Nathan E. Lewis

Remembering the Covenant
Deuteronomy 27
We have arrived at the main section of Deuteronomy prompting me to title my sermon series, “Remembering the Covenant.” The theme of remembrance is strong in Deuteronomy. Moses instructs Israel to uses visual, artistic memorials. Large stones are to be positioned throughout the Promised Land. Israel is to plaster the stones, making them smooth surfaces upon which the law of God is to be written. Moses is a catalyst for written language added to an oral tradition. He is also a pioneer in script as an art form. The classic art of Islam is confined exclusively to the Arabic script. It is a beautifully intricate art form. The origins of this art form are much older than the founding of Islam. The origins are traced to Moses. The intricacy of this genre of art often disguises the words and thus the meaning. At first glance the pleasing pattern, the graceful swirls and shapes command attention. The viewer must work to discover the word and identify the message. In (8) Moses instructs Israel to clearly write the law of God upon these stones. The primary purpose of this art form is to present the law of God clearly, as a remembrance in public space.
In the Middle East and in developing nations, word art is common. Homeowners paint key words on the walls of their houses. In first nations, we call this art form graffiti, outlawing it as defacing of property. Gangs mark their territory with their signature art while ardent citizens scrub and repaint to discourage gang warfare. This past year, a local gang tagged our church building in Beaverton. Nick Bigoni photographed the graffiti, then painted over it. I sent the photographs to the Beaverton Police Department. It is a shame when the artistic skills of these young people are used to promote gang warfare, drugs, and racism. Moses assigns a noble purpose to the first script art, the purpose of remembering the law of God.
The scribal traditions of preserving the Holy Scriptures have included script art. Most of us have seen the rich colors and ingenious stamps of the first letter of a page written by a monk. An “S” in the writings of Solomon is a peacock. In Jonah, the “S” stamp is a great fish. An “S” in Genesis 3 is a serpent slithering through a tree laden with ornamental fruit. Jewish and Christian monks have hand-copied the Holy Scriptures following painstaking rules for accuracy. They have also creatively and colorfully presented their scripts as an art form. For Moses, all of this careful and creative work would be wasted if the people of God failed to remember the law of God.
Moses gathers Israel corporately to worship Yawheh, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He develops a liturgy of remembrance. Moses thinks it important for the people of God to speak in worship. The liturgy is dialogical. The Levites speak the words of God’s law and the people respond. The people’s response is easy to remember. Each time the Levites speak, the people say, “Amen,” meaning “let it be so.” The response of the people in worship, whether it be lengthy or concise, may be summed up in this one word, “Amen.” True worship is nothing more than agreeing with God. Our God is not a silent statue, but a personal Spirit, who speaks. When God speaks to us, we respond in agreement. All of our worship may be summed up in this one word, “Amen.”
Can you imagine the first worship gathering in which this liturgy was spoken? Moses gathered half of the tribes of Israel on Mt. Gerizim. Moses placed the other six tribes on Mt. Ebal. The tribes on Mt. Gerizim speak God’s blessing. The tribes on Mt. Ebal speak God’s curses. The entire liturgy, for some reason, was not preserved for us in the book of Deuteronomy. Only the curses from Mt. Ebal are preserved for us in liturgical form. In Deuteronomy 28, Moses mentions specific blessings of God upon Israel, but they are preserved for us in the dialogical form of the curses in Deuteronomy 27.
When I was a child in the 1970’s, Christians crowded into stadiums for evangelistic crusades or a Christian Rock concert. One half of the crowd would yell, “We love Jesus, yes, we do! We love Jesus, how about you?” The other half would rise to their feet and shout louder, “We love Jesus, yes, we do! We love Jesus, how about you?” Of course this was a development of the football fan dialogical tradition of chanting competitively, “We’ve got spirit, yes we do! We’ve got spirit how about you?” Moses instructs the Levites to declare the curses in a loud voice. Several thousand people responding, “Amen,” would produce a powerfully loud corporate voice. Beyond this sheer loudness, the dialogical traditions of Moses and this modern phenomenon are quite different.
Moses’ liturgy is God speaking to us. Our response is agreement with God’s words. The loud voices in our day are people speaking to people. The liturgical content is what we would like to say to God and to one another. It is our expression, our offering, our words. But true worship is God’s word spoken in our hearing and our agreement with these divine words. It is possible today to corporately gather for worship and hear nothing more than the words of mere men.
For the past decade, our church has reprised the reading of several scripture lessons in our Sunday liturgy. The overwhelming response of evangelical Christians who join us to worship is, “Those scripture lessons are too long and boring.” The overwhelming response from non-Christians who join us is “I’ve never heard the Bible read at length before in my life.”
Can you imagine hearing the blessings of God spoken loudly by hundreds of thousands of voices? How encouraging! How reassuring! If only we heard the promises of God’s love on the wings of the wind more often! Is it not disturbing to you that curses have been preserved in liturgical form but the blessings are missing? Can you imagine hearing several thousand voices speak these 12 curses and then to hear 200,000 voices say, “Amen”? What would be the spiritual impact of such a liturgy?
These curses are vitally important and should be included in our worship. We must remember that members of the Christian Church in great number fail to obey God’s law. Are we aware of the injustices that have been committed by those who claim to be Christians? Each one of these curses works to rid the worshipping community of committing injustice against God, humanity and all creation. God shall surely punish injustice. He has required us to do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with our God. Why would we be against a liturgy that warns and instructs the people of God against injustice?
What does this liturgy of curses have to do with the gospel? The apostle Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, “For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all the things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” Paul quotes Deuteronomy 27:26, making it clear that this 12th curse in the liturgy ruins the personal righteousness of all of us who said “Amen” to the first eleven thinking, “We have never committed these 11 sins and so, we shall escape God’s curse.” The 12th curse condemns us all. Paul continues, “Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for ‘the righteous man shall live by faith.’” We may justify ourselves, but this will not prevent God from cursing us. Our only hope is to live like Abraham, who lived by faith in God. He believed that God himself would provide the sacrifice to satisfy his justice. God has provided. Paul continues, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.” All of the curses of Deuteronomy 27, including the 12th were assigned to Jesus Christ. His death on the cross was God’s punishment of all these sins. In suffering so, Christ Jesus has redeemed us from the curse, that is, he has rescued us from the penalties of the curse and he has cleared our record of curses, leaving only the record of blessing. Paul continues, “so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.” In Jesus Christ, the curse has been removed from us and replaced with God’s blessing.

The Covenant: God’s Many Blessings
Deuteronomy 28: 1-14

Moses gathered Israel together to teach them how to worship Yawheh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as they entered the Promised Land. He divided the tribes, directing half of them to proclaim the curses of God from the summit of Mt. Ebal and the other half to proclaim the divine blessing from Mt. Gerizim. Moses supplies the liturgy of curses in dialogical form, but the blessings he gives to them in the covenantal form, speaking them in conditional language as the Mediator Prophet between God and Israel.
The blessings of God presented by Moses are manifold. Firstly, Moses describes God’s blessing of Israel as fruitfulness. Regardless of location, whether a person dwells in the city or lives in the country, God will cause him/her to prosper. Left to ourselves, we tend to prefer either urban living over rural or rural living over urban. Some of us are stuck in suburbia. We tend to be critical of others, calling them city slickers or country bumpkins. But God’s blessing makes any location a target for his fruitfulness.
God’s blessing includes the fruitful womb. Once again our world at the moment seeks to control population by closing the womb or worse yet by invading the womb. The Holy Scriptures begin with God calling humanity to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the whole earth. Those women who are barren feel as if they have been forgotten by God and when God hears their cries, he opens their wombs and they rejoice. At the center of redemptive history is the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. God, who is a Spirit, miraculously invades the womb of the virgin Mary and she bears the fruit, the Seed of Abraham, our Savior, the Hope and Peace of Israel.
God’s blessing includes the fruitful ground. Crops will flourish and produce fruit so that Israel may eat and turn a profit. God’s blessings include flocks that multiply so that Israel may eat and turn a profit. Israel’s economy will rise up out of the dirt. In saying, “Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl,” Moses makes it clear that God’s material blessings will meet daily, basic needs. Not only will God bless the farmer, but he will also bless the merchant who fills his baskets with produce. God will bless the Miller, who grinds grain, and the baker who kneads the dough and bakes the bread.
Moses concludes this section saying, “Blessed shall you be when you come in and when you go out.” Israel will know and enjoy the blessing of God. The blessing will so clear that each time an Israelite enters his house, he will be aware of it. Every time he leaves his home, he will be aware of God’s blessing.
In (7-14) Moses describes God’s blessing of Israel from the perspective of surrounding nations. God’s blessing is not only clearly known to Israel but to all those who observe Israel. Israel’s enemies will painfully discover that God has blessed Israel. Moses supplies a powerful image of an enemy army approaching an Israelite city. The army is unified, marching in ranks, confident and resolved to conquer. But at the end of the battle, the same army has scattered running in multiple directions to escape death. “They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways.”
Surrounding nations and any sojourners in Israel would discover the barns of Israel to be full with the bounty of God’s blessing. People observing Israel will discover her to be industrious, successful in many endeavors. The nations of the world will observe Israel dedicated to God. At the center of God’s blessing of Israel is his setting apart Israel to a special relationship with him. God has set the covenant as the detailed and legal description of his special relationship with Israel. The nations will know Israel as the one who bears the very name of the Lord of the covenant. This distinguished relationship Israel enjoys with God will cause the nations to fear Israel.
The nations will observe the manifold blessings of God poured out upon Israel. In a dry and parched desert region, the heavens will pour forth rain upon Israel. The surrounding nations standing barefoot on hot sand will look at the cloudburst at a distance and with parched tongues acknowledge that God is the Lord of Israel. Nations will benefit from God blessing Israel as Israel lends to surrounding nations. But Israel will not become indebted to any of the nations since God has provided for all her needs. Once again Moses turns to poetic language, “The Lord shall make you the head and not the tail.” God’s blessing of Israel is manifold and generous!
Perhaps you have noticed that I have listed the blessings described by Moses, stripping them of the conditional language of the covenant. In (1) Moses introduces the divine blessings with these words, “IF you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments…” The condition of blessing is perfect obedience. In (2) Moses repeats, “if you obey the voice of the Lord your God.” In (9) Moses says, “if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in his ways.” In (13-14) Moses concludes with the condition, “if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, being careful to do them, and if you do not turn aside from any of the words that I command you today, to the right hand or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.”
Through out the centuries, Israel has been at the center of the world. Her history is fraught with much suffering and tribulation. What has happened to these covenantal promises of blessing upon Israel? Clearly, Israel has never, for one moment of her rich history perfectly obeyed the Law of God and so she has never met the condition of perfect obedience. These covenant blessings connected to God’s condition of perfect obedience have never fallen upon Israel and they never shall for it is absolutely impossible for a mere human being, let alone an entire nation, to perfectly obey the Law of God. The many blessings enjoyed by Israel mixed with her tribulations have fallen from God’s gracious hand, full of mercy, regardless of the unmovable conditions of the Law.
In his covenant, God has also extended unconditional promises. These unconditional promises we usually refer to as the covenant of Abraham or the covenant of David. God promised Abraham, “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great…all the nations of the earth will be blessed through you.” God promised unconditionally to David, “I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.” These unconditional promises have all been fulfilled in the coming of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He is the true Seed of Abraham and he is the Son of David whose throne is eternal.
The apostles teach us that this Son of David is the corporate representative of Israel. He is the Messiah, the anointed One, who would represent the whole nation as the True Israel. This Jesus Christ has perfectly obeyed the Law of God and thus won the blessings of the covenant resting upon the condition of perfect obedience. The apostles proclaim an even greater surprise. This Messiah of Israel is not exclusively representing the nation of Israel, but he is the representative of all humanity. He has come as the Second Adam to accomplish what our first father failed to do. Christ’s perfect obedience not only wins the divine blessings for Israel, but for all people groups of the world. God’s blessings flow to all of us who are united by faith to this Jesus, the Son of David, the Son of Adam, the Son of God.

