Deut. xi. 26 — 28. Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse; a blessing, if ye obey the commandments of the
Lord your God, which I command you this day ; and a curse, if ye will not obey the commandments of the Lord your God.
ON whatever occasion these words had been spoken, they must have appeared most weighty, and most important : but, as the parting address of Moses to the whole nation of Israel, when he was about to be withdrawn from them, they have a force and em- phasis that can scarcely be exceeded. Imagine the aged servant of Jehovah, who, forty years before, had delivered to their fathers the law written with the finger of God, and who had lived to see the utter extinction of that rebellious generation for their transgressions against it ; imagine him, I say, now affectionately warning this new generation, with all the solicitude of a father, and all the fidelity of one who was about to give up an immediate account of his stewardship. In this view, the words inspire us with solemn awe, and impress us with a fearful sense of our responsibility to God. May God accom- pany them with a divine energy to our souls, whilst we consider,
I. The awful alternative proposed to us —
As addressed to the Jews, these words may be understood as containing the terms of their national covenant, in which the blessings promised them de- pended on their obedience to the divine commands. But if we enter fully into the subject, we shall find it replete with instruction to us also, especially as exhibiting to our view the Christian covenant. Let us consider,
1. The fuller explanation which Moses himself gave of this alternative —
[The blessing and the curse are more fully stated in the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth chapters of this book. But to what is the blessing annexed ? to an unreserved obedience to all God's commandments3. And against what is the curse denounced ? not only against some particular and more flagrant transgressions b, but against any single deviation from the law of God, however small, however inadvertent0: and all the
a Deut. xxviii. 1. b Dent, xxvii. 15 — 25. cDeut. xxvii. 26.