Isn’t this such a beautiful chapter?! 🤩

“So it will be when all of these things have come upon you, the blessing and the curse which I have placed before you, and you call them to mind in all the nations where the Lord your God has scattered you, and you return to the Lord your God and obey Him with all your heart and soul in accordance with everything that I am commanding you today, you and your sons, then the Lord your God will restore you from captivity, and have compassion on you, and will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you. If any of your scattered countrymen are at the ends of the earth, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there He will bring you back.”
‭‭Deuteronomy‬ ‭30‬:‭1‬-‭4‬ ‭NASB2020‬‬

The awful things Moses has been telling them for the past 3 chapters… they’re going to happen. The curses and consequences aren’t just “maybes,” they’re prophecy.

BUT… there’s a promise: if you remember the Lord, and return to Him and obey Him wholeheartedly – even if you are at the ends of the earth, the Lord will bring you back.

THIS is how compassionate and patient our God is. This is the heart of the Good Shepherd who will go in search of a single lost sheep. 🐑

This chapter is full of beautiful promises. Like this one:

“Moreover, the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the hearts of your descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul, so that you may live.” Deuteronomy‬ ‭30‬:‭6‬ ‭NASB2020‬‬

Let’s not underestimate what a HUGE prophetic promise this is. Moses is telling them that there will come a time when God will transform people from the inside out.

See, right now, everyone’s relationship to God is kinda from the outside in. They start with obeying the commandments that affect what they eat and when to bathe and how to dress and how to do farming. If they will “trust the process” and just do these things, they will come to know the heart of God.

While this approach is good and holy and far superior to anything any other nation has, it is not the long term plan. For right now, people have to be shown that humans need saving; that just having righteous laws isn’t enough to make righteous people. People aren’t convinced yet. So that has to happen first under the Mosaic Covenant.

The long term plan involves transforming people from the inside out by giving them a new heart and a new spirit under a whole new covenant that enables them to BE righteous. They will have to first agree that God is right and they are hopelessly sinful and unable to save themselves, turn away from that sin and trust Yahweh’s plan to save them- which will be the death & resurrection of Jesus, the Son of God.

“Look, the days are coming,” declares Yahweh, “and I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their ancestors on the day of my grasping them by their hand, bringing them out from the land of Egypt, my covenant that they themselves broke, though I myself was a master over them,” declares Yahweh. “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares Yahweh: “I will put my law in their inward parts and on their hearts I will write it, and I will be to them God, and they themselves will be to me people. And they will no longer teach each one his neighbor, or each one his brother, saying, ‘Know Yahweh,’ for all of them will know me, from their smallest and up to their greatest,” declares Yahweh, “for I will forgive their iniquity and their sin I will no longer remember.” Jeremiah‬ ‭31‬:‭31‬-‭34‬ ‭LEB‬‬

Ezekiel prophesied it too…

“And I will give to them one heart, and a new spirit I will give in their inner parts. And I will remove their heart of stone from their body, and I will give to them a heart of flesh.” Ezekiel‬ ‭11‬:‭19‬ ‭LEB‬‬ (see also 36:26)

What is this “new spirit?” Everyone finds out on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2 when none other than the Holy Spirit of God Himself fills the believers’ “inner parts.”

And the wildest thing of all? The Gentile nations get to be included in this covenant!

“In that day I will raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and will rebuild the ruins of it, and will set up the parts thereof that have been broken down, and will build it up as in the ancient days, that the remnant of men, and all the Gentiles upon whom my name is called, may earnestly seek me, saith the Lord who does all these things.”

That’s Amos 9:11-12 in the Brenton translation of the Septuagint.

This passage (the Septuagint version) is quoted by the Apostle James in Acts 15:15-17 because Gentiles have been been filled with the Holy Spirit just like Amos said.

NERDY SIDE NOTE…

If you read Amos 9:11-12 in your Bible it’s a bit different. That’s because most OT translations go by the Masoretic text. In the Masoretic version, the point of restoring the “Tabernacle of David” is so that Israel can possess Edom and the other nations. There’s nothing about Gentiles seeking the Lord.

