DEUTERONOMY 29

Deuteronomy 29, begins the Fourth and final address of Moses to Israel, and contains the wonderful Covenant made with Israel regarding the Promised Land. It reiterates God's Promise to all the faithful in Abraham through Christ. It is the Gospel message that Christ himself taught. It is this same message that we have accepted! The command is-never to forget it.

Bro David Clubb

1 These are the words of the covenant [devarei HaBrit], which Yahweh commanded Moses [Moshe] to make [to cut] with the children of Israel in the land of Moab [Bnei Yisroel in Eretz Moav], beside the covenant [ Brit] which He made [cut] with them in Horeb [Chorev].

This was not a new covenant in addition to that made at Sinai, but a renewal of that made then. See Deut. 4:10,13,23. The covenant was originally confirmed with sacrifices at

Horeb (Exod. 24) and is now renewed.

If Deuteronomy outlined a new or additional covenant, it would have necessitated

further confirmatory sacrifices but nothing is recorded of such. The Bible knows of only two covenants, one of Law; the other of Grace.

The covenant of Law as all references to it reveal, was made at Horeb, and now is reaffirmed by Moses to the generation about to enter the land. The other covenant was the Covenant of Grace, proclaimed to Abraham, and confirmed through Christ -

Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers - Rom. 15: 8.

2 And Moses [Moshe] called unto all Israel [kol Yisroel], and said unto them, Ye have seen all that Yahweh did before your eyes in the land of Egypt [Eretz Mitzrayim] unto Pharaoh, and unto all his servants [avadim], and unto all his land;

3 The great temptations [massot hagedolot] which thine eyes [otot] have seen, the signs, and those great miracles [mofetim hagedolim]:

4 Yet Yahweh hath not given you an heart [lev] to perceive [lev for da'as], and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day.

Why God chose a people so intractable we shall probably understand to a nicety if we are permitted to see the glorious climax of the plan. It has been said by some that if He had chosen the Greeks instead of the Hebrews, it would have been more of a success; but this is a shallow-minded criticism.

Human nature everywhere is an evil thing, and we may be quite sure that the plan that God has made in choosing the seed of Abraham His friend is the very best adapted for the ultimate realization of His glory upon earth.

Law of Moses Ch 9.

5 And I have led you forty years in the wilderness: your clothes are not waxen old upon you, and thy shoe is not waxen old upon thy foot.

6 Ye have not eaten bread, neither have ye drunk wine or strong drink: that ye might know that I am Yahweh your Elohim.

7 And when ye came unto this place, Sihon the king of Heshbon, and Og the king of Bashan, came out against us unto battle, and we smote them:

8 And we took their land, and gave it for an inheritance unto the Reubenites, and to the Gadites, and to the half tribe of Manasseh.

9 Keep therefore the words of this covenant, and do them, that ye may prosper in all that ye do.

10 Ye stand this day all of you before Yahweh your Elohim; your captains of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, with all the men of Israel,

11 Your little ones, your wives, and thy stranger that is in thy camp, from the hewer of thy wood unto the drawer of thy water:

12 That thou shouldest enter into covenant with Yahweh thy Elohim, and into his oath, which Yahweh thy Elohim maketh with thee this day:

12 That thou shouldest enter into covenant with Yahweh thy Elohim, and into his oath, which Yahweh thy Elohim maketh with thee this day:

- The word "enter" is from the Hebrew abar and signifies to cross over or pass through. It is similar to the word Hebrew, so that a true Hebrew is one who has passed over or through a way of death to a way of life via a covenant with Yahweh - Deut. 30:19;

"We know that we have passed from death unto life" - 1 John 3:14.

The margin renders it "pass". This also is how it is rendered in Gen. 15:10 in regard to the covenant victim. In establishing a covenant, the covenant victim was divided into two parts, and the contracting parties met between the two pieces. This is what had happened between Abraham and Yahweh as narrated in Gen. 15:10,17.

Reference to confirming a covenant in that way is found in Jer. 34:18.

...the covenant which they had made before me, when they cut the calf in twain, and passed between the parts thereof.