The Covenant: The Curses
Deuteronomy 28:15-68

Moses clearly presents the condition of perfect obedience. If Israel is to receive God’s blessings then she must perfectly obey the Law of God. If Israel fails to perfectly obey then she will receive the curses. The structure of the covenant is balanced upon this condition: If you obey the Law then God blesses you but if you disobey the Law then God curses you. But the time and space Moses gives to the blessings and the curses in this address are not balanced. If you were going to emphasize an action of God, would you emphasize his blessing or his cursing? The popular theologies of our day emphasize God’s blessings. Someone may be able to argue that the whole of the Bible emphasizes God’s blessings over his curses. Moses, for some reason commits most of his address to the curses. In Deuteronomy 28 Moses presents the blessings in 14 verses dedicating 54 verses to the curses! If we add the 12 verses in Chapter 27 offering the liturgy of the curses, the total verses presenting the curses rises to 66. Would you choose to emphasize the divine curses four to five times more than the blessings of God? What good motive would Moses have for doing so? Did Moses have Israel’s good in mind as he offered his address? Did Moses believe that a strong and lengthy presentation of the curses would deter Israel’s disobedience?
It may be that Moses was preparing Israel for the inevitable result. The condition of the Covenant is perfect obedience and so, Israel is sure to fail. The condition of perfect obedience certainly fixes Israel’s future in failure. Why spend time on the blessings when there is no way for Israel to win them? If the condition is impossible to meet, then Israel must prepare herself for a life under the divine curse. The Covenant of God, his holy Law, painfully reminds Israel that she is part of a fallen race. From the very beginning, from the moment Adam and Eve sinned against God, the entire human race came under God’s curse and has remained there but for the grace of God. The Law of God given by Moses does not remove this curse but reminds Israel that she is under it. God demanded perfect obedience in the Garden of Eden. He demanded perfect obedience in the days of Moses. God’s condition of perfect obedience stands today. Jesus said, “Truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” This final statement of Jesus is a presentation of the condition of perfect obedience.
Moses uses the same language to describe God’s blessings as he uses to describe God’s curses. He presents the curses as God removing his blessings. God will bless obedience in the city and the country. But God curses disobedience in the city and the country. God blesses the basket and the kneading bowl, but he also curses the basket and the kneading bowl. Moses says, “Blessed shall you be when you come in and blessed shall you be when you go out.” But he also says, “Cursed shall you be when you come in and cursed shall you be when you go out.” Upon the obedient, God sends his rain, but the heavens over the disobedient shall be bronze and the earth under their feet shall be iron. Dust instead of rain will fall upon the disobedient. The blessing of God includes the defeat of Israel’s enemies, but the curse includes the defeat of Israel. An obedient Israel will lend money to foreigners but she will never go into debt. But a disobedient Israel will become indebted to the foreigner. Moses says that an obedient Israel will be “the head and not the tail.” But he also says that a disobedient Israel “will be tail and the foreigner will be the head.”
Perhaps the most tragic words in the entire address are Moses’ concluding remarks describing the reversal of God’s liberation of Israel from slavery in Egypt. The great redemptive act of God in Moses’ day was his freeing of Israel from the house of bondage. The Exodus is one of the greatest events in Israel’s history. Regardless of Israel’s obedience or disobedience, God, out of his great love and mercy, redeemed Israel from slavery! Now, Moses describes the reversal of God’s great redemptive act. How can this be? “The Lord will bring you back in ships to Egypt, a journey that I promised you should never make again; and there you shall offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but there will be no buyer.”
It is Israel herself who voluntarily returns to slavery. Why? Israel has lost all hope. Her disobedience has produced a prolonged despair. “In the morning you shall say, ‘If only it were evening!’ and in the evening you shall say, ‘If only it were morning!’ because of the dread that your heart shall feel, and the sights that your eyes shall see.” Would not any of us fall into such despair if the detailed curses of Deuteronomy 28 had fallen upon us? Read them again and feel the despair creep up in your heart as you imagine these curses falling upon yourself. In the end, the most tragic curse is that Israel has lost all hope and is willing to sell herself into slavery. But no one will purchase her for she is so wretchedly miserable and weak that she is no good to anyone.
Is it true that human disobedience can reverse God’s redemption? Is it true that God may work miracles and may pour out great measures of his love only to be met by a disobedient humanity who naturalizes his miracles and scorns his love? Is it true that any of us can refuse God’s love? Is it a common human experience to return to the bondage from which we have been freed? This is all part of life under the curse. Under the curse of God, the divine judge holds each one of us accountable. If we return to slavery, then it is our choice to do so and we will suffer the consequences. Ironically, the world describes this cursed life to be freedom. We are free to choose sin, to choose despair. We are free to eat our young and to destroy our relationships. We are free to go to war and to slip into debt. We are free to ruin our lives! Most Christians on the planet presently believe that such freedom to make wretched choices under the curse is true religion. But God has a better way. He has made a better way through his one and only perfect Son. Jesus Christ is the only one whose righteousness has exceeded that of the scribes and Pharisees. He is the only one who has met the condition of perfect obedience.
True freedom flows from our union to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who has perfectly obeyed the Law of God, has won the blessings of God and who promises to share these blessings with all who put their faith in him.
As ugly and painful as these curses are in Deuteronomy 28, none of them compare with Christ’s suffering on the cross. Upon the cross Jesus became a curse for us, suffering God’s wrath for sin. There is hope for Israel and there is hope for all of us in this world. God has kept his covenant promises by sending his Son to die in our place, to remove the curse from us, and to share with us the blessings won through perfect obedience.

