deuteronomy 29 and 30

Read Deuteronomy 29 and 30 at Bible Gateway.

The Hebrew paragraph divisions for today’s chapters are:

Deu 29:1 {p} These are the words of the covenant
Deu 29:2-9 {p} Keep the words of this covenant for God can remove people from their land
Deu 29:10-29 {s} Do not forsake this covenant for Israel will be uprooted from this land
Deu 30:1-10 {s} Repentance, obedience, return, and blessing
Deu 30:11-14 {s} The commandment is not hidden or far off, but very near that we may do it
Deu 30:15-20 {p} Israel may choose life or death, blessing or cursing

The chiastic structures which encompass today’s chapters:

Deu 26:1-29:9
1a) Deu 26:1-19 {s+s+p} Do not withhold your obedience to these commandments, it is justly due to YHVH your God;

1b) Deu 27:1-10 {s+s} Write all the words of this Law (take heed, listen, and observe it) at the entrance to the Land;

1c) Deu 27:11-26 {sx12+p} Mt Gerizim and Mt Ebal: Cursed is he who does not conform to this Law;

central axis) Deu 28:1-14 {p} Blessings which follow obedience;

2c) Deu 28:15-68 {s} Curses which follow disobedience;

2b) Deu 29:1 {p} These are the words of the covenant;

2a) Deu 29:2-9 {p} Keep the words of this covenant, otherwise God will remove you from this Land as your just due.

Deu 29:10-30:20
1a) Deu 29:10-29:28, Moses set before Israel the covenant: keep it and be blessed or forsake it and be cursed;

1b) Deu 29:29 {s} The revealed commandment belongs to us that we may do the Law;

central axis) Deu 30:1-10 {s} Repentance and obedience = return and blessing;

2b) Deu 30:11-14 {s} The commandment is not hidden from you that you may do the Law;

2a) Deu 30:15-20 {p} Moses set before Israel life and blessing, death and cursing.

Moses did not just prophesy the apostasy, the wrath, and the devastation of the land. Those bad things are not the end. God will cause His people to call to mind, when they are scattered to the four corners of the earth, that all the blessings and all the curses written in this book have come to pass upon them, and they will repent of their lawlessness, and they will return to the LORD God with a circumcised heart, and obey all His commandments again. As the apostasy, the wrath, and the devastation came to pass, so too will the repentance, the obedience, and the return come to pass. We are living in the days of the fulfillment of this prophesy!

Are you seeing any of the curses come to pass in your life? One of the biggest that God’s people face today, is the children of God’s people who grow up and do not have circumcised hearts toward YHVH, to love Him, serve Him only, and obey Him with all their heart! They are taken by another people, and even though our eyes fail with longing for them, there is no power in our hands (Deu 28:32). This curse came to pass in our lives. I learned from this very passage (Deu 30:6), that the remedy for it, is not more prayer, more fasting, more taking authority over the enemy, nor more standing on the Word of God in faith. All those things are good, and we did all of them, but none of them changed the root problem of our children needing circumcised hearts toward YHVH.

I saw this curse come upon me. I called it to mind. I repented – I had lived just like a Gentile. I did not rest on the seventh day in honor of my Creator who rested on the seventh day. I celebrated man-made holidays but not the LORD’s commanded feast days. I ate bacon, pork ribs and shrimp. I was in fact functionally ignorant of the Law, because Christians, if they read the Old Testament at all, skip over these obsolete books, right? A short four months after I began learning what God’s commandments were, and putting them into practice in my life, my children started coming home with circumcised hearts toward the Him. (This is the story of our family, unfortunately the link is broken.) I had prayed and fasted and stood on the Word without ceasing for five years without avail! And your children will too, because God obeys His own Word – He is faithful to His promises!