Promises of good things after punishment
30
📚And this is what will happen: when all these things have come on you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the LORD your God has driven you,30:1 God sees the future and knew exactly what was going to happen to Israel (Deut 31:16-18; Isa 46:9-10; 48:3).⚜
2 📚and turn back to the LORD your God, and you and your children obey his voice in accordance with all that I command you today, with all your heart and with all your soul,
30:2 God also knew that eventually they would turn to Him again (Deut 4:29-30).⚜
3 📚then the LORD your God will bring you back from captivity 📖 and have compassion on you, and will return and gather you from all the nations, where the LORD your God has scattered you. 4 📚If any of you have been driven out to the end of the heavens, the LORD your God will gather you from there, and bring you from there. 5 📚And the LORD your God will bring you into the land which your fathers possessed, and you will possess it; and he will do you good and make you more numerous than your fathers.
30:3-5 Isa 43:6; 48:20; 62:11; Jer 29:11-14; 32:37; Ezek 34:13. There was a partial fulfillment of this in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah (Ezra 2:1; Neh 7:6). The people remained in the land until 70 A.D., at which time the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and scattered Israel once again. This was in accordance with the prophecy of Christ in Luke 21:24. The prophets spoke of a future restoration of Israel which would be permanent (Isa 60:21; Ezek 37:25; Amos 9:14-15).⚜
6 📚And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart 📖, and the heart of your offspring, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.
7 📚And the LORD your God will put all these curses on your enemies and on those who hate you, who persecuted you.
8 📚And you will return and obey the voice of the LORD and obey all his commandments which I command you this day. 9 📚And the LORD your God will make you prosperous in every work of your hand, in the offspring of your body, and in the offspring of your cattle, and in the produce of your land, for good; for the LORD will again rejoice over you for good, just as he rejoiced over your fathers, 10 📚if you will listen to the voice of the LORD your God to keep his commandments and his statutes which are written in this book of the law, and if you turn to the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
Choose life or death
11 📚For this command which I give you this day is not hidden from you, and it is not far off. 12 📚It is not in heaven, that you should say, “Who will go up to heaven for us and bring it to us, so that we may hear it and do it?” 13 📚Neither is it beyond the sea, so that you should say, “Who will cross the sea for us and bring it to us, so that we may hear it and do it?” 14 📚But the word is very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it.
30:11-14 Rom 10:6-8. They alone of all the peoples on earth had God delivering His word to them through His prophets.⚜
15 📚See, I have set before you this day life and good, and death and disaster, 16 📚in that I command you this day to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, so that you may live and multiply; and the LORD your God will bless you in the land where you are going to possess it.
17 📚But if your heart turns away so that you do not hear, but are drawn away and worship other gods and serve them, 18 📚I declare to you this day, that you will surely perish, and that you will not have a long life in the land which you are going to possess when you cross the Jordan.
19 📚Today I call heaven and earth to witness against you that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore choose life, so that both you and your offspring may live, 20 📚so that you may love the LORD your God and that you may obey his voice and that you may cling to him. For he is your life and the length of your days, so that you may live in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob, to give them.
30:19-20 How solemnly God declared the truth to them! Life and death, blessing and the curse, were before them. The choice was theirs to make (compare Josh 24:15; 1 Kings 18:21; Ezek 18:31-32; Matt 23:37; Luke 13:34-35; Rev 22:17). He pleads with them to choose life and blessing by choosing loving obedience.⚜