Deuteronomy - Lesson 29

Our session this morning is on the rhetoric of curse. Why the curses? For many people today, the curses in Deuteronomy and Leviticus 26, this is a variation of that theme, represent a major stumbling block to reading or accepting the First Testament as Christian Scripture. What a vengeful view of God this represents. 

Well, to this charge we must give three or four responses. First, no one in the ancient Near East would have taken offense with these curses. In their world, curses were a part of everyday life, and official documents regularly included them. On the screen you see a series of images. We call those naru inscriptions which have to do with grants of a superior to an inferior of property or an office or privilege. Each of these includes images and text. 

The purpose of naru inscriptions was to commemorate the bestowal of entitlements by a king to deserving official. These entitlements could involve grants of land, grants of resources, grants of privileges. 

Essential elements of these inscriptions include the identification of the king. This is what treaties do, too. You identify who is talking and who is the addressee. 

A declaration of the entitlement listing of witnesses to the event. 

Curses invoked on those who violate the inscription, and of course, this is common in the world, in the ancient world. We can go to neo-Assyrian succession treaties like those by Esarhaddon, who wants to ensure that the people he has subjugated will be loyal to Assurbanipal who follows. 

Well, here are some of the curses on those treaties: 

If you should remove this document, consign it to fire, throw it into the water, or destroy it by any cunning device, annihilate or deface it – 

May Aššur, king of the gods, who decrees the fates, decree an evil and unpleasant fate on you. May he not grant you long lasting old age and the attainment of extreme old age, and…

May Mulllissu, his beloved wife, (of course, the gods up there all have power, don’t they?) make the utterance of his mouth evil, may she not intercede for you. 

May Anu, king of the gods, let disease, exhaustion, malaria, sleeplessness, worries and ill health rain upon all your houses. 

And after invoking a curse from 30 named gods, may 30 gods damn you, it ends with a general curse: 

May all the great gods, (in case we’ve missed anybody; we’ve got to be inclusive here, don’t we?) May all the great gods of heaven and earth who inhabit the universe and are mentioned by name in this tablet, strike you, look at you in anger and curse you grimly with a painful curse. 

Above all, may they take possession of your life; below in the netherworld, may they make your ghost thirst for water. May shade and daylight always chase you away, and may you not find refuge in a hidden corner. May food and water abandon you; may want and famine, hunger and plague never be removed from you. 

It’s part of their culture. 

Here is another one. This is an Aramaic inscription. It is the image of the governor of this place. And on his skirt, there’s a bilingual inscription; Akkadian in the front and Aramaic in the back. And that helps us to decipher languages whenever you find them in bilingual. There’s a whole list of curses in this one: 

Whoever removes my name from the furnishings of the house of Hadad, my lord, 

may my lord Hadad (that’s a storm god, among the Arameans) not accept food and water from his hand, 
may my lady Sûl not accept food and water from his hand.
What he when he sows, may he not reap, 
and when he a thousand measures of barley may he take in only a fraction from it.
Should one hundred ewes suckle a lamb, may not be satisfied. 
Should one hundred cows suckle a calf, may it not be satisfied. 
Should one hundred women suckle a child, may it not be satisfied. 
Should one hundred women bake bread in an oven, may they not fill it; may his men glean barley from a refuse pit to eat. 
May plague, the rod of Nergal, (that’s the God of the netherworld), not be cut off from his land. 

I mean, this is common fare. It’s all over. Nobody would have been surprised at this or offended by this. 

Second, the New Testament often alludes to or employs similar curses. This is not just new. Romans 2, “Or do you presume on the riches of the kindness and forbearance and patience,” (God’s patience), “not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. He will render to each one, according to his works, to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, He will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking, do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury, tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first, and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” 

So, it’s in Paul. It’s deep into that. 

John 15, “I am the true vine. My Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch of Mine that doesn’t bear fruit, and He prunes the branches that do not bear fruit so they will produce even more. You’ve already been pruned and purified by the message I have given you. Remain in Me and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot bear fruit of itself if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain. Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in Me, and I and them, will produce much fruit. For apart from Me you can do nothing. But anyone who does not remain in Me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned.” 