“Busting out of the Box”
Deuteronomy 29

The popular view of law is that it confines and restricts us. Any law, especially law piled upon law forces us into a box. Moses presents the Law of God within the larger context of God’s covenant. In this context, the purpose of God’s law is to bring us to freedom, to unrestricted union with God.
Moses gathered all Israel together in Moab, on the border of the Promised Land. He presented to Israel the Covenant of God. In the middle of this particular address, Moses says, “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.”
We humans have honed the skill of making boxes. If we have read Moses, then we must not put God into a box. God has entered into a covenant with us. He has condescended to us. This means that he has stooped low to relate to us. He has come into our world and revealed himself to us sufficiently toward our relating to him. But the secret things belong to the Lord. We do not know everything there is to know about the nature of God. We do not know everything about his actions in this world. We encounter the mystery of God regularly. Indeed, if God were not mysterious, then he would not be the one, true God at all, but an idol of our own making. He would be a god in a box.
What are these secret things belonging to the Lord our God? The inspired Scriptures reveal to us what we need to know concerning God. Some of the Bible seems plain and clear to us but some of it introduces to us the mysteries of God. Who can clear up for us the mystery of the infinity of God? Who can rationally explain the Trinity? Who can pinpoint the origin of evil? Which of us can solve the problem of pain?
We have enough trouble embracing what the Bible plainly teaches us about God. In fact, beyond curiosity about the mystery of God, we may be attracted to the secret things because the revealed things offend us. We are tempted to put God in a box. One box we may fashion strips him of some of his attributes – the ones we despise. Another box we may fashion for him is the completely black space of mystery untouched by the rays of divine revelation. If God is purely mystery, then we do not have to live in the light of his revelation. Moses presents to us a God who is perfectly free from us, establishing his covenant with us on his own terms.
We are skilled at putting each other into boxes. Moses teaches us that God enters into a relationship with his people. The law serves the Covenant, which defines this relationship. The result is freedom. Read (9), “Therefore keep the words of this covenant and do them, so that you may prosper in all that you do.” But we often forget the Covenant, replacing it with our own laws and ideas about how everyone should live. For example, we may hold to a particular method of education. Then we would consider those who do not hold to this particular method to be second-class Christians. We may think less of a sister or brother in Christ because he/she voted for a different political candidate than we chose. We may scorn an entire Christian tradition on grounds of sub-culture.
The Covenant of God does not prevent us from making space for people. We make a box that is comfortable for ourselves and then we insist that everyone else, if they be a true Christian, must live in identical boxes. The Covenant of God is not about outward conformity. In (18) Moses says, “Beware lest there be among you a man or woman or clan or tribe whose heart is turning away today from the Lord our God to go and serve the gods of those nations. Beware lest there be among you a root bearing poisonous and bitter fruit, one who, when he hears the words of this sworn covenant, blesses himself in his heart saying, ‘I shall be safe, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart.’” We must make space for a wide variety of people to stand to hear the Covenant of God, a wide space in which all of us may examine our hearts and discover a persevering desire to know God and to submit to him.
Every box we make is a prison cell, a hell-hole, or a temple to an idol. The Law of God is not a box. It is a path leading to the gospel. The gospel is our gateway to freedom. Moses says, “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.” What are “the things revealed”? The very words of God are the revealed things, and specifically, Moses refers to the Law of God. This revelation of the Law of God is a gift to us from God. We now possess the Law of God. We know what God requires of us. How cruel it would be if God kept his law secret and we never knew at any given time whether or not we were abiding by the law. How cruel it would be if God delivered the penalties of the law upon us but failed to tell us what the laws are. The penalties of the law fall upon those who knowingly break the law. Moses makes this quite clear in this address. The law is given not only to us but also to following generations. Moses is addressing a new generation on the borders of the Promised Land so that the Law of God may not be a mystery but a revelation, a gift from God.
As the Law of God governs our lives and world, we enjoy the deterring of evil and the promoting of good. Our response is gratitude for God’s good gift of the Law. As we discover our own obedience, we acknowledge that God has given us the desire and the ability to obey. He has given to us the context of obedience, namely a loving and prosperous relationship with him. Moses supplies the purpose of the law in (29), “so that we may do all the words of this law.” When we fail to obey the law and discover the impossibility of meeting its righteous demands to win God’s blessing, we are ripe for the gospel. Before us stands the gate to freedom. In his mercy, God has designed and built the road of the law to end at the gate of his gospel. The Law brings death. If we were traveling down the road of the Law at highway speed, we would crash into the stonewall blocking the road and we would surely die. But if the gate in the stonewall opens, then we shall reach our destination, our home in God’s loving and prosperous presence. Jesus has declared that he is that open gate: “I am the gate. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved.”
Left to ourselves, we will build boxes and live in them. All too common is the person who tires of his Christian box, trading it in for a Muslim box. “I tried Christianity for two years and it didn’t work for me, so I am going to try Islam.” Some of us know people who have tired of their agnostic box and so they move into a Buddhist box, or a Hindu box, or a Scientology box. There is a WalMart full of boxes in this world. If you like moving from box to box, there is a life-long supply. “I used to be Baptist, but now I am a Presbyterian, but I am seriously thinking about becoming a “Rightly Ordered Swedish Orthodox Covenantal Devotee of the Late Harry Chalmers Exclusive Psalmody Church.” How long will the oxygen hold in your box? Don’t worry, I take a long deep breath between boxes.
Outside the box, there is a wide world belonging to the one, true God of the Covenant. The Law of God governs this world and the gospel is freely offered to anyone who would desire to live peacefully with God. He shares this world with all those who enter into the Covenant and submit to him as Lord of the Covenant. In this relationship, we bust out of the box, and live in God’s freedom.

“Repentance”
Deuteronomy 30: 1-10

We return to the great address of Moses at the conclusion of the book of Deuteronomy. Moses has clearly outlined the curses that will fall upon those who abandon God’s covenant. He has isolated the stubbornness of the human heart as the source of disobedience. The curses are nothing less than God’s anger, fury, and wrath unleashed upon those who would worship the idols of this world. Moses is concerned for an Israel comfortable and secure in the Promised Land, forgetting to worship the one, true God who had graciously given to them this fruitful land. Moses prophetically foresees the scattering of disobedient Israel, and so he speaks to the people about repentance. Should the people’s hearts become stubborn, they must return to worship God with their whole heart and soul. Should the people be punished being dragged into slavery in foreign lands, they may humbly obey God who will restore their fortunes and land.
God’s plan for our lives has included from the beginning clearly marked paths returning to his blessing. God is not the God of the second chance. He is the God of inexhaustible grace. We may return again and again to his blessing. It is not that God’s Plan A has failed and so he cooks up Plan B. God’s one and only plan has included from the beginning the gift of repentance. This gracious gift of repentance pilots our return to obedient living and to God’s blessing.
Some of us have experienced this repentance. We have returned to God after wandering for years. We have experienced God’s restoration of our faith and obedience. Many of us presently worry for our loved ones, especially our children, who have abandoned the covenant, whose hearts are stubborn and whose minds are clouded with idolatrous pursuits. Let us trust in God and be strengthened in hope. The same God who has laid before us the path of repentance can also lay before our children the clearly marked path returning to his love and blessing. As our children find this path of repentance and begin their return to their loving, heavenly Father, may they, like expert trackers, find the footprints of their parents in the dust ahead of them.
Repentance begins in our hearts. Moses says, “return to the Lord your God, you and your children, and obey his voice in all that I command you today, with all your heart and with all your soul.” Repentance begins with a desire to do the right. It begins with a longing to live according to God’s covenant. It begins with a love for God.
In the second stage of repentance God restores our fortunes, extends his love to us in compassion and gathers us to himself. Repentance is not merely experienced in our remorse for sin, in our doing penance. Repentance is not merely a morbid ritual of self-denial. Repentance is also a homecoming. It includes the restoration of material blessings. When we sin, some of the consequences that befall us may be the stripping of material blessings. In this second stage of repentance, God gracious restores his material blessings. He expresses his love for us in compassion. God’s compassion includes his sympathy for our suffering. It includes his help in our present predicaments. In this second stage of repentance, God cleans up the mess we have made of our lives and while he is doing so, he does not scold us, but he sympathizes with us.
Remember the father who sees his prodigal son returning home. The son falls before his father and begins to say, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called you son.” But the father quickly said to his servants, “Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.” In this second stage of repentance, God shall gather us to himself and celebrate our homecoming.
In this gracious gift of repentance, God may actually restore us to more prosperity than we enjoyed at the time of our stubbornness. God does not treat the sinner as we do. One of our loved ones sins and hurts us and so we say, “I forgive you but you will be living in the dog house for the next 20 years. Sure, I forgive you, but I will not fully restore you to my love.” God does not do this, but instead, he does the opposite. Upon the sinner’s return, God pours out a blessing larger than he did at first. Moses promises, “God will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers.” This is not incentive to repent. Rather this is the bounty of repentance! This is the result of God’s forgiveness.
A third stage of repentance is the purifying, sanctifying work of God. In (6) Moses says, “And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.” The mark of God upon us is his holiness. We are set apart and identified to be children of God. In the Old Covenant, the sign of circumcision was placed upon every baby boy eight days after birth. This mark set him and the entire community apart as those who belong to the God of Abraham. Those of us who have read the New Testament discover that the apostle Paul refers to this sign of circumcision, applying it to the spiritual cleansing of our hearts. He writes to the church at Colossia, “In Christ you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with a circumcision done by Christ.” Paul was not the first to speak of God circumcising our hearts. Moses, the great prophet of the Old Covenant spoke of the reality of the sign of circumcision being the work of God making the hearts of the people holy.
As an aside, let us make note of the sign and the reality distinct yet inseparably connected in the Old Covenant. Israel under the authority of Moses, did not merely have the sign of holiness. Israel possessed knowledge of both the sign and the reality. Every circumcised boy and all of his family members knew from Moses’ teaching that they must have the reality of the sign that was placed upon their community. The circumcised boy may grow up to abandon the covenant in the stubbornness of his heart. But when he returned to God, forsaking all idols, then he would discover in repentance the reality of God’s cleansing. God would circumcise his heart, making him holy.
The result of the circumcision of the heart is our love of God. In repentance God gives to us the capacity to wholly love him. Do you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul? As God works repentance in your life, you will experience this whole-hearted love of God more and more.
What are the vital signs that you are alive? A heart beat? A pulse? Brain waves? Healthy pallor? What do we mean when we say, “That guy knows how to live! She is full of life! Grab the gusto of life! Live a little!” What makes life worth living? What is the cherry on top? What is the ultimate life experience? Whole-hearted love of God. To be able to return God’s love through wholehearted love of him is the fullness of life.
Our Lord Jesus displayed for us this fullness of life ironically in his death. The Father wholly loved him, his one and only perfect Son. Jesus Christ responded to this love by loving the Father in return. The greatest display of Jesus’ love for his heavenly Father, was laying down his life to save all of his Father’s children from their sin. It is true that Jesus died in our place, for our benefit. It is true that in doing so, he expressed a deep love for us. But at an even deeper level, Jesus rescued us to display his wholehearted love for his heavenly Father. We are Jesus’ gift of love to his Father! What does the Father desire more than anything else in this world he created? He desires that none of his children should perish. And so, Jesus embarks upon the mission of the incarnation and of the cross to redeem us from death, to present us before God, an offering, a token of the Son’s love for his Father.

