©Dominic LaBelle
Chapter 11:1-15 (ESV) - “You shall therefore love the LORD your God and keep his charge, his statutes, his rules, and his commandments always. And consider today (since I am not speaking to your children who have not known or seen it), consider the discipline of the LORD your God, his greatness, his mighty hand and his outstretched arm, his signs and his deeds that he did in Egypt to Pharaoh the king of Egypt and to all his land, and what he did to the army of Egypt, to their horses and to their chariots, how he made the water of the Red Sea flow over them as they pursued after you, and how the LORD has destroyed them to this day, and what he did to you in the wilderness, until you came to this place, and what he did to Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, son of Reuben, how the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households, their tents, and every living thing that followed them, in the midst of all Israel. For your eyes have seen all the great work of the LORD that he did.
“You shall therefore keep the whole commandment that I command you today, that you may be strong, and go in and take possession of the land that you are going over to possess, and that you may live long in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers to give to them and to their offspring, a land flowing with milk and honey. For the land that you are entering to take possession of it is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and irrigated it, like a garden of vegetables. But the land that you are going over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water by the rain from heaven, a land that the LORD your God cares for. The eyes of the LORD your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.
“And if you will indeed obey my commandments that I command you today, to love the LORD your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, he will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, that you may gather in your grain and your wine and your oil. And he will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and you shall eat and be full.
Question to consider: How do we look at these promises of prosperity for obedience today?
In today’s passage, Moses emphasized the blessings of God in keeping the commandments when they went into the land. A crucial step in walking closely with God was to continually remind themselves and each other what God had done. We should also remember that much of the Law was passed down from generation to generation through oral tradition, and so important ideas were repeated to make sure they were remembered.
While I have no doubt that Moses learned to read and write while growing up in the household of Pharaoh, I don’t know how many of the former slaves were given an education. Since our generation has grown up immersed in written language, memorization is becoming a lost skill which I think is regrettable. Having the word of God buried in our hearts helps us to filter our circumstances through the lens of scripture.
Before we apply the promises given in today’s passage to our own circumstances, we should remember that the Law was the commandments and statutes for the covenant God made through Moses. These promises of prosperity and blessing hinged on the people’s ability to keep God’s commands. As we’ll see in tomorrow’s passage, this covenant also promised curses to those who failed to keep them.
Our righteousness in the new covenant is received by faith in Christ, and while Christ has promised to never leave us nor forsake us and to give us the peace of God which passes all understanding, the gospel is about our justification before God and not our personal prosperity. As Christians, we actually can expect hardship and persecution by those who are at enmity with God. The treasures we receive in Christ are imperishable and therefore kept for us in heaven. Peter’s first epistle was written to instruct Christians who were scattered throughout the land of the Gentiles to expect trials and tribulations and to focus on the inheritance to come at the end of the age.
Thus, it is even more important that we as Christians continually remind one another to fix our eyes on Christ Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. God helps us do this through the gathering of the body of Christ and the receiving of Christ through His word and sacraments.
Dear heavenly Father, thank You for giving us good things in this life and providing us with Your peace in the midst of the trials and tribulations of this world. May they be used to build up our hope in Christ Jesus. Amen.