That’s the curse. This is Deuteronomy 28, with the blessing and the curse. 

Well, we’ve had blessings and curses in other texts in Deuteronomy. We have encountered these in chapter 7:12 to 16. There’s a curse in 8:19. Blessings and curses in 11:13 to 21. 

Here is a summary from chapter 11, “Now, if you will indeed listen to my charges that I am commanding you today to demonstrate love for Yahweh your God and serve Him with all your heart and with all your being – then I will provide rain for your land in its season, both autumn and spring rains, so that you may harvest your grain, prized wine and special olive oil. I will provide grass in the fields for your livestock and you’ll eat and be satisfied.” This is the blessing. 

“But guard yourselves, lest your heart/mind be open to turning aside and serving other gods.” It’s really, ‘be seduced.’ “…and prostrating yourself to them. Then Yahweh’s anger will burn against you, He will shut the heavens so that rainfall does not happen. Then the ground will not yield any produce and you will soon perish from the good land that Yahweh your God, is giving you.” 

Well, it’s everywhere. So, you’ve got these blessings and curses. We’ve heard some of them before. 

Well, at the end of the second address, he ended with an altar call. We talked very briefly about this. “Look, I’m setting before you today the blessing and the curse.” It’s your choice; be choosing. “The blessing if you listen to the commands of Yahweh your God; but the curse if you do not listen to the commands and turn away from the way that I am charging you today by walking after the other gods, that you have not known.”

And we encountered the ritual in chapter 27 where the covenant ratification rituals end with this oral proclamation of the curse. The Levites declare the curse, and then at the end of that, all the people say, “Amen.” 

“When you have crossed over the Jordan, these shall stand on Gerizim to bless the peoples.” And then you’ve got the six tribes on one side and the other six tribes on the other side, and they are putting the blessing and the curse on the mountains, whatever that means. 

But then after that one, there are these individual curses, 12 of them. “The Levites shall shout out with a loud voice to all the people of Israel: (so they can hear), ‘Cursed is everyone who carves or casts an idol and secretly sets it up. These idols, the work of craftsmen, are detestable to God.’ And all the people will reply, ‘Amen.’” That’s their way of signing on. 

“Cursed is anyone who dishonors father or mother. And all the people will say, ‘Amen.’ Cursed is anyone who removes his neighbor’s boundary marker. And all the people will say.” 

Well, 12 of these. And then of course you have the comprehensive conclusion. “Cursed is anyone who does not confirm the words of this Torah by putting them into practice,” doing them. This is not an ornament for your coffee table. It is to be put into practice. “And all the people will reply, ‘Amen.’” 

Well, a couple of observations on these anathemas, curses. The Greek translation of ’ārûr can go a couple of ways in these 12, ἐπικατάρατος, or the number 12 here seems to represent one for every tribe. Otherwise, I’m not sure what we have here. Or remember at Sinai they put up 12 pillars in preparation for the covenant ratification? That’s one of the reasons why I think that in this case, chapter 27, putting up the pillars and inscribing the Torah on them, I think there probably were 12 as well. 

But the important thing here is the addressee. These are individual, or curses on the individual, rather than on the collective, so that while the nation stays on track with God, there’s a warning to everyone to buy in. And if you as an individual don’t buy in, you are singled out. 

The interesting thing is so many of these involve secret things, the things you do at home when nobody’s watching. And of course, God sees everything, the gods are perceived to see everything. Oh, He sees all you do, He hears all you say. My Lord’s a-writing all the time. He’s keeping the record. He sees it all. There are no secrets to God. 

Well, in this dodecalogue, there is a somewhat of a pattern, a framework here. Idolatry and general disregard for Torah. Those are the two, two big comprehensive ones. 
Dishonoring parents and 
Moving a neighbor’s landmark. 
Misleading the blind and 
Perverting the rights of the vulnerable. 
Having all kinds of sexual aberrations. 
Striking down a neighbor, and 
Accepting a bribe in crime against life. 