“Remembering the Covenant:
Speaking, Embracing, Obeying and Choosing the Law”
Deuteronomy 30: 11-20

Through out his addresses in the book of Deuteronomy, Moses summarizes the Law of God with the command, “Love the Lord your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul.” In Deuteronomy 30:11 Moses says, “For this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you.” Moses can’t be serious! Is not the Law’s demand impossible for any of us to master? Does Moses think that it is easy to obey God’s law? No. Moses does not think that obeying God’s law is easy. What Moses says is, “This commandment is not too hard for you, neither is it far off.” In other words, Moses says that God has given the law to us in a form that we can understand and embrace.
Some of the mystery religions keep God’s truth removed in a spiritual realm, accessible only by those who ascend to higher levels through spiritual exercises and regimens. But God has presented to us his law in our earthly realm.
In this earthly realm, God did not deposit his law in some golden cache, hidden in the ground or guarded by a guru in a cave on the summit of some holy mountain. None of us must go to the summit or to the holy city to get God’s special words. The God who met Moses at the summit of Mt. Sinai is the God who sent his special words, his very law, down the mountain in Moses’ hands, in the people’s language, applicable to their daily and common lives in the valley. God’s law works in the wilderness and it works in the Promised Land. God’s law communicates effectively in North America and just as effectively in Asia.
Moses says, “The word is very near you.” How near? It has not been written in a secret language requiring angels to translate it for humanity. It is not hidden from the masses, reserved for the few who reach an ecstatic state. “The word is very near you.” How did the law get into our mouths? God has spoken his law to Moses. God has written the law in the language of the people, chiseled into stone and scripted on parchment by the hands of the prophets. The people of God have in every age heard the law of God and become familiar with it to the point that it is quoted, revered, and obeyed.
“The word is very near you.” How near? It is in your heart. This means that you not only understand the law in your mind and that you can parrot the law to your children, but that you also have embraced the law as God’s word.
Moses thus instructs us to remember the covenant of God by speaking it to each other and embracing it at the core of our being. God has brought his word very near to us through his human servant Moses, who set the Law before Israel to prepare her to live in the Promised Land. He not only spoke the Law in public addresses before Israel, but he also wrote them on parchment, preserving God’s Law for generations to come. Moses says, “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil.” God’s Law is our guide for life. It is for our good. “Life and good,” is correlative to Moses’ usual language of blessing. “Death and evil” is correlative to Moses’ usual language of curse. If we obey the covenant, then God will bless us. If we disobey, then God will curse us. This curse ultimately brings death and its instrument is most usually human evil and sometimes it is demonic evil. By speaking the covenant law to each other and by embracing it in our hearts, we begin to live in God’s blessing, escaping the curse that befalls those who abandon the covenant in the stubbornness of their hearts.
Moses instructs us to remember the covenant of God by not only speaking it to each other and embracing it in our hearts, but also by obeying it. Now here’s a novel idea! We are to obey the law. In (16) Moses delivers God’s promise of blessing for obedience. Moses also tells us how to obey God’s law. Firstly, we obey God’s law by loving the Lord, our God. Indeed the first four commandments teach us to love the Lord, our God by worshipping him alone, forsaking all idols, by revering his name and keeping his day, one in seven, holy. Secondly, we obey God’s law by walking in God’s ways. The walking and path imagery of the Holy Scriptures have become clichés for many of us. What does Moses mean, “by walking in his ways?” This imagery means submitting to God’s direction and guidance in our lives. In the wilderness, Israel followed the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. These were glorious manifestations of the Holy Spirit guiding and directing God’s children. Now Moses tells Israel that as she enters the Promised Land, she must continue to follow God’s direction and guidance.
Thirdly, we obey God’s law by keeping his commandments, statutes and rules. Are these three categories of divine law? It may be best to think of commandments, statutes, and rules not as distinct categories of God’s Law but as three descriptions of every one of God’s laws. All of God’s laws are commandments, meaning, that they have been delivered directly from God. All of God’s laws are statutes, meaning that all of them are legally binding. All of God’s laws are rules, meaning that they regulate our lives.
Moses instructs us to remember the covenant by choosing life. We choose life by choosing to obey God’s law. The structure of the covenant is simple: obedience of God’s Law results in the blessing of life; disobedience of God’s Law results in the curse of death. Moses set the Law of God before Israel. He presented it plainly to the people and then said to them, “You have a choice. Your choice will not only impact your life, but also the lives of your children.” Several weeks ago I was visiting with two people, one of them a teenage boy. I had asked him to describe for me his spiritual pilgrimage. He told me that he had made a choice to follow Jesus and he added, “I know that your church does not believe that people make a choice to become a Christian, but our church believes that you must make a choice to believe in Christ.” I kindly corrected the boy telling him that we do believe that we must make a choice and that we call people to make public profession of their faith in Christ. The ongoing debate about the freedom of the human will and the placement of human choice has always been about whose will is supreme – God’s will or the human will. The debate has never been about whether or not humanity has the ability to choose and the divine mandate of humanity to exercise choice. Moses is quite helpful to us. He presents to us the Lord God who writes the covenant, setting it before us and then commanding us to choose to obey it or disobey it. God clearly sets before us the blessings for the choice of obedience and the curses for the choice of disobedience. Who is in control? The one who chooses, or the one who gives the covenant outlining the choices?
Jesus chose to obey the will of his heavenly Father by obeying the Law, which he fulfilled perfectly. Jesus chose to lay down his life a ransom for many. He chose life and then he chose to take the curse of death, the punishment due all of us who have chosen death and evil. He took upon himself the sins of the whole world, even the sins of those of us who have chosen life, but have failed in thought, word, and deed to perfectly obey the Law. This Jesus who has chosen perfectly has said to us, “I have come that you might have life and that you might have it abundantly!” The Covenant Law offers life as the reward for the human choice of obedience. Jesus has made that perfect human choice, receives the reward of everlasting and abundant life, and shares it with us! Believe him as he says, “I have come that you might have abundant life!” Choose life today by choosing to be connected to Jesus. Ask God to unite you to Jesus. Ask God to grant you abundant life through Jesus. When you make such requests of God, there is no waiting period, no 90-day process, no application fees. Your request to be identified with Jesus in his choice of life is one immediately and freely granted by the Lord of the Covenant.

Remembering the Covenant: The Word Belongs to the Lord
Deuteronomy 31
In the final months and weeks of his earthly life, the great prophet Moses became physically weak yet his mind remained sharp. At 120 years old, he was no longer able to walk out of his tent. This bedridden man was the sturdy, rugged man who climbed Mt. Sinai in the midst of the fire and earthquake, to meet God, to receive the Law of God. In his weak condition, with the help of others he publicly addressed Israel. He was weak in body but strong in voice, the very words of God upon his lips.
As Moses spoke to Israel in this final address, his message was as clear as the first time he spoke as a prophet: The words of his address did not belong to him but rather, they belonged to God. Moses was the spokesperson, God the author. Moses was the mediator between God and Israel. God was the Creator, the Sustainer, and the Leader of his people. Moses used his feeble condition to reinforce the people’s trust in God. It is God who has always led his people. Moses will not enter the Promised Land. He is 120 years old, in poor health, and God has told him that he would not enter the Promised Land. But Israel is not to worry or to be afraid. God is her true leader. He has been ever present and active for the good of his people. In Moses’ place, Joshua will lead Israel. The enemy nations shall be destroyed and the people and land will be at peace.
One of the striking elements of Joshua succeeding Moses as the leader of Israel is the repetition of God’s words faithfully passed from Moses to Joshua, consistently spoken in the hearing of Israel for her good. The words belong to God. In his address Moses says to the people, “Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the LORD your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.” Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the sight of all Israel, “Be strong and courageous, for you shall go with this people into the land that the LORD has sworn to their fathers to give them, and you shall put them in possession of it. It is the LORD who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.”
Listen to some of the opening lines of the book of Joshua, which follows Deuteronomy: “After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, ‘Moses my servant is dead….Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you…. Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you…. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
In the conquest of Canaan, the enemy kings who had ruined the land and destroyed the peace of the people, had been captured in a cave. Joshua commanded his soldiers to drag the five kings out of the cave and to place their feet on their royal necks against the dust of the ground. Then Joshua said to Israel, “Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Be strong and courageous. This is what the Lord will do to all the enemies you are going to fight.”
Leaders come and go, but God remains the leader of his people. Generations pass away, but the words of God endure. “’Heaven and earth may pass away but my words shall endure forever,’ says the Lord.” Nearly all of Joshua’s words spoken in the Promised Land had been spoken to Israel in the wilderness by Moses. The words did not belong to Moses or to Joshua but to God.
God’s words were not only delivered in the oral tradition but Moses also wrote them on parchment and gave them to the priests of Israel. Thus written tradition was born to preserve the very words of God! William Schniedewind, Chair of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at UCLA and author of How the Bible became a Book, Cambridge University Press, 2004, writes, “Early Israel was an oral society. Biblical literature depicts the early Israelites as semi-nomadic wanderers who finally settled in Canaan and followed a pastoral and later, an increasingly agrarian lifestyle. This was not a setting in which we should expect writing to flourish. Rather, the “literature” of the early Israelites was an oral literature.” He, along with many Christian scholars have a difficult time believing that Moses actually wrote Deuteronomy. Such a date and location is too early in history, predating the great urban and literate empires.
Schniedewind writes, “Writing had a numinous power, especially in pre-literate societies. Writing was not used, at first, to canonize religious praxis, but to engender religious awe. Writing was a gift of the gods. It had supernatural powers to bless and to curse.” He describes the Ten Commandments written in stone as a good example of ancient writing standing as a symbol for the presence of the divine rather than a language/communication tool. He and many other scholars believe that Deuteronomy, and the entire Five Books of Moses were written during the reign of Hezekiah, by a team of scribes, during a period of history when the Assyrian Empire had invented writing as a language com-munication tool.
If these scholars are correct, then the scribes inserted paragraphs to make it sound as if Moses actually wrote the book himself. I take Deuteronomy at face value, believing it to preserve for us the amazing amalgamation of oral and written traditions. Not only do the words of Deuteronomy belong to the Lord God, but also the form of presentation belongs to God. The content of Deuteronomy is the Law of God, most important! But just as important is the record of the manner and method by which God dispensed his holy words to his people. The God of Moses is the God who speaks his very own words to his people and who has also equipped and commanded his servants to write his very own words in the language of the people for preservation and for accessibility. In his final public address, Moses states the purpose of his writing Deuteronomy, beautifully presenting the co-laboring of the oral and written traditions to give the people the very words of God. Moses wrote the book, gave it to the priests and then instructed them in (12) to read the book publicly: “Assemble the people, men, women, and little ones, and the sojourner within your towns, that they may hear and learn to fear the Lord your God, and be careful to do all the words of this law, and that their children, who have not known it, may hear and learn to fear the Lord your God, as long as you live in the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess.”
Also in Deuteronomy 31, Moses preserves God’s instruction of him to write a song, another beautiful connection between the oral and written traditions of Israel. As many of us have experienced, songs are effective memory tools. Put music to God’s words, sing them, and they will ring in your hearts and minds for years to come. The more specific purpose God gives to Moses in writing this song is that it might stand as a witness against Israel, in her future disobedience. At the conclusion of Deuteronomy 31, this same purpose is assigned to the writing of the Law and placing it into the Ark of the Covenant as a witness against the disobedient people. This is not a very positive purpose. Perhaps we would prefer to think of God as less of a legally driven person. The writing of the Law and the writing of this song have a legal purpose: When Israel’s day in court arrives, God will have his case written on parchment and imprinted upon the minds of every Israelite.
Both oral and written traditions serving the dispensing of God’s word to his people have focused our attention upon a most legal context, upon the crux and climax of God’s witness against disobedient humanity. This central event is the cross of Christ: Jesus, the one Man to have perfectly kept the Law of God knew the song preserving the judgment of God upon the disobedient. He knew the song promised punishment and death for those who have broken God’s laws. With the song ringing in his mind and heart, Jesus willingly took the place of lawbreakers, receiving the punishment and death legally dispensed in judgment of human sin.
In the Temple, the mercy seat affixed to the lid of the Ark of the Covenant stood between the written Law of God, a witness against disobedient humanity. The priest sprinkling the blood of the sacrifice upon the mercy seat turned away God’s wrath as the glory of God descended upon the temple. But outside the city gates on a barren and exposed hill called Golgatha, the just wrath of God descended upon the unprotected and exposed Lamb of God. With God’s wrath satisfied, we enjoy today divine mercy. Our union by faith to Christ Jesus assures us of God’s smile, his irresistible grace. This song of Moses reminds us of how great a salvation we have received. The Law reminds us of how great a debt Christ has paid in our place. Thanks be to God!

