Then when the Lord
your God brings you to the land He promised your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob to give you---a land with large, fine cities you did not build –
Deuteronomy 6:10 (NET)
As Israel is on the
verge of entering into their long-awaited land of promise, finally doing so after
a reported forty long years of “wandering” in the wilderness, Moses speaks to
the covenant people and reminds them of their God’s demonstrations of faithfulness
to His covenant that had been delivered to Abraham, and extended to Isaac and
Jacob. Along with that, he reminds them of the covenant that their
Creator God had made with His people forty years prior, at Mount Sinai, which
had as its basis the statement that “The Lord is our God, the Lord is
one! You must love the Lord your God with your whole mind, your whole
being, and all your strength” (6:4-5).
In His faithfulness, which
was always presumed to be due to His love for His people and for His creation
(this love of the whole of the creation must always be kept in sight), Moses
tells the people that not only was their God going to be bringing them into a
land of promise, but He was also informing them, through Moses, that He was going
to be providing for them in super-abundance, doing more than they would have
asked or thought. The Creator God of Israel was going to deliver to His
people “large, fine cities” which they “did not build” (6:10b).
As the narrative
suggests that the Creator God continued to speak through His servant Moses, His
people were informed that the cities would consist of “houses filled with
choice things you did not accumulate, hewn out cisterns you did not dig, and
vineyards and olive groves you did not plant” (6:11a). The covenant God
told His people that from these things, they would “eat your fill”
(6:11b). Of course, it is worth considering that with the super-abundance
of blessings that were being bestowed upon them, would also come a temptation
to forget the One that is always to be recognized and remembered as the one who
brought them into the place of blessed promise.
After speaking of the
good things that were going to be coming their way, due to their God’s
faithfulness to them and in accordance with His purposes for them, the people
of Israel receive a reminder of that very faithfulness, with an exhortation to
their own required faithfulness to the covenant. Moses warns the people, saying “be careful
not to forget the Lord Who brought you out of Egypt, that place of slavery”
(6:12).
In this passage that
is undergirded by an overt implication of their God’s sovereign faithfulness,
as He demonstrates His power to fulfill His promises, observers come to learn
about a place that the Creator God has prepared for His people. When
considered alongside the whole of the Scriptural narrative and according to its
movement to a determined and specific end, these events beg to be understood
according to the context that Israel’s God was taking His covenant people into
that place which represented the very first part of His creation that He
intended to be redeemed and restored.
As preparation of
that place is considered, the thoughts of the modern reader of Scripture should
be quickened to the words of Jesus that are to be found find in the Gospel of
John. In the fourteenth chapter of that Gospel, Jesus can be heard to say
“There are many dwelling places in My Father’s house” (14:2a). As it was
for Israel, so it was for Jesus’ disciples, who, in their representative
grouping of twelve, are to be understood as a microcosm of Israel---a
re-formulated example of the covenant people in miniature.
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