Two of these are secret. Two are against neighbors. Two are against the marginalized. Two concern fundamental social ethical values. It’s an amazingly comprehensive, but it’s not exhaustive. 

Again, the purpose of these declarations is to paint a general picture. And you don’t need a law to apply the principle to every other circumstance. It’s to give you a perspective on life so that in any context, you know the right thing to do. You translate the principle into life.

Well, what else can we say? Let’s go quickly on, then. Well, let’s talk about the ‘amen.’ What does the amen do? Of course, this is one Hebrew word we all know. Amen, everybody say, amen. We know this. We say it all. It’s Hebrew. 

Jeremiah 11:5, “Then I will fulfill the oath I swore to your ancestors to give them a land flowing with milk and honey – the land that you possess today. I answered, ‘Amen, Yahweh.’” 

This is a verbal way of declaring, affirming you’re buying into what is being said. Do it, beef it up, confirm it, make it sure. Well, lessons for here and now. 

When we look at all of these curses, we need to remember that the divinely established boundaries of a people’s behavior is an incredible grace. The Israelites know exactly where the boundaries are. And as I’ve said many times, the more detailed the ordinance, the greater the grace; the less is left to chance and guesswork.

Second, to know the divinely established consequence of sin is grace. Remember that poor guy? “O my god whom I know or do not know, the sin that I have committed, I don’t know.” And the link between my actions and my experience I don’t know. Well, here they knew exactly. 

Three. Having been offered grace, we have two choices: receive it in faith and be blessed; reject it in unbelief and be cursed. Those are the choices; it’s a binary system. 

To declare ‘Amen’ to these curses, the people put themselves under oath individually, which meant that though the nation may go one direction, individuals are always free to adopt an independent course – for good or ill. No one is a captive to the world in which you live. In the end, we stand before God ourselves. What did you do about it? And you won’t be able to blame anybody else. It’s on you. 

Well, what then is the curse of the law in Galatians 3:9-14, where Paul quotes this last verse? Well, there are four options here. Three of which I don’t think are at all possible. 

The law itself is a curse. No, the law is grace. The law is a gift. 

Second, the function of the law is to put everyone under the curse. No, it is not. The function of the law is to instruct us on an appropriate thank you for God’s grace. It’s not to kill you. It’s to give you life. 

Three. Everyone under the law was under the curse. That is, all ancient Israelites were automatically under the curse. That isn’t the point. No, they’re not. They are the objects of divine grace. 

It can’t mean any of these. It cannot mean that to Paul when it never meant that to Moses. We cannot have them talking different languages. 

Four, the Torah contains curses that are imposed on everyone who demonstrates rejection of the grace. This is hate, demonstrated hatred, demonstrate rejection of the grace of covenant relationship by refusing to walk in the ways. That’s it. When we are freed from the curse, we are freed from the consequences of our actions of rejection. God in His mercy forgives. That’s the point. 

Now let’s go to the biggie, chapter 28. The longest chapter in the book. And some people would say, therefore, the center of gravity. Well, one thing I can say, the fact that the Lord devotes so much time to this issue tells us how passionately He feels about the issue. The Lord is deeply invested in His people, and He offers every incentive to them to be faithful to Him. And like Paul says, if the goodness, the grace of God will not draw you, then maybe the warnings will. 

Now, of course, we need to understand warnings as grace. If I am walking with my grandchild on a path and there’s a steep incline and my grandchild wants to step over there, get too close to it, and I grab him like this. I’m not being abusive. There may be a mark on his arm for a while. That’s okay. It’s a brand, but it’s a brand of my love. I’m not doing this out of hatred. I’m doing this because I love him. “It’s for your own good. Don’t go there.” And that is precisely the point here. He has promised to lavish His blessing on them if they will live, respond to grace, receive His grace in every form. But if they don’t want that, then He pleads for them to come back.

Well, let’s look at the outline of this chapter. It’s the easiest in the book to outline. You got the blessings for covenant faithfulness in 1:14. One hundred ninety-nine words, and then the curses for covenant faithfulness, 797 words. And there’s the problem in people’s minds. And I would actually say there is the grace. 

