DEUTERONOMY 28
This chapter, placed alongside Israel's history, constitutes one of the most indisputable evidences of the divine inspiration of the Bible. It is our blessing to see it!
Bro David Clubb
[Devarim 28 Orthodox Jewish Bible (OJB)]
1 And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of Yahweh thy Elohim, to observe [be shomer] and to do all his commandments [mitzvot] which I command thee this day, that Yahweh thy Elohim will set thee on high above all nations [kol Goyei] of the earth [Ha'Aretz]:
cp. But take diligent heed to do the commandment and the law, which Moses the servant of the Yahweh charged you, to love Yahweh your Elohim, and to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, and to CLEAVE unto him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul. (Josh 22:5)
A student observes that to which he has already given ear, by thinking out the practical application of that which he has learned; and he does it by a performance of what the Word teaches. So, much care and thought must be given to the Word, if one is to experience the blessings promised therein. To know and obey His Word, is to manifest the Name of Yahweh. *
2 And all these blessings [berakhot] shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of Yahweh thy Elohim.
3 Blessed shalt thou be in the city [Baruch atah baIr], and blessed shalt thou be in the field [baruch atah basadeh].
4 Blessed [Baruch] shall be the fruit of thy body [pri of thy womb], and the fruit of thy ground [pri of thy adamah], and the fruit of thy cattle [pri of thy animals], the increase of thy kine [livestock], and the flocks of thy sheep.
5 Blessed [Baruch] shall be thy basket and thy store [kneading bowl].
The basket was used to gather in the harvest, and the store, or kneading trough symbolises to the use and pleasure of that gathered in. *
6 Blessed [Baruch] shalt thou be when thou comest in, and blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out.
... the overshadowing care of Yahweh during days of activity from start to finish, from
birth to death.*
Yahweh preserveth thy going out and thy coming in, From henceforth even unto the age! - Psa 121: 8
10 And all people of the earth shall see that thou art called by the name of Yahweh ; and they shall be afraid of thee.
Thou art called by the name of Yahweh
The relationship of Israel to Yahweh will be apparent by its national characteristics and actions. If these reflect to the honour of Yahweh's Name, it will be hallowed in the earth, and it will be obvious externally that as a nation, Israel is unique in its spiritual qualities - Isa. 43:7; Jer. 13:11; Dan. 9:19. This will be the case with Israel in the Age to come - Isa. 1:26; 62:12.
Those "in Christ" have been separated as a people for the Name - Acts 15:14, and likewise should manifest its qualities to those outside - John 13:34-35. Rotherham renders the clause:
"The Name of Yahweh hath been called upon thee",
implying Divine ownership. Those "in Christ" having been incorporated into the Name...
"ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light" - 1 Pet. 2: 9.
The Christadelphian Expositor
25 Yahweh shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies: thou shalt go out one way [derech echad] against them, and flee seven ways [shivah derakhim] before them: and shalt be removed [an object of horror] into [ unto] all the kingdoms of the earth.
Whether we take the inroads of the Amorites, Midianites, Philistines, etc., who repeatedly brought Israel into affliction because of their sins; or the formidable invasions of the Egyptian Necho or the Assyrian Shalmaneser, and Sennacherib; or the conquest effected by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon; or the final destruction of the Jewish polity by Vespasian and Titus of Rome; we know, as a matter of fact, that all these adversaries acted from an ordinary lust of spoil and military glory and without any idea of carrying out the purposes of Yahweh.
This is a matter of notoriety and need not be argued.
The Ways of Providence Ch 11.
49 Yahweh shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth [ ketzeh ha'aretz], as swift as the eagle [nesher] flieth; a nation whose tongue [lashon] thou shalt not understand;
But, what was represented by this great bird of prey? The original is quite emphatic - ho aetos ho megas, the Eagle which is the great one...Rome was the eagle's head; Italy, its body; and the Roman Africa and the regions of the Alps, Pyrennees, Britain, Bulgaria, Thrace, Asia Minor, and Armenia its wings or extremities. The eagle is the well-known symbol of the Roman Power.
This cannot refer to the Eagle of Nineveh and Babylon; because these eagle powers did not come "from the end of the earth" against Israel; and because they understood the tongue spoken by the Assyrians and Chaldeans.
"The end", not ends "of the earth" in regard to Palestine, was Chittim, or Italy; whose ships came against Asshur, when Antiochus, king of Assyria, invaded Egypt (Dan. 11:30). Israel did not understand the tongue of Chittim, which is known as that of the Roman Eagle, the Latin, between which and the Hebrew there is no family likeness.
