This last lesson we've come a long way, lesson six, is entitled Choose Life. It's a bumper sticker that you might find around out on Catholic cars, you might have that bumper sticker yourself, but it comes from chapter 30 in the section that we're gonna cover from chapters 27 to 34, this final section of Deuteronomy, and this concept of choosing life is really, really important. And so it's not just a bumper sticker for the very essential pro-life movement, but it is in fact the ultimate choice of our life, right? We must choose life, and so chapter 30 is, it might be the best chapter in this entire section.
So we'll leave that up for the judges after this. So let's dive straight in here, right chapter 27, remember that where we finished off last time was concluding the duodonomic code, or the covenant constitution, however we wanna look at that. That was chapters 12 through 26, where Moses gave the law to Israel based on the application of the Ten Commandments for Israel as a secular nation state, then in there, right? We talked about all that stuff.
Well, now he is concluding the second sermon, so also remember that Deuteronomy, one of the ways that you can organize it and structure it is according to three speeches or three homilies, the first of which is chapters one through four, and that is Moses talking about Israel's past, and got the central section where Moses talks about Israel's present and gives them the law and encourages them to love the Lord, their God of all their heart, all their soul, all their strength, et cetera. And then the third sermon we're gonna be talking about here in a little bit. So chapters 27 through 30 continues the second sermon in which he's going to give and reiterate the blessings and curses of the duodonomic constitution, this duodonomic code. This was anticipated actually back in chapter 11, when you got that central section, we had a whole lesson on this, I think it was lesson three as a matter of fact, where Moses gives them the Ten Commandments and then gives them the attitude with which they must approach the Ten Commandments, and it concludes that whole section at the end of chapter 11 verses 26 and following, saying, I said before you this day, a blessing and a curse, a blessing if you obey the commandments of the Lord, your God which are commanded this day, and the curse if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord, your God, et cetera, et cetera.
I think he's gonna talk about how you gotta go to proclaim the blessings of Mount Gerazim, curses of Mount Ebal in verse 39. Well, that's like a little short paragraph, anticipating the bulk of what we're gonna talk about here in chapters 27 through 30, the blessings and the curses. So chapter 27 begins by giving these instructions about ratifying this duodonomic covenant in what's known as the value of decision. So just as he said back in chapter 11, he's reiterating here, six tribes have gotta go to Mount Gerazim, and once they get into the promise land under the leadership of Joshua, they go to Mount Gerazim to pronounce the blessings of the covenant, right?
And then the other six tribes are gonna go to Mount Ebal to proclaim the curses. And so there's the value of decision, that there's two mountains on opposite side of the valley, and in the middle of this valley is the city of Shechem. Okay, so we find all of this listed out here very quickly. There's a lot to talk about, so let's be specific here, let's go to verse 11.
It says Moses charged the people the same day, saying when you have passed over to Jordan, the you shall stand upon Mount Gerazim to bless the people. And then he lists Simeon, Levi, Judah, Isakar, Joseph, and Benjamin. In verse 13, the you shall stand upon Mount Ebal for the curse, Ruben, Gad, Asher, Zebel, and Dan, and Naphtally. And then the Levi shall declare this to all the men, and then there's an initial series of 12 curses, there are 12 tribes of Israel, so it kind of touches upon like, you know, look, this is kind of holistic for each individual Israelite, but all 12 tribes as a nation, one by one each tribe after another will be cursed if you disobeyed.
Well, I want to zero in here on this super interesting ceremony or ratification here where six go to Gerazim, to bless, six go to Mount Ebal to curse, and they're surrounding the city of Shechem. The question is why Shechem? Why is the city really important? And if you pull up pretty much any map in the back of any Bible, if there are maps in the back of the Bible, if you go to the time of the patriarchs or even the time of the United Kingdom, you're gonna find that Shechem is pretty much right smack in the middle of Palestine.
So you've got the Sea of Galilee, and the Dead Sea down south with the Jordan River in between them. If you go right in the middle of the Jordan River and just go west, there you find Shechem. And Shechem is a really interesting place. So a couple of different locations here or significance for this location.
Number one, if you go all the way back to Genesis chapter 12, this is where Abraham first arrived in Palestine. So God calls Abraham, leave your father's house, leave everything that you know, you're a 70 year old man, right? Get ready for retirement. Well, forget that, you're coming with me, right?
So Abraham leaves, he goes down to the Promised Land to Palestine, and there in Shechem is where he builds an altar to God, because he's a priest, right? He says up an altar, he offers sacrifice to worship God, and this is where God promises Abraham for the first time that he's going to inherit the land, okay? So this is the theme here. So he comes from a faraway land, he comes to Shechem, to worship God, God promises the land to give Abraham, right?
