will call us back to him when we stray. And that's exactly the kind of God Yahweh is. Not a God of punishment, but of discipline and protection. His discipline protects us from the far greater harm we would bring on ourselves and others if we continued in rebellion unchecked.

As I was reading through some of the curses, a lot of it reminded me of Job. One of the things we learned there is that you can't always look at someone's struggles and determine the reason for them. It's not always because of disobedience. In fact, for Job, those things happen to him because of his righteousness. And we know that because that's what God said before the whole thing started. And for the Israelites, God is telling them how things

will work with them, but these curses will be a result of disobedience to the covenant he's made with them. We can't always look at our own circumstances and make a determination about what God is doing or why. It's an opportunity to trust him and lean in, regardless of what's happening. Because if our struggles are the result of sin, then repentance is what our hearts need,

and if our struggles aren't the result of sin, then His nearness will still be a comfort to us regardless. As Moses wraps up the blessings and curses, he urges all the Israelites to keep this covenant. It's not just a covenant with the leaders, it's with everyone from the greatest to the least, including the foreigners and so journalists living among them, and even the Israelites who are yet to be born. He reminds them of all the things God has done for them. He rescued them from slavery, provided them with food and clothes,

gave them victory over bigger and greater enemies, and he has even given them some land already, where the 2.5 tribes live. Moses warns everyone against thinking they might be the exception to the rule. He warns against an unrepentant heart and against presuming upon God's grace. He encourages them to just do what God has shown them through revealed things, and trust God with the rest, the secret things. But Moses knows these people well, and in 29 4 he says, to this day, the Lord has not given you a heart to understand, or eyes to see, or ears to hear. Moses knows they will rebel. Most commentators even say that's probably why he spends so much more

time with all the curses than with the blessings, because it's so heavy on his heart, so he's imploring them to obey. But spoiler alert, they don't. Moses knows this, and God knows this, yet God still chose them to be his people, knowing all the ways their hearts would rebel against him. Where did you see your God shot today? I saw that our God reveals things to his people, but he also keeps some things hidden. 29.29 says, 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.

What he tells us is for our obedience and our joy, but so is what he hides from us. He reveals things that bring us greater freedom, but whatever he conceals is also for our good. It's good that we don't know everything. It's good that we have to walk in step with him, trusting his goodness. If I possessed all knowledge, I might exalt myself against God. Who am I kidding? I already do that, and I know almost zero.

So by revealing some things to me, he's helping me obey and trust him. And by keeping some things hidden from me, he's helping me to trust and obey him. Regardless what I know or don't know, he's out for my good. And one thing I do know is that he's where the joy is. We hear from a lot of you who are interested in getting transcripts of our daily podcast

for a variety of reasons. Maybe you're a visual learner, maybe you want to use them to take notes. Whatever your reason, we're happy to offer those to you through our Patreon at our $7 month level. But let's say you just want one transcript, not all of them. You can get those for just a dollar each in our web store. We'll link to each day's transcript in the show notes, so check those out if you ever want to have a hard copy of that day's episode.

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