1 `And it hath been, when all these things come upon thee, the blessing and the reviling, which I have set before thee, and thou hast brought `them' back unto thy heart, among all the nations whither Jehovah thy God hath driven thee away,
and they have turned `it' back unto their heart in the land whither they have been taken captive, and have turned back, and made supplication unto Thee, in the land of their captors, saying, We have sinned and done perversely -- we have done wickedly; yea, they have turned back unto Thee, with all their heart, and with all their soul, in the land of their enemies who have taken them captive, and have prayed unto Thee the way of their land, which Thou gavest to their fathers, the city which Thou hast chosen, and the house which I have builded for Thy name:
`And -- ye have sought from thence Jehovah thy God, and hast found, when thou seekest Him with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, in distress `being' to thee, and all these things have found thee, in the latter end of the days, and thou hast turned back unto Jehovah thy God, and hast hearkened to His voice;
`See, I am setting before you to-day a blessing and a reviling: the blessing, when ye hearken unto the commands of Jehovah your God, which I am commanding you to-day; and the reviling, if ye do not hearken unto the commands of Jehovah your God, and have turned aside out of the way which I am commanding you to-day, to go after other gods which ye have not known.
`Ye do not make to yourselves idols; and graven image or standing image ye do not set up to yourselves; and a stone of imagery ye do not put in your land, to bow yourselves to it; for I `am' Jehovah your God. `My sabbaths ye do keep, and My sanctuary ye do reverence; I `am' Jehovah. `If in My statutes ye walk, and My commands ye keep, and have done them, then I have given your rains in their season, and the land hath given her produce, and the tree of the field doth give its fruit; and reached to you hath the threshing, the gathering, and the gathering doth reach the sowing-`time'; and ye have eaten your bread to satiety, and have dwelt confidently in your land. `And I have given peace in the land, and ye have lain down, and there is none causing trembling; and I have caused evil beasts to cease out of the land, and the sword doth not pass over into your land. `And ye have pursued your enemies, and they have fallen before you by the sword; and five of you have pursued a hundred, and a hundred of you do pursue a myriad; and your enemies have fallen before you by the sword. `And I have turned unto you, and have made you fruitful, and have multiplied you, and have established My covenant with you; and ye have eaten old `store', and the old because of the new ye bring out. `And I have given My tabernacle in your midst, and My soul doth not loathe you; and I have walked habitually in your midst, and have become your God, and ye -- ye are become My people; I `am' Jehovah your God, who have brought you out of the land of the Egyptians, from being their servants; and I break the bars of your yoke, and cause you to go erect. `And if ye do not hearken to Me, and do not all these commands; and if at My statutes ye kick, and if My judgments your soul loathe, so as not to do all My commands -- to your breaking My covenant -- I also do this to you, and I have appointed over you trouble, the consumption, and the burning fever, consuming eyes, and causing pain of soul; and your seed in vain ye have sowed, and your enemies have eaten it; and I have set My face against you, and ye have been smitten before your enemies; and those hating you have ruled over you, and ye have fled, and there is none pursuing you. `And if unto these ye hearken not to Me, -- then I have added to chastise you seven times for your sins; and I have broken the pride of your strength, and have made your heavens as iron, and your earth as brass; and consumed hath been your strength in vain, and your land doth not give her produce, and the tree of the land doth not give its fruit. `And if ye walk with Me `in' opposition, and are not willing to hearken to Me, then I have added to you a plague seven times, according to your sins, and sent against you the beast of the field, and it hath bereaved you; and I have cut off your cattle, and have made you few, and your ways have been desolate. `And if by these ye are not instructed by Me, and have walked with Me `in' opposition, then I have walked -- I also -- with you in opposition, and have smitten you, even I, seven times for your sins; and I have brought in on you a sword, executing the vengeance of a covenant; and ye have been gathered unto your cities, and I have sent pestilence into your midst, and ye have been given into the hand of an enemy. `In My breaking to you the staff of bread, then ten women have baked your bread in one oven, and have given back your bread by weight; and ye have eaten, and are not satisfied. `And if for this ye hearken not to Me, and have walked with Me in opposition, then I have walked with you in the fury of opposition, and have chastised you, even I, seven times for your sins. `And ye have eaten the flesh of your sons; even flesh of your daughters ye do eat. And I have destroyed your high places, and cut down your images, and have put your carcases on the carcases of your idols, and My soul hath loathed you; and I have made your cities a waste, and have made desolate your sanctuaries, and I smell not at your sweet fragrances; and I have made desolate the land, and your enemies, who are dwelling in it, have been astonished at it. And you I scatter among