That same thing happens with Jacob. If you fast forward in Genesis in chapter 33, Jacob comes from exile basically, because remember he had pulled a fast one over his father, and for 20 years he leaves his father's house, and to Laban's house, and there he's got the various issues with multiple wives and all that stuff that's going on that we talked about. Well, he returns from exile and he goes to Shechem. And that's where he first goes to worship God, and God reiterates the promise of the reception of the land.
And then also this is where Joseph's bones were buried after the Exodus. Israel takes Joseph bones out of Egypt, has so significant for that. But Joseph's bones come out of Egypt back to the promise land to Shechem, right? And that's all described in Joshua 24.
I got the references for you as well. There's one more place that this is important too, so you can see this is a very important city, okay? So Shechem is also where, you can go to John chapter four where Jesus is speaking to the Samaritan woman at the well, right? Now the Samaritans are known as Samaritans, because that was the capital of the Northern Kingdom, once the kingdom split.
However, Shechem was initially the very first kingdom, or rather the first capital of the Northern Kingdom, excuse me. And then later on, Samaria becomes the capital of the Northern Kingdom, but Shechem was the first capital, okay? And so when Jesus goes to speak to the woman at the well, there's a bajillion amazing beautiful things going on in that story, but it's really, really interesting how Jesus is calling back those Samaritan woman symbolizing the entire people of Samaria to come back to him, okay? Now why is all of this important?
Why am I listing it for you? Because it seems to me, now you're not gonna find this in the commentary that I'm suggesting for you. So this is my personal thoughts take it, or take it or lead it, right? Take it or lead it or bring it to salt.
It brings to me that Shechem becomes the place of God's pledge of God's promise to his people to inherit the land, both in the literal sense of the actual land of Palestine, but also in the figurative sense of the promise land of heaven, okay? So related to that is the theme of returning from exile. So Abraham comes from a faraway place to come to Palestine, God pledges him the land. Jacob comes from a faraway place.
He comes to Shechem, God promises him the land. Joseph comes from a faraway place in Egypt, and his bones are laid to rest there in Shechem. If in Jesus goes and speaks to the woman at the well, calling her representing the entire people to himself, there in Shechem because he is the fulfillment of the promise land. Jesus to be united to Jesus is to be united to God the Father, to dwell with him forever in eternity, right?
So I think this is what's going on here with Shechem why it's so important because when the Israelites go to the valley of decision surrounding Shechem, the thought is if you want to inherit the promise land and stay in the promise land, you must obey to receive the blessings. But if you're gonna be exiled from the promise land, that's gonna be brought about by our own disobedience, you see, okay? So the city of Shechem is really, really important. And I think that if you study all these other different stories like Abraham and Jacob and Joseph and the woman at the well and there are a few other instances as well.
But in my preparation for this, as I was thinking about it, that's the pattern that I'm seeing, now I could be wrong about this, of course. I've been wrong about one other thing before, and I'm just joking. But I think that's what's going on, right? Shechem becomes the place of God's pledge of giving the land ultimately fulfilled in Jesus Christ, where we're brought away from God, we're brought from exile from God, back to relationship with Him in the land, you see?
Okay, so I think that's what's going on here. Now there's more to this as well. So there's a little quote here that I've given you from your no bar Bible. It says, we might mention that on a ball it says, this is here in your notes, we might mention that on a ball, the hill up more up to the north are mainly the tribes which will occupy the northern part of Palestine.
And on Gerazim are those that will take over the southern part. And on the mountain, so that's the first part, I think that's really, really interesting here. So you've got the tribes who inherit the north, kind of proclaim the curses of Mount Ebal. If you've got Gerazim down south, those are the tribes in here at the southern part of the land.
Okay, that's kind of cool. It's kind of a geographical point. There are a little pattern. There's another little pattern here that continues saying, also on the Mount of the blessings are the sons of the two lawful wives of Jacob, Leah and Rachel.
That's interesting, that's a very interesting pattern. On the Mount of the blessings are the sons of the two lawful wives of Jacob, and on the other, the Mount of the curses are the four sons of his slave wives, plus Ruben, maybe because of his misconduct in Genesis 35, you might remember that Ruben slept with his father's concubine and so he was cursed. Then there's everyone as well, the last of Leah's wives. I find that very, very interesting here, that the Mount of blessings, Jacob's, the descendants of Jacob's lawful wives, proclaim those blessings.
That's fascinating. It's a clear distinction here, yet again in scripture, that there is sort of a very subtle, very indirect condemnation of Jacob taking multiple wives. Because you might have heard before, people will say, how can the Old Testament condone taking a multiple wives? I thought polygamy was wrong, et cetera.
Well, it is wrong. And if you go back to the book of Genesis, and we studied all of this stuff, there are all kinds of very subtle indirect, well, I would call them a very clear red flags, if you're a careful reader, that what Jacob is doing is wrong. Leah, his first wife, even though he was deceived, is the chief head wife. And there are other things we talked about, for example, like Leah is the only woman who is buried in the ancestral tomb.
