In Job chapter 38, God began His rebuttal to Job. God is still giving Job examples of his greatness and Job’s lowliness. He’s still responding in chapter 41. God could go on so much longer with His “Were you there when…”, “Who determined…”, “Do you know…”, “Can you….” questions. After a brief allowance for Job to respond in chapter 40, God jumps right back in with his proclamations. It certainly explains why God told Job to put on his big boy pants before he began (“Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me.” Job 38:2-3)! More to come tomorrow….
Back in Deuteronomy 11, God tells the Israelites about the events that are now taking place in chapters 27 & 28. Deut. 11:29: “And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, you shall set the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal.” Can you imagine? Two groups of men standing on different mountains shouting the blessings and curses which God will send based on their choices? Clearly God takes accountability seriously!
After reading the curses in 27:6 (and there are some pretty odd and icky ones), it wraps up with a very broad umbrella, “Cursed be anyone who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them”. God wasn’t going to allow any loopholes here!
Chapter 28 begins with the blessings they will receive IF they “faithfully obey the voice of the Lord”. These are really nice. This is where we want to pause and feel good about our loving God. 28:2 says, “And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the Lord your God.”
Sadly, we don’t get to sit with this image of a loving, blessing-giving God for long. They jump right back into more curses. And in verse 45 he uses the same phrasing, “All these curses shall come upon you and pursue you and overtake you till you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the Lord…”.
Remember, the Levites are proclaiming these loudly from facing mountains. Participating in the yelling or just listening to it, I imagine you would feel like the matter of us choosing to obey God or not is very important to God. They were obviously making a big deal out of it. Our choices matter.
Deuteronomy 27:9-10 says, Then Moses and the Levitical priests said to all Israel, “Keep silence and hear, O Israel: this day you have become the people of the Lord your God. 10 You shall therefore obey the voice of the Lord your God, keeping his commandments and his statutes, which I command you today.” Moses commands the Israelites to obey. We have a choice – God gave us a free will to choose to obey or not. Moses simply tells the Israelites that since they are God’s people, they shall obey Him. If it were only that simple to do! But, isn’t it? Well, it should be.
©Amy Blanchard