Covenant at Moab, part I of II
Deuteronomy 29: The Covenant Renewed in Moab
Note: Occam's Razor refers to the theory of William of Ockam that the most likely answer to a given problem is the simplest one. Keep that in mind for today's reading.
The Covenant Renewed in Moab: Deuteronomy 29
Something weird happens here. See if you can catch what it is.
(2) Moses summoned all Israel and said to them: You have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land, (3) the great trials that your eyes saw, the signs, and those great wonders. (4) But to this day the Lord has not given you a mind to understand, or eyes to see, or ears to hear. (5) I have led you forty years in the wilderness. The clothes on your back have not worn out, and the sandals on your feet have not worn out; (6) you have not eaten bread, and you have not drunk wine or strong drink - so that you may know that I am the Lord your God. (7) When you came to this place, King Sihon of Heshbon and King Og of Bashan came out against us for battle, but we defeated them....Notice anything peculiar about the above section? The narrator shifts from Moses to God! Verse 2 sets Moses as the speaker, and as for the actual speech part of the verses 2 through 3, the voice is ambiguous. It is just as easy to imagine God speaking those words as Moses. Applying Occam's Razor, we should assume this actually was spoken by Moses. Verse 4 is most likely spoken by Moses as well because the reference to the Lord would otherwise be in the third person. The Lord speaking of himself as the Lord is not unprecedented, but again for the sake of simplicity we should assume that Moses is speaking these words because there is no reason not to believe he spoke all the previous ones. Let us then apply Occam's Razor to verse 5. Verse 6 gets a little weird. The speaker in this verse is clearly YHWH: "I am the Lord your God." Why is this? Moses is not God. So why does the narrator shift? The answer is probably a mixing of traditions - a speech of Moses with a speech of God. But the problem could also be solved by assuming that the biblical author really wasn't paying attention and just threw in the clause "so that you may know that I am the Lord your God." If that is removed, the rest of the passage appears as a unified whole. With it, though, there are many questions about the composition of this section - questions we do not have the answer to. What is clear is that for the rest of the speech the speaker is Moses - the Lord never again appears to refer to himself.
The Lord makes another covenant with the Israel at Moab, though the people gathered include aliens, so probably they are part of the covenant too. It is a very inclusive covenant, including even the unborn. Now you don't even have to agree to a covenant to be held to it - you may simply be born into it.
Israel is told not to worship idols as the foreign nations did in Egypt. Anyone who doubts the command of the Lord - who thinks "we are safe even though we go stubborn in our ways" will suffer the wrath of the Lord. The curses written in Deuteronomy will fall upon them and their names will be blotted out from under heaven. All the curses promised yesterday will befall Israel if they are not faithful to the Lord. Those that come upon the promised land will see the destruction and understand that the Lord's people turned away from the Lord.
The warning section of the covenant ends with a maxim that calls for obedience by assuring Israel that there are things the Lord knows that they do not, and all they need to do is to obey:
The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the revealed things belong to use and to our children forever, to observe all the words of this law.We are not yet through with the covenant's renewal. Tomorrow we will examine the more positive aspect of the covenant: the assurance of God's fidelity, and the exhortation to choose life. Thus will end the re-establishment of the covenant.
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