This eagle nation was to come against them as a bird of prey to devour their body-politic, and to scatter them among all peoples, because they did not fear that glorious and fearful name, YAHWEH ELOHIM." This was accomplished by the Roman legions under Titus, A.D. 70; predictive of which, YAHWEH ELOHIM, in fleshly manifestation, said,
"wheresoever the carcass is, there shall the Eagles be gathered together" (Matt.24:38).
Eureka 12.24
While occupying Palestine, the Carnal Israel were the kingdom of the Deity under the Mosaic Constitution; and the throne upon which David and Solomon reigned in Jerusalem was "the throne of Yahweh."
Deity permitted them to continue in the land so long as the constitution was respected; and there were enough "Israelites indeed" among them, to preserve the nation from putrefaction. These were the real, spiritual, life of the nation -- the salt of the land; and when they became insipid; or, when they, as the chosen generation, died off from the arena, the nation became "a carcase," fit only for the talons of the Roman Eagle, according to the predictions of Moses, Daniel and Christ (Deut. xxviii. 49; Dan. viii. 10-12,24; Matt. xxiv. 28).
Eureka 7.4.
58 If thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that thou mayest fear this glorious and fearful name, Yahweh thy Elohim;
This glorious and fearful name
The multitude, John says, no one is competent to compute. It is the multitude of "the redeemed from among men, the first-fruits unto the Deity and to the Lamb" (xiv. 4) the incorruptible and deathless seed promised to Abraham, who should be countless as the stars (Gen. xv. 5).
This human incompetency for the calculation shows that the number 144,000 is not the real, but only the representative, number of the redeemed. Every saved individual of the unknown number redeemed will be one of the 144,000 sealed ones; he will be an element of the 144 cubits; which embrace within their limits the 144,000 furlongs; for these are the square of the root within which the innumerable multitude is enclosed.
Eureka 7.11
"the glorious and fearful Name, YAHWEH Elohim:" for the repudiation and blasphemy of which Judah and Benjamin, with a multitijde of Levi, have been banished from their country, and tormented among the Nations.
Eureka 13.10.
63 And it shall come to pass, that as Yahweh rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you; so Yahweh will rejoice over you to destroy you, and to bring you to nought; and ye shall be plucked from off the land whither thou goest to possess it.
The condition of their tenancy was their good behaviour.
If they served God according to the law of the land He had given, He would bless them in their basket and store; but if they served other gods, He would let in the worshippers of those gods upon them, and expel them from the country. Israel has rebelled, and therefore they are in dispersion, until the time appointed shall come to remember the covenant made with the fathers, and, therefore to remember the land (Lev. 26:40-42).
The national tenancy of Canaan under the law being leasehold, no purchases of freehold estates could be made in the land. If Israel had been a freeholder, the case would have been different. But the land belonged to the Lord; and they had no more right to grant it away in parcels for ever, than the tenant under a twenty-one years' lease has to cut up his holding into lots, and sell them to purchasers forever.
Israel were the Lord's tenants; and the law said to them on the part of their Landlord, "the land shall not be sold for ever; for the land is Mine, and ye are strangers and sojourners with Me;" so that "in all the land of your possession ye shall grant a redemption for the land."
Hence, if poverty compelled a man to sell his farm, it was always redeemable by himself, or kin, according to certain conditions; but, if neither could raise the money to redeem, the estate was not lost to the original owner; for though it remained in the hands of the purchaser he was obliged to return it for nothing at the year of jubilee (Lev. 25:23-28).
Even under the new constitution, when the nation obtains everlasting possession, the servants of the Prince will have to surrender His territorial gifts at the year of liberty; while His sons will possess them for ever (Ezek. 46:16-18).
The covenant of promise confers a more extensive holding of the country than the law of Moses. At no time of their occupation did Israel possess all the land from the Euphrates to the Nile, as promised in the covenant; and even if they had, such holding would not have been in the sense of the covenant, for they have not held possession according to the limits defined "for ever."
"All the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession" is the promise; but the indisputable fact is, that Israel have only possessed a part of it for a limited and turbulent period. In Solomon's days when the nation was at its zenith under the law, the land was jointly possessed by Israel, the Tyrians, and the remains of the Hittites, Amorites, Perrizzites, Hivites, Jebusites, &c.; but when the age of the covenant arrives, Israel under Shiloh will possess it all; "and there shall be no more the Canaanite in the house of the Lord of Hosts" (2 Chron.8:7; Zech.14:21).
Elpis Israel II. 2.