nations, and have drawn out after you a sword, and your land hath been a desolation, and your cities are a waste. `Then doth the land enjoy its sabbaths -- all the days of the desolation, and ye in the land of your enemies -- then doth the land rest, and hath enjoyed its sabbaths; all the days of the desolation it resteth that which it hath not rested in your sabbaths in your dwelling on it. `And those who are left of you -- I have also brought a faintness into their heart in the lands of their enemies, and the sound of a leaf driven away hath pursued them, and they have fled -- flight from a sword -- and they have fallen, and there is none pursuing. And they have stumbled one on another, as from the face of a sword, and there is none pursuing, and ye have no standing before your enemies, and ye have perished among the nations, and the land of your enemies hath consumed you. `And those who are left of you -- they consume away in their iniquity, in the lands of your enemies; and also in the iniquities of their fathers, with them they consume away. `And -- they have confessed their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, in their trespass which they have trespassed against Me, and also, that they have walked with Me, in opposition, also I walk to them in opposition, and have brought them into the land of their enemies -- or then their uncircumcised heart is humbled, and then they accept the punishment of their iniquity, -- then I have remembered My covenant `with' Jacob, and also My covenant `with' Isaac, and also My covenant `with' Abraham I remember, and the land I remember. `And -- the land is left of them, and doth enjoy its sabbaths, in the desolation without them, and they accept the punishment of their iniquity, because, even because, against My judgments they have kicked, and My statutes hath their soul loathed, and also even this, in their being in the land of their enemies, I have not rejected them, nor have I loathed them, to consume them, to break My covenant with them; for I `am' Jehovah their God; -- then I have remembered for them the covenant of the ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt before the eyes of the nations to become their God; I `am' Jehovah.' These `are' the statutes, and the judgments, and the laws, which Jehovah hath given between Him and the sons of Israel, in mount Sinai, by the hand of Moses.
`And Moses -- the elders of Israel also -- commandeth the people, saying, Keep all the command which I am commanding you to-day; and it hath been, in the day that ye pass over the Jordan unto the land which Jehovah thy God is giving to thee, that thou hast raised up for thee great stones, and plaistered them with plaister, and written on them all the words of this law in thy passing over, so that thou goest in unto the land which Jehovah thy God is giving to thee -- a land flowing with milk and honey, as Jehovah, God of thy fathers, hath spoken to thee. `And it hath been, in your passing over the Jordan, ye raise up these stones which I am commanding you to-day, in mount Ebal, and thou hast plaistered them with plaister, and built there an altar to Jehovah thy God, an altar of stones, thou dost not wave over them iron. Of complete stones thou buildest the altar of Jehovah thy God, and hast caused to ascend on it burnt-offerings to Jehovah thy God, and sacrificed peace-offerings, and eaten there, and rejoiced before Jehovah thy God, and written on the stones all the words of this law, well engraved.' And Moses speaketh -- the priests, the Levites, also -- unto all Israel, saying, `Keep silent, and hear, O Israel, this day thou hast become a people to Jehovah thy God; and thou hast hearkened to the voice of Jehovah thy God, and done His commands, and His statutes, which I am commanding thee to-day.' And Moses commandeth the people on that day, saying, `These do stand, to bless the people, on mount Gerizzim, in your passing over the Jordan: Simeon, and Levi, and Judah, and Issachar, and Joseph, and Benjamin. And these do stand, for the reviling, on mount Ebal: Reuben, Gad, and Asher, and Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali. `And the Levites have answered and said unto every man of Israel -- a loud voice: `Cursed `is' the man who maketh a graven and molten image, the abomination of Jehovah, work of the hands of an artificer, and hath put `it' in a secret place, -- and all the people have answered and said, Amen. `Cursed `is' He who is making light of his father and his mother, -- and all the people have said, Amen. `Cursed `is' he who is removing his neighbour's border, -- and all the people have said, Amen. `Cursed `is' he who is causing the blind to err in the way, -- and all the people have said, Amen. `Cursed `is' he who is turning aside the judgment of fatherless, sojourner, and widow, -- and all the people have said, Amen. `Cursed `is' he who is lying with his father's wife, for he hath uncovered his father's skirt, -- and all the people have said, Amen. `Cursed `is' he who is lying with any beast, -- and all the people have said, Amen. `Cursed `is' he who is lying with his sister, daughter of his father, or daughter of his mother, -- and all the people have said, Amen. `Cursed `is' he who is lying with his mother-in-law, -- and all the people have said, Amen. `Cursed `is' he who is smiting his neighbour in secret, -- and all the people have said, Amen. `Cursed `is' he who is taking a bribe to smite a person, innocent blood, -- and all the people have said, Amen. `Cursed `is' he who doth not establish the words of this law, to do them, -- and all the people have said, Amen.