And then it ends with a colophonic conclusion. In your Bible, it’s chapter 29:1. But our English traditions follow a false lead in some manuscripts, Latin manuscripts. But both the Hebrew and the Greek at this point have chapter 29:1 as a concluding colophon to the curses, blessings and curses in chapter 28. 

It’s a retrospective look rather than a prospective look. “These are the words of the covenant that the Lord commanded Moses to make.” That’s looking back on everything, specifically, since chapter 12:1, the third address, but it actually applies to the antecedent speeches as well. 

In what follows, you have the fourth address, but it contains no words of the covenant. It contains some rituals and it contains warnings of future curses and blessings. But the words of the covenant, the terms of the covenant, they have all been declared and the rituals have been completed. 

Well, let’s ask the question, do this structure and these proportions mean that the God of the First Testament was more eager to curse than to bless, which is people’s stereotypical impression? One hundred ninety-nine words of blessing and 797 words of curse? Four times as many? No wonder people think the God of the Old Testament always has a scowl on his face. 

My sister once asked me, “Dan, how can you be so excited about the Old Testament? God is so angry.” “Really? Why is God—there’s a reason why He’s angry. It’s because you have rejected His grace. You don’t want His smile. You reject that.” And so, we have it. 

Do they mean that the God of the First Testament? No. We can answer this one in three ways. One, in contrast to neo-Assyrian and Aramaic analogs, those contain no blessings at all. There are only curses. And in contrast with Hittite analogs, Hittite analogs, comparable texts, begin with curses, and then they have some summary blessings. 

Here we go. Here’s our diagram. You see, on the right-hand side, the neo-Assyrians, the olive kind of color - those are the curses. And the dark blue, those are the blessings. No, no blessings in the Assyrian ones at all. Nor in the Aramaic, Sfire texts just 100 years earlier. 

But in the first column, the later Hittite ones, you have curses and blessings. But A, the curses come first, and B, the blessings are a fraction of the length of the curses. So compared to that, the fact that he frontloads blessing, declares the dream. This is the vision; this is the plan. We cannot understand the darkness of sin unless we understand first the brilliance of grace. Or we can also say you can’t understand the brilliance of grace unless you understand the darkness of sin. 

And so, in the Mosaic one, you have 14 verses of blessing. Never have that in these other texts. And then you have the curses. If you say, no to the goodness that God gives you, the rhetoric of this is pastoral. The point of this whole address, the point of these covenant stipulations is to keep people on track with God. Don’t abandon Him because this is your key to your future.

What else can we say? Moses’ homiletical goal. His goal in this one isn’t to give people a downer impression. It’s to emphasize rhetorically the seriousness of covenant relationship, the awesomeness of the privilege. He had ended chapter 26 with, “See, I’ve set you high above the nations for praise, for honor and glory.” Don’t waste it by rejecting the gift. John Barkley’s gift. The gift, the gift of liberation, the gift of God’s provision, the gift of Torah, the gift of land. It’s all gift. Don’t reject it. 

Well, let’s look also at Deuteronomy 30:15-20. We’ll come back to this one just very briefly later. But this is the final altar call. After he’s preached his last sermon, the fourth address, he says, “Now, listen! Today I’ve given you a choice between life and death, prosperity and disaster. By charging you today to demonstrate love for Yahweh your God by walking in His ways, by keeping His commands, ordinances and judgments. Then you will live and multiply, and Yahweh your God will bless you and the land you are about to enter and occupy.” 

Notice again, he begins with blessing. That’s always the default. Bless you. “But if your heart turns away,” there it is, “And you refuse to listen, and if you are seduced and you worship and serve other gods, I warn you today that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have given you this choice.” The whole world has—that’s why this is a loud ceremony by now. The whole world has heard and it’s imprinted in the ears of the hills. And the ears of the mountains and the rivers. I call heaven and earth, the clouds have heard this. “I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessing and curses. So choose life, that you and your descendants may live.” 

How do you choose life? Not just by ticking a box in a form. Saying, yes, I said the sinner’s prayer once. No. “By loving Yahweh.” And again, we should here have, by demonstrating love for Yahweh your God. “By listening to His voice, hanging on firmly to Him, because He is your life. He is the key to living long in the land Yahweh swore to give you your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” We’ve got these binary options. Choose life or death. 

