Tanak Foundations-Concepts in Deuteronomy-Chapter 29

Deut 29.1-29 tells us about the Covenant at Moab, which goes from Deut 29.1 to 30.14, besides the covenant which God made at Sinai; the words of Moses continued; the covenant is binding on not only those who are present today, but with those who were not with them today.

v 1…”These are the the words of the covenant which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the sons of Israel in the land of Moab (seed of the father), besides the covenant which he made with them at Horeb (There are several covenants in the Torah. This concept is so important that this has been developed out in another teaching on this website called, “The Covenant in Moab” which consists of three parts. We refer you to this teaching if you want a deeper understanding of this covenant and how it relates to the New or “renewed” Covenant found in Jer 31.31-34).

v 2…And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, You have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of egypt and all his servants and all his land;

v 3…with great trials which your eyes have seen, those great signs and wonders.

v 4…Yet to this day the Lord has not given you a heart to know , nor eyes to see, nor ears to hear (here is where this covenant is different than Sinai; Deut 30.6 says he will give this “heart” and write the Torah on the heart, which agrees with Jer 31.33).

v 5…And I have led you forty years in the wilderness, your clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandal has not worn out on your foot (no material cares).

v 6…You have not eaten bread (of their own making, but manna), nor have you drunk wine or strong drink (only the water God gave), in order that you might know that I am the Lord your God (to show he was able to provide clothes, food and drink and support them).

v 7…When you reached this place (Moab) sihon the king of Heshbon and Og the king of Bashan (not together but one after the other) came out to meet us for battle, but we defeated them (God defended them in war also);

v 8…and we took their land and gave it as an inheritance to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of the Manassites (a “sub-tribe” and the word “half” is not to be taken literally, it denotes a “section.” According to Num 26.29-32 there were eight sub-tribes, two sections went with Reuben and Gad, the other sis went to the west side of the Jordan-Num 32.33).

v 9…So keep the words of this covenant and do them, that you may prosper in all that you do.

v 10…You stand today, all of you, before the Lord your God; your chiefs, your tribes, your elders and your officers, even all the men of Israel (the Sinai covenant was made with people who died in the wilderness, the second covenant is made in “the seed of the father” and Joshua, or Yeshua, will bring them into the promised land),

v 11…your little ones, your wives, and the alien (notice it is made with the non-Jew as well) who is within your camp, from the one who chops your wood to the one who draws your water,

v 12…that you may enter into the covenant with the Lord your God, and into his oath which the Lord your God is making with you today (this second covenant is in a place called the “seed of the father”; Moab is a son of Lot who never seemed righteous, but he was by God’s grace-2 Pet 2.7-8),

v 13…in order that he may establish you today as his people and that he may be your God, just as he spoke to you and as he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

v 14…Now not with you alone am I making this covenant and this oath,

v 15…but both with those who are standing here with us today in the presence of the Lord our God, and with those who are not with us her today (future generations);

v 16…for you know how we lived in the land of Egypt , and how we came through the midst of the nations through whom you passed (Edom, Ammon, Moab).

v 17…Moreover, you have seen their abominations and their idols of wood, stone, silver, and gold, which they had on them,

v 18…lest there shall be among you a man or woman, or family or tribe, whose heart turns away today from the Lord your God, to go and serve the gods of those nations; lest there shall be among you a root bearing poisonous fruit and wormwood (wicked men, rooted in idolatry, leading to death if not recovered-Rev 8.11; they have all heard of the nations, idolatry and the curses).

v 19…And it shall be when he hears the words of this curse, that he will boast, saying, ‘I have peace though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart’ in order to destroy the watered land with the dry (but destruction would come upon the whole community through these sins, not peace).

v 20…The Lord will never be willing to forgive him (to spare him, have pity on him), but rather the anger of the Lord and his jealousy (for his own honor and glory) will burn against that man, and every curse which is written in this book will rest on him, and the Lord will blot out his name from under heaven (no fame or memory of him).

v 21…Then the Lord will single him out for adversity from all the tribes of Israel according to all the curses of the covenant which are written in this book of the law (Torah).

v 22…Now the generation to come, your sons who rise up after you and the foreigner who comes from a distant land, when they see the plagues of the land and the diseases with which the Lord has afflicted it, will say,

v 23…’All its land is brimstone and salt, a burning waste, unsown and unproductive, and no grass grows in it, like the overthrow of sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in his anger and in his wrath (Gen 19.24-29).’

v 24…And all the nations shall say, ‘Why has the Lord done thus to the land? Why this great outburst of anger?’

v 25…Then men shall say, ‘Because they forsook the covenant of the Lord, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt.

v 26…And they went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods whom they have not known and whom he had not allotted to them.

v 27…Therefore, the anger of the Lord burned against that land, to bring upon it every curse which is written in this book,

v 28…and the Lord uprooted them from their land (Assyria, Babylon, Rome) in anger and in fury and in great wrath, and cast them to another land, as it is this day.’

v 29…The secret things (the how and why he has dealt with Israel and their sin, like in 586 BC; 70 AD; 1933 to 1945 and the Holocaust, etc) belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us (the judgment when revealed is for us a warning) and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law.”

Posted in All Teachings, Articles, Idioms, Phrases and Concepts, Prophecy/Eschatology, The Festivals of the Lord, The Tanak, Tying into the New Testament

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