Key Scriptures
4:1-26 [Moses addressed the Israelites, saying] “Give ear to my words, Israel, and listen intently to the laws and regulations I now give you to obey so that you will flourish when you take possession of the Promised Land the Lord, God of your forefathers, is giving you as a gift. …When years have passed and you experience the blessing of children and grandchildren and find yourself becoming complacent from your abundance, if you then fall away from the Lord and worship any kind of idol, blatantly sinning before the Lord and stirring up his jealous anger, then with heaven and earth as witnesses against you I plainly tell you now that you will be violently evicted from the land of your inheritance.”
27:1-7 Moses and Israel’s elders made this proclamation to the Israelites: “You are responsible to obey every commandment we give you today. Once you have crossed the Jordan and entered the land God gives you as your inheritance, create memorials on Mount Ebal from boulders coated with white plaster. Permanently etch into them with all the words of the Law. …Then construct an altar made of natural stones that have had no man-made tool used upon them. Upon this altar of fieldstones make your burnt offerings to the Lord your God. Make fellowship offerings and enjoy a big feast, celebrating God’s holy presence with you.”
30:19-32:2 “Today I call upon heaven and earth to bear witness that I have clearly offered you a choice of life or death, blessings or curses. And I urge you to choose life…” …Then Moses taught the words of his song from start to finish to all the people of Israel, saying, “Give ear, O, heavens, for I have something to proclaim. Listen carefully, majestic earth, to what my lips now declare. May my lesson be spread about like the falling rain and the words I speak be received as dew upon the newly sprung meadow grass…”
Basic Message
Moses told Israel to carefully follow the laws and decrees he was giving them as they were about to enter Canaan. He warned them that as time passed and they were settled in the land with their children and grandchildren, they must be on guard against spiritual corruption in the form of idolatry. Moses then called on heaven and earth as witnesses that should the Israelites take up worshiping idols, they would bring destruction upon themselves and lose their possession of the land.
Israel was directed to erect large field stones once they crossed the Jordan, and to inscribe on them the words of the covenant law Moses had taught them. They were to carry the stones onto Mount Ebal and build an altar there with them, then make a sacrifice to God for sin on the altar. But no iron tool was to be used to construct the altar; the stones were to remain uncut and in their natural state.
After Moses had listed the blessings and curses that would follow Israel’s response to obey the Covenant Law in the Promised Land, he called on heaven and earth to be witnesses to his words. Moses later taught them a sacred song that began with his calling on heaven and earth to bear witness to the truth of its words and the covenant relationship between God and his people.
Comments
* Nature plays a prominent role in God’s plans of redemption for humankind despite the fact that nature itself waits for its own redemption from the effects of The Fall described in Genesis (Romans 8:19-22). The fates of man and nature are thus integrally bound together, although as a free moral agent man is responsible for his sin whereas nature cannot sin. Moreover, the Bible depicts nature as suffering or benefiting in accordance with man’s moral choices. (That relationship is so very apparent today with pollution and global warming.) The Israelites were told that if the nation would live in accordance with their covenant agreement with God, the natural world they inhabited would flourish in response. On the other hand, if Israel fell away from their covenant relationship with God, nature would suffer alongside them as drought and warfare ensued as punishment.
* Nature, despite its state as a fallen participant in God’s plans of redemption, retains the “goodness” it reflected at Creation when God looked upon it and declared it so (Gen. 1:31). It therefore is enlisted by Moses (and God himself in other scriptures) as a legitimate and independent witness that the covenant relationship between God and Israel would henceforth be in full effect. Israel would be morally responsible for upholding its side of the covenant and the whole of Creation was called upon to legitimize the fact that there would be dire consequences if they did not.
* The pattern of calling on a third party to witness an oath is still very commonly used today, as when a notary public must witness and sign an official document. But in the ancient Near Eastern world, secular “Suzerainty” treaties commonly called upon the gods of the two parties as witnesses that a covenant oath was being instituted. In that God himself was already an independent party to the covenant with Israel, Moses appealed to nature (heaven and earth) to fulfill the role of the sacred third party witness.
* It is significant that the stones chosen to inscribe the words of the covenant were to be undressed fieldstones. The fact that they were not dressed stones—those shaped by human tools—meant that they retained the sacred goodness they had received at Creation. The stones thus represented an independent medium to display the covenant agreement between God and the nation of Israel. Elsewhere the Bible connects nature in its wild and original state with the person and purposes of God. From the Garden of Eden to the New Heavens and New Earth described in Revelation, nature is presented as having an inherently sacred dimension precisely because it reflects the glory of God. There is a fine but extremely significant line between recognizing the sacred goodness reflected in nature and worshipping nature itself in one form or another. The latter is, of course, idolatry and the very thing Moses so adamantly warned Israel against. In that regard, it is interesting that Moses called on nature in the form of heaven and earth to witness the covenant agreement that Israel was ratifying, a covenant that stipulated that they would never worship nature, or any other idol.
Biblical Themes
1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13