Well, this is the opposite of what we had in Psalm 23. I have a whole series. I was preaching on Psalm 23 at one point and I came back to the classroom the next day after preaching this. I said, I wish I was an artist because all of Psalm 23 is a brilliant cartoon, but some of it makes no sense. And then after I had said that the next day, one of the guys in the class was an artist, he had a whole set of cartoons for me on Psalm 23. Well, here it is. Notice God is sending his hounds of tov and hesed after the sheep. And look, those dogs have smiles on their faces. They’re not out to eat them. They’re out to bring them back to Yahweh. When they go astray, this is what draws them back. That’s what this is about. He’s sending the hounds of heaven and they aren’t pit bulls. 

Let’s go then to the blessings itself. In chapter 28, both the curses and the blessings we should reverse that. The blessing and a curse begin with stereotypical formulas. If you look at verse three, “You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country. The fruit of your womb will be blessed, the crops of your land, the young of your livestock, the calves of your herds, the lambs of the flocks. Your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed. You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out.” 

Did you hear all the merisms? Do we know the word, ‘merism’? It’s using extremes to declare the whole thing. Great and small. Young and old. Well, what about the middle-aged? No, it means everybody. These are the boundaries. “I am Alpha and Omega,” doesn’t mean God is only the beginning and the end. No, He’s everything in between, too. It’s comprehensive. So, “blessed in the city, blessed in the country;” there’s no other place. Those are the only two. They’re all binary. “The fruit of your womb and the crops of your land. The young of your flock, the calves and the flock.” 

Notice, this is fertility religion. But Yahweh claims authority over all of this business. Not Baal, not the storm gods. 

“Your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed. And you will be blessed when you come in and when you go out,” which means all your activities. 

But then on the other side, when we get to verse 16, he has the opposite. “You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country. Your basket and kneading trough will be cursed, the fruit of your womb, all your livestock. You’ll be cursed when you come in and cursed when you.” It will hound you. And if you don’t want the hounds of hesed and tov chasing you, you’ll get the hounds of God’s fury and they will catch you. 

Well, they intentionally mirror each other. Declarations of blessings and curse occurs six times, creating a total of 12 together. The outer declarations are merismic pairs, coming and going, town and country. 

The term for cursed, ’ārûr, is the same as 27, but later in verse—or earlier in verse 15, the heading had been the word qᵊlālâ, “But it will happen, if you do not obey the Lord your God, to observe these commandments, all these curses,” that’s a different word. And this is the word we had in chapter 11, blessing and curse. 

But in any case, we have the middle pair is more complex where he lists the domestic and the household, the fertility. And I think this is a deliberate polemic against fertility religions all around. He’s hereby declaring that which others attribute to Baal and Asherah and the other fertility gods, God says, “That’s My jurisdiction, too. I’m the key to everything and I offer you My blessing.” 

In short, the blessing involves the full flourishing of the covenantal triangle. The land is yielding its fruit, the people are yielding the fruit of righteousness, and God is yielding the fruit of blessing. It’s a beautiful thing. 

When we come to 9-10, now, the blessings, the form of the blessings take a different turn. He becomes more rhetorical, more homiletical as he preaches the point. “The Lord Yahweh will establish you as a people holy to Himself, as He has sworn to you, if you keep the commands of Yahweh your God and walk in His ways. And all the peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of Yahweh.”

We talked about this the other day, or “the name of Yahweh will be read on you and they will be in awe of you.” The word is ‘fear.’ Most translations assume, and they will be afraid of you. They know they’ll have to treat you carefully or you’ll jump on them like they jump on you. 

I think it’s actually quite different. They’ll be in awe. What great nation is there that has a God so near and a Torah so amazingly righteous? They’ll be in awe of you. 

