Resources
for Transformational Development from the Old Testament: How do we use Old
Testament Law?
Part
2: Summary of Legal Material: The Blessing and the Curse
On Bible Thoughts Today for January 29, we are summarizing
the blocks of legal material in Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy,
concentrating on the appended blessings and curses. We then notice an important
similarity between them.
Here are summaries of the blessing and curse passages at the end
of the Pentateuch’s main legal sections.
A) Exodus 23:20-31. The bulk of the
legal material in Exodus, called the “Book of the Covenant,” is in Exodus
20:1-23:21. After the “Ten Words” in Exodus 20, we find laws dealing with
everything from the celebration of religious festivals (23:14-19) to what to do
with an ox that gores someone (21:28-32).[1] At the end of this block
of material is the following passage:
20 "See, I
am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to
the place I have prepared. 21 Pay attention to him and listen to what he says.
Do not rebel against him; he will not forgive your rebellion, since my Name is
in him. 22 If you listen carefully to what he says and do all that I say, I
will be an enemy to your enemies and will oppose those who oppose you. 23 My
angel will go ahead of you and bring you into the land of the Amorites,
Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites and Jebusites, and I will wipe them
out. 24 Do not bow down before their gods or worship them or follow their
practices. You must demolish them and break their sacred stones to pieces. 25
Worship the LORD your God, and his blessing will be on your food and water. I
will take away sickness from among you, 26 and none will miscarry or be barren
in your land. I will give you a full life span. 27 "I will send my terror
ahead of you and throw into confusion every nation you encounter. I will make
all your enemies turn their backs and run. 28 I will send the hornet ahead of
you to drive the Hivites, Canaanites and Hittites out of your way. 29 But I
will not drive them out in a single year, because the land would become
desolate and the wild animals too numerous for you. 30 Little by little I will
drive them out before you, until you have increased enough to take possession
of the land. 31 "I will establish your borders from the Red Sea to the Sea
of the Philistines, and from the desert to the River. I will hand over to you
the people who live in the land and you will drive them out before you.” Exod
23:20-31
At
the end of the Book of the Covenant is the obligation of the LORD to Israel as
obedient covenant partners. 1) God will fight against Israel’s enemies; 2) God
will bless food and water and grant fertility and long life; 3) God will drive
out the inhabitants of the Promised Land and Israel will inherit it.[2]
B)
Deuteronomy 28-30. Deuteronomy 5-27 starts with a passage that reads:
1 Moses
summoned all Israel and said: Hear, O Israel, the decrees and laws I declare in
your hearing today. Learn them and be sure to follow them. 2 The LORD our God
made a covenant with us at Horeb. 3 It was not with our fathers that the LORD
made this covenant, but with us, with all of us who are alive here today. (Deut
5:1-3; NIV)
Deuteronomy
is depicted as a renewal of the covenant with the generation of Israel that
survived the wilderness wanderings.[3] It is a sermon by Moses
that updates the material found in earlier blocks of legal material as Israel
enters the Promised Land. This is interspersed with new laws, such as laws
concerning kings and prophets (17-18), how to deal with Israelites who become
like the nations they are dispossessing (13), and how to deal with the nations
in the land of Canaan that they are dispossessing as opposed to nations far
away with which they battle (20).
In much more developed form; the
large block of legal material is followed by instructions for a ceremony of
blessings and cursings that the tribes of Israel are to perform when they enter
the land (Deut 27:11-26).[4] This is followed by an
elaborate pronouncing of blessing on obedience and even more elaborate
pronouncement of curse on disobedience (Deut 28-29). This is followed in Deut
30 by a promise of restoration to the land when Israel repents. The section of
blessings and cursings concludes with the following two verses.
19 This day I
call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before
you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your
children may live 20 and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his
voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you
many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob.
This, in my reading is the goal of
the legal material in Deuteronomy, for the people of Israel to enjoy a
prosperous and long life in the land that the LORD swore to give to Israel’s
first ancestors, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
C)
Leviticus 26. Leviticus 26 is a pronouncement of blessing for obedience or
cursing for disobedience concerning the legal stipulations found in the
so-called “Holiness Code” in Leviticus 17-25. Most interesting regarding
Leviticus 17-25 is the intermixing of what later interpreters have called
moral, ceremonial and civil law. At the end of this legal material is a
blessing for obedience (26:1-13) and a curse for disobedience (26:14-39). The
last few verses are a promise of forgiveness and remembrance of the repentant,
even after Israel falls victim to God’s curse (26:40-44).
What all three bodies of legal
material have is an appended blessing for obedience, and in the case of
Deuteronomy and Leviticus, a curse for disobedience. After disobedience there
is a promise of renewed relationship between God and Israel after Israel is
humbled by his punishment and repents.[5]
Return
tomorrow where we briefly discuss the “good” that the law is trying to achieve
in the life of Israel.
[2]
Admittedly, God driving out the previous inhabitants of the Promised Land is a
problem for a number of ethicists. The Pentateuch reflects upon this dilemma
and provides a response (Genesis 15:12-16; Deuteronomy 9:1-6; 20:16-18). The
nations that Israel is to dispossess are being dispossessed because of their
wickedness.
[3]
There has been discussion regarding Deuteronomy being modeled after Late Bronze
Age Hittite suzerain-vassal Treaties. For a recent discussion, see Richard
Hess, Israelite Religions: An
Archaeological and Biblical Survey (Grand Rapids, Mich/ Nottingham,
England: Baker/Apollos, 2007) 55-57. In this writer’s opinion, the elaborate
curse has more in common with Neo-Assyrian treaties than the more gentle
Hittite treaties. The problem with such discussions is that in the scribal
traditions of the ANE, we find a conservatism in which old forms endure, and
rather than borrowing from Hittite or Neo-Assyrian treaty forms, Deuteronomy
may be drawing on more indigenous forms found in a cultural milieu similar to
that of the Hittites and the Neo-Assyrians.
[4]
The blessings are not spelled out, but the cursings are.
[5]
It seems that Leviticus comes short of promising a return to the land, as we
see in Deuteronomy.
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