Remembering the Covenant: The Song
Deuteronomy 32:1-47

God said to Moses, “Now therefore write this song and teach it to the people of Israel. Put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the people of Israel.” The song would press God’s word down into the memories of Israelites so that they would know that God is just in punishing their disobedience. Music does aid the memory and is an effective tool aiding us to remember the words of God. What is a bit strange for us is the content God’s instructs Moses to include in his song. We are not accustomed to singing songs about God’s judgment and punishment of the disobedient. We are not accustomed to singing in court! But God commands a song as part of a legal proceeding between himself and Israel, two parties of the covenant.
God gave Moses the Law to give to the people and he commanded Moses to write in on parchment and to place it in the Ark of the Covenant as a legal witness against the people. God’s case was thus preserved in the center of the tabernacle in the Ark of the Covenant and upon the hearts of the people, who had memorized the song. Let us give our attention to the content of this song of Moses.
According to ancient Hebrew custom, nature is called upon to be a witness between God and humanity. The heavens and earth are called into the courtroom and Moses, the mediator between God and humanity hopes that this grave song will gently reach the people for their good, directing their attention to the glory of God.
The case is made up front: God is perfect and just, faithful and upright but the people are perverse and foolish. God is “The Rock.” He is the sure foundation, never wavering in his covenantal promises. Moses, the mediator of the covenant tells the people to ask their fathers and their elders about God’s faithfulness to their generation. These older men will confess that God has kept the covenant, never forsaking is people. But the people have disobeyed the covenant and forgotten the goodness of the Lord.
Interestingly, God instructs Moses to write and give this song to the people as they are on the verge of receiving the Promised Land from God. Moses has been addressing the people, instructing them to live obediently and peacefully in the Promised Land. The Promised Land is not a free gift from God’s hand, but rather, it is a gift contingent upon obedience. He warns them against forgetfulness and disobedience. Then, God gives Moses this song that prophesies Israel’s disobedience. Before they enter the land, Israel must learn this song that clearly proclaims her disobedience against a perfectly just and faithful God! Thus, God has every right to strip the Promised Land from disobedient Israel.
The following two stanzas of this song tell the story of the man, named Jeshurun. The first of these stanzas poetically describe God’s loving care of Israel in the wilderness. Jeshurun, the one man loved by God, represents Israel the chosen people of God. The second stanza poetically describes the downfall of Jeshurun. He becomes lazy, selfish. He forsakes God, scorns his salvation and pursues idols, even demonic worship. In the end he completely forgets God, the Creator. Jeshurun, as the Jewish Encyclopedia reports, is a symbol for Israel.
Usually, the Holy Scriptures, speak of Israel in the feminine. God is spoken of in the masculine and Israel in the feminine. But there is one thread of reference in redemptive history that breaks with this tradition. This thread traces the relationship of the one man to the one God. Jeshurun, the poetic masculine symbol, connects disobedient Israel to Adam the first man to fail to remember the covenant. This thread runs straight through to the coming of the second Adam, the Son of God and Son of Man, who is the first and the last perfect Man, representing the whole of humanity in perfect righteousness. St. Paul thus compares and contrasts the one man, Adam, to the one Man, Christ Jesus. He says that Adam’s transgression of the Law of God condemned all of humanity but that Christ’s righteousness leads to justification and life for all of us.
The song is not so positive. The song introduces the one, failed man, Jeshurun, as a representative for the whole of Israel, so that Israel might know in court that God was just in his punishing of her disobedience. The following stanzas describe the plans of God in punishment of disobedient Israel. God will stop short of annihilating Israel only because the enemy of Israel would take credit for such a wholesale punishment claiming the victory over God. With potent poetry, the song describes the painful punishments God will inflict upon Israel. But God’s plans include his thoughts in (26-27): God will not wipe Israel from human memory. God supplies one surprising answer for not doing so. The rest of the world knows that God and his people share an inseparable and blessed relationship governed by the covenant. Should God completely destroy Israel, then the world would claim to be the one who did so, claiming to be greater than the God of Israel who by design is to protect his people.
The next stanza (28-33) develops God’s assessment of Israel’s enemy, a nation that would take credit for the destruction of Israel and thus the bringing low of Israel’s God. This enemy nations lacks wisdom. Nevertheless this enemy nation knows that God is inseparably connected to Israel. The enemy nation may stand alone in the world, but she knows that Israel does not stand alone, but stands with her God. Whatever happens to Israel reflects upon her God. This enemy nation has bitter and poisonous roots. God is willing to use such a nation as an instrument of his chastisement of Israel, but he not willing to set up this nation in a position from which she will declare to the world that she has defeated the God of Israel.
In the stanza preserved in (35-38) God promises to vindicate his people and to have compassion upon his servants. His punishments of them are designed to persuade them of the futility of their idolatry. In the following stanza (39-42) God presents himself as the Sovereign King of the whole world. Life and Death are under his control. He will wage war against the enemies of his people. Nothing will prevent the establishment and the expansion of his kingdom, not even the disobedience of his very own people. In the end, it will not be his disobedience children that will meet with death but it will be the enemies who have claimed to be greater than God.
The song begins by calling nature to witness the justice of God. In the end the song calls nature to rejoice in the justice of God. In the courtroom a guilty Israel with the song of Moses imprinted upon her memory and heart would be able to plead for God’s mercy. Israel could say, “We have sinned against God and we are worthy of death, but God has promised to vindicate us before our enemies. God has promised to be gracious.”
On the Final Day of Judgment, we, who will stand before the Judge, as guilty as Israel ever was in her day, will be able to plead for God’s grace as well. As the heavens and earth are our witnesses, we will be able to say, “Our Redeemer, Jesus, not only is the true and perfect Man but he also willingly became the Jeshurun of the song of Moses receiving upon himself the punishment due our sin. Today we stand before you, O Judge of heaven and earth. We stand in the name of Jesus Christ. Your justice is satisfied and your promised mercy sufficiently flows to this hearing and to our account.”

