Tanak Foundations-Concepts in Deuteronomy-Chapter 30

Deut 30.1-20 tells us that Moses continues with the covenant in Moab and some of its provisions; if Israel repents God will restore them from exile; God’s commandments are not too hard or distant; the two ways before them life and death.

v 1…”So it shall become when all these things have come upon you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, and you shall call them to mind in all the nations where the Lord your God has banished you,

v 2…and you return (various forms of the word “shuv” is used, and the ultimate goal of teshuvah is completion and perfection in the Lord. But not every use here is talking about our teshuvah, sometimes it is the Lord’s heart doing the returning, as in v 3. This is called the Redemption) to the Lord your God and obey him with all your heart and soul according to all that I command you today, you and your sons,

v 3…then the Lord your God will restore you from captivity, and have compassion on you, and will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you.

v 4…If your outcasts are at the ends of the earth (or “sky/heaven”-Matt 24. 30-31; this is also a prophecy about the second coming at Yom Kippur), from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there he will bring you back.

v 5…And the Lord your God will bring you into the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it; and he will prosper you and multiply you more than your fathers (increase their number more than any other time).

v 6…Moreover the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love (by action and being a doer of the word) the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, in order that you may live (In Deut 10.16 he tells them to circumcise their own hearts, but now he says he will do it-Ezek 36.24 through 37.28; this is what is different-Deut 29.4; to “live” is a term for being born again and it is used here in a spiritual sense).

v 7…And the Lord your God will inflict all the curses on your enemies (because they don’t follow the Torah) and on those who hate you, that persecuted you.

v 8…And you shall again obey the Lord, and observe all his commandments which I command you today (ultimately in the Messianic Kingdom).

v 9…Then the Lord your God will prosper you abundantly in all the work of your hand, in the offspring of your body and in the offspring of your cattle and in the produce of your ground, for the Lord will again rejoice over you for godd, just as he rejoiced over your fathers;

v 10…if you obey the Lord your God to keep his commandments and his statutes which are written in this book of the law (no hint of an oral law), if you turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and soul (a parallelism).

v 11…For this commandment which I command you today is not too difficult for you (to understand; even a seven year old can understand it-Deut 31.10-13), nor is it out of reach (of your ordinary life).

v 12…It is not in heaven that you should say, ‘Who will go up to heaven for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may obtain it (do it)?’

v 13…Nor is it beyond the sea (in some distant land with people of a foreign tongue) that you should say, ‘Who will cross the sea for us to get for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?’

v 14…But the word is very near you (“karov” like a kinsman; on the lips of your father, mother, children, family, teachers; man can carry the Torah everywhere, unlike the Mishkan; v 11-14 is the background for the things Yeshua told Nicodemus in John 3.12-13. He says that nobody has ascended to heaven, but he has descended to earth as the living Torah-Rom 10.1-8; Yeshua descended from heaven and concluded the discussion by pointing out the bronze serpent, and by looking at it people “lived.” He then said he would be lifted up in like manner in John 3.14, and Nicodemus should look to him to “live.” Nicodemus should have known these things being “the teacher of Israel. The concept of being born again is not an original teaching of Yeshua in the Gospels. It is a fundamental concept to a Torah-based faith and has always been the message of the Torah. How was David saved? Heb 11 says he was saved by faith. He followed the Torah in Psa 119.22, 51, 56, 102, 121. He had documented sins like murder, lying, adultery, etc. But David knew he was saved by grace-Psa 119.159. He could turn back to God, but why? Psa 119 shows David asking God to save him so he could follow the Torah. God judged David by his faith and desire to follow the Lord through his word, not David’s ability to keep every commandment. Nobody was ever saved by their own effort to keep the Torah, nor has that ever been an option for salvation, the Torah never taught that. Paul makes a comparison with Deut 30.11-14 and Yeshua in Rom 10.1-8).

v 15…See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and adversity (this alludes to the dual nature of the Torah; the judicial aspect or role of the Torah is to show us how sinful we are and stand condemned. We are under indictment and under arrest. It is our “tutor” in Gal 3.25. But once we are saved, we are no longer under indictment or arrest, the tutor, and are not under the law of sin and death, or the judicial role, but we are under the educational role of the Torah. It teaches us how to walk before the Lord in a life that is prosperous and pleasing to him. It gives us his good and perfect will),

v 16…in that I command you today to love (by action) the Lord your God, to walk in his ways and keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that you may live and multiply, and that the Lord your God may bless you in the land where you are entering to possess it.

v 17…But if your heart turns away and you will not obey, but are drawn away and worship other gods and serve them,

v 18…I declare to you today that you shall surely perish (by one judgment or another). You shall not prolong your days in the land where you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess it.

v 19…I call heaven and earth to witness against you today (they have been around since the beginning and abide forever; this also alludes to the inhabitants of both) that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants,

v 20…by loving the Lord your God by obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for this is your life (literally, “for he is your life”), and the length of your days, that you may live in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them (this is similar to Deut 11.22. Many people get the loving part but never get past the it to the “doing” part. We love God by action, not just words. Obeying is surrendering our will to him and following his will in the Torah. Mercy (Chessed) enables us to obey, and when we sin he knows our hearts and that we are intent on him.. Holding fast to him means when our world falls apart emotionally and literally, we hold fast, we don’t don’t break ranks and run, we “hold the pass.” Believers in the birth-pains will know this first hand. Even nature won;t be working right, everything and everyone will be coming at them. But the people will “remember the days of old, of Moses”).”

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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