29:1ffAt Mount Sinai, 40 years earlier, God and Israel had made a covenant (Exodus 19-20). Although there were many parts to the covenant (read the books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers), its purpose can be summed up in two sentences: God promised to bless the Israelites by making them the nation through whom the rest of the world could know God. In return, the Israelites promised to love and obey God in order to receive physical and spiritual blessings. Here Moses reviewed this covenant. God was still keeping his part of the bargain (and he always would), but the Israelites were already neglecting their part. Moses restated the covenant to warn the people that if they did not keep their part of the agreement, they would experience severe discipline.
Life Application Study BibleDeuteronomyChapter 29
Deuteronomy 29
New Living Translation · Life Application Study Bible · Original pages: 300, 301
A few verse numbers on this page were hard to read in the scan and are marked with a dotted underline — compare with the original page image if in doubt.
1There among those nations you will find no peace or place to rest. And the LORD will cause your heart to tremble, your eyesight to fail, and your soul to despair. 6° Your life will constantly hang in the balance. You will live night and day in fear, unsure if you will survive. &7In the morning you will say, ‘If only it were night!’ And in the evening you will say, ‘If only it were morning!’ For you will be terrified by the awful horrors you see around you. 3Then the LORD will send you back to Egypt in ships, toa destination I promised you would never see again. There you will offer to sell yourselves to your enemies as slaves, but no one will buy you.” 29 1*These are the terms of the covenant the LORD commanded Moses to make with the Israelites while they were in the land of Moab, in addition to the covenant he had made with them at Mount Sinai.* Cc. A CALL FOR COMMITMENT TO GOD: MOSES’ THIRD ADDRESS (29:2—30:20) After reviewing God's laws, Moses calls for commitment, urging the people to honor the contract they had previously made with God. Knowing God’s Word is not enough; we must obey it.
Moses Reviews the Covenant
2*Moses summoned all the Israelites and said to them, “You have seen with your own eyes everything the LORD did in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to his whole country—Sall the great tests of strength, the miraculous signs, and the amazing wonders. 4But to this day the LORD has not given you minds that understand, nor eyes that see, nor ears that hear! 5For forty years I led you through the wilderness, yet your clothes and sandals did not wear out. 6You ate no bread and drank no wine or other alcoholic drink, but he gave you food so you would know that he is the LORD your God. 7”When we came here, King Sihon of Heshbon and King Og of Bashan came out to fight against us, but we defeated them. ®We took their land and gave it to the tribes of Reuben and Gad.and to the half-tribe of Manasseh as their grant of land. 9“Therefore, obey the terms of this covenant so that you will prosper in everything you do. 10All of you—tribal leaders, elders, officers, all the men of Israel—are standing today in the presence of the LORD your God. 11Your little ones and your wives are with you, as well as the foreigners living among you who chop your wood and carry your water. '?You are standing here today to enter into the covenant of the LORD your God. The LORD is making this covenant, including the curses. 13By entering into the covenant today, he will establish you as his people and confirm that he is your God, just as he promised you and as he swore to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 14“But you are not the only ones with whom I am making this covenant with its curses. 151 am making this covenant both with you who stand here today in the presence of the LORD our God, and also with the future generations who are not standing here today. 16“You remember how we lived in the land of Egypt and how we traveled through the lands of enemy nations as we left. 17You have seen their detestable practices and their idols* made of wood, stone, silver, and gold. 18I am making this covenant with you so that no one among you—no man, woman, clan, or tribe—will turn away from the LORD our God to worship these gods of other nations, and so that no root among you bears bitter and poisonous fruit. 19“Those who hear the warnings of this curse should not congratulate themselves, thinking, ‘Tam safe, even though I am following the desires of my own stubborn heart.’ This would lead to utter ruin! 20The LORD will never pardon such people. Instead his anger and jealousy will burn against them. All the curses written in this book will come down on them, and the LORD will erase their names from under heaven. 21The LORD will separate them from all the tribes of Israel, to pour out on them all the curses of the covenant recorded in this Book of Instruction. 22"Then the generations to come, both your own descendants and the foreigners who come from distant lands, will see the devastation of the land and the diseases the LORD inflicts on it. 22 They will exclaim, ‘The whole land is devastated by sulfur and salt. It is a wasteland with nothing planted and nothing growing, not even a blade of grass. It is like the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the LORD destroyed in his intense anger.’ 24"And all the surrounding nations will ask, ‘Why has the LORD done this to this land? Why was he so angry?” 25“And the answer will be, ‘This happened because the people of the land abandoned the covenant that the LORD, the God of their ancestors, made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt. 26Instead, they turned away to serve and worship gods they had not known before, gods that were not from the LORD. 27That is why the LORD’s anger has burned against this land, bringing down on it every curse recorded in this book. 28In great anger and fury the LORD uprooted his people from their land and banished them to another land, where they still live today!’ 29“The LORD our God has secrets known to no one. We are not accountable for them, but we and our children are accountable forever for all that he has revealed to us, so that we may obey all the terms of these instructions.
A Call to Return to the LonD
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Textual footnotes
- 29:2-29 are numbered 29:1-28 in Hebrew text.
- 29:1a Verse 29:1 is numbered 28:69 in Hebrew text.
- 29:1b Hebrew Horeb, another name for Sinai.
- 29:2 Verses
- 29:17 The Hebrew term (literally round things) probably alludes to dung.
Life Application Notes 5 notes
29:5Just as the people of Israel did not notice God’s care for them along their journey, we sometimes do not notice all of the ways that God takes care of us—that all of our daily needs have been supplied and we have been well fed and well clothed. Worse yet, we mistakenly take the credit ourselves for being good providers instead of recognizing God’s hand in the process.
29:9What is the best way to prosper in life? For the (sraelites, their first step was to keep their part of the covenant. They were to love God with all of their heart, soul, and strength (6:4, 5). We, too, are to seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness (Matthew 6:33); then true success in life will follow as a blessing from the hand of God.
29:18Moses cautioned that the day the Hebrews chose to turn from God, a root would be planted that would produce bitter and poisonous fruit (see Hebrews 12:15). When we decide to do what we know is wrong, we plant an evil seed that begins to grow out of control, eventually yielding a crop of sorrow and pain. But we can prevent those seeds of sin from taking root. If you have done something wrong, confess it to God and others immediately. If the seed never finds fertile soil, its bitter fruit will never ripen.
29:29There are some secrets God has chosen not to reveal to us, possibly for the following reasons: (1) Our finite minds cannot fully understand the infinite aspects of God’s nature and the universe (Ecclesiastes 3:11); (2) some things are unnecessary for us to know until we are more mature; (3) God is infinite and all-knowing, and we do not have the capacity to know everything he does. This verse shows that although God has not told us everything there is to know about obeying him, he has told us enough. Thus, disobedience comes from an act of the will, nota lack of knowledge. Through God's Word we know enough about him to be saved by faith and to serve him. We must not use the limitation of our knowledge as an excuse to reject his claim on our life.