The penalty of serving false gods .”It is not with you alone that I am making this covenant and this oath,
but with those [future Israelites] who are not here with us today, as well as with those who stand here with us today in the presence of the LORD our God Deu 29:14-15
INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT
The Law Repeated for the New Generation
III. THE THIRD DISCOURSE, Deu_29:1-29; Deu_30:1-20
The Covenant Renewed and Enforced with Promises and Threatenings
28. What would be the certain result if they served false gods?
INTRODUCTION
This is again the Greek name for this book, and signifies the “second giving of the Law.” It contains the records of public addresses to Israel, delivered in the eleventh month of the fortieth year of their wanderings through the Wilderness. As Moses uttered them on the eve of his own speedy removal, he was able to speak with unusual emphasis and urgency. The allusions to the natural features amidst which these addresses were given are consistent with the place and speaker. It has been shown also by competent scholarship that Deuteronomy has all the peculiarities of Moses’ style; and any differences of hortatory entreaty and appeal may be accounted for by the mellowing effect of age.
The special references to this book in the New Testament are very significant. Our Lord quoted from it thrice in His Temptation, Mat_4:4; Mat_4:10. See also Rom_10:19; Act_3:22; Act_7:37. There are touches by a later writer, and an appendix, Deu_34:1-12; but the origin of the treatise as a whole must be ascribed to the great Lawgiver.
Deuteronomy 29:14-29
THE COVENANT RENEWED IN MOAB
“It is not with you alone that I am making this covenant and this oath,
but with those [future Israelites] who are not here with us today, as well as with those who stand here with us today in the presence of the LORD our God
(for you know how we lived in the land of Egypt, and how we passed through the nations along the way;
and you have seen their detestable acts and their [repulsive] idols of wood and stone, [lifeless images] of silver and gold, which they had with them),
so that there will not be among you a man or woman, or family or tribe, whose heart turns away today from the LORD our God, to go and serve the [false] gods of these nations; so that there will not be among you a root [of idolatry] bearing poisonous fruit and wormwood (bitterness).
It will happen that when he (a renegade) hears the words of this oath, and he imagines himself as blessed, saying, ‘I will have peace and safety even though I walk within the stubbornness of my heart [rejecting God and His law], in order that the watered land dwindles away along with the dry [destroying everything],’
the LORD will not be willing to forgive him, but then the anger of the LORD and His jealousy will burn against that man, and every curse which is written in this book will rest on him; the LORD will blot out his name from under heaven.
Then the LORD will single him out for disaster from all the tribes of Israel [making an example of him], according to all the curses of the covenant that are written in this Book of the Law.
Now the next generation, your children who come after you and the foreigner who comes from a distant land, when they see the plagues of this land and the diseases with which the LORD has afflicted it, will say,
‘The whole land is brimstone and salt, a burning waste, unsown and unproductive, and no grass grows in it; it is like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the LORD overthrew in His anger and wrath.’
All the nations will say, ‘Why has the LORD done this thing to this land? Why this great outburst of anger?’
Then people will say, ‘It is because they abandoned (broke) 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.
For they went and served other gods and worshiped them, [false] gods whom they have not known and whom He had not allotted (given) to them.
So the anger of the LORD burned against this land, bringing on it every curse that is written in this book;
and the LORD uprooted them from their land in anger and in wrath and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as it is this day.’
“The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things which are revealed and disclosed belong to us and to our children forever, so that we may do all of the words of this law.
Comments by
F.B.Meyer
On
Deuteronomy 29:14-29
THE PENALTY OF SERVING FALSE GODS
Deu_29:15 clearly refers to the future generations, who were included in this solemn act. The word “gall,” Deu_29:18, indicates the poisonous character of idolatry. The application of this passage to any man who falls short of the grace of God shows that the tendency to idolatry has its root in the apostasy of the heart, Heb_12:15.
We cannot say that religion is a matter of indifference; or, if we say it, we are destined to a terrible awakening. A man may say, “I shall have peace,” etc., Deu_29:19, but there is no peace short of the peace of God, Isa_48:22; Rom_5:1-2.
With respect to Deu_29:24, the infidel Volney wrote of the present condition of Palestine: “Why is not the ancient population reproduced and perpetuated? God has doubtless pronounced a secret malediction against this land.” This is one of His “secret things!” Compare Deu_29:29 with Rom_11:33.
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