Before the Israelites may enter the Promised Land, God renews His covenant with the people: "The LORD your God commands you this day to follow these decrees and laws; carefully observe them with all your heart and with all your soul. You have declared this day that the LORD is your God and that you will walk in his ways, that you will keep his decrees, commands and laws, and that you will obey him. And the LORD has declared this day that you are his people, his treasured posession as he promised, and that you are to keep all his commands. He has declared that he will set you in praise, fame and honor high above all the nations that he has made and that you will be a people holy to the LORD your God, as promised." (Deuteronomy 26:16-19)
Please note the bi-directionality of the covenant. Not only would the Israelites follow after God, but He had promised His love and His esteeming the Israelites as His "treasured possession." By the covenant, both parties declared value in the other. When we hear "covenant" today, it is often associated with "obligation," but we can see that "love" lay very much in the center of this covenant.
Through the next portion of today's reading, we see how obedience would bring God's blessings, in terms of fruitfulness and prosperity. Like a loving Father, His hand would touch the Israelites if they remained close to Him. Yet, God would bring trouble upon the people if they strayed from the covenant, in the form of plagues, oppression, ruin, captivity, disease, and dispersion. In short, their disobedience would bring about many of the conditions and experiences that they had encountered both in the Egyptian bondage and the desert wanderings.
We might potentially look upon these curses as the outgrowth of fickleness on God's part. But, in reality, God would be fully justified in delivering the curses because the Israelites would have failed to uphold their end of the covenant. Sin would lead to their downfall, both in physical pain and spiritual distance from God. In much the same way, our actions today have consequences. We are fortunate that we may see the negative consequences of our poor decisions so that we will stop and turn away from them, in a process called repentance. Those consequences are much like the pain a child feels upon touching a hot stove; the pain of experience helps to refine our character and incline our hearts toward God.
God highlights that these curses would come upon the Israelites and that this covenant would indicate that the consequences had come because of the Israelites' forsaking the covenant. Echoing the concept of Romans 3:20, the covenant would make the Israelites conscious of boundaries and sin.
Two other characteristics of the covenant are noteworthy:
1) The opportunity of forgiveness at repentance. If the Israelites had fallen from the Lord but returned to Him in humility and "obey him with all your heart and with all your soul," He would "restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you.... The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul." God offers renewal for each generation that wishes to follow Him. He is holy but compassionate, ready to receive those whose hearts are beating after His.
2) The balance of life and death. The covenant holds great weight. Deuteronomy 30:15-20 offers a beautiful exhortation. May we choose life:
"See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.
"But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.
"This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob."
QUESTIONS
1. How does the covenant show God's faithfulness and concern to you?
2. How can you "choose life" in the decisions on your mind today?
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