King James Version, with Nii Okai's journal notes · 9 notes
Read Deuteronomy 29 in the app
1These are the words of the covenant, which the LORD commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, beside the covenant which he made with them in Horeb.
2And Moses called unto all Israel, and said unto them, Ye have seen all that the LORD did before your eyes in the land of Egypt unto Pharaoh, and unto all his servants, and unto all his land;
3The great temptations which thine eyes have seen, the signs, and those great miracles:
4Yet the LORD hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day.
5And I have led you forty years in the wilderness: your clothes are not waxen old upon you, and thy shoe is not waxen old upon thy foot.
6Ye have not eaten bread, neither have ye drunk wine or strong drink: that ye might know that I am the LORD your God.
Ye have not eaten bread 🥪 (I like this emoji — yummy sandwich), yet have been kept hale and hearty.
You did not enjoy delicacies that the other nations have enjoyed, yet when they came against you in battle,
I gave you the victory ✌️
In other words, God was making the point that the very things in the absence of which man would die...
Food, clothing, wine for joy and happiness...
Yes, they lived full, fed, clothed, and experienced peace and joy in the absence of these.
7And when ye came unto this place, Sihon the king of Heshbon, and Og the king of Bashan, came out against us unto battle, and we smote them:
8And we took their land, and gave it for an inheritance unto the Reubenites, and to the Gadites, and to the half tribe of Manasseh.
9Keep therefore the words of this covenant, and do them, that ye may prosper in all that ye do.
10Ye stand this day all of you before the LORD your God; your captains of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, with all the men of Israel,
11Your little ones, your wives, and thy stranger that is in thy camp, from the hewer of thy wood unto the drawer of thy water:
12That thou shouldest enter into covenant with the LORD thy God, and into his oath, which the LORD thy God maketh with thee this day:
He had made a covenant with their fathers in Horeb, which covenant was also binding on them.
But now he was making another with them personally. Just like the Abrahamic covenant was binding on Isaac and his son Jacob, and yet God personally appeared to each of them to establish his covenant.
As I pen this down, a thought came to mind: after Esau lost his birthright, could he not have embarked on a personal journey to search for the God of his father?
He could have, but did he know how to access God?
Jacob, to whom belonged the covenant, had God revealing Himself to him before he could personally commune with God.
Without God revealing himself, they worshipped as they knew how and followed in the steps of their fathers.
But when God showed up himself, things changed from impersonal to personal...
Hence their personal names of God, like El-bethel etc.
Back to my thought 💭. Maybe if ESAU had embarked on such a journey, just maybe God would have shown up, but alas he did not, so we cannot tell.
13That he may establish thee to day for a people unto himself, and that he may be unto thee a God, as he hath said unto thee, and as he hath sworn unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
14Neither with you only do I make this covenant and this oath;
15But with him that standeth here with us this day before the LORD our God, and also with him that is not here with us this day:
What does this verse mean by with those not here...
Most translations suggest this covenant was with those present and the descendants not yet present.
While some suggest those present, and those not present before Moses but somewhere within the camp, but not here at this time.
16( For ye know how we have dwelt in the land of Egypt; and how we came through the nations which ye passed by;
17And ye have seen their abominations, and their idols, wood and stone, silver and gold, which were among them:)
18Lest there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day from the LORD our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations; lest there should be among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood;
19And it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst:
Interesting expression: drunkenness to thirst.
Does that make you more thirsty?
I just checked on Google, and drinking when thirsty, and especially in a wilderness situation, is a recipe for quick dehydration and ultimately death.
20The LORD will not spare him, but then the anger of the LORD and his jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the LORD shall blot out his name from under heaven.
21And the LORD shall separate him unto evil out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant that are written in this book of the law:
Wait, we have been in service where we are told to establish and cut covenants with the Lord, for he is a God of covenant.
But indeed we are already truly under covenant, the covenant of Christ and Abraham.
Thus whatever covenant we establish even now is not really new, but a covenant under covenant, i.e. under the covenant of Christ.
Even if we do not personally cut covenants with the Lord, we are under one — the New Testament covenant —
though we are further affirmed when God cuts covenants with us personally, because he wants to do something unique with us and through us.
Not a new covenant, but a unique fulfillment with us of the already established New Testament.
22So that the generation to come of your children that shall rise up after you, and the stranger that shall come from a far land, shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses which the LORD hath laid upon it;
23And that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, like the overthrow of Sodom, and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim, which the LORD overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath:
Admah and Zeboim... Never heard of them.
Google commentary says it is one of five cities that formed the plain of Sodom and Gomorrah.
24Even all nations shall say, Wherefore hath the LORD done thus unto this land? what meaneth the heat of this great anger?
25Then men shall say, Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them forth out of the land of Egypt:
26For they went and served other gods, and worshipped them, gods whom they knew not, and whom he had not given unto them:
27And the anger of the LORD was kindled against this land, to bring upon it all the curses that are written in this book:
28And the LORD rooted them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as it is this day.
29The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.
AMEN