Nearly all OT quotations in the NT are the wording found in the Septuagint (also abbreviated as LXX which is the Roman Numeral 70 because 70 men did the translation work, about 200 years before the birth of Jesus).

The Masoretic Text did not exist until the 800s AD. The oldest complete copy known (which was damaged in 1947) was from the 900s AD. If you’d ever like to look up an OT text in the Septuagint, here’s a link to a free version online.

END OF NERDY SIDE NOTE.

Back to Deuteronomy 30…

Verses 11 – 14 may have sounded familiar if you’ve read Romans. Paul not only quotes them, but he also explains them with a New Covenant perspective. Paul says Deuteronomy 30:11-14 speaks of “the righteousness from faith”:

“For Moses writes about the righteousness that is from the law: “The person who does this will live by it.” But the righteousness from faith speaks like this: “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ down), or “Who will descend into the abyss?” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? “The word is near to you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim), that if you confess with your mouth “Jesus is Lord” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Romans‬ ‭10‬:‭5‬-‭9‬ ‭LEB

Now, if you read Romans side-by-side with Deuteronomy, you’ll see that what Paul calls “the abyss” is what Moses called “the other side of the sea.” When we read “cross the other side of the sea” we picture looking across the water from the beach. That’s not the “side” of the sea in view. They’re talking about the “underside” of the sea – the realm of the dead.

The grave (Hebrew sheol) was thought to be in or beneath the depths of the sea.‬‬ How do we know this? Jonah.

“And Jonah prayed to Yahweh his God from the belly of the fish and said, “I called from my distress to Yahweh, and he answered me; from the belly of Sheol I cried for help— you heard my voice. And you threw me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the sea currents surrounded me; all your breakers and your surging waves passed over me. And I said, ‘I am banished from your sight; how will I continue to look on your holy temple?’ The waters encompassed me up to my neck; the deep surrounded me; seaweed was wrapped around my head. I went down to the foundations of the mountains; the Underworld—its bars were around me forever. But you brought up my life from the pit, Yahweh my God.”
‭‭Jonah‬ ‭2‬:‭1‬-‭6‬ ‭LEB‬‬

It’s not a stretch to consider the possibility that Jonah was at the brink of death as he was being digested by the great fish; or at the very least from lack of oxygen. The terms “deep”, “the pit” were terms for the realm of the dead – which was about to be Jonah’s permanent address if God didn’t do something. So, Paul compares the “other side of the sea” to Jesus being in the grave, Sheol.

The reason Paul connects Deuteronomy 30:11-14 to Jesus is because of this:

“But the word is very near you, even in your mouth and in your heart, so that you may do it.” Deuteronomy‬ ‭30‬:‭14‬ ‭LEB‬‬

Paul knew that Jesus was the Word of God in flesh even before John wrote:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
‭‭John‬ ‭1‬:‭1‬ ‭LEB‬‬

The saving Word is near – it’s actually in your mouth. Because all it takes to be saved is true confession of faith from a believing heart.

And Moses basically wraps with that. Here are your options:

1. 😊 Life & Good walking in step with the Word of God.
2. ☠️ Death & Disaster on your own

But even if you or someone you love have taken option 2, and even if you are the ends of the earth or the bottom of the sea, God will bring you back if you turn to Him. The Word of God’s Salvation is in your mouth (as it were) and ready to save if you would but ask. Because Jesus came up out of the belly of the grave, if we are joined to Him and IN Him, His victory counts for us too.

But it’s not just for the future resurrection. Death stalks our lives now. The death of love. The death of joy and peace and hope. Sin brings death. In the resurrection of Christ we triumph over death not just someday but today.

If you’re in the depths of the sea and sin has killed your peace with God, this is not the end. You are not doomed. The Word is not far away. He is near you to save.

As Jonah found out, Yahweh is the God of Second Chances.

You might want to crank the bass.