Notice the special relationship involved in Yahweh’s actions toward Israel, Israel’s actions toward Yahweh, and the nations actions towards Israel. What happens to Israel doesn’t happen in a corner. They are high above the nations; “that the world” – this is exhibit A deliberately of what grace can do in a world under the curse. This is what we might call bearing the name of Yahweh with honor, so that people honor the name of the One we bear. You shall not bear the name of the Lord. We’ve talked about these things before. 

Here’s a bulla of Hezekiah, and what that would be stamped with would be claimed, that’s Hezekiah’s. But it’s also representative of the person who owns it. It’s not just power. It’s not, It’s mine; it’s not just possession. But this document represents my mind, my will, whatever. And that’s what we have. 

And we’ve seen this one several times before. This is the stamp that declares ownership. “They will know that you belong to Yahweh.” Branded with His name. 

Well, how should we interpret then 15 to 16? We don’t have trouble with verses 1-14. [singing] Every promise in the book is mine, every chapter, every verse. I mean, we sing that happily. But how about, [singing] every curse in the book is mine? How should we interpret what follows? 

One, we’ve already said, recognize that the ancient world wouldn’t have been shocked by this. 

Two, well, curses were a fixed form of ancient treaty forms. Their expressions are often found in others. The non-Israelite Job utters similar curses in Job 31 where he gives his scout’s honor, “If I had done this, then I would deserve what I’m getting.” And he’s got a whole list of things of cause and effect. So, it’s all over the world. 

We need also to recognize that these curses come after unbelievably profuse blessings. The overall structure is identical to that of the blessing. So, it is an echo. The blessings are the foil for the curse. Hear the blessings and then you’ll understand God’s passion in the curse. He is desperate. Can we say that of God? That God is desperate for your loyalty, for your love, for your response? Well, it is something in that order. 

The formulaic blessings are cast as intentional opposites. We saw that. Many of the expanded curses represent the opposite of expanded blessings we’ve seen elsewhere. 

Here, verse seven, “Yahweh will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you. They shall come out against you one way and flee seven ways.” The great metaphor here, they’re scattered. 

But look at verse 25, “Yahweh, You will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will go out one way against them and flee seven ways.” It’s a reversal of the roles. You have proved yourself to be the Lord’s enemy because you’ve rejected the grace. And so, you get… 

“Yahweh will open to you His good treasury, the heavens, to give rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hands.”

And then verse 23 and 24, “The heavens over your head will be bronze, and the earth under you shall be iron. Yahweh will make the rain in your land powder. From heaven dust shall come on you until you are destroyed.” So deliberately the opposite. He is playing with these motifs. 

We should recognize, third, that Yahweh acts here directly against His own people. We tend to be offended when God tells the Israelites to go against the Canaanites. But as we said before, “If His people will act like Canaanites, they get the same thing.” This is against His own people. And well, to some that is the problem. How can God do that if He loves them? Well, He does it because He loves them. He’s so eager to have them back. 

Well, unlike other ancient Near Eastern texts, Israel’s demise involves no other deities. See in the rest of the world, the curses involve other deities coming and hammering you. In Israel it’s never that, there are no other deities. There isn’t even a god of death. Oh, there are some places in poetic passages where plague, deḇer [recte: rešep̄] and pestilence, qeṭeḇ [recte: deḇer] and bloodshed, these are personified, but it’s not as if he views them as real. Outside of Israel, these are all demons. But God uses them as His agents. They are not demons. They are God’s agents to do His work. 

Well, the Lord is the subject of virtually all of these curses. Moses clearly declares the Lord’s intention. He highlights Israel’s hopelessness, which should mean that they will come, turn around and come penitently back to Him. 

Moses lists are shuddering lists of agents, none of which is divine. He engages the entire universe and wild animals and the enemies out there and the weather. It’s all part of His universe. 

He reminds the people repeatedly of the causes of His fury. “Because you’ve rejected Me, you haven’t walked in the ways that I have revealed. You haven’t responded to My grace in ways with loyalty.” 

Well, they’re directed against His people but we need to recognize their pastoral function. This is part of a sermon. This is not legislation prescribed by a cold, distant ruler. God is in your midst talking directly to you. It has a pastoral function. Just like Jesus, “I am the true vine and you are the branches. Every branch in Me that doesn’t bear fruit…” Oh, what does He do? He longs to have it back, but if it refuses, He says, “I’m sorry, you’re done.” 