Remembering the Covenant: The Land
Deuteronomy 32: 48-52

In the ancient world, the mountain was the place where the divine would visit humanity. Moses, the great prophet of Israel, ascended Mt. Sinai to meet with God, to hear the voice of God and to receive the law of God written in stone. On the mountain, Moses requested to see God’s glory. God said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name, and I will be gracious and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” God told Moses to hide in the cleft of the rock on the mountain, to hide there until he had passed by. As God was departing the summit of the mountain, he allowed Moses to see the trailing glory!
When Moses descended the mountain his face shown like the sun and so the people, even Aaron, his brother, were afraid to come near Moses. No one else in Israel had come so close to the glorious presence of God on the mountain. In the Holy of Holies, Aaron, the High Priest of Israel encountered the glory of God descending upon the Ark of the Covenant. But when it was Aaron’s time to die, he was gathered into the eternal presence of God at Mount Hor. At the summit Moses stripped Aaron of his priestly garments, placing them upon Eleazar, the son of Aaron. Then Aaron died on the mountain in the presence of God, gathered to his people.
When it came time for Moses to die, God commanded him to ascend Mount Nebo. And so, Israel lived in ancient times with this visual presentation of God meeting with his loved ones on the mountain. William Schniedewind, Chair of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at UCLA includes an interesting paragraph in his book, How the Bible Became a Book. He mentions the Babylonian god of the scribes, Nabu, whose Hebrew name appearing several times in the Bible is Nebo. Schniedewind writes, “It is perhaps not a coincidence that Moses ascends to heaven from the top of Mount Nebo, a mountain apparently dedicated to a god of scribes.” Moses, the great prophet who preserved the oral traditions of Israel by writing the very words of God upon scrolls, the author of the first five books, the Pentateuch, died on Mount Nebo, named for the Babylonian god of the scribes.
If you have ever read the little book of Jude in the New Testament, you have come across this cryptic statement, “But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you.” The point seems to be in its context that the archangel, Michael, was careful to pit God himself against the devil rather than pitting himself against the fallen prince of the angels. In doing so, he carefully and properly refrained from blasphemy. What was the devil doing on the summit of Mount Nebo? Could it be that he regularly went there to gloat over the funerals of Babylonian scribes? Could it be that he argued that Moses belonged to him as well? But God sent his archangel to protect the body of Moses, the one scribe of the ancient world, who belonged not to Nebo, but to Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Was God making a statement in the death of Moses and the precise location of his death, that his word spoken and written is superior to that of the scribes of this world? We will never know for sure.
What we do know from our text is not easy for us to accept, namely that Moses was not allowed to enter into the Promised Land. The reason God supplies for barring Moses’ entrance is that Moses broke faith with God in the midst of the people of Israel at the waters of Meribah-kadesh. God says to Moses, “You did not treat me as holy in the midst of the people of Israel.” To make matters worse, God says to Moses and Aaron at Aaron’s death on Mount Hor, that the reason Aaron is not entering the Promised Land, is that Moses did not treat God as holy in the midst of the people.
In Exodus 17, Moses records an episode in the wilderness of Zin, when Israel was in need of water. Because the people were quarreling about the lack of water, this site became known as “Meribah,” which means quarreling. God instructed Moses to take his rod and strike the rock at Horeb and then water would flow from it. Many years later, after wandering in the wilderness, the quarreling generation dying, the second generation arrived at Kadesh with Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. Kadesh was the entrance point into the Promised Land. Here on the plains of Moab, Moses prepared the people to enter the Promised Land. Once again, in this wilderness of Zin, Israel lacked water and began to quarrel as their parents had done so years ago. God instructed Moses to hold his staff, but rather than striking the rock as he did the first time years ago, he was to tell the rock to yield its water. With the people quarreling again, Moses was agitated, if not furious. He stood before the people and said, “Hear now, you rebels: shall we bring water for you out of this rock?” Then he took his staff and struck the rock twice and the water gushed forth.
How I sympathize with Moses! How difficult it is for any of us to hear people quarrel. Discontent and discord are difficult to tolerate. For Moses there was also the issue of submission to God. The first time round, God said, “Strike the rock once.” But the second time round God said, “Speak to the rock.” Why can’t God standardize his instructions? Why was God so harsh with Moses? Several times in the past God was angry with Israel’s complaining and rebellious spirit, ready to annihilate the whole lot, but Moses, the mediator between God and Man begged God to spare the people and on one occasion, Moses even asked God to take his life in place of the people. Did not God understand the heart of Moses? Had God forgotten the record of his appointed mediator, who poured out his heart and soul for the people? Why did these quarreling Israelites enter the land but Moses was barred for striking the rock twice and speaking his mind before the people?
God loved Moses and ushered Moses into his glorious heaven. God immediately received the soul of Moses at death. He sent the archangel Michael to dispute over the body of Moses, protecting it from the devil. At death most bodies decay in the grave – ashes to ashes, dust to dust. But a few have escaped this resting in the grave, caught up immediately into heaven. The prophets Enoch and Elijah did not even die, but instead their were caught up body and soul into God’s glorious heaven. Moses did die on Mount Nebo, but it is possible, though I can not say for certain, that the archangel not only disputed with the devil over his body, but snatched his body, transporting him directly to heaven. Perhaps Moses’ body never rested among the graves of the Babylonian scribes in honor the Nebo, the god of the scribes. Perhaps God was making the point that his prophet and his written word are high and above the prophecies and scrolls of men. After all, Moses appeared in his body on the Mount of Transfiguration, along with Elijah and Jesus in heavenly glory, Peter, James, and John witnessing this amazing display.
What we can say for certain is that God kept his unconditional promises to Moses, graciously receiving him into his glorious heaven, giving to him the eternal Promised Land, the new heavens and the new earth. God will do this for each and everyone of us, who are connected by faith to the One and only Mediator between God and Man, the Man, Christ Jesus. We may consider our disobedience to be as gray as Moses’ irritation, anger, and failure to follow instructions, which seem to be seemingly minor in light of 2 million people in desperate need of water. We may conclude that God would overlook such minor sins, stopping short of executing his just demands for perfect obedience. But the case of Moses stops us short of such thoughts. But if we confess our sins, including the gravity of any sins, including minor sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, cleansing us from all unrighteousness.
Having made the connection between the Promised Land in this world and the more glorious and eternal Promised Land we call heaven, we must pause at Mount Nebo with Moses and gaze at the real gift of land to Israel. This land flowing with milk and honey was a gift God granted conditionally. The condition was the perfect obedience of Israel once she entered the land. Any infraction of God’s law inside the Promised Land was just reason for God to expel Israel from the land. From the first day in the land, any member of Israel, who understood his own sinfulness and frailty would realize that every moment spent in the Land was an act of God’s mercy and grace. Can you imagine 2 million people perfectly obedient for one minute, let alone one day? The biblical narrative records large-scale blunders and sins soon enough among Israel. None of us could hold onto the material and conditional blessings from God’s hand for more than a nano-second.
Israel in the wilderness as well as Israel in the Promised Land must look in faith to God’s provision of a true Israel, meeting the conditions and winning all of God’s blessings. Moses on Mount Nebo looked at the Promised Land in the final moments of his life. But his eyes of faith saw further than the Promised Land in the valley. His eyes of faith, like his father Abraham, were upon a city whose architect and builder is God, the heavenly Zion, the new heavens and the new earth. As his eyes closed in death, the archangel Michael descended to say to the devil, “The Lord rebuke you!” Moses, body and soul belonged to the Lord. All of us, who have the faith of Moses shall receive the same care and we shall be ushered into the same glorious heaven as Moses. We may not be accompanied by so great an angel as Michael, but any one of our guardian angels will do. What matters is that we shall indeed enter the land and there we shall meet our Mediator face to face. His face shall shine greater than Moses’s face. Moses’ face merely reflected the divine light. Our Mediator is the light and he shall shine upon us the smile and the glory of the infinite and holy God.

