From Slavery to Promised Land to Captivity -- What Kind of Covenant is That? -- Deuteronomy 30:1-10

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"Moses, Are You Sure This is a Good Deal For Us?" -- Deuteronomy 30:1-10

I have either studied or had preached to me the story of the Israelites getting ready to enter the Promised Land a number of times over my years as a Christian. But it wasn't until I was preparing this study that it crossed my mind that some of them may well have thought this wasn't a great deal after all.

I mean, let's get serious. The Israelites had just finished 400 years being slaves in Egypt and then spent 40 years in the wilderness roaming around before they reached the land of milk and honey, the Promised Land. And then in his last days of life, Father Moses clearly (in the last chapter and more so in this one) starts to tell them about their future of, wait for it, more captivity.

In verse 1 alone, he tells them that yes, they'll experience some blessings and also be dealt the consequences of the curses for their disobedience. And worse than that, Moses says "you will be banished to various other nations" where you will remember both the blessings and the curses. Wow, not so good. How long will they be banished? How long will they be in captivity?

My research indicates that Israel entered the Promised Land around 1400 BC. About 480 years later (around 920 BC) Israel is divided into two kingdoms. Two hundred years later (about 720 BC), the Northern Kingdom is taken into captivity in Assyria.

From 606 BC to 586 BC, three different waves of Israelites are taken into captivity by the Babylonians as part of the 70-year exile that had been prophesied by Jeremiah (Jer. 29:10).  That covered the period 606 BC to 536 BC at which time the Jews start returning to Jerusalem and commence rebuilding the Temple. The third wave returns around 445 BC when Nehemiah organizes the rebuilding of the walls around Jerusalem. (Some Jews decide to remain in exile.)

Around 167 BC the Temple is defiled and worship is halted. Three years later (164 BC) Judas Maccabeus liberates and cleanses the Temple and the Hasmoneans rule Israel until the Roman invasion which lasts through the life of Christ on earth.

But it does not end there. In 70 AD, the second Temple is destroyed by the Romans. Approximately one million Jews are killed and most of the survivors are sold into slavery or scattered into the nations. However, a small remnant of Jewish people remained in the Land throughout the dispersion.

Then again in 135 AD, a Jewish rebellion against the Romans is quashed and Jews are barred from Jerusalem for several centuries. The City is renamed ‘Aelia Capitolina’ and the Land ‘Syria Palestina’ to eradicate the memory of the Jewish presence there.

And the story continues from then and right up to the present day. For more details check out the history of the Israelites website.

No sir, anybody would tell you that the words of Tevye, the father in the 1971 movie Fiddler On The Roof, when he cried out to God, "I know, I know. We are Your chosen people. But, once in a while, can't You choose someone else?" are words that many a Jew has uttered or said under his breath over the centuries.  Theirs wasn't then, and there isn't now, many would say, a history "to write home to mother about".

And isn't that the way we feel some times about our journey with God? I mean becoming a Christian was to be "heaven on earth" for us. If not a land of milk and honey, at least a life of joy and peace and blessings. What happened? What is happening now?

Let's go back to see what Moses prophesies for his people, God's People. Verse 2 says (picking up from the first phrase of verse 1), "It shall be when . . . you return to the Lord your God and obey Him with all your heart and soul. . ." Moses is saying there will come a time when you, Israel, will do just that. And then it will be God's turn to act yet once more.

Verse 3 starts off, "Then the Lord will restore you from captivity. He will have compassion on you. He will gather you again." And verse 5 tells them God will bring them back to the land their fathers possessed. If I have that right, it's the very land they haven't at that instant entered into and settled fully yet. And there God will prosper them and multiply them even more.

David Guzik says this: "The regathering had to happen in the land of Israel. The modern regathering of Israel more accurately fulfills this promise than the return from the Babylonian exile. In the return from the Babylonian exile, Israel was still a vassal state of the Persians. But in the modern regathering of Israel, you shall possess it is literally fulfilled."

More background on this from Guzik: "At one time, in the early days of the Zionist movement, the British offered the country of Uganda to the Jews as a place to establish a Jewish state. If that would have happened, and if Jews from all over the world would have flocked there to establish a Jewish state, it would not fulfill the promise of regathering stated here and in other Old Testament passages. The promise here is plain: The land which your fathers possessed." More proof that history must bend to God's promises, not the other way around.

Furthermore, verse 6 says God will "circumcise" their hearts.  A better translation may be "cleanse" or "give you obedient hearts" so that you will love Him with all your heart and soul.  Why?  ". . . in order that you may live."

In a sense, this is the last of the blessings to Israel and it has not yet happened. The gathering has happened, but Israel is primarily a secular nation at this point. Ultimately, this last blessing will turn them into a spiritual people for God. Guzik says, the "ultimate fulfillment will happen in the millennium, when Israel has regathered as a people truly turned to the LORD and His Messiah, Jesus."

But wait, there's more. God will inflict all the curses that we heard about from Moses, on their enemies, on those who hate them and persecute them (verse 7).

When all that happens, and you obey the Lord your God with all your heart and soul, then (verse 9), "the Lord will again rejoice over you for good, just as He rejoiced over your fathers."

It is not hard for us to see all the parallels here for us today. Yes, this account is about Israel and what was to happen to them in the centuries after Moses. But we can learn from it as well.

How many times have we come to the Lord and then by our own actions or lack thereof, we have fallen back into some captivity or other, some sin or other, but always impacting any rejoicing that God may have been enjoying over our relationship with Him? Yes, it's that personal.

But notice what happens. First, we take the steps of obedience. That is all God asks. Then He does the rest. He cleanses our hearts so that we can put our whole hearts and souls into the relationship. We are to start with obedience, and God will see that the Love between us and Him will grow.

Then our enemies will be defeated -- personal ones, as well as national and global ones. The enemies of God and us as Christians are alive and well and living in the governments of our countries right now. Their actions are nothing if they are not anti-god and anti what God has ordained to be good and holy and righteous. They are cursed. They will be destroyed. Our job is to obey.

So, the story is not just about Israel. It's also about how God relates to us. And it's also about how God will ultimately deal with all the world and our enemies on the return of Jesus Christ as He Himself prophesied in Matthew 24:31. And you are part of it. Rejoice. Perhaps, on second thought, the "deal" was indeed a great one.

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