I think that's a very clear indication that she is the first lawful wife. But I just kind of wanted to share with you parenthetically this quote because I think it's another indication here that again, God does not set up polygamy as the standard, but rather it was permitted. And within that tolerance, Leah clearly is the chief wife, but then the descendants of those two lawful wives, like legally according to the time and the culture at the time there, you've got all the individual dissent from them proclaiming the blessings. So I hope you're following on that.
This is a really, really interesting point. One other cool thing I'd like to share with you, that I pick up somewhere, I honestly forget where I picked this up, was people will say commentators and archaeologists will say that there's kind of a very interesting microclimate going on in these two mountains as well. So Mount Gerazim is a very lush mountain, it's very green verdance, right, just oasis, kind of. But a ball is very dry, very airy, very brown.
So it's very appropriate then that on this lush, green verdance mountain, the blessings are proclaimed. But on Mount Ewald, which is very dry and airy and brown and dead, you know, can stick everywhere. You know, I think of tumbling weeds that go through the desert or that. That's where the curses are proclaimed.
So it's a very visual, very visual image for these tribes of what blessings will do for you, make you very verdant and green and fertile and what disobedience will do for you. So blessings, curses, obedience, disobedience, and the mountains themselves reflect that. I find that very, very interesting. Okay, so these 12, I'm gonna kind of really skip over these 12 quick verses, curses going on in verses chapter 15 through 26.
I think numerically it's important because again, 12 curses for 12 tribes. I won funny thing, actually I'll point this out since I just saw it right now. One kind of funny thing that says here in verse 18, is cursed to be he who misleads a blind man on the road. That's pretty mean, right?
That's a pretty mean April Fool's joke. You know, like where's Jerusalem? Well, it's that way, you know, like sitting in completely opposite direction. A lot of people point this out, like that's super cruel to do that kind of thing.
But what I think is going on here is that this particular verses, condemning and cursing anybody who takes advantage of those who are weakest in society, right? Those who have disabilities, the widows that goes on the talk about and other people. So cursed to be anybody who takes advantage of those that are disadvantaged. You see what I mean?
All right, anyways, I'm just mentioning that because I just happened to glance at it right now. But let's look at these blessings and curses, which are really encapsulated in chapter 28. So I think you can see here, chapter 27 gives the dedication and eradification of the genomic coming up. Once they get into the land, fine, that's great and all the symbolism that's going on there with the valley, with the mountains, with the city of Shechem and all that cool stuff.
Now let's look at the blessings and curses themselves. And here's where it gets a little graphic, right? So you want to buckle up for this one. So we're in chapter 28.
And before we get to the blessings and curses, I want to really clarify for you, and remind you, if you've been listening to other Bible studies to talk about this elsewhere, especially when we talk about the covenant about Sinai and Exodus chapters 19 through 24, there are various characteristics or attributes of any covenant whatsoever. That includes the covenant of Jesus Christ in the New Testament, okay? So you have two parties that are involved with two persons or two families or two tribes or whatever it is, two parties. You have a sacrifice that is given because blood seals the covenant.
You have the terms of the covenant, right? So you're gonna have party A promises to do, blah, blah, blah, and party B promises to do, blah, blah, okay? So they swear to uphold the terms of the covenant that binds them and they swear with an oath, right? A covenant oath swearing formula.
And there are blessings and curses that are attached to that oath into those terms. If you obey and you keep your oath, you'll be blessed. If you disobey and you break your oath and you break the terms, you'll be cursed. And really the sacrifice honestly symbolized both a positive and negative aspect of this because a covenant remember is the formula by which you become family, right?
Kindship by covenant is swearing of an oath. So the blood symbolizes the family bond as a positive formula. But the spilling of the blood also symbolizes the negative aspect which is if you break the terms of the covenant, may you be slain like this animal here? You know, you go back to Genesis chapter 15 and when Abraham slices the animals in half and God passes between them in the form of smoke and fire.
That's what's going on here. It's a self-malidictory oath. If I break the terms, may I be slain like this animal here? So the sacrifice has those two aspects to it.
In any case, you will often, most often find a meal taking place between the two parties because now they're family, right? So really briefly, this is what's going on here with the swearing of a covenant. So what do we see in Deuteronomy? Well, we've seen that you've got all these terms that are taking place here.
You've got the terms of the law which is the Ten Commandments initially, but also the application of those Ten Commandments in the Deuteronomic Code. And we saw at the end of chapter 26 last time how Israel freely swears to uphold those commandments and ordinances, et cetera. And so they have sworn an oath to uphold the terms. Well, now logically, we're moving into deception on blessings and curses for obedience and disobedience.