“Remembering the Covenant: The Blessing
Deuteronomy 33

In the final days of his life, Moses gathered Israel to receive God’s blessing. He offers the blessing in the form that had been used by the Patriarchs. At his death, Jacob gathered his sons together and blessed them. Part of the definition and role of a father is the blessing of his children. Moses was in no way the father, the Patriarch of Israel. How is it that he would assume this role upon his death? Moses, as the prophet of God, represented God by speaking the very words of God. It is God, who is the Father of Israel. Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is the Father of Israel. He confers his blessing through his prophet, Moses.
Moses introduces the blessing of Israel by introducing the God of Sinai. Although he appeared with flaming fire in his right hand, he loved Israel keeping her safe in his hand. Kindly, Moses describes Israel, responding to the heavenly Father’s love by obeying his law! The result is that the Lord God became king of Jeshurun. As we have discovered in the song of Moses recorded in Deuteronomy 32, Jeshurun is the figurative man, a symbol for Israel. Jeshurun is the beloved son of God, “the apple of God’s eye.” But Jeshurun rebelled and became an idolater, even worshipping the demons. Moses sings of Jeshurun, “You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you, and you forgot the God who gave you birth.”
With this song imprinted upon Israel’s memory, she would be reminded that her heavenly Father loved her unconditionally. God’s love for Israel, and for us, flows from his mercy and grace. God thought it important for Moses to introduce his blessings of Israel with this gospel truth. God has broken his son, Jeshurun. He has conquered idolatrous Israel, becoming her Lord and King. It is God, the King, who has gathered Israel to himself. It is God, the loving Father, who now chooses to bless Israel.
Moses is preparing Israel to enter the Promised Land and so his blessings pertain to this next chapter of Israel’s history. As Peter Craigie notes in his commentary on Deuteronomy, “The blessings serve to turn the attention to the immediate future.”
As we turn our attention to the blessing of the 12 Tribes of Israel, having the tribes memorized, we are shocked to find only ten of the 12 tribes, and they are not listed in birth order. The Bible lists the twelve tribes of Israel in several locations: (Genesis 35:23-26; Exodus 1:2-5; Numbers 1:20-43; 1 Chronicles 2:2; Revelation 7:5-8). It is interesting that there are slight differences in some places. The 12 sons of Israel (Jacob) were: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Joseph and Benjamin. These were the ancestors of the original twelve tribes. However, Reuben lost his rights as firstborn by defiling Jacob’s bed (Genesis 35:22; 49:3-4). In Reuben and Joseph’s place, Joseph’s two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, became tribes of Israel (Genesis 48:5-6). As a result, the twelve tribes became Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Benjamin, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Ephraim and Manasseh. In some other lists of the twelve tribes of Israel, Levi is not mentioned, presumably because the Levites were assigned to serve at the temple and therefore were not apportioned land of their own in Israel (Joshua 14:3). Naming the twelve tribes is a confusing task. Revelation 7:5-8 lists the 12 tribes as: Judah, Reuben, Gad, Asher, Naphtali, Manasseh, Simeon, Levi, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph and Benjamin. This is interesting…for the first time Joseph is listed as a tribe along with his son Manasseh. Why isn’t Ephraim listed? Why is Reuben listed, but not Dan? Simeon is listed in Revelation, but Simeon is the one tribe missing in our text, Deuteronomy 33.
Meredith Kline is most helpful in unraveling the complexities of these listings, helping us to see God’s redemptive love for Israel. Moses first blesses Rueben, the first-born son, who was stripped of his inheritance rights by his father, Jacob. Rueben’s behavior was that of Jeshurun and so, God’s blessing issued by Moses begins with the reinstatement of Reuben to make God’s forgiveness, mercy, and grace known to Israel. “Let Reuben live and not die, but let his men be few.” When I reflect upon my spoiled record laced with rebellion and idolatry, I long to hear these words spoken of me, “Let him live and not die.” I don’t care about being the largest tribe or the prominent son, just let me live and not die.
The next blessing is given to the fourth son of Jacob, a son, who was as adulterous as his older brother Reuben. Judah is blessed with reconciliation to his brothers so that his tribe might live peacefully in the land. But the greater blessing is that the Lord would hear the voice of Judah dwelling in the Promised Land. From this beginning chapter of blessing, God would open his ears to hear the prayers of the tribe of Judah. Indeed, the great son of Judah, King David, would be heard in prayer again and again, brought close to God, his Father. The greatest son of Judah, the son of David, who would be sit on David’s throne forever, is continually and perfectly heard as he prays to his heavenly Father. This son is Jesus Christ through whom this blessing of Judah flows to all of us who pray in the name of Jesus.
The wordier blessing bestowed upon Levi is blessing mixed with a biographical sketch of Levi’s sins against God and his brothers. Fittingly, Levi is blessed by God giving to him the role of priestly mediation among the tribes of Israel. The quarreling brother who disowned his brothers is given the role of teacher and mediator!
Benjamin, the beloved son of Jacob’s beloved wife, Rachel, the youngest of all the sons, is blessed with the best location in the Promised Land. He is given Jerusalem. All of the language of this brief blessing describes the holy city. It is the stronghold providing safety. It is the temple mount where God dwells in the midst of his people. The blessing of Benjamin would become the blessing of all Israel as she gathered to Jerusalem: God would be her home. Though Israel would become comfortable in homes throughout the Promised Land, she would sense her longing for heaven as she ascended Mount Zion to worship, and she would say as she entered the city gates, “God is my home; he is my refuge and my strength.” Have you found God to be your home, your central source of safety, comfort, warmth and peace?
Joseph, the brother who rose to power in Egypt, saving all of Egypt and surrounding nations, even Israel, from famine and extinction, is given this fruitfully abundant blessing. Indeed, the two tribes of his sons, Ephraim and Manasseh were given large portions of the Promised Land. This abundance of material blessing given to Joseph reminds us of the abundance of spiritual blessings given to Jesus, the Son of David, to whom the life of Joseph powerfully points. The Apostle Paul writes to the Church at Ephesus, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ!”
While Joseph is given the fruit of the land, Zebulun and Issachar are given the treasures of the sea. “What might the hidden treasures of the sand be?” Is it oil? Is it the thriving tourism of beachfront property? Is it the promise God made to Abraham that his children would be as numerous as the grain of sand on the seashore? Peter Craigie suggests that these two tribes may have been among those who refined the making of glass.
The tribe of Gad settled outside the Promised Land, east of the Jordan River. By virtue of this location, Gad stood between Israel and some of her most ferocious enemies, like the Ammonites. God blessed Gad military prowess and thus, Gad became a blessing to all of Israel.
When Jacob blessed his son, Dan, he said that Dan would be like a viper biting the heels of the horse causing the rider to fall backward. He would be the judge of his brother tribes bringing justice upon his brothers. When Moses blesses Dan, he describes a kinder, gentler brother. Dan is the lion cub, who jumps back from Bashan, that is the viper, as Peter Craigie notes. This is an odd blessing to say the least. This blessing may be God’s way of reminding Israel that he alone is Judge who administers justice. He may give Dan this role among his brothers, but Dan is in reality an instrument of God’s justice. Dan is a younger, playful brother, fearful of the bite of justice, the consequences of sin. Yet God has chosen him to occupy this office of judge.
The blessing of Naphtali and of Asher reminds us that these blessings are all material blessings enjoyed in the immediate future, Israel occupying the Promised Land. These material blessings may point our eyes of faith to greater blessings, the spiritual blessings of the new heavens and the new earth, yet these material blessings are received and enjoyed by all of us who have been graciously received into God’s fatherly love.
Moses concludes by offering to Jeshurun, the fat, lazy, and rebellious child of God, the greatest blessing imaginable – God himself! “There is none like God!” This eternal God is our dwelling place. He is our home. The everlasting arms of God are his strong and sure protection. Would you come to live under God’s authority and security?
“Happy are you, O Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the Lord!” Any one of us, who are united to Jesus Christ, the true Israel, by faith, may enter into the happiness given by the loving Father in heaven.

“Remembering the Covenant: The Blessing
Deuteronomy 33

In the final days of his life, Moses gathered Israel to receive God’s blessing. He offers the blessing in the form that had been used by the Patriarchs. At his death, Jacob gathered his sons together and blessed them. Part of the definition and role of a father is the blessing of his children. Moses was in no way the father, the Patriarch of Israel. How is it that he would assume this role upon his death? Moses, as the prophet of God, represented God by speaking the very words of God. It is God, who is the Father of Israel. Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is the Father of Israel. He confers his blessing through his prophet, Moses.
Moses introduces the blessing of Israel by introducing the God of Sinai. Although he appeared with flaming fire in his right hand, he loved Israel keeping her safe in his hand. Kindly, Moses describes Israel, responding to the heavenly Father’s love by obeying his law! The result is that the Lord God became king of Jeshurun. As we have discovered in the song of Moses recorded in Deuteronomy 32, Jeshurun is the figurative man, a symbol for Israel. Jeshurun is the beloved son of God, “the apple of God’s eye.” But Jeshurun rebelled and became an idolater, even worshipping the demons. Moses sings of Jeshurun, “You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you, and you forgot the God who gave you birth.”
With this song imprinted upon Israel’s memory, she would be reminded that her heavenly Father loved her unconditionally. God’s love for Israel, and for us, flows from his mercy and grace. God thought it important for Moses to introduce his blessings of Israel with this gospel truth. God has broken his son, Jeshurun. He has conquered idolatrous Israel, becoming her Lord and King. It is God, the King, who has gathered Israel to himself. It is God, the loving Father, who now chooses to bless Israel.
Moses is preparing Israel to enter the Promised Land and so his blessings pertain to this next chapter of Israel’s history. As Peter Craigie notes in his commentary on Deuteronomy, “The blessings serve to turn the attention to the immediate future.”
As we turn our attention to the blessing of the 12 Tribes of Israel, having the tribes memorized, we are shocked to find only ten of the 12 tribes, and they are not listed in birth order. The Bible lists the twelve tribes of Israel in several locations: (Genesis 35:23-26; Exodus 1:2-5; Numbers 1:20-43; 1 Chronicles 2:2; Revelation 7:5-8). It is interesting that there are slight differences in some places. The 12 sons of Israel (Jacob) were: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Joseph and Benjamin. These were the ancestors of the original twelve tribes. However, Reuben lost his rights as firstborn by defiling Jacob’s bed (Genesis 35:22; 49:3-4). In Reuben and Joseph’s place, Joseph’s two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, became tribes of Israel (Genesis 48:5-6). As a result, the twelve tribes became Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Benjamin, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Ephraim and Manasseh. In some other lists of the twelve tribes of Israel, Levi is not mentioned, presumably because the Levites were assigned to serve at the temple and therefore were not apportioned land of their own in Israel (Joshua 14:3). Naming the twelve tribes is a confusing task. Revelation 7:5-8 lists the 12 tribes as: Judah, Reuben, Gad, Asher, Naphtali, Manasseh, Simeon, Levi, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph and Benjamin. This is interesting…for the first time Joseph is listed as a tribe along with his son Manasseh. Why isn’t Ephraim listed? Why is Reuben listed, but not Dan? Simeon is listed in Revelation, but Simeon is the one tribe missing in our text, Deuteronomy 33.
Meredith Kline is most helpful in unraveling the complexities of these listings, helping us to see God’s redemptive love for Israel. Moses first blesses Rueben, the first-born son, who was stripped of his inheritance rights by his father, Jacob. Rueben’s behavior was that of Jeshurun and so, God’s blessing issued by Moses begins with the reinstatement of Reuben to make God’s forgiveness, mercy, and grace known to Israel. “Let Reuben live and not die, but let his men be few.” When I reflect upon my spoiled record laced with rebellion and idolatry, I long to hear these words spoken of me, “Let him live and not die.” I don’t care about being the largest tribe or the prominent son, just let me live and not die.
The next blessing is given to the fourth son of Jacob, a son, who was as adulterous as his older brother Reuben. Judah is blessed with reconciliation to his brothers so that his tribe might live peacefully in the land. But the greater blessing is that the Lord would hear the voice of Judah dwelling in the Promised Land. From this beginning chapter of blessing, God would open his ears to hear the prayers of the tribe of Judah. Indeed, the great son of Judah, King David, would be heard in prayer again and again, brought close to God, his Father. The greatest son of Judah, the son of David, who would sit on David’s throne forever, is continually and perfectly heard as he prays to his heavenly Father. This son is Jesus Christ through whom this blessing of Judah flows to all of us who pray in the name of Jesus.
The wordier blessing bestowed upon Levi is blessing mixed with a biographical sketch of Levi’s sins against God and his brothers. Fittingly, Levi is blessed by God giving to him the role of priestly mediation among the tribes of Israel. The quarreling brother who disowned his brothers is given the role of teacher and mediator!
Benjamin, the beloved son of Jacob’s beloved wife, Rachel, the youngest of all the sons, is blessed with the best location in the Promised Land. He is given Jerusalem. All of the language of this brief blessing describes the holy city. It is the stronghold providing safety. It is the temple mount where God dwells in the midst of his people. The blessing of Benjamin would become the blessing of all Israel as she gathered to Jerusalem: God would be her home. Though Israel would become comfortable in homes throughout the Promised Land, she would sense her longing for heaven as she ascended Mount Zion to worship, and she would say as she entered the city gates, “God is my home; he is my refuge and my strength.” Have you found God to be your home, your central source of safety, comfort, warmth and peace?
Joseph, the brother who rose to power in Egypt, saving all of Egypt and surrounding nations, even Israel, from famine and extinction, is given this fruitfully abundant blessing. Indeed, the two tribes of his sons, Ephraim and Manasseh were given large portions of the Promised Land. This abundance of material blessing given to Joseph reminds us of the abundance of spiritual blessings given to Jesus, the Son of David, to whom the life of Joseph powerfully points. The Apostle Paul writes to the Church at Ephesus, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ!”
While Joseph is given the fruit of the land, Zebulun and Issachar are given the treasures of the sea. “What might the hidden treasures of the sand be?” Is it oil? Is it the thriving tourism of beachfront property? Is it the promise God made to Abraham that his children would be as numerous as the grain of sand on the seashore? Peter Craigie suggests that these two tribes may have been among those who refined the making of glass.
The tribe of Gad settled outside the Promised Land, east of the Jordan River. By virtue of this location, Gad stood between Israel and some of her most ferocious enemies, like the Ammonites. God blessed Gad military prowess and thus, Gad became a blessing to all of Israel.
When Jacob blessed his son, Dan, he said that Dan would be like a viper biting the heels of the horse causing the rider to fall backward. He would be the judge of his brother tribes bringing justice upon his brothers. When Moses blesses Dan, he describes a kinder, gentler brother. Dan is the lion cub, who jumps back from Bashan, that is the viper, as Peter Craigie notes. This is an odd blessing to say the least. This blessing may be God’s way of reminding Israel that he alone is Judge who administers justice. He may give Dan this role among his brothers, but Dan is in reality an instrument of God’s justice. Dan is a younger, playful brother, fearful of the bite of justice, the consequences of sin. Yet God has chosen him to occupy this office of judge.
The blessing of Naphtali and of Asher reminds us that these blessings are all material blessings enjoyed in the immediate future, Israel occupying the Promised Land. These material blessings may point our eyes of faith to greater blessings, the spiritual blessings of the new heavens and the new earth, yet these material blessings are received and enjoyed by all of us who have been graciously received into God’s fatherly love.
Moses concludes by offering to Jeshurun, the fat, lazy, and rebellious child of God, the greatest blessing imaginable – God himself! “There is none like God!” This eternal God is our dwelling place. He is our home. The everlasting arms of God are his strong and sure protection. Would you come to live under God’s authority and security?
“Happy are you, O Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the Lord!” Any one of us, who are united to Jesus Christ, the true Israel, by faith, may enter into the happiness given by the loving Father in heaven.

