Blessing and Curses

Reading the last few chapters of Deuteronomy may leave one feeling as if he is at mid-court at Wimbledon. The volley between blessing and cursing, good and bad, obedience and rebellion, honor and shame are intertwined as laces on a pair of Chuck Taylor sneakers.

Several observations come to the fore when reading God final instructions to Moses. First, consequences follow all behavior and choices. We frequently are reminded that the obedient are blessed of God and called, “the head and not the tail.” But, on balance, the disobedient are called the “tail and not the head.” The blessed status is ceded to Israel’s enemies when the People of God default in arrogant disregard of God’s pleasure and precept. Knowledge of blessings and curses are of equal importance.

Second, the language is forcefully strong and colorful. There is no ambiguity about the consequence of God’s children choosing to honor Him or the foolish and overconfident being disobedient. The context for blessing and cursing is in the Land of Promise, the one flowing with milk and honey. The threat about which God warns is the natural tendency to be assimilated with the residents Israel was to displace. Jeshurun is singled out as an example of rebellion and is described as “heavy and sleek,” pungent words describing smug self-confidence.

And, the balanced message was so important that God composed a song to be sung in the whole national assembly. Lyrics in prose seem to drift off in the sea of forgetfulness, but God employed the power of a song and set His message to music. The promises to the obedient and the warnings to the disobedient are to be kept before the people. The point-counterpoint, the volley-like words given to of Moses were to be sung at massive festivals, and were to be sung, not once, but repeatedly –
“He guarded him as the apple of his eye, like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them on its pinions.
The LORD alone led him; no foreign god was with him.
He made him ride on the heights of the land and fed him with the fruit of the fields. He nourished him with honey from the rock, and with oil from the flinty crag ...” (Deuteronomy 32:10-13)
Words of powerful protection and promise are set against the curses resulting from disobedience.
“I will send wasting famine against them, consuming pestilence and deadly plague; I will send against them the fangs of wild beasts, the venom of vipers that glide in the dust.
In the street the sword will make them childless; in their homes terror will reign. Young men and young women will perish, infants and gray-haired men.” (32:24-25)
The terms are well defined. No ambiguity, no mindless tolerance, but curses follow those who disobey. The consequences are unmistakable.

In the same context of Moses’ parting words to the nation, Moses reminds us all that God calls on mankind to exercise the privilege and responsibility to choose. “This day I call heaven and 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 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.” (30:19-20) Each of us is active in the process.

The take-away lesson, in the daily give and take of living, during the volley between good and bad influences, redemptive and destructive opportunities, we must choose to honor the One who has defined the terms leading to both blessing and curses. We must remain alert to our tendency to be assimilated into the culture surrounding us, the danger of drinking the sweet sounding lyric and melody of love while forgetting the sobering consequences of God’s anger.