Life and Death, Blessings and Curses
Deuteronomy 30.15–20
Greeting all! In this week’s newsletter we’re going to look at a portion of Deuteronomy 30 which sets up an important question for the Israelites: will you choose life, or death?
Before we discuss the text itself, let’s look at where it sits in Deuteronomy and at some of the surrounding material.
Lorenzo Monaco, Moses, circa 1408 –10
Context
Framework vs. law code
This portion of Deuteronomy is part of what scholars call the ‘framework’ of the text. The core of Deuteronomy is the law code (chapters 12-25) and the material on either side of those chapters ‘frames’ the law. The framework is a mixture of narrative and teaching from Moses, and is quite distinct in context from the law code itself.
In his examination of the themes of praise and blame framework, Dominic Markl describes the way that these themes ‘do not occur in the central Law Code Deuteronomy 12-25, but in the framing discourses which revolve around…the covenant'.1 This is just one aspect of the framework, among many, that makes it distinct from the law code.
The latter part of the framework includes the blessings and curses of chapters 28-30. The litany of curses in Deut 28 make for somewhat difficult reading, but as Laura Quick argues though they 'might seem surprising from a theological point of view, curses were an integral part of the legal, political, and religious life of the ancient Near East’.2 In particular, when making a treaty curses often formed part of the agreement. If one party didn’t keep to it, they would be subject to the consequences as laid out in the curse. Against this background, the curses and blessings of Deut 28-30 make more sense.
Content
The portion of Deut 30 that we find in the related lectionary for this Sunday (30:15-20) is a kind of microcosm of what is going on in the rest of the book. The theology of Deuteronomy is concerned with covenant faithfulness between the people of Israel and God. Whereas God keeps up his side of the bargain and never forsakes the people, they are often found to be faithless.
This dichotomy between faithfulness and faithlessness underpins much of the book, and this short passage is full of opposite pairs which communicate just this: ‘life and prosperity’ ‘death and adversity’ (v15) and ‘life and death’ ‘blessings and curses’ (v19).
v16, 18, and 20 also makes reference to ‘the land’ and there is a clear sense in Deuteronomy that the obedience of the people to their covenant with God is tied to their dwelling in the promised land. When their faithfulness wanes, their connection to the land diminishes. This plays out through the Deuteronomistic History (Joshua-2 Kings) where when the king is faithless the people are attacked and their possession of the land is challenged.
You can see how compelling the rhetoric of Deuteronomy is in 30:15-20. It emphasises the way in which, within its scheme, faithfulness leads to blessing and unfaithfulness to curses - although when we read this text alongside some others in the Hebrew Bible we see that there isn’t uniform agreement that this is how it works! See especially Job, Ecclesiastes and texts that address the exile like Lamentations for evidence of that particular inner biblical conversation.
Other texts for Sunday
The command to ‘choose life’ in Deut 30:19 is especially powerful, particularly in relation to the gospel reading (Lk 14:25-33) where Jesus talks about the difficulty of choosing life in him over earthly familial connections. In the epistle (Philemon 1-21), a choice is also put forward by Paul; should Phileomon choose to punish his run away slave or should extend the grace afforded by kinship in Christ to Onesimus as a brother?
If you’re preaching this week there are some great connections to be made between these texts.
Markl, D., ‘Moses’ Praise and Blame-Israel’s Honour and Shame: Rhetorical Devices in the Ethical Foundations of Deuteronomy’, Verbum et Ecclesia, 34.2 (2013), 1–4., p 3
Quick, L. E., Deuteronomy 28 and the Aramaic Curse Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), p 1