“Remembering the Covenant: Missing Moses”
Deuteronomy 34

Joshua, the successor of Moses, fittingly wrote this epilogue to the book of Deuteronomy. Joshua confirms that Moses ascended Mount Nebo, to the summit at Pisgah, from where he saw all of the land God had given to Israel. On the mountain God repeated the promise he had made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, informing Moses that he had indeed kept his promise even though Moses would not enter the land.
Joshua confirms that Moses died on Mount Nebo. But Joshua adds a bit of information that intrigues us further into the mysteries of Moses’ death. Joshua reports that the Lord buried Moses, not on the mountain, but in the valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth-peor. However, no one, not even Joshua knew the location of the burial site.
How difficult it must have been on Israel to not know the burial site of her greatest prophet, Moses. In the eyes of the ancient world, Moses should have been buried on Mount Nebo, the burial site of the scribes of the region, at the summit of a mountain named for the god of the scribes, Nebo. But the Lord himself chose to bury him in an unmarked grave where no one could pay him homage and mourn the death of the great liberator and prophet of Israel. I can’t imagine the sorrow of Israel at the death of Moses. For thirty days, the people of Israel mourned the death of Moses. After preaching from the book of Deuteronomy for about a year, I am going to miss Moses. If his grave were marked, I would pay it a visit to commemorate the life of this prophet, who was perhaps the greatest leader of the ancient world. But his grave was not marked from the very beginning and who knows if the dust of his body still rests in that grave? Nevertheless, it seems to me to be fitting and proper to memorialize the death of such a great man with a grave marker. God must think differently than I do.
Moses was 120 years old at his death. Joshua reports that “his eye was undimmed, and his vigor unabated.” Good health is a gift from God, one that is not given to every one of us. Indeed, we should never think that if we follow God and put our faith in Christ Jesus, that we are assured good health. This world suffers under the common curse, which includes disease, sickness, injury, and pain. Moses was one of those rare members of the human race who received the gift of good health right up to the final moments of his death. This gift does not mean that God loved Moses more than he loves me, since I am fraught with painful maladies and potentially life threatening conditions. 1.5 years ago when I suffered a stroke at age 44, I was not receiving a message from God concerning his lack of love and care for me. Rather, the message of the common curse was loud and clear: This world, even my body is full of death. Nevertheless, God has made a way for his love to reach us in this cursed world. King David and the Apostle Paul both confessed that in life and death we belong to the Lord.
I am going to miss meditating and dreaming about this superman Moses, who had clear vision and physical strength at 120 years old. I am going to miss following him in my imagination as he stood before Pharoah declaring the words of God, “Let my people go!” He stood at the Red Sea stretching out the rod of God over the waters so that the Israel could escape the Egyptian army. He ascended the mountain of God’s fire to receive the law of God, catching a glimpse of the trailing glory of God. He regularly judged Israel according to the law, establishing a legal system of courts of appeal. He regularly mediated between disobedient Israel and God, begging God to show mercy. He stood before the tabernacle as the glory of the Lord descended to dwell in the midst of Israel. He wrote five books preserving the redemptive history of Israel. Two of these books are classic, brilliant, powerful literature: The book of Genesis and the book of Deuteronomy. I am going to miss Moses.
Moses had his flaws and God used his flaws toward his redemptive purposes. One of the reasons for God burying Moses in the valley rather than on the mountain may have been to remind us that Moses was one of us in the valley. Moses was no guru remaining on the mountain removed from common life in the valley. He is the great prophet who ascended the mountain to bring the law of God down to the valley. He was the Mediator between God and humanity, who not only met with God on the mountain but lived among the people in the valley.
God chose to give the Ten Commandments directly to Moses, written in stone. But God also chose Moses to apply these Ten Commandments in the writing of hundreds of laws flowing from the ten. Moses did not write these hundreds of laws as an angel whispered them into his ear or as he sat in dark cave on the summit of Sinai. Moses wrote these many laws as he lived in the valley, in the camp of Israel, judging cases and observing the behavior of a people in desperate need of God’s law informing every bit of life.
Moses not only wrote God’s law as he saw the need in other people’s lives. He wrote the law of God in detail as he saw his own personal need for the divine law. For example: God has much to say about protecting life, especially human life. As Moses wrote the many laws flowing from the Sixth Commandment, “Thou shall not murder,” Moses painfully and remorsefully remembered that he murdered the Egyptian slave master as he was cruelly whipping the Hebrew slave. Moses believed that God’s law would prevent others from committing the same crimes he had committed in his past.
God’s law has much to say about marriage and divorce. Moses was not the best husband. At least he abandoned his wife for several lengthy periods of time to execute his work as a prophet. Zipporah, his wife, did not accompany Moses to Egypt. She did not ascend the mountain with him. You may be thinking, “But he was doing the Lord’s work by divine command.” So he was and by doing so, he was not much of a husband. Read Exodus 18:2 and then read some of the interpretations of the language which tends to be muted in English translations. It may have been that Moses divorced Zipporah, thinking that he could not serve as God’s liberator in Egypt and remain a devoted husband.
As Moses wrote the marriage and divorce laws, years later, in the plains of Moab, he wrote with his personal experience heavy on his mind. He was convinced that God’s law would spare other marriages of the pain and suffering he experienced, if not caused, in his own marriage. Moses was convinced that the law of God was good for him and for everyone.
It is no secret that Moses was so preoccupied with leading Israel that he had neglected his duties as a father. Moses was not the best of fathers. As Moses wrote the laws of circumcision to govern Israel, he was thinking about his failure to circumcise his own sons! His wife, Zipporah, had to circumcise their sons and she was not at all happy to do so. She appeared before Moses, her husband, the giver of the Law of God to Israel, and she flung the foreskins at his feet in the dust. In that moment and for years to come, Moses must have felt the pains and remorse of failure. Moses was convinced that the law of God would prevent such failure among other fathers. God’s ways are better than Moses’ ways. God’s ways are not our ways. God’s law shows us a better way to live. I am going to miss Moses, this earthy, flawed servant of God, who humbly delivered the law of God, even when the law exposed his own personal sins and weaknesses.
God’s law reveals to us our need of a Mediator greater than Moses. The law of God is good for us and ultimately it proves out its goodness and bringing us to Christ Jesus. The Book of Hebrews in the New Testament includes these words: “For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses.” Then he illustrates by telling us that the architect of a house receives more glory than the house itself. Moses was a servant of the house, but Jesus Christ has been the faithful son ruling the house of God. Then we are told: We are God’s house. I am going to miss Moses, but I will busy myself, not mourning at his grave, but in following the ruler of the house, Jesus Christ, the one who is greater than Moses. Like Moses, I strive to be a servant in this house where God dwells in the midst of his people.
Moses did not enter the land, but he lived in the house of God all the days of his life, and through out his passage of death, and in the eternal life to come. And so, all of us who cling to the hope of Christ shall live in this same house of God and perhaps one day, when we pass from the one room of this world into the adjoining room of eternity, we shall meet Moses and ask him what he first thought when saw the burning bush.