CHAPTER 11

(1491 B.C.)

GREATNESS OF THE LORD

¹Therefore you shall love the LORD your God, and keep His Charge, and His Statutes, and His Judgments, and His Commandments, always.

²And know ye this day: for I speak not with your children which have not known, and which have not seen the chastisement of the LORD your God, His Greatness, His mighty Hand, and His stretched out Arm,

³And His Miracles, and His Acts, which He did in the midst of Egypt unto Pharaoh the king of Egypt, and unto all his land;

⁴And what He did unto the army of Egypt, unto their horses, and to their chariots; how He made the water of the Red Sea to overflow them as they pursued after you, and how the LORD has destroyed them unto this day (the Red Sea opening, and the defeat of the Egyptian army, which was in hot pursuit after Israel, with the water closing over them, was one of the greatest miracles the world has ever known; forty years later, the Holy Spirit through Moses declares that Egypt still had not yet recovered);

⁵And what He did unto you in the wilderness, until you came into this place;

⁶And what He did unto Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, the son of Reuben: how the Earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their households, and their tents, and all the substance that was in their possession, in the midst of all Israel:

⁷But your eyes have seen all the great Acts of the LORD which He did (so they knew the Power of God, and had witnessed it firsthand).

⁸Therefore shall you keep all the Commandments which I command you this day, that you may be strong, and go in and possess the land, where you go to possess it;

⁹And that you may prolong your days in the land, which the LORD swore unto your fathers to give unto them and to their seed, a land that flows with milk and honey.

DESCRIPTION

¹⁰For the land, where you go in to possess it, is not as the land of Egypt, from whence you came out, where you sowed your seed, and watered it with your foot, as a garden of herbs (countries in those days, and in that part of the world, irrigated their crops by pumping an apparatus with the foot, which pumped the water; to say the least, it was a difficult task):

¹¹But the land, where you go to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drinks water of the rain of heaven:

¹²A land which the LORD your God cares for: the eyes of the LORD your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year (a land on which Jehovahs regard was continually fixed, over which He watched with unceasing care, and which was sustained by His bounty; a land, therefore, wholly dependent on Him, and so a fitting place for a people also wholly dependent on Him, who owed to His Grace all that they were and had).

CONDITIONS

¹³And it shall come to pass, if you shall hearken diligently unto My Commandments which I command you this day, to love the LORD your God, and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul,

¹⁴That I will give you the rain of your land in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your corn, and your wine, and your oil.

¹⁵And I will send grass in your fields for your cattle, that you may eat and be full (the Lord was the Author of all Blessings, as He is still the Author of all Blessings).

¹⁶Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be not deceived, and you turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them (regrettably, this is exactly what Israel ultimately did);

¹⁷And then the LORDs wrath be kindled against you, and He shut up the heaven, that there be no rain, and that the land yield not her fruit; and lest you perish quickly from off the good land which the LORD gives you (as is overly obvious, the Lord could turn it on, and He could turn it off; the blessing depended on obedience).

¹⁸Therefore shall you lay up these My words in your heart and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes (phylacteries).

¹⁹And you shall teach them your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up (the Word of the Lord was to be on the lips of all of Gods people all of the time; it should be the same presently as well).

²⁰And you shall write them upon the door posts of your house, and upon your gates (this signified that their blessings were due to the Word of God):

²¹That your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, in the land which the LORD swore unto your fathers to give them, as the days of heaven upon the Earth (the world has tried repeatedly to duplicate this, but all to no avail; only the Lord can make it Heaven on Earth).

²²For if you shall diligently keep all these Commandments which I command you, to do them, to love the LORD your God, to walk in all His Ways, and to cleave unto Him;

²³Then will the LORD drive out all these nations from before you, and you shall possess greater nations and mightier than yourselves (all because of the help of the Lord).

²⁴Every place whereon the soles of your feet shall tread shall be yours (respecting the area of which the Lord had promised them): from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the river Euphrates, even unto the uttermost sea (the Mediterranean) shall your coast be.

²⁵There shall no man be able to stand before you: for the LORD your God shall lay the fear of you and the dread of you upon all the land that you shall tread upon, as He has said unto you.

A BLESSING AND A CURSE

²⁶Behold, I set before you this day a Blessing and a curse (Jesus took the penalty of the curse upon Himself, all on our behalf [Gal. 3:13]);

²⁷A blessing, if you obey the Commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you this day:

²⁸And a curse, if you will not obey the Commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside out of the way which I command you this day, to go after other gods, which you have not known (regrettably, this is exactly what Israel did; but, as stated, Jesus, on the Cross, took the penalty of the broken law upon Himself, at least for all who will believe [Jn. 3:16]).

²⁹And it shall come to pass, when the LORD your God has brought you in unto the land whither you go to possess it, that you shall put the blessing upon Mount Gerizim (called the Mount of Blessing), and the curse upon Mount Ebal (called the Mount of evil. The two mountains named stand opposite to each other, with a valley between, about two hundred yards broad at the widest part, in which stood the town of Shechem. They were selected for the purpose mentioned, doubtless, because of their relative position, and probably also because they stand in the center of the land, both from north to south, and from east to west. Incidentally, Gerizim, the Mount of Blessing, was, and is, fertile and smooth. Ebal is the opposite, barren and rugged. As stated, they make excellent object lessons, which the Lord intended).

³⁰Are they not on the other side Jordan, by the way where the sun goes down, in the land of the Canaanites, which dwell in the champaign over against Gilgal, beside the plains of Moreh?

³¹For you shall pass over Jordan to go in to possess the land which the LORD your God gives you, and you shall possess it, and dwell therein.

³²And you shall observe to do all the Statutes and Judgments which I set before you this day.