lest there be among you a man or woman, or family or tribe, whose heart is turning to-day from Jehovah our God, to go to serve the gods of those nations, lest there be in you a root fruitful of gall and wormwood: `And it hath been, in his hearing the words of this oath, and he hath blessed himself in his heart, saying, I have peace, though in the stubbornness of my heart I go on, in order to end the fulness with the thirst. Jehovah is not willing to be propitious to him, for then doth the anger of Jehovah smoke, also His zeal, against that man, and lain down on him hath all the oath which is written in this book, and Jehovah hath blotted out his name from under the heavens, and Jehovah hath separated him for evil, out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the oaths of the covenant which is written in this book of the law. `And the latter generation of your sons who rise after you, and the stranger who cometh in from a land afar off, have said when they have seen the strokes of that land, and its sicknesses which Jehovah hath sent into it, -- (`with' brimstone and salt is the whole land burnt, it is not sown, nor doth it shoot up, nor doth there go up on it any herb, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim, which Jehovah overturned in His anger, and in His fury,) --
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Deuteronomy 30
Commentary on Deuteronomy 30 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 30
De 30:1-10. Great Mercies Promised unto the Penitent.
1-10. when all these things are come upon thee, … and thou shalt return … then the Lord thy God will turn thy captivity—The hopes of the Hebrew people are ardently directed to this promise, and they confidently expect that God, commiserating their forlorn and fallen condition, will yet rescue them from all the evils of their long dispersion. They do not consider the promise as fulfilled by their restoration from the captivity in Babylon, for Israel was not then scattered in the manner here described—"among all the nations," "unto the utmost parts of heaven" (De 30:4). When God recalled them from that bondage, all the Israelites were not brought back. They were not multiplied above their fathers (De 30:5), nor were their hearts and those of their children circumcised to love the Lord (De 30:6). It is not, therefore, of the Babylonish captivity that Moses was speaking in this passage; it must be of the dispersed state to which they have been doomed for eighteen hundred years. This prediction may have been partially accomplished on the return of the Israelites from Babylon; for, according to the structure and design of Scripture prophecy, it may have pointed to several similar eras in their national history; and this view is sanctioned by the prayer of Nehemiah (Ne 1:8, 9). But undoubtedly it will receive its full and complete accomplishment in the conversion of the Jews to the Gospel of Christ. At the restoration from the Babylonish captivity, that people were changed in many respects for the better. They were completely weaned from idolatry; and this outward reformation was a prelude to the higher attainments they are destined to reach in the age of Messiah, "when the Lord God will circumcise their hearts and the hearts of their seed to love the Lord." The course pointed out seems clearly to be this: that the hearts of the Hebrew people shall be circumcised (Col 2:2); in other words, by the combined influences of the Word and spirit of God, their hearts will be touched and purified from all their superstition and unbelief. They will be converted to the faith of Jesus Christ as their Messiah—a spiritual deliverer, and the effect of their conversion will be that they will return and obey the voice (the Gospel, the evangelical law) of the Lord. The words may be interpreted either wholly in a spiritual sense (Joh 11:51, 52), or, as many think, in a literal sense also (Ro 11:1-36). They will be recalled from all places of the dispersion to their own land and enjoy the highest prosperity. The mercies and favors of a bountiful Providence will not then be abused as formerly (De 31:20; 32:15). They will be received in a better spirit and employed to nobler purposes. They will be happy, "for the Lord will again rejoice over them for good, as He rejoiced over their fathers."
De 30:11-14. The Commandment Is Manifest.
11-14. For this commandment … is not hidden … neither is it far off—That law of loving and obeying God, which was the subject of Moses' discourse, was well known to the Israelites. They could not plead ignorance of its existence and requirements. It was not concealed as an impenetrable mystery in heaven, for it had been revealed; nor was it carefully withheld from the people as a dangerous discovery; for the youngest and humblest of them were instructed in those truths, which were subjects of earnest study and research among the wisest and greatest of other nations. They were not under a necessity of undertaking long journeys or distant voyages, as many ancient sages did in quest of knowledge. They enjoyed the peculiar privilege of a familiar acquaintance with it. It was with them a subject of common conversation, engraven on their memories, and frequently explained and inculcated on their hearts. The apostle Paul (Ro 10:6-8) has applied this passage to the Gospel, for the law of Christ is substantially the same as that of Moses, only exhibited more clearly in its spiritual nature and extensive application; and, accompanied with the advantages of Gospel grace, it is practicable and easy.
De 30:15-20. Death and Life Are Set before the Israelites.
15-20. See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil—the alternative of a good and happy, or a disobedient and miserable life. Love of God and compliance with His will are the only ways of securing the blessings and avoiding the evils described. The choice was left to them, and in urging upon them the inducements to a wise choice, Moses warmed as he proceeded into a tone of solemn and impressive earnestness similar to that of Paul to the elders of Ephesus (Ac 20:26, 27).