In a time of trouble, under threat from Babylon, the people of Israel had entered into covenant with Yahweh to reform their actions. A covenant-victim was slain, it was divided into two parts, and representatives of the nation passed between the pieces to enter into a covenant of reform before Yahweh.

In Heb. 9:15-18 Christ is set forth as the covenant-victim of the Abrahamic Covenant of Grace. And the comment is made:

"where a covenant is, there must of necessity be the death of the covenant victim" (v. 16 - see Diaglott).

When believers meet around the Table of the Lord, they figuratively pass through the pieces to renew their covenant with Yahweh.

The Christadelphian Expositor

13 That he may establish thee to day for a people unto himself, and that he may be unto thee a Elohim, as he hath said unto thee, and as he hath sworn unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

14 Neither with you only do I make this covenant and this oath;

15 But with him that standeth here with us this day before Yahweh our Elohim, and also with him that is not here with us this day:

16 (For ye know how we have dwelt in the land of Egypt; and how we came through the nations which ye passed by;

17 And ye have seen their abominations, and their idols, wood and stone, silver and gold, which were among them:)

18 Lest there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day from Yahweh our Elohim, to go and serve the gods of these nations; lest there should be among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood;

19 And it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst:

20 Yahweh will not spare him, but then the anger of Yahweh and his jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and Yahweh shall blot out his name from under heaven.

Fiery judgement

21 And Yahweh shall separate him unto evil out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant that are written in this book of the law:

22 So that the generation to come of your children that shall rise up after you, and the stranger that shall come from a far land, shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses which Yahweh hath laid upon it;

23 And that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, like the overthrow of Sodom, and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim, which Yahweh overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath:

24 Even all nations shall say, Wherefore hath Yahweh done thus unto this land? what meaneth the heat of this great anger?

25 Then men shall say, Because they have forsaken the covenant of Yahweh Elohim of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them forth out of the land of Egypt:

26 For they went and served other gods, and worshipped them, gods whom they knew not, and whom he had not given unto them:

"I Yahweh Elohim of Abraham."

Moses knew that they were acquainted with the many Mighty Ones of their history; and that, consequently, if he should present himself to them as a messenger of Elohim, they would say to him: "What is his name"? As if they should say: "We have heard of many gods; what is the name of him who sends you"?

As Joshua says, they were worshippers of other gods than Yahweh at the time Moses went to them; Moses was aware of that, and, therefore, felt the importance of being made acquainted with the name of Him who sent him, that he might be able to answer their question should they ask it.

Under these circumstances, the Spirit imposed upon himself a name, and embodied it in a Memorial, by which he was to be known henceforth. Some 430 years before he had said to Abraham, ani Ail Shaddai,

"I, the strength of the Mighty Ones" (Gen. 17:1), i.e., "All those Mighty Ones of whom you have heard, who were engaged in forming the heavens and the earth, and who recently confounded the speech of all the earth, and are about soon to overwhelm Sodom and Gomorrah -- I AM THE POWER by whose spirit they did it all; therefore, walk before ME and be thou perfect."

This was a great principle established in the minds of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses -- that it mattered not how many mighty ones they might see, or have interviews with, they were not objects of worship for them, but were, themselves, created powers, whose existence, glory, and might were all of Him -- the

"Uncreated and Eternal Spirit."

They, then, were not the Elohim of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The Spirit claimed this for His individual self. Not that there were one, two, three, or a multitude of Elohim of Abraham then actually existent in the Godhead: but, it was the pleasure of the Eternal Spirit that there should, at a future period, be a multitude of Abrahamic Elohim, who should constitute "a Divine Family," and not a whit inferior to "the Stars of the Dawn, the Sons of God," who shouted for joy when they beheld the results of the wonders of the creation-week.

Phanerosis - The memorial name

27 And the anger of Yahweh was kindled against this land, to bring upon it all the curses that are written in this book:

28 And Yahweh rooted them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as it is this day.

29 The secret things belong unto Yahweh our Elohim: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.