But this is not only Old Testament stuff. We already read some texts. As I was working on the book on the covenants, I went, I was driven to wrestle with Jesus’ woes in Matthew 23. I mean, this is shocking. Jesus talks this way? “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled. Whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” Well, that’s Old Testament truth. “But oὐαὶ…” “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.” That’s a curse. 

“Οὐαὶ, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make them twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.” This is rhetoric. 

“Οὐαὶ, blind guides. You say if anyone swears by the temple, it’s nothing. But if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he’s bound by the oath. You blind fools. Which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred?” 

This is everywhere. This is everywhere. Jesus doesn’t hesitate. And the interesting thing is, the targets of God, of Jesus’ fury, are typically those who claim the most privileged status with God – scribes, Pharisees. He’s very gracious to prostitutes and adulterers and tax collectors. But oh, those who claim, those who will sing, “I love you, Lord.” And in the street corners, they sing it. “And I lift my voice.” They’re the targets of God’s fury. 

Well, I hope we can see from this, there’s rhetoric here. This is not just law. This is rhetoric. Trying to get people from a problematic disposition to a proper disposition where you claim the blessing and it’s not accidental that this curse is at the end of the third address. But he will end the whole service with the altar call of chapter 30, “I have set before you the blessing and the curse.” No excuse. You know exactly the options. Please, choose blessing. For your own life, for your own good. It’s up to you. This is the word of the Lord. 

Student: Okay. My question is about the framework of Deuteronomy. There’s a lot of like homiletical pastoral emphasis in the book, but with other law texts, like I’m specifically thinking of Leviticus, there seems to be a narrative framework for the book, but not this pastoral emphasis. 

Dr. Block: Well, look a little closer. It is not as overtly pastoral. This is Moses’ last worship service, and he’s very passionate in the way he delivers his final charge, Jesus in the upper room discourse. The holiness code. That’s what scholars call it. Look again and you see all the motive clauses. That’s not the sort of stuff of cold, you know. I call it the instructions on holiness rather than the holiness code. It is not, as, shall we say, homiletical. What’s the word? Paranetic. That’s a word that’s used in scholarship. Paul’s writings, his letters tend to be very preacherly, too. Deuteronomy is there. The book of Hebrews, I think, is preacherly. It’s very close in style to what Moses is doing here. The holiness instructions are more formal. It’s part of the covenant document, and I think that’s why it’s more formal. But that doesn’t put it in the category of colder law. 

But you’re right, it’s got narrative framework and it’s got formal frameworks here and there. That is true. But driving it all is a pastoral intent. This is Torah, rather than hukkim exclusively. It’s again, law in the service of theology. In both instances, I will think. 

Just like even the Decalogue, which doesn’t have much pastoral, except “I am Yahweh your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt,” you know, so, motivation. And you’ve got a couple of promises and a couple of threats there. “God visits the sins of the fathers to the children on the third and fourth generation” - that’s a curse. So, he does have both there, too. 

But I think we have drawn these distinctions too sharply. They are there, but let’s not mean that one is this and the others that; both are both, but the proportions shift. 

Student: In terms of structure as well, with the blessing, the stipulations, blessings and curses, does Leviticus have that sort of pattern? 

Dr. Block: Of blessing? 

Student: Stipulation, blessing and curses. 

Dr. Block: Stipulations, yes. Because the holiness code, that’s what scholars say, the instructions on holiness begin after the Day of Atonement stuff, chapter 17 and they go all the way through to 26. Twenty-six is the equivalent of 28. It’s at the end. And he begins with a whole series of blessings, and then he adds the curses. But at the end, now he shifts the order, Moses has his promise for after the curse; that will come in the next address. He intimated this in the first address right at the end. But he’ll have at the end of the fourth address. Whereas Leviticus attaches the ultimate blessing, “I will restore you,” right after the curse. So, it is fundamental to the treaty document which ends with verse, I think it’s 45, the last verse.